Chapter 11

While Marian and Harvey had made up over the “tiff” involving their son, he was still more or less withdrawn from the family. Like many men who think power will make them happy, had Harvey taken the time to evaluate things, he would have realized that he was not happy. Even then, he wouldn’t have been able to put his finger on just what the burr under his saddle was. Harvey Wilson didn’t have much in the way of philosophical musings in his life. He was used to making up his mind about what he wanted, and then getting it. While that was happening, more or less, at work, the only thing he was getting at home was sexual submission. Even that wasn’t as satisfying as it could be, since his wife was such a wanton little thing in bed. He didn’t have to conquer her that way. But in all the other ways he wanted to ‘rule’ at home, he was frustrated. But, as was already said, he didn’t think about that. All he did was get meaner.

His children, though, went in the complete opposite direction. The more they saw of the world, and the people that populated it, and the more they learned about life, the more they questioned the social tenets they had been taught as children. They were, for example, excruciatingly aware that the health class they had just attended had broken all kinds of social rules, at least as they had been taught those rules. Still, what they all felt was glee ... glee at having been able to confront a mysterious and troubling subject in the open light of day, with somebody around who actually knew the answers, even if she didn’t seem to want to give them up all that easily. And the promise that they would learn even more in the days to come made them almost giddy with the excitement of getting that information.

When the kids got home that day, they were still digesting the information they had gotten in health class. They were unusually quiet as they sat down at the kitchen table for their regular after-school snack.

“Mighty quiet in here,” commented their mother.

“Long day,” said Nathan.

“After all that working for sixteen hours a day, you think sitting in school is a long day?” she asked curiously.

“Work is different ... I guess,” said Nathan. He was wary. Like most children he was aware that parents seem to have eyes in the back of their heads sometimes, and the thought that his mother might somehow find out about the class, and jerk them out of school, worried him a lot.

“So,” said their mother, just making conversation. “What did you study in school today?”

All three children squirmed in their seats.

“Oh, just some history, and reading ... stuff like that,” said Bernadette, shooting warning looks at her siblings.

“Oh? What kind of history?” asked Marian, still just trying to make conversation.

“Did you know a Negro woman invented that thingy that they use at the beauty shop to curl our hair?” blurted Hilda Mae, dredging up the first thing she could think of that might head the conversation away from what they actually studied that day.

“You’re joking!” laughed Marian.

“No! Really!” said Bernadette, climbing on board anxiously. “It’s true. Her name was Madame something or other, and she invented a whole bunch of creams and powders ... Oh, I can’t remember the right word for them...”

“Cosmetics?” asked their mother, turning to face the girls.

“Yes!” squealed Hilda Mae. “She invented cosmetics!”

“What in the world does that have to do with history?” asked Marian, flabbergasted. “If it’s even true.”

“It’s true!” said Nathan, leaning forward in the back seat. He too was trying to keep the subject going. “Miss Flossie has a book and its full of pictures of people who invented things.”

“So it’s Miss Flossie, now ... is it?” asked Marian. “When did this happen?”

There was an uncomfortable silence in the room.

“It almost sounds as if you like this ... teacher.”

“She’s okay,” said Nathan, sensing trouble. “I mean she talks about all kinds of things, and sometimes it’s interesting.”

“I see,” said Marian. “And does she ever say anything good about a white person?”

“Oh sure,” said Nathan as carelessly as he could. “All the time.”

“Such as,” probed their mother.

“Well, Eli Whitney, for example. He invented the cotton gin.”

“Well everybody knows that,” snorted Marian.

“I didn’t,” said Hilda Mae, trying to help out. “Not until Miss Flossie taught us that.”

“Hmmmm,” mused their mother. “I must learn more about what this ... Miss Flossie ... is teaching you. Your father insists you’re not learning anything of value. Perhaps I should find out for sure.”

