by Barry Wolfe
In the DC Public High School Tournament, we play against a highly talented and heavily favored team from McKinley Tech. We surprise them early on. By the third quarter we are leading by 15 points. Then their superior conditioning takes over. Our fatigue lets them back into the game. With 5 seconds left in the game Tech is leading by 2 points. We have to foul a Tech player so we can get the ball back. He misses the foul shot. Our center rebounds it and throws a pass to me. I drive across midcourt and continue driving as if I’m going in for a lay-up. Instead I pull up for a jump shot from 22 feet that goes through the net as the buzzer sounds. We trade baskets throughout the overtime period; and in an ironic twist, we are faced with the identical situation as the end of regulation. With 5 seconds left in over-time and Tech leading by 2 points, we foul the same Tech forward as before. Again he misses the shot and again our center rebounds and sends a hard pass to me. I drive across midcourt just as I did before, and once again I pull up in almost the identical spot for a 20-plus foot jumper. This time the ball rolls around the rim three times before it goes off to the side, ending the game and our hopes to go into the semifinals for the city championship. I am inconsolable.
For the entire following week, I am in full-bore moping. I keep replaying that last shot over and over in my mind. As far as I’m concerned, my high school year ended with that shot. My mind is in a fog in class and out, weekdays and weekends. It’s hard for me to focus on schoolwork or fun. Outside of school I spend most of my time lying in bed listening to doo-wop, which in my befogged state of mind sounds like it’s coming to me from another planet. One day my mother finally breaks through the fog. She implores me to think about what I’m going to do after I graduate from high school. “Izzy, I don’t care what you do, but you have to do something. Izzy? Izzy, are you listening to me? You can’t just lie around forever.”
“I know, Ma. I guess I’ll go to college, but I don’t know where I want to go. I know you and dad don’t have any money to send me away and even GW seems to be beyond our reach. The U of Maryland is too far from here to commute and we can’t afford for me to live in a dorm. So what else is there?” My mother gathers herself together—all 5 feet of her—to tell me something difficult. “Well, we might be moving soon…”
“WHAT!”
“Now don’t get your bowels in an uproar. It’s nothing definite, but your father seems eager to move, and we heard about this brand new apartment complex in Langley Park, Maryland.” In fact, we’ll be very close to the University of Maryland.”
“Moving? Langley Park? Are you people crazy?” My mother holds out her hands with palms up as if she is trying to hold back a flood.
“Nothing is going to happen until after you graduate.” She hesitates before giving me the real reason for the move. “Look Izzy, you know a Black family is moving in next door. Now I got nothing against Black people, but their presence is going to make it harder to sell this house. And if any more Black people move in, we’re not going to get any money for it. So we have to sell soon.”
“Mom, how can you do this? You know what real estate agents are doing now. They buy a house in an all-white neighborhood and then “bust” the wholly white block by selling to a Black family. Once that happens, everybody else on the block panics and sells as quickly as they can. This ain’t right and you know it.”
“It’s the way the world is. I can’t change it. You know we don’t have much money so we have to get as much as we can for the house. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“I understand perfectly. You’re gonna succumb to the shitty tactics of these Block-busters and fly out of town like everybody else. I can’t believe this is happening. You know those sons of bitches are gonna turn around and sell this house to a Black family for twice the amount that you’re getting for it. They’re making money off your fear!”
My mother doesn’t want to pursue this conversation any further and therefore changes the subject. “So which college do you think?” I’m still reeling with shock and anger. “I think I’ll go to Howard like Jason.” My mother gives me this funny look she gets when she is pushing down anger. She thinks I am trying to get her goat. She smiles brightly and says, “Whatever you think is best, dear.” She quickly turns around and leaves my room.
I’m angry with myself for this exchange and sad because my mother for many years has been my confidant. Not that her answers were always helpful. Because my father was often too embarrassed to answer my questions about the facts of life, I would go to my mother. Her answers, however, were often so vague that they were subject to grave misinterpretations. When I was in the 7th grade, I had finally mastered the facts of reproduction. But a new question had dawned on me: How does one stop the process? The exchange with my mother went as follows:
“Mom, if someone doesn’t want to have a baby, but wants to have sex, is there any way to prevent a girl from getting pregnant?” A look of horror comes over my mother’s face.
“My God, Izzy, why are you asking me this question? What have you done?”
“Ma, this is school work, not funny business. I am trying to understand the facts of life.”
Still looking at me suspiciously, she breathlessly replies, “Yes, you can prevent pregnancy.”
After a long pause, and it’s clear that she’s not going to elaborate, I asked,
“Well, what?” And where do you get it?”
“Er, it’s called protection,” she answers cautiously. Exasperated, I ask,
“Where do you get it?”
“You get it at the drug store. It comes in bottles,” she replies. Actually, I can’t swear that she said it came in bottles or whether I drew that conclusion from the fact that you could purchase this protection at our local Peoples Drug Store. In any case I’m satisfied for the moment and also extremely tired from my efforts to extract the “blood” of knowledge from this very reluctant “stone”.
