The Mighty Miss Malone

  We hugged. “Sweetheart, I’m so glad you’re here for me to lean on.”

  I held the gingham curtain aside, and once Mother was out, I looked back into the place that had been our home for the past months. Now that we didn’t know where we were going next, this raggedy hut seemed pretty wonderful. I held the curtain up. “Will they throw something this beautiful into the fire?”

  “Deza, let’s go! I promise, one day I’ll get yards of store-bought gingham and make you a dress.”

  Outside, a big white man with a tired voice was saying over and over, “Keep up that road there, and if you don’t want no trouble don’t come back.”

  We followed the crowd away from the fire. We’d only been walking for a few minutes when Mother steered me to the side of the road. “Deza! I left my wedding ring in the shack!”

  Since we’d left Gary, Mother’s wedding band had gotten so big that it was slipping off her finger at work. She put it on a string and wore it around her neck.

  I pointed. “No, the string is right around your neck.”

  Her hand flew to her throat. “Oh! No, no. I took the ring off the string last week.”

  Mother was acting odder all the time. I put my bundle down. “I’ll be right back.”

  “No, I’ll get it! I know exactly where it is. Don’t leave this spot no matter what.”

  I watched as she ran toward one of the policemen. My stomach knotted when he raised his club and jabbed his hand toward the road.

  Oh, please, please …

  Mother pointed back at me and kept talking.

  Stay back, Mother, don’t get too close …

  He kept his club raised and with his other hand jabbed at the road again.

  Please, please …

  Mother kept talking and finally the cop brought the club down to his side. Mother headed into the woods to where the shantytown was slowly being turned to ashes.

  I sat on the side of the road and watched our neighbors walk away.

  They were mostly women with children tied to their backs or hanging on to their clothes or trailing behind like tired ducklings. A few old men hobbled along with the group. Anyone who was strong enough to work was on that train with Jimmie.

  No one complained. This was just the way it was.

  If somebody came along and saw us walking they’d mistake us for a very quiet parade instead of what we really were, a river of people who didn’t know what city we’d be in tomorrow, or what we’d be eating, or even where somebody would let us stop and rest.

  The only way someone might suspect something was wrong was because of the fresh ones. I hadn’t understood what the hobo with the beautiful beard had meant when he said we were fresh, but now I got it.

  There weren’t a lot of them, but all of the fresh ones, young and old, had a certain look, a expression that anyone who’s been on the road for a while has had scrubbed off their faces.

  It wasn’t like they were worried or feeling sorry for themselves, they had a look of surprise, like they couldn’t believe what had happened. You can’t know that feeling unless you’ve had it.

  One day you’re living in your own home, and then it seems like with no warning, the next day you’re carrying everything you own in a blanket or a sack or a ratty suitcase while being shooed from one place to another like a fly.

  “Little Stew, you all right? Can we help you carry something?” A white man and his son had come over to me.

  “No, thank you. My mother had to run back, she’ll be along in a minute.”

  The man said, “You sure? Camden here is strong as a ox.”

  The boy, who looked about six years old, made a muscle with his right arm. “Wanna see?”

  I laughed. “Thank you, Camden, but we’re OK.”

  He kept his fist balled. “You sure you don’t wanna see?” He looked like he’d explode if I didn’t feel his muscle. I squeezed his skinny arm.

  “Wow! With muscles like that you could probably lift a whole automobile over your head!”

  He smiled. “Well, maybe I could get the front wheels off the ground.”

  “Thanks, Camden.”

  They headed back down the road. In the next couple of minutes five other people stopped and asked the same thing.

  Mother finally came back.

  I said, “Did you get it?”

  She looked like she had no idea what I was talking about.

  “Your ring.”

  She touched her throat. “Yes. That was close.”

  I was starting to worry about her.

  We fell in line with the other people. We’d walked for a half hour when the road split in two directions. People started dividing into two groups. There were hugs, pats on backs and even tears as they said goodbye.

  Most of the white people started down the road leading south. Most of the black people walked north.

  Someone told Mother there might be work in Saginaw, Michigan, which is geologically located about twenty miles north of Flint.

  But Mother steered us south.

  “We’ve got to get back into Flint. I have to work, and you have to go to school.”

  “But how will we get past the—”

  “I don’t know, Deza, but where there’s a will there’s a way.”

  “A way” meant we did a whole night of walking to circle the city.

  It was very late when we knocked on the door of one of the women Mother worked with.

  Even though we woke her up, Mrs. Brand said we could sleep on the floor of one of the two rooms she shared with her family.

  When I woke up the next morning, Mother had already gone to her first job.

  I was surprised I was so tired the night before that I hadn’t seen how many people were in the room, and I felt terrible that we’d taken over the little bit of space that was left. I stepped over three of them and headed toward the tiny kitchen.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Brand.”

  “Morning, Deza. You’ve got another hour before you need to get up for school.”

  “Yes, ma’am, but I thought I could help you.”

  “Thank you, dear. You can go out back and get some wood if you don’t mind.”

