I was supposed to be on guard in the East Bronx. I had smugly assured myself that I was. All my life I had known about boys like this, and here I had foolishly wandered into their lair. I had come to their attention. If I hadn’t been busy daydreaming, I would have had the sense to stay away from the railroad tracks. Edgar, I heard my mother saying, your head is always in the clouds. Come down if you know what’s good for you.
The last block to my apartment house I ran. I stood inside the street door, in the shadow, and waited for them to appear. When they came in the door I would run out again. I did not want to lead them to my mother.
No one came. Standing in the dark hallway, I played and replayed the scene over in my mind, looking for some small moment of honor, something I could find for the pain. But it came out the same way every time: “You Jewish?” “No.” Humiliation broke over me in waves, like sobs. I was enraged. At this moment if those boys had appeared I would have killed them. I felt ill. Then I began to sweat and grew suddenly cold. I leaned against the wall. A film of cold clammy sweat covered my face and neck and back.
For weeks afterward, whenever I went out, I looked for those two boys, and the fact that I never saw them did not remove them as a threat from my mind. I could go about my business only by the accident of their not being there, a matter entirely of their choice, and so even when absent they had me. But at the same time I knew it wasn’t even these two in particular, because Christian boys were like this all over, and you were free only at their collective whim, only if they happened not to walk down your street or lope through your backyard or otherwise see you. I struggled to understand Christianity as something that would shove a knife into my belly.
I was not to resume my Saturday trips to the library for some time. But my resolve to enter the World’s Fair contest for boys was unshaken. In fact, writing an essay on the Typical American Boy had now the additional appeal of an act of defiance. I, not those miserable louts, would propose the essence of American Boyhood. They were no models for anything. I doubted they could even read. If, by some accident, they were to hear of the contest, they wouldn’t know the first thing about how to go about writing for it. The best they could hope for was to go along the streets and stick up someone who had written for the contest and to steal what he had written. Well, it wouldn’t be me.
I knew I was in for a lot of work. I had not only to compose the essay and copy it out neatly, but to find an envelope and buy the stamps for it. I decided to write my essay in secret, at night, after I did my homework. I would confide in no one. First of all, the writing was supposed to be done without help. But also I didn’t want anyone confusing me with advice. I especially didn’t want anyone telling me what the odds were against my winning. The age limit was thirteen, which meant I was competing with people in the eighth grade.
I was now engaged in an enterprise that was more interesting to me than anything else in my entire life. I felt good again. When my mother was out of the house, I searched everywhere for a good picture of myself to enclose with the essay. I assumed they wanted a picture for two reasons—first, to help make sure you were the writer; second, so that if the essay was good they could look at the picture, and the artist who was doing the sculpture would tell them if you were handsome enough for his purposes. If two essays were equally good, they would choose the better-looking boy.
I found the gold Pickwick Chocolates tin where the family snapshots were kept. The best, most good-looking picture was one taken before my operation, when I was leaner and with a firmer jawline. Donald had snapped it with my father’s Kodak. It was not the newest of photos, it was from a few summers before, when my father had money and had taken us to the country for a vacation on a real working farm in Connecticut. But it had been shot fairly close up, so that you couldn’t see how short I was then. I knew the picture had to go with the words and that the words would be good, so I couldn’t send a picture that suggested that this boy, whoever he was, was too young to write so well. But this would do: it was a clear black-and-white photo, just the right size, and the sun lay across my face so that I squinted in a friendly attractive way. Behind me was an open field.
The evening I finally sat down to write my essay I propped my picture on the table in front of me. I thought of being in the country. My bold father liked the unusual, even in vacations, so together with our friends across the street, Dr. and Mrs. Perlman and their son Jay, we had all driven in the Perlman car to this farm. Connecticut was even farther out than Pelham Manor. At the time I thought of our going there as a foray into Christianity. Perhaps my mother did too. She was leery of the idea and would have preferred a place like White Lake, in the Catskills, at a real resort hotel with dancing in the evenings.