She pulled her apron off. “I had to go to the market today, so I have the car. I need to pick up your father. Bernadette, if you’d start the beans cooking that I left on the stove. I’ve already put a roast in the oven. Hilda Mae, I need to teach you how to make biscuits. It’s high time you girls started helping out around here. You need to learn to cook and sew and such or you’ll never catch a husband.” She looked at her daughters, both of whom were looking back at her with startled expressions. As Marian left, Bernadette heard her mother say something else. “As if you could find anything around here anyway.”

“What, Mamma?” asked Bernadette leaning out into the other room.

Her mother jerked her head around to face her daughter. “What? Oh ... nothing, dear. I was just talking to myself.”

The Wilson siblings weren’t alone for two minutes before they were whispering about their mother’s suggestion that they weren’t learning enough in school. They had stopped talking about school at supper, because it usually got their father on a rant.

“What are we gonna do?” asked Bernadette. “I don’t want to have to quit going to school now!”

“Just answer her questions,” said Nathan. “You’re smart ... smarter ‘n me.”

“Why thank you, dear brother,” said Bernadette smiling. “But I’m not sure that’s true any more. You’re listening a lot better in this school than you did in the last one.”

“That’s because we get to talk about things that are interesting,” said Nathan.

“Like sex?” asked his sister, grinning.

Nathan didn’t say anything for a long stretch of seconds. Then he cocked his head.

“Think about it Bernie,” he said, calling her by the nickname he had used when they were small. “Would you have even said that a week ago?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Would we have even talked about sex a week ago?” he asked.

Her eyes got wider. “I guess not, huh?”

“Before we came here, would you have ever even thought about saying in public that you heard me through the wall?”

“I’m really sorry about that Nathan, honest,” pleaded his sister. “I just got mad and it sort of blurted out.”

“I’m not upset about that,” he said calmly. “I was then, I admit, but not now. Look what happened because you said that. I learned more about ... sex ... today than I learned in my whole life before this. I can even say the word. Sex. Sex sex sex!”

Both girls were shushing him, looking around. Nathan started dancing around in the kitchen chanting “sex!” in a singsong voice. Bernadette went to the window, as if she expected to see people outside, listening, while Hilda Mae chased him, trying to hit him.

“Would you shut up!” she yipped. “What are you gonna do if the neighbors hear you?”

“See there!?” he crowed. “Here I am dancing around and yelling that word, and you’re not upset about it. All you’re worried about is the neighbors. That’s what I mean. Our lives have changed, and it’s Miss Flossie who did that!”

“So ... is that bad?” asked Bernadette, troubled.

“No!” said Nathan explosively. “It’s not bad. I feel alive. I used to worry about stuff, because I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. I used to think I was the only boy in the whole world who got a stiff... “ He stopped. “pe-nis” he pronounced carefully.

Hilda Mae giggled.

“What would you have done if I’d said the word pe-nis a month ago?” asked Nathan. “Right in front of you, like this?”

“I got to see your pe-nis a month ago!” laughed Hilda Mae. “And it was stiff as a board then!” She shrieked as Nathan grabbed for her, but it was all in fun. Hilda Mae began marching around the room, chanting “Pe-nis, pe-nis, I saw Nathan’s pe-nis.”

She knew enough to put the table between them, and as he went one way, she went the other, darting back and forth, laughing, while Bernadette stood to the side and laughed with her. Then Nathan vaulted the table, using muscles he’d built up over the summer. Hilda Mae wasn’t prepared for it, and he caught her as she whirled to run. His hands went around her waist and she squealed and struggled. In the process she tried to drop to the floor, and his hands slid up to cup her fifteen year old breasts, which were full and firm under his hands.

“Na-than!” she squealed.

He let go immediately, and she whirled to face him. He expected anger, but instead she stuck out her tongue at him.

“I saw Nath-an’s pe-nis,” she chanted softly. “I guess it’s only fair that you get to feel my boobies.” Then she reached out and brushed her hand over the crotch of his jeans, squealed like a stuck pig, and turned to run and hide behind Bernadette, who was standing with her mouth open, completely overwhelmed by what she’d just seen.

