At the Drive-In, page 22
“Okay.” He smiled, proud of his players and the maturity they were displaying. He had preached all year about sticking together, supporting one another, and he was glad to see these three standing before him. He knew that they were not best friends off the field, but on the field, they were a team and when Jake had looked around at Sully’s and seen them, they had readily come to his side.
Jake started up again. “Coach, me and some of the other players are thinking about taking a knee during the pregame tomorrow night before the game, but I told ‘em I was gonna run it by you first.”
“I appreciate that, Jake. I really do.”
“I wasn’t gonna disrespect you, Coach and do something like that without you knowin’ what was up.”
There were eight African-American players on the varsity team and personal feelings aside, Langston thought that the sight of eight of his team refusing to stand for the national anthem would not go over well in Eastlake. He was touched that the players respected him enough to come and ask before doing something so controversial.
“I know the NFL is going nuts over this thing, but tell me why you would want to do this.”
“It’s about the whole police thing, Coach. You know, brutality. Pickin’ on black men, singlin’ us out and all.”
“What does your Uncle Gary think about that? He still works for the sheriff’s department doesn’t he?”
“Oh, Coach, he don’t care if we protest.”
“Honestly, Jake, you think you’re oppressed? Your uncle gave me a ticket just last year. I been stopped several times right here in Eastlake. And I’m white.”
They all laughed and Langston was glad. He didn’t want their conversation to turn ugly. This was a teachable moment, he thought and you should never let one of those get away. “So, why protest during the anthem, while they’re raising the flag?”
At Eastlake home games, the band played the Star-Spangled Banner and the local Boy Scout troop raised the flag at the north end of the stadium. Langston had always found it a touching moment, but then again he had always taken patriotism rather seriously.
“Coach, it’s not about the song. Or the flag.”
“Then why do it then?”
“That’s just how they’re doing it.”
“Because of Kaepernick?”
“Well, yeah, he started it.”
“And do you know what he said about it?”
The boys all shook their heads in the negative, so he answered his own question. “In the press conference when they asked him why he did it, he said he wasn’t going to stand up and show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people. So, Jake, do you take pride in your country? ‘Cause this is definitely about the flag. That’s why he’s protesting during the anthem, he’s showing disrespect for the flag and the country both.”
“But I heard he met with a former Green Beret and they decided that sitting would be wrong, but kneeling was a sign of respect.”
“I heard about that too, Jake, but I don’t buy it. Kneeling at the altar in church or at a grave site may be respectful, but when someone comes over the loudspeaker and asks everybody to stand up to honor the flag or the country and you don’t, or won’t, that’s disrespectful whether you’re sittin’ or kneelin’ or whatever. Just my opinion, but that’s how I feel.”
The three boys fidgeted, but no one spoke.
“You know I have a son over in Afghanistan right now don’t you?” All three boys nodded. “He’s fightin’ for your right to protest and have the freedom to sit or kneel or stand for whatever you believe in. I’m proud of him and I’m proud of this country and personally, I hate to see anyone disrespect our flag or the men and women who have died fighting under that flag.”
The boys nodded again and then Jake spoke up. “So, what if we all stand together and link arms?"
“Why?”
“A bunch of the teams have done that instead of kneeling.”
“But why? Why would we be doing that?”
Brett answered. “It’s like a show of unity.”
Langston smiled. “Aren’t we already a unit? When we go out there and we’re all dressed alike and we’re all sporting our team colors, aren’t we already showing our unity? What’s the front of our jerseys say?”
The boys answered in unison. “Eagles.”
“And the back?”
“Eastlake.”
“You know some of the bigger schools are putting the players’ names on the back of their jerseys already. Just like the NFL. But as long as I’m the coach, we’ll never do that. Know why? ‘Cause this is a team sport. We don’t go out there on a Friday night to represent ourselves. Every time we step out on that field, we’re representing our whole town, our whole community. We go out there and we are the Eagles, we are Eastlake. So, we shouldn’t have to link arms or anything special to show unity. We’re already unified. Or we’re supposed to be.”
He continued. “That’s why we don’t allow you to do any of those stupid end zone celebrations like they do in the NFL. It’s not about calling attention to yourselves as individuals or small groups. Everything we do is about the whole team, the whole community. That’s what we’re representing out there on Friday nights.”
The boys were nodding and Langston realized that he was standing, pacing, preaching. “Sorry for the sermon, gentlemen. Guess I got a little carried away.”
They all smiled. “Listen, guys. I just want to win one more football game tomorrow night. All that other stuff ...” He shook his head. “I just wish we could leave that stuff for a more appropriate time and place.”
The boys stood to leave and Langston reached out to stop Jake. “Tomorrow, let’s just be Eagles, okay?”
“Okay, Coach.”
“And if you want to, we can all go do something later down in front of the sheriff’s department. Your uncle might not appreciate it, but I’d stand with you anytime Jake. I know this country’s not perfect and I know it’s harder on a kid like you, but I’m on your side, you know that, right?”
