We agreed it was best they took the car away while Pa was at work. I didn’t think he’d want to see it being hooked up to the big monster truck and dragged away. It was hard enough to watch it ourselves.
We were home for a few days and already bored. It wasn’t as if we’d had a lot to do down in Alabama, but being down there was nothing like being in Brooklyn. We missed our chickens, and cows, our dog, and endless pecans. We missed hiking through the pines and wading in the shallow end of the creek. We sulked long enough about good times in Papa’s car. But we missed Uncle D and Big Ma. And JT and the Trotter sisters. We missed the fun and the fussing. And when we really got bored we compared our bug bites and scars, probably just to remember we had been down in Alabama.
When there seemed to be nothing else to say, Vonetta asked Fern, “What time is it?”
I looked down at my Timex. “It’s—”
“Not you, Delphine.” She turned to Fern. “What time is it?”
I wanted to pop Vonetta in the head. She was still wearing the braids Cecile made and they were beginning to unravel, but she wouldn’t let anyone touch her head. That didn’t stop Mrs. from commenting about Vonetta’s strands sticking out. Vonetta only pretended she didn’t hear her.
I kept thinking about my mother and what she wrote to me. If Cecile could keep her craziness inside of her and walk into a place where she wasn’t welcomed by everyone, and see Pa with the woman he married and their baby on the way, then I could keep a lid on it where Vonetta was concerned. I could try a little harder. But honestly, Vonetta didn’t make it easy.
Fern looped the watch around her arm so the face sat on her wrist instead of dangling downward, like usual. It was a wonder she managed to keep that watch on her puny wrist. But she did.
“It’s ten minutes past two o’clock.”
“That’s not how you say it,” Vonetta snapped. “When you get to third grade, say, ‘It’s two ten.’ Then everyone will know you’ve been telling time for a while.”
I hadn’t expected that from Vonetta. She’d said something useful to Fern. Something to make the third grade easier. Like a big sister would.
“I’ll show you other time-telling tricks. Like the ‘by fives’ and ‘the tos.’ You’ll need to know those.”
“By fives and twos?”
“Yeah. Five to three. Get it? Five minutes to three. There’s so many ways to tell the time but you don’t want to do it the baby way. Go ahead. Ask me what time it is.”
“But you don’t have a watch.”
Vonetta huffed and puffed and I wanted to say something but I kept my mouth shut and tried to walk through the storm.
“Just ask me what time it is.”
“What time is it, Vonetta?” we both asked.
I expected Vonetta to snap, “Not you, Delphine,” but she didn’t. She said, “It’s time to get my watch back o’clock.”
Fern and I cheered! We cheered and Vonetta said, “Let’s not make a federal case out of it.” Then she paused. “Just come with me.”
“You know where she lives?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Vonetta said. “Let’s go. But I knock on the door, Delphine. Not you.”
I shrugged to not make a big deal of it and then let Vonetta lead the way. I was supposed to tell her something useful, like a big sister would, like, “If you could make it through a tornado, you can make it through anything.” She already seemed to know that. And sometimes it was better to just hush. This was one of those times.
What a sight we made. Vonetta’s limp wasn’t so bad, but she still had her cast in a sling. Fern skipped some and walked some and kept saying the words to the Timex commercial but in her own rhythm: “It takes a licking and it keeps on ticking.”
I did what my sister asked. I let her go to the door while I stayed back. But I was there. That was all my sisters needed to know. I’d be there. Always.
Author’s Note
I couldn’t think of a better way to say good-bye to the Gaither family than to tell their family history, especially when it seems the family is falling apart. Like most African-Americans, the Gaithers’ African roots are entwined with European ethnicity. While it is common for some African-Americans to claim Native American ancestry with little to substantiate their claims, it is also true that African-Americans and Native Americans from the southeastern and northeastern parts of the US have a complex and shared history. Who better to tell both sides of this story than the elder Trotter sisters, both having one-quarter Creek blood and being descendants of Creek freedmen?
