Eye of The Tiger

Chapter Twenty-one

Dear Paige,
I got your last letter. I’m sorry to hear that you have been having a tough time since the accident. That reminds me of a hard time I had when I found out that my father was the leader of a racist group called The Klan. The year was 1954 and I was 10 years old. My parents were both farmers. We lived on a ranch in the South and I often helped them with the animals. But I was always careful not to disturb the workers out in the field. My mother told me that I shouldn’t communicate with the help at all. They were strictly there to work, not socialize, especially not with us. There was still a lot of segregation going on in that part of the South. To me, I grew up thinking that was normal and acceptable. White people stayed to themselves while the black people they hired worked and helped raise their children. We had 35 year old Addy Jackson- she was the help my mother hired for our house. Although I wasn’t allowed to talk to Addy, we quickly became friends. My parents were gone often, so Addy had to watch me a lot. I don’t know how my parents expected me not to talk to Addy; after all, she was basically my babysitter. On hot Summer days, we would sit out on the porch and drink the delicious sweetened ice tea that Addy would make us. She would teach me some of the games and songs she knew from when she was a kid. We had so much fun together. I always dreaded when my parents came back home because I knew I would have to stop whatever fun I was having with Addy. And she was so beautiful. She had chestnut brown skin that always looked smooth and shiny, big friendly brown eyes, and her dark hair was always pulled back up into a bun. I remember one specific day when Addy was watching me. I had noticed that she was unusually quiet and sad that day. I asked her what was wrong. “Oh, don’t worry bout me, honey child. I’ll be okay,” she replied in a tone that clearly indicated she was not okay. I wouldn’t leave her alone until she finally got tired of my begging and told me why she was sad. “I’m just so tired of white and black people being separated. I nearly peed on myself yesterday because Mr. Frank wouldn’t let me use the bathroom at the grocery store,” she said in an angry tone. Mr. Frank was a white man that owned a grocery store in the white neighborhood. He hated black people and would only do business with them if they were hired help. I always thought Mr. Frank was a nice man. “Maybe the bathroom was only for employees,” I said, trying to make Addy feel better. She laughed and patted my hand. “Honey child, that man just don’t want no Negroes using his white bathroom,” she said in a blunt tone. I startled at her language. I wasn’t allowed to say the N word, even though I always heard my father saying it. Addy sighed and looked at me seriously. “Katherine, you’re a big girl now. You’re almost 11. I hope as you get older, you’ll realize that skin color don’t matter and I pray to God that you’ll treat ALL people the same. White folks ain’t no better than anybody,” she said. But I shook my head in disagreement. “That’s not true, Addy. My daddy said that white people are the superior race and we should be treated better than people with darker skin. Those are the rules. We can’t change them,” I told her, feeling proud that I remembered what my daddy told me. But Addy got this sad, hopeless look on her face. She leaned down and kissed the top of my head. “Oh lord, they already ingrained it into you. I’ll be praying for you extra hard tonight, Katherine. I love you- don’t you ever forget that,” she told me. And I never did. But I didn’t understand what she meant at that time because I was so young. I made the mistake of repeating what Addy told me to my mother and I’ll never forget that horrible day. We were sitting at the table. I was doing my homework and my mother was knitting a black and white scarf for my father. Those colors made me remember what Addy told me the other day. “Mom, how come you can knit a white scarf with a black scarf together but we don’t even let the blacks use our bathrooms?” I asked her innocently. My mother’s head snapped up and the knitting stopped. Her piercing robin blue eyes looked at me so sharply they almost turned silver. She put the unfinished scarf down. Since I had her attention, I repeated what Addy said to me. After I finished, my mother took one long look at me and slapped me across the face. My pencil flew out of my hand. Shock and shame filled the room as we both realized what had just happened. “Don’t you ever repeat what Addy told you to your father! Do you understand me?!!!” She yelled at me. Through tears and blood in my mouth, I nodded my head. “Yes ma’am,” I said and excused myself from the table so I could go wipe my mouth. After that day, I never saw Addy again and I hated my mother for it because I knew she fired her. I also felt guilty because I knew that I was the reason why Addy had lost her job. And I missed her dearly. The next help my mother hired was a 70 year old black woman who walked with a limp in her left leg named Sally. I didn’t become her friend. My mother kept a close eye on me. Sorry to blabbering so much. Guess I went back in time with that crazy memory of how different the times were back then compared to now.
-Katherine