Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas - Maya Angelou [44]
They said they knew he didn't pick up such thoughts at home.
“Yes, he got that at home, Miss Kent.” Oh Lord, my career. What would the Rockwell family do if I was accused of Communist leanings?
“Oh, is that your religious belief?” She was being nice-nasty giving me a cowardly way out. My son sat beside me, waiting. He had stopped trembling and was holding himself tight, listening to the exchange.
“If you mean do I believe in it religiously, I do.”
“Oh, then Clyde was voicing your political views that you hold religiously?”
There was nothing for it but to agree. I said, “That's right.”
And that was all Clyde had been waiting for. He bounced up out of his chair, arms stretched and flailing.
“Mom, isn't it true that just because U.S. Steel wants to sell more steel, I shouldn't go and kill some baby Koreans who never did anything to me?”
“Yes, that's true.”
“And, Mom, isn't it true that capitalists just make the poor people go and bomb other poor people till they're all dead and live on dead people's money?”
I did not recognize that line, but I said “Yes.”
He lifted his arms like a conductor asking a full orchestra for the last chord. “Well, that's all I said.”
The teachers sat silent as I stood up.
“Miss Kent, and Miss Blum, I think the session has been emotionally very tiring for Clyde. I'll take him home now and he'll come back to school tomorrow.”
They did nothing to hinder our departure.
That afternoon Clyde and I went to a movie that showed ten Disney shorts.
CHAPTER 13
George Hitchcock was a playwright whose play Princess Chan Chan was being performed by the Interplayers at a little theater near North Beach. A tall, shambling man with large hands and a staccato laugh, he doubled as an aging character actor. His hair was always dusty because he did not effectively rinse out the white powder.
He watched my show and afterwards asked if he could see me home. I wanted to accept, but wondered what he would think of my living arrangements. I was a glamorous night-club singer, or at least wanted to be considered glamorous, but I still lived at home with my mother. Late evenings I would find her sitting at the dining room table drinking beer and playing solitaire, and definitely not waiting up for me. I was a grown woman and had better know how to look after myself. Just to make sure, she played solitaire until I came home. Her voice would greet the sound of the opening front door. “Hi, baby, I'm in here.”
I would say, “Good evening, Mom.” And when she lifted her face for a kiss, she'd ask, “How'd it go this evening?” and I'd say, “O.K., Mom.” That was what she wanted to hear, and all she wanted to know. Vivian Baxter could and would deal with grand schemes and large plots, but please, pray God, spare her the details.
I invited George home, and on the way, told him about my mother and my son. If he was surprised he didn't show it.
I countered Mom's “Hi, baby. I'm in here” with “I brought a friend home.”
George would have had to know my mother to have recognized how startled she was when he walked in. She stopped her laying out of red and black and said, “Welcome,” then “How are you tonight?” As if she knew how he had fared the night before.
George seemed at ease.
Mother looked at his worn tweed jacket, rumpled trousers and not quite clean hair and asked, “How long have you known my daughter?”
I knew where she was heading. I said, “We've just met tonight, Mom. George is a writer.” That information held her steady for a while.
“He asked me out for a coffee and I thought