Nathan’s mouth was hanging open too, and he looked down. He was wearing corduroy pants that particular day, and they were loose. As he looked, he saw the bulge made by his obviously stiff penis. He hadn’t even felt it get that way. He looked up to see his sisters staring at the front of his pants. With a look of horror, he covered his crotch with both hands and ran for his room, slamming the door behind him. He threw himself on the bed, ashamed. First he had imagined his mother, and now he had gotten hard because of his sister. There had to be something wrong with him. He was a pervert ... mentally ill. There was a light tap on the door and his head jerked up.

“Stay out!” he screamed.

“Nathan? Please? I’m sorry!” came Hilda Mae’s voice through the door.

“Go away!” he screamed.

She apparently did. He didn’t go outside his room until his mother came and ordered him to come to supper.

“What’s eating him?” asked Harvey, nodding to Nathan, who sat, looking at his plate.

“He had a hard day at school,” said Hilda Mae quickly. “We did math, and it was hard.”

“What kind of math could that nigger teach you that’s hard?” asked Harvey, putting his fork down.

“Fractions,” said Hilda Mae immediately. “Multiplying and dividing fractions. And she started teaching us something called Algebra. I never heard of it before. It’s hard for all of us.”

In fact, Flossie had spent two weeks easing the older children into Algebra, while she planned her health class. She would normally never have talked about variables and algebraic equations, but she needed something that would challenge them so much they’d forget about ‘health’ class. It worked. Only Curtis Lee and Bernadette seemed to catch on easily. Ruth Ann just wasn’t interested, but she followed along. Nathan could see how this new thing could be valuable, but he had a hard time memorizing the formulas. Hilda Mae was the same way.

Harvey put down his fork and looked steadily at Hilda Mae.

“That’s a damn lie,” he said sternly.

“Harvey!” gasped Marian.

He looked at her. “It is. There ain’t no nigger in the whole world that can understand Algebra.”

“Daddy,” said Nathan casually, “They have niggers up in the big city that teach college, and they teach algebra there.”

“That whore probably told you that,” said Harvey, his face getting red. “That cock-sucking whore is filling my children’s head with bull shit, and I have had about e-nough of it!”

“Harvey!” shouted Marian, almost rising from her chair.

“Give me your pen, Daddy,” said Bernadette, holding out her hand. She looked scared, but her voice was steady.

“What?”

“Give me your pen!” she said, her voice louder.

He responded out of habit, more than anything.

“Now, give me a number.” Bernadette waited. Finally her mother blurted out “sixty-one”. It was 1961, and Marian had just looked at the calendar earlier to plan a day to go over to the library.

Bernadette wrote on her paper napkin, scribbling a series of calculations. She finished and handed it to her father. “That’s the square root of sixty-one to four decimal points. Is that correct?”

Harvey stared at the napkin. His lips moved, and he reached for the pen. It was plain he was struggling with the numbers in his head, and he made a half dozen pen strokes on the napkin. His eyes bulged.

“How’d you do that?” he gasped.

“That nigger woman taught me how to do that,” said Bernadette calmly. “Not all niggers are stupid, Daddy. And Miss ... that nigger woman knows a lot of things. It’s school, Daddy. Aren’t we supposed to learn things?”

Thankfully, Harvey was too flabbergasted to hear her almost slip, and use the ... honorific... “Miss” that Bernadette had slipped with. Her mother did not miss it, and she frowned. Harvey stood up.

“I’m goin’ to bed,” he said heavily. He looked at the napkin, his hands hanging limply by his sides. “I had a hard day. I’m goin’ to bed.”

He turned and trudged to the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

“That was a very foolish thing to do, Bernadette,” said her mother. “You embarrassed your father.”

“He embarrassed himself!” said Bernadette, before she snapped her mouth closed and looked down. “I’m sorry,” she said instinctively.

Marian looked at her children. Only two of them were looking back at her, but the look in their eyes was something she had never seen before. It was challenge. And it wasn’t the kind of challenge that a young child shows when he wants something he can’t have, and throws a tantrum. This was clear-headed thinking. She felt a shiver go down her spine.

“You’ll drive your father to do something we’ll all regret,” she said softly.

“Why does he have to be that way?” asked Nathan.