One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia Page A

since the first grade. There was always a field trip to the fire station on Henry Street. We watched the same film about the firemen, policemen, and mayor, who kept our community safe and orderly. The film’s narrator reminded every boy—from Ellis Carter to the Jameses, the Anthonys, and every other pants wearer—that they too could grow up to be guardians of our community. We girls were reminded that we could look forward to becoming teachers, nurses, wives, and mothers. Poets were never mentioned.
    At the Center we had a civics lesson. We were being taught our rights as citizens and how to protect those rights when dealing with the police. Sister Mukumbuused the word “policeman,” while Crazy Kelvin, who filled in for Sister Pat, preferred to say “the racist pig.” He broke our rights down step-by-step as if there was no time to lose. Any given day a police car could stop my sisters and me on our way from the Safeway market and search our bag of groceries. We had to be armed with our rights.
    As the lesson went on, it seemed like all Crazy Kelvin wanted was to get us to call the police “the pigs.” He started with Hirohito. “My man, Hirohito, who knocked down your door and arrested your father?”
    Hirohito’s face fell to the table. He looked worse than when Sister Mukumbu asked him to revolve and spin around the sun. He picked at a flaky piece of skin on his thumb. Normally I’d think, Ew, nasty boy. How disgusting. Instead I felt sorry for him with Crazy Kelvin poking at him.
    Hirohito answered, “The police.”
    Crazy Kelvin said, “The who?”
    Hirohito said, “The Oakland police.”
    That wasn’t good enough for Crazy Kelvin, whom we had to call Brother Kelvin in the classroom. He looked like a bony, big-beaked chicken going “The who? The who?” It was like the time he shouted “black girl” at my sisters and me, while we shouted back “colored girl.”
    It didn’t take sharp eyes to see Sister Mukumbu was annoyed with her helper and as usual, stepped in to put an end to it. Crazy Kelvin was supposed to talk to us about ourrights, not to stand there going “The who? The who?”
    Big-beaked Crazy Kelvin wasn’t done. He said, “The pigs broke down the door of a Vietnam war hero’s house. The pigs handcuffed him without respect for his rights as a citizen. The racist pigs then separated Brother Woods from his family because he dared speak the truth to the people.”
    Hirohito tried to show no change in his face, but he was changing on the inside, where people change when they’re sad or angry. He looked directly at me, then looked away. I felt like I was supposed to say something to him, but I didn’t know what.
    Sister Mukumbu thanked Brother Kelvin for being our guest speaker and showed him to the door.
    Fern tugged the hem of my top. “I don’t like him. Surely don’t.”
    I glanced Eunice Ankton’s way. I had just found out what she had meant when we were out by the water fountain. That Hirohito’s father was in prison for speaking out to the people. Hirohito’s father was what Sister Mukumbu called a “freedom fighter” and a “political prisoner.” Although, now that I knew, I didn’t find any satisfaction in having found out.
    Imagine. To have your father sitting down eating dinner or shining his shoes while watching TV. To have your front door blown off its hinges and the police rush in. To see your father in handcuffs, led away.
    Hirohito didn’t have to imagine. He knew.
    I had been scared once. Truly scared for Papa. It happened two summers ago. Big Ma had gone back to Alabama ahead of us to visit family and take care of her house. We had packed up the Wildcat and had driven down to Alabama so my sisters and I could stay there for the summer. We had been driving all day, all night. Talk about being a long way from home. If we needed to stop, we found a gas station or a nice colored family to open their home to us. As we drove deeper south, down dark highways and