“There were some beans in the small white pot.”
“Yuck!”
“What color?” my sister wanted to know.
Russell put on his thoughtful face, imitating his hero, the colored engineer on Mission: Impossible. “I’d say, light brown with black round — ”
“Black-eyed peas!” Rosalind cried, as if they were as good as pizza. “What else?”
“Vegetation of the dark green variety.”
I loved the way my brother talked. He checked out almost every science book in our elementary school library and always entertained us with new facts and words.
“Boiled?” Rosalind asked.
“Beyond recognition,” Russell replied. “With a piece of ham inside.”
“Collard greens.”
I grew nauseous. “Chicken-fried steak, black-eyed peas, and collard greens. Poor Daddy!”
“Yeah,” Russell said.
Rosalind picked at her canned ravioli, then blurted, “I’d rather have that than this.”
How could she say that? Ravioli was kid food with its own TV commercial. When was the last time you saw people on TV singing about chicken-fried steak and black-eyed peas?
The following evening we were not our usual selves at the dinner table. There was no talking, no food experiments, no laughter. Instead, we bit the bullet, quickly eating almost everything on our plates.
Once excused from the table, we reconvened in Russell’s room. There, behind closed doors and out of earshot of our mother, we each produced a yellow school memo from our skirt pockets or shirt sleeves. These memos invited parents to bring their home cooking to our school’s first ever International Food Fair.
Although we were veterans of Mommy’s cooking, we did not want anyone else to sample those hardened pork chops and rice bricks. We would never live down our teachers’ pity or our classmates’ jokes. We agreed that Mommy could not know about the International Food Fair, let alone contribute a dish.
“Mommy won’t find out about the fair unless someone squeals.” Rosalind looked straight at me.
“If anyone squeals, I’ll bet it’s you,” I said, convinced that my sister, the black-eyed pea lover, was becoming more adultlike every day. It was only a matter of time before she joined our parents’ ranks and ate meals with them, leaving Russell and me at the kids’ table.
Rosalind rolled her eyes, which Miss Essie expressly forbade. Eyeball-rolling was right up there with saying bad words and talking back.
“Ooh, I’m telling,” I sang.
“I rest my case,” she said. “Snitch.”
“Red alert,” Russell warned, hearing the thump of Miss Essie’s bare feet as they headed toward the bedroom. Quickly Russell slid his school memo under his bed.
Rosalind and I sat on ours, arranging our skirts over our crossed legs.
Mommy opened the door without knocking. “There’s cake on the table.”
Normally those words created a rush for the door, but neither Rosalind nor I could get up. Russell, seizing his opportunity to choose the biggest slice of Mommy’s pineapple pound cake, jumped up and bounded past Mommy for the kitchen. As soon as Mommy retired to her room, Rosalind and I raced after him for dessert.
“Why couldn’t it be a bake sale?” Rosalind whined, for Miss Essie’s cakes baked higher than Betty Crocker’s and her rolls were softer than cafeteria rolls. “Why a food fair? An International Food Fair.”
“We’re not international,” I said, trying to be helpful.
“We’re colored,” Russell told me, because that’s what we called ourselves before 1968. That or Negro. “Everyone at school will expect Mommy to bring colored people’s food.”
“Maybe LaVerne’s mother will do it. LaVerne is always talking about her mother’s barbecued chicken and ribs . . . how spicy and lip-smackin’ good they are,” Rosalind said, beaming.
Russell and I glanced at each other, then at her.
“You had LaVerne’s mother’s cooking!” Russell deduced.
“I’m telling!”
“You better not, or I’ll get you, you little snitch!”
I mouthed “Oh, Mommeeee” at my sister, who flicked yellow icing at me, hitting me in the chest. I dabbed the icing with my finger and ate it.
Russell said, “Rachel’s mother is making corned beef and cabbage.”
“Rachel, Rachel, Russell likes Rachel,” I sang.
Rachel O’Grady was a white girl in Russell’s class with red hair and freckles all over her face. Russell was too dark to blush but his nostrils flared, making us laugh. That caused Miss Essie to holler, “All right in there!”
