Read Online Guardian by Julius Lester - Free Book Online Page A

don’t have to be in Davis to put a roof over our heads and food on the table. So we would have had to leave town if you’d told the truth. So what? We could’ve gone some place and started again.”
    Bert shakes his head. “Go where? To some city up north? I’m a small-town country boy from the South. My grandparents are buried here, and so are my parents. And so will I. This is my home, Maureen. Everybody knows me here. If we moved someplace else, I’d be a nobody.”
    Maureen sighs and nods her head slowly. “I understand how you feel, Bert. Believe me. I do. Maybe it’s too late for us, but I don’t want Ansel to grow up in a town where people prefer to believe a lie and kill a man to prove the lie.”
    â€œWhat are you saying, Maureen?”
    â€œI don’t want my son to spend another minute in a town that would do what this town did tonight.”
    â€œWhat’re you saying?” Bert asks again, sharply this time.
    â€œJust telling you how I feel.”
    â€œI don’t give a damn how you feel. You’re not sending my boy away from here. I need him in the store; I need him to carry on the business.”
    â€œI don’t give a damn what you need, Bert.”
    There is a stunned silence. Neither Bert nor Ansel has ever heard a swear word from Maureen’s lips, and if they’d been asked, they would have said she didn’t know any.
    â€œWhat’s gotten into you?” Bert asks softly. “This is not like you.”
    â€œHow would you know what I’m like? When have you ever asked me a question about myself, about what I might have done on a given day, about the books I bring back from the library? When have you shown an interest in anything besides the store?”
    Bert shakes his head. “I know what happened tonight was upsetting. You’ll feel better in the morning. It’s late and Ansel and I have to be at the store earlytomorrow, well, it’s today already.”
    â€œI’m not going to the store,” Ansel tells his father. “I’m not going ever again. I hate that store. But don’t forget to order more rope. All we had got used to hang Willie’s papa.”

Saturday Morning
    1.
    Bert and Maureen sit across from each other at the kitchen table. The only sounds are of his chewing the eggs, toast, and sausage she made for his breakfast, and the slurping noise as he drinks coffee.
    Maureen is not eating. She seldom eats breakfast.
    She stares at him.
    His eyes are fixed on his plate.
    They have not spoken since their argument last night.
    Bert is angry that his own family does not understand. All he is trying to do is provide for them. Why can’t they understand that? He feels bad about what happened to Big Willie, but the nigger was half-crazy anyway. They just put him out of his misery.
    Maureen knows she has reached a crossroads in her life. Until now her life has been as passive as a dead autumn leaf going wherever the wind pushes it.
    This morning she feels more like the wind, active rather than passive. Is this what it is like to be alive? Is this pain of confusion and indecision life itself?
    â€œIt’s Saturday,” Bert says. “You not coming to the store today?”
    â€œI don’t think any colored people will be coming to town.”
    â€œYou don’t think I know that? But I bet everybody else will. I can’t work the register and wait on people by myself. I need you and Ansel today.”
    Maureen has never said no to anyone. Not doing what someone wants you to is to risk losing their friendship, their love. But after last night she is not sure Bert was ever her friend, if he has ever loved her, or she him.
    â€œI’m sure you’ll manage,” she says quietly.
    â€œPeople are going to talk if they don’t see you and Ansel in the store today. I can’t have people thinking my family is a bunch of nigger lovers.”
    Maureen’s