5: Time I see it I get out my handkerchief and start waving. It’s still ’way down there, but I keep waving anyhow. Then it come up and stop and me and Mama get on. Mama tell me go sit in the back while she pay. I do like she say, and the people look at me. When I pass the little sign that say “White” and “Colored,” I start looking for a seat. I just see one of them back there, but I don’t take it, ’cause I want my mama to sit down herself. She comes in the back and sit down, and I lean on the seat. They got seats in the front, but I know I can’t sit there, ’cause I have to sit back of the sign. Anyhow, I don’t want sit there if my mama go’n sit back here.
They got a lady sitting ’side my mama and she looks at me and smiles little bit. I smile back, but I don’t open my mouth, ’cause the wind’ll get in and make that tooth ache. The lady take out a pack of gum and reach me a slice, but I shake my head. The lady just can’t understand why a little boy’ll turn down gum, and she reach me a slice again. This time I point to my jaw. The lady understands and smiles little bit, and I smile little bit, but I don’t open my mouth, though.
They got a girl sitting ’cross from me. She got on a red overcoat and her hair’s plaited in one big plait. First, I make ’tend I don’t see her over there, but then I start looking at her little bit. She make ’tend she don’t see me, either, but I catch her looking that way. She got a cold, and every now and then she h’ist that little handkerchief to her nose. She ought to blow it, but she don’t. Must think she’s too much a lady or something.
Every time she h’ist that little handkerchief, the lady ’side her say something in her ear. She shakes her head and lays her hands in her lap again. Then I catch her kind of looking where I’m at. I smile at her little bit. But think she’ll smile back? Uh-uh. She just turn up her little old nose and turn her head. Well, I show her both of us can turn us head. I turn mine too and look out at the river.
The river is gray. The sky is gray. They have pool-doos on the water. The water is wavy, and the pool-doos go up and down. The bus go round a turn, and you got plenty trees hiding the river. Then the bus go round another turn, and I can see the river again.
I look toward the front where all the white people sitting. Then I look at that little old gal again. I don’t look right at her, ’cause I don’t want all them people to know I love her. I just look at her little bit, like I’m looking out that window over there. But she knows I’m looking that way, and she kind of look at me, too. The lady sitting ’side her catch her this time, and she leans over and says something in her ear.
“I don’t love him nothing,” that little old gal says out loud.
Everybody back there hear her mouth, and all of them look at us and laugh.
“I don’t love you, either,” I say. “So you don’t have to turn up your nose, Miss.”
“You the one looking,” she say.
“I wasn’t looking at you,” I say. “I was looking out that window, there.”
“Out that window, my foot,” she say. “I seen you. Everytime I turned round you was looking at me.”
“You must of been looking yourself if you seen me all them times,” I say.
“Shucks,” she say, “I got me all kind of boyfriends.”
“I got girlfriends, too,” I say.
“Well, I just don’t want you getting your hopes up,” she say.
I don’t say no more to that little old gal ’cause I don’t want have to bust her in the mouth. I lean on the seat where Mama sitting, and I don’t even look that way no more. When we get to Bayonne, she jugg her little old tongue out at me. I make ’tend I’m go’n hit her, and she duck down ’side her mama. And all the people laugh at us again.
6: Me and Mama get off and start walking in town. Bayonne is a little bitty town. Baton Rouge is a hundred times bigger than Bayonne. I went to Baton Rouge once—me, Ty, Mama, and Daddy. But that was ’way back yonder, ’fore Daddy went in the Army. I wonder when we go’n see him again. I wonder when. Look like he ain’t ever coming back home.… Even the pavement all cracked in Bayonne. Got grass shooting right out the sidewalk. Got weeds in the ditch, too; just like they got at home.
It’s some cold in Bayonne. Look like it’s colder than it is home. The wind blows in my face, and I feel that stuff running down my nose. I sniff. Mama says use that handkerchief. I blow my nose and put it back.
We pass a school and I see them white children playing in the yard. Big old red school, and them children just running and playing. Then we pass a café, and I see a bunch of people in there eating. I wish I was in there ’cause I’m cold. Mama tells me keep my eyes in front where they belong.
We pass stores that’s got dummies, and we pass another café, and then we pass a shoe shop, and that bald-head man in there fixing on a shoe. I look at him and I butt into that white lady, and Mama jerks me in front and tells me stay there.
We come up to the courthouse, and I see the flag waving there. This flag ain’t like the one we got at school. This one here ain’t got but a handful of stars. One at school got a big pile of stars—one for every state. We pass it and we turn and there it is—the dentist office. Me and Mama go in, and they got people sitting everywhere you look. They even got a little boy in there younger than me.
Me and Mama sit on that bench, and a white lady come in there and ask me what my name is. Mama tells her and the white lady goes on back. Then I hear somebody hollering in there. Soon ’s that little boy hear him hollering, he starts hollering, too. His mama pats him and pats him, trying to make him hush up, but he ain’t thinking ’bout his mama.
The man that was hollering in there comes out holding his jaw. He is a big old man and he’s wearing overalls and a jumper.
