T-Backs, T-Shirts, Coat, and Suit

  Bayard was extremely annoyed. Chloë’s remark came too close to truth. “Miss Wanda and Miss Velma do not happen to be guys, little lady, and I do not happen to think I am at all like a TV anchor.”

  “Well, you are,” Chloë replied.

  “How so?”

  “You act folksy without being family, without even knowing us very well, and you think we should be flattered just because you’re paying attention.”

  Bayard McKnight’s face went from Tender Pink to Blush to Borscht. And it was not from the heat. “I see your point, little lady,” he said, “but I maintain that I am not like a TV anchor. They are never as grouchy as I am, are they?”

  “Underneath the smiles they wear, I think they are extremely grouchy,” Chloë said. “I watch smiles a lot.”

  Bayard knelt down—it wasn’t easy—to level his eyes with hers. “That’s a good thing to do,” he said. “We lawyers find watching smiles very useful when we are picking a jury, but let me tell you something, little lady. The big difference between me and TV anchors is this: under their razor-cut, blow-dried hair, and behind their eyes, they think they are more important than the job they do, but I don’t. I never have, and I never will. Will you be so kind as to remember that?”

  “Will you remember not to call me little lady?”

  “I will.” He started to laugh, stopped, and said, “I certainly will.”

  Tyler said, “You can still call me young man. I don’t mind.”

  Finally Bernadette spoke. She was not relaxed, but she was calm. “Wanda, Velma, listen up,” she said. “I’m going to say this once and only once. Bayard, I expect you to understand.” She paused and waited for their attention before continuing. “I think everyone has a perfect right to wear a T-back if she wants to. I also think I have a perfect right not to wear one if I don’t want to. And I have an equally perfect right not to stick up for anyone who does. Now, if you want to know my thoughts about freedom of expression, I’ll tell you those too. This is what I think about freedom of expression: As long as I am not running for public office or trying to influence anyone who is, I have the right to my opinions and an equal right not to express them.”

  Bayard said, “You haven’t changed, have you, Bernadette?”

  “Maybe I’ve just become more of what I once was.”

  “You already know how this is going to turn out, don’t you?”

  She nodded. “We both know.” She reached out to shake his hand. “I wish you well.”

  He covered her hand with both of his. “I wish us both well, Bernadette.”

  Wanda said, “What is this? Some kind of code you two are talking?”

  Bayard McKnight replied, “Not code, Miss Wanda. We’re talking history.”

  They went directly to the dollar-movie parking lot, where Tyler soon gathered a crowd. Lesser skaters cleared space and stood around to watch as he stretched, bent, and shaped his body as if his muscles were spandex and his bones rubber. Tyler may not have been beautiful to see, but he was beautiful to watch. People coming for the late movie saw the crowd and came over to investigate, only to stay and watch. And Tyler didn’t disappoint them. He put on quite a show. He skated fast, glided up the length of the ramp, sailed through the air, landed, and went into a dervish spin. The only thing missing from a star performance was a smile. If he didn’t look grim, he looked smug.

  Chloë began to wish he would fall.

  And he did.

  Just when it seemed that the crowd could get no bigger and Tyler could do no wrong, he fell. Coming off the ramp, he slipped, missed and went down on his back. He had done the same trick—to great applause—at least six times before, but this time he misstepped. He went down so hard he skidded forward for two or three feet before stopping, flat on his back, his T-shirt up around his neck, too hurt to move.

  He lay there, motionless, staring up at the sky. There was pain in his eyes, but no tears. It grew as quiet as a pulse. Everyone stood back for a hushed minute before rushing forward. Bernadette was first. She waved everyone else back.

  She knelt beside Tyler and quietly asked how he was. His voice was strained, but he didn’t cry. He said, “I’ll be all right.”

  Bernadette didn’t try lifting him. She asked him to move his legs. He did. Then she asked him to move his arms. He did. She guessed that nothing was seriously bruised except his pride and his back. “He’ll be all right,” Bernadette called out to the others. They gradually fanned back out to the farther reaches of the parking lot, but no one did any serious skating after Tyler’s fall.

