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From: "Gina Marie Wylie" <gmwylie98260@hotmail.com>
Subject: {ASSM} Laura Alban Hunt Ch 31 {Gina Marie Wylie} (Ff, ff, cons)
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Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 11:10:03 -0500
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<1st attachment, "Laura Ch 31.doc" begin>

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	The following is fiction of an adult nature.  If I believed in
setting age limits for things, you'd have to be eighteen to read
this and I'd never have bothered to write it.  IMHO, if you can
read and enjoy, then you're old enough to read and enjoy.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	All persons here depicted are figments of my imagination and any
resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly a blunder on my
part.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	Official stuff:  Story codes: Ff, FF, Cons.

	If stories like this offend you, you will offend ME if you read
further and complain. Copyright 2004, by Gina Marie Wylie.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	I can be reached at gmwylie98260@hothothotmail.com, at least if
you remove some of the hots.  All comments and reasoned
discussion welcome.

Below is my site on ASSTR:
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Gina_Marie_Wylie/www/

My stories are also posted on StoriesOnline:
http://Storiesonline.net/

And on Electronic Wilderness Publishing:
http://www.ewpub.org/

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Laura Alban Hunt

Chapter 31 -- The Freedom Rides

I'm Terri Farmer, and I've led three lives.  Herb Philbrick might
have been a citizen, communist and counterspy, but me?  I was a
citizen, lesbian and student radical.

Peggy said we should write about ourselves; I can't do that.  My
life has never been about me; it was always about others.  I was
never much of a leader -- I was the faithful friend and companion
-- the one who was there through thick and thin, where someone
else has led.

When I showed an early draft of this to Peggy, she made me read
the Lord of the Rings.  It took a long time to get through the
book, because after a few days, I took to reading it to Celia. 
It was clear from the first that Peggy was comparing me to
Samwise Gamgee.  At first it was amusing, then less so as the
story progressed and I realized that Peggy, as usual, sees things
the rest of us don't.

The hardest thing of all, though, was finding out what that story
meant to Celia.  When the only way you can communicate is with
your eyes, a glance has to take the place of a million words.  I
knew she loved me reading to her, and I'd read her all sorts of
things.  But once I started on Lord of the Rings, that was the
only thing she wanted to hear.

Late one night I finished reading the last book to her.  I hugged
her; I saw her smile.  Three hours later they called me and said
she'd passed on quietly in her sleep.  My friends sustained me
during the days that followed, but eventually I stopped wallowing
in self pity long enough to realize that she wanted nothing more
than to hear how the story ended.  Once more Celia showed me what
sacrifice and absolute devotion to a cause could accomplish.

I remember the first time I met Peggy Brewster who later became
Peggy Sloan.  It was late spring of 1957; I was a freshman at
South Mountain High School in Phoenix.  All kinds of things were
different back then.

I'd played on the girl's basketball team and we'd done so-so, but
the coach left right after the season ended in January.  After
that we were told we could work out in the gym, under the
supervision of the Mr. Sloan, who was the men's coach, or go to
study hall.  I got good grades, and I really preferred studying
at home than at school because it got me out of chores... so I
went with the half-dozen girls who wanted to keep working out.

Mr. Sloan is a nice enough man, but he didn't want to coach
grils.  His idea of supervision was to send us down to the other
end of the gym to shoot hoops.  So long as we didn't fight or get
into trouble, he really didn't care what we did.

At first it didn't occur to me that we were being short-changed,
but it occurred to Celia.  She was vocal and bitter at being left
to ourselves.  "We don't get coached!" was something she said
over and over.  After Peggy came, she agreed with Celia, that
what we were doing on the court was getting worse, not better. 
We weren't learning good habits; mostly we learned bad ones.

I was a loner.  I'd kept to myself from the very earliest days I
was in school.  I hated other kids; I hated my teachers; I pretty
much hated everything around me.  Of course, I'd learned that the
adults around me didn't want to hear my opinions... so I learned
to keep my mouth shut.

I can still remember that day, maybe the second or third day of
school when I was just starting seventh grade.  For the very
first time we were expected to dress out for PE, to change from
school clothes to shorts and t-shirts, then do whatever the PE
teachers wanted, return to the locker room, quickly shower and
change back again.

As a theoretical thing, I'd had no problems with it.  Just one
more piece of incomprehensibility that I had to put up with from
adults.  I got shorts, I got t-shirts; I was already wearing a
bra.  That first day, though, in the showers, I realized theory
and reality were different.  I was standing nude, outside the
showers waiting my turn for my thirty seconds of water, and Celia
Howard was standing in front of me.

I remember vividly, my eye following the curve of her butt, I
remember my breathing speeding up, and I remember the hollow
feeling in my stomach.  In the shower, she turned and faced away
from the shower, as did I.  But for a second I could see her
breasts, small dark brown cones, capped with tiny black nipples.
It was pretty close to an orgasm I felt then, as close as I'd
ever gotten in my life.

I left the showers a moment later and toweled off; thankfully
Celia was with friends a few locker rows away.  A good thing,
because if I'd seen her toweling off, I probably would have
come.

Things were different then, you can't imagine it.  My father had
told me several times if I had any trouble with niggers or spics,
I should let him know, and he'd set it right.  I knew at school
what some people called the Negroes and Mexicans, but I used the
words interchangeably.  Except I didn't use them much, because
there was no reason.

Eventually I learned my parents, particularly my father, were
racists.  The problem for my father was that he never talked to
me that much and I never learned prejudice from him.  My mother
was a quiet housewife who said absolutely nothing to contradict
my father... and when he wasn't around, said practically
nothing.

Still, I spent some time thinking after I got home after that
first day in the showers.  I pictured Celia in my mind, and the
hollow feeling returned.  In a matter of minutes I learned to
masturbate by simply exploring what felt best.  And I did have my
first ever orgasm.

I had known Celia, at that point, for two years, since fifth
grade.  Known, in the sense that I knew her name, because she sat
right behind me in Mr. Hinton's class.  Mr. Hinton was close to
sixty, and towards the end of the year he was absent a lot, and
the substitutes would call our names and we'd have to raise our
hands and say "here!"

Some of the boys in the class gave the substitutes a lot of
trouble, but not the girls.

I was curious about my feelings for Celia, once I realized I had
them.  Some of the others in my class talked about boys,
particularly high school boys.  There were no sex ed classes back
then, and some of us were pretty ignorant about the subject.

Three weeks into the school year Conchita Ramirez vanished one
day.  It was something I happened to overhear in the PE locker
room the next day -- she was pregnant and they'd made her quit.

It probably sounds unbelievable now, but in those days it was
different.  You can't imagine how different.  I mean, I literally
didn't know where babies came from.  I'd had my first period and
my mother had explained about "the curse" and all of that, but
not any of the rest of the physical facts of life, much less
something like where babies came from.

I wasn't sure why it was such a big deal that Conchita was
pregnant... wasn't that something women did?  I saw pregnant
women all the time.  I was clueless, and finally decided to ask
my mother.

She explained a little more, and then later, when my father came
home, she told him about someone in my class being pregnant.

I was doing homework, but the volcanic eruption of temper and
rage that came from him that day interrupted everything.  I was
inquisitioned -- that's the only word for it.  For an hour my
father asked me questions -- questions about my school, my
classmates and things I had no idea what he was talking about.

