We Are All Welcome Here Part 6

"Nothing." Suralee pulled the box tops from the waistband of her shorts, made two even piles, and handed me one. "Mail these tomorrow," she said. "Buy envelopes and stamps and mail them. Be sure you enter in your mother's name-you're not old enough to win."

"I thought we were going to address them together!"

"No."

"But you said-"

"I changed my mind. We have to do it separate. One of us might win, and...there can't be any confusion!"

"...Okay." My arm itched, but I wouldn't scratch it until she left. It was bad enough she was standing above me, looking down at me.

"Remember, mail them tomorrow!"

"I will will!" I watched her go. You could not reach her when she got like this. It had happened before that she would suddenly turn moody and pull away. She a.s.signed herself certain privileges for being an actress in the making, and I believed she was ent.i.tled to them. Anyway, I wanted to listen to my mother and Dell without her. I wanted the s.p.a.ce to feel whatever I felt, to not worry about what showed on my face. I waited for a minute, then went downstairs to lock the screen door again.

Back up in my room, I leaned on the windowsill and chanced a peek into the yard. Dell was looking up at my mother, and I feared he'd see me, so I quickly lowered myself back down to a sitting position. I could hear them well enough, and I'd seen what I wanted to: Dell's handsome face, open and accepting, looking at my mother like he was just a man and she was just a woman. My mother had a widow's peak, which gave her face its lovely heart shape, and she had a dimple in her chin. In strong sun, her black hair gave off blue highlights. She wore perfume; she had Peacie put it on her every day. Was he noticing all this? I wasn't sure if I wanted him to or not. In my stomach was a knotted-up feeling. I could feel my heart beating in my ears.

"I don't know where your daughter got to," I heard Peacie say. "LaRue be here soon, and I told told her she got to go the store with him." her she got to go the store with him."

I bolted downstairs, raced out the front door, and walked around to the backyard. I'd need to get inside before anyone else so that I could lock the screen door again. If Dell wasn't there, I'd have run right in, saying I had to pee. As it was, I greeted him casually, then walked slowly to the back door. "Hold up," Peacie said. "I want you to take this laundry basket down the bas.e.m.e.nt."

I hesitated, then took the basket. Peacie followed me into the house. If she went into the living room, she'd see the open front door and start asking questions. I put the basket down just inside the back door and ran ahead of her. "Where you going?" she called after me. "I told you take this basket downstairs."

"I think LaRue is here," I said. "I heard a horn. I'm just going to tell him I'll be right there."

I ran to the screen door, pushed it open and looked outside, then came back in. "Nope," I said. "It wasn't him." I put the latch in place, then walked past Peacie-with her crossed arms and narrowed eyes-to get the laundry basket.

"You hiding something," Peacie said. "What you hiding?" She swatted at a fly buzzing around her. I didn't answer. "Listen here," she said. "After you take that laundry basket down, get the swatter and send that fly to glory. And when you go with LaRue, I want you mail them bills on the kitchen table. Count them, and that's exactly how many I want you have in your hand 'fore you put them the box."

Peacie did this every time I mailed something-told me that I should count the envelopes when I first picked them up and then again before I dropped them into the mailbox. If I did not have the right number, I was to bring them all home so she could see what I'd lost. I had never lost anything, but she always told me to count.

Today there were five envelopes: the electric bill, the phone bill, the rent, the Sears bill, and one more, a plain envelope with money being sent to the Red Cross. My mother never had money to spare but gave to a charity every month anyway. She put no return address on the envelope, and she sent cash-it was important to her to make her donations anonymously. I thought for her to give away money was insane, and I told her so on a regular basis. "It's very little that I send," she always answered. And then she always added, "You'll grow into an understanding of why I do it." I was sure I would not. For one thing, I didn't want to understand. I wanted the money.

There was a hole in the floor of LaRue's car. I liked riding with him for that reason, the sight of the black road rus.h.i.+ng by below us, the safety of me sitting above, incapable of ever falling through that four-inch hole-but what a thrill to imagine it!

"How you doing this fine afternoon?" LaRue asked as we pulled away from the curb.

"Okay," I said. He was wearing a new hat today, and I complimented him on it.

He thanked me, then said, "Now I'm gon' show you something make your eyeb.a.l.l.s spin in they socket."

