Bumper Sticker
1960
Sheryl
J. Bize-Boutte
It was one
of those scorching hot September days in Oakland. The treeless avenue allowed
the sun to burn through so strongly it made the gray cement sidewalks appear to
be white as they radiated the merciless heat, seeming to melt the pink rubber
soles on our new white bucks. Feeling our
skins turning to toast was no detriment to our ten-year old constitutions as we
embarked on our odyssey from the corner store while enjoying our freshly
purchased cucumber dills. My friend Giselle and I just kept it moving; walking
slowly to her house as we talked about the Kennedy-Nixon debate we had seen the
night before.
With both sets
of parents and virtually our entire neighborhood solidly in the Kennedy camp, it
naturally followed that we were Kennedy fans as well. But we had totally different
reasons for liking Kennedy than the adults did.
We thought he was just so much cuter than Nixon. After all, last night
Nixon had been a sweaty, ugly mess and Kennedy had been so cool and poised. We
had no idea that Nixon had been Vice President; we just knew that Kennedy’s way
of talking and his thick head of hair made him handsome.
With pickles
finished and our minds made up about who should be President and why, we began
to sing our favorite song of the month, “Rockin’ Good Way” at the top of our
lungs. We sang this song and others often as we walked from the store or the movies
or wherever we were going or had been, switching off being Dinah or Brooke in
this top hit “call and response” tune.
I am not
sure who was singing what part when we saw the Nixon bumper sticker on the blue
Ford truck parked in front of the new auto body shop. Seeing it at the same
time, the sight of it in our territory was jarring enough to cut us off in
mid-song. Without speaking we both instinctively knew what needed to be done.
We were bent and scraping with our fingernails to remove that offending sticker
within seconds. We had managed to get
most of it off when we heard a man’s voice yelling,
“Girls,
girls! What on earth are you doing?”
We looked up
to see a tall, dark haired young man standing in the wide opening of the shop.
The auto
body shop owner had caught us. If we had stopped to consider our exposure from that
gaping opening where the man now stood, hot, red-faced and looking a bit
annoyed, we might have had second thoughts about removing that bumper sticker.
We just knew we were going to jail or even worse, he was going to call our
parents and tell them we were vandals.
But he
didn’t do either. Instead he invited us in to the shop saying he wanted to show
us something.
Now,
remember, we were ten and we knew that this could be a dangerous thing, but we
were also curious. Plus it was two against one and at least on the schoolyard
that was usually an automatic win. And when he told us we could just stand in
that huge opening and listen to what he had to say, somehow we didn’t feel
threatened. Young and stupid we didn’t
stop to think that there could be others in the shop who could reach out and
grab us. So we stood on the steel threshold side-by-side, each with one foot in
the coolness and shade of the shop, and the other in the relentless heat of the
driveway concrete, poised to bolt if needed.
The man gave
us a quizzical look as he turned to walk away. We watched as he went to a
nearby table holding a tri-fold poster board with carefully printed words and a
few pictures. Across the top, covering
all three boards were the words:
THE
HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
He picked up
his pointer and began to make a presentation.
We didn’t know what to think. We
stood there both perplexed and fascinated.
The man appeared to be genuinely trying to teach and convince us that
the Republican Party was something we should embrace. Much later Giselle and I
would recall it as being in school with a nice teacher who was giving us a lesson
on how to disobey our parents. We couldn’t stop listening, but we couldn’t do
what he said either.
The man went
on and on as he covered the material on each of the three boards. He talked
about famous Republicans and who reported to whom in the organization. He talked about what the Republicans would do
for the economy and the war and jobs. We had no idea what he was talking about
but kept listening because he was so sincere.
At the end of his presentation he asked us if we had any questions,
which we did not. And with that he told us to not take off any more Nixon
bumper stickers and sent us on our way.
We knew we
had been caught up in something strange that would never be believed, so we
never told anyone. Besides we couldn’t really explain it without admitting we
had just broken two cardinal rules: We allowed
ourselves to be lured by a stranger and we destroyed property. Those two
things would get us grounded for at least a year. The trouble we would be in by
telling was not worth it especially since nothing other than an odd and
impromptu lecture on politics had happened.
When we got
a few feet away from the shop Giselle looked over at me and said,
“ I don’t
care what he says, I still like Kennedy.”
“Me too,” I
replied.
And off we
went into the heat of the day, continuing our journey to Giselle’s house, re-starting
our rendition of “Rockin’ Good Way.”
This time I
was Dinah.
Copyright©2016
by Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte
From the
upcoming book of short stories
Running For The 2:10
A Sequel to:
A Dollar
Five: Stories From A Baby Boomer’s Ongoing Journey
No comments:
Post a Comment