HRW Library: Individual Leveled Reader The Watsons Go to Birmingham

The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an African American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of 1963.

Excerpt

And You Wonder Why We Get Called the Weird Watsons. It was one of thosesuper-duper-cold Saturdays. One of those days that when you breathed out yourbreath kind of hung frozen in the air like a hunk of smoke and you could walkalong and look exactly like a train blowing out big, fat, white puffs of smoke.

It was so cold that if you were stupid enough to go outside your eyes wouldautomatically blink a thousand times all by themselves, probably so the juiceinside of them wouldn't freeze up. It was so cold that if you spit, the slobwould be an ice cube before it hit the ground. It was about a zillion degreesbelow zero.

It was even cold inside our house. We put sweaters and hats and scarves andthree pairs of socks on and still were cold. The thermostat was turned all theway up and the furnace was banging and sounding like it was about to blow up butit still felt like Jack Frost had moved in with us.

All of my family sat real close together on the couch under a blanket. Dad saidthis would generate a little heat but he didn't have to tell us this, it seemedlike the cold automatically made us want to get together and huddle up. Mylittle sister, Joetta, sat in the middle and all you could see were her eyesbecause she had a scarf wrapped around her head. I was next to her and on theoutside was my mother.

Momma was the only one who wasn't born in Flint so the cold was coldest to her.All you could see were her eyes too, and they were shooting bad looks at Dad.She always blamed him for bringing her all the way from Alabama to Michigan, astate she called a giant icebox. Dad was bundled next to Joey, trying to look atanything but Momma. Next to Dad, sitting with a little space between them, wasmy older brother, Byron.

Byron had just turned thirteen so he was officially a teenage juveniledelinquent and didn't think it was "cool" to touch anybody or letanybody touch him, even if it meant he froze to death. Byron had tucked theblanket between him and Dad down into the cushion of the couch to make sure hecouldn't be touched.

Dad turned on the TV to try to make us forget how cold we were but all that didwas get him in trouble. There was a special news report on Channel 12 tellinghow bad the weather was and Dad groaned when the guy said, "If you thinkit's cold now, wait until tonight, the temperature is expected to drop intorecord-low territory, possibly reaching the negative twenties! In fact, we won'tbe seeing anything above zero for the next four to five days!" He wassmiling when he said this but none of the Watson family thought it was funny. Weall looked over at Dad. He just shook his head and pulled the blanket over hiseyes.

Then the guy on the TV said, "Here's a little something we can use tobrighten our spirits and give us some hope for the future: The temperature inAtlanta, Georgia is forecast to reach . . ." Dad coughed real loud andjumped off the couch to turn the TV off but we all heard the weatherman say,". . . the mid-seventies!" The guy might as well have tied Dad to atree and said, "Ready, aim, fire!"

"Atlanta!" Momma said. "That's a hundred and fifty miles fromhome!"

"Wilona . . . ," Dad said.

"I knew it," Momma said. "I knew I should have listened to MosesHenderson!"

"Who?" I asked.

Dad said, "Oh Lord, not that sorry story. You've got to let me tell aboutwhat happened with him."

Momma said, "There's not a whole lot to tell, just a story about a younggirl who made a bad choice. But if you do tell it, make sure you get all thefacts right."

We all huddled as close as we could get because we knew Dad was going to try tomake us forget about being cold by cutting up. Me and Joey started smiling rightaway, and Byron tried to look cool and bored.

"Kids," Dad said, "I almost wasn't your father. You guys camereal close to having a clown for a daddy named Hambone Henderson. . . ."

"Daniel Watson, you stop right there. You're the one who started that'Hambone' nonsense. Before you started that everyone called him his Christianname, Moses. And he was a respectable boy too, he wasn't a clown at all."

"But the name stuck didn't it? Hambone Henderson. Me and your granddaddycalled him that because the boy had a head shaped like a hambone, had more knotsand bumps on his head than a dinosaur. So as you guys sit here giving me thesedirty looks because it's a little chilly outside ask yourselves if you'd ratherbe a little cold or go through life being known as the Hambonettes."

