Some of the men he knew pulled him off to shake hands and receive their congratulations. Balwin and I stood close to each other, greeting people like the victors of some Olympic event. Finally, his father came up to me.
"I guess your working together helped you both in different ways," he began. Balwin was shaking hands, but listening with one ear turned our way.
I nodded, smiled and started to turn away from his father, when he reached out again and took my hand.
"You deserve this," he said. "And now that I know you've got a promising future, it will be put to good use. I'm sure. Thanks for fulfilling the bargain," he said.
I opened my hand and looked down at five crisp hundred-dollar bills.
Balwin gazed at it as well and then he looked up at me, his face full of confusion and pain,
"No," I said shaking my head. 'I don't want your money, Mr. Noble." I cried. "I told you..."
He turned his back on me and walked into the crowd. I looked at Balwin.
"I told him I didn't want..."
He didn't wait for me to finish. He moved away quickly, disappearing into the crowd. I started after him. but Mama seized me and started to praise me in front of her friends, claiming how much she encouraged me to sing in church. Half of me listened.
The other half was off, screaming into the night.
8 Wounded
The silence I had once embraced as a friend soon turned into a despised enemy. It was the silence I heard growing between Balwin and me almost the instant the incident with the money occurred in front of him. The pain he felt was so deep, I thought I could never reach down far enough to wipe the salve of my explanations over it. He would always suspect, distrust, even detest me as long as he had any reason to believe I had been part of a conspiracy hatched by his father.
Full of a thousand anxieties. I tried calling him as soon as I was home from the concert, but he didn't answer his phone and when his father picked up their main phone, he told me Balwin was already asleep.
"You did a despicable thing handing me that money in front of him. Mr. Noble. He thinks everything between us was planned, contrived, done for the money." I said, tears burning under my eyelids.
"Wasn't it?" his father asked coldly.
A hot rush of blood heated my face.
"No!" I screamed. "and I want you to take your
money back.-' He laughed. "Sure you do," he said. "Mail it to me," he challenged and hung up.
I found an envelope immediately and addressed it. Then I stuffed the money in it and set it out to mail it to him first thing in the morning. Balwin's mother answered his phone the next day and told me he had gone for a ride with some friends. I didn't know whether to believe her or not. I asked her to tell Balwin I had called and she said she would, but I didn't hear from him, and I decided not to keep calling.
Of course, we saw each other in school the following Monday, but as soon as he set eyes on me, he turned and headed in the opposite direction. His avoidance of me caused more of a stir than when we had begun to be together. Everyone wanted to know what was going on. but I ignored the questions and the comments, all except one: Thelma Williams's implication that Balwin was upset he had to share the award with me.
"The only reason why you don't know how stupid that is." I told her. "is because you're so stupid."
It nearly started a bad fight. If Balwin heard about it, he didn't say anything to me before the day ended. Chorus was over for the year so we didn't meet after school, but on my way home. I saw him driving his car in my direction. When I rounded the corner to my street. I found him parked alongside the curb. He was staring ahead. waiting.
I got in and closed the door.
"I heard about you and Thelma Williams," he began. "Thanks for defending me,"
"It was a dumb thing for her to say." He nodded and then he squinted at me.
"I just want to know if everything you did was paid for with that money my father gave you," he said.
"Nothing was paid for. Balwin. I've been trying to tell you that, but you won't listen."
He stared at me, the pain and hurt tearing at his eyes.
"Why didn't you tell me what my father had done? Why didn't you ever say anything about it?"