The Personal Librarian

by Marie Benedict

Russell begins to exit out of the front of the train car, but Mama stops him. She gestures to the back of the car and leads us through a rear door into another, connected car—the one for colored people. As we pass into this car, fellow passengers staring at the fair-skinned trespassers in their realm, I notice that the seats are the same size, but that is the only similarity to the white train car. There is no upholstering on the hard wooden seats; no tables are installed; the absence of luggage racks forces passengers to store their bags around their feet; and the smell emanating from the tiny bathroom—really nothing more than a bucket—makes me gag as we walk by. How strange is the power of geography and law that we could leave New York City as white people but arrive in Washington, DC, as colored.

I loved the symbolism of this, that upon arrival in DC, they were entering a different world that required a different portal. For me, though, just a tad, the direct expression of it at the end of the paragraph was a little too “on the nose.” Maybe other readers required it?