"What?"

Without taking his eyes from the road, LaRue took off his hat and showed me the inside. There was silk lining, all in rainbow colors. He snuck a look at me. "Ain't that something?"

"Yes, but my eyeb.a.l.l.s aren't spinning."

"I bet your heart be lifted up, though. Ain't it?"

I smiled. "I guess so."

"Well," he said, putting his hat back on carefully, just right. "That's even better." His voice was so warm and slow, I liked him so much. I couldn't imagine what he saw in Peacie. Today I decided to ask him.

"LaRue? How come you love Peacie?"

He laughed, then bent his head sideways to have a good look at me. Handsome, too, LaRue was. "What you mean? Don't you love her, too?"

I said nothing, stared tactfully straight ahead.

"Well, I think she a beautiful woman. She got those big eyes, those cute little ears. Mostly she got a big heart. She a good good woman." woman."

"Peacie?" I couldn't help myself; it burst out of me like spurting liquid when you've just taken a drink and someone makes you laugh. I couldn't help myself; it burst out of me like spurting liquid when you've just taken a drink and someone makes you laugh.

He laughed again. "I know you think she mean. But she ain't in her heart, that's where the difference lie. Some people act all nice on the outside and they got a heart like a dried-up prune. Peacie the other way around. And you know, she love you like her own child."

Now it was my turn to laugh.

"You growin' up fast, Diana. When you growed up some more, you understand."

Somewhere inside me, I thought he was probably right. Nonetheless, I straightened in my seat, looking to reclaim some sense of outrage, to continue my move from fear of Peacie into a kind of equality with her. I had felt the budding of such independence just this morning, when I told her she could no longer spank me.

What came to me now, though, was a time I was eight years old and found a kitten in the backyard, on Christmas Day. It was a dirty little calico, s.h.i.+vering and mewing, sneezing a little, and so thin you could feel every bone. I brought it inside and asked my mother if I could keep it. No, she said immediately. I began to cry, saying the cat would die if we didn't take it in. My mother said it wouldn't; it would find another home or fend for itself, but we couldn't have it, we couldn't afford it. There would be vet bills and cat food, litter and a cat box-we couldn't afford it. I put the cat back out and it ran away, which hurt me even more-had it not understood my intentions? Couldn't it at least have hung around in the yard and let me keep it that way? I would have snuck sc.r.a.ps out. I would have brushed it every day. Callie, I would have called it, and I would have found blue ribbon for its neck.

The next morning Peacie had come into my bedroom with a small wicker basket holding a stuffed animal cat and her three kittens. "What's this?" I'd asked, and she'd said, "Some foolishness somebody give me that I do not want. You can have it." I stared at the basket but did not reach out for it. Peacie put it on my bed and walked out of the room. I never did thank her for it, and I knew full well that no one had given it to her-she'd bought it for me. I still had it, buried somewhere in my closet. I had never told my mother; I didn't want Peacie to get the credit. Peacie had not told her, either; she didn't want my mother to feel bad for not being able to buy me such things. When Peacie once caught me brus.h.i.+ng the little kittens, I'd said I was getting them ready to give them away. "Best brush the rats' nests out your own hair, you be late for school," she'd said. I'd felt bad-I could see that she was hurt.

"Just kidding," I'd said. "I'm keeping them."

"I know that," she'd said. "Fool."

LaRue pulled into a parking place and pointed to a mailbox at the end of the block. "You go mail the bills," he said. "I'll start loading the cart-we got a lot of things to buy. I be in aisle one."

I went to the mailbox and dutifully counted the letters. Five of five. Then, just as I was ready to drop them in, I pulled out the Red Cross envelope and held it up to the light. Ten dollars.

It was a sign. Of course I was meant to take it. I dropped the other envelopes into the mailbox and shoved the Red Cross envelope into my pants pocket. Later I would walk to town and buy envelopes and stamps. I would sit at the picnic table near the ball field and address every one.