  “How much do we need?”

  “Just enough for the stove, we got some grits and greens I’ll hotten up for breakfast.”

  The house started waking up and more and more people walked by the kitchen on the way to the outhouse. All but two of them were kids.

  I missed Jimmie already. But I couldn’t let myself worry about him. Or Father. That made two of them I wouldn’t think about.

  When it was time to go to school Mrs. Brand said, “Your mother told me you’re to come here after school, she won’t come back between jobs, she’s going to look for a room to rent. She knows you two are welcome here as long as you need.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Me and one of the big girls, Analise, walked the youngest kids to Clark Elementary School. Then we went on to Whittier Junior High.

  Mother and Mrs. Brand were sitting on the front porch when I got home.

  Mother was smiling!

  She dangled two keys. “Deza, we’ve got a place! It’s just one room, but it’s right between Whittier and downtown. No more half-hour walks for us, my dear!”

  “What about the post office?”

  “It’s not far at all. You can check every day!”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Settled

  We shared the kitchen and indoor bathroom with two other families and a teacher from Clark Elementary School. Our room was almost perfect. We had everything we needed, a table, two chairs, a wardrobe and a bed that had a big dip in the center.

  Me and Mother would get up and fix breakfast. She’d go to her first job, check the post office on the way home in the afternoon, then take a nap. She’d be up when I got home from school, we’d chat, make supper and she’d go to her evening job at the hotel.

  Since we had a address now, I wrote to Jimmie at general delivery in New York and Chica
go. Maybe he’d answer. I could also check out books from the library! After school I’d choose two, and since I wasn’t doing very much studying, I could go home and read. On Fridays I’d take out six books for the weekend. I’d also check for word from Jimmie or Father at the post office.

  I got to be friends with the postmistress, Mrs. James, a kind old white woman. She knew we were waiting for news and promised to keep a extra-sharp eye open for me.

  One day I went by and said, “Hello, Mrs. James.”

  “Deza, how are you, I haven’t seen your mother for over a month, is she OK?”

  I knew it! I knew Mother had stopped checking!

  I said, “She’s working two jobs.”

  “I see. How’s school going?”

  “Fine, thank you. But Flint schools are a lot easier than Gary’s. The things they’re teaching here I learned two years ago in Indiana. I don’t even have to study.” So that wouldn’t sound like bragging I said, “But I can’t believe how much I’ve forgotten.”

  She smiled, “Sorry, no mail today, Deza. I’ll keep hoping for you.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. James.”

  Hoping is such hard work. It tires you out and you never seem to get any kind of reward. Hoping feels like you’re a balloon that has a pinhole that slowly leaks air.

  If Mother wasn’t even checking the mail, that meant she’d stopped hoping. But who could blame her? I was pretty close to being through myself.

  And school was making things worse.

  Mrs. Scott never asked me to help other students and never gave me any tougher work. Mrs. Dales in geography, Mrs. Foley in civics, Mr. Alton in history and Mr. Smith in English never called on me when I raised my hand. So I stopped raising it.

  The Deza Malone in Gary would have been crushed. Her heart would have withered like grapes left on a vine at the North Pole in the middle of winter.

  The Flint Deza didn’t care.

  I toughened up so much that I stopped even caring about literature in English class. The less I cared at school, the more I read.

  And it wasn’t long before that wasn’t the same either.

  When I was in Gary and would read novels I used to put myself right in the middle of the story. I knew it was a great book when it felt like the author was writing about me. Some of the time I’d get snapped out of the book when I read things that I couldn’t pretend were about me, even if I had the imagination of Mr. William Shakespeare.

  Words like “her pale, luminescent skin” or “her flowing mane of golden hair” or “her lovely, cornflower-blue eyes” or “the maiden fair.” I would stop and think, No, Deza, none of these books are about you.

  I’d decided in Gary that when it came to reading those kinds of words, I had four choices: one, I could pretend I had blond hair and blue eyes. But that didn’t feel right. Two, I could start reading the novels like they were history books, just a bunch of facts put together. But that wasn’t what the authors wanted, they wanted me to enjoy the story the way they wrote it. Three, I could change a word or two here or there and keep enjoying them by pretending they were about me, or four, I could stop reading novels altogether.

  Jimmie was right when he said I couldn’t stop reading if I wanted to, and a whole lot of the enjoying comes from imagining it’s you charging at windmills or asking for more gruel or trying to wash invisible blood off of your hands.

  I’d decided a long time ago that I’d ignore those interrupting words and keep reading.

  I look at my novels the same way Mother looks at buggy oatmeal: there might be a few bad things in them, but if you plugged your nose or sifted them out, there was still something pretty good left.

  But some of the books Mr. Smith assigned were just too terrible to pretend that they were anything but stinkers. And the biggest stinkers of all were some of his favorite books, stories about a rich, bratty little white boy named Penrod.

  One thing being a student at Whittier did was make me understand, for the first time, how other kids didn’t think waking up to go to school was the most wonderful thing in the world.

  I got it now.