“Got it, hanh?” another man asks him.
The man shakes his head—don’t want open his mouth.
“Man, I thought they was killing you in there,” the other man says. “Hollering like a pig under a gate.”
The man don’t say nothing. He just heads for the door, and the other man follows him.
“John Lee,” the white lady says. “John Lee Williams.”
The little boy juggs his head down in his mama’s lap and holler more now. His mama tells him go with the nurse, but he ain’t thinking ’bout his mama. His mama tells him again, but he don’t even hear her. His mama picks him up and takes him in there, and even when the white lady shuts the door I can still hear little old John Lee.
“I often wonder why the Lord let a child like that suffer,” a lady says to my mama. The lady’s sitting right in front of us on another bench. She’s got on a white dress and a black sweater. She must be a nurse or something herself, I reckon.
“Not us to question,” a man says.
“Sometimes I don’t know if we shouldn’t,” the lady says.
“I know definitely we shouldn’t,” the man says. The man looks like a preacher. He’s big and fat and he’s got on a black suit. He’s got a gold chain, too.
“Why?” the lady says.
“Why anything?” the preacher says.
“Yes,” the lady says. “Why anything?”
“Not us to question,” the preacher says.
The lady looks at the preacher a little while and looks at Mama again.
“And look like it’s the poor who suffers the most,” she says. “I don’t understand it.”
“Best not to even try,” the preacher says. “He works in mysterious ways—wonders to perform.”
Right then little John Lee bust out hollering, and everybody turn they head to listen.
“He’s not a good dentist,” the lady says. “Dr. Robillard is much better. But more expensive. That’s why most of the colored people come here. The white people go to Dr. Robillard. Y’all from Bayonne?”
“Down the river,” my mama says. And that’s all she go’n say, ’cause she don’t talk much. But the lady keeps on looking at her, and so she says, “Near Morgan.”
“I see,” the lady says.
7: “That’s
the trouble with the black people in this country today,” somebody else says. This one here’s sitting on the same side me and Mama’s sitting, and he is kind of sitting in front of that preacher. He looks like a teacher or somebody that goes to college. He’s got on a suit, and he’s got a book that he’s been reading. “We don’t question is exactly our problem,” he says. “We should question and question and question—question everything.”
The preacher just looks at him a long time. He done put a toothpick or something in his mouth, and he just keeps on turning it and turning it. You can see he don’t like that boy with that book.
“Maybe you can explain what you mean,” he says.
“I said what I meant,” the boy says. “Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.”
“It ’pears to me that this young lady and I was talking ’bout God, young man,” the preacher says.
“Question Him, too,” the boy says.
“Wait,” the preacher says. “Wait now.”
“You heard me right,” the boy says. “His existence as well as everything else. Everything.”
The preacher just looks across the room at the boy. You can see he’s getting madder and madder. But mad or no mad, the boy ain’t thinking ’bout him. He looks at that preacher just’s hard’s the preacher looks at him.
“Is this what they coming to?” the preacher says. “Is this what we educating them for?”
“You’re not educating me,” the boy says. “I wash dishes at night so that I can go to school in the day. So even the words you spoke need questioning.”
The preacher just looks at him and shakes his head.
“When I come in this room and seen you there with your book, I said to myself, ‘There’s an intelligent man.’ How wrong a person can be.”
“Show me one reason to believe in the existence of a God,” the boys says.
“My heart tells me,” the preacher says.
“ ‘My heart tells me,’ ” the boys says. “ ‘My heart tells me.’ Sure, ‘My heart tells me.’ And as long as you listen to what your heart tells you, you will have only what the white man gives you and nothing more. Me, I don’t listen to my heart. The purpose of the heart is to pump blood throughout the body, and nothing else.”
“Who’s your paw, boy?” the preacher says.
“Why?”
“Who is he?”
“He’s dead.”
“And your mon?”
“She’s in Charity Hospital with pneumonia. Half killed herself, working for nothing.”
“And ’cause he’s dead and she’s sick, you mad at the world?”
“I’m not mad at the world. I’m questioning the world. I’m questioning it with cold logic, sir. What do words like Freedom, Liberty, God, White, Colored mean? I want to know. That’s why you are sending us to school, to read and to ask questions. And because we ask these questions, you call us mad. No sir, it is not us who are mad.”
“You keep saying ‘us’?”
“ ‘Us.’ Yes–us. I’m not alone.”
The preacher just shakes his head. Then he looks at everybody in the room—everybody. Some of the people look down at the floor, keep from looking at him. I kind of look ’way myself, but soon ’s I know he done turn his head, I look that way again.
“I’m sorry for you,” he says to the boy.
“Why?” the boy says. “Why not be sorry for yourself? Why are you so much better off than I am? Why aren’t you sorry for these other people in here? Why not be sorry for the lady who had to drag her child into the dentist office? Why not be sorry for the lady sitting on that bench over there? Be sorry for them. Not for me. Some way or the other I’m going to make it.”
