I looked past him to see Curry walking toward the van.
“Curry,” I said, and we both immediately turned, getting to our knees to grab the placards.
Curry opened the van door. “Need some more signs,” he said, looking from me to Win and back again. “You two just lookin’ for trouble, ain’t you?”
“Here,” I said, handing him three of the placards. “Have some signs.”
Curry took the signs from me, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe we could be so stupid. Or so obvious. Then Win and I got out of the van and started walking toward the gathering, our own arms weighed down with placards.
“I like your shirt,” he said as we walked.
“Not as much as I do.” I felt giddy with the joy of being with him. Giddy with the joy of walking next to him again, our bare arms brushing against each other.
* * *
There was a good crowd at the protest. I’d worried about that after what happened last week with the rock-and-bottle-throwing melee that had ended with little DeeDee getting that cut on her cheek. I saw only Mr. Hunt in the crowd tonight; he wasn’t going to risk his family by bringing them here again. Still, he waved to me across the green with his usual friendly smile.
So the whole Hunt family might not have been there, but many others came, even more than the week before despite the threat of violence, and they held our placards or ones they’d made themselves and marched around the courtyard, calling for their right to vote.
There were a few policemen in the street and some hecklers, but no one threw anything that I was aware of, and after an hour or so, we fell into a circle as naturally as if we did it every night. We crossed our arms, held hands, and began to sing “This Little Light of Mine.” It was then that I saw my brother. Buddy walked around the circumference of the circle, searching faces for, I assumed, mine. When he reached me, he grabbed my shoulders and pulled me from the circle.
I turned to him. “What are you doing here?” I asked, as calmly as I could.
“I’m here to talk sense into you!” he shouted over the singing. Grabbing my arm, he drew me another few yards from the circle so he didn’t have to shout to be heard. “You need to know what you’re doing to your family.”
His eyes were bloodshot and I smelled beer on his breath. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“We love you, Ellie,” he said, his voice thick with emotion and booze. “We love you more than anything.” Was he going to cry?
I grabbed his hand. “What’s wrong, Bud?” I asked. “Is everyone okay?”
“Ronnie told me he saw you with a colored boy,” he said, “and you weren’t just holdin’ hands. His cousin Rosemary said you’re in love with him.”
I swallowed, my nerves on fire. “I care about him,” I admitted. I dared to hope that my brother, who I knew loved me more than anyone, would understand.
“Are you crazy?” he asked, his arms flailing about. “What are you thinkin’? This whole … I knew this whole SCOPE thing was a bad idea, but I don’t think you know how hard you’ve made it for your family. And when people find out you been … you’re hangin’ around with that boy, it’s only gonna get worse.” His voice was rising. I’d seen Buddy drunk more than a few times and I recognized those red eyes. The sputter when he talked.
“Settle down,” I said.
“No white man’s ever gonna want you, Ellie. You think Reed’ll take you back once you been with one of them?” He nodded toward the circle.
“I’m doing really important work here,” I said, ignoring his question. “I tried to explain it to Daddy but—”
“Do you know the FBI has your name? They have the names of all you SCOPE people. All the … Martin Luther King fanatics.”
“I don’t believe that,” I said. “And so what, anyway? Are you crying?” There were tears in Buddy’s eyes and I stepped forward to wrap him in my arms. “You’re worrying too much,” I said softly, my lips close to his ear. “I’m fine and healthy and happy and—”
He pushed me away so hard I nearly fell. “I got a friend down at the police station in Carlisle,” he said. “I know you spent a night in a jail cell. I didn’t tell Mama and Daddy because holy hell’d come down on you, Ellie, but you got to come home. Whatever you’re up to here is no good and you’re gonna get hurt. I mean, physically hurt.”
“No I’m not,” I said. “I’m not worried about it so you shouldn’t be either.”
“Has that boy touched you? Tried anything with you?”
I remembered Win’s arm around my shoulders only an hour before. “It’s none of your damn business!”
“You got to come home, Ellie.”
“Daddy told me I can’t come home again,” I said.
“You know he didn’t mean it. And there’s somethin’ he ain’t tellin’ you.”
“What?”
“He’s lost customers ’cause of you doin’ this.”
“Lost customers? Why?”
“Everybody knows you’re out here, doin’ what you’re doin’. Tryin’ to change things when they’re just fine the way they are. Some of Daddy’s longtime customers are taking their business to the Dellaire Pharmacy. I’ve lost a few folks, myself, and Mr. Cleveland—Garner’s daddy—raised my rent by five percent on account of what you’re doin’. Mama’s friends are givin’ her a rough time of it, too. Plenty of gossip she’s gotta deal with. So it ain’t all just about you, Ellie.”
His words upset me, I couldn’t deny it. I didn’t want my actions to hurt my family, yet I had to do what I thought was right, didn’t I? Keep my eyes on the prize. “You don’t understand,” I said. “You haven’t seen what I’ve seen these past few weeks. You don’t understand the political situation. You’ve never met the real people who suffer every single day because of the way things are.” I started to choke up with the truth of what I was saying. “You don’t know what it’s like for the people I’m trying to help.”
Blotches of color had formed on Buddy’s cheeks and neck, a telltale sign he was having trouble holding his anger in. Even as a little girl, I knew to run and hide when his cheeks turned red like that. He stood in front of me with his hands on his hips. “Right now I don’t give a shit what it’s like for those ‘real people’!” he shouted. “This has nothin’ to do with them. It has to do with how you’re hurtin’ your own kin. I’m only tryin’ to protect you against yourself, ’cause you ain’t thinkin’ right, little sister.”
“I’m not going home, Buddy,” I said.
“His name is Winston, right?” he asked, startling me. “Goes by Win?”
He knew his name. That scared me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Which one is Win, huh? Your spook boyfriend? Which is he?”
It was all I could do to keep from smacking him. He turned to look at the circle of people. They were singing a lively “I’ll Fly Away.”