Sunday in 1995

I couldn’t look away. “The thirty five year anniversary” they wrote in the New York Times that day.  I think was six years old when I saw the cheerleaders for the first time on the black and white television in Jason’s living room. Their pale fists clenched as they shouted at that poor Ruby Bridges in her white dress and white shoes, her back pin-straight in either defiance or shock; I could never tell the difference.

“Jesus, turn off the kettle when it boils,” Jason came running into the room. 

For a moment I didn’t notice him. Her body was so overwhelmingly petite in comparison to the giants that stood around her.

I wasn’t hungry anymore. The room, drenched warm in light, reeked of Sunday morning cooking. I looked up at Jason blankly. Did he even remember that day in his living room when we lay fists tucked under our chins, elbows pressed sharply into his cushy, beige carpet, with our eyes glued to the screen?

“Oh.” He said in monotone. He saw the paper too. The oil of his brown, tussled hair picked up the light as he walked towards the syrup-stained table. His loose, cotton pajama bottoms swayed around his ankles as he approached.

“Put that away before,” too late.

The white swinging door flew open and cooler, non-cooking air burst into the kitchen, as Grace shrieked aloud “Good morning,” she hesitated, “Dads!” The dust still swirled in the air as her teeth glistened in the light that streamed through the window above the sink. Her now off-white pajamas were still wrinkled from tossing and turning in her sleep.  

I shuffled the crinkly paper to the side subtly.

“Okayy,” Jason’s voice boomed against the stone floor. “Who wants pancakes?”

Grace’s arm sprung up into the Sunday air whilst she simultaneously heaved what to her was a gigantic chair out. She leapt up onto it and pressed her elbows into the syrupy table.

“Who’s that?” Grace pointed towards Ruby Bridges almost immediately.

The dust floating in the window stood still.

I began,“That’s was one of the first black girls to attend an all-white school in the 1960s. And some people were upset about that, but most people are grateful for it.”

“All-white school?” She didn’t blink.

“Schools in the south used to be divided by race.”

“Like the water fountains?” Her Upper West Side school had recently completed a very lighthearted and vague unit on Martin Luther King.

“Yes schools in a way were like the water fountains,” Jason responded.

“Oh.” She sank into the chair contemplating. She then looked towards Jason.

“Would you drink out of the same water fountain as me and dad?”

“Of course.” Jason paused. “Because people like that girl helped fight so that your father and I would be able to love you one day.”

“Ok.” She stated confidently as she sat back up and drenched her pancakes in syrup. 

For a moment it was that simple.

-Corey Maxson (1995)