Falling Together
Kramer Roof had been occupied a mere two hours before the collapse. The school’s elite choir was going to sing at a church that night. The elite choir consisted of three fourths of the school. Had the collapse come any earlier, the school’s population, principal, and vice principal would have perished.
I was not an elite singer and never would be, which was a source of shame that never quite left me until a few years ago. That was when I began to realize that my life prior to graduation from JPAC had been a sham, a web of pretty lies and grand dreams all contrived to protect the secrecy of one thing: sex.
You see, I don’t think God or religion was ever the true goal of T.’s brainwashing – it was the means to an end. If you can make someone believe that you are holy, that you have dreams gifted from heaven, that their future will be safe in your hands, then they will always believe that you are innocent. You can tell a boy that he should have sex with you to find out if he’s gay. You can implement sex acts into acting classes. You can make children and adults afraid to speak against you.
T. promised that those who were lucky, who put in the work and followed his words, would be the same people who have opportunities outside of Mississippi. I never thought about leaving Mississippi until he told us that this school could give us the opportunity to leave and that maybe one day we would never have to come back. Since he made it sound like such a good thing, I guessed it was right. All of sudden I was being rewarded for doing the things I had always done – reading and writing. He told the school in assembly that I was working on a manuscript and that we should all be like me and engage in creative practices.
The catch is that once T. got in my head, I felt like I couldn’t do anything but read or write. I felt guilty for watching movies, washing the dishes, going to bed early. This was time I could have been writing, expanding my craft, reaching for greatness. Even going out to eat was a burdensome waste of time. How could I write poetry in an Applebee’s? How utterly unromantic and unartistic of an atmosphere.
My body, my anxiety, knew that something was wrong before I accepted it as a logical fact. I always felt a terror of disappointing him, of seeing that dark frown in the middle of the gentle face I revered as a father’s. It was hard to say what would make it happen though. Every small effort, thanked or unthanked, never seemed to be enough whether it be staying after school sweeping floors or spending an entire Saturday studying to bring up my math grades. What I wanted was for my name to be called in the school’s morning meeting – a gathering somewhere between an assembly and a sermon – and for him to say, “You see Victoria, that is what a true JPAC student does, the rest of y’all need to try a little bit harder to be like her.””
After Kramer Roof collapsed, JPAC moved into an old shopping center just a few streets down. It was at the edge of “the bridge.” The bridge was standard industrial concrete that had collected black streaks over time. I was told to never drive past the bridge – it was the most dangerous part of McComb. T. said that it was no accident that this building was available – it was on “the edge of the black side of town, and the white side of town.” Our tragedy, losing the building, was part of a divine plan to heal the long fraught race relations in McComb. Even through tragedy, we emerged victorious, our purple t-shirts the banner of a growing spiritual movement.
We spent the first two weeks of the school year constructing dividers two form the building into classrooms. I wore once again the boots I had hidden under my bed and watched them coat with sheetrock (no one has time for horses when their school is falling down). On the front page of the newspaper, there were two girls on their knees laying tile. Boys nailed together sheets of plywood to make a layered choir stand. My best friend brought buckets of paint and spread new murals across the fresh walls.
So, when the building failed to pass a city inspection, our Morning Meetings began to be centered on the plot for the city government to keep its people divided.
After that, the school went underground. We were instructed to tell no one of the school’s location – at T.’s own house in the four single wide trailers in which he had started the school. With Kramer Roof’s fall the Lord, he said, had cleaned out those who were not True JPAC students from those who were. Now, returning to “The Trailers”, as we called them, we were returning to the source of the school’s greatness. Those who thrived amongst this time would be counted as talented and blessed – just like those who had laid the foundation and become the forefathers for this school.
This is gripping and terrifying. The way you are able to go back and occupy your childhood POV is incredibly powerful. Glad you are sharing your story! Can’t wait for the next installment.