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By Root 346 0

of every type. Tosh, I told myself, was Greek, not white American; there fore I needn't feel I had betrayed my race by marrying one of the enemy, nor could white Americans believe that I had so forgiven them the past that I was ready to love a member of their tribe. I never admitted that I made the same kind of rationalization about all the other non-Blacks I liked. Louise was white American (but she was a woman). David was white (but he was Jewish). Jack Simpson, Tosh's only friend, was plain white (but he was young and shy). I stared back hard at whites in the street trying to scrape the look of effrontery off their cruel faces. But I dropped my eyes when we met Negroes. I couldn't explain to all of them that my husband had not been a part of our degradation. I fought against the guilt which was slipping into my closed life as insidiously as gas escaping into a sealed room.

I clung to Tosh, surrendering more of my territory, my independence. I would ignore the straightness of his hair which worried my fingers. I would be an obedient dutiful wife, restricting our arguments to semantic differences, never contradicting the substance of his views.

Clyde stood flinching as I combed his thick snarled hair. His face was screwed into a frown.

“Mom—ouch—when am I going to grow up—ouch— and have good hair like Dad's?”

The mixed marriage bludgeoned home. My son thought that the whites' straight hair was better than his natural abundant curls.

“You are going to have hair like mine. Isn't that good?” I counted on his love to keep him loyal.

“It's good for you, but mine hurts. I don't like hurting hair.”

I promised to have the barber give him a close cut on our next visit and told him how beautiful and rich he looked with his own hair. He looked at me, half disbelieving so I told him about a little African prince named Hannibal who had hair just like his. I felt a dislike for Tosh's hair because of my son's envy.

I began scheming. There was only one way I could keep my marriage balanced and make my son have a healthy respect for his own looks and race: I had to devote all my time and intelligence to my family. I needed to become a historian, sociologist and anthropologist. I would begin a self-improvement course at the main library. Just one last church visit, then I would totally dedicate myself to Tosh and Clyde and we would all be happy.

• • •

The Evening Star Baptist Church was crowded when I arrived and the service had begun. The members were rousing a song, urging the music to soar beyond all physical boundaries.

“I want to be ready

I want to be ready

I want to be ready

To walk in Jerusalem, just like John.”

Over and over again the melodies lifted, pushed up by the clapping hands, kept aloft by the shaking shoulders. Then the minister stepped out away from the altar to stand at the lip of the dais. He was tall and ponderous as befitted a person heavy with the word of God.

“The bones were dry.” The simple statement sped through my mind. “Dry Bones in the Valley” was my favorite sermon. The song that whites had come to use in mimicry of the Negro accent, “Dem Bones” was inspired by that particular portion of the Old Testament. Their ridicule—“De toe bone connected to de foot bone, foot bone connected to de ankle bone, ankle bone connected to de …”—in no way diminished my reverence for the sermon. I knew of no teaching more positive than the legend which said that will and faith caused a dismembered skeleton, dry on the desert floor, to knit back together and walk. I also knew that that sermon properly preached, could turn me into a shouting, spinning dervish. I tried for the first few minutes to rise and leave the church, but the preacher swung his head to look at me each time I poised myself to leave. I sat again. He told the story simply at first, weaving a quiet web around us all, binding us into the wonder of faith and the power of God. His rhythm accelerated and his volume increased slowly, so slowly he caught me off guard. I had sat safe in my own authority in so many churches and waited cautiously for