Modern American Memoirs

by Annie Dillard

  Flicking the yo-yo expressed something. The sudden, potentially comic extension of one’s arm to twice its length. The precise neatness of it, intrinsically soothing, as if relieving an inner tension too slight to be noticeable, the way a man might hitch up his pants simply to enact a reassuring gesture. It felt good. The comfortable weight in one’s hand, the smooth, rapid descent down the string, ending with a barely audible snap as the yo-yo hung balanced, spinning, pregnant with force and the slave of one’s fingertip. That it was vaguely masturbatory seems inescapable. I doubt that half the pubescent boys in America could have been captured by any other means, as, in the heat of the fad, half of them were. A single Loop-the-Loop might represent, in some mysterious way, the act of masturbation, but to break down the entire repertoire into the three stages of throw, trick, and return representing erection, climax, and detumescence seems immoderate.

  The greatest pleasure in yo-yoing was an abstract pleasure—watching the dramatization of simple physical laws, and realizing they would never fail if a trick was done correctly. The geometric purity of it! The string wasn’t just a string, it was a tool in the enactment of theorems. It was a line, an idea. And the top was an entirely different sort of idea, a gyroscope, capable of storing energy and of interacting with the line. I remember the first time I did a particularly lovely trick, one in which the sleeping yo-yo is swung from right to left while the string is interrupted by an extended index finger. Momentum carries the yo-yo in a circular path around the finger, but instead of completing the arc the yo-yo falls on the taut string between the performer’s hands, where it continues to spin in an upright position. My pleasure at that moment was as much from the beauty of the experiment as from pride. Snapping apart my hands I sent the yo-yo into the air above my head, bouncing it off nothing, back into my palm.

  I practiced the yo-yo because it pleased me to do so, without the slightest application of will power. It wasn’t ambition that drove me, but the nature of yo-yoing. The yo-yo represented my first organized attempt to control the outside world. It fascinated me because I could see my progress in clearly defined stages, and because the intimacy of it, the almost spooky closeness I began to feel with the instrument in my hand, seemed to ensure that nothing irrelevant would interfere. I was, in the language of jazz, “up tight” with my yo-yo, and finally free, in one small area at least, of the paralyzing sloppiness of life in general.

  The first significant problem arose in the attempt to do fifty consecutive Loop-the-Loops. After ten or fifteen the yo-yo invariably started to lean and the throws became less clean, resulting in loss of control. I almost skipped the whole thing because fifty seemed excessive. Ten made the point. But there it was, written out in the book. To qualify as an expert you had to do fifty, so fifty I would do.

  It took me two days, and I wouldn’t have spent a moment more. All those Loop-the-Loops were hard on the strings. Time after time the shank cut them and the yo-yo went sailing off into the air. It was irritating, not only because of the expense (strings were a nickel each, and fabricating your own was unsatisfactory), but because a random element had been introduced. About the only unforeseeable disaster in yo-yoing was to have your string break, and here was a trick designed to do exactly that. Twenty-five would have been enough. If you could do twenty-five clean Loop-the-Loops you could do fifty or a hundred. I supposed they were simply trying to sell strings and went back to the more interesting tricks.

  The witty nonsense of Eating Spaghetti, the surprise of The Twirl, the complex neatness of Cannonball, Backwards round the World, or Halfway round the World—I could do them all, without false starts or sloppy endings. I could do every trick in the book. Perfectly.

  The day was marked on the kitchen calendar (God Gave Us Bluebell Natural Bottled Gas). I got on my bike and rode into town. Pedaling along the highway I worked out with the yo-yo to break in a new string. The twins were appearing at the dime store.

  I could hear the crowd before I turned the corner. Kids were coming on bikes and on foot from every corner of town, rushing down the streets like madmen. Three or four policemen were busy keeping the street clear directly in front of the store, and in a small open space around the doors some of the more adept kids were running through their tricks, showing off to the general audience or stopping to compare notes with their peers. Standing at the edge with my yo-yo safe in my pocket, it didn’t take me long to see I had them all covered. A boy in a sailor hat could do some of the harder tricks, but he missed too often to be a serious threat. I went inside.

