One Mississippi

  “Dance, Eddie, dance!” cried Carol Nason to the hoots of the chorus.

  “Carol, hush! Did you do this? Ow! Ooo!” Eddie wiggled and shimmied. “Y’aaaaall! Somebody get it out!”

  “It’s just a piece of ice, Eddie,” shouted Matt Smith. His eyes widened when he realized what he’d said. “Look y’all, Eddie’s finally got his first piece of ice!”

  This line flashed through the bus like the funniest joke ever told. You could hear the shrieks of laughter moving row by row to the front. Mrs. Passworth got out of her seat to shoot a killing look at Matt Smith.

  “Oooooh, y’aaaaall!” Tim squealed in a flawless imitation of Eddie. “Y’all stop it!”

  “Hey kids, tonight is our New Haven out-of-town opening,” Eddie said, “only it happens to be Itta Bena and the campus of Harold P. Wayne. They’ve done loads of publicity, apparently there’ll be VIPs and everything. I wouldn’t be surprised if the president himself puts in an appearance!”

  “President Nixon?” cried Regina Singleton, preparing to be beside herself.

  “No, President Frederick — the president of the college,” Eddie said. “I’m sure we’ll be the biggest thing happening on campus tonight. We’re gonna knock their socks off!”

  Considering Tim and I got involved as an ironic joke, Christ! had really started to matter — to me, anyway. I’d stopped hoping for a hilarious disaster and started thinking, Hey, maybe we’re not that bad. I wanted Eddie to have a hit because he wanted it so badly. I wanted our Combo not to suck. Mostly I wanted to make Passworth proud of us — the least she deserved after all the hours she spent dodging verbal salvos from Eddie.

  “You think Carol Nason is going to take it all off tonight?” Tim said.

  “I certainly hope so. I’ve had enough of her teasing.”

  Andrea Owens stuck her face between the seats in front of us. “Would you two please stop talking like that? I am trying to read the Bible!”

  Now, it was well known that Andrea Owens had touched several members of the chorus of Christ! in a personal way — she was one of those extremely pious horny girls who made the hallways and nooks of Full Flower Baptist such a welcoming place.

  Tim could not resist. His eyes glittered as he coiled to strike. He said, “Sorry to bother you, Handrea. We’ll try to keep it down.”

  She blinked. “What did you call me?”

  “Handrea. Isn’t that your name? You know, cause you’re so — handy? So good at your — job?” He illustrated with an up-and-down motion of the wrist.

  Andrea flew up from her seat, flapping her wings. “Miz Passworth!”

  “My name is Tim,” he said evenly, “but you can call me Miz Passworth if you like.”

  “You shut up!” she cried.

  “My apologies, Handrea. I guess I am being a total jerkoff.”

  Girls squealed. Every boy on that part of the bus burst out laughing. Including me.

  Andrea raced up the aisle. In a moment here came Mrs. Passworth on a beeline for Tim. She didn’t say a word — simply reached across him, seized me, and dragged me by the arm to the front of the bus. I kicked and dissented.

  She plopped me in the window seat, still warm from her own behind, and put herself on the outside to block any attempt at escape.

  Andrea Owens gave me a sharp little nod, So there! and sauntered back to her seat.

  I sat for a minute wondering why Passworth had picked on me. Then I tried to convince her how extremely innocent I was.

  “I saw you back there egging him on,” she said. “You boys ought not be making sex jokes to a girl. That is not how a Christian gentleman behaves.”

  “Don’t look at me! It was Tim.”

  “Oh come on, you two are Frick and Frack.”

  “What?”

  “You never heard of Frick and Frack? Couple of old skaters in the Ice Follies. You see Frick, you see Frack. Always together, like you and Tim.”

  It had never occurred to me that’s how Tim and I were seen. Actually I was surprised to think we were seen or noticed at all. Except for the occasional flash of humiliation, I had felt mostly invisible since I came to Minor High.

  She patted my arm. “Tim only acts the fool for your benefit, don’t you know that? He’s only trying to impress you.”

  “No he’s not,” I said.

