The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [8]
The two women stood silent and approving.
Mr. Baker spoke for them, as well as for white people everywhere.
The impossibility of the situation filled my mouth with bitter saliva. How could I explain a young black boy to a grown man who had been born white? How could the two women understand a black mother who had nothing to give her son except a contrived arrogance? If I had an eternity and the poetry of old spirituals, I could not make them live with me the painful moments when I tried to prove to Guy that his color was not a cruel joke, but a healthful design. If they knew that I described God to my son as looking very much like John Henry, wouldn't they think me blasphemous? If he was headstrong, I had made him so. If, in his adolescent opinion, he was the best representative of the human race, it was my doing and I had no apology to make. The radio and posters, newspapers and teachers, bus drivers and salespersons told him every day in thousands of ways that he had come from nothing and was going nowhere.
“Mr. Baker, I understand you. Now, I'd like to see Guy.” I kept my voice low and under control.
“If we take him out of class, you'll have to take him home. We do not interrupt classes. That is our policy.”
“Yes. I'll take him home.”
“He'll be marked absent for the day. But I guess that doesn't matter.”
“Mr. Baker, I'll take my son home.” I had to see Guy, to hear him speak. Nothing would be gained by further conversation. He would have to return to the school, but for the moment, I wanted to know that he was not broken or even bruised.
“I'll wait for him outside. Thank you.”
Guy jumped into the car, his face active with concern. “What's the matter, Mom?”
I told him about the meeting with the teachers.
He relaxed. “Aw, gee, Mom, and you came to school for that? It was nothing. Some of those kids are so stupid. They were talking about where babies come from. They said some of the funniest things and they should know better. So I told them about the penis, and the vagina and the womb. You know, all that stuff in my book on the beginnings of life? Well, some of the crazy girls started crying when I said their fathers had done it to their mothers.” He began to laugh, enjoying the memory of the girls' tears. “That's all I said. I was right, wasn't I?”
“Sometimes it's wiser to be right in silence, you know?”
He looked at me with the suspicion of youth. “But you always say, ‘Speak up. Tell the truth, no matter what the situation.’ I just told the truth.”
“Yes, honey. You just told the truth.”
Two days later, Guy brought home a message which infuriated me. My son was reasonably bright, but he had never been more than a competent student. The letter he brought home, however, stated that due to his wonderful grades, he had been advanced and would be attending another school at the end of the term.
The obvious lie insulted both my son and me, but I thought it wise to remove Guy from the school as soon as possible. I didn't want an already prejudiced faculty and administration to use him as their whipping boy.
I began searching for another school and another house. We needed an area where black skin was not regarded as one of nature's more unsightly mistakes.
The Westlake district was ideal. Mexican, black American, Asian and white families lived side by side in old rambling houses. Neighbors spoke to each other as they mowed their lawns or shopped in the long-established local grocery stores.
I rented the second floor of a two-story Victorian, and when Guy saw the black children playing on our new street, he was giddy with excitement. His reaction made me see how much he had missed the close contact with black people.
“Boy!” He jumped and wriggled. “Boy! Now, I'm going to make some friends!”
CHAPTER 1
For the next year and a half, save for my short out-of-town singing engagements, we lived