Night on Fire (14 page)

Jarmaine told me that some of the riders climbed over a wall and tried to take cover in the courthouse. While the flag waved, the mob caught them and pulled them down. The riot lasted for an hour, by which time a thousand people roamed the streets, setting fires and beating anyone with a dark face. Finally, state troopers and mounted sheriff's deputies arrived and dispersed the mob. They arrested just a few people, including a white couple who had been helping the victims. Somehow the Freedom Riders escaped or were taken to the hospital, with the help of some Negro taxi drivers.

Blood and violence filled my mind as we glided down Court Street, its sidewalks empty. I wondered where the rioters were. Maybe they were resting or coming home from church.

The bus reached the station a few minutes after two. The white passengers rose and filed out, while Noah and his friends hung back, letting them go first. It seemed odd, since we had made such a point of sitting in the white seats at the station and on the bus.

Noah must have noticed my confusion, because he smiled and winked. “Got to give them something, right?”

His group closed their baskets and gathered their things, then Jarmaine and I followed them down the steps of the bus and into the loading area behind the station. The driver had opened the luggage compartment and was handing suitcases to the white passengers. When he finished, I saw that the suitcases belonging to Noah and his friends were jammed into a corner of the compartment, separate from the bags of the white passengers.

The driver checked his schedule and headed for the station, leaving the suitcases in the compartment. Noah didn't seem surprised. He nodded to a young man in the group, who began unloading them.

Meanwhile I was eager to see where we were going. I approached a white woman standing nearby.

“Pardon me,” I said, “but I'm looking for First Baptist Church.”

She led me to the side of the loading area so we could see around the station, then pointed to a beautiful building on the next block with a red, domed roof and a cross on the top.

“That's it,” she said. “First Baptist.”

I thanked her and returned to the others. Noah and his friends were just getting the last of the bags, and Jarmaine was with them.

Noah turned to me. “Big day.”

“Are you going to the church?” Jarmaine asked him.

“Not yet. Some of us have family here. We'll spend the afternoon with them.”

He peered toward the station and waved. “There's my sister now. She has a lineup of cars ready for us. Want to come?”

Jarmaine and I exchanged glances.

She said, “I'd like to see the church.”

“I found out where it is,” I told her.

Turning to Noah, I said, “See you tonight?”

He nodded, smiling, then picked up his suitcase and lumbered off with the others to meet his sister.

Jarmaine and I moved toward the back door of the station and discovered there were two. White passengers filed in through the main door, and Negroes took a side entrance into a dingy, covered area on one side of the building. We might have considered going through the white entrance, but a police officer with a rifle was stationed by the door, probably because of the violence the day before. He glared at us. It made me mad that he had picked us out from among the crowd, but I also felt proud. Maybe Noah was right—we really were Freedom Riders, or at least we looked like them.

Reluctantly we walked through the door marked
Colored Only
and realized we weren't inside the building at all. It really was just part of the alley, where a wooden roof covered a broken-down version of the bus station. The floor was paved with asphalt, and one wall was the outside of the brick building. There was a “lunch counter,” which consisted of a little window that opened on the back of the kitchen. The only people there were a haggard-looking woman and her squalling baby. Apparently the other passengers had moved through the area as quickly as they could.

I'd been in three Greyhound stations that day, each more segregated than the last. In Anniston the wall between the races was mostly in people's minds. In Birmingham it was marked off with signs. In Montgomery the wall was made of bricks.

We moved through the station and onto the sidewalk. The sun lit up the street where, just yesterday, the Freedom Riders had been attacked by a thousand people. I noticed a stain on the sidewalk and wondered if it was blood.

For years I had dreamed of coming here. Sitting on my bed, I had watched the buses rumble by and had imagined myself on them, going to Montgomery. It was the capital of Alabama, where excitement was in the air and important things happened. Now that I was here, something about the place seemed strange and out of kilter, a little bit like my town but bigger and meaner.