  Bernadette removed her skates and laid them aside. She stood over Tyler, letting her legs straddle him so that she could pull him up slowly and evenly, without jerking one side harder than the other. She inspected his back. There were a lot of bruises and road burns. Nothing deep. She said she would take him back to her house to clean him off and put a poultice on the scratches.

  When they got to the car, she told Tyler to lie across the back seat on his stomach. “I have my own special formula for cuts and scratches,” she said. “I’m the greatest spin doctor around.”

  * * *

  When they got to the house, Bernadette tenderly helped Tyler out of the car. Chloë put Daisy on a leash and walked her twice around the block, glad to have something to do that took her away from Tyler. This was the third time she had wished for something to happen, and it had. She had wanted Bernadette to stop skating, and she did. She had wanted Grady Oates to answer the phone, and he did. She had wanted Tyler to fall, and he did. She had wanted Bernadette to stop but not fall; she had wanted Tyler to fall and be embarrassed, not hurt. The only one of the three wishes that had come out right had been Grady Oates. Two out of three times, she had not gotten it quite right. She decided that she would have to stop wishing for things that did not help others.

  That settled, she worked on sorting out her feelings about Tyler. He was like a hangnail, more annoyance than pain. She was not having much success trying to ignore him. But she would try. She would sort out all her feelings, color-code them, line them up, put them in a closet, close the door, forget about them, and never go Rollerblading with him again.

  Starting tonight, she would write long letters home. Since she was closing the door on that part of her life, she would write Angelica and Krystal and tell them about Tyler. She would tell them about his skill on Rollerblades. She would skip the overbite, the bad grammar, the fact that he didn’t have even the beginnings of a beard (she had looked closely), and that he never thanked anyone except God for anything.

  Chloë returned to the house and unleashed Daisy in time to see Tyler emerge from the bathroom wearing one of Bernadette’s clean T-shirts and carrying his own soiled and stained shirt bundled in his hand. He announced that he was ready to go home.

  Much to Chloë’s surprise, she heard herself saying, “I’ll ride along.”

  They sat together in the backseat. Bernadette tuned into the classical music station.

  Tyler sat very still, but every now and then he tugged at the T-shirt to loosen it from sticking to his back. “That salve your aunt made sure is greasy.”

  Chloë replied, speaking in a low and mysterious voice. “She uses hyssops and eye of newt.”

  Tyler said, “Oh.”

  Before they got to Wanda’s, most of the sting was gone, and Tyler leaned back and relaxed. He looked comfortable. Chloë said, “You’ll probably be better by morning. When Bernadette decides to cure someone, she does.”

  “That being the case,” Tyler asked, “why is her arm still in a cast?”

  Chloë didn’t even have to think before answering. “Her hand is better. You heard her say she got a good report from the doctor. She keeps the cast on to protect her sleight of hand.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Sleight of hand? You don’t know about sleight of hand?” Tyler nodded. “I’m surprised your Bible-school teacher didn’t teach you about sleight of hand.” Tyler said they didn’t. “Well, sleight o
f hand is what it takes to do magic with cards. I hope we get back home in time for me and Bernadette to play some. Bernadette is awfully good at it. She’s used to winning all the time, but I’m acquiring the skill, and I win about one-third of the time now.”

  Tyler asked, “Did you say eye of newt?”

  Chloë said, “Yes.”

  Tyler leaned back fully and appeared relaxed and free of pain. He said nothing more until they got to Wanda’s and then, as he got out of the car, he said, “See you tomorrow.”

  “What?” Chloë asked. “You want to go skating tomorrow?”

  “Sure. I like that dollar-movie parking lot, and my back’s feeling better already.”

  And Chloë said, “Same time, then.”

