Night on Fire (15 page)

“He's with the Lord. They're jammin' right now. Sometimes late at night, I hear them.”

I asked, “Is the meeting here? You know, for the Freedom Riders.”

“Yes, indeed. Eight o'clock tonight. You coming?”

“We're here,” said Jarmaine.

“You're early.”

“So are you,” I told her.

She studied me, friendly but curious. “What's your name?”

“Billie. This is Jarmaine.”

“I'm Gussie Mae Hall. You can call me Gus. Everyone does.”

She held out her hand, and both of us shook it. Her fingers really were warm.

“Why are you so early?” I asked.

She noodled a few notes on the keyboard, and the sanctuary came alive.

“Well, it's this way,” said Gus. “Husband is gone, son off at school. What else am I going to do?”

“Are you playing for the meeting?” asked Jarmaine.

“Sweetheart, I play for everything. Weddings, funerals, services—me and the Lord, we always show up.”

I had to smile. Gus talked about the Lord like he was somebody she saw every day, and maybe she did.

Since Gus had shared, I figured we could too.

“We came to see the Freedom Riders,” I told her.

“And Dr. King,” added Jarmaine. She described our trip from Anniston. I told what had happened to us on the bus and in the station.

Gus stared. “You integrated the Birmingham Greyhound station? Two teenage girls?” She snorted. “You're either foolish or brave.”

“We had help,” I said, thinking of Noah and his friends.

Jarmaine yawned. I wondered how early she had gotten up that morning to catch the bus. Gus noticed too.

“There's time before the meeting,” she said. “You want a place to lie down?”

Jarmaine glanced at me, and I gave a little nod. Suddenly I was tired too.

“Yes, ma'am,” Jarmaine told her. “Thank you.”

“I know just the place,” said Gus. “It's quiet, and no one will bother you.”

“Is there a bathroom?” I asked. “That's one thing we didn't integrate.”

Gus smiled. She slid out from behind the organ and showed us the restrooms. Afterward, she took us to a tall staircase off to one side of the narthex. Light streamed down the stairs from windows at the top. As we followed Gus up, I looked at the wooden steps, worn smooth and polished, and thought of all the people who had climbed them.

Gus must have heard me thinking. “This building was finished in 1915,” she said, “but the first one was built in 1867, two years after the Civil War. Slaves used to worship at First Baptist on Perry Street, where they had to stay in the balcony. When emancipation came, a bunch of them rose up one Sunday, marched across town, and declared they were starting their own church right here.”

So, the two First Baptists used to be one church. They had touched after all.

At the top of the staircase was a door into the balcony, with more pews looking down on the organ pipes and pulpit.

“This is nice,” I said, eyeing the pews and thinking I'd like to lie down on one.

“Yes, it is,” said Gus, “but it's not where we're going.”

She started up a second flight of stairs. They took us to an attic with rough wooden floors and brick walls, where boxes and equipment were stacked. I looked for a place to lie down. I didn't say anything, but the balcony seemed nicer.

The ceiling had open beams, and a ladder came down from between two of them. To my surprise, Gus knotted the hem of her dress and mounted the first step.

“Where are you going?” asked Jarmaine.

Gus said, “You'll see.”

She nearly bumped her head at the top, then reached up and pushed on the ceiling. I was amazed to see a rectangle open up and swing back. It was a trapdoor. Apparently the attic had an attic. Sunshine poured through. Gus's head disappeared, then her shoulders, and finally her legs and feet. Jarmaine and I looked at each other.

I shrugged. “Here goes.”

Climbing the ladder, I stuck my head through the opening and into the light.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

It might have been heaven.

We were in a room that was more than a room. Brick walls opened wide all around, two windows on each. I realized we were in the big tower. If the windows were eyes, as they had seemed from the street below, then we were behind them, gazing out.

I scrambled up into the room, then turned and helped Jarmaine climb through the opening with her basket. We stood up and looked around.

