The rest of the week his mother did not put on a fancy outfit. She worked at Yale. She wore a gray uniform with a white ruffled collar. She left for work very early, before the boy was awake. She had to take care of the offices before the professors got there. That was what she called it, taking care of the offices. She was not supposed to bother the professors, not ever. The boy did not know what a professor was, but in his mind he saw a big scaly blue monster, because of those blue scarves the big kids who went to Yale liked to wear.
The boy liked when his parents went out. Nana would take care of him. Her hair was thin and gray. She wore very thick glasses. She loved to sit in the kitchen eating snickerdoodles and reading her magazines. The magazines had funny names. The League for the Freedom of Darker Peoples and All Oppressed or The Ethiopian World Federation. When his parents went out, Nana would feed him his supper and make sure he said his prayers. The boy knew the words to “Now I Lay Me down to Sleep” and one or two others, but his father told him it was better to come up with his own bedtime prayer, a different one every night. The boy found this hard, which was another reason that he was sure he was going to hell.
Nana didn’t seem to care which prayers the boy said. If he wanted to say “Now I Lay Me down to Sleep,” that was fine with her. Then she would tuck him in and sit on his bed and tell him stories about how her own father had escaped from Virginia and how they sent a man to make him go back and her father had shot and killed him. Or about how when her brother went to France in what she called the First War, he was treated better there than back home. Or about how the Negroes of New Haven tried to build a college of their own a hundred years ago but the white folks wouldn’t let them. Or about how Marcus Garvey would have saved the whole darker nation except that the white folks wouldn’t let him. One night he asked her if the man her father had shot went to heaven. She laughed and said, He was a wicked man, but th’ Lord’s mercy don’t know no bounds. After the day his mother bought him the blue shoes at Malley’s, the boy asked Nana if maybe he could go to Europe one day. Nana laughed and said he could do pretty much anything he wanted.
The boy decided that Yale had never happened to his Nana.
On Tuesdays through Saturdays the boy went to Vacation Bible School in the basement of the church. The boy liked Vacation Bible School. It was summer and the days were very hot. There were ten big signs around the walls, one for each of the Commandments. The kids would sit there in the basement sweating in the heat and Miss Deveaux would lead them in prayer. Miss Deveaux never sweated. She was very strict, but the boy liked her. She also had the best job in the whole wide world. She worked for the A.C. Glibert Company, painting the American Flyer trains. She was surrounded all day long by black engines and green Pullman cars and red cabooses. The boy wished he had her job. So he was going to hell for envy too.
After prayers the class would sing a hymn and then one of the kids would read a psalm and then Miss Deveaux would read them a story from a thick brown book. One morning the story was about a boy named Dick who was trying to win the prize for never missing a day of third grade. Dick was so proud of never missing. Then one day he saw an old man who needed help with his apple cart. Dick helped the man and missed a day of school. The moral of the story was that helping the old man was better than winning the prize. The boy didn’t know if that was right. What if Dick really needed that prize? What if Dick was a Negro and the prize was a trip to France? What if the prize was an American Flyer train set? But the boy never asked questions like that. Just thinking those questions was probably enough to send him to hell.
After story time, the class would sing another hymn and then Miss Deveaux would read them another story, like about why Jesus came and how he died for them, or about how Hannah wanted a baby and prayed until God gave her one. Then they would stand up and make a circle and join hands and sing some more, and then it was time for lunch and school would be over for the day. Usually the boy had to stay late, because his mother could not pick him up until three o’clock. Miss Deveaux or Mrs. Percy would look after him and a few of the others whose mothers had to work. Mrs. Percy would shake her head and say how terrible it was that a woman should have to work. Supporting the family was the husband’s job, she would say. The boy wondered whether that meant it was sinful for Mrs. Percy to run the candy store.
On Saturday mornings the boy’s father would come to Vacation Bible School. He wore the same black suit he wore for Sunday services. Miss Deveaux would warn the kids to be on their best behavior while the senior deacon was talking. Then she would fold her hands and sit quietly, just like the kids. The boy’s father would stand in the front of the room. He would talk about why it was important to listen to their elders and do what they were told. He would tell them how God had put them on this earth not to do what they wanted but to do what was right. He would tell them how the only way to know what was right was to listen to their parents and their teachers and go to church and also read the Bible with their families. Sometimes he would go around the room and ask each of the kids their favorite Bible verse. Some of the kids would say things like John 14:6 or Matthew 8:27, and some would say things like the story about the loaves and the fishes. His father would nod and go on to the next kid. But if one of them didn’t have an answer, his father would write a note to the parents, and the kid would have to bring it back the next day signed. And the kids who didn’t know any Bible verses were always so embarrassed that they knew five by the next time the boy’s father came. The fact that the kids were all scared of his father was another reason the boy was so proud of him, even if he was scared of him too.
After Vacation Bible School on Saturdays, the family would climb into the big black Buick and go motoring. That was what the boy’s father called it, motoring. Nana usually stayed home. Sometimes they motored to the beach. Sometimes they motored to a state park. But what the boy loved best was when they would motor up to West Rock and park by the fence and get out of the car and watch the men blasting a tunnel through the mountain. The men wore helmets with lights on them. They would go into the tunnel pushing a cart on a track and a little while later there would be a big explosion. The fence would shake. The boy would think about Christopher getting his leg blown off by a mine. But it looked like a very exciting job. All of the men digging the tunnel were white. The boy watched closely for any injuries. It’s dangerous work, his father would say as they motored back home in the shiny black Buick. Let’s remember to pray for them tonight. His father had been in the war too but he still had both of his legs. The boy wondered if the men digging the tunnel prayed for the Negroes.
Vacation Bible School had Mondays off, and so the boy would stay home all day with Nana. After he did his chores she would let him read comic books and sometimes even listen to the radio. When his parents were home, they usually listened to music or shows with important-sounding names like America’s Town Meeting of the Air. But Nana liked to sit in her room with her eyes closed and her feet up and listen to the radio preachers. Or she might tune in Aunt Jenny’s Real Life Stories and listen to the recipes and say things like, No, no, Jenny, that’s wrong, you don’t use paprika. Nana was always complaining about the heat, so the boy would go down to the kitchen and pour her some lemonade even though his mother did not really allow it upstairs. He would sit with Nana and rub her feet. When it was the boy’s turn to pick a radio show, he chose The Answer Man and Ripley’s Believe It or Not! And if he did a few extra chores, Nana might let him listen to The All-Star Western Theatre or The Lone Ranger, even though she knew his father disapproved. But there she would draw the line. The other kids were always talking about Amos ’n’ Andy and Baby Snooks, but Nana would say, No, boy, you know what your father says, they are forbidden in his house. Then she would close her eyes again. Nana’s feet were big and wrinkled and knobby. Sometimes while the boy rubbed her feet she would call him by his father’s name.