Pacific Avenue by Anne L. Watson Read Free Book Online Page A

thing before. He didn’t look my way at
all.
    “My father has a real thing about the army. He enlisted
one week after I was born. My mother hated that—a new baby, and her husband
decides to go fight in Korea.”
    “Wouldn’t he have been drafted anyway?”
    “Probably. He made it a crusade, though. Most of the officers
were white, and some of them said right out that black soldiers were cowards.”
    “Why?” I pushed my books off my lap and stacked them on
the bench, fingering the edges carefully, lining them up. Anything to keep from
looking right at Richard. I’ve never talked with a black person about prejudice.
I didn’t know you could.
    “Partly racism. There was also a scandal about a mostly
black regiment that ran. He set out to prove single-handed the racists were
wrong. Sometimes when Dad talked about it, I wondered who the enemy was—the
Communists, the white officers, or the black soldiers who fell short of his
ideals.”
    “Why did he stay in the army after the war?”
    “It was a good place for an ambitious black man in the
fifties. The army cared more about rank than race. He ended up a master
sergeant in a transportation company.” Richard kept staring into the azalea
bush, like he was reporting a story shown there on a little TV screen.
    “What’s a master sergeant?” Dumb question, just to
keep him talking. The way girls are supposed to do. All the magazines say that—though,
most likely this kind of conversation isn’t what they have in mind.
    “It’s an NCO, non-commissioned officer. Dad should have
been a general—he’s perfect for the military—neat, pressed, polished, the whole
nine yards. I used to be proud to be his kid. All the same, it was hard on me.”
    “What do you mean?” I reached out to touch his arm, but
as my fingers brushed his shirt, he glanced at me, startled. I jerked my hand
back. At least I’d gotten his attention away from the azalea.
    “He expected me to be perfect too. Even when I was
knee-high. Anything I did reflected on his career, and on all blacks in the
army—on all blacks, period. Like I was an ambassador to another planet. Some
ambassador.” His voice was hoarse, like he was about to cry.
    “Were you that bad, or just a kid?”
    “I was just a kid. I made good grades, but they were
never good enough. Sometimes I wished I could quit trying, wished I could cut
loose and give him a taste of ‘bad son.’ I never did. Over the years, I quit
talking to him instead.”
    “Is it still like that?”
    He frowned, hesitated. He seemed less open when he went
on, almost dismissive. “I’ve only seen him once since I got back from ’Nam. I
still wasn’t an officer and he was still mad about it.” He laughed, but he
didn’t sound amused. “And if I had been, I doubt he would have liked that
either. He didn’t exactly roll out the welcome mat. He said he didn’t like my
Afro, and that was about it.”
    “Maybe that was all he could say.”
    “I guess so.” Richard stood up, balanced his books in
the crook of one elbow, and held out his other hand. Before I could take it, he
pulled it back. He’s pretending he didn’t offer. I gathered my books, holding them close with my hands locked together. Now I’m pretending I didn’t notice.
    “Want to get a cup of coffee?” I asked.
    “I guess so.”
    We headed toward the Union. Once again, I thought everyone
was looking. Do people always pay attention to people walking the other way?
I never thought about it. Everyone has eyes. What do they usually look at?
    For once, the cafeteria was nearly empty. We sat down
with our trays. He thinks I didn’t want to touch his hand. Maybe he saw the
way people were staring too. Talk about something else.
    Nothing came to mind. I looked around, waiting for
something to occur to me. At the far end of the room, a middle-aged man in a
suit gathered his briefcase and tray to leave. As he walked toward the counter,
he stumbled over a chair and dropped the tray