Before this year, I adored fall. Even Georgia autumns, which are as hot and muggy as the steam rising from a cooking pot of butter beans. This in turn gave my body and soul a dappled tingle of anticipation. This year is different. The whispers of a cool wind that breathe leaves into swirly patterns bring with them the knowledge that it is 1961. The blazing trees fire a fear in me that I have never felt before. This fall, I am starting "white school".
"Circle up, everyone!" Mrs. Hill, the gym teacher hurrahs. She reminds me of a sausage -- big and pink and wet. We all trot across the track the join her, on only our third day of sneakers slapping against the gravel during gym class. Somehow, though, it isn't "we". Somehow, its just "me", Marylou Tyler, the black kid, and "them", the color of vanilla ice cream.
"Now y'all," The Sausage says wetly, "We're gonna take one lap around the track."
She says something else, but I am blind and deaf to her and her words. My sudden anger has consumed me. Wilfred Cole has consumed me.
"What's the matter, Negro, cantcha RUN?" he drawls, just quiet enough for Mrs. Hill to not hear. "Cantcha run you daughter of scum?"
"You shut UP! Wilfred! You and your stupid white friends just SHUT UP!" I hiss.
"That all ya can say, Negro? Shut up? Yer just as brain dead as evr'one says ya are!"
It all floods back to me then, the first morning at white school. The screams and jeers as I got off the bus. The curse words and the kicks planted in the small of my back. The hate notes in my locker. I think of everything.
I try to look away from Wilfred, but I can't stop thinking about about how he just talked about me. How his kind has always talked about mine. From whips to words to guns, the weapons they have used against us have left scars that would be avenged by me in that moment . . .
If not for Mrs. Hill. "On your marks." she trumpets. I snap away from Wilfred, channeling my anger into energy and lunge forward into my starting position. "Get set." I feel a buoyant breath of air fill my lungs. "Go!" I thunder off down the track like a Kentucky Derby racehorse. My feet pound the asphalt and suddenly I'm not Marylou Tyler, a 12-year-old black girl anymore. Instead, I'm an Olympic runner, a cheetah, a Buick on the highway. I curl effortlessly around a bend, zipping by Donald and Carrie. I laugh and toss a mocking look over my shoulder at them. Mind you, I wouldn't be thinking these arrogant thoughts and doing these sinful things if they'd been black; if they hadn't all spit on me and made me feel like gum on a shoe since the first day of school; if this wasn't my glory run.
Adrenaline courses through my veins instead of blood as I pelt past 4 kids. There's only one to go: Wilfred Cole. Suddenly, this is more than just about winning the race. It's about winning the trust and respect of my new white classmates and teachers.
"No, Marylou," I whisper to myself. "You think that way. You hate them." There's a non-ignorable longing gnawing at my stomach, though. I do need their acceptance, but I feel like a traitor because of it. That's when, a second before I would've lost the race, I pass Wilfred Cole. I've won! Lord, I've WON!
There's a rushing sound in my ears, like the washers in a coin-op laundromat. I've won the race, but have I won what I really want? Their respect? Wilfred pants up just behind me.
"Ya won, Negro. Ya won a dang race. Does that make you so wonderful?"
"No, not wonderful, but pretty darn cool." Patricia Burke says, tossing me a toothpaste commercial smile. I try to return it, but Wilfred's angry words keep rushing back. Patricia eyes me warily. I know that even though she's my best gamble as a friend, I'm still black. She knows it, too. Wilfred kicks me into the dirt, scabbing up my knees as I fall. Hard. "Wilfred!" Patricia cries.
That's when the tears come. All through my life, through the shootings and the jeers and the scars, I kept them bottled in. I just can't anymore.
"Marylou?" Patricia starts to ask. She stops.
I feel so alone, so small under the shoe that Wilfred is twisting into my spine to keep me down. "Marylou, get up." The voice is so firm, so decisive, that I'm almost not sure that it belongs to Patricia.
There's nothing I can do but snivel, "I can't."
"Wilfred, you pig, get your foot off her back or I'll make you." Patricia commands. The pressure between my shoulder blades releases right quick.
Nobody in the whole crowd gathered around us, hungry like dogs at the prospect of a fight, has ever seen her like this before. I have no choice but to obey.
She takes a deep breath "Y'all, ya can't go treatin' Marylou this way. Ya . . ." And then, just as suddenly as it sparked, her fire flickers out. She purses her lips and stirs the playground dust with her toe. There's a moment of confused silence. Then the crowd disperses, Wilfred spits a curse word, and Mrs. Hill, who was about to unwisely intervene, goes back to scrawling down our race times.
"I'm sorry, Marylou." Patricia says, approaching me with a tear on her cheek. "I should have finished what I started."
"Yeah, ya should've."
"I live on Crab-Apple Street, Marylou, y'know, if . . ."
"I'm black, remember. I can't go on Crab-Apple."
"Oh." she lowers her eyes. "Talk to me, then, later. As long as the others don't see."
I may not have a friend, I realize as she slips, shadow-like, away, but I have an ally. And I realize with a melancholy sigh, that that's all I need for now.