  As Ramos and Ricardo performed I watched their hands carefully, noticing little differences in style and technique. Ricardo was a shade classier, I thought, although Ramos held an edge in the showy two-handed stuff. When they were through we went outside for the contest.

  “Everybody in the alley!” Ramos shouted, his head bobbing an inch or two above the others. “Contest starting now in the alley!” A hundred excited children followed the twins into an alley beside the dime store and lined up against the wall.

  “Attention all kids!” Ramos yelled, facing us from the middle of the street like a drill sergeant. “To qualify for contest you got to Rock the Cradle. You got to rock yo-yo in cradle four time. Four time! Okay? Three time no good. Okay. Everybody happy?” There were murmurs of disappointment and some of the kids stepped out of line. The rest of us closed ranks. Yo-yos flicked nervously as we waited. “Winner receive grand prize. Special Black Beauty Prize Yo-Yo with Diamonds,” said Ramos, gesturing to his brother who smiled and held up the prize, turning it in the air so we could see the four stones set on each side. (“The crowd gasped…” I want to write. Of course they didn’t. They didn’t make a sound, but the impact of the diamond yo-yo was obvious.) We’d never seen anything like it. One imagined how the stones would gleam as it revolved, and how much prettier the tricks would be. The ultimate yo-yo! The only one in town! Who knew what feats were possible with such an instrument? All around me a fierce, nervous resolve was settling into the contestants, suddenly skittish as racehorses.

  “Ricardo will show trick with Grand Prize Yo-Yo. Rock the Cradle four time!”

  With a perfect, fluid movement Ricardo threw down the yo-yo, gathered the string and leisurely rocked the cradle.

  “One!” cried Ramos.

  “Two!” the kids joined in.

  “Three!” It was really beautiful. He did it so slowly you would have thought he had all the time in the world. I counted seconds under my breath to see how long he made it sleep.

  “Four!” said the crowd.

  “Thirteen,” I said to myself as the yo-yo snapped back into his hand. Thirteen seconds. Excellent time for that particular trick.

  “Attention all kids!” Ramos announced. “Contest start now at head of line.”

  The first boy did a sloppy job of gathering his string but managed to rock the cradle quickly four times.

  “Okay.” Ramos tapped him on the shoulder and moved to the next boy, who fumbled. “Out.” Ricardo followed, doing an occasional Loop-the-Loop with the diamond yo-yo. “Out…out…okay,” said Ramos as he worked down the line.

  There was something about the man’s inexorable advance that unnerved me. His decisions were fast, and there was no appeal. To my surprise I felt my palms begin to sweat. Closer and closer he came, his voice growing louder, and then suddenly he was standing in front of me. Amazed, I stared at him. It was as if he’d appeared out of thin air.

  “What happen boy, you swarrow bubble gum?”

  The laughter jolted me out of it. Blushing, I threw down my yo-yo and executed a slow Rock the Cradle, counting the four passes and hesitating a moment at the end so as not to appear rushed.

  “Okay.” He tapped my shoulder. “Good.”

  I wiped my hands on my blue jeans and watched him move down the line. “Out…out…out.” He had a large mole on the back of his neck.

  Seven boys qualified. Coming back, Ramos called out, “Next trick Backward Round the World! O
kay? Go!”

  The first two boys missed, but the third was the kid in the sailor hat. Glancing quickly to see that no one was behind him, he hunched up his shoulder, threw, and just barely made the catch. There was some loose string in his hand, but not enough to disqualify him.

  Number four missed, as did number five, and it was my turn. I stepped forward, threw the yo-yo almost straight up over my head, and as it began to fall pulled very gently to add some speed. It zipped neatly behind my legs and there was nothing more to do. My head turned to one side, I stood absolutely still and watched the yo-yo come in over my shoulder and slap into my hand. I added a Loop-the-Loop just to show the tightness of the string.

  “Did you see that?” I heard someone say.