  “I don’t think it’s smart of you to associate with him so much,” she said. “Tim’s not as clever as he thinks — as you seem to think. His shenanigans may have been cute when he was younger, but they’re not anymore.”

  I felt disloyal just for sitting there listening. “Why are you saying this to me?”

  “Because you’re a good boy, Daniel. I worry for Tim.” Her voice softened. “Some of his teachers think he’s trouble. He’s so changeable — so moody, the way he lashes out at people.”

  “That’s just Tim. He’s sick of getting picked on all the time! For a year now we’ve had Red Martin and all his —”

  “I appreciate you sticking up for a friend,” she said, “but you can do a whole lot better than Tim Cousins. Do you have a girlfriend yet?”

  This was such an outrageously personal question (from a teacher!) that I couldn’t wait to rush down the aisle and tell Tim about it. First I felt an overpowering urge to tell Mrs. Passworth the truth — to knock her over with it.

  “Yes, I do,” I said. “Arnita Beecham.”

  Her mouth made a tiny O.

  I nodded.

  She shrank back. “But Daniel, she’s . . .” Her lips made a “b,” but she couldn’t say the rest of it.

  I finished it for her: “Black?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, actually at the moment she’s convinced she’s white, but — yeah, she is black.”

  Mrs. Passworth’s brow furrowed. “I heard the poor girl has had problems after her accident. Obviously she can’t be responsible for her actions. But you! What are you thinking? I thought you were more intelligent than that!”

  “I like her. She likes me too. So what if she’s black? We’re integrated now, remember?”

  “So what?” she cried. “It’s unnatural, that’s what! I’m as much for equal rights as the next person, but race mixing is an abomination against the Lord! Don’t you know that?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Miscegenation is the worst kind of sin! It’s the reason God tore down the Tower of Babel, all the blacks trying to mix with the whites!”

  I noticed the bus driver watching us in the overhead mirror. An older black man with a speckled face. He kept glancing at me. I couldn’t decide what was simmering behind those cool eyes — resentment of me, or of Passworth — of both of us, probably.

  I don’t think she had noticed. “No question Arnita is a lovely girl, but this is just as wrong as can be. You need to pray on it, Daniel. Pray real hard.”

  “I will,” I said, hoping to steer her off the subject.

  “Do your parents know about this?” she said.

  I pictured Arnita stretched out with her feet on our couch. “Yeah.”

  “And her parents?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head. “I find that absolutely incredible. Is it just me or is the whole world going nuts?”

  I felt a stab of indignation on Arnita’s behalf. “Look, we’re not getting married or anything,” I said. “But we could if we wanted to. It’s a free country.”

  “Oh no sir, not in Mississippi! Bite your tongue! I keep forgetting you weren’t brought up here. We have laws against intermarriage. And even if we didn’t — well, it’s just wrong! Can you imagine what would happen if Negro men could marry all the white women they wanted?”

  The bus driver said, “Nobody want you anyway, lady.”

  His lips barely moved. He spoke so low and fast that at first I thought it was a trick of my ears.

  Mrs. Passworth glanced at me to see if I’d heard. I pretended I hadn’t.

  “Excuse me, driver?” she said. “Did you say something
to me?”

  The man’s face was grave, his eyes fixed on the road as if he had never glanced away from it a single time in his life.

  Mrs. Passworth reached in her satchel for her embroidery project. For the next fifty miles she kept one eye fixed on the driver while she jabbed the needle through the cloth. He never looked at us again.

  Trapped there beside her, I was free to let my mind roam over Arnita. How could we possibly be in love when most of the world thought like Mrs. Passworth? How could people be so blind to everything but skin?

  A wild whoop a few rows behind us and there went Eddie up out of his seat again, flailing at his shirt.

  Mrs. Passworth barely turned her head. “Eddie, take the ice out of your shirt and sit down. It’s not funny the second time.”

  ITTA BENA WAS large enough to have billboards announcing its attractions in advance: Dairy Queen, Itta Bena Ford, State Farm, Skinner Furniture. I pointed out a billboard for the Leflore Motor Court. “That’s where we’re staying tonight.” A silhouette woman in a bathing cap was performing an unlikely dive into a painted swimming pool. The Leflore promised Fine AAA Accommodations, In-Room Telephones, TV, Private Bath, and Electric Heat.

