I Dwell in Possibility. Toni McNaron

the family doctor. When my father asked what they might do to “cure Old Lady,” Dr. John recommended having another child. Though my parents were almost forty, I was conceived. Whenever Mamie told the story of Dr. John’s suggesting that she and Mac have a baby to “cheer Theresa up,” I felt like running. I grew up in the shadow of that expectation, always trying to please, so often sensing that what I did was not quite enough.

      I felt too important to the adults in my house. They kept close watch over me, encouraging me to be what they were not or could not be, reluctant to let me be myself. As a result, my childhood was full of instances in which I very much wanted their attention, but when it came in quantities, I would feel compelled to pull away. For instance, my junior high school teachers seemed intent on having us create “projects,” assignments that caused me considerable consternation. Visual effects were to accompany our written reports, and we all knew that decorations determined whether our work received a B for competence or an A for “creativity.” Part of me welcomed the help readily forthcoming from Mamie, with Betty as her assistant, since I was not particularly artistic. They would cheerfully volunteer to make my covers, correct my spelling, encourage me to do yet more reading and writing to insure the coveted A. Somewhere in the middle of this process, my gratitude would turn sour, and I would feel taken over, unable to own my work but equally unable to snatch it from them.

      My family taught me to see myself as superior to virtually everyone and to isolate myself in the name of precocity or independence or some other large, empty word. One result was that I developed an extraordinarily active imagination, another was few companions my own age. Angry and confused, I took my feelings outside where I ran and played, day after day, to the point of exhaustion.

       First Lessons

      One house, a hedge, and an unpaved alley from where I grew up was the “colored section” of town, popularly known as the “quarters” or “nigger town.” The former term recalled the plantation days of slavery, while the latter reflected more contemporary race hatred. The world across that alley fascinated me. When I was three and four, I would sit by my bedroom window and look over at unpainted wooden houses where people lived who were supposed to be different from me. Occasionally, cruising policemen yelled at them, “Get your ass inside, nigger”; after a judicious time lapse, the figures returned to their porches and resumed their activities.

      There were three houses up the slant alley. The one nearest the top had once been whitewashed, and traces of peeling green trim persisted. All were built of weathered boards with spaces between, offering no protection against heat, rain, cold, or dust. The family in the first house had a beat-up jalopy that mostly did not run. When they wanted to use it, they would push it into the alley, then try to start it. If the engine failed to turn over, they quickly pushed the car back into their packed dirt yard before the garbage truck filled with white people’s trash came or before some white teenaged boy decided to gun his motor all the way up that alley, raising so much dust that it drifted across the vacant lot to my window sills.

      Behind “my” three houses (I thought of them as somehow special to me) lay miles of equally poor dwellings in which many hundred blacks eked out whatever existence they could. The neighborhood stretched up a gradual hill so that from my watch-window I could just barely make out houses and an occasional church tower way off in the distance. Within its boundaries, that part of town contained several classes of blacks. The absolute poorest lived nearest us—an odd phenomenon—while middle-class people had better houses further within the tangle of short streets that made up the center of the section. These houses had brick foundations with clapboard siding from about half way up. Window boxes graced virtually every house, as did old rusty gliders painted fresh every other spring. In every yard grew brilliant flowers—waist-high zinnias in reds, oranges, and yellows; fertile roses that looked like they should be wearing blue ribbons; the tallest black-eyed susans I had ever seen. I learned about these distinctions as I rode with my father to take Hettie, our housekeeper, and her successor, Josephine, home when they worked past dark.

      When I was ready for junior high school, I had to get to the other side of Fairfield. To walk there the proper way, through white neighborhoods and shopping areas, took about half an hour. But there was a shorter route: once on the street below our house, I could cut ten minutes by going down a little side street that took me over the imaginary line from between white and black Fairfield. I would walk right through the black section, past a tiny store where I could stop for a few jawbreakers or Tootsie Roll Pops on the way home. I was usually the only white child in the place, and the man behind the counter always grinned as he asked, “How you today, Miss?” Along the counter behind which he stood were big jars filled with all kinds of hard candies, “penny” candies that cost two or three cents in white stores. Once I asked my parents why the A & P lied about its candy and the black man’s store told the truth. I got no answer but was scolded yet again for refusing to take the “long” (read white) route to school. One of the things I liked about this route was the absence of other white schoolchildren, since in their presence I felt awkward and isolated. In the black neighborhood, I felt more at ease partly because black women on their porches often spoke to me as I went along, ignorant of the pressure I created for them and their children.

      The entire South of my childhood was unreconstructed. Blacks were not allowed into white neighborhoods except to get to the houses where they might work. Though Fairfield had a larger population of Negroes (as we called blacks then if we were being polite) than whites, this numerical majority did not matter at all, since every remotely powerful office was held by white men. There were no hotels in Birmingham where blacks could stay except for Gaston Motor Court, owned by one of the few black attorneys in Birmingham but still located miles out of town. Though blacks were allowed to spend money in downtown stores, I never saw them except in department stores my mother said were “common,” visited by us only when we needed some specific item unavailable any where else. The only exception was Loveman, Joseph, and Loeb, a major department store where blacks did shop regularly.

      Once when I was small, my mother and I were in Loveman’s looking for some cotton mesh gloves. I never liked these trips downtown, and, on this occasion, I manufactured a major thirst that meant I needed to leave my mother at the counter to find a drinking fountain. I found two fountains, one lower than the other. Since I still could barely reach the regular ones, I used the one nearer my level. As I drank, I felt myself yanked away with a force that almost cost me my footing. Mamie dragged me to one side, whispering loudly, “Can’t you read that this one is for coloreds?” I had not seen the clearly painted black letters on the cream wall above the porcelain basin, COLORED. Beside it, above the fountain that was too high for me, I saw an equally clear sign reading WHITE.

      “Is the water different in the fountains?” I innocently asked. Of course not,” my mother whispered in a tone that made me think I might be demented. “Then why can’t I use the one that’s easier for me to get water from?” We had never talked about race relations in our home and so whatever was going on eluded my childishly literal mind. “Just do as I ask, please, honey. Now come on back and try on these nice beige gloves I’ve found for you.”

      In the next weeks, I noticed other things: when Daddy took Hettie home, she rode in the back seat, leaving him alone in the front. If children from across the alley ran carelessly into the paved street, their mothers called in voices that sounded like Mamie’s when she was afraid I had fallen and hurt myself badly. We kept the dishes and glasses used by Hettie and the yard man, Charlie, in different places from our own. I felt hurt and angry about the car and dishes, since I adored Hettie and Charlie and couldn’t comprehend why they were being treated differently. Occasionally at Loveman’s I sneaked a quick drink from the forbidden fountains, but my motive was to disobey my mother.

      Even though we lived close to Fairfield’s black section, no one ever talked about “them,” and I was told by my family not to pay any attention to the things I might see or hear from “across the alley.” But I needed time away from all the beautiful objects waiting to be knocked to the floor, and I needed very early to disobey. So I began to travel the short physical distance past the last white house, slip through the hedge, and arrive at alien ground—the alley. Though I spent