LaRue and I filled a grocery cart high with supplies. Large jars of peanut b.u.t.ter and grape jelly, boxes of macaroni and egg noodles, cans of vegetables, big packages of baloney and American cheese. Detergent and dish soap and scouring pads and rubbing alcohol. Potato chips, but not Lay's, we never got to have Lay's, we always had to have the crummy kind that did not have enough salt or crunch. Two loaves of white bread, a dozen eggs. Cereal. Packages of hamburger and chicken wings. Garlic-my mother loved garlic bread with spaghetti. White sugar and brown sugar. Margarine and lard. I watched the cas.h.i.+er ring up the purchases, and so did LaRue-once he'd caught an error, and I don't know who was more proud, me or him.

On the way home, I asked if he was taking a trip.

"Who told you that?" he asked.

"I don't remember. But are you?"

His face grew serious. "Yes," he said. "I am."

"Where to?"

He thought for a while, so long, in fact, that I repeated the question.

"Do you know what this summer is?" he asked finally.

"Nineteen sixty-four?"

"Yes," he said. "It's 1964, and it's Freedom Summer."

"What do you mean?" I was impatient for him to tell me where he was going. It wouldn't be for long, because he never left Peacie for long. But it might be to somewhere exciting. New Orleans, perhaps. The Negroes liked New Orleans. It was full of music and booze-they liked that.

"We got a lot of things going on this summer in Mississippi," LaRue said. "We got a lot of people coming from up north, lot of 'em college students, trying to help the Negro vote."

I thought of the white man I'd seen with Clovis in the drugstore. But they weren't trying to vote. That was something else.

"They got CORE and NAACP and SNCC," LaRue was saying. "A man get confused trying to remember what all those letters stand for. But don't matter what the letters is, I know they trying to change things 'round here should of got changed long time ago. Long Long time ago. So I'm going back home to Meridian, help get folks registered. You remember my nephew, Li'l Bit? I'm gon' work with him." time ago. So I'm going back home to Meridian, help get folks registered. You remember my nephew, Li'l Bit? I'm gon' work with him."

I was disappointed. This was his trip? Even I'd been to Meridian, on a bus trip with my school choir to sing at another school. Nothing I saw there was exciting. Nothing.

"Li'l Bit got beat up last week. Got his jaw cracked, got a black eye, swelled plumb shut for a couple of days. And he ain't see good before that! But he just keep on. I'm gon' down walk beside him."

"Why'd he get beat up?"

LaRue looked over at me, a rare sadness in his eyes. Then he turned back to the road. "You ever learn something in school, make you want to jump up?"

"No," I answered truthfully. Mostly at school I only looked out the window.

"Well, I done had that happen," he said. "I learn something make me want to jump up. Li'l Bit say the black man won the right to vote in 1868. Now, that's a long time ago! But here in Mississippi, the Negro don't hardly never vote."

"Why not?" I asked. "You just go to the school and wait in line; they'll help you." I had seen this, at my own elementary school. Lines of people, waiting to vote.

"You ever seen Negroes voting?" LaRue asked. I had not. But then, I didn't live in their neighborhood.

"Whole lot of hate in the world," LaRue said. "Whole lot of people don't want the Negro move up from down. When the Negro try to vote, the white man play tricks on him. Tax him. Give him a test he cain't nohow pa.s.s, ax him how many jelly beans in the jar. Or tell him he got to memorize a pa.s.sage from the Mississippi Const.i.tution, and if he misp.r.o.nounce a word, reciting back? Cain't vote. If he give his age in years instead of year-month-date? Cain't vote. Underline an answer 'stead of circle it, forget to dot an i i? That's it, cain't vote."

He shook his head. "They send us off to the wrong polling place all day long till it too late to vote. We go to register, they say they run out of applications. They try to scare us, tell us our name be published in the paper, and don't n.o.body want their name in the paper on account of they gets fired from they jobs. People been arrested, waiting in line to register!

"But this the summer we trying to change all that. President of the United States got his eye on us, seen Li'l Bit in a movie, all the marchers holding they signs say, 'Why Not Help Mississippi Negroes Get the Vote?' Say, 'Integration Is the Law!' They be clapping their hands and singing smack in front of everyone everyone! Lord!" He laughed, and in it I heard a frightened joy.

