Chapter 1
MATTIE BANKS
Montgomery, Alabama
“Gal, get those coins in that slot or you ain’t going nowhere.”
The driver on that first bus I’d incorrectly hopped on in my flustered state had fussed that at me. Now, here I was again. Fumbling. Hoping the driver on this right bus didn’t flare up with the same kinds of indignities.
Head held low, I tried putting those coins in, hoping other riders couldn’t see my face.
Unlike the coins I kept fumbling with, my tears were pooled in place, unfallen as of yet.
We had an agreement. Tears could flow all they wanted once I was safely situated back in the Colored section.
Not until then. And definitely not in front of some impatient individual responsible for driving me to freedom.
Mattie Banks, get yourself together!
Plopping my suitcase at my feet, I had the good sense to wipe my sweaty fingers on my skirt first. Scooping up fallen coins, I managed to get the first nickel in.
But that second one felt the need to make a fool of me.
I couldn’t do nothing except watch it slip from my shaky grip and roll backwards down the steps into the evening, as if escaping this uncertain journey.
That set the driver off.
He was fussing, close to cussing and calling me everything except a child of God and a nasty kitchen sink when the passenger waiting to board behind me intervened.
“Ma’am…”
Not that I knew every Colored person in Montgomery, but he was an older, unfamiliar gentleman. He hadn’t been at the bus stop a moment ago when I was praying for another way to handle this predicament. Maybe he was the heaven-sent angel I needed?
Watching him mount the bus steps, I had enough sense not to correct Mister Angel Man about my not being a “ma’am.
” I was sixteen, but from the back he wouldn’t have known that.
I’d had what Mama called “womanish hips” since turning thirteen.
Courtesy of my situation, they’d soon be on their way to further spreading.
Thanking him and standing aside, I watched Mister Angel Man deposit my rebellious nickel and his own fare before tipping his hat and descending the front steps.
Grabbing my suitcase, I followed him to the rear, hoping the annoyed driver wouldn’t take off just to prove a point, like some did, taking my precious ten cents with him.
I hate this double-entrance dance.
Drop your fare up front.
Hop off the bus.
Hightail it to the rear and board at the back like a less-than citizen.
It was a belittling ballet played to the melody of racism.
My great-granny’s days of slavery were finished, but that didn’t keep these White folks around here from using every opportunity to make themselves feel first-and-foremost. As if the rest of God’s creation was insignificant, or an absent-minded afterthought.
But right then, I couldn’t spend time on White folks’ foolery.
Not with my own world laying heavy on me.
A true gentleman, my angel mister let me board that Cleveland Avenue-bound bus ahead of him.
Good thing he did, seeing as how the Colored section was crowded with laborers and day workers who, unlike Mama and me, weren’t live-ins.
I didn’t feel like talking, but I was raised better than to not say hello to those I knew.
Last thing I needed was Mama hearing about me acting grown when I already had enough grown trouble of my own.
Trying to look normal and unsuspicious, I offered quick greetings to folks I recognized before claiming the last available window seat and breathing a sigh of relief that my nickel-fumbling hadn’t earned me too much attention.
No one stopped me, asked what I was doing on the bus that time of evening, or where I was going.
That had me feeling like I’d won something.
But my sense of winning disappeared the moment I sat and plopped that small suitcase on my lap.
Ain’t easy feeling victorious when you’re running from the first sin to the second.
I would have preferred being at the hand-me-down desk in the room Mama and I shared, listening to our tiny transistor radio and tussling with math problems, or getting gloriously lost in English Lit.
Or aiding Mama with the evening meal for the Stantons.
Setting dishes. Laying out linens. Taste-testing her mashed potatoes and gravy—the potatoes were always creamy, smooth perfection.
Helping her serve then heading over to Sadie’s.
Instead, I was shrinking in that seat clutching a suitcase as if it was my lifeline to a better time.
Truth was, I was lost. Desperate.
Womanish hips didn’t make me more than a scared sixteen-year-old Colored girl without options.
Sadie said it won’t take but a few minutes.
Good sense should’ve had me running in the opposite direction, but I was in no position to ignore help and decided to credit Sadie with knowing something I didn’t.
Sadie James and I had been thick as thieves since my moving to Montgomery when I was three.