Across the street and up the hill was a parking lot, and on the other side, one block over, was the white church with the big, red dome.

“There it is,” I told Jarmaine.

“It's beautiful,” she said.

Thinking about the meeting and eager to see the place, we hurried off toward First Baptist Church.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

As we approached the church, Jarmaine stopped.

“Something's wrong,” she told me.

“Buses were burned,” I said. “People were beaten up and thrown in jail. Of course something's wrong.”

“I mean the church.”

I studied the building. It looked fine to me. The services were over, but a few people still wandered in and out.

“You don't see it?” asked Jarmaine.

“It's nice.”

“The people,” she said. “They're white.”

What was obvious to Jarmaine had been invisible to me. White was normal. White was fine. You looked right past it and didn't think twice.

In Anniston, I had realized that sometimes Negroes were invisible to me. Maybe white people were too. Maybe everything was. I'd been drifting through life, sleepwalking, dreaming my silly dreams, thinking I was alive.

It was different for Jarmaine. White was white, black was black, and you'd better know the difference. Life was painful, but you were alert. Colors were bright. Sounds were distinct. Every moment was precious.

I wanted to live that way. The Freedom Riders had jolted me awake. I was rubbing my eyes, trying to take it all in. I wasn't there yet, but I had taken a step or two.

A tall, well-dressed woman walked toward her car, wearing gloves and carrying a big purse. She noticed us and tried to go around, but I stopped her.

“Pardon me,” I said, “but is this First Baptist Church?”

“Yes,” she said, glancing nervously at Jarmaine.

“Is the meeting tonight?” I asked.

She stared at me blankly.

“You know,” said Jarmaine, “the one with Martin Luther King.”

The woman drew back, as if the words might soil her gloves. She said, “You must be looking for the other First Baptist Church. It's over on Ripley and Columbus.”

Gripping the purse, she hurried off.

In Anniston, there were two schools that called themselves the Panthers. In Montgomery, there were two First Baptist churches. Two worlds, side by side, sharing names, never touching.

Jarmaine watched the woman go, then gazed back at the church. “I thought the building looked awfully nice.”

“How do we find the other one?” I asked.

Setting her basket on the sidewalk, Jarmaine dug around inside it and pulled out a map.

“I brought this just in case,” she said.

On the front was printed
City of Montgomery
. Jarmaine unfolded the map and spread it on the sidewalk. We found Court Street and the Greyhound station at the lower left. Then, using the index, we searched for Ripley Street. It was eight blocks east, on the right side of the map. Another six blocks north, Columbus Street crossed it. First Baptist Church—the one we wanted—was all the way across the downtown area.

I said, “I guess we should have gone with Noah after all.”

Jarmaine shrugged. “We can walk.”

“How far is it?” I asked.

She checked the map, measuring the distance with her fingers. “About a mile. You can walk a mile, can't you?”

Jarmaine was smiling, but there was an edge to it. I could almost hear the words in her mind.

Some of us don't have cars or bikes. Some of us use our feet
.

“Sure,” I said. “Of course.”

Jarmaine eyed me, then folded the map, put it away, and picked up the basket.

“Follow me,” she said.

From the bus, the hills had been pretty. On foot they didn't seem that way.

It was fine at first. From the domed church we went downhill on Perry Street. Since it was Sunday, the stores and office buildings were closed. There were only a few people around, most of them Negroes who, like us, were walking.

It was turning out to be a hot day. I wished I'd brought a hat to block the sun, and I wasn't thrilled with the shoes I had chosen. I had pictured myself in church and had put on a pair of white sandals to go with my dress, never stopping to think that the straps might bind and the soles were as thin as paper. After a few blocks I was already limping. When Jarmaine noticed, she just shook her head.

