Ghosts of Cabeceo Past, Part 2

What color was her coat? the policeman asked. The girl with the knife, what color was her coat?

It had a lot of colors, I said. Black and white with sometimes red or blue or green, too.

Plaid, my mother said.

Not plaid, I said. Not lines. Spots. But not spots like circles. Square spots.

Checks, my mother said.

I shook my head. Kind of like really little, like circle-squares. Really little ones, black and white, and then the colors sometimes.

Herringbone? The policeman asked. He showed me a swatch. Does that look right?

I shook my head stubbornly. We had been at this for a while. I knew exactly what the girl’s coat looked like. But to save my life I could not describe it.

Something was on the tip of my tongue. Later, I saw that Two-of-Six had the same kind of coat. But right at that moment, my mother impatient and the policeman insistent, all eyes on me and me failing the test, all I could see was the knife.

I wanted to pass the test. I was trying to describe the coat right. But I wished really hard in my heart they wouldn’t make me do it. Because then they would go find her. And she would know who had tattled.

Plaid, my mother repeated in the tone that said, Are you going to quit messing around or do I need to whack you?

Plaid, the policeman wrote.

I said nothing. I was ashamed to be stupid. I was ashamed to deceive them, by my silence to lie. But I was a little bit happy, too.

I felt a tiny lick of power, like the shy, rough tongue of a cat.

* * *

My school district was a checkerboard of neighborhoods.

At the center, Ferndale was blue collar, rich in children and immigrants.

A few blocks to the north, Pleasant Ridge was wealthy and WASP and self-contained.

A few blocks to the south, sandwiched between my neighborhood and Detroit, Royal Oak Township was Black and the streets were not paved.

This posed a problem for the school district officials.

Imagine a clock.

At the number one, the middle school.
At three, my elementary school.
Royal Oak Township was 7.
My house was 8.
Roughly.

Draw a line from my house to my elementary school. Now draw a line from Royal Oak Township to the middle school. Do it so the lines don’t intersect.

See?

Racial violence was a way of life in Detroit. To keep the little kids safe, school openings were timed so that the elementary school kids were safely stowed away before the middle school kids took to the streets.

It was a good system.

Unless someone messed up.

* * *

My father was always gone to work early. Some days my mother had to catch her bus before we girls left for school. No big deal. We knew the drill and we were good kids. The older sisters watched out for the younger ones, or we looked out for ourselves. Easy.

One day in the fourth grade, somewhere along the way to school, I remembered that I had forgotten my homework. Or possibly the survey forms.

My sisters or my friends and I were taking a survey: Who is your favorite rock star? We had made forms for all the kids in our class, and we were going to hand them out that day.

The survey idea was brilliant! But looking back, I very much hope that I went back for my homework and not those silly forms. Can you imagine, one of your life’s defining moments arising from “Who’s your favorite rock star?”

I can imagine that. It would fit my life exactly. As a matter of fact, that may be the sweet moment in this story. Little One Heart was one clueless child. I love her for that.

Don’t go back, my sisters warned, you’ll be late for school.

I would hurry. I would run. Dash in the back door, up the stairs, grab the stuff, down the stairs, out the back door and down the block. I would not be able to catch up to my sisters, but I would get to school right on time, or maybe just after.

I ran.

The back door was locked.

Somehow appeared Mike, a boy in my class. He was short and thin. I was tall and heavy. He jimmied a basement window, slipped in, ran up the stairs, unlocked the door.

I raced up the stairs, grabbed my stuff, raced down the stairs, out the back door.

We had no way to lock it behind us.

Mike went inside, locked the door, crawled out the basement window.

Now we were late-late. We had never been this late before. It was nice. Quiet. For once, the streets were deserted. Why rush? We sauntered along, chatting.

Please refer to your drawing of the clock. See Mike and I, sauntering across the face of the clock, from 8 to 3. See the middle schoolers, sauntering from 7 to 1. Our paths intersected at the end of my block.

No one had told Mike and I about the grand scheme of keeping the little kids safe. No one had told us there was even such a thing as violence. We hadn’t even learned about war yet. Not even on TV.

The only violence I had known was my mother’s shout and slap. Occasional kicks from Five-of-Six. Pea-shooters. Spitballs.

I was such a softie I couldn’t play sports. I couldn’t do violence to a kickball; the crack of bat against ball made me cringe.

When the girls walked closely behind us, that was just like my sisters. We walked in bunches like that. The girls were laughing and talking. Mike and I were, too.

Then they got louder, then they got quiet.

When you’re a little kid playing with big kids, quiet bears checking out.

Subtly. Quickly.

I half turned, held up my survey forms, said brightly, Who’s your favorite rock star? and looked the biggest girl right in the eye with my happy Little One Heart sunny smile.

!

!

!

It wasn't the knife that threw me back on my heels. It was the malice in her eyes. It ate me alive. I could not move nor look away.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, the knife on its way to Mike’s back. It was going to go in just above the line of his pants, to the right of his spine.

I remember the spot exactly. I remember her eyes. She was aiming for a major organ. Did she know what she was doing? I refuse to believe a middle schooler is capable of intending murder; I believe she meant to harm, not to murder. But I also remember her eyes.

I grabbed Mike, dragged him to the closest house, where Roxanne lived. Pounded on the door. Shouted. The girls ran away, jeering, before the door opened and we discovered why Roxanne talked funny: At her house, they spoke only Russian.

* * *

The next thing I remember is the ordeal of trying to describe the girl’s coat.

If I knew then what I knew now, I could have said it in a word: tweed.