Unguarded

by Lenny Wilkens

  I still remember a Thanksgiving dinner at one of our aunt’s homes. The aunt was married to this white guy who was a grouch most of the time.

  As I walked in the door, he growled, “And what do you want?”

  I said, “I don’t want anything.”

  Then I turned around and walked right out the door. My mother and aunt tried to get me to go back in there, but I refused. I would not go into that place, because I knew that man didn’t want me there. I wasn’t sure why; I guessed it was because I was black or he was just being a smartass, but I didn’t know, I just wanted no part of that man or his Thanksgiving dinner. I was twelve years old at the time. Finally, my mother gave up. I told her that I wanted her to stay and have dinner, that I’d be all right. Then I went home.

  Things like that, they really had to hurt my mother. But she never complained about it, at least not that her children heard.

  “You’re a human being,” she’d tell me. “You’re accountable for who you are. Be proud of who you are.”

  Yet there were nights when I heard my mother cry. Things just got to be too much, and she broke down. It wasn’t in front of us, but we’d hear her crying. I wanted to do something. I was supposed to be the man of the house. But what could I do? There was nothing I could say, nothing I could do that would bring my father back.

  After a while, she’d stop.

  Then she’d pray.

  No woman ever prayed as much as Henrietta Wilkens. Even before my father died, she prayed: Mass every morning, or at least a Novena. Pray at meals. Pray the rosary at night. I always tell people that I’m living proof that prayer works, because no one ever prayed harder for her children than my mother did. Some people would have pulled away from God after losing a husband as she did, but it just made my mother’s faith stronger. And she never cared about me identifying myself as an African-American. She always insisted skin color didn’t matter, but your heart and your faith did. To her, what counted was that I had embraced Roman Catholicism. That was the most important thing. Her faith was her lifeblood, her source of hope, her comfort in times of despair. She couldn’t imagine living without it, and to her, faith was far more important than race. I think if I had turned my back on the Catholic Church, that would have devastated her. As it was, our life and poverty were piling up on her, the stress taking a toll. She was five-foot-five, but there were days when she just seemed smaller, when her whole body sagged. Everything just wore her down. Before my father died, she was a housewife. She had a good man who provided everything from baked bread to a reliable paycheck. Suddenly, all that was gone.

  I know what it means to be on welfare.

  I know what it means to have a stranger in the house, snooping around, checking to see if you’re hiding something. I know the caseworker was just doing his job, and I know some people did cheat on welfare—but it’s still demeaning.

  I know what it was like to wait for the welfare check to come so we could buy groceries, or anything else we needed for the house. I know what it’s like to be in high school where clothes are important, a mark of status, and to have only one shirt, a shirt I dyed a different color every week to make it seem like I had different shirts.

  When I was in elementary school, right before lunchtime they’d sell one-cent candy. Those of us who didn’t have a penny would put our heads down on top of our desks while the others bought the candy; no one said a word, but we were embarrassed not to have a penny for candy. I never said a word about it to my mother. Hearing that would have killed her.

  And, yes, I know what it’s like to work.

  After my father’s death, my mother took a part-time job at a candy factory. She packed the candies into boxes, which were shipped all over the country. She wore a uniform, an apron, a bonnet. I can close my eyes and see her in the apron, her bonnet holding up her long, fine, light-brown hair. I can see her sitting at the kitchen table, all of the air seemingly wrung out of her. Her body just looks smaller, sagging from sheer exhaustion. She has just come home from the candy factory, and she has to cook for four kids. She has to make sure we do our homework. She has to clean the house, which was a job itself with four kids.

  No matter how hard she worked, there was never enough money, enough time, enough energy. After a while, my mother couldn’t keep up with the rent on the brownstone apartment on Pacific Street.

  That’s when I realized we were poor. My mother had to fend for herself; no one on either side of the family had any extra money. I’m sure our relatives helped out a little here and there, maybe with some old clothes or a few extra dollars, but they didn’t help us much because they couldn’t. We always seemed to be wearing the same clothes longer than the other kids in school. My mother was constantly sewing and patching things together, and the boys had to wait longer for new clothes, because she believed it was more important for the girls to look nice; if the boys were a little ragged, that was OK. That never bothered me. I didn’t worry a lot about clothes.