"Li'l Bit teaching in a Freedom School, teach the children a new way to think. Whole new way to look at they own selves, make 'em feel they got the right to stand up. up. He got a friend got him started in all this, but James done disappear, 'longside two white boys. Don't n.o.body know where they is, but plenty of us thinking they dead. The Klan be burning churches, they be firebombing houses, they be beating up people want to help. They be lynching." He looked over at me quickly. "Best not say I told you that. I'm a fool, tell you that. Your mama like to keep you innocent." He got a friend got him started in all this, but James done disappear, 'longside two white boys. Don't n.o.body know where they is, but plenty of us thinking they dead. The Klan be burning churches, they be firebombing houses, they be beating up people want to help. They be lynching." He looked over at me quickly. "Best not say I told you that. I'm a fool, tell you that. Your mama like to keep you innocent."

"It's okay," I said. "I won't tell." I was beginning to feel odd inside. Why would this be happening? Who cared if Negroes voted? Who cared if anyone voted?

"You know, it was Li'l Bit taught me to read," LaRue said.

I looked over at him and saw tears in his eyes. "I know," I said. I reached over and touched his arm lightly. "You read good, LaRue."

"Thank you." He wiped at his nose. "I'm gon' help out," he said. "I got to do it. I'm glad to."

We said nothing for a long time. And then I said, "LaRue? Can I open the chips and have one?"

"I 'spect you can."

"I'm not supposed to."

"I know that. But I 'spect you can anyway."

I reached behind me for the bag with the chips on top. "You want one?"

"I believe I will."

We crunched together, serious and silent. I said only one more thing on the way home. I said, "You be careful now, LaRue."

He smiled at me. "Little mama," he said.

About a week later, when I brought in the mail I found a large envelope for me. My name and address were typewritten. At first I thought it was some sort of report from school, arriving, oddly, in July; then I saw Elvis Presley's name on the return address. I stood stock-still, afraid to open it. But then, my heart racing, I got a knife to carefully split the seam, and pulled out two pieces of paper. The one on top was a large photo of Elvis smiling that Elvis smile, his hair falling in his face. His arm was resting casually on his upraised knee. There was an autograph in one corner, probably fake, but who cared when I had an actual letter from him? When I began to eagerly read it, though, I saw that it was not from him at all. It was only from a secretary, who said thanks so much for writing, all fan letters were pa.s.sed on to Mr. Presley, and she was sure he would enjoy mine. Right. Right.

I went upstairs to my bedroom. I tossed the letter in my trash can, put Elvis's picture at the bottom of my underwear drawer. Then I stretched out on my bed to have a think. LaRue had been gone for a few days, and I kept imagining Li'l Bit all beat up. I saw his hand resting alongside his jaw, his fingers pressing gingerly on his swollen eye. What had he been doing? He must have been doing something; surely no one had beat him up like that for no reason. He must have gone too far.

All my life I had grown up with Negroes close by, yet distant from me. They had their place and we had ours. If everyone held to a certain model of behavior, there would be no problems. White or black, you had to abide by rules set in place long ago, and not cross any lines. Brooks's friend Holt took exception to the friendly ways Brooks had with his Negro customers. I'd once heard him say, "I tell you what, a n.i.g.g.e.r f.u.c.k with me, I be on him like white on rice. You got to keep a boot on their neck, or you end up having to put their a.s.s in a sling." Brooks had laughed and said, "Aw, they're all right," and then he'd looked at the floor, embarra.s.sed, like he'd been called into the princ.i.p.al's office.

I'd also heard, many times, "Educate the n.i.g.g.e.r and you get a spoiled field hand and an insolent cook." I'd heard it and never thought about it. But only last week I'd heard my mother and Brooks talking about that very thing. My mother said, "If you don't educate someone, they don't have skills. If they don't have skills, they can't get a job. If they can't get a job, they're poor and on welfare. You can't keep someone from being educated, and then condemn them for taking welfare." Brooks said, "I know, but this is too much, much, Paige. They're going too far now." I'd walked into the room and said, "What's too much?" and they'd changed the subject. They must have been talking about the same thing LaRue was, this "Freedom Summer." How far Paige. They're going too far now." I'd walked into the room and said, "What's too much?" and they'd changed the subject. They must have been talking about the same thing LaRue was, this "Freedom Summer." How far were were the Negroes supposed to go? Close as my mother and I were to Peacie, there was a separateness enforced by her as much as us. the Negroes supposed to go? Close as my mother and I were to Peacie, there was a separateness enforced by her as much as us.