“No, I’m sorry for you,” the preacher says.
“Of course, of course,” the boy says, nodding his head. “You’re sorry for me because I rock that pillar you’re leaning on.”
“You can’t ever rock the pillar I’m leaning on, young man. It’s stronger than anything man can ever do.”
“You believe in God because a man told you to believe in God,” the boy says. “A white man told you to believe in God. And why? To keep you ignorant so he can keep his feet on your neck.”
“So now we the ignorant?” the preacher says.
“Yes,” the boy says. “Yes.” And he opens his book again.
The preacher just looks at him sitting there. The boy done forgot all about him. Everybody else make ’tend they done forgot the squabble, too.
Then I see that preacher getting up real slow. Preacher’s a great big old man and he got to brace himself to get up. He comes over where the boy is sitting. He just stands there a little while looking down at him, but the boy don’t raise his head.
“Get up, boy,” preacher says.
The boy looks up at him, then he shuts his book real slow and stands up. Preacher just hauls back and hit him in the face. The boy falls back ’gainst the wall, but he straightens himself up and looks right back at that preacher.
“You forgot the other cheek,” he says.
The preacher hauls back and hit him again on the other side. But this time the boy braces himself and don’t fall.
“That hasn’t changed a thing,” he says.
The preacher just looks at the boy. The preacher’s breathing real hard like he just run up a big hill. The boy sits down and opens his book again.
“I feel sorry for you,” the preacher says. “I never felt so sorry for a man before.”
The boy makes ’tend he don’t even hear that preacher. He keeps on reading his book. The preacher goes back and gets his hat off the chair.
“Excuse me,” he says to us. “I’ll come back some other time. Y’all, please excuse me.”
And he looks at the boy and goes out the room. The boy h’ist his hand up to his mouth one time to wipe ’way some blood. All the rest of the time he keeps on reading. And nobody else in there say a word.
8: Little John Lee and his mama come out the dentist office, and the nurse calls somebody else in. Then little bit later they come out, and the nurse calls another name.
But fast’s she calls somebody in there, somebody else comes in the place where we sitting, and the room stays full.
The people coming in now, all of them wearing big coats. One of them says something ’bout sleeting, another one says he hope not. Another one says he think it ain’t nothing but rain. ’Cause, he says, rain can get awful cold this time of year.
All round the room they talking. Some of them talking to people right by them, some of them talking to people clear ’cross the room, some of them talking to anybody’ll listen. It’s a little bitty room, no bigger than us kitchen, and I can see everybody in there. The little old room’s full of smoke, ’cause you got two old men smoking pipes over by that side door. I think I feel my tooth thumping me some, and I hold my breath and wait. I wait and wait, but it don’t thump me no more. Thank God for that.
I feel like going to sleep, and I lean back ’gainst the wall. But I’m scared to go to sleep. Scared ’cause the nurse might call my name and I won’t hear her. And Mama might go to sleep, too, and she’ll be mad if neither one of us heard the nurse.
I look up at Mama. I love my mama. I love my mama. And when cotton come I’m go’n get her a new coat. And I ain’t go’n get a black one, either. I think I’m go’n get her a red one.
“They got some books over there,” I say. “Want read one of them?”
Mama looks at the books, but she don’t answer me.
“You got yourself a little man there,” the lady says.
Mama don’t say nothing to the lady, but she must’ve smiled, ’cause I seen the lady smiling back. The lady looks at me a little while, like she’s feeling sorry for me.
“You sure got that preacher out here in a hurry,” she says to that boy.
The boy looks up at her and looks in his book again.
When I grow up I want be just like him. I want clothes like t
hat and I want keep a book with me, too.
“You really don’t believe in God?” the lady says.
“No,” he says.
“But why?” the lady says.
“Because the wind is pink,” he says.
“What?” the lady says.
The boy don’t answer her no more. He just reads in his book.
“Talking ’bout the wind is pink,” that old lady says. She’s sitting on the same bench with the boy and she’s trying to look in his face. The boy makes ’tend the old lady ain’t even there. He just keeps on reading. “Wind is pink,” she says again. “Eh, Lord, what children go’n be saying next?”
The lady ’cross from us bust out laughing.
“That’s a good one,” she says. “The wind is pink. Yes sir, that’s a good one.”
“Don’t you believe the wind is pink?” the boys says. He keeps his head down in the book.
“Course I believe it, honey,” the lady says. “Course I do.” She looks at us and winks her eye. “And what color is grass, honey?”
“Grass? Grass is black.”
She bust out laughing again. The boy looks at her.
“Don’t you believe grass is black?” he says.
The lady quits her laughing and looks at him. Everybody else looking at him, too. The place quiet, quiet.
“Grass is green, honey,” the lady says. “It was green yesterday, it’s green today, and it’s go’n be green tomorrow.”
“How do you know it’s green?”
“I know because I know.”
“You don’t know it’s green,” the boy says. “You believe it’s green because someone told you it was green. If someone had told you it was black you’d believe it was black.”
“It’s green,” the lady says. “I know green when I see green.”