My brother and I have been tasked with bringing back food while our mother waits for us in the motel. We take the car and drive off through LA. Away from home no one knows we’re mulatto, so we cruise through the city like a couple of nice white kids. We stop off the road at the only place in town that seems to be open, the local high-school soda fountain. No one looks twice as we walk in.
We’re sitting at the counter waiting for our order when the small bell hanging from the door frame alerts the proprietor of an incoming customer. A man and women walk in through the front door. The woman is lovely—long black hair and blue eyes—but she’s Mexican, and so the table of suburban high-school jocks sitting on the other side of the room is somehow offended by her existence. They cannot let her get away with her beauty. They call at her, making snide remarks, denigrating her looks and her culture. They go after the man that’s with her too. He’s white like them, but they let him know he’s trash just like her because he’s broken the social code that they’ve grown up believing in without knowing why. The woman lifts her chin and strides out the door; he follows.
We’re sitting at the counter waiting for our order when the small bell hanging from the door frame alerts the proprietor of an incoming customer. A man and women walk in through the front door. The woman is lovely—long black hair and blue eyes—but she’s Mexican, and so the table of suburban high-school jocks sitting on the other side of the room is somehow offended by her existence. They cannot let her get away with her beauty. They call at her, making snide remarks, denigrating her looks and her culture. They go after the man that’s with her too. He’s white like them, but they let him know he’s trash just like her because he’s broken the social code that they’ve grown up believing in without knowing why. The woman lifts her chin and strides out the door; he follows.
The boys jeer at her as they leave, and I can tell that this man she’s with is bathing in her oppression. The color of her skin, the heritage of her people—for a moment they allow him to escape the whitebread destiny that haunts his dreams. He takes in the insults of these self-righteous adolescents, feeding off of them, internalizing them, hoping to tap into the suffering that he has been deprived of, the suffering that he thinks will give his life the depth and meaning that he feels are lacking from the white world. She allows him to escape his burdensome privilege. But he’ll move on from her. Soon probably. The same restlessness and desire for adventure that led him to her will carry him away again to another enticingly exotic struggle. This life with her is only an outfit that he’s trying on for a moment.
I look back at the table of jocks. They slurp on their milkshakes with the satisfaction of a job well done. My face grows hot with anger, but I stay seated at the counter. It’s unwise of me to invite scrutiny.
- Beverly Washington, 1948
- Beverly Washington, 1948
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