by Barry Wolfe
Izzy White?
By
Barry E. Wolfe
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events; to real people, living or dead; or to real locales are intended only to give the fiction a setting in historical reality. Other names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
Copyright @ 2015 by Barry E. Wolfe
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by The Wolfe Forest Publishers.
Sarasota, Florida, USA
Title Page illustration by Kristen Petrie.
ISBN: 978-0-692-45254-7
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1 - Crazy Man Crazy
Chapter 2 - What’s the Reason I’m Not Pleasing You?
Chapter 3 - Maybe
Chapter 4 - One Summer Night
Chapter 5 - I’ve Got the Heebie Jeebies
Chapter 6 - That’s Your Mistake
Chapter 7 - Desirie
Chapter 8 - Devil or Angel
Chapter 9 - NAG (Nag nag naggity nag)
Chapter 10 - Just Two Kinds of People in the World
Chapter 11 - Is You Is or Is You Ain’t?
Chapter 12 - What Am I To Do?
Chapter 13 - A Thousand Miles Away
Chapter 14 - See Saw
Chapter 15 - A Change is Gonna Come
Chapter 16 - Integration or Separation
Chapter 17 - Brandon’s Story
Chapter 18 - Black Like Me?
Chapter 19 - Negus With Attitude
Chapter 20 - Honky-Nigga
Chapter 21 - That’s Heaven To Me
Chapter 22 - Soul Pain
Chapter 23 - Jump Shot Redux
Chapter 24 - Not In Our House
Chapter 25 - The End of the Beginning
Chapter 26 - Blowin In The Wind
Acknowledgements
Dedication:
For Annette Forever
Chapter 1.
Crazy Man Crazy
My name is Isadore White, but everyone calls me Izzy. I hate that name with a passion. Always did, but can’t seem to escape it. Early in my life the name became a source of ridicule. Kids in my neighborhood made fun of the pronounced nasality of my speech. They would hold their noses and honk out “Iiizzy”. I remember vividly when I was ten, after I had endured my eighth operation to close my palate, I had been encircled by a group of my so-called friends in the middle of Roxboro Place. I was trying to break off their laughable, demeaning imitations of my broken speech. I burned with humiliation as each took his turn in producing a lacerating parody of my speech. Sobbing heavily I screeched at them “STOP DOING THAT!!” Each of my tormentors mimicked my plea, only it sounded like “SFNOP SFNOING SFNAT!” Everyone laughed so hard they held their stomachs. This made me cry harder and screech louder. They responded with more taunts and laughter. I became so enraged that I lunged at each one swinging my fists wildly; and each managed to easily dodge me. I finally gave up and ran home barely able to see because of the flood of tears pouring from my eyes.
I was born incomplete, which makes me human. I was born incompletely formed, which for years made me think I was something less. Strangers to the malady would say I was “deformed”. In 1942, most people were strangers to the malady. I had clefts. My lip was notched like a hare’s. Since I was unable to suck, I was fed with a turkey baster. I had a second cleft in my palate. The roof of my mouth was like a pink vacuum sucking away air meant for plosive speech. Whenever I spoke, air would perversely escape through my nose into the faces of ridiculing kids. For the first decade of my life I struggled to be understood, even after I had endured the first eight of my ten surgeries attempting to repair these clefts. When I was eleven, my palate was successfully repaired. Now my loud and long monologues were no longer able to bust the stitches holding my palate together. Only then did my speech improve enormously. Only then was I understood.
The early repair of my cleft lip, however, left a hideous scar. This sickeningly ugly lip was still there for all to see. When I looked in the mirror I saw a wrinkled and thick mass of flesh that began at the left side of my face and progressively thinned as it stretched across my mug. The thickness at the left was hoisted into full view by a scar that looked like a centipede crawling up inside my nose. Rather gross don’t you think? I hated to look at myself in the mirror. What I saw convinced me that I was strange, a different sort of human. And the truth of my differentness was revealed to me in so many ways. There were the frequent trips to the hospital, my hotel of fear; the funny sounds my peers would make in our conversations, resembling steam escaping from radiators; the mysterious explanations by teachers for my rejection from speaking parts in school plays; the long lonely walks from my classroom to the speech therapy room where I met so many others whose speech had been corrupted by a panoply of physical maladies. I felt like I was in an asylum for damaged humans.
