the six million die. M y daddy said I had to be quiet because I
was a child. M y daddy said I had to be polite to my uncle who
called colored people niggers and he said I had to stay quiet and
when I was grown up I could say something. I watched my
daddy and he was quiet and polite and he would wait and listen
and then he would tell m y uncle he was wrong and Negroes
were just like us, especially like us, and they weren’t being
treated fair at all but I didn’t think it helped or was really good
enough because m y uncle never stopped it and I wanted to
explode all the time. M y daddy always said something but it
was ju st at the end because m y uncle would go aw ay and not
listen to him and no one listened to him, except me, I’m pretty
sure o f that. And once when m y mother was sick and going
into the hospital and I had to go stay in m y uncle’s house I cried
so hard because I was afraid she would die but also I knew he
would be calling colored people bad names and I would have
to be quiet and I had to live there and couldn’t go aw ay and m y
daddy told me specially as an order that I had to be quiet and
respectful even though m y uncle was doing something awful.
I didn’t understand w hy adults were allowed to do so many
things w rong and w hy children had to keep quiet all the time
during them. I stayed aw ay out o f the house as long as I could
every day, I hung out with teenagers or I’d just hang out alone,
and I prayed to God that m y uncle w ouldn’t talk but nothing
stopped him and I would try not to m ove and not to breathe so
I w ouldn’t run aw ay or call him bad names or scream because
it caused me such outrage in m y heart, I hated him so much for
being so stupid and so cruel. I sometimes had cuts on the inside
o f m y mouth because I would bite down to stop from talking
back and I would press m y fingernails into m y palms so bad
they would bleed and I had sores all over m y hands so I bit m y
nails to keep the sores from coming. Y ou had to do what
adults said no matter what even if you didn’t know them or
they were creeps or very bad people. The man was an adult.
He w asn’t so mean as m y uncle in how he talked, he talked
nicer and quieter. I was sitting there, acting grow n up,
wearing m y black bermuda shorts. Outside it was hot and
inside it was cold from air-conditioning. I liked the cold inside.
O ur house was hot and the city was hot but the movie was nice
and cold and the sweat dried on you and I liked how amazing it
felt. The man sat down next to me. There were a million empty
seats and the theater was like a huge, dark castle, but he
sat down right next to me, on m y left. The whole big theater
was empty. The usher was a teenager but I didn’t think he was
cute. He had a light blue uniform and a flashlight. He showed
me to my seat. He wanted it in the middle but I kept wanting
