8

Little John Lee and his mama come out the dentist office, and the nurse calls somebody else in. Then little bit later they come out, and the nurse calls another name.

But fast’s she calls somebody in there, somebody else comes in the place where we sitting, and the room stays full.

The people coming in now, all of them wearing big coats. One of them says something ’bout sleeting, another one says he hope not. Another one says he think it ain’t nothing but rain. ’Cause, he says, rain can get awful cold this time of year.

All round the room they talking. Some of them talking to people right by them, some of them talking to people clear ’cross the room, some of them talking to anybody’ll listen. It’s a little bitty room, no bigger than us kitchen, and I can see everybody in there. The little old room’s full of smoke, ’cause you got two old men smoking pipes over by that side door. I think I feel my tooth thumping me some, and I hold my breath and wait. I wait and wait, but it don’t thump me no more. Thank God for that.

I feel like going to sleep, and I lean back ’gainst the wall. But I’m scared to go to sleep. Scared ’cause the nurse might call my name and I won’t hear her. And Mama might go to sleep, too, and she’ll be mad if neither one of us heard the nurse.

I look up at Mama. I love my mama. I love my mama. And when cotton come I’m go’n get her a new coat. And I ain’t go’n get a black one, either. I think I’m go’n get her a red one.

“They got some books over there,” I say. “Want read one of them?”

Mama looks at the books, but she don’t answer me.

“You got yourself a little man there,” the lady says.

Mama don’t say nothing to the lady, but she must’ve smiled, ’cause I seen the lady smiling back. The lady looks at me a little while, like she’s feeling sorry for me.

“You sure got that preacher out here in a hurry,” she says to that boy.

The boy looks up at her and looks in his book again.

When I grow up I want be just like him. I want clothes like that and I want keep a book with me, too.

“You really don’t believe in God?” the lady says.

“No,” he says.

“But why?” the lady says.

“Because the wind is pink,” he says.

“What?” the lady says.

The boy don’t answer her no more. He just reads in his book.

“Talking ’bout the wind is pink,” that old lady says. She’s sitting on the same bench with the boy and she’s trying to look in his face. The boy makes ’tend the old lady ain’t even there. He just keeps on reading. “Wind is pink,” she says again. “Eh, Lord, what children go’n be saying next?”

The lady ’cross from us bust out laughing.

“That’s a good one,” she says. “The wind is pink. Yes sir, that’s a good one.”

“Don’t you believe the wind is pink?” the boys says. He keeps his head down in the book.

“Course I believe it, honey,” the lady says. “Course I do.” She looks at us and winks her eye. “And what color is grass, honey?”

“Grass? Grass is black.”

She bust out laughing again. The boy looks at her.

“Don’t you believe grass is black?” he says.

The lady quits her laughing and looks at him. Everybody else looking at him, too. The place quiet, quiet.

“Grass is green, honey,” the lady says. “It was green yesterday, it’s green today, and it’s go’n be green tomorrow.”

“How do you know it’s green?”

“I know because I know.”

“You don’t know it’s green,” the boy says. “You believe it’s green because someone told you it was green. If someone had told you it was black you’d believe it was black.”

“It’s green,” the lady says. “I know green when I see green.”

“Prove it’s green,” the boy says.

“Sure, now,” the lady says. “Don’t tell me it’s coming to that.”

“It’s coming to just that,” the boy says. “Words mean nothing. One means no more than the other.”

“That’s what it all coming to?” that old lady says. That old lady got on a turban and she got on two sweaters. She got a green sweater under a black sweater. I can see the green sweater ’cause some of the buttons on the other sweater’s missing.

“Yes ma’am,” the boy says. “Words mean nothing. Action is the only thing. Doing. That’s the only thing.”

“Other words, you want the Lord to come down here and show Hisself to you?” she says.

“Exactly, ma’am,” he says.

“You don’t mean that, I’m sure?” she says.

“I do, ma’am,” he says.

“Done, Jesus,” the old lady says, shaking her head.

“I didn’t go ’long with that preacher at first,” the other lady says; “but now—I don’t know. When a person say the grass is black, he’s either a lunatic or something’s wrong.”

“Prove to me that it’s green,” the boy says.

“It’s green because the people say it’s green.”

“Those same people say we’re citizens of these United States,” the boy says.

“I think I’m a citizen,” the lady says.

“Citizens have certain rights,” the boy says. “Name me one right that you have. One right, granted by the Constitution, that you can exercise in Bayonne.”

The lady don’t answer him. She just looks at him like she don’t know what he’s talking ’bout. I know I don’t.

“Things changing,” she says.

“Things are changing because some black men have begun to think with their brains and not their hearts,” the boy says.

“You trying to say these people don’t believe in God?”

“I’m sure some of them do. Maybe most of them do. But they don’t believe that God is going to touch these white people’s hearts and change things tomorrow. Things change through action. By no other way.”

Everybody sit quiet and look at the boy. Nobody says a thing. Then the lady ’cross the room from me and Mama just shakes her head.

“Let’s hope that not all your generation feel the same way you do,” she says.

“Think what you please, it doesn’t matter,” the boy says. “But it will be men who listen to their heads and not their hearts who will see that your children have a better chance than you had.”

“Let’s hope they ain’t all like you, though,” the old lady says. “Done forgot the heart absolutely.”

“Yes ma’am, I hope they aren’t all like me,” the boy says. “Unfortunately, I was born too late to believe in your God. Let’s hope that the ones who come after will have your faith—if not in your God, then in something else, something definitely that they can lean on. I haven’t anything. For me, the wind is pink, the grass is black.”