by John Sanford
“If we get done faster,” Harry said, “it won’t be account of we got less, but account of you slowed down to crow over us.”
“He better not crow,” Gilbert said, “or we’ll take what he’s got left and pour it down his pants.”
“If he crows one single crow,” Harry said, “it’ll be the last crow he ever crows.”
“What’s your policy, Danny?” Gilbert said. “Do you eat fast, or do you make squish-squash like Monny?”
“I eat without a policy,” Danny said.
“You got to have a policy!” Gilbert said.
[The colored boy was eating your ice-cream with his eyes, and in a minute your plate would be empty. You knew how to fill it again, though. All you had to do was take that other dime out of your pocket and plank it down on the counter, saying, “A banana-split for Dragass Baxter.” But you knew something else—that three guys would turn and gawk at you with their pusses full of gunk, and finally one of them’d say, “Why, Mr. Jesus Johnson!”]
“I say you got to have a policy!” Gilbert said.
“I don’t got to have nothing!” Danny said. “I can eat fast, and I can eat slow, and if I want, I don’t have to eat at all! And that’s what I feel like right now—not eating! If anybody here wants to try and make me, stand up and say so!”
He climbed down from his stool and walked toward the door, followed briefly by a triple stare that ended on the now ownerless sundae. “No akey!” Monroe said, reaching for the dish.
Harry caught his arm. “We divvy,” he said.
“Sure, we divvy,” Gilbert said. “Half for little ole Harry and half for little ole Gil.”
“What about me?” Monroe said.
“You had more than we did to start with,” Harry said. “You told us so yourself.”
Danny waited at the corner for the colored boy to overtake him. “Here,” he said, taking his hand from his pocket. In his palm lay a crumb-dusted maraschino cherry.
The Union Forever! Hurrah, Boys, Hurrah!
On the morrow, Graduation Exercises would be held in the auditorium of Public School 604, and parents in pairs would fill the hall, each pair to fix on the fuzz of one special head, on the nap of one special face, on the blue serge suit holding one special thirteen-year-old life—but one such pair would be proud beyond the pride of all the rest, for one special mouth, made by them during some long-gone and almost forgotten night, would speak to their still unsubdued expectations. It would give voice to Part VIII of the program:
What I want to be when I Grow Up
A paper to be read by a member of the graduating-class of May, 1922.
The identity of this member was not yet known. Three of the seven eligible papers remained to be heard by the judges—the eighth-term English class in which the competition had been held, and its teacher, Miss Anita Campbell. Soon now, by volume of applause, the award would be made.
“Seymour Wolf,” Miss Campbell said.
The boy rose and went toward the front of the room. He avoided a foot put out to trip him, turned his head to blurt derision, and tripped over another foot further down the aisle. He faced the class, saying, “My composition is called, ‘What I Will Want to Be When I Will Grown Up.’”
“A sheeny,” someone said.
Miss Campbell’s pencil was a long yellow finger indicating Darcy Burke. “Up!” she said, and Darcy was up. “And out!” she said, and Darcy was out.
Seymour said, “I will now read.”
When I heard about this contest, I said that is a contest I will go in and write on paper. So I went to Mt. Morris Park and I climb up to the top of the mount where the osbervation tower is, and I sat down and thought out what I will write in the paper. I thought and thought in the sunshine on the grass, and at last I made up my mind. I will write that I will want to be a soldier.…
“A Yiddische soldier,” someone said.
Once more, Miss Campbell’s pencil picked off a victim, this time a boy who had been left back, one Leonard Griffin, and as he reached the door, she said, “I’ll see you next term, Leonard.”
“Not me, you wouldn’t,” Leonard said.
“You’ll never get a diploma, then.”
“I don’t want any diploma. I’m going to get working-papers.”
“If you ever learn which way is up, you’ll make a fine elevator operator. Good luck, Leonard.”
Seymour said, “I will now read again.”
