forever. Not even here in Choctaw. That’s why I think we should talk to Noreen Donovan.”
I nodded. “Yes, I guess we should,” I told her, my eyes sweeping over the old Negro cemetery with a sudden and strangely urgent discontent with the way things had always been.
NOREEN APPEARED AT THE END OF THE CORRIDOR THE NEXT afternoon, a tall girl with a long, slender neck. Her clothes were neat but not particularly fashionable, chosen for comfort rather than for style, a form of dress that has not changed over the years. She wore her hair long in those days, well below her shoulders, not cut short and frosted as she wears it now. She had light, nearly flawless skin and bright blue eyes that seemed more open then, less veiled in unspoken thoughts.
“I’m Noreen Donovan,” she said.
“Hi, I’m Kelli Troy,” Kelli said as she stretched out her hand.
Noreen fumbled with her books for a moment, then managed to free her hand. “Hi,” she said.
“My name’s Ben Wade. I’m glad Miss Carver gave you our message.”
Noreen nodded quickly, with that same “Let’s get on with it” briskness that has not slowed down much in thirty years.
“Kelli and I work on the
Another quick, no-nonsense nod. “What’s that?”
“The school paper,” Kelli said.
“Oh.”
“We understand you moved here from Gadsden,” I said. “That’s what we wanted to talk to you about.”
Noreen looked puzzled. “You want to talk to me about Gadsden?” She gave a short, faintly amused laugh. “There’s nothing to say about Gadsden.”
“Well, it’s not exactly about Gadsden itself,” Kelli explained. “It’s more about what’s going on there.”
Noreen stared at her blankly.
“The demonstrations,” Kelli said.
“Oh, I don’t know anything about that,” Noreen said.
“But the demonstrations are going on near where you lived, right?” I asked. “At that shopping center outside of town.”
“Yeah, that’s where they are,” Noreen answered, “but once that all started, I didn’t go to the shopping center anymore.”
“Why not?” Kelli was leaning forward, her eyes trained intensely on Noreen.
“ ’Cause my daddy said not to,” Noreen answered. “He said there might be trouble. But as far as I ever saw, the colored people were just marching back and forth.” She thought a moment, then added, “Sometimes a few white people would show up and hang around. You know, just looking at them.”
“When do they march?” Kelli asked.
“Pretty much all the time, I guess,” Noreen answered. “Just marching back and forth until the shopping center closes.”
“When is that?”
“At nine, I think,” Noreen said. Her eyes narrowed questioningly. “Ya’ll going to write about it?”
“We’re thinking about it,” I told her.
“Why?”
“Because we think we should,” Kelli said bluntly.
Noreen seemed satisfied by the answer. “Well, if you want me to, I’ll go down there with you,” she told us, “but don’t expect much.”
NOREEN WAS BUNDLED UP IN A DARK GREEN COAT WHEN I picked her up that same night. She was not a pretty girl, but there was undoubtedly something about her that was attractive, a firmness of character that gave her face an undeniable strength. Because of that, even Luke sometimes passed a glance in Noreen’s direction, and I have often thought that had he not been so thoroughly connected to Betty Ann by the time Noreen moved to Choctaw, it might have been she who now goes strolling with him in the evening, the two of them making lazy middle-aged circles around the lake at Turtle Grove.
Noreen shivered. “You know, they may not be doing anything tonight. It may be too cold for it.”
Kelli was waiting at the window when we arrived at her house. I could see her body framed against the interior light, very still, peering toward us as we pulled into her driveway.
She came out quickly, bounding down the wooden stairs to the car. Noreen scooted over to let her climb into the front seat.
“It’s really cold tonight,” Kelli said, rubbing her hands together rapidly.
“Noreen thinks they might call things off because of it,” I told her.
“But they may not,” Noreen said. “There’s no way to tell.” Her shoulder was pressed against mine, and I was surprised that she left it there rather than pulling away slightly, as most girls would have done.
It was around seven o’clock, and the narrow road to Gadsden was all but deserted. Darkness had fallen almost an hour before, and a thick cloud cover made it even darker than usual. Still, on either side, we could see the lights of the few rural villages that dotted the valley between Choctaw and Gadsden, and farther out, a scattering of remote farmhouses.
I felt my fingers tighten around the steering wheel as we neared Gadsden. I knew that we were heading toward something volatile and unpredictable. Kelli and Noreen felt it, too, though neither of them mentioned it. Instead, Noreen gave her impression of Choctaw while Kelli listened silently, her eyes trained on the approaching town.
It was just after eight when we reached the outskirts of Gadsden. It was nearly six times as large as Choctaw, a “big city” of over thirty thousand people, with large factories, a Catholic church and a smattering of people who had not been born there, even a few with other than Celtic or Anglo-Saxon names.
The small shopping center rested nearly half a mile from the center of town, and as we approached it, Noreen leaned forward, peering at the flat line of brick buildings that came toward us in the distance.
There were only a few cars in the parking lot, almost all of them gathered in front of Penney’s, the shopping center’s only department store, the rest of the strip taken up by small shops that sold everything from shoes to sporting goods.
The world seemed to grow silent as we closed in on the little wall of buildings, their interior lights barely able to penetrate the thick, wintry darkness. I rounded a group of parked cars, swung to the right, and suddenly they were directly in front of me, as if they’d charged forward out of nowhere, a line of Negroes moving up and down the sidewalk in front of Penney’s, their flimsy cardboard placards flapping in the icy breeze.
I pulled into the first available space, and stopped. No one spoke, but I could feel the tension that had suddenly heightened around us.
Finally I leaned forward and looked at Kelli. “Now what?”
Kelli didn’t answer me. Instead, she kept her eyes trained on the line of march. I had never seen her look more concentrated, as if she were gathering in every texture of the scene before her, using her eyes like fingertips.
But if Kelli appeared oddly galvanized by what she saw, I felt cheated by its utter lack of drama. There were no speeches, no cheering crowds. The line of march itself was a monotonous circle. Even the marchers seemed inadequate to the occasion, their struggle made pitiable in the way they trudged wearily through the numbing cold, their crude, hand-painted placards snapping in the cruel breeze.
“It doesn’t seem like there’s much to write about,” I said.
Kelli continued to watch the marchers. “Yes, there is,” she said.
“They’re just going in a circle,” I said. “It’s nothing.” I reached for the ignition. “We might as well go back to Choctaw.”
Kelli’s eyes shot over to me. “Go back?” she snapped.
“There’s nothing to do, Kelli,” I told her. “It’s just a bunch of people walking back and forth.”
Kelli shook her head determinedly. “I’m getting out,” she said.
I started to argue with her, but in an instant, she was out the door and striding toward the line of march, her checked scarf flowing behind her.
