Read Online Mozart and Leadbelly by Ernest J. Gaines - Free Book Online

around the room. His ancestors, who had once been slaves, lived, if not in this house, then in one just like this one in the quarter. (He would be told that much later by a man who had spent all of his life here.)
    The bus came around the bend of the road and he waved his handkerchief, and when the bus stopped he climbed on with the suitcase, and after paying his fare, he went all the way to the back of the bus where he was supposed to go, passing under the little signs hanging over the aisle that read “White” and “Colored.” He must have found a seat because he cannot remember standing all the way to New Orleans, where he would take a train to California. But he can remember that until he got to Southern California he saw no other white person in his car except the conductor. When he changed trains in Los Angeles, he noticed the different races together.
    His mother and stepfather now lived in government-subsidized projects in Vallejo, California. In the projects were blacks, whites, Asians, Latinos—all the groups, races, who were Californians at that time. He got along with the blacks immediately, but it took him a while to get up enough courage to approach the others. He watched them play basketball, football, tennis. He had never done any of this, so he watched them. Eventually he would be a member, but now he stood back and watched everything that was going on around him.
    One day while he and one of the Asians stood on the sidelines watching a football game, the Asian said to him (and he still cannot recall what brought it about) that he, the Asian, was not as good as white people are, but better than blacks, because blacks had not contributed anything to civilization. They, he and the Asian, were watching a football game, and from what he could see of the game, the black kids were holding their place as well as or better than any of the other group. So what was this little fellow talking about?
    He had never thought himself less than anyone else, nor better. He had come from a world where the two races, white and black, were separated, but he had never thought he was less than anyone else. He had always carried his share of the load. He had gone into the fields at eight years old, and he could do as much work as any other eight-year-old could do. He had gone into the swamps at eleven or twelve, and he could pull the saw as well as anyone of that age could. So he had never thought less of himself than he did of any other. There were those who were stronger than he, those who were better ballplayers and marble shooters than he, but he was better in other things than they were—reading, for example; writing letters, for example. So he had never thought himself less. So what was this little fellow talking about?
    Once upon a time there was a tall, slim, frightened black boy who sat in the back row of all of his classes in California. Once he was called on to explain what he knew about the American Civil War. None of his teachers in the South had ever mentioned the Civil War to him that he could remember, and he thought his instructor had asked him what he knew about the silver war. He did not know anything about a silver war either, but he talked about a minute through the laughter of his classmates—until the instructor told him to sit back down.
    This same boy was also told by other recent black migrants to California that you were never supposed to tell people you came from the country. Best to say you don’t know a thing about picking cotton, or chitlins, beef tripe, watermelons—and all the rest of that country stuff like pig feet, pig lips, pig ears, pig tails. And you came from New Orleans—and never say N’awlens. It’s New Or-lea-ans. Which he tried to do for several months—until someone asked him about Bourbon Street. He knew nothing about Bourbon Street, and he realized that to go on lying to others meant lying to himself. Not only was he lying to himself, but he was also denying knowing the