Free The Color Purple by Alice Walker Page B

same kind of car I learned on.
    Next thing you know there go me and Miz Millie all up and down the road. First I drive and she watch, then she start to try to drive and I watch her. Up and down the road. Soon as I finish cooking breakfast, putting it on the table, washing dishes and sweeping the floor—and just before I go git the mail out of the box down by the road—we go give Miz Millie her driving lesson.
    Well, after while she got the hang of it, more or less. Then she really git it. Then one day when we come home from riding, she say to me, I’m gonna drive you home. Just like that.
    Home? I ast.
    Yes, she say. Home. You ain’t been home or seen your children in a while, she say. Ain’t that right?
    I say, Yes ma’am. It been five years.
    She say, That’s a shame. You just go git your things right now. Here it is, Christmas. Go get your things. You can stay all day.
    For all day I don’t need nothing but what I got on, I say.
    Fine, she say. Fine. Well git in.
    Well, say Sofia, I was so use to sitting up there next to her teaching her how to drive, that I just naturally clammed into the front seat.
    She stood outside on her side the car clearing her throat.
    Finally she say, Sofia, with a little laugh, This is the South.
    Yes ma’am, I say.
    She clear her throat, laugh some more. Look where you sitting, she say.
    I’m sitting where I always sit, I say.
    That’s the problem, she say. Have you ever seen a white person and a colored sitting side by side in a car, when one of ’em wasn’t showing the other one how to drive it or clean it?
    I got out the car, opened the back door and clammed in. She sat down up front. Off us traveled down the road, Miz Millie hair blowing all out the window.
    It’s real pretty country out this way, she say, when we hit the Marshall county road, coming toward Odessa’s house.
    Yes ma’am, I say.
    Then us pull into the yard and all the children come crowding round the car. Nobody told them I was coming, so they don’t know who I is. Except the oldest two. They fall on me, and hug me. And then all the little ones start to hug me too. I don’t think they even notice I was sitting in the back of the car. Odessa and Jack come out after I was out, so they didn’t see it.
    Us all stand round kissing and hugging each other, Miz Millie just watching. Finally, she lean out the window and say, Sofia, you only got the rest of the day. I’ll be back to pick you up at five o’clock The children was all pulling me into the house, so sort of over my shoulder I say, Yes ma’am, and I thought I heard her drive off.
    But fifteen minutes later, Marion says, That white lady still out there.
    Maybe she going to wait to take you back, say Jack.
    Maybe she sick, say Odessa. You always say how sickly they is.
    I go out to the car, say Sofia, and guess what the matter is? The matter is, she don’t know how to do nothing but go forward, and Jack and Odessa’s yard too full of trees for that.
    Sofia, she say, How you back this thing up?
    I lean over the car window and try to show her which way to move the gears. But she flustered and all the children and Odessa and Jack all standing round the porch watching her.
    I go round on the other side. Try to explain with my head poked through that window. She stripping gears aplenty by now. Plus her nose red and she look mad and frustrate both.
    I clam in the back seat, lean over the back of the front, steady trying to show her how to operate the gears. Nothing happen. Finally the car stop making any sound. Engine dead.
    Don’t worry, I say, Odessa’s husband Jack will drive you home. That’s his pick-up right there.
    Oh, she say, I couldn’t ride in a pick-up with a strange colored man.
    I’ll ask Odessa to squeeze in too, I say. That would give me a chance to spend a little time with the children, I thought. But she say, No, I don’t know her neither.
    So it end up with me and Jack driving her back home in the pick-up, then Jack driving me to town