The next thing I knew, mother was giving me the real birds and
bees lecture.  Boys have a thing that they pee out of, but when
it comes time to fertilize a girl's eggs, it wasn't pee that came
out.  You know the story.

That was probably the first time in my life I made an adult
decision.  I'd been masturbating for weeks by that time.  Almost
always it was while I was thinking about Celia.  I tried to
position myself so that I could see her undressed after PE, but I
didn't push.  At first, listening to my mother explaining about
boys and girls, I was contemplating asking her about girls and
girls.  What stopped me was the memory of the anger in my
father's voice.

It was clear to me that people didn't talk about sex, unless
forced to.  Boys, girls and babies were what everyone did.  Thus,
girls and girls probably wasn't something my father would approve
of.  I patiently waited until the end of my mother's lecture, and
when she finished, I didn't ask the one question I had.

Seventh grade went on and on... it is easily the longest school
year I remember.  Late in the spring, I was sitting on the
ground, reading Hiawatha, while others played baseball.  Once a
month on Friday afternoon, they would let all of the seventh
graders out of regular classes.  People would choose up sides in
the sport du jour, and they'd play.  There were usually a
half-dozen games of one sort or another, but rarely more than
half of us were on one of the teams.  The rest of us were
expected to be quiet, be orderly and other than that, we weren't
bothered.

I heard someone laugh behind me, and I glanced back.  A couple of
the rougher boys, all white, were talking between themselves. 
They weren't making much effort to keep their voices down, and a
common word in their conversation was "queer" and another common
word was "fags."

Eventually, I realized they were talking about Alan Garner and
Greg Simpson, who were sitting a ways off, talking between
themselves.  Both Alan and Greg were short, skinny and smart. 
Greg was, in fact, universally known as "The Professor" because
of the way he talked and how much he knew.

I knew, pretty much, what the two of them were talking about,
because Alan and I had been seated next to each other a few times
over the years, and I'd heard the two of them talk on several
occasions.  They read lurid science fiction stories and it was
always about space ships and aliens, blasters and ray guns.  It
wasn't something I was interested in, and I'd pretty much stopped
thinking about them.

That night, at home, I got out the dictionary and looked up the
words I'd heard.  Have I said before that things were different
back then?  The Encyclopedia Britannica dictionary gave three
meanings for queer, and the only one that I saw that could apply
was odd or strange.  From the angry way the boys had been
talking, I didn't think that was it.  Fag was slang for a
cigarette.  Sure, there were a few guys in my class that smoked.
But most of them had been in the group talking about fags, and I
was sure they were using the word to refer to Alan and Greg.

What can you say about serendipity?  The next day I got a library
pass to go find a book on American History so I could write a
book report on it.  There weren't very many people in the
library, and right next to the card catalog was a stand with the
huge dictionary on it: Webster's Unabridged.

I looked up queer just as a lark.  Britannica had had three
definitions; Webster's had seven.  Number six was "homosexual" a
word I'd never heard of before, and the type of entry was listed
as "offensive slang."  Entry seven said it was a "usage" entry
and said the word referred to lesbians and gay men.

All I could do was scratch my head.  I didn't know what lesbian
meant, and while I knew meanings for "gay" and "man" the two
together obviously didn't mean what I would have thought.

Take them in order, I thought.  So I went to fag.  The word had
the same definitions as the Britannica had, but in addition,
there were two other entries for the word, below the first,
entries the Britannica hadn't had.  The third said the same thing
as I'd seen before: "Offensive slang" and the definition was "a
disparaging term for a homosexual man."

That was a clue, and so off I went to find homosexual.  And there
it was.  First, the meaning was "relating to or having a sexual
orientation to a person of the same sex."  Later, in the
explanations that followed, I learned what gay man meant and what
lesbian meant.  I went and checked lesbian and yes, that was a
woman whose sexual orientation was towards other women.  I turned
the dictionary to the word "perplexed" went and sat down.

I had definitions; I knew how I felt about Celia.  I'm not
stupid.  This was unusual.  For the first time in my life I
seriously regretted not having a friend close enough to talk to
about it.  I was bitter and more than a little angry.  For the
first time I made no effort to see Celia in the showers.

Instead, as I was walking home, I had a brainstorm.  Every day I
walked past Our Lady of Guadalupe, a Catholic Church.  I was
Presbyterian, not Catholic, but I remembered that Catholic
priests couldn't say anything to anyone about what someone
confessed to them.  I made up my mind in a flash.

I'd never been in a Catholic Church before.  Like all churches,
it was intimidating.  That and it was a dozen times the size of
ours.  The smells were strange; everything was strange.  On the
other hand, shy or not, Presbyterian or not, I was desperate for
someone to talk to.

Someone near the altar in a cassock saw me and headed my way.  He
was a rotund, Hispanic man of late middle age.  He smiled
benignly at me. 

I braced myself and asked my first, easiest question.  "Sir, is
it true, a priest can't tell anyone what he hears in
confession?"

He nodded, "Yes."

He smiled slightly, "Young woman, confession is a holy sacrament
of the Catholic church.  You're not Catholic."

"Oh," I was stunned.

He didn't laugh, he could have, but he didn't.  "Have you done
something you feel that you should confess?"

I shook my head.  "I don't think so.  What I have are questions,
mostly.  About sex."

"You are how old?" he asked.

"Twelve, sir.  I'm in seventh grade."

"Come with me," he told me.  We didn't head for the front of the
church, like I expected.  Instead, we went to the side, down a
corridor, down another corridor and into a suite of offices.  He
ignored everyone and finally poked his head into an office with
an open door.

"Sister Rose, do you have a few minutes?"

The woman was wearing a nun's habit, and looked up from what I
was sure were a pile of school papers to be graded.  She smiled
at him and nodded, but her eyes were on me.

"This young woman has some questions; I think you might be better
able to help her than I could."

She waved me to a chair, and I sat down.  The priest turned and
left, closing the door behind him.

The next two hours were the most difficult, but the most
educational in my life.  Sister Rose never asked my name, never
asked anything but questions about what I thought about things. 
And I told her about my feelings for another girl, and that she
wasn't white.

Sister Rose would shake her head and say, "Such things are a
sin," and then would answer my question or explain something
else.  Gently, firmly, she tried to dissuade me, but at the same
time she didn't make dissuasion the price of going forward.

I never went back.  I never saw that priest again or Sister Rose.
 I've never had much use for churches at all, and have pretty
much given up on them.  Still, I remember her honesty and her
ability to put it into perspective.

So, I knew I was a lesbian.  I knew that I looked at boys and
felt absolutely nothing.  I knew I looked at Celia and felt a
great deal.  It was true there weren't any other girls that I
looked at that meant any more to me than any of the boys I knew,
but I was sure about my attraction to Celia.

But we were so different!  She was black and she stayed with
other black girls.  There was virtually no social mixing of the
races.  Sure, our classrooms were integrated, but we practiced
our own segregation.  Celia was moderately popular, moderately
athletic, and smart.  I was as smart, but a loner and wasn't
athletic.

A few weeks before the school year ended, on one of the Fridays,
we were lined up, choosing teams.  Celia had been put in charge
of her volleyball team and she was choosing.  She walked past me
and for the first time ever, I spoke to her.  "Choose me," I said
as calmly as I could.