“My daddy brought me up here when I was a little girl,” said Gus. “Years later I brought my son. I'll bring my grandchildren too, Lord willing.”

Gus stepped aside, and we saw what was behind her. In the middle of the space was a big metal wheel like a gear, braced by a network of two-by-fours, all of it painted the same rust color as the bricks. A railing wrapped around it, and above, hanging from the ceiling, was a heavy iron brace shaped like shoulders. Below it, where the heart would be, hung a giant bell. It was gray with white splotches, like an ancient rock you'd find in a field. On the bell, in raised letters, was a list of names, apparently deacons in the church. And there was a message.

P
EACE ON
E
ARTH
, G
OOD
W
ILL TO
M
EN

R
EV
. A. J
ACKSON
S
TOKES

E
ST
. 1866

“I thought the church was built in 1867,” said Jarmaine.

Gus smiled. “It was. Can you figure out why the bell shows a different year?”

I studied the words, as if the answer might be written in code. Then it hit me. “The building was done in 1867, but the church started before that.”

“You've got it. The congregation formed in 1866 and raised the first building a year later. But it was made of wood, and in 1910 it burned down. So they rebuilt it, using bricks. In fact, they called it the Brick-a-Day Church, because church members brought a brick a day to help with the building. When it was finished, they had this bell made for the tower. You might say the church was built to hold it.”

Jarmaine murmured.

“What was that?” I asked her.

“Something my mother used to tell me. ‘First you dream it; then you build it.'”

I thought of Daddy sitting on my bed at night, giving me words to think about. Lavender must have done the same with Jarmaine.

Beneath the bell was a square opening going all the way down to the first floor. Two thick ropes hung from the bell, brushing the railing three stories below.

“Would you like to hear it?” asked Gus.

The idea startled me. “The bell? Is that allowed?”

“We ring it Sunday morning and on special occasions. I'd say this is a special occasion, wouldn't you?”

I nodded eagerly.

“Why are there two ropes?” asked Jarmaine.

Gus reached over the railing and touched one of them. “When you pull the first rope, there's a single toll. That's for funerals, sending a soul to heaven. The second one's for Sunday morning. It rings the bell over and over again—you know, like a celebration.”

Gus handed the second rope to Jarmaine. “Go ahead. Pull.”

Jarmaine's eyes opened wide. The rope lay in her palms like a prize. The daughter of a daughter of a daughter of slaves, she gripped the rope and gazed at the bell. She pulled, hard, as if trying to break their chains.

The tower erupted. If the organ music had been a river, this was the ocean, wide and deep. It started as a low moan, then shook the tower like an earthquake. I could feel myself vibrate. The sound was inside my chest. The bell was ringing me.

Watching it, I was surprised. “I thought the clapper would swing, but it doesn't move.”

Gus smiled. “The clapper is still, and the bell swings around it.”

I liked that. Maybe I could ring too, if I just stood still enough. Then the people and the world and the sky and stars could swing around me.

When the ringing died out, Jarmaine handed the rope back to Gus. I walked to one of the windows, and Jarmaine followed. The opening, one of eight around the room, started at our shoes and ended a foot over our heads, with an arch on top. I stretched out my arms and barely touched the sides. Up close, I realized the opening was actually covered with wire mesh so no one would fall.

We were looking down on Ripley Street, at the front of the church. Diagonally across the intersection of Ripley and Columbus was a grassy, parklike area with graves.

“That's old Oakwood Cemetery,” said Gus, who had come up behind us. “It started out in the early 1800s as Scott's Free Burying Ground, because it was free to everyone, even Negroes, and in Montgomery that was unusual. Behind the original section there's a newer part called the annex, which includes graves for members of England's Royal Air Force, who trained here during World War II, and the country music singer Hank Williams.”

I said, “Hank Williams? He's one of my daddy's favorites. He sang ‘I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry.'”

Gus looked out over the rows of graves. “I guess some of the slaves would have agreed with that.”