  My mother often told us, “God doesn’t look at your clothes. He looks at the person inside the clothes.” She said that with such conviction that, after a while, I believed it.

  But shoes were a different story.

  My mother could afford only one new pair of tennis shoes a year for each of us, and I’d wear those out in a month or so playing in the streets and at the playground. Then I’d play baseball and basketball in my dress shoes, which didn’t thrill my mother—but she didn’t stop me, either.

  Then, we started moving.

  My mother never explained the moves, we just went from one apartment to another to another. The apartments became smaller, even though her children were growing larger. Our last place was what I’ll always remember as our “coldwater flat.” There was no heat: You’d light the stove in the kitchen to warm the apartment—well, the kitchen and bedroom next to it anyway. The living room was too far away, so it was freezing in the winter. We’d wrap ourselves up in lots of blankets to keep warm. The worst of that changed during my sophomore year, when it became law that all apartments had to be heated, and the landlord installed steam heat.

  What I also remember is cleanliness.

  Our place was immaculate. The dishes were done, the clothes were picked up, the furniture dusted, the floors shiny. My mother did much of the work, but we all pitched in. My job was washing and waxing the floors; I also took out the garbage, and I took turns washing and drying the dishes with the other kids. Like my mother, I like a clean house. I can really clean a house. When we were first married, my wife was shocked at how orderly I kept things, and how I could throw myself into a room and scrub and dust it like a pro. In fact, my first job was cleaning a two-story brownstone owned by a lady who was a friend of my cousin’s: Every Saturday, I’d start at the top floor and work my way down—washing windows, waxing floors, dusting, picking up trash.

  I was nine years old, and that was my job, every Saturday.

  Then I went to work at a market where my cousin also had a job. People would order groceries, and I had to deliver them to their houses. The store had a wagon, and they’d really load it up. I’d drag that wagon behind me, struggling with the huge bags and boxes of groceries. At least they seemed enormous to me, because I was only ten.

  My pay? Strictly tips.

  By the time I was in high school, I worked virtually every day after school at another grocery store; I was a stock boy, a bagger, part of the clean-up crew. Eventually, I was put in charge of the vegetable department, making sure that the food looked nice so people would want to buy it. I loved working at the grocery store, partly because it meant so much to my mother, and partly because we got a discount on the groceries. I gave nearly all the money I made to her, but I was still able to keep a dollar or two for myself—and that was a big deal to me, to actually have some money in my pocket.

  I was learning what it really meant to be the man of the house. I never told my brothers and sisters that I gave my mother anything—at least not for a long time: I
wanted to keep it between us, and I thought my brothers and sisters just didn’t need to know. My brother Larry also started working when he was about twelve, delivering newspapers and other odd jobs. All the kids worked at some point to help our mother, although I always felt a little more responsible than the rest of them because I was the oldest son. People sometimes hear these stories and think that I should be angry, that I somehow lost my childhood, but I liked most of my jobs. They made me feel important, and I wanted to help my mother and my family. Besides, I always found time to play ball in the street, or just hang out with friends. Working at a young age gave me confidence; I knew that if I had to take care of myself, I could.

  All through high school, I thought little about basketball, and never about pro sports as a career. I didn’t follow it closely. It wasn’t until my senior year that we convinced our mother to buy a TV set: We found that you could do it on a monthly payment plan, and it didn’t take a lot of money to start. It seemed like everyone in the neighborhood had a TV but us, so she gave in and bought one. Turned out that I hardly ever watched it, because I was so busy with school, working, and playing basketball at the Boys Club. Maybe that’s why, to this day, I don’t watch much TV. I’d rather read.

