Night on Fire (16 page)

“Look, Billie, you mean well, but let's face it. White people want to keep us down. It's always been that way.”

“Not all of them,” I said. “What about Mr. McCall? What about Grant?”

She shrugged. “They're not like the others.”

“So, there's hope for me?”

Jarmaine chuckled. “You don't give up, do you?”

“No, I don't. And you know who taught me that? My father, the man Lavender doesn't like. The man who watched the bus burn. What do you think of that?”

She got to her feet and stretched. “I think I'm tired.”

“Me too. Come lie down. There's still time to sleep.”

Jarmaine settled onto the floor next to me. I pulled the blanket over her, and she curled up like I'd seen Royal do. She closed her eyes, and I began to sing.

“
Hush, little baby, don't say a word. Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird …
”

Lavender had sung it to me too, years ago when she had put me down for a nap. I wondered why she sang a lullaby about a father. I wondered what it would be like to have a baby and see her grow up. I remembered the disease Lavender had told me about, the one that made us dangerous, the one that rocked the bus and set it on fire, the one that could hurt people just by watching. I wondered if I still had it and if I would pass it on.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I dreamed I was walking with Daddy. He held my hand and spoke to me. I couldn't understand his words, but the sound of his voice made me feel good. A pickup truck was parked ahead of us. We got in, and a crowd formed. They rocked the truck and beat on it with their fists. A man picked up a rock and smashed the window. In the distance, over the crowd, I heard a bell.

When I woke up, the bell hung above me. The gray surface was tinged with orange. I checked my watch and saw that it was six o'clock. We had been sleeping for nearly two hours. I climbed to my feet and hurried to a window, where the orange light streamed in. To the west, the sun was dipping toward the hills. As I watched, it went behind a cloud, and bright rays spread across the sky. Suddenly I thought of Grant and wished he were there to see it.

I moved away from the window and shook Jarmaine's shoulder. “Jarmaine, get up.”

She looked at me, confused, then saw the brick walls and remembered where she was. Together we moved to the east windows, looked out over Ripley Street, and realized that things had changed. People were flooding into the church from all directions, on foot and by car. There were hundreds of them, maybe more. The men wore coats and ties, the women hats and colorful dresses. The children, excited, skipped along behind, showing their Sunday best.

Across the street, the small group of white men had grown too. Now it was a big crowd, filling the park and spilling out into the streets. Some of the men gripped pipes and chains as they watched the worshipers. A few tried to block their path, but the worshipers pushed on through.

“I don't like the looks of that,” said Jarmaine.

Sounds billowed up from below. There were happy voices, snatches of conversation, a bottle breaking. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.

I noticed a station wagon inching up Ripley, through the crowd and toward the church. Other cars had parked, but this driver seemed determined to reach the front door, and I wondered why.

Slowly, agonizingly, the car drew closer. Finally, at a curb by the corner, it stopped and two Negroes got out. The driver was a teenager. The passenger, wearing a beautiful black suit and a hat that was tipped to hide his face, was a man with broad shoulders and a dignified way of carrying himself.

“Oh my God,” said Jarmaine.

“What?”

“That's Dr. King,” she said.

“Martin Luther King?”

“They said he was flying in from Atlanta. He must have come from the airport.”

Jarmaine started to call out but caught herself, pressing her hand over her mouth as if to bottle up a dangerous secret. On the street below, the driver got a suitcase from the back of the car and pushed his way through the crowd, with Dr. King following behind, his face still hidden. Even so, there was something about him that made you sit up and take notice.

The worshipers were the first to recognize him. Some of them kept quiet, but others, thrilled, reached out to touch him. A child shouted his name. The men in the park heard it. You could see the word passing like a flame. It spread, and they surged toward him.

Next to me, Jarmaine shouted, “Watch out!”

Dr. King checked behind him. The driver yelled something to the worshipers. As if they had planned it, the people edged toward Dr. King, forming a barrier around him.

“There he is!” shouted the men. “Get him!”

