The Gold Cadillac – by Mildred D.

Taylor

My sister and I were playing out on the front lawn when the gold Cadillac rolled up and
my father stepped from behind the wheel. We ran to him our eyes filled with wonder.
´Daddy whose Cadillac?´ I asked.
Wilma demanded. `Where´s our Mercury?´ My father said, `Go get your mother and I´ll
tell you all about it´
My mother was cooking. `Come on, mother! Daddy say come on out and see this new
car!´
What? Said my mother. `A Cadillac!´ I cried.
My uncles and their wives came out. My father stood proudly.

Everybody watched the car …surprised…It looked like a car for rich folks.
`Daddy, are we rich?´. I asked. My father laughed. Everybody surrounded the car,
nobody could believe it. Then my mother came out. She approached the car there was
no smile on her face. We all waited for her to speak. She stared at the car then looked
at my father and said, `you didn´t buy this car, did you, Wilbert?
`Gotta admit I did. Couldn´t resist it.´
But …but what about our Mercury? It was perfectly good!
My mother shook her head and walked back to the house.

`All right! Who´s for a ride?´. `We are!´ Wilma and I cried.
All three of my uncles and one of my ants climbed in with us and we took off for the
first ride in the gold Cadillac. We drove all through the city of Toledo. We rode past the
church and past the school, we rode through Ottawa Hills where the rich folks lived
then along the Maumee River.
We got back home my mother was angry now not only about the car, but that we had
been gone so long. I didn´t understand that.
Later I heard her arguing with my father. `We´re supposed to be saving for a house!´.
She said.
`We´ve already got a house!´. Said my father.
`But you said you wanted a house in a better neighbourhood´. `Your brothers are
saving for houses of their own they don´t buy new cars every year!´. Then she said a
very loud good night and all was quiet.

Sometimes we made short trips over to Chicago or Peoria or Detroit to see relatives
there. We joined our aunts and uncles and drove in a caravan out to the park or to the
beach. My mother and my aunts prepared a picnic. But now my mother refused to ride
anywhere. I couldn´t understand that I felt important and I was proud to say that car
belonged to my family.
But then my father said that he was going to drive the car south into Mississippi to visit
my grandparents and everybody said it would be dangerous. My father was in silent,
then he said: `I worked hard for everything I got, it´s my car, I paid for it and I am
driving it south´.
`We´ll all go!´ my uncles said.
All the next day my aunts and my mother cooked and the house was filled with
delicious smells. They packed everything in huge picnic baskets with spoons, forks,
cups, plates, napkins and fruits. They placed all that food o the back seats of the cars. It
was like a grand, grand picnic we were going on and Wilma and I were excited.
We left the city of Toledo behind, on the other side of the river my father stopped the
car and looked back Wilma and me and said, `Now from here on, whenever we stop
and there´re white people around, NOT ONE WORD!´ `That understood?´ `Yes, sir!´
Soon we began to see signs. Signs that read: WHITE ONLY , COLOURED NOT ALLOWED.
We saw signs above water fountains and in restaurant windows, in front of hotels and
motels. I didn´t like the signs. I couldn´t understand why the signs were there and I
asked my father what the signs meant. He said they meant we couldn´t drink from the
water fountains, we couldn´t stop to eat or drink in the restaurants and we couldn´t
sleep in the hotels. I looked at the grand grand picnic basket …now I understood why
my mother had packed it. Suddenly the picnic did not seem so grand.
Finally we reached the Mississippi state line and soon after we heard a police siren. A
police car came up behind us. My father stopped the Cadillac. Two policemen got out
of their car and told my father to get out.
`Whose car is this boy? They asked. `It´s mine,´ said my father
`You ´re a liar!, you stole this car!´. said one of the policeman.
After that, we went to the police station. We waited more than three hours. Finally,
my father came out of the police station. He said that the police had given him a ticket
for speeding, my father had paid the ticket and they had let him go. He started the
Cadillac and drove slowly out of the town. The police car followed us. We were out of
the town. My father stopped the car for a moment … then he started the motor he
turned the Cadillac north, not south. `What´re you doing?´ asked my mother.
`Heading back to Memphis.´ said my father. Cousin Halton´s there. We will leave the
Cadillac and get his car.
Everybody was glad to see us. They asked about the Cadillac. My father told them
what had happened. We stayed one week in Mississippi. During that week I asked him
why the policemen had treated him in that way and why people didn´t want us to eat
in the restaurants or drink from the water fountains or sleep in the hotels. My father
told me that it all was a difficult thing to understand and he didn´t really understand it
himself. He said it all had to do with the fact that black people had once been forced to
be slaves. He said that it was a stupid law. `I´m hoping one day though we can drive
that long road down here and there won´t be any signs. I ´m hoping one day the police
won´t stop us just because of the colour of our skins.

We returned Cousin Halton´s car and got our Cadillac. Once we were home my father
put the car in the garage and did not drive it.
Some days passed and then on Saturday afternoon while Wilma and I were playing in
the yard my father began to shine the Cadillac singing.
Later he drove away. That evening when he came back he was walking. The Cadillac
was nowhere in sight. He sold it.
I asked. `We poor now?´
No sugar. We´ve got more money for our new house.
I often thought of the Cadillac. We had had the Cadillac only a little more than a month
but I wouldn´t forget its splendor or how I had felt riding around inside it. I wouldn´t
forget the south, the signs, the policemen, or my fear. I would remember that ride and
the gold Cadillac all my life.