At the bottom of the hill we looked off to our right and saw the Alabama State Capitol, high on a hill. I'd seen pictures of it in schoolbooks but never in person. It had columns across the front and a big dome on top. The building had always seemed perfect to me, but now, thinking about the Freedom Riders, I wasn't so sure.

Then we started uphill. It was like walking from Forsyth's Grocery to my house, times ten. I felt every pebble and bump. My pretty summer dress hung on me like a tent, and it was soaked under the arms.

We passed a store with a sign on top shaped like a boot, with words on it:
Old Shoes Made New
. I could have used some help, but of course the store was closed. Jarmaine, up ahead, just kept walking. She had on a comfortable pair of shoes, like the ones Lavender wore at our house. Jarmaine had been carrying the basket for the whole trip, and suddenly that didn't seem right.

“Can I carry the basket?” I asked.

She took one look at me and laughed. That didn't sit too well, so I stepped forward and grabbed it.

“Hey,” she said.

“Get used to it. We're on the same team, you know.”

She laughed again, but this time it didn't sound so bad.

We went up a hill and down another. When we got to Columbus Street, we turned right. We spotted a bench at the bus stop and plopped down for a rest and a snack. After a few minutes we set out again.

Guess what: a hill. Columbus Street was a long, steady slope, with a redbrick building like a beacon at the top. I carried the basket and transferred it from hand to hand, sweating like a pig in a dress. I lowered my head and put one foot in front of the other.

Finally, I looked up again. We were standing at the top of the hill. The redbrick building loomed overhead. On the side of the building, in a glass-covered case, was a sign:
First Baptist Church
.

I heard organ music.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The song was “Amazing Grace,” and the notes spilled out like water. Every so often they would pause, swirl, and tumble on. They formed a river and then a waterfall, pouring over the edge and crashing below.

I stepped back and studied the building. It was like a castle with a cross on top. The base was built of smooth, brown stones, and the red bricks, actually more of a rust color, had been stacked on top of those. On the Columbus side was a big stained-glass window with an arch on top. The church faced Ripley Street, and on the front were two towers, one taller than the other. The big tower, at the corner, had four points at the top, and just below those, on each side, were two open spaces looking out over the street like eyes. Between the two towers, at street level, were concrete steps leading up to an imposing front door. We climbed them and went inside.

The lobby—church people called it the narthex—was painted bright white, and the sun shone through the windows to make it glow. Straight ahead, a set of doors had been thrown open and music poured out. It wasn't a hymn this time but scales, starting slowly and picking up speed. We approached cautiously and peered through the doorway.

It was a cavernous room with row after row of curved wooden pews, red carpet leading to the front, and, at the side, the stained-glass window we'd seen from the street, blue and green and purple, lit up like a torch. The ceiling arched high overhead. There was a balcony at the back. In front was a big wooden pulpit, with banks of golden organ pipes covering the wall behind it.

“Yoo-hoo!”

The music had stopped. I looked around to see who was calling. There was movement off to one side of the pulpit, then a hand sticking up from behind the organ console, waving. Jarmaine and I made our way hesitantly to the front. As we approached, I realized the wooden console was huge, the size of a boat.

I figured the organist must be huge too, like the Wizard of Oz that Dorothy and her friends had imagined. But, like the real Oz, the person behind the console turned out to be small and stoop shouldered. Seated on a gleaming wooden bench, with keyboards in front of her and pedals below, was a little brown lady. She wore a flowered dress, her hair was pulled into a bun, and she was smiling.

“Beautiful, isn't it?” she said.

My gaze swept across the sanctuary. “This is yours?”

“Not the church,” she said. “The music.”

Jarmaine said, “We heard ‘Amazing Grace.'”

The woman nodded. “I always play that first. Gets the juices flowing. Then I do scales to warm up my fingers.”

“They seem pretty warm already,” I said.

She chuckled. “My husband used to say that. Played the trumpet. My but he could blow that horn. He passed ten years ago.”

“I'm sorry,” said Jarmaine.