The Last Holiday Read Online Free Page B

son came more often than he himself did), and the owner of a
large downtown department store.
    I found out how she felt about quite a few things from listening to what she said to them, and about how much respect they had for her by the way they listened. I heard her address the chief
about “the problem,” what wasn’t right, what was bothering folks, what needed to be done. He would nod his big bald head and in his half-growl he would drawl, “Aw, Lily, you
know them kinda things take a while.”
    She would always speak her mind, and it took just the right amount of time for her to finish her points and to gather their shirts and other property. But she spoke her mind wherever she was.
Like her evaluation of the waiting area reserved for Blacks in Corinth, Mississippi, a filthy, cave-dark backroom where we had to wait to change buses when we visited family back in Russellville,
Alabama. She would be sure the white ticket seller heard her let loose a list of complaints. She seemed to make the other Black folks in there nervous. And I got the impression that she
didn’t care. There were no good racists and no places where you would prefer to be discriminated against. There was no best racist state; but there may have been a worst racist
state—from my brief experiences, that dishonor would have to go to Mississippi. For whatever reason, I felt bad in Mississippi. I felt Black and mistreated. Maybe it was because of the things
I heard about Mississippi, about the murders there, about Mack Parker and Emmett Till and Medgar Evers, who were all murdered in Mississippi while I lived in Jackson. Maybe it was the size of the
signs that said COLORED at the bus station in Corinth. Maybe it was the absolute stink in the bathroom of that bus station, which was unmatched in my experiences before or
since.
    My mother and uncle used to say they hated to go to the stores in Jackson with Lily because she would embarrass them. White cashiers at uptown stores always waited on white folks first; they
would never ask, “Who’s next?” If somebody white walked in they would go straight to the counter as if the Black people were invisible. But not with my grandmother. She was not in
sync with certain facts. There were signs indicating some of the rules—like in that Mississippi bus station, with its “Colored” waiting room. But my grandmother didn’t
consider it a rule for her if there was no sign. And white people had their own limits as to how far they could or would push that “us first” bullshit. So in line at the cash register
my grandmother would loudly say, “I was here before them” and hold out her money. It wasn’t her stature that kept people off her; somehow her attitude and bearing brought her
respect.
    I would hear white folks whispering in stores in uptown Jackson when my grandmother would stand at their counters and say, quite distinctly, that she wanted to purchase something on credit. As a
rule, colored people couldn’t even ask for credit, but my grandmother did not follow rules like that. If she was speaking to a new employee, there would be a pause that hung in the air
between us like a condor, not needing to wave its wings and disturb the air. The clerks would look at her—she was obviously unafraid to make eye contact with them—and feel their throats
tighten. They would excuse themselves to go get their bosses to tell her no. But the boss would approve it, and the clerks would return with silly grins tearing their faces up while they wrote down
whatever it was she wanted to buy. I could imagine the bosses saying, “That’s Lily, she’s Bob Scott’s wife.”
    There were regular gatherings on the front porch when the weather was warm. It could include any number of people from the neighborhood, but it always included Mrs. Cox, the school
janitor’s wife from across the street, and someone from the Cole family next door, as well as either cousin Lessie or Uncle Robert. And no