My hero will be a genral that had the same name as me, Wolf, only he spelt it with an e on the end, Wolfe. This Wolfe with an e on the end, he was a soldier of the English when he was only fifteen years of old, and he wanted to get permoted, so he was very industerious, trying hard all the time.…
“Seymour,” Miss Campbell said, and then she paused, and into the void she dropped a manufactured cough. “Is your paper very long?”
“Oh, no,” Seymour said. “Only eight more pages.”
“Are they just as good?” she said, and good was given very gently.
“They’re even better,” the boy said.
“Come here,” she said, and when he came, she put her hand on his arm. Their eyes touched too, but only for the communicating instant when his said [Please] and hers said [No]. The boy went up the aisle to his desk.
Miss Campbell’s pencil moved to the next name on her list, the last but one. “Daniel Johnson,” she said.
He took his place before the class, saying, “My paper is in comversation.”
“Ah, you’ve written it in play-form.”
“No, in comversation.”
“That’s how plays are written—in dialogue.”
“Mine isn’t dialogue. It’s comversation.”
“Is there any difference?”
“Yes, ma’am, but I don’t know what it is. Well, I guess I will begin.”
In this comversation, I am suppose to be two different people, and I am arguing with myself which thing I will be when I grow up—a train-dispatcher or president. The one that has the best argument will win, and I will be the thing in that argument.
I said, “I think I will go out for being president.”
I replied, “No, I think I will go out for being train-dispatcher.”
I quizzed, “What is so wonderfully about that?”
I answered, “I will get to see all the trains.”
I stated, “If I’m president, I can ride on them.”
I said, “But I will tell them where to go. I will have all kinds of switches marked Bufflo, Rockchester, and Georgia, and when a train comes along, I will make it go on the Lehigh & Valley Railroad.”
I retorted, “I suppose that’s fun—pushing switches all day.”
I sneered, “Better fun than laying in the White House.”
I explained, “I will be running the United States, and you will only be running trains.”
I scoffed, “Nobody runs the United States. They run by themself.”
I asked, “What would happen if I make up my mind I wouldn’t pass any laws, and all I’m going to do is shoot marbels?”
I snapped, “Nothing. That’s what we got a vice-president for.”
I cried, “But supposing he felt like shooting marbels too? What’s empossible about that?”
I thundered, “The thing that’s empossible is for a train dispatcher to sneak out. There would be a wreck on the train.”
I jeered, “But supposing you can’t stay in. Supposing you absolutely have to go out.”
I repeated, “If I am a train-dispatcher, and I absolutely have to go out, then I absolutely have to stay in.…”
He broke off when he saw Miss Campbell glance at a watch pinned face-down over her heart.
“How does it turn out?” she said.
“I comvince myself,” the boy said.
“Of what?”
“That I ought to try for president.”
“Well, son, you have a noble ambition.”
“Oh, that isn’t my ambition. My ambition is to be a train-
dispatcher.”
“I thought you said you convinced yourself otherwise.”
“I did, but it wasn’t my ambition.”
“Only a few minutes are left, Danny,” the teacher said, “and there’s one more paper to be heard.”
“I’m sorry if my paper is rotten. My pop read it, and that’s what he said.”
“I don’t think it was rotten. Very few things ever are.” Danny sat down, and his place was taken by a Negro boy named Julian Pollard, “Read, Julian.”
Julian said, “My paper starts off like this.”
Honored mother, teachers, friends, and my father that got killed in France.…
“Stealing a chicken,” someone said.
“Up!” Miss Campbell said, pointing her pencil at Harry Keogh. “Read the motto of your class and get out.”
Under an enlarged photograph of Abraham Lincoln hung a framed sampler, reading: ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.
“‘All men are created equal,’” Harry said.
“Now, out!”
Harry gathered his school-supplies—a pen, a penwiper, a bottle of ink, and a gnawed ruler—and left the room.
