by Claude Brown
My eleventh birthday—the first birthday party I had ever had—was really something. On the night before the party, I took Knoxie and Bucky down to Delancey Street, where we waited until three o’clock in the morning for a nightclub to close. It was a Roumanian nightclub, but to us it was a Jewish nightclub. It had to be Jewish, because being white and talking funny so nobody could understand you was what made people Jewish. When the Jewish nightclub closed we went in with three shopping bags. Only a little bit of change was in the cash register, but we ate a lot of turkey and other kinds of funny-tasting meat. When we left the place, the three shopping bags were full of champagne for my birthday party.
It was the best party Eighth Avenue had ever seen. The people came all afternoon and all night. Ages ranged from twelve to thirty-five. Most of the people there didn’t know me, and I didn’t know them, and nobody cared about not knowing somebody. The word got out about the champagne, and everybody who passed by the house came in to get some champagne and pigs’ feet.
After all that foolishness with the cake, I forgot about everybody at the party. Everybody but Sugar. Sugar was one of my best friends now, and I told her so. She had on a pretty white dress; her hair was curled; she looked as if somebody had worked some magic on her. Sugar must have known she looked brand new, because she didn’t act the way she acted most of the time. She didn’t laugh—she only smiled; and she didn’t talk loud. She seemed to know that it was my party and that she was just a guest. This was the first time I had ever seen Sugar act that way, and I didn’t expect her to do it for long. I kept looking at her and waiting for her to do something crazy like come over to me and stick her tongue out at me and start playing. But every time I looked at Sugar, she was still sitting there and still looking brand new.
I don’t know how I got to her in that crowded living room. Sugar never said a word; she just held my hand and followed me quietly from one room to another until we found one with nobody in it. Sugar seemed to know I wanted to say something to her, but she didn’t know what. She acted like she was waiting for something to happen and like that something was about to happen. Sugar seemed to know that what I said to her was going be something real good, something I had never told her before. I had that same feeling about it. I didn’t know what I was going to say to her, but I knew I wasn’t going to tell her that she was ugly like I did most of the time. And I knew that Sugar wasn’t going to argue and jump all over me when I got her where I was taking her to. I couldn’t understand what had happened to Sugar, but she sure was different. She was still ugly, but there seemed to be so many pretty things about her that pretty girls didn’t have.
Me and Sugar stayed in that room for a long time, and when we came out it seemed like the world had changed colors. I still don’t know all of what happened to me in that room with Sugar. I knew it wasn’t the champagne that did it. For the next two years whenever I was in the city, Sugar and I never had to say anything to each other. We came out of that room with a whole lot of understanding. Sugar could look at me and make me smile or even laugh, and it wasn’t because she looked funny either; it was just that sometimes when she looked at me, I felt so good I just had to laugh or at least smile. And I could look at her and make her whole face light up. When we would hit each other, the hit always meant something that both of us understood. Our hitting wasn’t like before, when we would hit each other kind of hard. Now we only tapped each other just hard enough to say what we wanted to say.
It was snowing real hard outside. Mama was so nervous, she tied my tie about six times before getting it right. I was all set to go downtown to an office to meet somebody who was going to take me upstate. Mama had locked my shoes in the closet the night before to make sure I didn’t get out of the house while she was getting the other kids ready for school. Even though I couldn’t get my shoes, Mama made me stay in the front room till we were ready to go. And every chance she got, Mama would come in the front room to check on me. She knew that if I had enough time, I would get my shoes out of that closet somehow. When Mama couldn’t come out of the kitchen, she would call to me and ask me what I was doing. Every time she asked, I told her the real truth, that I wasn’t doing anything.
It seemed like I had already started serving my time that morning, sitting there all dressed up, with everything on but my shoes and hat, in the room farthest away from the door. I was just sitting there at the window watching all that snow falling and feeling kind of sad. The snow just kept on falling, and I knew it was covering more than just the sidewalk. I knew Knoxie was waiting for me to come to his house, and I knew I wasn’t going to make it, but I didn’t care. Maybe it was because I knew what I would be doing for the next few days if I went to Knoxie’s house. And I was wondering what would happen if I went to that office. Who would I meet there? Would there be something to steal there? Maybe I didn’t care about not meeting Knoxie because I knew I couldn’t get my shoes out of the closet.
Watching the snow fall made me think about a lot of things. I thought about what Dad had said the night before. He knew he would already have left for work when I got up that morning, so he gave me his good-bye speech the night before. I never used to listen to Dad when he talked to me—I never thought he had anything to say worth listening to—but I always used to make believe I was listening to him. But that night, I didn’t even pretend I was thinking about what he said.
Dad started telling me that it would be a long time before I would see the streets of New York City again. And that maybe when I got back, I would appreciate them enough to stop all that goddamn stealing and stay home like somebody with some sense. He talked on and on like that. Then he said something. Dad asked me if I remembered when I used to get up every Sunday morning to go out and watch Mr. Jimmy win money from people who were dumb enough to go hunting for a pea that wasn’t there. I told him I remembered. Then he asked me if I knew what a fool was. I said a fool was somebody stupid. Dad said I was right, but there was more to it than that. He said it takes a stupid person to keep looking for something that is never there. Dad told me to go into the kitchen and get a black-eyed pea.
