Different Rules

On a hot, sticky August afternoon in 1946, the heat from the sidewalk burned through my sandals as I walked the long blocks to my piano lesson. My satchel, loaded with practice books, sheet music and a one dollar fifty cent lesson fee, thumped against my bare leg. Sweat covered my skinny, nine-year-old body. Each week I dragged myself the ten blocks from our home in Highland Park to Oak Street, where I played scales and learned simplified classical music pieces from Miss Ruth Graves. I didn’t look forward to these lessons, and today I was especially miffed at having to give up an afternoon splashing through backyard lawn sprinklers with my friends. As I neared the corner of Oak Street, someone called out to me.

“Where ya’ going’?” came a soft voice within the deep shade of the corner house lawn. A girl about my age sat in a red Radio Flyer wagon under a large tree.

“Where ya’ goin’?” she asked again.

I stopped and stared at her. She seemed like a nice girl, and of course I knew where I was going, but seeing her in that Radio Flyer left me speechless.

“Uh, I’m going to my piano lessons,” I finally stammered, eyes fixed on the shiny wagon.

“‘Guess you goin’ Miz Graves’ house, huh?” She looked at me, one hand on the wagon handle, the other holding a bottle of Grapette soda.

“Yeah, she’s my teacher. Do you know her?” I asked, not taking my eyes from the wonderful, shiny, red wagon.

“Yeah, she know my mama; gives me books to read sometimes,” she answered. The girl took a sip of Grapette and asked, “What’s yo’ name?”

I told her my name and asked hers. “Sally Jane, but my brothers call me Sal,” she answered, and drank more of the soda.

We sat in her wagon and talked. We learned we would both be in fourth grade, and she had three older brothers and a sister; I had one sister, three years old. We both liked to read and borrowed library books from the bookmobile that came to our neighborhoods during the summer. We shared sips of her Grapette, and then we took turns pulling one another the last two blocks to Miss Graves’ old Victorian house.

When my lesson ended, Sally Jane and her Radio Flyer had disappeared. As I passed the big shade tree, I looked for her, but only a rusty tin roof poked above the tall, thick bushes that surrounded her house and porch.

After that day, I hurried to my lessons, hoping to spend time with Sally Jane. A girl with her own Radio Flyer wagon was someone I wanted to be my friend.

~

When I had asked for a Radio Flyer wagon the past Christmas, I received dolls and prissy dresses instead. My parents said that wearing pretty dresses would help make a lady out of me, and a Radio Flyer wagon would not. They claimed it suited boys better than girls. My piano lessons were also part of their plan to change my tomboy ways. I didn’t think much of their plans, and continued to spend most of my time playing with the Spencer brothers, who lived two houses up the street from us. They had two Radio Flyers, two bicycles, and Red Ryder B-B guns. I planned to start with a wagon and work up to the B-B gun. I had new hope now that I had met Sally Jane, a girl my own age who had a Radio Flyer wagon. I was determined to find out how she got it.

 My mother had drilled it into me that it was very bad manners to ask anyone where they got their clothes or toys, and for heaven’s sake, NEVER ask the cost of ANYTHING, EVER! I would have to think of a plan that didn’t involve asking the forbidden question.

After days of thinking about it, I had no answers. I came up with only one possible idea of how Sally Jane might have gotten her wagon. I wondered if Sally Jane had used magical powers. I heard a story at Sunday school about a man whose girlfriend cut off his hair, and he lost his man strength; he turned weak as a baby. I heard another story about a girl with long hair so magical that when she hung it out the window, her boyfriend climbed it like a ladder. The next time I saw Sally Jane, I looked closely at her hair. It formed short, tight curls in abundance, like mine, but hers were black and mine shone in a reddish brown color that my mother called auburn. Since our hair pretty much matched except for the color, I didn’t see much chance of her hair being magical enough to get her a Radio Flyer. I would have to think of something else.

           Thanksgiving came and went, and I became more and more desperate. It looked as if I would have to ask Sally Jane where she got her wagon so I would have time to plan before Christmas. I reasoned that since a Radio Flyer was not clothes and not exactly a toy, my mother’s rule didn’t count. I made up my mind to ask on the next piano lesson day.

When the day came, a cold rain fell. My mother bundled me up and forced galoshes on my feet. I’d quit fighting her about the galoshes when I realized I could walk in the street gutter and never get my feet wet. I splashed along to Sally Jane’s, and as usual, she waited for me under the big cedar tree. She wore a brown coat and a bright colored scarf tied around her head. No socks showed above the high tops of her scuffed brown shoes, and she smelled like the donut shop on nearby McCallie Ave.

I plopped down beside her in the damp wagon and asked,” Sally Jane, how did you get your Radio Flyer? Was it a present last Christmas?”

“Sho’ was” she replied with a big grin. It didn’t seem to bother her a bit that I asked. She was proud of that wagon, and like me, didn’t really view it as a toy.

“Was it a present from your parents?” I questioned her further.

“Nah, ladies at the big church in town give it to me,” she answered, then motioned for me to get out. She wanted me to pull her to the corner.

“What church in town?” I asked, grunting to get the wagon rolling.

“You know, that First Baptist Church on Market Street downtown.”

“How come a church gave you a wagon?” I asked.

