Venie Vonshweets's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Thursday morning Venie's grandmother stood in the kitchen with her arms folded. She said Venie had come home too late on Wednesday. She said Venie would stay in her room until breakfast Friday. She turned the key in Venie's bedroom door from the hallway side. Venie heard the click and sat on the bed. The protest was at eight. Five other people were carrying instruments to the square. Julian was waiting at the metal post. If she did not show, the whole night fell apart. Venie waited until the sun dropped. She heard the front door open and the porch boards creak. Her grandmother had set up the rocking chair on the porch again, the way she did on warm evenings, watching the street with her hands in her lap. The front door was a wall now. The window was not. Venie eased the window up an inch at a time. The oak tree outside her room had been there longer than the house. Its lowest thick branch reached almost to the sill. She had climbed it as a younger kid, before her grandmother told her to stop. She swung one leg out, then the other. Bark scraped her palms. She found the branch with her foot, lowered her weight onto it, and worked her way down to the trunk. From the trunk she dropped into the side yard, out of sight of the porch. She did not look back at the rocking chair. She ran. The square was already filling when she got there. Julian stood by the metal post with the tarp folded at his feet. The four others had come. He passed Venie the string board without a word. He carried his guitar across his back. He had a folded paper in his pocket, a song he had written that week. He held it up so she could see the chords. "New one," he said. "Loud part is the end." They set up on the steps of the town hall. People on the street stopped when they saw the instruments. Venie counted to four with her hand and they began. The pots banged. The bottles rang. Julian's guitar cut through. Venie's thumb bent the fishing line up and down the board the way she used to bend notes on the piano. She did not have sheet music. She did not need it. The song carried. A small crowd grew, then a larger one. Someone in the back started clapping on the beat. An officer in blue pushed through the edge of the crowd and spoke into his radio. They played the whole song before the officers reached the steps. Julian grabbed her sleeve and they ran with the others into the side streets, instruments banging against their legs. Venie's lungs burned. She was grinning. The city had heard them. By the time she climbed back up the oak, the porch light was on, the rocking chair was empty, and her bedroom door stood open.