When I came back with the pea, Dad had set up the card table and was sitting at it with three half nutshells in front of him. I gave him the pea, and Dad started switching the shells around the way Mr. Jimmy used to do. It looked like Dad was doing it real slow, and I was sure I knew where the pea was all the time. I never knew Dad could do that trick, and even then I was sure he was doing it too slow. When Dad stopped sliding the nutshells around, he told me to pick up the one I thought the pea was under. We did this ten times. Each time, I was sure the pea was under the shell I picked up. Ten times I picked the wrong shell. After I made that last wrong pick, Dad looked at me and just kept shaking his head for a little while. Then he said, “That’s jis what you been doin’ all your life, lookin’ for a pea that ain’t there. And I’m mighty ‘fraid that’s how you gon end your whole life, lookin’ for that pea.”
Mama was hollering for me to get ready to go. When I turned away from the window and looked at her, she was handing me my shoes. She didn’t look at my eyes; she just kept telling me to hurry up because she had to go to work after she left the office we were going to. I knew by the way Mama was not looking at me that she was going to be crying before I left her that morning.
When we went into the Wiltwyck School office on 125th Street, I still thought I was going to Warwick, so I didn’t feel so bad. We had to wait in a little room for a while, then a white lady with a sad-looking face came in. She smiled at me, but her face still looked sad. The white lady with the sad face took Mama into another room. They stayed for a long time. Then the white lady came back into the room where I was. She had her coat on. She told me Mama had said good-bye and took me by the hand. I didn’t believe Mama would do that, but she did. She left and didn’t even say good-bye. I told myself I didn’t care. I said to myself, Fuck it! I don’t need nobody anyway. But I kept feeling sad inside, and I kept wishing that white lady w
ould shut the hell up. She told me that her name was Mrs. Grimes and that this was the first time she was going up to Wiltwyck too. Mrs. Grimes was a weird-looking lady. She wasn’t old, but she had gray hair and a lumpy face. She looked too sad to be doing so much talking, but she seemed scared to stop talking.
While we were riding the train up to Wiltwyck, I kept thinking about the date on the big calender in the office. It was March 4. I never used to pay attention to dates before, but I kept thinking about that March 4 and watching the snow fall outside the train window. The train passed a big red-brick wall. I heard Mrs. Grimes say, “That’s Sing Sing.”
I said, “Wow! The real Sing Sing!” I couldn’t wait to get back home and tell everybody on the block I had seen Sing Sing, not in the movies, but the real Sing Sing.
When we finally reached Wiltwyck, where we were welcomed by Mr. Stillman, the resident director, snow was everywhere. It was almost lunchtime. Mrs. Grimes and I went into the lunchroom to eat. The lunchroom was crowded, and some of the boys there looked like they were happy. But they all looked real strange. I looked for Butch and Kid and Goldie, who were all in Warwick too. I didn’t see anybody I knew. I asked a man sitting next to me, “Ain’t this Warwick?”
He said, “No, this is Wiltwyck.”
I was numb for a while; all I could feel was a warm tear starting down my face on its way to my chin.
3
I CAN’T remember going to sleep that first night at Wiltwyck. I only remember lying there in a strange bed, in a strange place, for what seemed like a year-long night. I closed my eyes about a million times, hoping that I would open them and escape from that bad dream. But every time I opened my eyes, it was still there.
By the time daylight began to creep into that big old room that everybody was calling a dormitory, I had already been planning for a good two hours how I was going to get out of Wiltwyck. I couldn’t run away, because I didn’t know where I was and wouldn’t have known which way to run. So the best way to get out was to talk that white man named Mr. Stillman into letting me go home. I decided to find Mr. Stillman as soon as I got up, and I was going to tell him that I had something real important to tell him. While Mr. Stillman was listening to me, I was going to fall down and grab my chest and start breathing real hard, like I was dying. They would probably take me to the hospital and try to find out what was wrong with me, and when they couldn’t find anything wrong, they would probably kick me out of the hospital. But then I was going to stop eating, stop talking, and eat some soap powder or a lot of salt and get real sick. When they put me back in the hospital and tried to feed me, I wasn’t going to eat, not even if they gave me fried chicken and pear pie. And every time the doctor asked me how I felt, I was going to say, “I wanna go home.” That’s all I was going to say to anybody, and I wasn’t going to eat anything as long as they kept me there.
I knew they would have to send me home. They wouldn’t want me to die on them. I was only up there for playing hookey and stealing and stuff like that. I hadn’t killed anybody, so they couldn’t let me die.
When a real tall, real light-skinned man came into the dormitory, clicked on the lights, and started yelling all over the place, everything was all set in my mind. I was sure I would be back on the streets by the next week.