Me and Joey cracked up, Byron kind of chuckled and Momma put her hand over hermouth. She did this whenever she was going to give a smile because she had agreat big gap between her front teeth. If Momma thought something was funny,first you'd see her trying to keep her lips together to hide the gap, then, ifthe smile got to be too strong, you'd see the gap for a hot second beforeMomma's hand would come up to cover it, then she'd crack up too.

Laughing only encouraged Dad to cut up more, so when he saw the whole familythinking he was funny he really started putting on a show.

He stood up in front of the TV. "Yup, Hambone Henderson proposed to yourmother around the same time I did. Fought dirty too, told your momma a pack oflies about me and when she didn't believe them he told her a pack of lies aboutFlint."

Dad started talking Southern-style, imitating this Hambone guy. "Wilona, Iheard tell about the weather up that far north in Flint, Mitch-again, heard it'scolder than inside an icebox. Seen a movie about it, think it was made in Flint.Movie called Nanook of the North. Yup, do believe for sure it was madein Flint. Uh-huh, Flint, Mitch-again."

"Folks there live in these things called igloos. According to what I seenin this here movie most folks in Flint is Chinese. Don't believe I seem nan onecolored person in the whole dang city. You a 'Bama gal, don't believe you'd betoo happy living in no igloo. Ain't got nothing against 'em, but don't believeyou'd be too happy living 'mongst a whole slew of Chinese folks. Don't believeyou'd like the food. Only thing them Chinese folks in that movie et was whalesand seals. Don't believe you'd like no whale meat. Don't taste a lick likechicken. Don't taste like pork at all."

Momma pulled her hand away from her mouth. "Daniel Watson, you are onelying man! Only thing you said that was true was that being in Flint is likeliving in an igloo. I knew I should have listened to Moses. Maybe these babiesmighta been born with lumpy heads but at least they'da had warm lumpyheads!

"You know Birmingham is a good place, and I don't mean the weather either.The life is slower, the people are friendlier—"

"Oh yeah," Dad interrupted, "they're a laugh a minute down there.Let's see, where was that 'Coloreds Only' bathroom downtown?"

"Daniel, you know what I mean, things aren't perfect but people aremore honest about the way they feel"—she took her mean eyes off Dad andput them on Byron—"and folks there do know how to respect theirparents."

Byron rolled his eyes like he didn't care. All he did was tuck the blanketfarther into the couch's cushion.

Dad didn't like the direction the conversation was going so he called thelandlord for the hundredth time. The phone was still busy.

"That snake in the grass has got his phone off the hook. Well, it's goingto be too cold to stay here tonight, let me call Cydney. She just had that newfurnace put in, maybe we can spend the night there." Aunt Cydney was kindof mean but her house was always warm so we kept our fingers crossed that shewas home.

Everyone, even Byron, cheered when Dad got Aunt Cydney and she told us to hurryover before we froze to death.

Dad went out to try and get the Brown Bomber started. That was what we calledour car. It was a 1948 Plymouth that was dull brown and real big, Byron said itwas turd brown. Uncle Bud gave it to Dad when it was thirteen years old and we'dhad it for two years. Me and Dad took real good care of it but some of the timeit didn't like to start up in the winter.

After five minutes Dad came back in huffing and puffing and slapping his armsacross his chest.

"Well, it was touch and go for a while, but the Great Brown One pulledthrough again!" Everyone cheered, but me and Byron quit cheering andstarted frowning right away. By the way Dad smiled at us we knew what was comingnext. Dad pulled two ice scrapers out of his pocket and said, "O.K., boys,let's get out there and knock those windows out."

We moaned and groaned and put some more coats on and went outside to scrape thecar's windows. I could tell by the way he was pouting that Byron was going totry and get out of doing his share of he work.

"I'm not going to do your part, Byron, you'd better do it and I'm notplaying either."

"Shut up, punk."

