Warriors Don't Cry (37 page)

When some of
The Mikado
actors in full makeup appeared in the hallway, I was naturally curious. I must have relaxed my guard as I stared at them a bit longer than I should have.

“Hey, nigger,” one of them yelled at me across the hall, “I’m made up to be almost as black as you.” That started a whole round of taunting in the hallway. I snuffed out the spark of delight growing inside me, donned my warrior veneer, and walked away.

The segregationists’ campaign against us seemed to get even worse during that week. Sign-carrying, card-dispensing, tripping, kicking crusaders revved up their efforts to reduce our number to zero. Meanwhile Mrs. Huckaby, the woman I considered to be somewhat near fair and rational about the whole situation, had lapsed back into her attitude of trying to convince me there was nothing going on. It seemed like whenever I reported anything to her, she would work herself up into a lather: I was seeing things; was I being too sensitive, did I have specific details?

When she stopped behaving in a reasonable way, it took away the only point of reference I had. I desperately tried to understand how such an intelligent woman could be reasonable and understanding one moment, then seem so cold, distant, and dispassionate the next. I supposed that she must be under an enormous weight and doing her best. I tried to see the overall picture—to remember that over the long haul, she had been a tiny pinpoint of light in the otherwise very dark experience of dealing with Central High’s administration. But once again I had to accept the fact that I shouldn’t be wasting my time or energy hoping anyone would listen to my reports. I was on my own.

By the end of that week I had flashed endless smiles in response to negative deeds or words. If God was giving stars in crowns in heaven, as Grandma always promised, I’d earned two or three.
BY Saturday morning, as my family rushed about the house making breakfast and doing household chores, I lay with my face down in my pillow, hoping they would be quiet. But it was not to be. I had an early morning phone call from Link.

“I need your help,” he said. “I want you to come with me now.”

“You’re crazy. You know we can’t be seen together.”

“It’ll be okay. I promise. I’m going where it’ll be safe.”

“Where?” I asked.

“You’ll see. Meet me on the other side of the bridge—just inside North Little Rock.”

I was confused about meeting him. I wondered whether or not this was the trap the KKK asked Link to set for me so they could get rid of me.

“Please, Melba,” he pleaded. Hearing the urgency in his voice I decided to do what he wanted. I felt queasy as I explained to Mama and Grandma that there was a big emergency with Thelma and I was going to visit her. It was the first time in my life I had ever looked them in the eye and told an untruth. They were reluctant to let me go, but I promised I would stay in our own neighborhood where it was safe. I prayed for God’s forgiveness for lying as I drove away.

I spotted Link’s car, just on the North Little Rock side of the bridge. In broad daylight, I parked my car and got into his. He told me we were going to Nana Healey’s house. I didn’t say much as we drove along. It felt awkward being with him. Although we had talked lots on the telephone, he was in some ways a stranger—a white stranger. Sitting next to him made me wonder again who he was and what he wanted with me. I tried to close my mind to Grandmother’s words: “The only thing a white man ever wants with one of our women is personal favors.”

The neighborhood got more and more dismal. It was a part of town where our people lived in awful, run-down chicken-shack houses, some in such bad condition that they looked as though they’d fall down any moment. Folks stood around in clusters talking. There were groups of men dressed in ragged, filthy clothing, drinking from liquor bottles as they chatted. I’d seen places like this before on those rare occasions when Grandma and I passed through as we went to visit friends or our relatives in North Little Rock. Being there made me feel so fortunate that Mother had her teaching job. Without that job, I might very well be living in a place like this.

“Hey, why so quiet?” Link touched my arm, and I turned to face him.

“I’m frightened, I guess.”

“I’m not gonna let anything happen to you. You’re a lot safer here than inside Central, aren’t you.”

We pulled into the yard of one of the shabbier places. I wanted to turn and run. Instead, Link opened the door and reached for my hand as I stepped out into a puddle of water. He teased me about being graceful and having shaky ice-cold hands as I watched him fumble with the key to the trunk.