Julian said, “I’ll start all over.”
Honored mother, teachers, friends, and my father that got killed in France, I am going to write down in this paper the thing I would most want to be when I grow up: I would want to be a lawyer. When you are a lawyer, you can go in the court and argue for justice. There is a lot of people that want justice, and when you are a lawyer, you can help the people get it. Poor people want justice all the time, but they have not got the money to pay for it, and somebody else gets the justice. So when I was a lawyer, I would try to get the poor people justice free of charge.
I do not think I could be a more honorable thing than a lawyer if I was a honest lawyer, and that is what I would always try very hard, to be honest. It is not easy. Some people think it is, but that is because they are not poor. They have all kinds of things that they want, and so they do not have to be unhonest to get them, although they sometimes are. But if you are poor, then you are like to get in trouble. I feel sorry for the poor people that live in poverish without justice, so that is why I want to be a lawyer when I grow up.…
The bell rang, and the school-year was over.
“That was a fine paper, Julian,” Miss Campbell said. “A very fine paper.”
The door opened, and Dr. Page, the Principal, entered the room. With him, through the widening and then narrowing crack, came the sound of hoarded shouts released: No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ sassy looks!
“Have you chosen a boy for Part VIII, Miss Campbell?” the Principal said.
“We’ve just heard the last paper, Doctor.”
“I didn’t get to finish it,” Julian said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Julian,” the teacher said. “Do you mind waiting, Doctor?”
“Not at all,” the Principal said. “Proceed.”
Julian said, “This is the rest of my paper.”
That is what I want to be, but it is not what I am going to be. I am going to be something else, and I know it, so I think I should write that down too. I am going to rack up balls in a pool-parlor, and I am going to shine shoes under a elevator-station on Eighth Avenue, and I am going to be a janitor, and a waiter, and a Red Cap, and a Pullman porter. I am not going to be a lawyer helping poor people get justice in the court. I am going to be a poor people myself. I am black, so I am going to be a dishwasher, and a window-cleaner, and a price-fighter, and a garbage-collector.
That is what I am going to be, but I am not going to like it. I am not going to laugh about wanting to be something with honor and only get told, “A lawyer, boy? What’s a matter with your head? Don’t you know your place, boy?” I am not going to say, “Yessuh,” and grin like Aunt Jemima. I am going to be mad. I am going to get in trouble. There is a sign in our classroom that says all men are created equal. It don’t say anything about only being equal if you are white, so I am going to try and be equal, and they are not going to let me be equal, and I am going to get in trouble about that, and I know it. That is all I have to write in this paper.
The boy stood where he was for a moment, rolling the composition into a scroll, but it was a club that he held when he walked to his seat and sat down. Dr. Page unbuttoned his Prince Albert as if he were about to take it off, but the motions were automatic, and he buttoned it again, still automatically, as if he had just put it on. Miss Campbell did nothing but follow the Negro boy with her eyes.
And then she spoke, saying, “I shall now call the names of the seven contestants, and the one receiving the most applause will represent you tomorrow at the Exercises. Esteban Lopez [scattered support], Duane Madison [strong backing in his own precinct], Samuel Shapiro [the solid candidate of at least a quarter of the class, among them a boy named Edward Friedman, who said, “Yay for Sammy!“], Herbert Ortman [the choice of the cultured and the thoughtful; support weak to light], Seymour Wolf [one vote, his own], Daniel Johnson [silence], and Julian Pollard [continued silence]”
Miss Campbell rose now, and again she said, “Julian Pollard,” and still there was no response. Burying her pencil in a billow of palmer-method hair, she began to clap her hands, bringing them together time after time, until her cheeks trembled and her breasts swung, until the pencil worked free from her shaken hair, until the class, little by little and then all, caught her passion—and then there were no hands in the room that were not naming Julian Pollard the winner of the competition, none but those owned by Julian himself and Dr. Page.
