Millersville, GA - Fall, 1988

CHARLENE

“Change can be a good thing,” Nana said.

Charlene turned her attention away from counting mile markers along the rural road to glance at her grandmother’s profile, a heavyset black woman she couldn’t remember seeing more than twice in her past seventeen years.

It was clear to Charlene that change was bad—evil, in fact. Change ripped her from the only home she’d ever known in Detroit, Michigan, and dumped her in a backwater town in who-knows-where, Georgia.

As if reading her thoughts, Nana gave her a sympathetic smile.

“Honey, it ain’t so bad. A little fresh air and country living gonna do you right good. You’ll see.”

Yeah, right! She thought. The smell of horseshit and being bored out of my skull is the miracle cure for fixing my fucked up life. Here, Charlene, take two whiffs of horseshit and call me when you forget about your brother dying and being forced to leave behind everyone and everything you care about.

The old woman was so wrong, it was almost funny. Too bad she didn’t feel like laughing. Instead, she folded her arms over her chest and glared out the passenger window of Nana’s old pickup truck.

“Your daddy’s trying to do right by you. He hoped sending you here would give you a chance at a normal life until things get better for you back home.”

Charlene wasn’t stupid or naïve enough to believe that. Darnell was gone. Things would never get better.

It should’ve been me, the little voice in her head screamed.

She thought of her fourteen-year-old brother, in a cold, dark grave with only his Chicago Bulls jersey and a sketch pad to keep him company. A flood of tears threatened to spill over, but she fought them back. She refused to cry at his funeral and would not do it now. Crying would not bring Darnell back or change her current situation. It would only make her feel weak.

Green fields finally gave way to a line of small, one-level-ranch houses and manicured lawns. Further down the road, there was a corner grocery store, a dry cleaner, a boutique shop, and a 1950s themed diner with a sign that read Cheesy’s.

What kind of name is Cheesy’s? She mused defiantly. Haven’t they ever heard of McDonald’s?

When Nana turned onto the two-lane street named Springhill, it was like entering a technicolored Mayberry. Historic looking brick and limestone buildings, some of which had huge storefront windows, set a few feet away from perfectly spaced trees that lined the cement sidewalks.

This had to be the cleanest street in America. There wasn’t a speck of dirt or trash anywhere and no winos hanging out on any of the street corners.

After five more minutes of driving, Nana finally pulled into the crowded school parking lot. A three-story, box-shaped building made of limestone and red brick loomed before them. It was connected to a smaller building, also brick and stone, with the word Gymnasium sprawled across the top in large white letters. Adjacent to the school’s gym was a football field, encircled by a narrow eight-lane track along with rows of tall bleachers.

Charlene squinted to make out the sign over the scoreboard. It read, Home of the Cougars—State Champion Track Team in bold green letters, and beside it was a logo of a big yellow cat with brown spots, which she assumed to be a poor interpretation of a cougar, baring its claws and fangs.

She frowned in disappointment. Her high school back in Detroit was ten times this school’s size and could accommodate nearly 4,600 students. By the looks of things, she couldn’t imagine there being a quarter of that many kids here.

Suddenly, her stomach fluttered with trepidation. It would be hard to become invisible in a small school where everyone knew everyone’s business.

Nana maneuvered her small, faded green pickup truck into an empty parking space and turned off the engine.

“We’re here,” she said, announcing the obvious. “Come on, let’s get you settled in. I gotta get to work. Mr. Humphrey is expecting me by ten.”

It irked Charlene that her grandmother made a living as a housekeeper. It was 1988 for godsakes. Reverend Jesse Jackson, a black man, was running for president and her poor grandmother was still picking up after ‘Massa’.

Mr. Humphrey should pick up his own shit.

Charlene watched Nana’s large frame struggling out of her seat. It was now 8:50 am. Most of the buses had cleared out, and only a few students were still in the parking lot. She observed a group of students entering the building just as she and her grandmother made their way towards the school entrance.

There wasn’t a single black or brown face among them, except for the old black man wearing a janitor uniform sweeping the sidewalk.

She looked up at the name etched in stone over the wide double doors that read, General Robert E. Lee Public High School. At least there wasn’t a confederate flag hanging outside for the world to see. If she had to take a guess, it was probably out being cleaned.

Nana walked up the stone steps ahead of her.

“Hurry now. Don’t want to be late on your first day. It’s bad enough you had to come so late in the semester.” She paused on the step, looking back expectantly. “You gonna have to work hard to catch on and keep your grades up. I don’t know how you did things back in Detroit, but I expect you to do your best here. I didn’t tolerate bad grades or foolishness from your daddy, so I ain’t gonna allow it from you. You hear me?”

Charlene had been on the honor roll since grade school and doubted a hick school in the boonies could teach her anything she didn’t already know.

“Yes, ma’am,” she answered begrudgingly.

Nana’s watery brown eyes softened, and she reached out to caress her granddaughter’s cheek with one warm, beefy hand.

“You’ll be fine here. Just remember what I told you. And never let nobody make you feel you don’t belong. Your daddy had a hard time making friends, but you’ll do better. You’re smart, pretty, just like your mama was, and got that beautiful singing voice. Can’t nothing or nobody hold you back, except you. You got that?”

Charlene nodded to show she was listening, though Nana’s pep talk did little to dispel her sour mood.

Nana turned back around and continued up the wide steps leading to the entrance doors. Charlene took a deep breath, resigned to her fate as she followed Nana inside.

As she expected, it looked like any other typical high school. Nothing held her interest until she came across the glass trophy case setting outside the principal’s office. While Nana was busy signing the registration papers and talking with the office secretary, Charlene examined the trophies and the blown-up black and white photos encased inside.

Her lips quirked into a brief grin at finding the school was integrated after all—at least the track team was. She read the impressive display of gold-plated plaques and large trophies that lined the glass shelves. The team had won state titles for the past three years. Not bad.

She looked over the photos more carefully. One of them showed a close-up of a white guy with a mop of dark curls with the sides shaved close around his ears. He had the lean, muscled body associated with most runners. The camera caught him in a winning pose, raising his arms high above his head as he passed over the finish line. Another showed him jumping over a hurdle with a sharp look of concentration on his boyishly handsome face. There were photos of other boys in similar poses, but the intensity in the first one’s dark eyes drew her back, making her want to look deeper. Who was he? What was he thinking as he crossed that finish line?

Her mother had once told her that the eyes were a window to the soul and could reveal a person’s true nature, even if they tried to hide it. She reached out to touch the glass and stared at her reflection. If what her mother said was true, could people see she wasn’t as tough as she pretended to be? That she was a coward who stayed up most nights staring at the ceiling, too afraid from fear of any sound that even remotely resembled a gunshot.

Charlene frowned and snatched her hand from the glass. The thought of strangers seeing pass her facade and reading her like an open book put a knot in her stomach and made her dread her predicament even more. She would just have to remember to keep her guard up.

The principal’s door opened and an attractive young woman wearing black-rimmed glasses with bleach-blonde hair tied back in a tight bun poked her head out.

“Principal McAfee will see you now.”

Nana turned and waved impatiently for Charlene to follow.

No use in stalling. This was her new school, whether she liked it or not. Charlene glanced at the runner’s photo in the trophy case one last time. How many more changes would she have to endure before her life was under control again?