She looked at me, then held her arm up, and flexed her muscles. 
"Do that."

I did, not sure what she was after.  She reached out when I did,
and squeezed my arm.  I nearly came, but she brought me back to
earth.  "Girl, you have spaghetti muscles.  Little, tiny soft
ones.  No!"

She walked on down the line, picking those she wanted to play on
her team.  But not me.

It was, I realized, a turning point in my life.  I held what all
considered to be an unnatural passion for a person of my own sex
and of a different race.  The smart thing would have been to
start taking cold showers instead of masturbating while thinking
about Celia.

No, what I did was get a book on physical fitness out of the
library, read it, and start exercising.

I said I was a loner and a good student.  That meant I was bored
a lot.  I read, but after a while I'd gotten tired of the usual
girl stuff they peddled to us -- you can only read Nancy Drew so
many times before you want to throw up.  So, I had a lot of time
to exercise.  And summer came, and there was more than a lot of
time to exercise.

There was an important moment that summer, early on.  It was a
Saturday, which was the day my mother went shopping.  First,
though, she would take me to the public library, downtown at
Central and McDowell.

I would make a turn to the right, just inside the front door to
the juvenile room and try to find something interesting.  Most
days, I couldn't.  That day, I saw Alan and Greg sitting at a
table, a pile of books next to them.  I know it's stupid (and
later learned just plain wrong) but I thought that if they were
gay, and I was gay, maybe we would like the same sorts of
stories.

I walked up and asked them if they could tell me an interesting
book to read.  Me, who'd never voluntarily talked to anyone
before, much less a boy.  Two seconds later, I had a book from
each.  Greg contributed "Starman Jones" written by someone named
Robert Heinlein, and Alan gave me "The Star Beast" by the same
man.

Alan told me when he gave me Star Beast from his stack that he
guaranteed that I would like it.  Double my money back.  Greg had
laughed and said, "More like quadruple."

I thought they were strange, queer.  I smiled.

I want to make something clear.  I got to know Greg and Alan
after that.  Maybe we didn't talk often at first, but as time
went by, we talked more.  They weren't gay; they were simply best
friends.  I never had a best friend until Celia and I became
lovers, and as we were lovers it always colored our relationship.
 If ever I had a best friend it was Peggy, but even there, sex
was part of it.  In truth, I've never had a best friend who
wasn't also an occasional lover.

In 1967, Alan died at a place called Khe Sanh in Vietnam; he was
a Marine lieutenant.  Greg was the one who called to tell me, he
was going to UCLA at the time, working on his doctorate in
mathematics.  Alan had wanted to save the world one way, Greg
another.

September came and I was a different person.  I'd been short all
my life, and I'd had a growth spurt in August, but I went from
four eight to four eleven.  Nothing like towering or imposing. 
Still, I'd exercised hard and on the first day of school I was
ready for Celia to feel my arm again.  No more spaghetti muscles
for me!

Well, I did get to see her in the shower a few days later.  We
weren't in the same class that year; the only time I saw her was
in PE and once a week in choir, the only class we had together
besides PE.  Celia had changed too.  Her breasts were larger, her
nipples, though, had stayed small.  My breasts were ugly, I
thought, small grapefruit halves with large nipples that seemed,
at times, about to overwhelm the rest of my breasts.

Oh yeah, Celia never touched me once that year.

The problem with unrequited love is that it's unrequited.  I
loved Celia and masturbated thinking about her a couple times a
day.  But that was at night.  During the day, I was Miss
Prim-and-Proper, never giving a hint how I felt.

At the end of eighth grade I'd grown again: now I was five two. 
Celia was closing in on her final five nine, and I was half a
foot shorter.  I was sure she would never, ever, notice me.

The summer before high school I went berserk.  There was no
school, and the hour I spent at the library was trivial.  I did
pushups and sit-ups.  I ran, I jumped rope, I did every exercise
you can imagine and every exercise in the books I'd read and I
read a lot of them.

At the start of the year when I was a freshman, I was the same
height as Celia: five eight.  I had muscles on muscles on
muscles.  My father had put up a basketball hoop on the garage
and half of my summer had been spent throwing the ball through
the hoop.

The first day of practice, Celia grinned at me; then I stole the
ball from her and sank it.  I did it a half-dozen more times that
day, making her a particular target.

Celia reacted by getting better.  Some of her friends reacted by
getting in my face.  Celia didn't know about that, but they did.
I ignored them, even when it meant bruises.

Then, at the end of the year, Peggy Brewster arrived.  And after
that, everything was different.

She walked into the gym and it was like a thunderbolt.  We paid
attention.  It was clear she knew what she was doing, and knew
what she wanted.  Before the end of the school year, she had us
eating out of the palm of her hand.

We learned a lot in those short few weeks.  I was appreciative. 
So were most of the others.  At the end of the year, we dispersed
for the summer.

Except I'd heard Coach Brewster say to Coach Sloan that she was
going to be coaching during the summer for the city at Encanto
Park.

Encanto was a long, long way from where I lived.  But my parents
had their own interests and didn't care about mine.  Half of
Phoenix's kids headed for Encanto Park in the summer, I wasn't
odd or unique that way.

I went that summer because I admired Coach Brewster.  I didn't
expect to see Celia until the fall, and in fact, I didn't.  From
the very first day of the summer program I noticed the Coach was
spending a lot of time watching me.

I told myself it couldn't possibly be what I was thinking, but by
then, at least to me, it was already clear Coach Brewster was a
lesbian.  I'd heard at school that she lived with another woman
but since everyone knew how little teachers were paid, no one
thought about it.

The more I watched, the more I noticed her looking at me.  Maybe
the first time I was unmoved, maybe the second time.  By the
third time, I was curious.  Coach Brewster was, I thought, an
adult.  She knew what lesbians were, what she was.  Me?  I'd
spent an hour or so talking to a nun about the philosophy of
having a woman as a lover, with no practical details.  Over the
years since I'd heard a few more comments, but they ranged from
obscure to obviously derogatory.  For the first time someone
else, though, was stirring the ache between my legs.

Then it happened, something I never imagined might be possible. 
My mother went to Los Angeles to be with her sister, who was very
sick.  Then my dad told me that the city wanted him to go to a
meeting.  It was very important, and meant he would be virtually
assured of a promotion.  Of course, it would mean I would be left
by myself for most of a week.

My first thought was to ignore it.  I was quite capable of taking
care of myself.  Then I looked at Coach Brewster and realized
that this was my chance to learn exactly what being a lesbian
meant.  So I asked her, I asked my parents if I could spend the
week with my coach.  The latter agreed instantly, only Coach
Brewster seemed reluctant.

I was a very, very happy young woman, when Coach Brewster taught
me what was involved.  I reciprocated, and was mildly surprised
that her partner, Angie, never objected.  I was, though, too
wrapped up in my very first-ever requited love affair to care.

Then came the day, towards the end of summer when Coach Peggy and
I had our last heart-to-heart.  I told her of my love for Celia
and she told me about her own mother's love for another black
girl.

It was humbling, for one thing.  Very humbling.  If nothing else
because I wasn't nearly the pioneer I'd thought I was.  Still, I
took comfort because it also meant such things were possible.