  “Oh boy, electric heat,” said Tim. “Do you suppose they have parking for horseless carriages?”

  I theorized that “electric heat” implied no A/C. “And that means we’ll probably die.”

  “We gonna be roommates, Durwood?”

  “Why not? If we get a choice about it.” I hadn’t spent that many nights away from home. I was interested in all aspects of checking into a motel, sleeping in a strange bed, unwrapping the little pink soap.

  “I really don’t care,” Tim said, “as long as they don’t put me in with Eddie.” He raised one eyebrow.

  I glanced out the window. “Look, we’re here.”

  Tim said, “Itty bitty Itta Bena,” a thing that was surely said by many people coming to that town for the first time. We rolled down a street with two blocks of stores on one side. Itta Bena was a plain place, straight lines and blocky buildings, not one bit of decoration on anything.

  The Leflore Motor Court was a horizontal strip of rooms with a glassed-in office at one end. The room doors were painted the exact livid green of the algae blooming in the swimming pool.

  “All right, kids, shut up and listen up,” Eddie called from the front of the bus. “I’ll stand by the steps and hand you your room key as you get off. Each room has two beds, two kids to each room, except for me and Miz Passworth and the chaperones.”

  “Y’all all sleepin’ together, Eddie?” called Ted Herring.

  “Very funny,” said Eddie. “Now, if you don’t like your roommate, it’s up to you to find somebody to switch with. Do not, I repeat, do NOT come moaning to me about it. Wait — wait —” He had to skip the rest of his welcome speech because the girls mobbed him, snatching keys and hurrying off. They’d been whining for miles about how bad they needed to pee.

  As the last ones off the bus, Tim and I were assigned the farthest room from the office, Room 130. The Frick and Frack suite. All down the rank of rooms, kids hollered, ran, and slammed doors. The heavyset manager glowered from the office door, rousing himself to an occasional bark — “Slow down!” “No running!” “You break that, mister, you’ve bought it!”

  When I got to our room Tim was flipping lights on and off, flushing the toilet, running brownish water in the tub. The room smelled of knotty pine and scratchy blankets. There were two saggy beds, not quite doubles. The TV was an old black-and-white Westinghouse set that received one station, sort of, and the telephone was a kind I hadn’t seen in years, a heavy black grandma model with a thick cloth-wrapped cord, like the cord for an electric iron.

  Tim danced in from the bathroom, singing, “She wore an Itta Bena teena weena yella polka-dot bikeena . . .”

  After all this time he still knew how to crack me up. Along with his song he performed a dance routine complete with high kicks, ending up on his back on the bed, wiggling hands and feet in the air.

  “Okay then,” I said, “that’s your bed since you just messed it up.”

  He bounded back onto his feet. “Where’s the applause, Durwood? Where’s the appreciation? Where is the loooove?”

  “You are not Roberta Flack. You’re not even Donny Hathaway.”

  He peered out the door. “Hey c’mere, look at Passworth! Man is she unbelievably PO’d about something!”

  I looked down to the glass-walled office, where Mrs. Passworth was gesticulating at the phone, raving at whoever was on the other end. We were too far away to hear much.

  “Hurry back,” Tim said.

  Halfway down the rank of rooms, I glanced through an open door and saw Ted Herring making out with Alicia Duchamp. Ted’s hands were roaming all over Alicia’s bouncy butt. He saw me looking and grinned. I gave a thumbs-up and kept walking.

  Eddie Smock was just outside the office listening to Passworth yell into the phone. “Irene, what is wrong?” he kept saying.

  “But he can’t do that!” she shouted. “He can’t just leave us in the middle of nowhere!”

  “Would you please tell me what’s wrong!” Eddie cried.

  “Don’t you understand, I have forty-two children with me! I am responsible for all of them! Now your man has left us in the lurch, and I want to know what you’re going to do about it! You are the manager, aren’t you?”

  Eddie tried to get her attention.

  Mrs. Passworth waved him away. “But I have told you — the man is lying! He made an impertinent remark, and I ignored it. For him to have the nerve to accuse me . . . well it’s just beyond belief!”

