Chapter 4

Rosie Devlin was a transfer from one of those swamp states - Mississippi, Louisiana, someplace. Her father got sick of big city life and I guess wanted to live off the land or some kind of macho bullshit like that. SO they moved up here and bought a few acres and he was trying to make a go of it as some kind of gentleman farmer. Why he picked this region, way the hell up here I didn't know, nor did I ever find out.

Rosie breezed into the school during the second semester of the 1960-61 school year, acting like she owned it and instantly got the attention of all the junior high boys. She was what they call black Irish. Big blue eyes, freckles, long limbs and oceans of black hair just spilling all over her shoulders. And for some reason, she set her sights on me.

I was sitting in the cafeteria with Tabby, a couple of weeks after school started again, when she came over to my table and just sat down without bothering to ask if she could.

"Hi. Bobby, isn't it?" she chirped, opening up her lunch bag and completely ignoring Tabby, who started to simmer on a slow burn. Her voice made me think of mint juleps and lazy days on the porch while the magnolias waved in the breeze, but I somehow got the feeling that there would probably be a poison worm in the bottom of the julep glass and the magnolias were rotten.

I felt caught in the middle, but I didn't want to be rude, so I said, "Bobby Torrence, yes."

She smiled a big, sharklike smile that showed a lot of incredibly white teeth. I guess it was supposed to be a fetching smile, but all it reminded me of was a picture of this fucking plant called a Venus Flytrap that I saw in the science book. She didn't want a fucking introduction; she wanted to gobble me up and spit me out.

"Hi, Rosie Devlin," she continued to chirp in that molasses and magnolia voice, leaning forward and grabbing my hand and giving it a shake. "I'm new here."

"Uh, welcome to Salmon Lake," I said, carefully keeping an eye on Tabby, whose face was starting to get red.

"Oh hi," Rosie said, pretending to just notice her. "And who might you be?"

"Tabbitha Langston. And don't call me Tabby," she hissed.

Ooh, she was really pissed. Rosie, however, pretended not to notice.

"I think it's just nice of Bobby here," she said, still with that flytrap smile. "I mean, you being a black girl and all, and he's hanging out with you and -"

One of the things that hadn't been mentioned yet was the issue of Tabby's race. I knew she and her family were black - actually, one of only a few in the area, but I didn't care. And since they ran the local dairy, nobody daresd complain; who knew what they might put in the milk. Ha ha. Race riots had never really been a problem up here in rural southwest Washington, and I never gave a second thought to the fact that my best friend in the whole world was black. Her race was never an issue. It might've been had we lived in Seattle or Portland, where they had segregated neighborhoods, but out in our little one-horse town, nobody cared.

Now, here was this crazy girl from one of those alligator states trying to insinuate that I was doing Tabby a big ass favor by even bothering to breathe the same fucking air as her. Her family probably threw on robes and masks and burned crosses in yards back in Louisiana or wherever they were from. If I hadn't learned never to strike a woman, I probably would've laid her right out on the lunchroom floor amidst the candy wrappers and empty sandwich bags. But I was beaten to it.

I never saw the punch coming, but all of a sudden, perfect Rosie Devlin was sitting on her ass amidst a pile of her lunch things. Tabby was standing over her looking so insanely angry I was suddenly very very glad I wasn't Rosie. Then, before I could get off my ass and move, Tabby stormed off, knocking her chair over and leaving the cafeteria.

If it weren't for the seriousness of the situation, I would've laughed. Rosie was sitting there on her well-groomed ass in the middle of a spill of sandwich bags, on the dirty floor of our cafeteria. I heard a flurry of laughter from a few girls (Rosie had already apparently tried to steal their boyfriends) but before I could think about that, I suddenly found myself with a serious problem.

There was a hard hand on my shoulder and the voice of Mr. Henderson, the principal, was saying: "Someone is in a great deal of trouble Mr. Torrence. Come along now." And before I could really wrap my head around things, I was sitting in his office. As we left, I saw Mrs. Kearns, the school nurse, rush over to Rosie, after shooting me a disgusted glance.