As described in the story from one elder’s account, some southeastern Native American nations participated in the sale and ownership of slaves. It is also true that some African-American freedmen—former slaves—lived separately as freedmen among the “Five Civilized Tribes” (the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole Nations), while some also married within the nations and had blood descendants. Many freedmen and native-owned slaves marched west with their host Native American tribe in the early 1830s, when Native Americans from the southeastern states were forced to remove themselves from their land in the inhumane journey known as the Trail of Tears. In the Treaty of 1866, the freedmen were granted full tribal status and rights, although their status and benefits continues to be challenged today. For more information, I recommend Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage by William Loren Katz and Africans in America: America’s Journey through Slavery by Charles Johnson, Patricia Smith, and the WGBH Series Research Team.
With so much happening in 1969, I turned to my diaries to remember what was important to me as a tween back then. On July 20 I wrote, “The astronauts landed and set foot on the moon,” and months later on October 18 I wrote “Jackson Five!” after watching them for the first time on The Hollywood Palace, a variety show that aired on ABC. To tell the story of the Gaither sisters, particularly with Vonetta’s coming to terms with her uncle, I exercised literary license by moving the date that the sisters would have known about the Jackson Five. Vonetta’s pain, however, is real. To learn more about the Apollo moon missions, I recommend Team Moon by Catherine Thimmesh and Mission Control, This Is Apollo by Andrew Chaikin and astronaut Alan Bean. I also recommend YouTube to see videos of the Apollo 11 launch and moon landing, as well as the debut of the Jackson Five on The Hollywood Palace.
If Delphine and her family seem real to you, it is because the idea of them is real. The Trotters, Charleses, Gaithers, and Johnsons tell an American story in their crossings, struggles, and strides, and in their witnessing of and taking part in history. We need not look further than our own families to find unique histories that touch upon and comprise American history. It was an honor and my pleasure to tell their family story to you.
I thank my HarperCollins family for supporting my need to tell stories that include known and little-known histories. I couldn’t have had a truer advocate for these stories and a fiercer caretaker of this family than my editor, Rosemary Brosnan. I also thank my colleague and dear friend Leda Schubert, who has great instincts. Thank you to my Facebook friends, who responded eagerly and creatively to my query for Big Ma’s name, especially to Stephen Bramucci, Janet Fox, Jim Hill, Sheryl Scarborough, and Nicole Valentine, who got it right. I thank those who’ve shared their accounts of their mixed ancestry, both documented and undocumented. Most of all, I thank my readers, who’ve come to know and love Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern—and every Gaither, Charles, Trotter, and Johnson.
Augustus Trotter Descendants
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About the Author
Photo by Jason Berger
RITA WILLIAMS-GARCIA’s Newbery Honor–winning novel, One Crazy Summer, was a winner of the Coretta Scott King Author Award, a National Book Award finalist, the recipient of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and a New York Times bestseller. The sequel, P.S. Be Eleven, was also a Coretta Scott King Author Award winner and an ALA Notable Children’s Book for Middle Readers. She is also the author of six distinguished novels fo
r young adults: Jumped, a National Book Award finalist; No Laughter Here, Every Time a Rainbow Dies (a Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book), Fast Talk on a Slow Track (all ALA Best Books for Young Adults); Blue Tights; and Like Sisters on the Homefront, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. Rita Williams-Garcia lives in Jamaica, New York, is on the faculty at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in the Writing for Children & Young Adults Program, and has two adult daughters, Stephanie and Michelle, and a son-in-law, Adam. You can visit her online at www.ritawg.com.
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Books by Rita Williams-Garcia
About These Characters
One Crazy Summer
P.S. Be Eleven
Blue Tights
Every Time a Rainbow Dies
Fast Talk on a Slow Track
Jumped
Like Sisters on the Homefront
No Laughter Here
Credits
Cover art © 2015 by Frank Morrison
Copyright
Amistad is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
GONE CRAZY IN ALABAMA. Copyright © 2015 by Rita Williams-Garcia. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2014922274
ISBN 978-0-06-221587-1 (trade bdg.)
ISBN 978-0-06-221588-8 (lib. bdg.)
EPub Edition © March 2015 ISBN 9780062215901
1516171819CG/RRDH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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Rita Williams-Garcia, Gone Crazy in Alabama
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