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Free by Anika Nailah
TRUDY
Boston: 1954
"You cheated me out of fifty cents," the pillbox hat white woman said, sniffing indignantly, anxiously awaiting the scent of a lie.
"No, ma'am," Trudy said, motioning to the next customer. It was a busy Saturday at the store. She'd been on her feet all day.
"You're lyin'!"
"Ma'am, if you have a complaint, I suggest you take it up with the manager."
"What's his name? Where is . . . ?"
"Mr. Alcott."
At that very moment, Mr. Alcott's hefty belly was guiding him down the canned goods aisle, near the front of the store. He was in search of a stock number the boy he'd hired in desperation yesterday could not find. His ears, trained to pick up the grumblings of a dissatisfied customer from any corner of the store, heard bits and pieces of a conversation at Register 3.
". . . ignorant, obstinate . . ."
". . . Don't put your hands . . ."
". . . can't even count . . . got no business . . ."
". . . warning you, ma'am . . ."
Immediately, he realized this was not a dialogue to miss. After all the talk lately surrounding the Negro Question, due to that Supreme Court decision a month ago in Kansas, the last thing he needed was a race riot in his store. He straightened up as best he could. Tightening his belt around his unwieldy monument to good eating, he smoothed back what was left of his auburn hair, and approached Register 3.
He found two women--one tall, cinnamon; one salt-colored, bony. A crowd had formed. The white woman was old, small. She'd wedged herself into the cramped register space where Trudy stood. Alcott knew that Negro and white eyes were watching.
"Trudy," he said.
She turned. Her lips tightly pursed, nostrils wide, eyes wild past any recognition of the quiet Negro woman she usually was.
In the war, Alcott had seen fear turn a man's face inside out. But this look on Trudy Dillard's face was something different, fearless, decided.
"Trudy."
"Mr. Alcott," she answered.
"What seems to be the problem here?"
The white woman's sharp blue eyes cut the side of Alcott's face. "I'm the customer. I'm the customer. Why don't you ask me what the problem is?"
"Ma'am . . . ?" Alcott began.
"Thief. Plain and simple. That's what she is."
Trudy looked her in the eye. "I have neither need nor desire to steal anything from the likes of you."
"You impertinent . . . This how you train your colored girls?"
"Excuse me, ladies," Alcott said, squeezing his way in between them. He looked at the dollar figures standing at attention in the glass of the cash register. "How much was your purchase, ma'am?"
"Right here. Says right here"--the woman pressed her fingers against the register, a few inches from his nose--"fifteen dollars and fifty cents."
Alcott looked cautiously over at Trudy. She stood expressionless, arms crossed, eyes focused elsewhere.
"Well," Alcott tried again, "how much did the customer give you?"
"Sixteen dollars!" the woman yelled, dumping the contents of her brown paper bag on the counter. "This is what I bought. This is what I bought. Y'see?" She put her face close to his and leaned in. "The girl . . ." she said. Alcott could smell licorice on her breath. ". . . cheated me out of my money is all there is to it."
Trudy stepped out from behind the register, silent as death. Her arms at her sides, eyes locked on the white woman's. The crowd tensed.
Alcott wanted to touch Trudy's shoulder. Easy. Calm down. Everything will be . . . He knew better. This white woman was a magnet, pulling Trudy to her like a razor. If a Negro hit a white woman, some white man would feel compelled to jump in. Then all hell would surely break loose. And when the dust cleared, Alcott would be left without the store he'd worked so hard to build, not to mention his best Negro worker.
He tried to reason. "Trudy. Think about your daughter."
Trudy didn't care anymore. If she had made a mistake with the change, it was too late. This woman had pushed her past apology. She was a human being. Sick of these damn white people saying and doing whatever they pleased. Sick of 'em all the time treating her like she got as much feeling as a piece of trash in the gutter. Like they did Mama. Like they did Daddy.
That night. One year back from fighting the war. Standing in the hallway. Only crime was walking the street looking for work. She remembered him cleaning off the egg that covered him from head to toe, a thin trickle of his blood mixing with white and yellow slime, running from the corner of his eye, down the side of his face. She remembered hating his patience when he told her, "Daddy's alright, baby. Eggs. That's all. Just eggs."
Sick of these white folks. Sick. Of every last one.
The white woman looked at the colored girl's face. Yeah, go ahead, she thought. Police'll be all over you so fast you won't know what hit you.
There was a short distance between the woman's face and Trudy's hand. It would be quick. Her brown hand, the red mark, that white skin.
Something stopped her.
Maybe it was the hint of a smile on the woman's lips, or the resigned expressions of the Negroes around her. And what would her half-grown daughter do without her? Negroes were being burned, beaten, and killed without a second thought.
The anger encased her, freezing the soles of her shoes to the floor. She could feel everything climbing to the top of her head, then stopping, icing over into one solid block. She concentrated on it. Tried to free it, let it loose, move on. Instead, she felt the ice catch in her throat. She knew this block well. It belonged to her. She would hide it, protect the precious tears it held. Dissolve it, piece by piece, when she was alone. Trudy saw herself, slowly, recrossing her arms, turning away. She heard the cash register ring.
The sweaty palm of Mr. Alcott's hand held two quarters. He offered them to the white woman.
"Um-hmm. Knew I was right." She walked toward Trudy. "I demand an apology."
Trudy walked past her. This woman no longer existed. She had tried to snatch Trudy through the wall that separated them, Negro from white. Wanted to see this colored girl broken, handcuffed on the other side. She had failed.
"Next," Trudy said, stepping inside her register area, smiling at a new customer, "I'm open."
"Hmph. This isn't over." The white woman gathered her bags and moved toward the door. "I promise you that, gal."
The perspiration that had dribbled down the hills of Alcott's body and collected in the valleys, now floated freely down the trails of his face, back, chest, and arms, as he watched the crowd unfurl, returning the old woman to the world outside his store.
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