"Want to tell me how Ms. Devlin ended up on the floor with a black eye, Mr. Torrence? Or do I need to make an educated guess?" he inquired, with a faint hint of sarcasm. I was sitting in front of his desk and he was leaning on it, looming over me. If I had really been the one in the wrong, I would probably be scared, but I hadn't been.

As it was, there were a thousand thoughts racing through my mind just then. First, there was no way in hell I was going to tell the principal that it was Tabby who had knocked Rosie on her ass, no way in hell. If that meant I'd have to take a suspension from school, I'd do it for Tabby. I didn't blame her at all for doing it either; there was not an ounce of I "wish she hadn't done that" in my thinking.

Second, if Rosie decided to lodge a complaint, she would probably finger Tabby as the one who hit her. She had revealed to me that she hated black people by her oh so patronizing statement in the lunchroom. Poor Tabby had walked right into a possible situation that would make Rosie feel vindicated that her hatred of the niggers was justified, and if Rosie's father was as rich as it seemed, based on her manner of dress and the fact that he had just scooped up quite a few acres of land with nary a thought, real trouble could be landing on the head of the Langston family. With the benefit of adult hindsight, I sometimes wonder if Rosie deliberately provoked that punch, although she was still only twelve like Tabby and I, and I don't like to think your average twelve-year-old is that cold bloodedly calculating.

So I was trapped between two opposing hammers. If I said I hit Rosie I would be suspended, no matter the reason. If I said Tabby did it, I would lose respect for myself, because I didn't take the fall for her. But Rosie would undoubtedly say that Tabby did it anyway, just because she didn't like niggers, even though, since she was only twelve fucking years old like the rest of us, she probably didn't have a clue and was only regurgitating what her family had fed her. I honestly didn't have a clue what to do.

All of this went through my mind in about two seconds, and I had just about decided to man up and take the fall for Tabby, when the door flew open and, speak of the devil, in she ran.

"I hit her, Mr. Henderson," she panted, raindrops glistening in her curls and her face flushed. "She insinuated that Bobby here was doing me a big favor because he was hanging around a black girl and I just lost my temper and hit her."

Mr. Henderson looked extremely skeptical. "That sounds a bit far-fetched," he said, pinning both of us with a laser-like gaze. "Why would Ms. Devlin say something like that?"

We both shrugged. We had all heard horror stories about some of the weird racial bullshit going on down south and that was where Rosie was from, bringing all that up here with her, but we weren't going to say any of that to Mr. Henderson. He was an adult and when you're twelve you don't tell adults anymore than they need to know. I think he snatched me up because I was a boy and boys hit people and it probably didn't cross his mind to think that a girl would resort to punching somebody. It was that kind of era.

Henderson sighed and went to sit behind his desk. He rubbed his face tiredly and looked back up at us. Tabby was standing protectively behind me with one hand on my shoulder. It was the same hand that had smacked Rosie a good one, I idly noticed.

"I'd better call your parents, Ms. Langston. Until this is resolved one way or another I think you should both go home."

This was pretty fucking unfair, but I decided to just keep my mouth shut, and so did Tabby.

Twenty minutes later, Mr. Langston was there and, after exchanging a few words with the principal, led us to the truck.

"Where's Mom?" Tabby wanted to know.

"She's dealing with some suppliers back home. Urgent meeting, couldn't get out of it."

We climbed in the truck and Mr. Langston put the keys in the ignition, but didn't start it.

"Okay, kids, tell me what happened," he said, looking at us severely.

I decided to narrate.

"There's this transfer kid from down south somewhere. Name's Rosie Devlin. She came up and said something about how I was doing Tabby a big favor by hanging around her because she's black and Tabby, um, decided to show her how she felt about that."

"How did you get involved, Bobby?"

"I was sitting there when it happened and I guess Mr. Henderson probably thought I did it."

He turned to Tabby, who was sitting next to me in the back seat, looking half defiant, half scared. "Why didn't you tell the principal that you did it?"

"I did! I was outside trying to cool my temper and I heard that Henderson had dragged him into the office. I ran all the way in there and told him that I did it."

I was watching Mr. Langston's face in the rear view mirror and noticed, with a little fear, that his face was as serious as I'd ever seen it.

