Light Of Trouble

I woke up to the smell of smoke, wait…. smoke? “Mama! Wake up, there's a fire!” I exclaimed. “Don’t be silly girl,” Mama chided, “It’s April, there ain’t no way a fire’s blazin.” I thought silently for a moment, I was sure I smelled smoke. I was still thinking when I heard Mama say something which confirmed my suspicions. “No! The cornbread, it's ruined.” Mama cried. I got up and dressed while listening to Mama complain about the waste of food. “That was a week's worth of cornbread!” Mama grumbled, “that was also the last of the flour! I hope we’ll have enough money for more, I doubt it.” “What's wrong?” I stammered, “Papa will bring us money to buy us more flour, won't he?” “Child, c’mere” Mama said, “I gotta tell you something, these past months, Papa hasn’t been able to find a steady job.” “But Mama,” I said, “Papa has lots of skills, I would hire him if I could myself!” “I know baby, but that's not how it is now, there's something going on, something about the stock market crashing, it’s causing people to lose their jobs” Mama said calmly, “and in this world, what's hard for a White is even harder for a Black” “Aw shoot,” I said angrily, “White and black don’t mean anything, I’ll bet Papa has more skill than 10 people combined!” “I agree child, but in other people's eyes, it does” Mama said, “but that's a lesson for another day, are you ready to surprise Papa when he gets home?” “Surprise Papa with what?” I spat, “we don't even have bread to eat!” “Aw c'mon baby don’t be so negative, we have love, right?” Mama said. “Yeah I guess,” I mumbled.

I watched Papa emerge from the dust on the unpaved road. “Papa!” I cried. I ran towards him and fell into his arms. “Hey girl how u doin” Papa said. “Micheal” Mama said, “We have some bad news.” “Guess I'm not alone” Papa sighed while taking off his hat, “Hit me with it.” “We’re all out of flour, can we afford more?” “Fraid’ not,” Papa said sadly, “Couldn’t find a job.” “We're not gonna starve are we Micheal?” Mama asked. “That brings me to the good news” Papa said, “There is a soup kitchen not too far away giving free food to the ones in need, should hold at least a few weeks till I get a job.” “Are we heading up there tonight?” Mama questioned? “Ye, we better start goin, it's an hour walk,” Papa said. “1 hour!?” Mama exclaimed, “How do you expect Harriet to walk that far?” “I can manage,” I piped.

We headed up to the soup kitchen but it wasn’t long till we encountered trouble. While walking up the road we heard a truck noise. Papa pushed us aside onto the bank as the truck almost ran us over. “You're lucky we missed, get off the road!” roared the truck driver angrily. “What is he going after us for?” I said angrily, “we ain’t do nothin’!” “Don’t worry about it sweetheart,” Papa said, “C'mon let's get goin’ we're nearly there.” We arrived and got in line, it only took me a moment to realize why we had come so early. The line was longer than a plantation! “Micheal, are you sure this is a good idea?” Mama questioned, “There sure are a lot of people.” “Mary, it’ll be fine,” Papa reassured. Time passed before we got to the front of the line, it didn’t take long for me to see there were many families like us, waiting for food. When we got to the front of the line we got a strange look from the kitchen workers. “What are you doing here?” asked the worker. “Getting food,” Papa said, “like everyone else.” “Leave, we don’t serve your kind,” the worker said angrily, “your kind are the ones causing this mess, making a lack of jobs for everyone!” “Ey! I said, It ain't my fault my daddy is more skilled than the rest of y’all!” I shouted. “You! Get your daughter out of here and never come back!” roared the worker as he pulled out a knife. Papa picked me up and ran.

When we arrived back home I was getting hungry. Looking at all that soup and bread earlier made me drool. It was better than the food my Mama cooked. It was like a feast to me. “Mama, what's for dinner?” I asked, “also why didn’t we get any food up there earlier there was plenty!” Mama looked at Papa but he shook his head. “Honey, let's just say that food wasn’t for us,” Mama told me. “But why?” I stammered, “all the other families got food and we didn’t? That's not fair.” Mama whispered to Papa, after a moment he replied. “It’s too early Mary, we must wait till she is at least 12 to tell her.” Papa said. “But Micheal she won't go far in this world, she oughta end up in trouble if she dont know!” Mama said. After some time of consideration Papa said, “Fine.” “Harriet, the reason why we didn’t get any food was because, well, we were black and they were not there, they saw us differently like we were lower class people. They blame us for the lack of jobs because we compete for the jobs. You understand Harriet? You can't go saying those things you just said to anyone else. It's dangerous!” “Mama please,” I said, “you know they can't hurt me! It’s against the law!” “I know baby, just trust me, please?” Mama said as she looked me into the eye pleadingly. “All right, I guess,” I mumbled. “Ok baby, now don't go around doing anything stupid! I just know you're a light of trouble ” Mama scolded. “Yes Ma'am” I said, but deep inside, I knew I would do something to teach those whites a lesson, a lesson that would show them we were not only equal, but better.

