The Gold Cadillac Read Free Page A

“I—I was scared,” I said.
    My father was thoughtful. “No need to be scared now, sugar,” he said. “Daddy’s here and so is Mother-Dear.”Then after a glance at my mother, he got out of the car, walked to the road, looked down it one way, then the other. When he came back and started the motor, he turned the Cadillac north, not south.
    “What’re you doing?” asked my mother.
    “Heading back to Memphis,” said my father. “Cousin Halton’s there. We’ll leave the Cadillac and get his car. Driving this car any farther south with you and the girls in the car, it’s just not worth the risk.”
    And so that’s what we did. Instead of driving through Mississippi in golden splendor, we traveled its streets and roads and highways in Cousin Halton’s solid, yet not so splendid, four-year-old Chevy. When we reached my grandparents’ farm, my uncles and aunts were already there. Everybody was glad to see us. They had been worried. They asked about the Cadillac. My father told them what had happened, and they nodded and said he had done the best thing.
    We stayed one week in Mississippi. During that week I often saw my father, looking deep in thought, walk off alone across the family land. I saw my mother watching him. One day I ran after my father, took his hand, andwalked the land with him. I asked him all the questions that were on my mind. I asked him why the policemen had treated him the way they had and why people didn’t want us to eat in the restaurants or drink from the water fountains or sleep in the hotels. I told him I just didn’t understand all that.
    My father looked at me and said that it all was a difficult thing to understand and he didn’t really understand it himself. He said it all had to do with the fact that black people had once been forced to be slaves. He said it had to do with our skins being colored. He said it had to do with stupidity and ignorance. He said it had to do with the law, the law that said we could be treated like this here in the South. And for that matter, he added, any other place in these United States where folks thought the same as so many folks did here in the South. But he also said, “I’m hoping one day though we can drive that long road down here and there won’t be any signs. I’m hoping one day the police won’t stop us just because of the color of our skins and we’re riding in a gold Cadillac with northern plates.”

    When the week ended, we said a sad good-bye to my grandparents and all the Mississippi family and headed in a caravan back toward Memphis. In Memphis we returned Cousin Halton’s car and got our Cadillac. Once we were home my father put the Cadillac in the garage and didn’t drive it. I didn’t hear my mother say any more about the Cadillac. I didn’t hear my father speak of it either.
    Some days passed and then on a bright Saturday afternoon while Wilma and I were playing in the backyard, I saw my father go into the garage. He opened the garage doors wide so the sunshine streamed in, and began to shine the Cadillac. I saw my mother at the kitchen window staring out across the yard at my father. For a long time, she stood there watching my father shine his car. Then she came out and crossed the yard to the garage and I heard her say, “Wilbert, you keep the car.”
    He looked at her as if he had not heard.
    “You keep it,” she repeated and turned and walked back to the house.
    My father watched her until the back door had shut behind her. Then he went on shining the car and soon beganto sing. About an hour later he got into the car and drove away. That evening when he came back he was walking. The Cadillac was nowhere in sight.
    “Daddy, where’s our new Cadillac?” I demanded to know. So did Wilma.
    He smiled and put his hand on my head. “Sold it,” he said as my mother came into the room.
    “But how come?” I asked. “We poor now?”
    “No, sugar. We’ve got more money towards our new house now and we’re all