  October turned into November, then December. Even though we heard nothing from Jimmie I kept sending letters to general delivery.

  1937 came and January changed to February. I came home on the twelfth and Mother and the people we share the house with—Mr. Alums, the Wilsons, and the Eppses—gave me a huge surprise!

  I walked up to the porch and thought it was strange that no children were playing there. I walked down the hall to our room. It was funny that there wasn’t any noise or talking anywhere in the house. I unlocked our door and eleven people yelled, “Happy birthday!”

  I’d forgotten! I was a teenager now!

  The Wilsons gave me a pair of their oldest daughter’s shoes! They fit like a glove. The Eppses gave me their son’s coveralls that he’d outgrown, they were practically new!

  But the two best gifts came from Mr. Alums and Mother.

  He’s the only black teacher in Flint, he teaches at Clark Elementary and has all of the kids terrified of him. But he’s always friendly to us.

  He said, “Miss Malone, I’ve noticed the books you’ve been reading, and I think you are quite capable of handling these.”

  He handed me The Quest of the Silver Fleece, by W. E. B. DuBois, and Quicksand, by Nella Larsen.

  “Thank you, Mr. Alums!”

  Mother said to Ronald Epps, “Go get it, please.”

  He came back holding two one-gallon tubs of ice cream! One chocolate and one vanilla!

  We ate like pigs and laughed for the longest time. After everyone left and me and Mother cleaned up she smiled. “I’ve got one more gift for you, Deza.”

  “Really?”

  She reached under the bed and handed me a neatly wrapped package. It was soft, like it had clothes in it. I sat on the bed.

  “What style?”

  “Whichever.”

  I chose Flint style and shredded the wrapping.

  It was the kind of blouse worn by the white women at the front desk in the hotel where Mother cleans. It had HOTEL DURANT written in fancy letters on a pocket on the chest. It was nicely pressed and starched and crisp.

  Mother said, “I bought it from one of the girls who works up front.”

  “I love it!” We hugged and she reached under the bed and pulled out another package.

  I opened it and was shocked!

  Mother had given me the best gift I ever could get.

  It was a jumper made from blue gingham!

  “Mother! How could we afford this?”

  “It was free!”

  “Free?”

  “Free. Remember when we left the camp?”

  “Of course.”

  “Remember how I went back to get my ring?”

  “Yes.”

  Mother slapped my arm. “I can’t believe you fell for that! Did you honestly think I’d leave my wedding band anywhere?”

  “Well …”

  “Deza! You even saw the string around my neck and still didn’t catch on!”

  “Catch on to what?”

  “The curtain, Deza, I went back for the blue gingham curtain!”

  “This …”

  “Yes, my sweet, naïve darling, yes!”

  I felt like such a idiot!

  Mother said, “After I’d cut away the worn parts there was only enough material to make a jumper, that’s why I bought the blouse. No one will ever see ‘Hotel Durant’ written on it when you wear the jumper. Try them on.”

  They were even more beautiful together.

  We laughed and twirled for the longest time.

  For two more hours I thought the jumper was the best gift I’d ever get, until …

  I was too excited to sleep. Mother fell off and I quietly got out of bed.

  I picked up the two books Mr. Alums had given me. They both had nice covers. I’d read about Jason and the golden fleece so I started reading about the silver one.

  I
t started in a swamp. It said something about a boy’s brown cheek and I read it again to make sure. Yes, his brown cheek.

  I got a sinking feeling, so many times stories that have people with brown skin turn out terrible, but I read on.

  The book grabbed me and shook me like a soon-to-die rat in a terrier’s jaws! It was about black people and they had real problems and thoughts and did real things, not like the black people in so many other books. Nothing like in Penrod.

  I started to read it a second time.

  I was so startled that I screamed at the top of my lungs when the alarm clock rang.

  Mother screamed too.

  In a heartbeat Mr. Alums banged on the door. “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

  Mother went to the door. “Sorry, Mr. Alums, we startled each other, we’re fine.”

  I yelled, “Mr. Alums! I read The Silver Fleece. This book … what a tragedy … a true tragedy it had to end. This is a work of true genius! The people in it are so real and so much like people. This is the best book I have ever read!”

  Mr. Alums was my new hero!

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The Letter!

  Mother had warned me time and time again. But I couldn’t help it.

  One day at school Mr. Smith got tired of teaching and gave us assigned reading time halfway through class. I had another horrible Penrod book on my desk, but I was really reading what was in my lap, The Quest of the Silver Fleece, for the fifth time.

  You can tell you’re reading a really good book when you forget all about everything else and know you’ll die if you don’t get to at least the end of the chapter. That was what Mother had warned me not to do anywhere but home, but Mr. Alums was giving me more and more books that I loved and couldn’t put down.

  And that can be dangerous.

  I didn’t hear the bell dismissing class.

  Mr. Smith said, “Well, Deeza, I suppose Mr. Tarkington and I should be flattered you’re enjoying Penrod so much that you don’t want to leave, but I’ve got to lock up.”