  Mrs. Westbeth lived up to the promise she had made on TV. COAT began picketing the food-service vans on Talleyrand. Even though there were only a dozen people carrying signs the first day, they got a lot of coverage on the evening television news—both early and late broadcasts. Every station featured them, and the newspaper ran a picture of the picketers on the front page. By the end of the day, it seemed there were protesters everywhere—a lot more than there really were.

  The news of the protest movement backfired.

  An epidemic of T-backs broke out.

  Sidewalk vendors—the men and women who sold ice cream and soft drinks from carts on downtown street corners—were next to wear them. The men and women who sold hot roasted peanuts in the ballpark parking lot followed. Before the week was out, every food vendor in town except Bernadette and Grady Oates wore a T-back to work.

  No doubt about it, T-backs were good for sizzle, and no one was benefiting more than Zack. His drivers were making more money for him than they ever had in the entire history of his company. Everyone except Grady Oates and Bernadette. Grady’s sales stayed the same, but Bernadette’s were down.

  Zack called Bernadette into his office again and asked her if she thought that he should change the brand of merchandise she was selling in the van since she didn’t seem to be selling very much of what she had.

  She said no.

  He asked her if she would wear a T-back.

  She said no.

  He asked her if she wasn’t willing to wear one because of the kid.

  She said, “Do you mean because of Nick’s kid, Zack?”

  “Well,” he said, “you have been known to change your loyalties because of a kid.”

  Bernadette said, “This is not because of a kid, Zack.”

  “You’re putting me in a bad situation, Bernadette,” Zack said. “There are a half dozen young ladies out there who are perfectly willing to put on a T-back and drive your route.”

  Bernadette said, “At least a half dozen.”

  “A young girl in a T-back could pull in twice the business you’re doing.” He waved the records in front of her.

  Bernadette said, “At least twice.”

  Then he asked her if she would mind taking a job inside the commissary for the rest of the summer.

  She said yes, she would mind.

  “Very much?”

  “Very much.”

  Zack said, “What am I gonna do with you, Bernadette?”

  Bernadette replied, “You can keep me on, or you can let me go. Those seem like the two options you have.”

  Zack never really answered. He shrugged, sighed, and turned away.

  * * *

  Bernadette knew that Chloë had overheard her conversation with Zack, so that evening as they sat drinking coffee in the living room, she asked if Chloë would like to hear another story of how TV news was used to promote a cause. “Bayard McKnight was a part of it, and so was I—at first.”

  It was May 4, 1969. Bernadette was twenty-two years old and was one of thirty-six people blocking the entrance to the draft-registration office at the municipal building in Peco. What they were doing was illegal because it is against the law to block access to public buildings.

  The thirty-six were trying to prevent people being registered for the draft. They figured that if no one went into the armed services, there would be no one to fight the war in Vietnam, so they chained themselves together and wouldn’t let anyone into city hall, where the draft-registration office was. Everyone from Spinach Hill was there except Nick. He was only twelve, and he was in school.

  One of the leaders had notified the news that the protesters were planning to start a bonfire to burn draft cards. That was the second illegal thing they were doing. They knew they would be arrested. Some had agreed to spend the night in jail, while others would have bail posted. Bayard McKnight was the lawyer who would defend the protesters. He had funds to post bail for those who did not want to spend the night in jail.

  The rumor went out that someone had managed to get to the network news. Imagine! National coverage for the Peco protest. The leaders decided to wait for the network news team before starting the bonfire. They didn’t want everything to be over before they showed up.

  Bernadette had been designated as one for whom bail would be posted, so that she could get back to Spinach Hill. It got later and later and later. Every protest spawns an antiprotest, and while they waited for the network news team, the antiprotesters got organized. Picketers carrying signs saying HIPPIES GO HOME marched back and forth in front of city hall. The original protesters were excited when that happened because it meant the news of the Peco protest would be more dramatic. They waited, but still the network news did not show up. They never did, but no one knew that they would not. The rumor had been repeated so often that everyone believed it.