The pain became unbearable when at the age of 15 I “fell in love”. My friends Peter Kaplan and Bobby Levine dragged me to a birthday party for a girl of their acquaintance. The party was held at the Villa Rosa Restaurant in Silver Spring, Maryland, just beyond the northern Washington, DC line. This was new terrain for me. We entered the party room and I was immediately overcome with the intermingled smells of pizza, perfume, and bubble gum. About ten couples were dancing to Andy Williams’ “I Like Your Kind of Love”. Laughter gathered overhead like smoke.
We entered. The three of us decked out in our own personal variant of mid-1950’s coolness. My hair roughly mimicked the current style of Tony Curtis; a curl of hair slithered seductively down the middle of my forehead and ducktails were coerced in the back of my head by pomade. I thought all my coolness was in my hair. My friends displayed it in their clothes. In Peter’s case that meant tapered pants and black loafers, a plaid sport shirt with rolled sleeves and a lifted collar. Bobby put all of his coolness in his Marlon Brando motorcycle jacket. We stood there like three marble statues waiting to be acknowledged. After much scanning of the gyrating crowd, my friends discovered the birthday girl and introduced her to me. There she was, Dara Levenson, a vision in a poodle skirt and ponytail. I fell in love with her smile. She kept on dancing, her ponytail flopping every time Andy Williams sang “honey babe”. Dara kept smiling straight into her partner’s eyes, then at me, and then at the crowd. Her smile felt like a community welcome and I was grateful. I had then the rare experience of the joy of living. I struggled with myself to acknowledge the possibility that I could belong to that radiant smile. Instead of becoming her boyfriend, I became Dara’s dear friend and confidant; but she would never kiss me. Her refusals brought back all the painful memories and doubts. The painful aftermath of the plastic surgery on my lip the year before had eliminated the physical scar, but left the emotional one intact. Dara’s refusal to consider me boyfriend material made me wonder if the surgery was worth it. All that physical pain could only be extinguished by a highly controlled regimen of morphine shots every four hours.
It frustrates the hell out of me that every girl I like likes me as a friend. Agh, the curse of friendship! Girls like to confide in me. I guess I’m a good listener and I rarely criticize. But while I’m listening to a girl I like, I’m also dreaming that we are deep in liplock and exploring each other’s erogenous zones. Girls! I desire them! Fear them! Hate them! Love them! I was now 15 years old and in love and equally in pain. For years I searched desperately for remedies for both.
The first remedy that I found for the bitter stings of cruelty, ridicule, and unrequited love was music.
But not just any music.
It’s the rhythmic and
bluesy sound of Black singers and vocal harmony groups that never fails to soothe my soul. My introduction to Rhythm n’ Blues came when my best childhood chum Eddie Charles and I would listen to his older brother Ethan’s cool records. Eddie and I listened over and over to the Clovers, the Drifters, the Moonglows, and Hank Ballard and the Midnighters. This music was so different, so moving, and, at the age of 12, so in tune with my spanking new sexy feelings. When I listened, I was gone, man. I couldn’t—and still can’t-- get enough of this music. One day Eddie and I were listening to the Midnighters’ first big hit, "Work With Me Annie". We played this record over and over while we sang along with the moaning background voices. This record possesses the hard-on producing- refrain “Let’s get it while the getting is good”. When the Midnighters followed this with "Annie Had a Baby", we are treated to the following refrain “And that’s what happens when the getting gets good.” About two days after we first listened to the second “Annie” song, Mrs. Charles came down to the basement and confiscated both Midnighter records, and we were hereafter forbidden to listen to these dirty songs. Nor is she the only one to disapprove. The song was banned from the radio as too suggestive, and The Midnighters therefore remake Work With Me Annie as Dance With Me Henry, and Annie Had a Baby (Can’t Work No More) as Henry’s Got Flat Feet (Can’t Dance No More). Well, these remakes eliminated everything that was good and exciting about the originals, and neither Eddie nor I gave them the time of day. When Little Richard appeared on the scene in 1955 with his first hit, "Tutti Frutti", I was so taken by the wild excitement of the music that it always lifted my spirits. The staccato piano chords, Little Richard’s screams, and the honking sax of Lee Allen filled me with such energy that I was convinced I could do and achieve anything I wanted. The doo-wop harmonies of dozens of wonderful Black vocal groups, beginning for me with the Heartbeats' "Crazy For You" also in 1955, perfectly resonated with the perpetual longing I’m beginning to feel at the tender age of 13 for a special girl—any girl-- who would love me.