Our sophomore year started and the very first day I walked up to
Celia, who, while not team Captain, might as well have been. 
"Hi, shrimp!" I told her, while trying to stand straighter.

I hurt.  You can't describe it; you just have to endure it.  At
the end of my freshman year I was five eight -- I'd grown six
inches in six months.  That summer I continued to grow, finishing
at six foot, even.  I ached.  Every inch of my bones pained me. 
But every one of those aches had been worth it, to get to say
those two words.

It was the third week of school.  We'd gone to a practice game at
Camelback High School and were returning to school, late at
night.

Celia and I were sitting in the front of the bus, the others
sound asleep in the back.

"Not many white girls," she said, "want to sit with a nigger."

I laughed at her.  Laughed.  "Not many black girls want to sit
with a white.  I don't know the word, but I imagine you have one
for us."

She grinned at me.  "You'll never hear it from my lips."

"And you'll not hear that word you used from me, either!"

"Guess I better watch my language, then!" Celia agreed.

A week later, another away game, up at Phoenix Union.  It was a
rough game and we all came away bruised.

Celia and I weren't the captains or anything; the captain was a
senior.  But we were two girls who wanted our team to do better.
Most of the trip back, that's what we talked about.  Still, a few
seconds before we were back, Celia gripped my arm.  "Tell me the
truth, Terri.  I saw you staring at me when we were in seventh
grade.  And ever since.  What do you think about, when you stare
at me?"

My first thought was to lie; I'd gotten quite good at it.  I
looked Celia in the eye and realized that even though the
Catholics hadn't gotten their hooks into me, I was facing eternal
damnation.

Thus, I gave a totally BS answer, and stuck with it.  "I look at
you and wonder why we're different."

"What makes you think we're different?" she asked.

"At first I thought it was because you were tall and strong,
popular with other kids.  Then I found some old muscles lying
around and then I grew a bit.  I don't really want to be popular,
but you're right.  I don't think we're very different, not any
more."

She grinned at me, and pitched her voice very low.  "And here I
was hoping you'd say you think I'm pretty."

"That too," I agreed.  "Not many guys can look down on us, that
sets us apart."

We arrived back at school, and Coach Brewster bustled around
getting things put up.  We helped her, Celia and I.  Peggy had
told me that she would take me home, Celia's parents were
supposed to come get her.  Except when it came time for the Coach
to leave, they still hadn't arrived.  Coach Brewster went back
inside her office to call, and Celia watched her go.

Then she turned to me.  "Terri, how much alike do you think we
are?"

I shrugged.  "I don't know.  I've talked to you more in the last
couple of weeks than in all the rest of the years I've known
you."

"Would you be grossed out if I tell you that sometimes, when you
look at me, my nipples get tight and I start getting wet?"

I blinked.  "Well, I guess that's interesting.  I feel the same
way when I look at you."

"You know, one of these days after school, you and I should get
together and talk."

We did get together and while there was some talking, that's not
the main form of intercourse we had.  I remember feeling ten
miles high and floating on air the next day when I nodded at
Celia and gave Peggy a thumbs up.

We were the ultimate odd couple.  Two tallish girls, one black,
one white.  Both of us were smart, both of us were looking ahead
to college.  We played basketball that year with a bunch of girls
every bit as hungry to win as we were, as was Coach Brewster.  We
won the city championship easily, and in those days the only real
competition at the state level was from Tucson and we were head
and shoulders better than they were.

During the weeks before the season started, then during the
season, there was not much time for our personal lives.  We had
practices and school, practices and games.  We did find time to
spend together and more than once we'd end up in a tangle of
limbs, naked and sated.  Sneaking was a way of life for both of
us; Celia assured me that her parents didn't have a problem with
her having a white friend; I could even come to their house.  But
my parents, particularly my father, would have exploded if they
even knew I talked to one black girl.  And while Celia's parents
might not have minded her having a white friend, a lot of the
black girls were giving her a hard time because of it.

Long before the season was over, Celia figured things out about
Coach and me.  It had been impossible to hide that I'd been with
someone else.  Coach didn't spend more time with me than with
anyone else, but Celia saw right through it.  When Celia asked me
about it, I nearly had a heart attack.  I did have a crisis of
faith in our relationship; fortunately it was a short-lived
attack and I decided that lying would be the absolute worst
choice.

After she learned about Peggy, Celia hadn't seemed upset or in
any way put out by learning about it.  And after the season was
over it was Celia who spoke out to me.  "You watch Coach Brewster
even more than you used to watch me.  Girl, people are going to
figure you out.  And then they'll figure me out.  None of us
needs that."

That was true enough.  In those days you were not even allowed to
hold hands or hug at school.  Late in our sophomore year they
caught a couple kissing under the bleachers.  There was no public
announcement, but they were both kicked out of school for the
rest of the year.  There was nothing said about homosexuals, but
it was pretty clear that the gossip spread fast.

I talked to Peggy about it and she just shrugged.  "As adults,
Angie and I have it a little better.  We pretend to be friends
and never, ever show any affection at all, outside our house. 
Not even in the house, unless it's with a few close friends. 
They want to pretend we don't exist; I'm pretty sure that the
same holds true for you.  You can be friends; you can pal around
at school, after school, at games and the like.  At dances, you
might even dance together a few times, but you'd better spend
most of the dance with boys."

We simply didn't tell our teammates that, once the season was
over, Celia and I were frequent guests at Coach's house, nor that
we spent a good part of that time together in the bed in their
guest room.

Then, along came the Ides of March and Carol Emerson and things
changed again.

Carol's parents had moved to Arizona from Detroit; their son was
sickly and the doctors had told them to move to Arizona for his
health.  Carol was taller than most, but still a bit shorter than
Celia.  Carol wasn't athletic, wasn't interested in basketball or
any other sport.  No, what happened was that, since I had such
high "citizenship" marks from my teachers, I was nominated to be
her Welcome Wagon Lady.  For the first two weeks, I showed her
where things were, talked to her about teachers and rules and the
like.  It was supposed to be a big deal, being picked to help
someone.

It wasn't hard and I didn't mind.  Carol was pleasant to talk to,
and a little shy.  She was, I thought, as smart as me, too, which
was a high compliment from me, because I had a pretty high
opinion of myself.

On Carol's seventh day of classes, two senior boys gave her an
official-looking note telling her to report to the gym during her
study hall for a "Fitness Evaluation."  I'd pointed out the gym
to her the first day; I spent a lot of time there with the
others, practicing after school.

In hindsight, I wished she would have mentioned the request to
me, I'd have known it was bogus.  But she was shy and diffident
-- and no more anxious to be nannied than the next person.

That was the one period the gym was empty.  Not that Carol ever
got there.  They grabbed her in the hallway leading to the gym
and pulled her into a maintenance closet.  It wasn't exactly
rape, they did fondle her, and one of them tried to get his
finger inside her.  They did pull off her skirt and panties...
they tossed her skirt on the walkway roof as they left and kept
her panties as a souvenir.

Coach Brewster pulled me out of my last period class and
explained what had happened to Carol.  I sat with Carol while she
waited on the police and her parents.  Carol was scared and
upset, and by the time she left, it was worse.  Her parents
partially blamed her, the school officials, except for the Coach,
were unsympathetic.