  At an early age, I had learned that the only way most people got anywhere in the world is by making their own way. You had to work. You had to understand there were going to be roadblocks, setbacks, and even heartbreaks. I’m not saying I ever liked any of those things, but I understood that they didn’t have to defeat me. Some people act as if responsibility is a dirty word. But it was a big part of my life, and I grew to like it. I enjoyed the independence and satisfaction that came from earning money to buy my own basketball shoes, which is virtually unheard of today when young players just expect their coaches, schools, and summer teams to supply several pairs of $150 shoes for free. I appreciated my new shoes, because I’d earned them. What’s wrong with asking young people to work for things, to contribute to the family’s budget, especially if the family is poor? I grew up without a father, as a member of a minority, in a family that was sometimes on welfare. Some people might say those circumstances doomed me to failure; others act as if being poor entitles you to special privileges. You can either allow your circumstances to be a trap and ensnare you for the rest of your life, or you can use them to learn what it takes to succeed in a world where things won’t always go your way. I had a friend who ended up in jail; he came to us and wanted us to help him break into a candy store, and a few of us refused. We knew it was wrong, and maybe we were more afraid of our parents than any peer pressure he could apply. We didn’t think that being poor gave us the right to steal from someone else, so we didn’t.

  It almost seemed like all the adults in the neighborhood tried to help us stay straight. If you were in a fight with another kid and you saw an adult walking by, the fight would just stop. The kids would stand straight, look at the adult as if nothing was happening and say, “Nice to see you, Mrs. Smith.” Priests, policemen, teachers, parents—almost any adult demanded and received your respect.

  Today, there isn’t the same sense of community: Ask yourself how many of your neighbors do you even know, I mean where you know their first and last names and the names of all their kids? Families are often scattered across the country: How many of your aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, or grandparents live in your immediate neighborhood? Probably not many. But I had a lot of relatives very close by as a kid in Brooklyn. You had the feeling that either someone from your family or someone from church was watching you. I remember once sneaking onto a trolley car for a free ride; I was sure no one saw me, until I got home—where my mother was waiting, fuming. My uncle had spotted me and told her. My mother didn’t spank me often, but she did that day. There was no debate. I was guilty until proven innocent, and I was given no chance to present any sort of defense. And I didn’t have any. I think it’s good that she held me accountable for my actions.

  In today’s society with so many broken families, and so many families where both parents work long hours and their kids are in daycare or left alone after school, it’s no surprise that kids get into more trouble than we did. Who’s watching? Who holds them accountable? When both parents are working and are dedicated more to their jobs than their families, they often feel guilty about not watching their kids as they should—so they spoil their children and excuse behavior that ought to be punished. I see the same thing with some single mothers who feel completely overwhelmed: They simply don’t have the energy to discipline and demand excellence from their children.

  In our home, that was never a problem. My mother got tired, sure, but she had the help and support of an extended family, a community, and most important, the church—especially one young priest who played a big part in shaping my future.

  CHAPTER TWO

  HE WAS A BIG MAN in an enormous black robe. He wore a white collar. He had reddish-brown hair and penetrating blue eyes. They were the kind of eyes that bored deep into your soul, eyes that demanded you stand a little straighter—and no matter what, those eyes insisted that you tell the truth.

  His name was Father Thomas Mannion.

  I know now that he was only five-foot-eight with an average build, but he seemed much larger then. Maybe it was because he walked with such purpose, that long black robe trailing behind him. Or maybe it was his handshake: The man seemed to have hands of steel. Or maybe it’s that he came along at a time in my life when I needed a father. He arrived at Holy Rosary, our home parish, when I was in the fourth grade. As Father Mannion once said, “The first time I saw Lenny, he was no bigger than a basketball.” Because of my mother’s devotion to the Catholic Church, I already had tremendous respect for priests and nuns. She wouldn’t have it any other way. But Father Mannion was unique. He was special because he made me feel special by keeping an eye on me. I later learned that my mother had asked him to do just that.