Well, the next day, I’m sitting with my buddies at the lunch table at Paul Junior High and they are engaged in a frantic sharing of whispered intelligence.
“What gives,” I ask. My buddy, Frank, says, “Haven’t you heard? Bobby Bangheart has been going around the whole school selling protection.” “Ah,” I say triumphantly, and loud enough that the entire cafeteria can hear, “I KNOW WHAT THAT IS. IT COMES IN BOTTLES AND YOU CAN GET IT AT PEOPLES DRUG STORE. The entire lunch table stares at me as if I’m a Martian. They then begin laughing and laughing. It’s hold-your stomach laughter that rings in my ears. I am flummoxed by a confusion of feelings, embarrassment, anger, and incomprehension. When it is explained to me the kind of protection Bobby is selling, I turn beet red with mortification.
I always thought my mother was a beautiful woman. She didn’t think so however. “People used to think I was cute,” she would say. “People would say ‘That Pearl, she has a nice shape.’” She would never say she had a nice figure. It was always shape. I didn’t know if this was something just she would say or a word that people in her social circle employed to describe the physical appeal of females. On the surface she seems so pleasant and friendly, but underneath she is a very private person. To those who do not know her well, she is all warmth and caring. But in my experience, her pool of warmth was not very deep.
From my Jewish mother I learned the pros and cons of Christian charity. I learned tolerance and its decay into bum pity…”He’s had a rough life.” “He didn’t mean anything by it.” “He couldn’t help himself.” She tried to teach me how to tolerate insults, but I also learned to deny that I had been insulted. “Don’t let it worry you.” It’s nothing.” I learned compassion for others, but I also learned to unwisely let them off the hook. She tried too hard to be loving, forgiving, and tolerant. And now I do the same.
If I do harbor prejudicial thoughts against Blacks, it’s not because of anything my mother said. She tried to teach me to treat all people with respect and I never heard from her any bitter or derogatory remarks about Black people. But in a confusing qualificat
ion to her apparent “love for all kinds of different people”, she would often suggest with words of discomfort or a curious facial expression that social mixing was somehow inappropriate. It just wasn’t done.
Even though I told my mother in anger that I was applying to Howard University, the idea has increasing appeal to me. It seems affordable, and it would certainly help me to learn much more about Negroes and maybe why so many white people seem to hate them. And maybe cure my Negrophobia. I have heard many people say that knowledge is power. I hope knowledge is also good health. I know that I will have a humongous battle selling the idea of going to Howard to my father. So in preparation I decide to talk to my brother whose intellect I enormously respect.
My brother, Adam, was six when I was born. When I came into the world with my needs as evident as potholes, his reign over the affections and attention of our parents came to an abrupt end. Needless to say, he did not take kindly to this change. He became private, inaccessible, tending a garden of hatred for me. For years he would invite me to see it. I would wander with deference and fear in his garden, begging at times to water it, to tend it myself hoping to plant some loving growths. Occasionally, I would succeed. Yet he felt a responsibility toward me even as his dislike for me grew. And in the early years I felt his protection almost as much as his displeasure. I eventually came to view him with awe, as some walking encyclopedia with something to say on every subject. I wanted to be like him. He was my model: intellectual, cultured, disdainful, a champion of polysyllabic words, a cornucopia of knowledge—these became my aspirations.
Adam has recently completed a B.A. degree in English Literature at GW and is currently working for the Feds at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. I find Adam in his room reading Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. He’s now a little shorter than I am; but because of his intellect, I still think of myself as the smaller brother. “Adam, you got a minute? I see faint annoyance on his face for the interruption, but it quickly dissipates. “What’s on your mind little brother?”
“I’m trying to decide which colleges to apply to and I’m stuck. We don’t have the money for me to go to GW like you and Uncle Sol, and Maryland is too far. What do you think about my going to Howard, you know, where Jason is going?”
“To be honest, Izzy, I don’t know enough about Howard to be able to advise you. You’d be better off talking to Jason who actually has some experience there. What is this his second year?”
“Yeah, that’s right, and thanks for the idea. I think it’s a good one.” It really is a good idea and I’m surprised I didn’t think of it. Adam is one of the few people I know who can tell me when he doesn’t know something. Before I leave I ask him, “Have you heard the rumor that the folks are planning to sell the house and get an apartment in Langley Park?”
“Yes and I’m pissed. All they’re doing is increasing the length and difficulty of my commute to work. It could be a blessing in disguise because it motivates me to get my own place closer to the HEW building.” I’m surprised to hear that he will be leaving the nest. Although I know it’s time, I feel abandoned by my long-time adversary and friend.