Next Day

I tried to think of a way to get back at the whites without getting caught or getting into trouble. After some time thinking I came up with the perfect idea. I would target the whites’ children. This way I would have an even fight and I could get revenge. My plan was to go around town to the whites schools and leave messages everywhere saying that Blacks were better. I wouldn’t be caught and the message would be spread. Tonight I will start going through with my plan. I headed up to the school where the whites went, Washington Elementary. I heard that only rich kids attended that school. I printed out messages with the best handwriting I could manage. I figured my plan worked when I heard on the news crude messages had been found in the school and they would be searching for the criminal who scribed the messages. After glancing through the article I came across unpleasant news. They were gonna have night guard’s looking out for the criminal.

All along the week I feared I would get caught. They would go after my whole family, I couldn't let my mistakes bring us down. From now on I was going to up my operations in order to avoid getting noticed. I read that the town sheriff pledged to find the criminal at all costs. I made a mental reminder to leave the school the same as I had left it: no readable footprints, no ink traces, and no clues that would help them figure out which one of us committed the crime. As the days went on, I planned on getting into the school again. The school had claimed they would lock all the doors from now on. Luckily, I didn’t need to get inside the school, all I needed was the outside.

I headed up to the school at night, no one was there. That made my plan a lot more simple. Using some ink I made at home I drew in big lines the same messages as last time. However, this time, it was flat on the school wall. I snuck back home and waited. In the morning we heard knocking at our door. Mama rushed to open the door. We found 3 white men waiting for us at the door. They burst in and took a long look at each of us. “We found more crude messages at the school, we suspect someone near did it, like you” a white man said. “We assure you we have not been 1 mile near that school!” Mama promised. “We're gonna need to search this house,” the white man said, “spread out! Look for ink, a blue color.” For a second I panicked, did I leave any of the ink lying around? I rushed to my room but a white man pushed me back. “Stay here,” the white man said. They went around our house checking the rooms. Each second was frightening. Finally the white man came back. “They're clean,” the white man said, “let's go.” After this incident I punished myself harshly. I had left the paint under my bed, if the white men had investigated the area better we would have been caught. I made a mental note to myself to hide the paint in the bushes outside or get rid of it entirely.

A week later

Tonight would be the night I finish my plan. This time I would surely get the message out. This time I would be sure to destroy all the evidence. However, before long I knew I should have taken my Moms advice on being light of trouble. I went up at night to write my message. I started painting the words out carefully. I was done with the first word when I got thrown off. Standing right in front of me was a white man. “So you’ve been writing these crude messages!” he bellowed, “everyone come here, I got the criminal!” I tried to scramble away but he had a tight grip on me. I panicked and poked the man’s eye with my paintbrush. As the white man roared in pain I scrambled away and ran as fast as I could. I knew I was under pursuit so I found a place to hide. I waited one hour before coming out of my hiding place and headed back home. During that hour, I started to realize how wrong my plan went. As I approached the school I noticed some lights at the back. I realized that all the other times there was never a light. I walked into the school guards! I was lucky I even got into the school perimeter. However, I realized thinking about the past was not important, what would I do now? I was a criminal and my description was out. I quickly made a decision that I would go back home. As I headed back I knew my parents would be on to me. In the 10 minutes it took to arrive at their house, I had made a cover story. I usually went out to walk around our house, I would say I fell in a hole and figured my way out with a stick. My story had flaws, however I didn’t have much time to revise as I heard my mom cry. “Harriet!,” Mama cried, “Is that you!”

Over the next hour my Mama and Papa interrogated me like a criminal, which you could say was true. I answered them with lies. All was going well until our door came crashing down. “There she is,” said a white man. The same white man who had caught me earlier. “She's the one, I would never forget a face that evil!” the white man shouted. They held me and dragged me out of the house. Papa put himself between me and the police and told me to run. That's what I did, I ran away. Behind me, I could hear the sounds of war. My dad was throwing punches and my mom was joining him. I knew they would never make it out of this fight. They were buying me time to escape. Before long I heard a loud bang in the sky and I knew the fight was over. No one could escape a bullet. I turned towards the forest, the one place that I could hide and lose the white men. The men followed me in, I kept running and hiding. The hunt went on for what you can say was a century. I somehow lost the men and found a place to stay overnight.

10 years later

That's what I did for a long time. Over the years I moved from town to town, city to city, state to state. It seemed like wherever I went trouble found me. I guess Mama was right about being a light of trouble. In the last ten years, I traveled from California to Nevada and Utah. Over the journey I met many people who accompanied me for some while before leaving elsewhere. However, in ten years, not much has changed. I am still in pursuit from the sheriff and living alone. Maybe one day, that will change, but that day is not today.

The End