I was still lying in bed thinking about how I was going to get out of Wiltwyck when a voice boomed, “Let’s git one!” right in my ear. Before I could turn my head to look at him, my bed started jumping up and down real fast. The bed stopped jumping all of a sudden, then the bed next to mine started jumping up and down. The light-skinned, white-looking man was shaking it and yelling, “Let’s git one!” Guys were jumping out of bed and running to the bathroom, so I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom too. I asked a guy who was washing next to me how I could see Mr. Stillman. He told me all I had to do was go to his office. After throwing a handful of water on my face, I dashed out the door to find Mr. Stillman’s office. Before I could get out of the house, I heard a voice booming out my name. Before I stopped running, I knew it was that tall, light-skinned man. And before I turned around, I knew that I didn’t like that man and never would.
When I told him where I was going, he said Mr. Stillman wasn’t in his office yet and that I had to make up my bed before I could go to see him. So I went back and made up my bed, then I started out to see Mr. Stillman again. Again I heard the real loud voice of the man that everybody was calling Simms. When I turned around this time, I knew that I would never like anybody named Simms as long as I lived.
The man named Simms told me that Mr. Stillman wasn’t going to be in his office until after breakfast and that in the meantime someone would show me what my job in the house was. After I finished my job, which was cleaning the bathroom, and had breakfast, a bell rang. Everybody started heading for the last place I wanted to go—the school building. I started walking away from the crowd, but before I could begin to hope that I was going to get to Mr. Stillman’s office, I heard the voice that I had learned to hate in just a few hours. I turned around and faced Simms. At first, I wanted to cry. Here was this big man I hated and couldn’t do anything to. If I hit him, he probably would kill me. But I had to do something, because he kept fucking with me. Mr. Simms asked me where I was going. I opened my mouth to tell him, but the thing I heard myself saying—smiling to protect myself—was, “Mr. Simms, are you white or colored?” When I heard what I said, I thought, Lord, please have mercy on me.
After what seemed like a real long time, Mr. Simms smiled, real quick, and said, “C’mon, boy, you have to go to school now. Mr. Stillman will come to your class when he gets here.”
I wished I had called him Mr. Red instead of asking him what I did. Not the way white people say red, but the way Dad and colored people his age say it. I should have said, “Whatcha want now, Mr. Re-e-e-d?” I’ll bet he wouldn’t have smiled then. He might have killed me, but he wouldn’t have smiled. But I don’t think he would have killed me—he would have lost his job. Then I thought, The next time he messes wit me, I’ll call him that.… No, I’ll call him yaller. Yeah, I’ll say, “Whatcha want, Mr. Yaller Man?” If he wasn’ so big, I’d call him yaller nigger. But if I did that, he prob’ly would kill me, job or no job.
I kept asking the teacher, who was a real pretty, light-skinned lady, to let me go to see Mr. Stillman. When the teacher got tired of me asking her to let me go, she told me that Mr. Stillman wasn’t at the school but that I could see Mr. Upshur, who was Mr. Stillman’s assistant. I knew she was lying, but I smiled and asked the teacher to let me go to see Mr. Upshur. The teacher sent one of the guys in the class with me. The guy showed me Mr. Upshur’s office and left. I went into the office and asked to see Mr. Stillman. The secretary told me that Mr. Stillman wasn’t going to be in all day but that Mr. Upshur would see me as soon as he was free. I sat down and waited for a few minutes, and Mr. Upshur came in. When he said he was Mr. Upshur, I knew he couldn’t help me. He was colored. What could he do for anybody?
It seemed that everybody was trying to stop me from seeing Mr. Stillman, but I was going to see him as soon as I got out of school. All I had to do was stop telling people I wanted to see him, then they couldn’t stop me.
When I came out of school that first afternoon, Wiltwyck looked different from the way it had looked the day before. The sun was shining. It was real cold, and everything that wasn’t moving around was covered with snow and ice. Some of the trees had little sticks stuck in them, with buckets and tin cans hanging on the end of the little sticks. Boys were sledding on a hill near the four houses that everyone lived in. Some were riding two on one sled, some were fighting over one sled, and some were crashing into trees, but everybody seemed to be having a whole lot of fun. The first thing that had caught my eye when I came out of the school building was the trees with the buckets on them. I asked Mr. Cooper, who was the counselor in charge of the sled riding, why the buckets were on the trees. Mr. Cooper told me that the> were maple trees and that they
were being tapped for the sap to make maple syrup. Mr. Cooper was a real funny-looking man. He was tall, thin, and kind of dark-skinned; not real dark, but a little darker than me. He was scarey-looking at first; he never smiled, and he didn’t seem to like anybody. Everybody but me called him Cooper or Coop. Mr. Cooper wasn’t a counselor in the house I was in, and I was glad. I didn’t like being around him.
I went over to two guys who were fighting over a sled. When I asked whose sled it was, they both said, “Mine.” And when I asked if I could have a ride, both of them said, “After me.” A guy named Dun-baker, who was my working partner in cleaning the bathroom, came up to the guys who were fighting over the sled. He told them he would hold the sled while they fought to see who was going to get it. Dunbaker gave me sled and said that I could have one ride but that if I gave him my beret, I could have the sled for the rest of the winter. The beret didn’t mean so much to me, but I had to keep it, at least until I could find out why everybody had been trying to steal it ever since I got there. So I made a deal with Dunbaker to let him wear my beret as long as the let me ride the sled.