Carol missed the rest of the week.  Late Sunday evening, I got a
call from her, asking if I'd walk with her between classes.  I
told her that it was no problem, then I called Celia and she
agreed, so we called everyone else on the team.

So the next day it wasn't just me walking with Carol, it was the
whole basketball team.  A very belligerent team at that.  Maybe
Carol wasn't a team member, but she was a friend of someone on
the team.  More important, she was a girl, just like we were. 
And all of us had stories of idiot guys who'd made our lives
miserable at one time or another.

Someone laughed at us, audibly laughed at us.  It was too quick.
One second Celia was standing next to me, the next second she'd
whirled and nearly kicked the guy's balls out the back side of
his spine.  He promptly lost his cookies and Celia promptly got
suspended for a month.

Carol was upset that Celia was suspended, feeling that it was her
fault.  I reassured her that it hadn't been her fault.  A couple
of days later I brought Carol over to Coach's house and Celia
told Carol that she'd lost her temper, there was no one to blame
but herself, and that she was the one who was sorry.

Carol started crying, and Celia hugged her and tried to sooth and
calm her.  I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but in about two
minutes flat the two of them were kissing.

I turned to Peggy and shrugged, she laughed and we went and
joined Angie in the kitchen.  We baked oatmeal cookies while, in
the living room, Celia and Carol went a lot further than kissing
on the first date.

We were chatting quietly when Celia and Carol came into the
kitchen, holding hands.  "Carol is under the impression that the
first thing you all are going to do, is tell everyone about us."

Peggy just smiled, Angie's smile was just that: angelic.  I
managed not to laugh, but I had to hold down the urge hard.

"Carol," Peggy told her, "no one here tells anyone outside these
walls anything about what goes on inside."

"But I..."

"But nothing," Peggy said.  She turned then and kissed Angie.  I
mean, it wasn't a half-assed movie kiss, it was sexy and sensual,
and Peggy played a little with Angie's breasts.  Then Peggy
kissed me the same way and I in turn kissed Celia.

You could literally see the light bulb go off over Carol's head.
"Oh!" She blushed bright red and covered her mouth.

Celia walked up to her, leaned close and kissed her gently on the
nose.  "It was nice, just now, wasn't it?"  Carol nodded hastily,
not looking at the rest of us.

"But we both know it was physical, the act of sex.  A release of
feelings and emotions that sometimes just come out of us.  We
were carried away by our emotions and hormones.  We aren't
star-crossed lovers or anything like that.  Not, mind you, if you
wanted to do it again, I'd say no.  But you aren't my life, not
the way Terri is."

Carol looked at me, and must have remembered the kiss I'd given
Celia.

"It's bad, I thought, to do it just for fun."

Celia giggled.  "I didn't hear any complaints!  Don't go letting
your conscience run away with you, dear Carol!  People have been
doing it for fun for a long time!"

Carol took our comments at face value.  A few days later I was on
the receiving end of Carol's kisses and caresses.  She was
inexperienced but she more than overcame that with
determination.

There was something else going on, something I didn't realize for
some time.  Carol started hanging around the basketball team,
doing little things.  She tried to play a few times but she
wasn't in shape and had almost no natural athletic ability. 
Still she persisted and after a while Coach Brewster gave in to
the inevitable and made her the "equipment manager."

What I didn't know, what Celia and Coach Brewster didn't know,
was Carol had decided to thank the girls on the team in the one
way she knew how: to make love to them.  Some of the girls needed
more convincing than others, but some needed hardly any.

It wasn't until Carol tried her charms on Estelle Parsons without
success that we found out what was going on.  Carol went to Celia
and asked her privately what she could do to seduce Estelle. 
Estelle and Celia had been friends for a long time, but Estelle's
views about whites weren't very tolerant.  She tolerated me,
because Celia and I were friends.  Mostly she hung out with the
two other black girls on the team.

Celia told Carol that it had taken us years to get together, and
that it was too much to hope for something quick.  That's when
Carol blurted out that Shirley Johnson had been only too willing
to be seduced and since Shirley was black, it couldn't be that.

Celia eventually got Carol to admit what she was doing.  I was
stunned; Celia was stunned.  We debated telling Coach Brewster
about it and finally did.  That's when Peggy told us that on her
mother's team they all made love to each other and that they had
started in elementary school.

Carol had seduced every girl on the team at that point except
Estelle and a girl named Karen Sharp, who was a freshman and
terribly shy.  What happened then was Celia and Carol decided
that they would, together, seduce Estelle.  The two of them
started hugging in the shower.  Then Celia let Carol wash her
back; then Celia washed Carol's back.  In a few days, they were
washing each other's breasts and having a good time.

It turned out that there were two other gay couples we'd never
known about, and they too started "washing" each other.  One day
Carol started on Estelle's back and Celia started on Estelle's
breasts and before the shower was over, Carol finger fucked
Estelle.

Me?  When they started on Estelle, I started washing Karen's
back.  She stiffened in surprise and shock, but didn't say
anything.  It wasn't a sensual back scrub, just a plain back
washing.  The next day I was a little sensual and the day after
that was Friday and we didn't have as much time as usual because
we were getting out early.  Even so, Celia and Carol organized a
mutual back scrubbing session where we stood in a circle washing
the back of the girl in front of us.  Karen was behind me, and
there was no doubt in my mind about the content of that back
scrub: sensual and heavily concentrated on my bottom.

It is poetic, but apt, to say that after that, the basketball
team showers got pretty steamy.  Several times people worried
that the Coach was going to come and check on why our showers
were taking so much longer, but Celia and I pointed out that
Coach Brewster had never come into the showers while we were in
there.

It was the middle of May by then, and one day Coach Brewster
called a team meeting in her office.  None of the other coaches
who would normally have been there were present, it was just
Peggy.

"I've been thinking about how to go about showing my appreciation
for how well you've played this year, and how well you are doing
academically.  As you know, the annual awards banquet is coming
up in a week and a half, Friday night at the Safari hotel down at
24th Street and Van Buren.  I want to ask you a question.  There
are fifteen team members and our equipment manager.

"I want you to find out from your parents if they would give
permission for you to stay overnight at the hotel.  You would
room four to a room.  Saturday morning we would get up, have
breakfast in the hotel, check out and, as a team, go over to
Arizona State for a tour of their facilities and a chance to
watch their women's team practice.  Back to school Saturday
around four."

To say we were dumbfounded is understating it.  It took a bit to
get permissions, actually it took Coach Brewster the most time,
but she did get everything set.

So we went and ate a bland dinner, listened to mostly meaningless
speeches from administrators and coaches.  Only Coach Brewster's
speech stood out.  She grinned at the room.  "We had a good year,
we won our games, and we had a good time.  Next year we're going
to have a tough time improving on this year, because we were
nearly perfect!"  We on the team were cheering ourselves hoarse,
and she laughed.  "We must have had too good a time... next year
we'll work on that too!"

There was no doubt in my mind she was talking about our showers,
which had gotten very steamy.

Eventually it was over and we went up and had our own party. 
Celia, then me, then Carol kissed Coach Brewster the way we all
so very much liked to be kissed.  And then we spent the night
exhausting ourselves making love to each other.