Fists swung. A pipe caught the afternoon sun. People stumbled, but the group kept moving, and so did Dr. King. Rocks flew. Dr. King ducked. Someone held up a Bible.

Finally the group arrived at the front door, directly below us. Dr. King took off his hat and gazed up at the church. He saw us in the tower and smiled.

I waved. “Hello!”

“Be careful,” called Jarmaine.

Brown hands reached out. Gently but firmly, they pulled Dr. King through the door. The white men backed off, grumbling. The worshipers buzzed with excitement. Over it all, like the soundtrack of a movie, we heard organ music—“Babylon's Falling,” “I'll Fly Away,” and other hymns I didn't recognize.

Gus was at her post, and I wanted to join her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

We hurried down the ladder, through the attic, past the balcony, and into the narthex. It was crammed with people moving slowly but steadily into the sanctuary, where they were seated by ushers who had carnations in their lapels.

Jarmaine asked one of the ushers, “Where's Dr. King?”

“Downstairs. He'll be back when the meeting starts.”

We slipped into the sanctuary and made our way across the rear, then along the wall beneath the big stained-glass window. I don't know why, but suddenly I was aware that the room was filled with Negroes. They had always been there at the edges of my town and my life, off to the side, but now I was the one at the edge, an outsider, someone who looked different and didn't fit in. This was their place. Other white faces dotted the crowd, but there were just a few of us.

Jarmaine eyed me. “How does it feel? You know, being a minority.”

“Do they want me here?” I asked.

“Some do, some don't. A lot of them don't even see you. You're invisible. You don't exist.”

There was pain in her eyes.

“Like you?” I asked.

“Sometimes.”

“It feels strange,” I said. “It makes me nervous.”

“Scared?” said Jarmaine.

“Maybe a little bit.”

She searched my face. “Why did you come?”

I shrugged. “I thought you could use a friend.”

“Are we friends?”

“We could be,” I said.

“Black and white?”

I had to smile. Sometimes on summer afternoons, Mama made hot fudge sundaes. She called them black and whites.

“Sure,” I said. “I'm the ice cream. You're the fudge.”

“I don't understand.”

I told her about the sundaes. “Maybe I'll make one for you sometime.”

“I'd like that,” she said.

“Billie!” called a voice.

Apparently someone in the crowd did know me. Surprised, I looked around. In the sea of dark faces I spotted Noah, gigantic, his hand raised in greeting and his friends spread out around him. Noah grinned, and I waved back.

In front, directly ahead of us, was the organ console where Gus, tiny but fierce, was in her glory. Instead of a single keyboard, the organ had three—two stacked like ledges in front of her, and a giant one below for her feet. When she played, her whole body was involved, moving, swiveling, dancing. I wondered how organists could ever go back to playing the piano.

Instead of waiting for the preachers, the people had started without them. They stood and sang, waving their arms in the air. Every few seconds someone would call out: “That's right!” “Lord Jesus!” “Yes, indeed!” I had heard about churches like this but had never been inside one. The closest I'd come had been late at night, listening to the radio, tuning in stations from Memphis and Atlanta, when the music had poured out like syrup.

There were three arches across the front of the sanctuary, echoing the arch of the stained-glass window. Behind the pulpit, the center arch was the biggest, with steps leading to an altar that was lined with beautiful dark wood and crimson carpet. Beyond the altar, towering over the room, was the bank of organ pipes, and beneath that were chairs like thrones for the pastor and other church officials.

The smaller arches on either side had a low, wood-paneled railing across the front, and behind the railing was the choir loft. Some choir members were already there—standing, singing, clapping, their blue robes flowing as they moved. Beside them were some other people who weren't wearing robes.

Jarmaine and I made our way to the front. I noticed a place behind the organ bench where we could sit and lean against the wall, just below the choir loft. That's when I noticed how hot it was. The day had been warm, and the heat had settled in the sanctuary. The crowd, stuffed into the room like sardines, must have numbered well over a thousand. I saw the flash of paper fans as people tried to stay cool, but it wasn't working.