It was inevitable that one of us would flagrantly break the dinnertime rule and have to face Miss Essie. As it turned out, this was me. For our school’s science exhibition I was paired with Yolanda Watson, the other colored girl in my class. We were at her house and had just finished constructing a weathervane to rival all weathervanes when her mother announced that it was dinnertime. Without thinking, I leaped up from the desk and grabbed my supplies.
“What are you doing?” Yolanda asked.
“I gotta be going,” I said, as if Miss Essie was standing right there.
“Oh, but you must stay for dinner,” her mother insisted.
“Oh no, I can’t! Mommy said we can’t eat no one else’s cooking.”
Mrs. Watson laughed and said, “Nonsense, child. I’ve made more than enough. Go wash up. I’ll call your mother.”
I could not wash my hands until I heard Mrs. Watson talking on the phone with my mother. Mrs. Watson was so hospitable, so insistent, that Mommy did the unexpected. She relented. I then washed my hands, certain of one thing: I was going to get a whipping that night. As clear as Miss Essie had always made herself about the dinnertime rule, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sit for a week once I walked through our front door. But I was on the verge of tasting food from the outside, and that made me fearless. If I was going to get a whipping, it would be worth every snap of Mommy’s belt.
We washed our hands and sat at the table. “What’s for dinner?” I whispered to Yolanda.
When I heard the words, “fried chicken,” my face dropped. Yolanda and her mother exchanged “what’s wrong with this colored child” glances, then asked what the matter was.
I knew better than to embarrass my mother with rude behavior and said, “Nothing, Miss Watson.”
Yolanda’s mother brought out a bowl of cooked cabbage, another bowl of mashed potatoes — the smell of butter wafting in the air — and a platter of golden-brown meat piled up in a pyramid.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the meat platter.
Yet another look was exchanged between the two. Yolanda poked me and said, “Fried chicken.”
“Unh, unh,” I disagreed, anxious to take my first bite. No sooner had “amen” sealed the blessing than my hand was all in the platter, reaching for a drumstick. I bit into it. The skin, a crunchy cornucopia of spices, set my palate a-dancing! I could not recall ever being so giddy at the dinner table. I tore into the golden-brown meat, savoring the juices, still remarkably in the tender white flesh.
Next I tried the peppered cabbage, surprising myself by stabbing and eating leaf after leaf. I wondered if the other cooked, soggy vegetables that I’d hated all my life could taste as delicious as the cabbage. My mind reeled.
“Gravy?” Yolanda offered, as I ate my first bite of the mashed potatoes.
“No way!” I exclaimed, knowing she could not possibly understand the sacrilege of pouring gravy over food as heavenly as this. Besides, I wanted to remember each distinct flavor of Mrs. Watson’s mashed potatoes, which were creamy but not mushy, bathed in butter and dotted with bits of onion. I ate four more pieces of chicken, then marched happily home. After Yolanda and her mother moved away and those Kentucky Fried Chicken commercials began to air on TV, I was convinced Mrs. Watson was the real Colonel Sanders and my friend Yolanda was the KFC heiress.
That night, having gladly take
n a beating for breaking the dinner rule, I earned my sister and brother’s respect. I also earned their envy as I described every crunchy, spicy, tender bite of what I now knew was fried chicken. My only regret was that I could not have shared the meal itself with my sister and brother.
Finally my sister’s envy turned to outrage. “If the squirt can get food from the outside, then all of us can get food from the outside,” she said.
“And just how do we do that?” Russell asked.
“By going to the International Food Fair. It’s our only chance to eat other people’s food. Good food. Just imagine . . . barbecued spare ribs — the way they’re supposed to taste.”
“Corned beef and cabbage,” Russell said.
“And fried chicken,” I added. “But how can we get there?”
Rosalind said, “Mommy will take us.”
“Are you crazy?” Russell and I exclaimed, one after the other.
Even though the door was closed, Rosalind felt the need to whisper. “Russell, do you still have your school memo? The one about the food fair?”