The next year we were juniors; we were a close team, to say the
least.  We lost only two seniors that year, gained two freshmen
and a sophomore.  Carol took one look at the two freshman girls
and knew kindred spirits when she saw them.  That was the first
time we had a truly committed couple; they had no trouble fitting
in.  Callie Jones was more of an enigma; she was more like me
before I met Coach Brewster.  Quiet, withdrawn.  But intense,
very intense.  She played basketball with her heart and she
played smart.  She did not, however, play in the shower.

After two weeks Carol admitted that she was unsure if Callie
would ever be interested in our version of off-court play.   It
was Celia who decided that we needed to talk to Callie.  Callie
was sitting on a bench in the locker room after a practice,
running a towel over her long brown hair.  Celia and I sat down
next to her, one on either side of her.  Callie looked at Celia,
then at me.

"Howdy," she said, "y'all look serious."

"The girls on this team are pretty tight," Celia said.  "Not just
friends, much more than friends."

Callie looked at her, then at me.  "You two more than friends?"

"Very much more than friends," I said.

"Lovers," Celia told Callie.

"You could be real popular as a gossip," I told Callie.

"Oh sure, real popular.  Look, ladies, I don't gossip.  I don't
mess around."  She looked at me.  "I hear talk.  I don't spread
it.  My mom knows some people, some of the same ones you might
have heard of.  I came here to play basketball and get a
scholarship.  That way I get into college, I can play ball and
never ever have to see Mobile fucking Alabama again.   Don't the
two of you ever go to Mobile, they kill uppity niggers there. 
They do worse to nigger lovers and I can't imagine what they'd do
to you two."

"I don't like that word," I told her.

"It's a word crackers use to put us down.  They don't much care
what you like."  She looked at me coldly, and then turned to
Celia.  "You tell her, you know how it is."

Celia shrugged.  "No."

"I am not going to talk, okay?" Callie told us.  "It would be
stupid.  I'm not going to do it, so don't get on my case.  I'm
going to college; nothing is going to get in the way.  You go do
whatever it is you do; let me know, and I'll be someplace else if
you just gotta do it."

We went to Coach Brewster, not to talk about Callie, but to ask
her if she knew what she was talking about.  "Yes, I was curious
how you were going to deal with it."

Celia smiled.  "Best, I think, not to deal with it.  Just let it
go."

Peggy smiled.  "A friend of my mother gave her mother a couple of
thousand dollars and a bus ticket from Alabama to Phoenix.  If
her mother had stayed much longer, her husband would have beaten
her to death.  Callie is focused on one thing: never being in the
place her mother is now."

She touched Celia's cheek.  "Give her some space, some time. 
Probably nothing will ever happen, but like the rest of us, she
doesn't deserve to have her life any worse than it's been."

So, that's the way it was.  Callie would leave practice a couple
minutes early, would be through in the showers before the rest of
us got there.

Then it was basketball season and there was nothing else on our
minds but winning our games.  And, while we couldn't better our
perfect record from the year before, we could improve how many
points we scored in a game (almost two points per game) and hold
our opponents to fewer points (more than two points less).   We
had another banquet night, another sleepover for the whole team.

Callie had laughed when Celia told her she'd be welcome, even if
all she did was sleep.  "All those hormones -- don't know as I
could.  No, money's always an issue with us.  Couldn't, even if I
wanted to."

"We can get the money," Celia said.

Callie was bitter.  "Already beholden, thanks.  Don't much like
it, so I'm not going to make it worse."

Then it was our senior year, with college on the horizon.  Oh, be
still my heart!  My parents insisted I apply to places like UCLA
and USC.  I didn't tell them, but Celia was going to Arizona
State and that was where I was going to go.  We played just a
little better, but it was only a little better.  Celia and I were
co-captains, and we had a lot of fun.  And, because we were
seniors, both sets of parents gave us more leeway, which meant we
had a lot more time together -- time we used well.

Spring came, and with it the college acceptances.

One significant thing had changed.  My father, eternally angry,
added oceans of bitterness and oceans of hatred.  First, he was
passed over for promotion.  Then, a few weeks after that, the
machine he was working failed, and he was sprayed with pieces of
metal that were very sharp and moving very fast.  He kept his
eyes, but his face was badly scarred, and he lost his right
hand.

All of a sudden, USC and UCLA were off the table, because my
father was out of work, and while he was going to get a
disability check, it wasn't much of a check.  My mother quickly
found a job as a bookkeeping clerk in a big company, but it was
going to be very, very tough for them.  But I had a full
scholarship to ASU, including tuition, fees, room and board.

Another great end-of-the-year party, a lot of good loving. 
Callie was going to be captain the next year, and both Celia and
I were proud of us and of our team, pleased that they were okay
with it.

Another event happened, this one across the country.  Celia's
parents had moved to Arizona after the war; her father's family
was originally from North Carolina, her mother's family was from
Philadelphia; they'd met attending a black college in North
Carolina.  Now Celia's grandmother was sick, and wasn't expected
to live through the summer.  Her parents arranged it with their
work, they were going to drive back and be gone for three weeks.

We laughed about it; it was the summer of 1960, and we laughed at
how sad we were that we'd be parted for a few weeks.  Celia was
terrible, making fun of me because, she said, I had Peggy and
Carol and all the others, while she was just going to have her
own fingers.

Nothing was ever the same after that.  I loved Celia, and Celia
loved me.  More, I think than before.  But it was so different.

When Celia got back, she didn't call.  I wasn't sure when they
were going to be back, and I'd taken to calling every evening. 
One evening her mother answered and I told her who I was and
asked to speak to Celia.  After a short wait, her mother came
back.  "Terri, Celia says she's really sorry, but you're going to
have to call back in a few days."

I was stunned.  Had she found someone else?  What had happened? 
I had no idea what to say, and in the moments I was thinking, her
mother spoke again.

"I've lived there, I grew up with it.  It's hard, really hard
sometimes to deal with it.  We shouldn't have driven through the
south.  It really hit Celia hard."

"What?" I asked, honestly mystified.

She was silent herself.  "Terri, there are a lot of people in the
south who think it's 1860, not 1960.  They don't much like us
down there."

It took three days before Celia called me and we could arrange to
get together at Peggy's.  She was withdrawn, prone to sudden
tears, obviously depressed.  She tried to deal with it, but it
was the first time since we'd been lovers that she wouldn't talk
to me.  Nothing at all about it.

She was making a determined effort to get past it, but it was
slow.  Then it was the first day of college.  It was terrible,
simply terrible.  Beyond awful.  Long, long lines; then more
lines and more lines and still more lines.  Lines to get your
registration materials, lines to get the computer card for each
class, lines to get everything checked, lines to pay tuition,
lines to pay for room and board, lines at the bookstore.

The dorm was beyond a shock.  I was an only child; Celia wasn't,
but she'd grown up with her own room.  "Own room" had no meaning
in that dorm.  Celia and I had been excited at sharing a room; we
had no idea.  None.  Our "room" was a small, closet-sized place
that had some drawers, a tiny cubbyhole that passed for two
closets and then along the other wall, a desk that was six or
seven feet long, a bookshelf above it.  The room was about six
feet wide; there were no beds.  The beds were out on the veranda
-- not just beds for Celia and myself, but beds for all the
freshman girls, more than two hundred of us in that dorm.

