Clearly, they knew what club I had joined. I was not interested in this conversation. “Are we done?” I asked, pushing my chair back to indicate that, even if they weren’t, I was.

Dad sighed. “Ash, I’m no fan of segregation. If you ask me, anyone should be able to go to any school they want. But not everybody feels that way.”

“And we need to respect those feelings, too,” said Mom, like thunder chasing lightning.

“I have no respect for people who feel that way,” I told her.

“And that’s your prerogative,” said my father, “but your actions have ramifications you might not have considered.”

“Like what?”

My father went silent for a moment. “I’ve been considering a run for mayor,” he finally said. “And I expect the support I’ll be getting will be from people who like things to change much more slowly . . .”

“You mean not at all.”

“I mean that you can’t change people’s minds without first winning them over. There are what? Six states now trying to ban segregation? If they succeed, I’m sure more will follow. In the meantime we have to look at things practically.”

There’s this old movie where all the real people start getting replaced by pod people, who pop out of giant veiny seeds. They look the same, but you can tell that something’s terribly wrong—and if you’re not careful you become one of them. That’s what my parents were now. Pod people.

“What if I told you that my best friend is a Black kid?” I hurled at them. “A Black kid who dropped out of school and works as a supermarket checker, because he never had the chance to do anything else.”

“I’d say that you were lying,” said my father. “Because I know all your friends.”

“You once knew this one . . . ,” I prompted, watching them for that moment of confused recognition—but there was nothing. They were so single-minded with their agenda, and so close-minded in other ways, the proximity effect didn’t seem to work on them. Their tunnel vision didn’t leave room for anything in the periphery.

“We’re glad that you’ve taken on a cause so admirable,” Mom said, getting the conversation back on point.

“But,” added Dad, “maybe you can redirect that energy.”

And then Mom laid the rest of their cards on the table. “Why don’t you help us choose an Icelandic family to take in?”

While I had sympathy for displaced Icelandic people, there was a glaring absurdity to this pod-people solution.

“Are you kidding me? There are families on the other side of town who are struggling, and you want to ignore them and help people from Iceland instead?”

I stood up, and so did my father.