  I was an altar boy. I loved the Mass, the Catholic church service. The Mass back then was said in Latin. I learned the Latin; I took comfort in the words, which sounded strange to most Americans. I took it as a challenge to master something different, to be able to do more than just mumble the words of those Latin prayers. I loved putting on the black cassock and the white surplice, hanging it just right. The pleats in my outfit were just perfect; it was starched just right, thanks to my mother. I loved to wear that cassock and kneel at the side of the altar as Father Mannion said the Mass. I loved ringing the bells when the Host was raised during the consecration. I loved the smell of incense that filled the air during the High Mass. Holy Rosary was a relatively small church, but it seemed huge to me. The altar. The stained-glass windows. The crucifix. The statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It may as well have been the Vatican to me, or at least St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I loved the ceremony, the quiet contemplation, the public prayers. Nothing was better than being an altar boy when Father Mannion said the Mass. He seemed like a spiritual giant, a true man of God.

  For an Irish-Catholic woman, there could be no greater blessing than for one of her sons to become a priest. My mother never told me that directly, but she’d say that Father Mannion was a great guy, and she’d talk about “the wonderful life” of the priests because “they help so many people.” The priests impressed me, too. I used to pretend to say Mass in our apartment. We’d set up a little altar on the sofa, and we had cups and saucers and water and a little bread to serve as the Communion. I said the Mass in Latin. I thought it was really neat.

  There was a 7:00 A.M. Mass in the convent for the nuns, and I was the most requested altar boy for that service. Some of the nuns knew my mother, so they were happy to have me around. They also said I did a good job as the altar boy. Before I served Mass, my mother always made sure that my fingernails were clean. To her, it was a mortal sin to be an altar boy with dirty fingernails, especially in the convent where all the nuns would see me. But what I liked best was that after the Mass I could stay and eat breakfast with the
m. It might be anything from bacon and eggs to pancakes or waffles or all kinds of things I never had at home. I liked being an altar boy, and I felt special to be near the priest as the Mass was said—and those breakfasts were a real bonus. It was a welcome change from the oatmeal we had for breakfast every day at home.

  Oatmeal. Oatmeal. And more oatmeal.

  After a while, I hated oatmeal, and when I grew up, I didn’t eat oatmeal for nearly forty years. It was a reminder of how we had nothing else for breakfast, how oatmeal was all we could afford.

  In Brooklyn of the 1940s, you identified your neighborhood by the nearest Catholic Church. You could tell someone, “I live by Holy Rosary…I live by St. Paul’s,” and people would know exactly where you meant. A church was more than a church; it was the center of the neighborhood for both blacks and whites, as about 30 percent of our parish was minority. This was before most homes had TVs, before computers, before most people had cars, and before anyone had ever heard of a shopping mall. It was a time when a bingo game or a fair with small games of chance and lots of baked treats were a real blessing. Pot luck dinners were common. So were dances for teenagers and basketball games in the gym. Father Mannion ran the gym and the dances. Today, he’d probably be said to be in charge of the youth ministry; back then, he was just a young priest who decided to work with the kids. No one assigned him the job, he just did it.

  Because my mother went to Mass almost every day and because I attended Holy Rosary School, the church was a second home to us. It was where we found friends, where my mother felt secure because her children were being taught and cared for by nuns and priests. I know that some people hated going to Catholic schools, and claim to be still scarred by some of the nuns who taught them—but I firmly believe in Catholic education. Sure, some of the nuns would grab you by the ear and seem about ready to tear it off—but most of the time we deserved it. OK, once a nun jerked me so hard by the ear I swore I felt blood, and all because I had tried to sneak in front of another kid in line. I thought that was a little extreme, but I sure wasn’t going to say anything to her—or to my mother, who would just support the nun, and the nun would have given me worse punishment for mouthing off. So you kept quiet and took it and were grateful that your parents never found out about what happened. I remember sitting at my desk and turning around, talking to a kid behind me—and whap!—the nun cracked me across the hand with a ruler. I was whacked on the butt for talking in line. It really wasn’t a big deal. We all knew that the nuns usually liked the girls best; some of them were quick to spot us boys messing around, and then come roaring down the aisle of little wooden desks. They looked like enraged penguins. They’d tell us to stick out our hands and—whap! whap! whap!—you’d get up to five whaps across your hands with that ruler. And these were nuns from an order called Sisters of Mercy! But I liked most of the nuns back then, and I still have some nuns who are among my best friends today.