My parents had been strict, but the rules in the dorm were
oppressive.  Monday to Thursday nights, you had to be back in the
dorm by nine thirty, in bed at ten.  Friday and Saturday nights
you could stay out to ten thirty, with lights out at midnight. 
Sundays it was ten and eleven.  And by lights out, they meant
lights out.  You couldn't stay up and study in the little
cubbies, because they turned off the power.  And you couldn't
have a light on the veranda.

On our second day in that hell hole I came back from a
book-buying trip and found Celia reading some pamphlets at the
desk.  I sat my gleanings down and pulled one of the pamphlets
over and looked at it.  It was on the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi
on non-violence.  I looked it over, but it wasn't really
something I was very interested in.

Celia looked up at me.  "I met somebody this summer."

My heart did a flip-flop, I felt dizzy.  College was not turning
out to be the experience I had expected.

Celia laughed.  "Not like that.  Diane has a Cause."  I swear,
you could hear the capital letter when she spoke the word.  "The
word for the cause is non-violence.  She and some others are
organizing college students across the country.  I'm going to do
it here.  The Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee.  The
SNCC."

"Is it as much fun as basketball?"  I was laughing.  I should
have been smarter.

"It's more important than life itself."

That was the fall of 1960.  I played basketball, and so did
Celia.  I studied, and so did Celia.  And in her spare time, she
organized the SNCC chapter at ASU.  We had meetings wherever we
could find space.   Sometimes in the activity center, sometimes
in someone's room, in one of the real dorms, those reserved for
people who weren't freshman.

What can I say about the SNCC?  They preached and taught
non-violence.  The idea was to enter a segregated business and
ignore the racial discrimination laws.  If anyone got violent, we
wouldn't respond, not even to lift our hands to ward off the
blows of the oppressors.  There was a lot of talk about the
oppressors.

Celia's grades slipped; the basketball season finished and the
ASU team, while good, wasn't that good.  The seniors weren't
about to let freshmen start, even if it meant losing games.  When
it became obvious that no matter how well we played or how badly
the others played, we weren't going to be on the varsity, Celia
nearly quit the team.  I managed to talk some sense into her,
because that would mean the end of her scholarship, and while her
parents were better off than mine, they couldn't afford to pay
for ASU.

It was the hardest thing I've ever done -- keeping my mouth shut.
 Celia had agreed to stay, but I could tell she was upset; if I'd
have pushed she might have done something stupid.  Turned out,
she did it anyway.

One day, just after the first of the year, Celia went to block a
shot, someone ran into her and she went down.  It was something
that happened a couple of times a week; no big deal, you got up
and went on.

She said she had a pain in her back.  I suspected it was a lie
almost at once.  And I kept silent because it was Celia.  Then
she sprang the real bomb.

"I'm going to drop out a semester."

I swallowed.  Dropping out a semester was the end of the
scholarship.  She'd be home and I'd be at the University... the
two of us would have a terrible time seeing each other.  I'd
gotten home for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

She reached out and took my hand.  "I know what I'm asking of
you, Terri.  But I want one semester."

"What are you going to do?"

"Travel all over, talking at various colleges, trying to get more
chapters of SNCC started.  Teaching people about non-violence. 
In the spring, we're going to meet in Washington, DC and talk
about our plans."

That was the worst moment of my life, up until then.  How can you
know these things?  If I'd have been smart, I'd have dragged her
into the nearest bed, made passionate love to her and be damned
with the consequences.  Instead, I considered a life without
Celia and made up my own mind.  "Care to have a crazy white girl
tagging along?"

"You can't, you'll lose your scholarship!"

"You're going to lose yours."

"This is my fight," she told me.  "You don't have to be
involved."

I wanted to cry.  "How can you say that?  If you're involved, I'm
involved.  If it means so much to you, how can it mean less for
me?  Maybe I don't understand what happened to you this summer,
but I'm not blind.  I'm not stupid.  We both know something
happened to you this summer."

Celia looked at me.  "We stopped for gas in Mississippi.  It was
a hot day and I was parched.  I saw a water fountain at the gas
station and went and got a drink.  Next thing I knew, some
cracker hit me, and then he kicked me, after he knocked me down.
I didn't understand what he meant, when he was screaming, 'whites
only.'"

She looked at me.  "I had bruised ribs.  That was one reason you
didn't see me right away.  I didn't want you to know."

"Why?  Aren't we friends?  Don't we love each other?"  I was in
tears, feeling betrayed.

"Because it's not your fight.  You've got rights, I don't.  I got
kicked and punched a couple more times before my parents wouldn't
let me get out of the car when we would stop.  Mostly, all I did
was try to drink out of white-only water fountains."

"That's crazy!  Who could possibly care?"  I couldn't believe it.
 Sure, I knew SNCC was organizing to protest discrimination, but
I thought it would be placards saying "equal rights for Negroes"
versus "white only" signs.  How stupid can someone be?  I didn't
understand that the word "violence" in the organization name was
something other than theoretical.

I looked Celia right in the eye.  "If you do this, I do this. 
And if you argue about it..."  I didn't want to think about
that.

Celia protested.  "It's not your fight."

"If it's your fight, it's my fight.  I want to spend the rest of
my life with you, just like Angie and Peggy.  I don't care about
basketball or college nearly as much as I care about you.  If you
can do it, so can I."

So, we did it.  I walked into the head coach's office and told
him the situation was unacceptable.  I didn't want to play for a
team where the best players sat on the bench while women who
wouldn't have made my high school team were out losing games for
the university.

Celia was happy, and Peggy understood.  It didn't bother me at
all that everyone else in the world thought I was crazy.

So, in the middle of January, we packed a suitcase for each of
us, and hit the road.  In a way, it was the finest thing I've
ever seen.  We would get rides with people someone knew who were
going our way.  When we'd get to a college town, someone would
put us up.  It might be a full professor putting us in separate
rooms or someone sneaking us into their dorm room after midnight.
 People fed us; occasionally people gave us money.  Never very
much, but it made the difference.

Gradually we worked our way east.  I wanted to take the southern
route, to see what Celia was talking about, but she refused to
even consider it.

Those were good days, as the days slowly lengthened.  I met many
people who later became household names, particularly if you were
black.  I said the words, finding I had an ability to convince
people that I never knew I had, in spite of being co-captain of a
basketball team.  We ended up outside Washington, DC at a dinner
meeting at a Chinese restaurant where a lot of different groups
were represented.

The plan was to board a group of busses in Washington, go to
North Carolina, then on to Montgomery, Alabama and ending up in
New Orleans.

One of the people who I didn't hit it off with was Martin Luther
King.  Yes, that man.  He counseled caution, saying it was too
early, too dangerous, that more work had to be done.  Me, who'd
never been in the South in my life, told him to his face he was
too timid.  Celia said the same thing, but above all, Diane Nash
said it.

Celia was a committed, willing participant.  Driven.  Diane Nash
was all of that, with charisma that spread out from her in waves
that even Celia couldn't begin to match.  Or Dr. King, or any of
the others in the room.

She took charge, overrode the objections.  This was something we
were going to do.