I went over to the Brown Bomber's passenger side and started hacking away at thescab of ice that was all over the windows. I finished Momma's window and took abreak. Scraping ice off of windows when it's that cold can kill you!

I didn't hear any sound coming from the other side of the car so I yelled out,"I'm serious, Byron, I'm not doing that side too, and I'm only going to dohalf the windshield, I don't care what you do to me." The windshield on theBomber wasn't like the new 1963 cars, it had a big bar running down the middleof it, dividing it in half.

"Shut your stupid mouth, I got something more important to do rightnow."

I peeked around the back of the car to see what By was up to. The only thinghe'd scraped off was the outside mirror and he was bending down to look athimself in it. He saw me and said, "You know what, square? I must beadopted, there just ain't no way two folks as ugly as your momma and daddycoulda give birth to someone as sharp as me!"

He was running his hands over his head like he was brushing his hair.

I said, "Forget you," and went back over to the other side of the carto finish the back window. I had half of the ice off when I had to stop againand catch my breath. I heard Byron mumble my name.

I said, "You think I'm stupid? It's not going to work this time." Hemumbled my name again. It sounded like his mouth was full of something. I knewthis was a trick, I knew this was going to be How to Survive a Blizzard, PartTwo.

How to Survive a Blizzard, Part One had been last night when I was outsideplaying in the snow and Byron and his running buddy, Buphead, came walking by.Buphead has officially been a juvenile delinquent even longer than Byron.

"Say, kid," By had said, "you wanna learn somethin' that mightsave your stupid life one day?"

I should have known better, but I was bored and I think maybe the cold weatherwas making my brain slow, so I said, "What's that?"

"We gonna teach you how to survive a blizzard."

"How?"

Byron put his hands in front of his face and said "This is the mostimportant thing to remember, O.K.?"

"Why?"

"Well, first we gotta show you what it feels like to be trapped in ablizzard. You ready?" He whispered something to Buphead and they bothlaughed.

"I'm ready."

I should have known that the only reason Buphead and By would want to play withme was to do something mean.

"O.K.," By said, "first thing you gotta worry about is highwinds."

Byron and Buphead each grabbed one of my arms and one of my legs and swung mebetween them going, "Woo, blizzard warnings! Blizzard warnings!Wooo! Take cover!"

Buphead counted to three and on the third swing they let me go in the air. Ilanded headfirst in a snowbank.

But that was O.K. because I had on three coats, two sweaters, a T-shirt, threepairs of pants and four socks along with a scarf, a hat and a hood. These guyscouldn't have hurt me if they'd thrown me off the Empire State Building!'

After I climbed out of the snowbank they started laughing and so did I.

"Cool, Baby Bruh," By said, "you passed that part of the testwith a B-plus, what you think, Buphead?"

Buphead said, "Yeah, I'd give the little punk a A."

They whispered some more and started laughing again.

"O.K.," By said, "second thing you gotta learn is how to keepyour balance in a high wind. You gotta be good at this so you don't get blowedinto no polar bear dens."

They put me in between them and started making me spin round and round, itseemed like they spun me for about half an hour. When slob started flying out ofmy mouth they let me stop and I wobbled around for a while before they pushed meback in the same snow-bank.

When everything stopped going in circles I got up and we all laughed again.

They whispered some more and then By said, "What you think, Buphead? Hekept his balance a good long time, I'm gonna give him a A-minus."

"I ain't as hard a grader as you, I'ma give the little punk a doubleA-minus."

"O.K., Kenny now the last part of Surviving a Blizzard, you ready?"

"Yup!"

"You passed the wind test and did real good on the balance test but now wegotta see if you ready to graduate. You remember what we told you was the mostimportant part about survivin'?"

"Yup!"

"O.K., here we go. Buphead, tell him 'bout the final exam."

Continues...

Excerpted from The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963by Christopher Paul Curtis Copyright © 1995 by Christopher Paul Curtis. Excerpted by permission.
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Copyright © 1995 Christopher Paul Curtis
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