  Number seven missed, so it was between myself and the boy in the sailor hat. His hair was bleached by the sun and combed up over his forehead in a pompadour, held from behind by the white hat. He was a year or two older than me. Blinking his blue eyes nervously, he adjusted the tension of his string.

  “Next trick Cannonball! Cannonball! You go first this time,” Ramos said to me.

  Kids had gathered in a circle around us, those in front quiet and attentive, those in back jumping up and down to get a view. “Move back for room,” Ricardo said, pushing them back. “More room, please.”

  I stepped into the center and paused, looking down at the ground. It was a difficult trick. The yo-yo had to land exactly on the string and there was a chance I’d miss the first time. I knew I wouldn’t miss twice. “Can I have one practice?”

  Ramos and Ricardo consulted in their mother tongue, and then Ramos held up his hands. “Attention all kids! Each boy have one practice before trick.”

  The crowd was silent, watching me. I took a deep breath and threw, following the fall of the yo-yo with my eyes, turning slightly, matador-fashion, as it passed me. My finger caught the string, the yo-yo came up and over, and missed. Without pausing I threw again. “Second time,” I yelled, so there would be no misunderstanding. The circle had been too big. This time I made it small, sacrificing beauty for security. The yo-yo fell where it belonged and spun for a moment. (A moment I don’t rush, my arms widespread, my eyes locked on the spinning toy. The Trick! There it is, brief and magic, right before your eyes! My hands are frozen in the middle of a deaf-and-dumb sentence, holding the whole airy, tenuous statement aloft for everyone to see.) With a quick snap I broke up the trick and made my catch.

  Ramos nodded. “Okay. Very good. Now next boy.”

  Sailor-hat stepped forward, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. He threw once to clear the string.

  “One practice,” said Ramos.

  He nodded.

  “C’mon Bobby,” someone said. “You can do it.”

  Bobby threw the yo-yo out to the side, made his move, and missed. “Damn,” he whispered. (He said “dahyum.”) The second time he got halfway through the trick before his yo-yo ran out of gas and fell impotently off the string. He picked it up and walked away, winding slowly.

  Ramos came over and held my hand in the air. “The winner!” he yelled. “Grand prize Black Beauty Diamond Yo-Yo will now be awarded.”

  Ricardo stood in front of me. “Take off old yo-yo.” I loosened the knot and slipped it off. “Put out hand.” I held out my hand and he looped the new string on my finger, just behind the nail, where the mark was. “You like Black Beauty,” he said, smiling as he stepped back. “Diamond make pretty colors in the sun.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Very good with yo-yo. Later we have contest for whole town. Winner go to Miami for State Championship. Maybe you win. Okay?”

  “Okay.” I nodded. “Thank you.”

  A few kids came up to look at Black Beauty. I threw it once or twice to get the feel. It seemed a bit heavier than my old one. Ramos and Ricardo were surrounded as the kids called out their favorite tricks. “Do Pickpocket! Pickpocket!”

  “Do the Double Cannonball!”

  “Ramos! Ramos! Do the Turkish Army!”

  Smiling, waving their hands to ward off the barrage of requests, the twins worked their way through the crowd toward the mouth of the alley. I watched them moving away and was immediately struck by a wave of fierce and irrational panic. “Wait,” I yelled, pushing through after them. “Wait!”

  I caught them on the street.

  “No more today,” Ricardo said, and then paused when he saw it was me. “Okay. The champ. What’s wrong? Yo-yo no good?”

  “No. It’s fine.”

  “Good. You take care of it.”

  “I wanted to ask when the contest is. The one where you get to go to Miami.”

  “Later. After school begins.” They began to move away. “We have to go home now.”

  “Just one more thing,” I said, walking after them. “What is the hardest trick you know?”

  Ricardo laughed. “Hardest trick killing flies in air.”

  “No, no. I mean a real trick.”

  They stopped and looked at me. “There is a very hard trick,” Ricardo said. “I don’t do it, but Ramos does. Because you won the contest he will show you. But only once, so watch carefully.”

