Gone Crazy in Alabama

The next morning Pa gathered us around for what was usually a Pa and Delphine talk. The talk where he told me everything I needed to know to get my sisters and me safely to our destination. This time Vonetta and Fern were also under his chin as he spoke.

“I don’t want to hear about you two acting up on the ride down.” Vonetta and Fern gave him cow-eyed innocence but Pa smiled, knowing better. “Delphine, I don’t like putting this on you, but if anyone asks, you’re thirteen.”

“But twelve rides cheaper, Pa,” I said. I only had a few months before I became an official teenager. I could wait, but I didn’t want to admit that to my father.

“Can I be eleven?” Vonetta asked.

Pa said, “Ten’s good enough for you.”

“And eight’s great.” Fern found her spot and jumped in. She rhymed and played with her words like she played with peas, butterbeans, and mashed potatoes at the table. It was those poetry letters to and from Cecile that got her playing with words at every opportunity.

I sang, “I’ll bet we’ll save a few dollars if I ride as my real age.”
Mrs. picked up the tune. “Did someone say save a few dollars?” It was good to hear Mrs. joke for a change. She smiled but her skin looked dull and greenish.

“Good one, Marva,” Pa said. “But we don’t need the whole world worrying about kids riding on a bus without an adult.”

Mrs. had been lying on the couch and propped herself up. “Louis, honey. Maybe we should-”

But Pa put his hand up, and to my surprise, Mrs., an out-and out women’s libber, closed her mouth and lay her head back down on the sofa pillow. Mrs. smiled, but I could see how tired she was and that her eyes were losing their sassy spark. I hated to see Mrs. change. It had taken a while, but I had gotten used to her beaming and grinning at Pa, calling him “old-fashioned” and “country.” I had gotten used to Mrs. talking her women’s-lib talk. It was funny how Big Ma had always warned Pa that Mrs. would upset the household. As I watched her grow quiet, tired, and nauseous, I knew it was the other way around: Pa was changing Mrs. before Mrs. could upset the house.

“There’ll be a bunch of kids going down south to spend the summer with folks. A few parents on the bus to keep an eye on things. They’ll be fine,” Pa said.

“Honey, don’t you think-”

“Sweetie, you worry too much, and you know that’s not good for you,” Pa said. He pointed his finger at Vonetta and Fern. “I mean what I say: I don’t want to hear about you two causing a stir, having the world looking at three colored girls, wondering where their father and mother are.”

“They won’t,” I said.

Then Vonetta said, “We won’t,” raising her voice over mine. “We know how to act on a bus trip.”

“And we act splendidly on a plane,” Fern said. “Splendidly and perfectly.”

They both said together, “Or on a train.” Vonetta punched Fern in the shoulder first. “Jinx!”

Pa shook his head. “That’s what I mean. None of that bickering and hitting. One minute you’re play-fighting. The next minute you’re cats in the alley. You can’t have any of that on the bus.”

“We won’t,” they chimed. Chimed and lied.

“Well, I better not hear about it,” Pa said. “I better not get a
call from the state police.”

“You won’t, Papa.” More chiming and lying.

“I mean it. You two, mind your sister. You hear?”

“We will.” Their notes were high, sweet, and fake. Even Pa shook his head.

Instead of driving the Buick Wildcat from Brooklyn to the Port Authority in Manhattan, Pa drove us down to Newark, New Jersey, to catch the Greyhound. He said it was to save a few dollars but I knew better. If Pa wanted to save money, I wouldn’t be traveling down south as a thirteen-year-old adult. I’d pay the children’s fare like my sisters, and Pa would have told one of the bus-riding mothers to keep an eye on his little girls. Pa’s first thought wasn’t to save money. He drove us to Newark because he wanted to spend time with us. Just us.

“Mind yourselves down there,” Pa said. Even though we’d been south visiting Big Ma and her mother, Ma Charles, when we were younger, Pa felt the need to remind us, “The South’s not like Bed Stuyvesant and you can’t get more southern than Alabama.” To Vonetta, he said, “Don’t go grinning at every white kid trying to make friends. Stick to your own and you won’t have any problems. If they call you a name, keep your mouth shut and walk away.” Then to Fern, he said, “Don’t ball up your fists at everyone who says something you don’t like.”

“We can handle white kids,” I said. “We can handle racist names.”

“And racist oppressors.”

“Trying to keep the black man down.”

Pa shook his head. “That’s exactly what I mean.” He looked to the sky. “Why did I send you girls to Oakland?”

“So we could be strong black girls,” I answered, although the real answer was so we could see our mother.

“Black and proud.”

“Black and loud.”

“Power to the people.”

“None of that while you’re down there. Delphine, this is no joke. None of that black power stuff in Alabama. Black Panthers strut about in Brooklyn and in Oakland, but they’re not so loud and proud in Alabama and Mississippi. Once you cross the line from North to South all of that black power stuff is over.”

“So we better get it all out now!” I said. My sisters and I started chanting, “Ungawa, Ungawa. Soul is black power.” Then, “Free Huey, seize the time!” and every other Black Panther slogan we learned last summer in Oakland with Cecile and the Black Panthers.

Pa let us get it all out of our systems and then he said, “You had your fun. I need you to listen. Really listen.”

“Yes, Papa,” I said, taking the silliness out of my voice.

“The South isn’t like Brooklyn. You’re not freedom riders going down south to kick up some dust. You girls have some mouths on you; I don’t know who to blame for that-your mother, Marva, or those Panthers. I want you to stay together. Don’t let one separate from the other. I’m counting on you, Delphine. Keep your sisters in line and together.”

Pa sounded like his mother, Big Ma, worrying about white people. But Pa’s voice was steady and firm and his eyebrows pinched together. He meant for us to hear his every word. Our grandmother used to fuss with us so much that all we heard was the fussing and not the words. That was when Big Ma lived with us in Brooklyn on Herkimer Street. But then Pa married Miss Marva Hendrix and Uncle Darnell left us and Big Ma got on a Greyhound and returned to her house in Alabama. Like the title of my sixth grade teacher’s favorite book, things at our house in Herkimer Street fell apart.