Like sisters, we fell out regularly but couldn’t stay mad at each other on account of I was Mama’s only child, and Sadie was her parents’ youngest, and only daughter.
We needed each other. What I didn’t need was Sadie’s occasional superiority.
That high-yellow girl with pretty hazel eyes acted as if having four big brothers, a librarian for a mother, and a dentist for a father helped her know things, made her an authority on life despite being sixteen right along with me.
Nine times out of ten, Sadie’s “knowing” was as reliable as a milk pail with no bottom. But like I said, I was desperate.
Lord, please let me live to regret it.
I’d rather live with a broken heart than bleed to death out there on the edge of town after Miss Celestine finished between my legs.
“I’ll come with you, Mattie, if you want me to.”
Lord knows I’d wanted to take Sadie up on that offer. Instead, I faked being braver than I was, telling her to stay at her house—where I should’ve been, working on a school project—in case Mama called.
“I’m not nobody’s actress, Mattie! What if Miss Dorothy does?”
“Answer the damn phone like normal, Sadie, and tell Mama I’m in the bathroom! Or something. Just make it sound legitimate.”
I knew better than fibbing or saying “damn” like some foul-mouthed man, but I was terrified.
Lord, please don’t add dishonesty and profanity to my growing list of sins.
Staring out the bus window, I suddenly wished I was Catholic, not Baptist. Wished I had one of those long pretty rosaries.
Some tangible comfort to occupy myself with while praying to the gracious mother of our savior, begging her atonement for the iniquity I was about to commit, and those I’d already transacted.
She’d understand. The virgin was a woman and knew something about limitations and predicaments.
Having no such pretty beads, I fiddled with the handle of the suitcase Miz Stanton no longer needed.
Mama’s employer had given it to me despite the fact that she didn’t pay my mother wanderlust money.
The best we could come up with was heading to Louisiana each summer visiting relatives while the Stantons vacationed all over God’s glorious earth—bringing home marvelous memories and trinkets for Mama and me to relish, envy.
Watching the streets of Montgomery pass by I wondered what privilege felt like. Privilege might’ve given me another way, an opportunity.
Dear Lord, I promise Sadie and I tried all kinds of scenarios. This is the only one that makes sense, and the best we could come up with. I repent for not knowing something different.
The tail end of that prayer wasn’t for God but for me, or rather what I was hiding behind that second-hand suitcase pressed against my midsection. That suitcase was small enough to fit underneath the seat, but I needed it right then more than it needed me.
“Little Miss…”
I knew the voice without looking. It was the guardian angel of my runaway nickel. I’d been so busy staring out the window wishing up another way, that I didn’t notice him taking the seat beside me. I had to blink away tears just to see him clearly.
His voice was quiet. Calm. He had a kind face with a fascinating birthmark, sort of like a pollywog swimming near his left ear. “Here. Use this.”
I wanted to decline the spotless handkerchief his wife must’ve pressed. But it was either that or wipe my sleeve across my face like a little kid. Lord knew I wasn’t that. “Thank you.”
His response was a gentle smile that made me wish my daddy wasn’t dead.
Vacating his seat as the bus eased to the curb, he faced forward, as if I deserved to cry with dignity, without anyone looking.
Guess the little boy across the aisle didn’t see it that way. He was so busy staring, I figured I’d smeared snot across my face.
Turning the hankie over, I made good use of it, catching a hint of lavender water similar to what Mama used when ironing. Tidying myself, I realized Mister Angel Man hadn’t solely left to grant me privacy, but because the Colored section was at capacity.
He wasn’t the only man standing. Others had joined him in the aisle allowing the ladies now boarding in the back to sit in their places.
A woman, smelling delicious, like fresh fried chicken, and wearing a domestic uniform plopped her weary-looking self beside me—a stained apron draped over her purse, and ugly-sensible shoes on her feet.
Obviously, she did the same kind of work Mama did, but without being a live-in.
Giving her a polite semi-smile, I resumed window-gazing as if answers to my problems lived outside.
Suddenly, that window was a barrier keeping solutions at a foggy distance.
Or perhaps that was my warm breath distorting the glass with hazy illusions.
Had me feeling that if I could break that window and reach creation my answers could get free.
I don’t know.