He found it underneath his bed.
“Good,” Rosalind said. “Now, what is the one thing Mommy can make?”
I shot my hand up. “I know! I know! Rolls and cakes! Rolls and cakes!”
It was not long before we were huddled into planning formation, humming the Mission: Impossible theme.
In her best handwriting, Agent X drafted a new school memo announcing a shortage of dishes needed for the International Food Fair — biscuits, rolls, cakes, and Kool-Aid. At Agent Z’s suggestion, Agent X added French and German dishes — entrees Miss Essie would not attempt. As agent Y, my part was to leave the “school memo” on the table along with our homework for our mother’s inspection.
On the morning of the International Food Fair Miss Essie told us to keep our school clothes on all day because we were going to the program at the school.
My sister, brother, and I were as jubilant as looting thieves. We could barely contain ourselves, anticipating the tables of prepared dishes from all over the world. Our friends were equally eager to sample our mother’s cakes and rolls, since we had spent a good part of the day bragging about Miss Essie’s delicious baked goods.
We rushed home from school and finished our homework in record time. Instead of our usual kickball game, we played cards out on the patio to preserve our school clothes. In between hands of casino we talked of nothing but the food fair and which tables we would visit.
Then five o’clock came. Miss Essie called our names, and we came running. With no time to lose we washed our hands and lined up in the kitchen to help her with the cakes and rolls. Miss Essie was ready for us. In our hands she placed three warm aluminum pans, tightly wrapped with foil.
Somehow the shape of the tins did not seem right for cakes or rolls. I who had once earned the nickname Rita Cakes could not detect vanilla, coconut, frosting, or butter anywhere. I raised the aluminum pan to my nose, took a sniff, and said, “Mommy, this don’t smell like butter rolls or cake.”
“That’s ’cause they’re pork chops,” Miss Essie said. “Now let’s go.”
“‘Food from the Outside’ is one story of mine that Miss Essie will never read because its truth outweighs the fiction. Even now, my sister, brother, and I often relive those days of sitting at the dining-room table before plates of pork chops or heaping bowls of ‘Hackensack,’ conducting experiments.
When we weren’t playing with our food, we dreamt about our futures. Rosalind wanted to be an artist, Russell, an aerospace engineer, and I wanted to write stories. My allowance went to purchasing notebooks, postage, envelopes, and erasable typing paper. By age twelve, I was sending out stories to magazines and book publishers. When the rejection letters came in, Rosalind and Russell amused themselves by reading them aloud at the table, substituting their own versions of the editors’ polite words of rejection. (Older siblings can be cruel!)
A year later I sold my first story to Highlights for Children. My mother divided the money among the three of us, and we went shopping for school clothes. After that, Rosalind and Russell would ask me during dinner if I had sent out any more stories.”
He arrives wearing a maroon corduroy shirt and corduroy pants. Has he chosen this fabric for its vertical lines, in hopes of looking taller? We shake hands. He appears to be about five feet six. Though sitting down would soften our inequalities of height, he seems in no hurry to take his seat. His speech and manner are confident. One would hardly guess the secret he’d revealed to me by phone and which I’ve chosen as the focus of our chat — that throughout his school years he suffered from CSD, Chronic Stature Deficiency. Paul Fleischman was a “shrimp.”
How small were you as a child?
I was the smallest boy in the entire first grade. Likewise, in the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. When I went to junior high school, I was the smallest boy out of a student body of a thousand. The name Paul means “small” in Latin. My parents chose well.
Clearly, a severe case of CSD. How important was your size to you at the time?
It seemed the first and foremost fact about me, instantly known to all observers. It was my definition, my central quality — and I hated it. I felt myself to be a modern Job, punished by an inscrutable God. That I lived in comfortable circumstances in beautiful Santa Monica, California, ten blocks from the beach, amid a loving family, in a time of peace — all that meant nothing. I would have traded another world war for six inches.
Millions of young men forced back into service, cities in flames, the world economy disrupted?