He nodded. “Thanks, Coach. We’ll see you tomorrow. Go Eagles.”
As he walked away he raised a fist and Langston laughed. It reminded him of the old Black Power gesture from the sixties. He was just a child in those days, but he had seen the videos. He thought it was true that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Meow, 1968
When the stray kitten appeared on her doorstep, Cora Peters was both thrilled and frightened. The poor thing was soaking wet and shivering in the late February cold and she scooped him up without a second thought. She grabbed an old towel and dried him as best she could and gave him a saucer of warm milk. He appeared to be less than six weeks old and Cora thought he must have gotten separated from his mother somehow. She glanced at the clock to calm her fear. She had a little time still, but Evan would be home shortly.
Cora was a cat person. Before she married, she had owned a pair of cats and befriended, and sometimes fed, another four or five who lived in her neighborhood. When she first began dating Evan, she had quickly discovered that he was definitely not a cat person. Whenever he came to her apartment, she was forced to shut her cats up in the spare room, and shortly before they married, at his insistence, she reluctantly gave away her beloved feline companions. Evan claimed to be allergic to cats and related to her that he had always had a dog as a boy, but Cora had doubts about whether or not he had any feelings at all for animals of any kind.
“Someday, we’ll get a dog,” he had told her. “We’ll have a bigger house then, with a fenced-in yard, and we’ll get a dog for the kids.”
When the kids never came, she gave up on the idea of the dog as well. And the big house with the fenced-in yard. Her one later attempt to broach the subject of cats resulted in an ugly confrontation and a black eye. She never brought the subject up again.
The appearance of the kitten seemed a sign to Cora. She had been praying for years for God to end her loneliness. Evan had continued to insist that she not work. He still believed that it would somehow soil his image as the provider, so they struggled financially while she sat alone all day playing homemaker to the empty house that wasn’t a home. They had a few neighbors who were home during the day, but Evan had somehow managed to convey to them that it would not be wise for them to interact with Cora. When he chose to be, Evan could be quite persuasive, and intimidating.
She bundled the kitten in a dry towel and found a box in the shed in which to hide the creature until she could do more. She rushed in the back door just ahead of Evan coming in the front. After supper, he left for his weekly poker game, telling her not to wait up. She found a flashlight and after retrieving the kitten, she scoured the back yard and the immediate area looking for the mama cat with no luck. Carefully, she shredded a piece of leftover chicken and smiled broadly as the kitten ate heartily. She gave him a little more milk and held him for the next several hours while he slept soundly in her arms.
For the next few weeks, she cautiously kept the kitten hidden from her husband. He was growing and as he became braver, he ventured farther and farther from her backdoor, but always returning to Cora who fed him from the small bag of kitten food she had bought at the grocery store. Evan had finally stopped demanding to see the grocery receipts, so she was able to forego a few personal items and scrounge out the money for a few small cans and the littlest bag of dry food she could find. In the late afternoon, she would sit with the kitten on the back porch for as long as she could until she heard the car pulling into the drive.
Evan became suspicious, when he did something rare for him. He took notice of his wife. Cora had become accustomed to being ignored by her husband and it had given her a small measure of freedom. Years earlier, Pastor Summers at the First Baptist Church had provided some counseling for the couple that had eased a lot of the tension in their marriage and in many ways had saved Cora, bringing her safety, if not happiness, and she was grateful for the intervention. The end result was that she went from being a battered wife to being a wife in name only.
Evan would not consider divorce. Not good for his image. His rise in stature in the community and at the school required his pretense of being the good husband. He had dreams of being the head coach, the athletic director, and maybe someday the principal or even getting a job at the central office. The counseling had made him realize that the flirting and carousing with other women was detrimental to his future plans. He didn’t stop, of course, he only learned to hide it better. Cora accepted the changes, accepted the security of the marriage while abandoning the dream of the loving husband who would sweep her off her feet and give her the happily ever after she really wanted.
So, they had become roommates of a sort. Sometimes he would come home and brood silently or sit for hours watching game films on an old projector that he had set up in the den, scouting some future opponent. Other days, he would be talkative and sit at the kitchen table after supper gossiping about the latest scandals at the school or relating some tale he had heard from Sully at the drive-in. Those were the days when she still felt married.
Lately, he had begun to wonder what was going on with his wife. Cora had noticed him sniffing around the living room. She had been using a new aerosol air freshener to mask the cat odors, but the kitten had thrown up a few days before and she was afraid Evan would figure out the cause of the strange new smells on the furniture. He was willing to believe that the differences in the house could be attributed to new cleaning products, but the changes in Cora were something else entirely. He thought that she seemed to be smiling all the time and somehow that struck him as unusual. Not since she had been meeting with that youth guy at the church had she seemed so happy and content.
Finally he decided on the direct approach. “What the hell’s goin’ on with you Cora?”
She froze. Mentally, she calculated the days, months, and years since he had last inquired about her well-being. It was a high number and the fact that he was asking now concerned her.
“What do you mean?”
“Somethin’s different about you these days. What’re you up to?”
