The apartments are new, made of plaster and chicken wire, all owned by Verne Shipman and F. G. Bennett of Caxton, and Carter Royal and other parties in Farragut. They are poorly built units, but the rent is low, and no one of the tenants would think of being late with a payment.

Simon’s Hill is Caxton’s Niggertown, and it is a world within itself. You never see a Negro in Caxton’s center, and you never see a white in Simon’s Hill.

That is the way it has been for forty years.

8

8

He lay on the patched green velvet couch, his hands behind his head, his body perfectly still, still as it had been for almost an hour. Albert was in a corner, reading a comic book. Billy was asleep. He wanted to sleep, too, but he had never felt so awake.

“Joey,” his mother said, “Joey, you want some coffee?”

“No, Ma,” he said.

“How about some warm milk? It’ll do you good, it’ll relax you.”

“No.”

He thought of the short night and of the long day ahead, of all the forces that had put him here, where he was, and he wanted to yell. But he couldn’t do this. He could only lie still and wait.

Charlotte Green looked at her son, almost furtively.

“Joey,” she said, “it’s eight thirty. You been working hard. Why don’t you slip off your shoes?”

“Ma, please. Can’t I just lay here for a while?”

“Of course you can.”

Joey leaped from the couch and strode to the main window. Uncle Rowan was sitting there, staring. “Ma, now, I said I’d do it. I’m going to do what you want!”

“All right, Joey.”

He forced back the rage that had bubbled up hot in his throat, and smiled. “I’m just bushed,” he said. “Getting everything cleaned up at the garage and all, you know.” He stood there, a tall, powerful figure in the dim light. “I’m okay.”

Uncle Rowan frowned. He sat in the chair and frowned, an ancient, time-wrinkled elf of a man. No one knew exactly how old he was, not even his niece, but he was past eighty—that much was certain. He seldom spoke. And he never smiled.

Joey walked back across the room and put a hand on his mother’s­ shoulder. He knew that she was wrong, and that the whole thing would end badly—he knew it—but he knew, also, that he could never say this.

He remembered the long years of work that she had put in—for him; for Albert and Billy—and the knot in his chest tightened.

She actually believes it’s going to be all right, he thought. She thinks the problem is over. Just open up the schools, and that’s that.

Billy cried out in his sleep, turned over again. Albert put down his comic book. “I want some bread,” he said.