  We stepped into the lobby of the Sunset Theater. Ramos cleared his string. “Watch,” he said, and threw. The trick started out like a Cannonball, and then unexpectedly folded up, opened again, and as I watched breathlessly the entire complex web spun around in the air, propelled by Ramos’ two hands making slow circles like a swimmer. The end was like the end of a Cannonball.

  “That’s beautiful,” I said, genuinely awed. “What’s it called?”

  “The Universe.”

  “The Universe,” I repeated.

  “Because it goes around and around,” said Ramos, “like the planets.”

  MALCOLM X (MALCOLM LITTLE) (1925-1965)

  One of eight children, Malcolm Little was born in Omaha, Nebraska. White supremacists killed his father. Later the children went to foster homes.

  He was a distinguished student, but abandoned school, discouraged, and turned to drugs and crime. Imprisoned at twenty-one, he studied Elijah Muhammad’s Black Muslim teachings in the prison library. In 1952, after his release, he adopted the name Malcolm X and joined the Nation of Islam; he worked as a minister and was a powerful spokesman for Elijah Muhammad.

  Twelve years later, Malcolm X broke with the organization and formed his own Muslim group. He visited Mecca, deepened his spirituality, enlarged his views, and founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity. In 1965, he was assassinated while speaking at a Harlem ballroom.

  Writer Alex Haley worked with him on The Autobiography of Malcolm X. It came out the year he died. Since his death, nine volumes of his speeches have been published.

  from THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X

  I came into a classroom with my hat on. I did it deliberately. The teacher, who was white, ordered me to keep the hat on, and to walk around and around the room until he told me to stop. “That way,” he said, “everyone can see you. Meanwhile, we’ll go on with class for those who are here to learn something.”

  I was still walking around when he got up from his desk and turned to the blackboard to write something on it. Everyone in the classroom was looking when, at this moment, I passed behind his desk, snatched up a thumbtack and deposited it in his chair. When he turned to sit back down, I was far from the scene of the crime, circling around the rear of the room. Then he hit the tack, and I heard him holler and caught a glimpse of him spraddling up as I disappeared through the door.

  With my deportment record, I wasn’t really shocked when the decision came that I had been expelled.

  I guess I must have had some vague idea that if I didn’t have to go to school, I’d be allowed to stay on with the Gohannas’ and wander around town, or maybe get a job if I wanted one for pocket money. But I got rocked on my heels when a state man whom I hadn’t seen before came and got me at the Gohannas’ and took me down to court.

  They told me I was
going to go to a reform school. I was still thirteen years old.

  But first I was going to the detention home. It was in Mason, Michigan, about twelve miles from Lansing. The detention home was where all the “bad” boys and girls from Ingham County were held, on their way to reform school—waiting for their hearings.

  The white state man was a Mr. Maynard Allen. He was nicer to me than most of the state Welfare people had been. He even had consoling words for the Gohannas’ and Mrs. Adcock and Big Boy; all of them were crying. But I wasn’t. With the few clothes I owned stuffed into a box, we rode in his car to Mason. He talked as he drove along, saying that my school marks showed that if I would just straighten up, I could make something of myself. He said that reform school had the wrong reputation; he talked about what the word “reform” meant—to change and become better. He said the school was really a place where boys like me could have time to see their mistakes and start a new life and become somebody everyone would be proud of. And he told me that the lady in charge of the detention home, a Mrs. Swerlin, and her husband were very good people.

  They were good people. Mrs. Swerlin was bigger than her husband, I remember, a big, buxom, robust, laughing woman, and Mr. Swerlin was thin, with black hair, and a black mustache and a red face, quiet and polite, even to me.

  They liked me right away, too. Mrs. Swerlin showed me to my room, my own room—the first in my life. It was in one of those huge dormitory-like buildings where kids in detention were kept in those days—and still are in most places. I discovered next, with surprise, that I was allowed to eat with the Swerlins. It was the first time I’d eaten with white people—at least with grown white people—since the Seventh Day Adventist country meetings. It wasn’t my own exclusive privilege, of course. Except for the very troublesome boys and girls at the detention home, who were kept locked up—those who had run away and been caught and brought back, or something like that—all of us ate with the Swerlins sitting at the head of the long tables.