In early 1956 a classmate of mine, Frank Baucom, and I discover that we share a taste for Rhythm N’ Blues. We often took a streetcar down to Waxie Maxie’s Quality Music Store on 7th Street between S and T Streets to listen to some of the latest doo-wop hits. Never have I heard such beautiful music in all my 14 years. On one hot summer day, we are sitting in a booth in Waxie Maxie’s listening to a Black singing group in a Black part of town. We are listening to the Solitaires’ "The Angels Sang". Listening for free. What a gift to be able to hear this music before deciding to shell out 98 cents for a 78 rpm platter, 98 cents that neither one of us can afford. When I ask if we could hear the "Ship Of Love", the Nutmegs’ latest hit, the tall, mocha-colored manager peers down at us and looks as if I have just blasphemed. After he reaches for the top shelf of the store’s wall-to-wall record collection and retrieves the requested platter, he turns to us and with his bug eyes ablaze he grouses, “Boys, don’t make me reach again. You make my nose bleed!” We quickly make our way to the booth, remove the desired record from its brown sleeve, place the record on the turntable, put on the headphones, and enter a new and safer world. We listen to "Ship Of Love" followed by "Crazy For You", eyes closed, harmonies washing over us, before we see the same aggravated store manager knocking on the booth window. Because of the headphones, neither Frank nor I can hear the knocking or the ominous words that are surely firing out from the manager’s rapidly flapping lips. But we get the message—buy or fly. We hastily remove our headphones, replace the record into its paper cover, leave it on the table, and nonchalantly head for the other end of the store. As soon as we think we are out of the manager’s field of vision, we dash to the door, yank it open and take off. We make such a racket yanking open the door that the manager sees us and we hear him yelling something about our white behinds not ever returning to Waxie Maxie’s without money to buy. We laugh the nervous laugh of would-be criminals. Though we take nothing, we are excited and relieved to have escaped the manager’s scary fulminations.
After taking a few deep breathes, we head to U Street, turn left and head west toward 11th street. We eventually arrive at the headquarters of WUST (W U Street) and there in the window we see the man we are seeking—Lord Fauntleroy, the number one DJ in DC for doo-wop and rhythm and blues. We stop to say hello and he asks us where we go to school. We tell him that we have just graduated from Paul Jr. High School. John Bandy, who in a delicious Jamaican accent loves to speak in rhymes when he is on the air, says for the sake of his listening audience, “Hello, you all from Paul. What pound of sound from out of the ground would you like to hear?”
“You mean you’ll play our request?” I ask incredulously. “Of course,” he replies with a brilliant smile that increases the luster of his smooth brown skin. “I’m the host with the most. What rhythm and blues treasure is your pleasure?” I look at Frank and he at me. We nod to each other and I sheepishly ask, “Can you play Little Richard’s "Slippin’ and Slidin"’?” Still grinning, Lord Fauntleroy Bandy laughs and announces, “We play what you say. Here’s Little Richard and "Slippin’ and Slidin’."” An explosion of syncopation breaks upon our ears. Frank and I start dancing. I try to reproduce the moves that I have seen Black teenagers perform on the Milt Grant Show. The sight of us dancing charms Lord Fauntleroy. “You should see these white boys dance,” he exclaims to his radio audience, “Like they have ants in their pants.” He waves us into the studio and he comes out to shake our hands. We are astonished to find that John Bandy is at least 6’6’’ tall and can’t have weighed more than 180 lbs. We look up at amazement at this animated brown string bean who moves with such looseness and grace. He asks us about our plans and what high school we will be going to in the fall. I can barely hear the words I am so captivated by the musicality of his Jamaican accent.