"Well, Tabby, I understand why you did what you did. We haven't had to put up with a lot of the racial problems way up here that your friend Rosie and her family lived with. If you were both white girls it would probably pass quickly, but because you're black and she's white and because she's from the south where stuff like that matters more, things are going to get complicated. I hope they won't but I have been down there and I know something is going to happen."

"I'm sorry, Daddy," Tabby said in a small voice. "She just made me mad ... I didn't want to cause us trouble." She was sniffling now, on the verge of tears. I did something I hadn't done before and took her hand, which earned me a slight widening of the eyes and a smile. She squeezed my hand gratefully and got herself under control.

"I know, child. I understand why you did what you did, but we have to do damage control now. I'm not all that upset with you, although we are going to have to have a talk about violence not being the answer to every problem. You've just never much had to deal with the race thing, but we do now in this case."

"What're we going to do?" I wondered.

"We're going to drive to Mr. Devlin's place and tell him exactly what happened. Actually Bobby is."

Tabby went a little pale, and her hand tightened, but she nodded bravely. "Will that work?"

Mr. Langston shrugged and started the truck's motor. "Maybe, maybe not. At the least we can try to head off any wild story his daughter might tell him."

I got it. I was going to be the one telling the story because I was white. Since Mr. Devlin was new here, he probably didn't know that I lived with the Langstons and would thus - hopefully - view me as an independent witness.

Not a word was said on the drive to the Devlin place. I was feeling bad for Tabby, who was looking worried, and nervous for myself, because I didn't know how this meeting would go. Mr. Langston was looking very grim as he piloted the truck through the gently falling drizzle. The only sound was the hum of the motor and the sound of the occasional rock hitting the undercarriage as we drove down the country roads.

At last we pulled up in front of a slightly battered farmhouse that was in the process of being renovated. Several workmen were bustling around and a scaffolding was erected against one side of the building, and a crew was up there either removing or adding windows to the upper story. There was the sound of saws and hammers and drills, even through the closed windows of the truck.

I spotted who I guessed was Mr. Devlin standing under a lean-to, going over big rolls of plans with somebody who I supposed was the job foreman. Devlin was a tall lean guy with black hair in a crew cut. He was wearing brand new over alls and shiny black boots, looking every inch the gentleman farmer.

"I guess that's him," I said, breaking the silence and pointing to the wanabe farmer.

Mr. Langston shut the truck down and turned to me. He was going to say something, but before he could, another car pulled up and out stumbled Rosie, with a big shiner on her right eye.

"Oh shit," Tabby said quietly. "This can't be good."

"Given the circumstances, I'll overlook your language, young lady," Mr. Langston said. "But I agree, this can't be good."

We all got out of the truck and I reluctantly moved away from Tabby, trying to make it look like I didn't really know her that well and was only along for the ride. Mrs. Kearns, who had driven Rosie out here, got back in her car and drove away, after saying something to Mr. Devlin, who was looking decidedly upset. His face was red and his fists were clenched; he looked as though he wanted to take a big, juicy bite out of somebody. Even before he spoke, my impression was that he was a grade A, prime asshole.

"So tell me why I shouldn't drag your nigger asses to the sheriff, Langston," he sneered, striding through the wet grass of the front yard to get into Mr. Langston's face, and completely ignoring me. Rosie was standing next to a pine tree by the driveway, smirking at the proceedings. I hated her.

"Well," Mr. Langston said, not backing down, "for one thing, Royce, the sheriff isn't likely to get involved with this. This isn't Alabama, or wherever it is you're from. Secondly, while I don't approve of my daughter's actions, I brought her out here to apologize in person to both you and your own daughter so this doesn't go any further than it has to."

I wondered why he had changed the plan, but then I saw that it wasn't likely to work, because the guy was still steaming mad and wasn't likely to listen to me anyway. That crack about Alabama went over about as well as a turd in a punch bowl too.

"Tabby, come over here," Mr. Langston said, before Mr. Devlin could speak. Tabby was sort of hiding behind me, looking a bit scared.

"I don't want to hear nothin' from your brat," Mr. Devlin blustered. "She hit my daughter, she's a menace and should be expelled. She don't belong in schools with decent folk."

By this time I was seeing red myself and it was all I could do to stay silent. Tabby looked like she wanted to punch him out too, but thankfully restrained herself.