  I pointed across the parking lot to a jumble of stuff — Byron’s drums, our Combo gear, the chorus’s tambourines, costumes, props. Everything from the bus was heaped on the sidewalk.

  “The bus is gone,” I said.

  “Gone?” said Eddie. “What do you mean gone?”

  “Look there. Do you see a bus? I think the driver dumped our stuff and took off.”

  Eddie said, “Why would he do that?”

  “I have no idea.” Of course I had an excellent idea, but I wasn’t going to be the one to tell Eddie. I remembered the simmering look in the driver’s eyes. He must have decided he could not abide one more minute of Passworth.

  “But that’s absurd, he can’t just be gone,” Eddie was saying. “Maybe he went to get gas.”

  I shook my head. “He wouldn’t dump all our stuff.”

  I watched as the fear dawned in Eddie that I could be right, this could mean real trouble for Christ! “Oh my goodness,” he said. “Gosh! What are we gonna do?”

  “You better get another bus up here now,” Passworth demanded, “and I do mean now — or I’m gonna jump through this phone and come down to where you are — are you listening? — I’m coming down there and I’m gonna make you want to crawl back up inside your mama!”

  She gave that a moment to sink in.

  “And tell whoever’s in charge of your company that you will never — ever! — do business with Full Flower Baptist again! Yes? How long? Well, you’d better get him here quicker than that. Goodbye!” She slammed the phone so hard the bell went ding!

  When she saw us, her face twisted into a smile. “Hello, boys!”

  Eddie said, “Irene, what on earth?”

  “Oh Eddie, the most ridiculous mix-up. Our bus driver just up and left! Ha! Can you believe it? Took off! Abandoned us! Apparently he thought — well, heavenly days, I don’t pretend to know what he thought. They’re very sorry in Jackson, they’re sending another bus, but it won’t be here for hours. So for how we’re getting over to the college — we’re going to have to be creative.”

  One hour and twenty minutes later we were still dragging our instruments and amps and costumes along the shoulder of the county road — hot, sweaty, bug-eaten, swatting at flies zooming up from the weeds.

  I kept thinking how incredibly brave or stupid of that driv
er, to drive away just because Passworth made him mad. He would lose his job for sure.

  “Wouldn’t you think they’d have a sign or something?” Ted Herring said. “I mean, most colleges would at least have a sign.”

  “Eddie,” said Passworth, “let’s flag down the next car we see, and find out if we’re even going the right way.”

  “You know what we need, people?” Eddie cried.

  “A bus!” Matt Smith yelled.

  A lot of people agreed with Matt.

  “No! We need to sing!”

  Sneakers made the sound of trudging on hot asphalt.

  “Instead of complaining about it,” Eddie said, “we can get warmed up while we walk! Who’s with me?”

  It was August in Mississippi. We were plenty warmed up.

  “Okay, then I’ll start.” Eddie found the opening note on his harmonica. He sang the first lines of Matt Smith’s Act II closing number:

  I might as well be king of the Jews

  As a carpenter I gotta admit I’m really bad news

  My cabinets won’t open, my drawers all get stuck

  I hope when I’m Messiah I’ll have better luck

  No one joined in. Eddie’s voice trailed off.

  There was just enough daylight to make out a hand-stenciled sign in a patch of kudzu:

  HAROLD P. WAYNE BIBLE 100 YD.

  “Here we go!” Eddie sang. “Thank you Jesus!”

  We gazed with suspicion upon the two-track dirt road leading off into the piney woods.

  “Hallelujah,” said Mrs. Passworth. “Now can everybody please stop giving me dirty looks?” She got dirty looks just for saying that.

  We followed the track and soon came to a clearing with a square red-brick building at the center — churchlike, solid, two stories high, fat white columns on two sides, a wide flight of brick steps. A few beaten-up cars in the yard. Patches of red sand showed through gaps in the grass.

  On the steps was a group of black men not much older than we were. College age, I suppose. They wore white short-sleeve shirts, skinny dark ties, black pants. From a distance their skin looked extremely black and shiny. They left off chatting when they saw us coming up the road.