But now I thought of her standing below me in the kitchen, keeping my mother alive. I thought of LaRue, and I realized I loved him and that my mother loved Peacie, they loved each other. I got off my bed and went over to the window. The clouds were ill-formed today, indistinct. I liked the c.u.mulous clouds better; they looked like clouds were supposed to look.

It made me nervous to think about things changing so much, about college students from up north coming down here to tell us what to do. Everybody watching. The coloreds liked their separateness, didn't they? Everybody was more comfortable with their own! The people in Shakerag didn't want to live with us any more than we wanted to live with them. Those kids from up north had started big trouble and LaRue's nephew had to pay for it.

I moved back to my bed, lay down, and closed my eyes. It was too hard to try to think of what was right and wrong in the world. I wanted to think only about my mother, who was undergoing big changes of her own. She had a date tonight.

It was a date with Brooks, about which she was excited, and she had carefully planned what to wear. Not her normal britches, with the zipper in the crotch that Peacie had put in so that we could put the urinal right up to her-no need to pull down pants and fool around with all that lifting and pulling. Unzip, pee, wipe, zip up, done. Easy. "This is ingenious," my mother had told Peacie when she thought of it. "You should patent this!"

"I 'spect I should," Peacie had said. "I 'spect I should patent my brain; I got a lot of ideas." It came to me now as a warm flush over my chest that when she said that, I was thinking they were Negro ideas. But they were just ideas, free-floating and of no color at all.

But tonight: no slacks for my mother-all of hers had been unfas.h.i.+onable even new, but now every pair was stretched out at the waist and unevenly faded. Tonight she was going to be careful not to drink much of anything, so she wouldn't have to pee. And she was going to wear a dress, a yellow sleeveless dress she had hanging in her closet that came with a matching yellow sweater that had daisies embroidered on it, rhinestones for the centers. She would wear nylon stockings and little yellow heels. I swallowed hard against a lump that formed in my throat. Because I had seen her in yellow, and I knew she would look so pretty and for what.

Peacie stayed late to help get my mother ready. Mrs. Gruder stood by, ready to a.s.sist, and I sat at my mother's feet, watching. Peacie applied mascara to my mother's lashes with painstaking care; they were longer than ever. She used lipstick for blush. She made sure my mother's nails were perfectly painted in the rose color they both liked best. When she finished, my mother asked Mrs. Gruder, "How do I look?"

"Like the Breck girl," Mrs. Gruder said, standing before her in plain admiration, her hands clasped.

"Well," my mother said, smiling, "maybe a little."

Peacie also supervised my mother being loaded into Brooks's car. She was like one of her own chickens, running around and pecking at the men, telling them what to do and what not to.

First, my mother was transferred from her wheelchair into the car seat-that was awkward. I stood by, watching helplessly until her dress rose up too high; then I had a job of pulling it down. Next, her wheelchair was put into the trunk, which, thankfully, was large enough to accommodate its high back and new plywood platform. Then Holt climbed into the backseat with the portable respirator, the battery, and the backup respirator.

"Get to that restaurant soon, soon," Peacie admonished Brooks. "But don't go too fast. Don't get in no accident!" Holt leaned his head out the window and said, "Sooner you stop flapping your jaws, sooner we be on our way." My mother looked relaxed; but I always worried when she was frog-breathing that she would suddenly be unable to go on. It was a disconcerting thing, to know that what kept her alive was behind her, and that Holt would have to be the one to act first in case of an emergency.

When the car drove slowly away, Peacie stood on the porch with her hands on her hips. I couldn't tell exactly what she was thinking. I suspected she was caught between two feelings, as I was: It was good for my mother to go out like a real person; it was terrifying to think of the things that could go wrong in the restaurant. Brooks had been around my mother often enough to know how to feed her, how to lift her, the basic operation of her respirator. But what if she did have to pee? What if she choked? What if her equipment malfunctioned? After the car disappeared, Peacie stomped past me to go into the house for her purse. She came back out and walked past Mrs. Gruder and me without saying a word. In her clenched jaw, I saw her worry that my mother, who had already been hurt so much, might now suffer more. Why not just leave things as they were? Why push for a life beyond what she was used to, that, despite its limitations, was at least safe?