Actually, it’s not so far-fetched. Napoleon was a supershrimp who tried to conquer all of Europe, at a cost of millions of lives, to prove to the world that he was really Mr. Big.
And then there was Mussolini, the Italian dictator, in the 1930s.
Another world leader who never tried out for the N.B.A.
And then there was you — president of Roosevelt Elementary School, vice president of your junior-high homeroom, then president.
With plans to take over all of southern California.
Obviously, being small didn’t hold you back. When did you feel the disadvantages of your height?
Staring at a tall adult’s belt buckle. Standing at the blackboard in math class, working a problem next to a girl a foot and a half taller. Being placed in the front row and at the end of the line in every group photo. At my junior high school — grades seven through nine — the ninth-graders had been granted a raised patio called the Ninth Grade Walk. Any intruder from the lower grades could be expelled from it — or, more dramatically, thrown over the wall into the bushes below. I never once set foot there, even when I became a ninth-grader myself, for fear of being taken for a seventh-grader and hurled over the battlements.
The worst, however, was the humiliation that took place in junior-high P.E. at the start of every semester. All the boys sat in their underwear in the gym, waiting to be called forward to be publicly measured, weighed, and assigned a letter — A for the big kids, B or C for the moderately endowed, D for the runts like myself. Naturally, these vital statistics were read into a microphone so that the muscle-bound coach across the room could scrawl them on a card. It was a scene reminiscent of slave auctions and the inspections at Auschwitz. I dreaded these events for a month beforehand. They happened twice a year — six times altogether in junior high. “Only four more left,” I’d tell myself.
Did your smallness loom as large to other kids as it did to you?
Yes and no. I’ve brought along my junior-high yearbooks. Have a look at the inscriptions.
“Stay out of dark bars and taverns, and grow a little this summer.”
“You’re one of the few who make me look big.”
“Remember to stay out of tall grass (one inch high) or you will get lost.” Obviously, there was little public sensitivity to CSD at the time.
On the other hand, I had several friends who towered over me. Kids
, it’s often said, are cruel. But some kids can also be wonderfully oblivious of differences that rivet others. Mark Scott was a friend of mine whose stilt walker’s stature probably derived from his habit of drinking an entire quart of milk in one gulp. People might have smirked seeing us side by side, but neither of us was bothered by the height difference. We were focused on the business at hand — skateboarding, calling Dial-a-Prayer on the telephone, scouring the laundromat floor for dropped coins.
What were your defenses against teasing?
In the classroom, brains and wit. I was “the little guy with the big brain.” I won my sixth-grade class’s scholarship award. Brains earn respect, but I was liked for being funny. I wrote a joke book with a friend in third grade. I pored over MAD magazines like a Biblical scholar, even punching holes in them and carrying them in my binder. In junior high, where three elementary schools converged, I met a group of fellow MAD fanatics — the sharp, wisecracking pack of friends I traveled among all the way through high school.
What about out on the playground?
Speed and coordination were my compensations for being small and weak. I avoided football and concentrated on tennis, which I was good at. Stealing and passing were my fortes in basketball. My friends and I developed a style of play in which we controlled the ball for long stretches of time, pretending to shoot but passing at the last instant. Then, we’d sink a basket and win two to nothing. It drove opponents crazy.
And then there were the made-up games.
Can you explain?
Those were games my friends and I invented that were actually parodies of standard sports. The longest lasting was “skrugby,” which was football played with the banana-shaped fruit of a plant that grew in one of my friends’ yard. We used the sort of fancy terminology that goes with traditional sports — arcane names for maneuvers, cryptic signals, complex scoring systems. The great thing about skrugby was that only we — not the school jocks — knew how to play it. We were very selective about admitting new players. When we’d stripped all the fruit from the plants at my friend’s, we began using two socks rolled into a ball. At the same time, we used the word “skrugby” for another made-up game, namely soccer played with a chalk eraser in front of the tennis backboards. In high school, when several of us founded an underground newspaper — another alternate, satiric world — we reported on skrugby games just as the official school paper reported on football.
When I Was Your Age, Volume Two Page 3