Instead of writing my essay, I fell to dreaming about our vacation. But it was really interesting. The farm was immense, with crops growing up everywhere in the sun. The farmer was a skinny buck-toothed man who laughed a lot and sat at the end of a long table as the boarders and the farmer’s family and the farmhands in their overalls all had dinner together. Fresh corn grown right there, fresh milk from his own cows, eggs and chickens from his own coops. There were big soft tomatoes and sweet peas and chunks of hand-churned butter, and bread baked in the kitchen by the farmer’s wife. She was a big woman who wore an apron all the time, her grey hair was bound behind her head in a bun, she had fat red hands that passed under my face as she put the bowls of food on the table. She had two daughters, who helped serve, and one of them who had hair the color of hay caused my father and Dr. Perlman to glance at each other when she came to their attention. My father was now inspired to recite the shortest poem in the English language. “It’s called ‘A Dissertation on the Antiquity of Microbes,’” he said, and cleared his throat. Everyone looked at him in alarm. “‘Adam had ’em,’” my father said. Everyone laughed.
Hanging corkscrews of flypaper turned slowly in the breeze coming in through the screen doors. Flies were stuck to the paper, clumps of them, some of the hanging swirls were all black. My mother could not look at them. There were two kinds of milk in pails on the table: milk the farmer’s wife had boiled and raw milk straight from the cows. Of course my father wanted us all to try the raw milk. My mother gently suggested she would prefer the pasteurized for Donald and me.
“But these are certified cows,” my father said. “Isn’t that so?” he said to the farmer.
“Yes sir,” the farmer said, smiling his buck-toothed smile. “Ain’t nothing wrong with these cows,” he said, but then, unfortunately, went into a coughing spell that turned his face red and shook his skinny chest. He cleared his throat and smiled.
“Well,” my mother said as diplomatically as she could, “we’re used to the pasteurized, if you don’t mind.”
My father continued to argue the point. He had no shame in discussing private feelings in public places; he did this too at restaurants, embarrassing everyone in the family by talking with the same directness as when we were home alone. “There probably isn’t one TB bacillus left in New England,” he said. My mother gave him a look, but it did no good. He seemed oblivious to the fact that the farmer and the two farmhands at the table were enjoying the discussion. My mother ladled the milk that had been boiled into our glasses. My father dramatically held his glass up to the light and poured the raw milk, lifting the ladle farther and farther away so that it made a rich froth in the glass and sounded delicious. He then drank off the milk in one draft, smacking his lips and putting the glass down on the table with a rap. He looked at us and spread his arms. “I’m still alive,” he said. He was having a good time. Meanwhile, my mother quietly pushed from her place a soft-boiled egg in which she had discovered a blood spot.
One of the farmhands let us come haying with him. Donald and I rode the wooden wagon, you could feel the horse’s exertion in the creak and lurch of the wagon over the rutted road. The wagon stopped and hay flew up in our faces and we laughed. Then I started sneezing and had to get down. The cows in t
he fields swished their tails about and flies rose from their flanks. Cow flop looking like disks of chocolate pudding was everywhere in the stony field. Down at the lake we rowed a boat about and found the water choked with weeds. My father and another guest found some chains, and from the rowboat we dragged these chains through the water and pulled up the weeds until we had made a clear place in the lake near the shore. Here we swam, or, rather, Donald and my father swam. I splashed about for a while and then left them swimming and went up the hill to play by myself. The sun shone, and what amazed me was the fact that no one paid attention to the animals and nevertheless they didn’t run away. Pinky had always run away if you took her off the leash. The animals in the Farm in the Park had been in pens or corrals. Here the cows stood about in the open as far as you could see. Horses grazed in the field and they weren’t hitched to anything. Chickens ran in the yard and a dog who didn’t even have a collar lay asleep at the foot of the porch where the women guests sat. I had never seen animals left alone before. The sun and the sky seemed untethered too, I felt the freedom of things at this farm, and I could run everywhere I wanted and watch everything and still be on the farm. At night the air became cool, we wore sweaters after dinner and I went to bed under a soft eider quilt on starchy scratchy sheets. I became drowsy listening to the adults talking softly on the porch below my window. The crickets and the frogs of night grew louder in my ears, like my own pulse. I kept my face under the top sheet because of all the mosquitoes in the room. I might have complained and caused a disturbance except for what my father had said when I’d shown him my first mosquito bite on this day of our arrival. “Quick, Henry, the Flit” is what he said, smiling. That’s what I said under the covers hearing the mosquito buzzing just above my ear, “Quick, Henry the Flit,” although there was no Flit near, no spray can to put it in, and no Henry.
TWENTY-SEVEN
This is the essay I sent to the World’s Fair on the theme of the Typical American Boy.