Doo-wop is the glue that binds me to Frank. We are the odd couple of Black rhythm & blues, first at Paul Jr. High and then beginning in the fall of 1956 at Coolidge High School. While our white contemporaries are making the slow transition from the music featured on the Hit Parade to rock n’ roll, we have become connoisseurs of the rare vocal harmonies of Black singing groups that can only be heard on Black music stations such as WOOK and WUST. Since we first heard Marvin & Jonny’s "Cherry Pie" and "A Sunday Kind of Love" by Willie Winfield and the Harptones, we have been glued to our transistor radios eager to hear the latest Black sounds on the Cliff Holland show on WOOK and Lord Fauntleroy ‘s show on WUST.
It’s not just the music. It’s also the dancing.
I love to watch black teenagers dance on the Milt Grant Show during “Black Tuesday”, the only day they are allowed to appear. No whites are on the show at the same time, of course. I’m in awe of their rhythm, and their nimble swaying moves. It’s unlike anything I have ever seen. Whenever I watch Negroes dancing on Milt Grant, I stand in my living room tethered to the front door knob and attempt to imitate these wonderful jitterbug moves. And as the succession of specialty dances become popular among Black teenagers, I learn these as well—The Birdland, The Slop, the Snap, the Chicken, and the Mashed Potato.
Before I ever saw the jitterbug performed by Black Teenagers, I was encouraged to go the conventional route. Most pre-teen and teenage kids I knew went to Groggy’s dance studio, but I refused. So it was left to my mother to teach me the basics of slow-slow-quick-quick. But I am not fond of the way white kids dance, not after I have seen what the Black kids can do. On many an afternoon, I practiced my jitterbugging in Rachel Sandow’s basement where impromptu parties were usually held. There I would slowly introduce my Black-inspired style of jitterbugging to see if it would be accepted, admired, or even imitated. Too often, however, my would-be audience is too busy making out to pay much attention.
And there is basketball!
My love affair with basketball began before I ever played the game. The games of kindergarten included one called “Put the Ball in the Basket”. A mesh-covered trash basket was placed in the middle of our ro
om. Two teams were formed. Each team lined up on either side of the basket about seven feet away. The kid at the front of each line would loft the ball underhanded at the basket, each team alternating turns. After one’s turn, the shooter goes to the end of his or her team’s line. I rarely missed. I loved the skill I showed, the sound and sight of the ball entering the basket. I also loved the attention I received, and the fact that all my classmates wanted me on their team. I was popular. I was wanted.
By the time I was in junior high school, I had developed a two-handed set shot that was accurate to 22 feet. I tried out and made our school’s basketball team even though I was not even 5 feet tall. I was the second leading scorer on Paul’s varsity team. In addition to my set shot, I had a high court IQ, what many called savvy. My opponents often say, “That White, he’s got savvy.” Savvy? I call it survival skills. Always playing with bigger, stronger guys, I learn ways to survive my opponents’ efforts to beat me down or take advantage of my limited physical gifts. I know where I learned these skills too. During my junior high and high school years, there was something called “Canteen Night” at the Coolidge High Gymnasium. Two nights a week kids could go play ping-pong, listen to records, and play basketball. This will help stop “juvenile delinquency,” so the authorities would say.
Basketball is now an obsession that compels me to religiously show up on Canteen Night and try and get into the games with the bigger boys. As the Washington D.C. schools begin to desegregate, so do the Canteen Night basketball games. As time goes by, more and more Negro ballplayers show up and fewer and fewer whites, until finally, by the time I’m a junior in high school, I am the last white ballplayer at Canteen Night.