  Bernadette kept checking her watch. Nick would be boarding his school bus; he would be walking the three blocks of unpaved road to Spinach Hill; he would be home. It got later and later and later. It was well past suppertime—getting dark—when she asked Bayard McKnight to be excused.

  He reminded her that everyone had agreed to be arrested and booked.

  Bernadette knew it was unfair to the others for her to leave, but it was more unfair to Nick for her to stay. She had not known that she would have to be gone after dark, after normal city hall hours. She was risking Nick’s safety. Who knew what the antiprotesters were doing at Spinach Hill? Maybe they were surrounding the house and had Nick trapped in there. All kinds of crazy thoughts were going through her head, but the one thought that she had the most was that she did not want Nick to spend that night in the house alone.

  Bayard McKnight had her excused. She left the protest. She was never booked. She promised Bayard that if he let her go, she would never again put herself in a position where he would have to rescue her from her choices.

  Chloë said, “Nick never told me that part.”

  Bernadette answered, “He probably doesn’t like to talk about it.”

  “Maybe he didn’t think it was important.”

  Bernadette said, “Oh! I doubt that. He knows that that night changed my life.”

  Bernadette resented going back to Wanda’s to pick up Tyler.

  “You don’t like Tyler, do you?” Chloë asked.

  “Chloë, let me tell you three things I’ve learned.” She counted them off on her fingers. “One: Don’t tell your brother who to marry. Two: Don’t tell your niece who to be friends with. And three: Don’t sue Santa Claus for not bringing you a bicycle and expect him to show up in court.”

  When they got to Wanda’s, they found Velma in the carport. Using the trunk of the car as a desktop, she was autographing Zack’s price-list menu for two of the kids in the neighborhood. She signed it, “Love, Velma,” and drew a smiley face inside the o of love.

  Bernadette was listening to music in the front seat when Chloë asked Tyler how his back felt. He said that it didn’t hurt at all. As a matter of fact, most of the scratches had already disappeared.

  “Well,” she said, “that’s because Bernadette knows what to put in her ointments. You can’t buy the stuff a spin doctor makes. She has to grow most of it herself because no one is allowed to sell it com
mercially.” Aside from hyssops, Chloë had no idea what Bernadette put in her poultice. She was simply reacting to Tyler again.

  As much as he didn’t want to, Tyler looked impressed, and that in turn encouraged Chloë. She continued, “Borage and hyssops create a condition of reverse osmosis. The flow of poisons can go one way or the other, depending on the order that Bernadette mixes them.”

  “I thought so,” Tyler replied. “Your aunt is a witch, isn’t she?”

  At last Tyler believed.

  Chloë did not answer yes or no. She stared into the middle distance with half-closed eyes and allowed her nostrils to flare. “Her powers have been known to infect those who live with her. Do you know why you fell yesterday?”

  Tyler swallowed. “God was giving me a reminder. I fell from the path of righteousness. I allowed pride to come before my fall.”

  “That is not why you fell. Even people who don’t go to Bible school at the Church of the Endless Horizon have heard Pride cometh before a fall, and that very well may be why some people fall, but that is not why you fell. You fell because I wished it.”

  “I’ve prayed for her, you know.”

  “For whom?” Chloë asked, emphasizing the m of whom so that Tyler would know that he was not dealing with an illiterate.

  “I prayed for your aunt. Without mentioning any names, I got the whole school at the Church of the Endless Horizon to help. It is our duty to raise our voices in prayer to save her poor bewitched soul.” He leaned over to Chloë and whispered, “There is more.”

  “More what?”

  “More proof that she’s bewitched.”

  Chloë said, “I’m interested. I really am.” She crossed her arms across her chest and leaned back. Here he was, acting as if he were the big authority on witches, and he wouldn’t know anything if she hadn’t told him. Tyler had to be the most irritating thing to come out of Georgia since fuzz off peaches.

  Tyler glanced toward the front seat, leaned toward Chloë, and whispered. “There’s the thing that Daisy done.”