“Well, don’t just stand there, grab a bag.” He was pulling bag after bag of groceries out of the trunk and stacking them on the hood of the car.

“She hasn’t got any kin, so I’ve got to keep her fed.”

“Why you? Where are her own people?” I grabbed two bags of food and followed as he led the way.

“She hasn’t got any people. She worked for my family all her life. As a young girl, she worked for my grandparents. When Daddy got married, Grandmother sent her to him as a kind of gift. She’s been with me all my life.”

“Why isn’t she with your family anymore?”

“’Cause she got sick—real sick. My folks let her go, just like that, after all the time she’d been so good to us. She’s got no money for a doctor. She won’t take my money. I think she’s got tuberculosis. But I don’t know for sure.” He knocked on the weather-beaten door.

“Nana, it’s me. May I come in?” His voice was loud but ever so gentle as he called out to her. A feeble voice called back. Holding bags of groceries in his arms, he pushed open the door with his elbow.

There in a dark room sat an aged woman, her profile etched against the sun shadow in the one window of the room. Long silver-gray hair in braids framed her lined face, which was worn and weary. Wrinkled skin was stretched taut over protruding cheekbones. Her fingers were stiffened into position as though she were holding an apple, but her hands were empty.

As I moved closer I could see she was wearing a freshly starched, flowered cotton dress just like my own grandmother might have worn. Her appearance was immaculate, her posture was erect, and she tilted her chin upward, demonstrating her own dignity and pride despite her circumstances.

The tiny, bare shack was spotlessly clean. It was one room with a makeshift bathroom in plain view. In one corner there was a cracked sink, over which a slab of a broken mirror hung. Despite the rundown condition of the few pieces of furniture and the torn curtains on the window, there were touches of pride all around. A picture frame on her night table held a photo of a small boy with blond curls. It must be Link as a child, I thought.

“Nana, I want you to meet my friend Melba,” Link said, raising his voice to an ear-shattering level. Then he leaned over to whisper to me, “She can’t hear good, go closer. I want you to convince her to see a doc, somebody you know and trust.”

“Your friend?” said Mrs. Healey.

“Yes, ma’am, she’s my friend, aren’t you, Melba?” He was talking loudly and grinning at me as though he wasn’t certain of what I would say.

I didn’t say anything, turning instead to read Mrs. Healey’s reaction. Her expression was angry. She could barely move about or speak, but she gathered her strength, and after a long moment she said, “Boy, you’all are gonna get yourselves in a heap of trouble. You know better.”

“Yes, Nana.” He knelt beside her and took her hand. “Don’t you worry about it. I’ll handle it. You talk to Melba while I make a cup of tea for you.” He took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and began putting the groceries away. I watched as he placed staples in the splintered wood cabinet and on the sagging but meticulously lined shelves above the sink. He behaved as though he had performed those same tasks many times before.

“Mrs. Healey, you’re looking very nice today.” I drew near to her.

“Well, I don’t feel so good. But I gets up and dresses myself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” Suddenly her emaciated body was racked with a cough. She reached for the handkerchief tucked in her sleeve. On and on she coughed. Link turned from his chores, staring at her with a pained expression on his face. He reached for a cup from the cupboard and filled it with water. Holding it up to her mouth, he gently helped her to drink from it.

“Nana, we gotta get you to see a doc.” He nudged me with his elbow. “Your turn,” he whispered to me.

“Mrs. Healey, this sounds like the kinda cough that isn’t going away real soon unless you get some doctoring and the right medicine.”

“Oh, I’ll be fine,” she said, clearing her throat. “Jus’ takes a while for me to get my bearings after one of these spells.” Her voice was raspy, and the coughing started again. On and on she coughed, her feeble body shaking as I tried to hold on to her.

Link got a cold cloth. I held it to her head, and the coughing finally stopped. I made up my mind I was going to help Link get a doctor to come and see her.

After a while, he went back to his work. He opened the door to the icebox. The wheezing old appliance, without light, looked as though the inside panels were ready to fall. It was empty until he started packing shelf after shelf.

“Wolf was about to get you, Nana,” he said. “You’re running kinda short.” They giggled to each other as though they understood without speaking.

