Free The Street by Ann Petry Page B

he had looked like a hungry dog that had suddenly been given a bone.
    She hurried up the last flight of stairs, fumbling for her keys, pausing in the middle of the hallway to peer inside her pocketbook, so that Bub reached their door before she did. She pushed him away and unlocked the door and the can of peas slipped out from under her arm to roll clumsily along the hall in its brown-paper wrapping. While Bub scrambled after it, she opened the door.
    Once inside the apartment he turned and faced her squarely. She wanted to put her arm around him and hug him, for he still had tears in his eyes, but he had obviously been screwing his courage up to the point where he could tell her whatever it was he had on his mind, even though he wasn’t certain what her reaction would be. So she turned toward him and instead of hugging him listened to him gravely, trying to tell him by her manner that whatever he had to say was important and she would give it all her attention.
    â€˜You said we had to have money. You kept saying it. I was only trying to earn some money by shiningshoes,’ he gulped. Then the words tumbled out, ‘What’s wrong with that?’
    She fumbled for an answer, thinking of all the times she had told him no, no candy, for we can’t afford it. Or yes, it’s only twenty-five cents for the movies, but that twenty-five cents will help pay for the new soles on your shoes. She was always telling him how important it was that people make money and save money—those things she had learned from the Chandlers. Then when he tried to earn some of his own she berated him, slapped him. So that suddenly and with no warning it was all wrong for him to do the very thing that she had continually told him was important and necessary.
    She started choosing her words carefully. ‘It’s the way you were trying to earn money that made me mad,’ she began. Then she leaned down until her face was on a level with his, still talking slowly, still picking her words thoughtfully. ‘You see, colored people have been shining shoes and washing clothes and scrubbing floors for years and years. White people seem to think that’s the only kind of work they’re fit to do. The hard work. The dirty work. The work that pays the least.’ She thought about this small dark apartment they were living in, about 116th Street which was filled to overflowing with people who lived in just such apartments as this, about the white people on the downtown streets who stared at her with open hostility in their eyes, and she started talking swiftly, forgetting to choose her words.
    â€˜I’m not going to let you begin at eight doing what white folks figure all eight-year-old coloredboys ought to do. For if you’re shining shoes at eight, you’ll probably be doing the same thing when you’re eighty. And I’m not going to have it.’
    He listened to her with his eyes fixed on her face, not saying anything, concentrating on her words. His expression was so serious that she began to wonder if she should have said that part about white folks. He was awfully young to be told a thing like that, and she wasn’t sure she had made her meaning quite clear. She couldn’t think of any way to soften it, so she patted him on the shoulder and straightened up and began taking off her hat and coat.
    She selected four potatoes from the package she had put on the kitchen table, washed them, found a paring knife, and seating herself at the table began peeling them.
    Bub came to stand close beside her, almost but not quite leaning against her as though he was getting strength and protection from his closeness to her. ‘Mom,’ he said, ‘why do white people want colored people shining shoes?’
    She turned toward him, completely at a loss as to what to say, for she had never been able to figure it out for herself. She looked down at her hands. They were brown and strong, the fingers were