Directly across Ripley Street was another grassy area with trees and benches.

“That's our park,” said Gus.

“The church owns it?” I asked.

She and Jarmaine exchanged looks.

Gus said, “Not the church—the people. It's the only park in Montgomery where Negroes are allowed.”

I thought of the parks we had ridden by in the bus and had walked by on our way across town. Apparently they were for whites only.

“Really?” I said.

“You're learning a lot on this trip,” said Jarmaine.

I pointed to the park. “Then what are those white people doing?”

A group of about twenty men milled around, talking and smoking. A line of cars and pickup trucks was parked nearby.

Gus's eyes narrowed, and she grew thoughtful.

“I don't know,” she said.

“It can't be good,” said Jarmaine.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Gus found blankets for us, then left us there to nap. I stretched out and tried to sleep but couldn't. When I closed my eyes, I could still see the bell and hear it ringing.

After a few minutes, I opened my eyes. Jarmaine had been lying next to me, but she had gotten up and was sitting by the window, hugging her knees to her chest. Her face reflected the afternoon sun. I'd seen before that she was proud and determined. Now I saw that she was pretty. The sun made her skin the color of coffee mixed with cream. She had long lashes and deep brown eyes.

“What do you see?” I asked.

“I was thinking. I miss my mother. I feel bad about sneaking off. I didn't want her to worry, but now she will.”

I pictured Lavender and tried to imagine what she was doing. It occurred to me that Lavender often looked worried, but I hadn't noticed. There were lots of things about her that I hadn't noticed or had taken for granted—her soft touch, her gentle voice, the way she brushed my hair.

“When I was little,” said Jarmaine, “sometimes I had trouble sleeping. She would sit on the bed and sing a lullaby—‘Hush, Little Baby.' It made me feel safe. Then I could fall asleep. But she would still be worried. You raise up your children and protect them, then you have to let them go. They make mistakes and get hurt and run off without telling you.”

“We're doing what's right,” I said.

“It's right for us. Hard for our parents.”

“Our mothers still love us. They have to.”

Jarmaine shook her head. “They don't have to do anything.”

“Yes, they do,” I said. “They have to love us. It sounds selfish, but it's true.”

Jarmaine grunted. I could tell she was thinking about it.

“Fathers too,” I said.

She looked up at me, and I remembered she had never met her father.

“Oh, I'm sorry.”

“What's it like?” asked Jarmaine.

“Having a father?”

It was something else I hadn't thought of. It just was.

“I like it, I guess. He's not like Mama. He's loud. He tells stories. We play football. People like him and want to be around him. I don't know—he's just Daddy.”

I thought of the disagreements he sometimes had with Lavender. “What does your mom say about him?” I asked.

“You want a nice story or the truth?”

I swallowed hard. “The truth.”

“Promise you won't tell anyone?”

“Yes.”

“She doesn't like him,” said Jarmaine.

She watched me for a reaction. I tried not to show it, but it hurt.

“She doesn't like many white people,” Jarmaine added quickly.

“I thought she was, you know, part of our family,” I said.

“My mother has a family,” said Jarmaine. “There are two people in it.”

Maybe Jarmaine was trying to make me feel bad. She had succeeded.

“If we're not her family, what are we?” I asked.

Jarmaine studied my face. “You ever see a water moccasin?”

“The snake?”

She nodded. “They live in marshes and streams. They're poison. Step on them, and you die.”

“You think we're like that?” I asked.

“White people are dangerous. That's what my mother told me.”

Lavender swept our floor and set our table and made apple cobbler, all the while believing we were dangerous. The thought was alien, like we had landed on the planet Mars.

Jarmaine gazed out the window and shook her head. “You and I are different. I told you that before.”

“It doesn't have to be that way,” I said.

“Oh really?”

“Look at us. We're doing this together, right?”

“You think that makes us alike?”

“Maybe we want the same things,” I said.