She laughed, trying to appear surprised, instead coming off as frightened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Evan. You know me, same old, same old. Nothing new around here these days.”
He stared at her with a hard look, one she had not seen in some time. There was an edge to him that made the hair on the back of her neck stand and though it had been years, the feeling came rushing back to her with a sudden force. She willed herself to stand still and breathe slowly.
“I don’t know, Cora. Somethin’s goin’ on and whatever it is, I’ll figure it out.”
He walked out and she thought he was probably right. Eventually, he would figure it out. She just hoped she could figure something out first.
She walked to the church the next day and sought out the secretary Vera Lou Jenkins. They were not great friends, but Cora had always thought the older woman was someone she could trust and she knew that she had lived in Eastlake for most of her life. She was hoping Vera Lou could give her some information. Unfortunately the news was not good. The local animal shelter would not take strays and although she promised to ask around, Vera Lou did not know of anyone who would be interested in adopting Cora’s kitten.
The next few days passed uneventfully, and then Evan came home that Friday with two items of interest to discuss. He had an interview the following week about a head coaching position at another school. And secondly, he had questions about some stray cat he had seen several times now running through the back yard. Cora expressed excitement about the job interview and pleaded ignorance about the other matter. He didn’t believe either.
“You okay with movin’ if I get this job?”
“Of course, it’s what we’ve always talked about. I know how much you want to be a head coach.”
“And you’re sure you haven’t seen that cat? The black and white one? I bet that’s who’s been tearing into our trash.”
“I haven’t seen it,” she lied.
“Well, if I catch that little bastard in my trash, I’m gonna shoot it.”
Sadly, he was not kidding. After supper, he dug out the old .22 rifle his father had left him and went out the back door, flashlight in hand. Cora sat at the table and prayed her Little Bit, as she had named him, would stay out of sight and not be found. Evan returned a short time later and she breathed a sigh of relief that he had not fired his gun.
A week later, Evan received the news that he had gotten the job. He had continued to go out each evening to look for the cat and when Cora heard the shots that night she began to cry. Evan laughed when he walked in the back door and caught her wiping tears.
“Don’t worry, it was just a possum. And I missed him anyway.”
Cora tried to laugh herself, but she remained upset. He surprised her by patting her on the shoulder as he passed. A few days later, she sat on her back porch with a small plate of food, but her Little Bit never appeared. She was worried and walked the block, but saw no sign of him. Evan bragged later when he got home about having seen the cat digging in the neighbor’s garbage and chased him away.
“I wish I’d a had my gun.”
She was glad he hadn’t. She had no doubt that he could shoot the kitten and think nothing of it. She looked for him the following morning, but again he was not on her back porch. She kept looking, determined to find him, devastated when she did. He was in the road. Whoever had run him over had not even bothered to stop. She wondered if it had been Evan.
She found a small shoebox and with tears streaming down her face she buried him just behind the shed. Afterward, she sat in the dark listening to the Beatles sing “Hey Jude” while she thought about Martin Luther King, Jr. and those two Kennedy boys. Too many good people are dying these days, she thought, but she didn’t know them. They were just faces on the TV screen, but Little Bit was real. She had loved him and now he was gone. Maybe it would be good to leave Eastlake. She had more than her share of bad memories from this place. She would miss her little blue house though.
Funeral, 2018
By the time Ellie Sullivan had reached the grand old age of eighty, she had decided that perhaps she should start considering what would become of the beloved drive-in that she and Sully had built together so very many years before. She had reached out to his side of the family back in the nineties following her husband’s passing, but most had not maintained any contact since then. Her own family had dwindled down to a couple of distant cousins whom she had never met and who showed no interest in a small restaurant in East Texas. Only Missy had come back to see the grand reopening and only she had continued to write and call all these years later.
Missy was a great-granddaughter of Sully’s favorite aunt Darlene. She and her husband had lived most of their lives north of Dallas until moving to Tyler a few years back. Ellie had found the girl to be much like herself, fun-loving and full of energy. She looked at the birthday card that she had received the day before. Missy had written inside, “Happy 81st! Hope the next 81 go just as smoothly!”
She laughed and put the card aside. She had to get to work. The drive-in opened in another hour. Although she had passed on the full-time manager position years ago, Ellie had always been an early riser and she still insisted on being there each morning when the first customers drove in for the breakfast rush. She often wondered what Sully would think of the drive-in now. In the beginning, the two of them were the primary employees as well as the owners. With the extended hours and expanded menus, Sully’s was now open earlier than ever and still maintained the late night hours that had always been so popular. They were even considering a plan for staying open twenty-four hours a day on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
Ellie had never really slowed down herself, but she had been forced to rely on a series of managers to cover the hours of operation when they had gone beyond even her limits of endurance which were legendary. Even now, she would open up in the mornings and stay through lunch on a regular basis. Most afternoons and evenings, she would be at the drive-in more hours than away and she often said that when she was home, she did nothing more than sit around thinking about the restaurant. It truly was her baby and she hated to be apart even after all these years.
