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Ninety Days Inside The Empire: A Novel by William Appleman Williams

Squalls Along the Flight Line

Page 19

"Oh, Mrs. Taylor. I'm just putterin' around. Cat, I mean Lt. Wye, called last night and I'm cozy now...."

"Stop it, Susan. We all call him Cat because we love him in our way just as much as you do in yours. I want to tell you...."

-- Well! But then I guess I should just get used to it that they like him, too. But he is kind-o'-mine.

"...that he will be coming home today instead of Monday and we want you and Lt. Reis to go to church with us on Sunday."

-- Church? and Run-Run? Then she got it; must have something to do with them going down to that Negro church after Cat had the argument with the white mechanic on the flight line.

"Is Cat in trouble?"

"No, Susan not at all...."

-- Though God knows that all of us may be before this is over. Shit, let's get that on with it.

"Susan, do you think Cat did the right thing on the line?"

Nobody had ever asked her a question like that before, not even back up there in Minnesota where they grew up in the little town on the railroad line. People just took it for granted that the Negro children would go to school like everybody else. They lived there, even sometimes in the next block, and that was that. They played football and basketball and ran on the track team and went to the dances. She'd even kissed a Negro boy once. Susan was flustered.

"I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Taylor. We just grew together and went to school together and... well, we just never thought about it much. I mean, they might not be your best friends, but then lots o' people weren't my best friends. Gracious sakes, Mrs. Taylor, Cat's best friend on the basketball team was a Negro. Course Cat did the right thing, just came natural to him. Me, too. It's just wrong to treat people bad because they have a different color of skin."

Caroline had gone into a flat spin. Like twirling a plate on the tip of a spoon. She had never been talked to like that, not ever. She was woozy. She thought vaguely that if Susan was naive then she herself was dumb, and wondered why she'd thrown that second bar of soap. Barely hanging on, she remembered the time Mitch had taken her up in a Yellow Peril and put it into a flat spin and told her how to get out of it. She managed to recover.

"Susan, you are beautiful and for Christ's sake stop calling me Mrs. Taylor. My name is Caroline. But people live differently down here and we need your help. So will you come to church with us on Sunday-tomorrow?"

"We'll be happy, Mrs. -Caroline- but we don't have a car and the buses don't run very close to that church. I'll talk to Cat when he gets home, but I think it'll take about an hour for us to get there by 11. It did last time. We'll have to meet you there. Oh, Run-Run bought a car, maybe we can do it that way."

"You get Run-Run to come to your place and we'll pick you up there, say 'bout twenty to eleven, and we'll sit together."

"And we could come back here for a snack. We'll be ready, and thank you for thinking of us."

Caroline sat there with the phone dead in her hand. Just like Mitch, she thought. Damn him, anyway. Doin' the right thing is as natural to him as fuckin' me into never-never land. "I'll bet she and Cat heat the whole building when they get started."

-- To hell with that. We still got to get it straight.

She walked over to see how the flowers were doing on a diet of champagne and saw Mitch coming along home. She decided to be busy making coffee.

He walked in and without a word made two strong drinks and sat down at the kitchen table. He was tired.