And Ruin Followed Behind Her

Chapter 1   “I don’t gotta do nothing no colored woman tells me to do,” Duncan Lewis sneered at me. I planted my feet and gritted my teeth, trying desperately not to march over to his desk and scratch out his eyeballs. The classroom “oohed” and “ahhed” as their eyes ping-ponged back and forth from the hulking brood at the other side of the room from me, the perturbed, black teacher standing at the front of it. Duncan was a behemoth of a man in a boy’s body. He stood six foot three with buzzed, blond hair and bloodshot, brown eyes. His thick forearms folded across his chest, which swelled with pride at his racist statement. “I’m not going to tell you again, Mr. Lewis,” I said, trying my best to project authority when I had clearly lost any that I might have had. “Go to the principal.” “Make me, Ms. Freeman,” he replied. Any shred of respect the students held for me had dissolved five minutes ago, when Duncan hurled a spit ball into my long, straight, bleached white hair. It stuck in like glue, leading the whole room to burst into laughter. Still, I didn’t back down. “I’m waiting,” I said, glaring. “I can see that, Julia,” he replied, stoic. “You’ll be waiting ‘til the cows come home.” I fought the urge to leap across the desk and toss him through the window that backlit his broad shoulders. The way he sneered my first name, like he knew me. I wanted to desperately to fight, but that wasn’t how I was taught. My mama taught me to capitulate to white folks, because they will string up uppity negros as a lesson to others. I knew that truth all too well. I combed my fingers through my hair one more time to pull out any spit left on it. My hair didn’t used to be straight and bleached. I used to have a big, beautiful afro that would turn Pam Greer green with envy. But that was back in Chicago. Back when I was in school, before I moved home to take care of my mama in Chandler, Colorado. In this town, black folk lived on the other side of the tracks, where they wouldn’t offend the sensibilities of good, Christian, white folk. I dared to step across that track and apply for a job at the school all the white kids attended. Sure, segregation had been over for some years by 1974, but it’s not like black folk could just move across town on a moment’s notice, especially not to a house that cost double what they could afford, so they just stayed put and kept going to the same school just like they always had. There wasn’t really a black school and a white school any more, not legally, but things hadn’t changed so much since the 50s around here—no matter what the courts said. The principal gave me a job teaching history, somehow, but nobody was happy about it. They called it affirmative action, and they called me a “token,” but here at George Washington High the pay was a lot better than across the tracks at William Howard Taft High, and I deserved that money. I worked hard for six years to get a Master’s in history, but in order to get that money I had to capitulate to make the white folks happy. That meant I couldn’t keep my afro. Now, my hair was “appropriate” for school and appropriate for Chandler; but that didn’t matter. I still didn’t get any respect. “You are ruining your peers’ education,” I said. “No more than you,” Duncan replied to a room of chuckles. “I ain’t the one tainting the classroom with my colored ideas.” I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t back down, and I certainly couldn’t take him on myself. I’d tried calling security into my classroom a dozen times before, and they were about as helpful as Duncan. Nobody wanted me here, except for me. It got deadly quiet in the classroom as we stared each other down. The air left the room, replaced with swirling eddies of tension. Thankfully, the bell rang, breaking the spell. The students groaned under their breath as they collected their things. They wanted a fight. They might still get one, but not today. There would be plenty of time for fighting in the future, though. Tensions don’t just fade away in Chandler, they built under the surface until something snapped. “Alright, class,” I said with a smile. “Since this distraction didn’t give us any time to study, we’ll have our quiz on chapters seven and eight next time without any preparation. Please study these chapters.” The class groaned again as they walked out of the classroom. They all wanted to be Duncan in that moment and stand up to me, but the truth is that Duncan was pathetic. He was the star football player, and he was dumb as a rock. Teachers passed him because he could hit people well and catch a ball. He would get to college on a scholarship if he managed not to blow out his knee, but eventually he’d be back here working in a gas station, dreaming of his glory days for the rest of his life. Then again, I ended up back here too, so what does that say about me? Duncan strolled up to the front of the room and cracked his knuckles on my desk. “I think I’m just gonna take the A and skip that test, Julia.” I laughed, looking him straight in the eye. “You don’t have to come to class, but you will get an F.” “You don’t know how this works, still, do you? You’re the token hire, the joke. Nobody wants you here.” I leaned over the table. “Then we have something in common. Neither of us wants the other one here.” The loudspeaker creaked and crackled as it screeched through the room. “Ms. Freeman, please report to the principal’s office.” Duncan pointed to the loudspeaker. “See?” He strolled out as if he owned the place. He did, of course. In Chandler, he mattered more than me. That fact stung every day, but my mother beat it into my head enough. At least if you know the system, you can work around it. *