Sally Jane laughed, “Yo’ crazy girl, no church gave me this wagon; some ladies that GOES to that church gave it to me.” She kept laughing at me, but I didn’t pay her much attention. I tried to figure why church ladies gave away Radio Flyer wagons. This was important information, and I didn’t have much time to get a plan in place before Christmas.

 Sally Jane explained that the ladies brought the wagon to her house along with  toys and some groceries. I remembered that my mother’s Sunday school class packed   baskets to give away at Christmas. However, those baskets were full of dried beans, sacks of flour, and cans of Campbell’s tomato soup, and there were no toys in any of them. I wondered if our Baptist Church being in Highland Park and not downtown made the rules different. It presented a puzzle.

 Thanksgiving came and went, and I realized I needed to get answers or I would lose any chance I had of getting a Radio Flyer wagon for Christmas. That’s when I decided this problem needed help from my only grownup friend, Angeline. She lived with us except on Saturdays and Sundays and was the boss of our house. My daddy used to be the boss, but after Angeline came, he would ask her things like, ‘Would it be possible to have dinner a bit early on Thursdays?’ Before that, he just TOLD my mother to have dinner early on Thursdays. One time when he asked her, Angeline told him she couldn’t make a roast cook itself faster, and he’d have to eat a bowl of canned soup. I figured a big fight would result from that one, but Daddy just said that would be fine, and he’d look forward to a roast beef sandwich later. When he also agreed “not to make a mess in her kitchen,” I knew things had really changed in our house.

Tuesdays, when she did the weekly ironing, were the best times to talk over my problems with Angeline. When the next Tuesday came, I rushed in from school, smelled soup beans cooking, heard “Stella Dallas” playing on the radio, and knew Angeline still stood at the ironing board. She ironed in the dining room so she could keep an eye on whatever was cooking in the kitchen. I sat near her, smelling the starchy steam vapors that rose from the hot iron as it glided over damp shirts and dresses. She liked to hear about my school day and what was going on with kids in our neighborhood. I could tell she really listened to me because she asked picky questions about my school lessons and why I called someone a name on the playground. Things like that.

Well, it didn’t take long before I learned that Angeline was friends with Sally Jane’s mother, and their last name was Fowler. Sally Jane Fowler. I had never even thought about her last name. Angeline said Sally Jane’s daddy died and left her poor mother to raise five children ‘best she could. She said they probably even went to bed hungry sometimes. I couldn’t get it into my head how someone with a Radio Flyer wagon wouldn’t have supper every night, so I figured Angeline was wrong about that. Also, Sally Jane had extra food like Grapette sodas and donuts, which her mother let her eat right before dinnertime.

I continued with my story about Sally Jane’s Radio Flyer and how the First Baptist ladies gave it to her and how I needed help getting the ladies at our church to give me one. Angeline began shaking her head and saying, “Lawd, Lawd.” Angeline said some words different from how I did, but I knew that meant ‘Lord, Lord,’ and I would be punished if I said it except in a prayer or reading from the Bible. I liked it when Angeline broke rules, and I sometimes whispered “Lawd, Lawd” along with her when she repeated it over and over, as she did now.

           She finished ironing a shirt and turned off the iron. She looked at me real hard as if trying to see inside my head. Angeline stared like that when she tried to decide about telling me something important. Studying my face helped her decide if I was ready to receive the information she was about to give me. She said she could tell by looking through my eyes into my mind and heart. I had tried to figure out how she did this but had been promised a spanking if I ever tried “the staring business” on my daddy again.

           When she began twisting her apron sash, I knew this might be as good as when she told me Mrs. Johnson’s big stomach had a baby inside who later came out named Martha Ann. I could hardly believe Martha Ann had fit inside her mother, but Angeline said all people fit just fine inside their mothers before they came out, which is what we call being born.

           Angeline leaned on the ironing board, tapped her fingers, and stared out the window into Mama’s rose garden. I started to worry that she had forgotten all about my problem, when she said “Lawd, Lawd” again and began telling me how people got different things in life for reasons known only to God Almighty. I waited for her to get around to the part of how I could get my wagon, but she kept talking about “them that has and them that don’t” until, crushed, I realized she meant I was one of “them that don’t have.”

~

           She was right. I didn’t get a Radio Flyer wagon for Christmas. She advised me to “forget about it and not nag my poor Daddy with any more of my wagon foolishness.” It had always been a good idea to listen to Angeline, so I took her advice; I let go of my dream of having a Radio Flyer wagon. I pestered the Spencer boys for rides in their wagons and began thinking I might want a bicycle pretty soon.

           When summer came, my parents took me to spend a few weeks at my grandparents’ house. When we arrived at their place in Knoxville, my Uncle Ernest came out with my grandmother to greet us. He was a bachelor, which my daddy said is a lucky thing to be.

           When my parents left, Uncle Ernest said, “Come along with me; I’ve got something I think you might like.”

           My grandmother smiled and watched from the porch as Uncle Ernest led me to the garage.

 “Now, close your eyes and wait,” he said.

I did as he asked and listened as the big door creaked and groaned open.

           “Okay, you can look now.”

           I opened my eyes and stared. In the middle of the musty, old garage sat a shiny, red, Radio Flyer wagon.