Gus looked back and winked at us. She played the final notes of “A City Called Heaven.” Then, instead of stopping, she played chords with her left hand while thumbing through the hymnal with her right.

The congregation might have paused, but Gus didn't. She found a hymn she liked and flattened the page with her hand. Before she played again, she rocked back on the bench in our direction. She nodded toward the choir members right above us.

“That's them, you know.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Who else?” she said. “The Freedom Riders.”

I jumped to my feet and whirled around. The choir loft was above us, at shoulder height, so that even when standing, I had to crane my neck to see over the railing. There were flashes of color when the choir moved. Then I took a step back, and the people beside them came into view, wearing suits and dresses but no robes.

The Freedom Riders loomed over us, like actors in a movie when you sit in the front row. I looked more closely and saw that they didn't seem like movie stars at all but regular people—smiling, some bruised and swollen, a few I dimly recognized from news photos.

Gus leaned back on the bench and explained. “We wanted people to notice them, so we put them in the loft. God's choir, I call them.”

There must have been twenty of them. After the riot in downtown Montgomery, a second group from Nashville had arrived to show support for the first group of ten.

Beside me, Jarmaine scanned their faces and recited the names. “John Lewis. Lucretia Collins. Catherine Burks. Bernard Lafayette. Salynn McCollum. I guess Jim Zwerg and William Barbee are in the hospital. There's James Lawson—he's the one who trained them in nonviolence.”

Jarmaine gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth.

“What?” I said.

“Next to James Lawson. That's Diane Nash. She's here!”

Watching Jarmaine, I thought it must be exciting and a little unsettling to see your hopes and dreams standing in front of you. They live in a corner of your mind, safe and secure, and suddenly there they are in person, real but unpredictable.

As we watched, a man came up and whispered something to Diane Nash. She nodded grimly, excused herself, and followed him out of the choir loft.

Gus played hymn after hymn, and the people sang along. I felt like I was floating in a sea of music, eyes closed, face toward heaven. It felt different from my church. There, the people sat in their own little corner, tuning in and out of the service. Here, you couldn't tune out if you wanted to. The music grabbed you and wouldn't let go.

At eight o'clock, a heavyset man with glasses and a receding hairline stepped to the pulpit.

“Praise God, we made it!”

The crowd roared. I wondered how there could be so much love inside the building and so much hate outside.

The man smiled and said, “I'm Reverend Solomon Seay, pastor of Mount Zion AME over here on Holt Street. Tonight I have the best job in town. I get to introduce the saints of our movement—Dr. King, Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, James Farmer of CORE, and of course the Freedom Riders.”

The cheer was deafening. Jarmaine and I stood up again to see them. Reverend Seay named the Freedom Riders one by one without notes, and Jarmaine explained that Seay knew them because they had spent the night at his house. Then he introduced Dr. King and the other leaders. As a group the leaders walked over—right above us, close enough to touch—and hugged the Freedom Riders, with the same kind of awe on their faces that I'd seen on Jarmaine's.

I realized there might be only a few white people in the room, but some of those were Freedom Riders. After all, the riders weren't just Negroes. They were black and white, a mix. Wasn't that the point? Besides sitting in the front of the bus, they also had sat together, an integrated group in a segregated world.

By getting on the bus with their Negro friends, the white riders had earned their way into First Baptist Church. There were just a few of them, but they belonged here. Maybe I did too. I had walked with Jarmaine into the Greyhound station. I had climbed onto the bus with her. I had faced an angry crowd in Birmingham, and I hadn't backed down. After a lifetime of watching, I had decided to ride. Wasn't that worth something?

As the leaders filed back toward the pulpit, an explosion ripped through the night.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Gus flew off the bench, wrapped an arm around each of us, and pushed us to the floor. Stunned, we huddled like that for a few moments. When I got the nerve to look up, I saw flames through one of the windows.