The Principal stilled the class with a gesture. “Tomorrow’s program is overlong, Miss Campbell,” he said. “I think, therefore, that we shall go directly from Part VII, the presentation of diplomas, to Part IX, the singing of the National Anthem, and so conclude the Exercises. I wish you all a pleasant vacation.” He went to the door, and through the widening and then narrowing crack, no sound entered now but the walking-away retch of a pair of shoes.
Miss Campbell made her way slowly up the aisle to Julian Pollard’s desk. The boy sat still, looking down at his composition—no club now, but once more merely a tube of paper—and he did not move until the teacher touched the persian-lamb of his head. He came to his feet then, and the contact broke.
“Julian,” Miss Campbell said. “I’ve lived in this room for fifteen years, longer than you’ve been on earth. I don’t sleep here, and I don’t eat here, but this is my home, and this is where I like my friends to come and see me. I’ve had many visitors, many friends, in these fifteen years, but this is the first time that anyone, friend or otherwise, has come into my house and spit on the floor. Worse than that,” and she glanced at the picture of Lincoln, “far worse, the greatest man who ever lived has been spat upon too. I want to apologize for Dr. Page, Julian. I want to apologize because my house is so dirty today.”
The boy’s face was upraised now.
“If you’ll let me,” the teacher said, “I’d like to kiss you.”
The Black & White Polishing Company
“Pop,” Danny said, “I made up my mind about what I want for graduation.”
“Name it, and maybe you’ll get part of it.”
“I want two dollars and thirty cents.”
“What for—to study up to be a train-dispatcher?”
“When’re you going to stop picking on him for that composition?” the woman said. “You promised him a present. Either make good or back out.”
“I’m no welsher,” the hack-driver said. “What do you want the two bucks for, son?”
“Two-thirty,” the boy said. “I’m thinking of starting up a shoe-shine parlor.”
“What kind of a shoe-shine parlor could you get for two dollars and something?”
“The open-air kind.”
“Open-air! You mean, where you get down on your knees in the street?”
“I wouldn’t have to kneel on the sidewalk. There’s a leather cushion goes with the outfit.
”
“And I suppose there’s a sign too, saying, ‘I don’t have to do this for a living. I like it.’”
“No, the sign only says, ‘Shoe-shine—10c’ That goes with the outfit too.”
“So far, the outfit is a sign and a cushion.”
“You get a shoe-box and a foot-rest and a sign and a cushion, and you get two bottles of Kwik-Kleen Shu-Kreem and two cans of Kwik-Kleen Waxola, and you get four brushes and five flannel rags. That’s the outfit, and Hank Johns says it’s as good as new.”
“Who the hell is Hank Johns?”
“He owns the outfit.”
“I take it he’s retiring to live off his profits.”
“He has no profits. He’s busted.”
“That’s a fine business you’re buying.”
“I’m not buying the business, only the outfit.”
“He must be some shoe-shiner, this Hank Johns.”
“He’s a crack, but he lets too many guys practice on his outfit.”
“One of them good-natured slobs, eh? No wonder his prat is out.”
“He lets me practice every afternoon.”
“What does he do—go to the races?”
“No, he just waits for me to get done practicing.”
“The next question scares the life out of me. What happens when you get done practicing?”
“I fork over the money I took in.”
“Why? You earned it, didn’t you?”
“I know, but I was only practicing.”
“Son,” the hack-driver said, “you ain’t quite ready to go in business yet.”
“Why not?” the woman said.
“He’ll get gypped blind, bald-headed, and naked—and besides, he ain’t going down on his knees like a nigger for every son-of-a bitch with a dime.”
“Negro,” the woman said.
“Negro, nigger—what’s the diff?”
“Negro!” the woman said.
“All right, Negro,” the hack-driver said, “but it’s still a colored business.”
“There’s no law saying whites can’t shine shoes.”
“You don’t see ’em doing it, though.”