I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but I felt bitter before we
left on the Freedom Ride, during and above all after.  Dr. King
thought we were wrong and fought against the entire plan.  Diane
Nash was a cosmic force, emboldening all of us in the cause.

Diane agreed not to go with us, to avoid "controversy" and
because she was considered "too valuable."  We went out without
our true leaders.  John Lewis more or less was the oldest and
wisest of us.   John Zwerg, white, was the spokesman for those of
us like myself.

May 4th, 1961.  We boarded a couple of Trailways busses in
Washington, DC, a mixed racial group.  Just sitting next to each
other Celia and I were breaking laws in every state south of the
Mason-Dixon line.

There were a few epithets, a few placards, but nothing really,
until Rock Hill, South Carolina.  John Lewis and another man
received a beating for using a white's only restroom in one of
the stops.  Another man was arrested and all of it was
photographed and covered by newspapers.  It made big national
headlines; Celia had her head up and was proud.  I kept my head
down; terrified my parents would see my picture in the paper.

We next went to Atlanta.  Diane and Dr. King were there as we
were treated to dinner in a nice restaurant.  Only afterwards did
I discover that Dr. King's purpose was to persuade us to stop,
that he thought none of us would make it through Alabama alive.

We were excited the next day when we boarded the busses.   I was
excited because it hadn't been nearly as bad as Celia as had
said.  We were succeeding; I knew it.  People were taking
pictures; we were front page on the news across the country. 
Celia was excited, I think, because she knew what would happen
next would make or break all of our efforts.

Anniston, Alabama.

Jews will never forget Buchenwald, Treblinka or Auschwitz.  I'll
never forget you.  I surely will never forgive you.

History says only a hundred or so of you greeted us; I wasn't in
a count heads.  It seemed like more.

Screaming men, beating and smashing the busses.  I remember the
words of the driver as he pulled the bus to a stop and leaned out
his window.  "Brought you some niggers and nigger-lovers!"  He
was jubilant.

I was kicked and punched, trying to avoid your blows, but I never
raising my hands against you, as I'd been taught.  Celia just
stood there and dared you to do your worst.  You did.

Later, she was bleeding from a dozen cuts, defiant and proud. 
Right up until she collapsed.

It was a blur.  I remember flames and gunshots.  I remember being
beaten by men wearing coats and ties.  I remember it was Mother's
Day and thinking at times I was being killed because I had no
desire to be a mother.  All sorts of things passed through my
mind.

They treated us like lepers at the hospital they took us to in
Birmingham.  Even though Celia had collapsed, they just gave her
stitches, some aspirin and told us to leave.

At that point, none of us who'd been on the busses wanted to turn
back.  It had become the only focus of our existence.  We were
going to New Orleans, no matter what.

The police came for us in the middle of the night; I'd already
learned the police were our enemies.  They gathered us up and a
few hours later, we were in Tennessee, standing by the side of
the road, late at night.  People made calls, and a few hours
later we were back in Birmingham after a brief side trip to
Nashville.

From the busses, our view of events was limited.  Great forces
were in play, all converging on us.  The greatest men of the
nation, including John F. Kennedy, the President, and his
brother, Robert F. Kennedy, the Attorney General, were applying
pressure.  Congress was demanding the southern governors comply
with the laws of the land, the laws that said discrimination on
interstate busses was illegal.

We were promised all sorts of things, including, the governor's
representative told us, aircraft to watch over us.  It was a lie,
like so many other lies they told.  The state police with us
evaporated when we reached Montgomery's town limits.  We got to
the bus terminal, and it looked okay.  A few seconds later, the
cockroaches swarmed out of their cracks.   Jim Zwerg had been in
front, and stepped out, saying he'd calm them.  They beat him
senseless in seconds.  We tried to get out the back of the bus,
but they were waiting for us.  I tried; I really tried not to
lift a hand in my defense.  I remember about two minutes before I
was beaten senseless.

When I woke up in the hospital, I had two broken hands, broken
ribs, a cracked shoulder and it took more than a hundred and
fifty stitches to close the worst of the cuts.  I'll bear those
marks to my dying day.  And I was lucky.

For nearly a day I screamed and shouted, kicked and bit.  I
wanted to see Celia.  When they finally let me see her, she was
lying in bed, a peaceful expression on her face.  She couldn't
move, they told me.  She was paralyzed from the neck down, she
couldn't talk.  It was a miracle, they told me, that she was
alive at all.

One of the doctors laughed in my hearing, saying that you could
beat a white man within an inch of his life and he'd recover. 
Niggers, he said, you could beat all the way to where they should
be dead, and they'd just smile at you.  Animals, he said.

I've won championships; my girls have won awards at every level
of competition.  The thing I'm most proud of in my entire life is
that it took eight stout men to keep me from killing that doctor.
 And he too will bear the marks I left him to the grave.

Celia's mother hugged me and kissed my cheek when she arrived to
see her daughter.  Her father shook my hand, but he was crying so
hard, I'm not sure but that he'd have shaken hands with the devil
himself.  My parents never spoke to me again.

A few weeks later I was in Phoenix, staying with Peggy and Angie,
when Estelle appeared at the door.  She asked me about how Celia
had been hurt and I told her the story.  "I want to do that,"
Estelle told me.  "I want to ride that fucking bus!"

It was one of those critical moments we have in our lives.  I
realized we'd never made it to New Orleans.  We went and talked
to Celia, and even if she couldn't answer in words, her message
was clear enough: go!

That second time, we didn't make it either.  I gained more scars;
Estelle had some of her own.  I became a felon, a mark I've never
hidden from or been ashamed of.   I've seen death row on Parchman
Farm, I've never been afraid from that day to this.

We didn't get to New Orleans that year, but Estelle and I finally
succeeded two years later, after another visit to the Farm. 
Since then, every year on the Fourth of July, the day Celia died,
we board a bus in Washington, DC, sitting together.  We ride
together to New Orleans where we leave the bus, hug and kiss
there in the middle of the station, then walk, hand-in-hand to
get a cab to the airport.

After Celia died, I wouldn't go back to ASU.  They still had the
same stupid coach, so instead, Peggy talked to one of her friends
and I ended up at Oklahoma.  Several times, over the years,
players on opposing teams would try to intimidate me, but they
were children compared to those in Anniston, Birmingham and
Montgomery.  When I'd seen the peaceful look on Celia's face,
there in the hospital, I gave up on non-violence.

And later?  Later I realized a hard truth.  The way we succeeded
in putting a stop to discrimination was to shame the country into
it.  How did we do that?  By letting them beat us senseless.  It
was a great victory for the principle of non-violence; I don't
disagree with that.  But the people who spoke the loudest, who
had the great dreams:  they were safe in hotel rooms, far, far
away.  Like generals hiding in a cellar as the great battle was
waged above their heads, they weren't there.

It's not something you can hide from the troops, even if you can
hide it from history.  They weren't there.  I'm not saying we
were leaderless, because we had people like John Lewis, Jim Zwerg
and Celia Howard at our sides.  But our "true leaders" were
elsewhere, safe, while we bled.   History gives those people
credit, and I suppose there is credit in ideas.  Some of them,
like Dr. King, bled more than enough later.  But it wasn't ideas
that broke Bull Conner and his ilk; it was the deeds of people
like Celia.  And it didn't happen later, it happened there.

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