Jason Davidoff is my first cousin. Because he is a commuter student at Howard, he is still living with his parents on the next street over from us. Jason is about 30 months older than I am. We are more like brothers than cousins and growing up did almost everything together. We played on the same Walter Johnson League’s 12-and-under baseball team and early on he was a faithful attendee at Canteen Night. Jason is two years ahead of me in school. His sports in high school were football and baseball, and in 1957, he was part of the formidable battery, along with “fireballer” Barney Repsac, that led Coolidge to a DC high school championship. I was in awe of the fact that they got to play for the title at Griffiths Stadium. Jason’s high school grades were not the best so his brother-in-law suggested that Howard’s pharmacy program might be a good fit. Jason not only got in, but also seems to have found his niche. His grades soared dramatically during his first year at Howard, and this past year he integrated the football team. At his father’s behest, Jason is cleaning up his backyard after a recent windstorm. When I enter his yard, he is throwing debris into a large trashcan. He has two inches and 30 pounds on me. This somewhat obscures the already faint resemblance between us.
“Hey Jason, how would you like company?”
“Sure, I could use the help in cleaning up this shit.”
“That’s not what I meant. What I’m saying is how would you like company at Howard?”
Jason gives me a quizzical look. “You thinking of applying there?”
“Yeah. The price is right at Howard.” Jason stops his yard-work and points to the backyard steps for us to sit. “But Izzy, with your grades and your smarts you can get into a much better school.”
“I’m not sure you’re right about that, but (I add with rhythm in my voice) I ain’t got the dough so I don’t get to go... to a better school. What I want to ask you is what do you think about your experience at Howard?”
“Let me put it this way. If you go, then we’re both crazy.” We both chuckle at his joke. “But you’re right we don’t have much choice. I have to admit I like the pharmacy program at Howard, and I have met some neat people. But don’t plan on having much of a social life. You know the taboo on interracial dating goes two ways. I know a lot of Negro women who are about as eager to date a white boy as I am to date a Black girl. You know most, but not all, of the racial animosity in this country is on us white folks. I learned just how crazy this country is about race when I traveled with the football team. Did you know that when we traveled south, I had to get food for the entire team because restaurants would not serve Schwartzehs? The guys on the bus used to joke with me. I would bring the food and everybody on the bus complained that I was a lousy waitress because I got their orders mixed up. And I would kid back. I’d tell ‘em everybody but me has to sit in the back of the bus.”
“But it sounds like it’s working for you.” Jason gets up and does some stretches. “Here’s what I think. If you have a career plan and you keep your focus on your plan, I think it can work for you.”
I get up to go and hold out my hand to shake his. “Thanks, Jason. I appreciate your talking with me. You know, when you were 14, I thought you were dumb. Look how smart you’ve become in seven years.” He punches me in the arm and says with a laugh,
“Kiss my ass, Schwartzeh-lover.”
OK, in all honesty I think it’s a little crazy to choose to go to Howard. Well-meaning friends inquire, “What kind of social life will you have there?” I really have no answer for them because I don’t know what I’ll do, nor do I know whether the students at Howard will accept me. My father thinks I’m crazy too. He can’t fathom why I would do such a stupid thing. It seems like we have the same conversation every night.
“Look Dad, whether you like it or not, I’m gonna go to Howard.”
“No you’re not! Don’t you realize what a foolish mistake that would be?” What kind of job will you get with a degree from Howard? People just won’t accept you.”
“What people? How do you know this? Are you some expert on racial job trends? I don’t know where you get this stuff. After all, Dad, it’s 1959 and times are changing”. We just stare at each other in mutual incomprehension. I’m truly puzzled. Where do these attitudes come from? I could not understand this man or the world he came from. His father had left his family behind in Lithuania and came to this country seeking a better life. After three years my grandfather saved enough money to bring his family over. My father was six years old in 1912 when he, the baby of the family, his mother, and his four siblings arrived. He managed to finish the 8th grade when he was finally required to go to work in order to supplement the family’s meager income. I suspect though that he was also not fond of school. After trying several different lines of work, he eventually became a butcher. Growing up I rarely saw the man because he worked long hours and would arrive hom
e around my bedtime. When I did see him, it wasn’t love or joy I felt. It was fear, awe, and a distant admiration. In those days, there were a few things we did together like going to ballgames, playing catch in the side yard, or going to the kosher butcher, Marinoff and Pritt’s, on Sunday morning for bagels, lox, chubs and whitefish. There were even infrequent showers of affection. Much more often, though, there was criticism. I remember more clearly his impatience with my fumbling attempts at skilled labor. His explanations were hurried, full of urgency; my imitations barely begun before, “No! Not that way! Do it this way!” The shame and loneliness would overtake me and my mind would zone out.
I stand there staring at this man who I resemble so strikingly. He is now an inch or two shorter than I and by now he has developed a sizeable paunch. In the past, we might have been mistaken for brothers, the same brown hair, the same hazel green eyes, and the same moody expression. But he was always much more muscular in build. Yet looking at his face, I have the odd sensation that I’m yelling at myself in the mirror.