We spent the rest of the morning there with Mrs. Healey. She coughed continuously as we went about our chores. Link again urged me to convince her to take money for a doctor. He said I could tell her it was a loan from the church. I agreed. Watching him tend to Mrs. Healey, I would never again have reason to question his motives.

There was silence between us for a long time as we drove away. And then I couldn’t help asking, “And why didn’t your folks make some provision for her?”

“Whenever I ask my folks, my father turns me off by saying I’m weak—that I’m a you-know-what lover. He says colored folks are used to doing without, and I ought not spoil them.”
I FOUND a doctor in our community who did not know Mother Lois or Grandma India and asked him to go to Mrs. Healey’s. When I spoke with the doctor later, he said there was not a lot he could do for Nana Healey except make her comfortable. What she really needed was long-term care in a hospital. I asked if she was dying, and he told me yes. One of the hardest things I ever had to do was tell Link. There were tears in his voice as he spoke through a rush of anger.

“Damn my folks. They didn’t even pay social security for her. She’s got nothing. I share my allowance with her, and some of the folks in her church give her a few pennies. But they’ve got nothing like what it will take for a hospital. I’ve gotta go now, I’ll take care of it.”

I decided that I had to tell Grandma India about Nana Healey. It took time, but Grandma got over her anger at my disobedience, and sure enough, she promised to visit Mrs. Healey on her weekly trips to North Little Rock. So in the end Link and Grandma formed something of a friendship as they discussed all the tasks surrounding Nana Healey’s care which compelled them to get to know each other.

The lengthy and bitter Little Rock Central High School integration case will be reopened at 9:30 A.M. today in Federal District Court under an Arkansas judge. Judge Harry S. Lemley of Hope will take over from Judge Ronald N. Davies of Fargo, N.D.
At issue is a Little Rock School Board petition asking for a postponement of integration at the school. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has asked that the petition be denied.

Reopening that case meant my year of suffering was in vain. If the school board was not committed to integration, how could Central’s students be expected to accept it. Even if the NAACP was successful in getting the petition denied, it set a tone segregationists would seize as a weapon against us. Downhearted couldn’t even describe how low I felt.

To cheer myself up, I decided to wear my Easter dress to school, the one Mother and Grandmother had made for me. Lately, the ink spraying had slowed down a bit in favor of more exotic torture. Even as I entered school that morning, I could tell the prospect of the hearing had already put wind into the sails of segregationists. “Won’t be long now,” one boy hissed as I entered the door. “Don’t phone or drop us a card ’cause we ain’t gonna miss you, nigger.”

I had survived the whole day and was walking through the hall to the Fourteenth Street side of the school to go home. A boy approached me, behaving normally, so I paid him no mind. As he got closer, suddenly I felt the warm liquid spray across my chest. Ink. The front of my new dress was soaked with ink spots. Before I could get away, he danced around to my right side and showered me once more.

I ran toward the exit as I held back the tears brimming my eyes. Suddenly Link was there a bit ahead of me on the walkway.

“What happened?” He stopped dead in his tracks. I tried not to let him see how upset I was. I wiped away my tears.

“Shhhhhhhhh, don’t talk to me.” I kept walking, but he followed.

“Melba . . . stop. Are you all right?”

“Get outta here,” I shouted at him. Just at that moment a group of boys approached us. Link paused, but I kept moving toward them as though nothing could stop me. I was determined to make it to the car, which waited at the curb to take me home. Suddenly, one of the boys moved closer to me and drew back his fist.

“Hey!” Link shouted. “You like the way I redecorated the nigger’s dress. Looks better than it did before, don’t you think?” The boy turned to answer Link and then started snickering. I darted around him and into the car. As I looked back, Link stood with them, laughing and chatting. I couldn’t stop my tears.
IN the days that followed, we were repeatedly warned that nothing mattered more than avoiding any activity that would get us expelled. Now the hoodlums were mounting a last-ditch effort to get us out of school before May 29th. They wanted no possibility that we could register for the next school term.