The typical American Boy is not fearful of Dangers. He should be able to go out into the country and drink raw milk. Likewise, he should traverse the hills and valleys of the city. If he is Jewish he should say so. If he is anything he should say what it is when challenged. He roots for his home team in football and baseball but also plays sports himself. He reads all the time. It’s all right for him to like comic books so long as he knows they are junk. Also, radio programs and movies may be enjoyed but not at the expense of important things. For example he should always hate Hitler. In music he appreciates both swing and symphony. In women he appreciates them all. He does not waste time daydreaming when he is doing his homework. He is kind. He cooperates with his parents. He knows the value of a dollar. He looks death in the face.
Once I had done it, I copied it out in my best penmanship. I had to copy it twice because just as I got to the end the first time my pen leaked and I got a big blot in the margin. I mailed it according to all the rules, and then I stopped thinking about it. I had given the American Boy contest everything I had, but now it was out of my hands and so I wanted it out of my mind as well. I knew these things took a very long time. Even when you sent away for something you had to allow six weeks for delivery. I had never understood why, but there it was.
Of course, since I had thought that the essay represented my last and only chance to get to the World’s Fair, it was inevitable that an opportunity to go would arise immediately. It came by way of the shy soft voice of my friend Meg. “I go every Saturday,” she told me. “Norma doesn’t like to leave me alone all day, so she takes me with her. But I have to stay close by where she works and so it isn’t much fun. If you came with me, we could take care of each other and Norma wouldn’t worry. Edgar, we could see everything!”
Oh my dear friend—this was the longest statement she had ever made to me! She tucked her hair behind her ears and smiled her ambiguous smile. I could see her lovely slender neck. She had small hands and the largest, clearest grey eyes. We were sitting after school in the swings at Claremont Park. Our feet were on the ground and we were pushing ourselves back and forth in small arcs. I couldn’t believe my good fortune, but I pretended to think about it very soberly. “It’s a good idea,” I said, finally. “Everyone would benefit.”
As soon as I could, but without unseemly haste, I left Meg and ran home to talk to my mother. This would take some doing. A rill of disloyalty opened up in me. But Donald no longer lived at home and nothing could be further from the thoughts of my mother and father right now than the World’s Fair. I had waited patiently and without making a pest of myself. So maybe it would be all right.
I marshaled my arguments over a glass of milk and two Oreo cookies. When my mother came home from shopping, I helped her put the groceries away and then I told her about the invitation. “Who invited you?” she said, sitting down with a cup of coffee. “Is it your friend’s idea or the mother’s?”
This was the tough question. Either answer was a calculated risk. The mother was not looked on favorably. But a child’s invitation lacked substance. “It’s the mother’s,” I said. “She asked Meg to ask me to ask you.”
My mother gazed at me, not unkindly. “I suppose everyone has gone by now,” she said. “How much would it cost?”
“That’s the beauty part. We get in free, Meg’s mother works at the Fair.”
“Doing what, may I ask?”
“I don’t know exactly,” I said. “But it must be a good job because she has a discount pass for the rides. Most of the exhibits are free anyway. The souvenirs, I suppose, would cost something. But who needs souvenirs?” I said stoutly. “They’re for children.”
I saw the indecision in my mother’s eyes. This was better than I had hoped for. “I’ll talk to your father,” she said. “Now go do your homework.”
That evening it was time for bed, and my father had not yet come home. I turned off the light and decided to wait up in the dark. I watched the lights of the Concourse traffic on the ceiling. A light would hover in the corner of the room and then flare outward and disappear just as the sound of the engine became loudest. Then the sound would recede. I must have fallen asleep because I awoke to a conversation already under way.
“The phone bill,” my mother was saying. “Consolidated Edison. Today I didn’t even have the money to get your shirts out of the Chinese laundry.”
“I have some money for you.”
“You’ve been saying that for three days.”
“I drew something against my commissions this morning. I don’t like to do that, since it puts me in the hole.”
“I’ll tell you what puts you in the hole. Your card playing puts you in the hole.”
“Does this go with dinner? What course is this?”
“Tell me of any other wife who waits to twelve o’clock to serve dinner? Where have you been? What have you been up to?”
“If you don’t let me eat in peace, I’m going to walk right out of here.”
“Walk. You don’t frighten me. Do I ever have your company? Would I know the difference?”
But it was quiet for a while. I heard the sounds of silverware on a plate. The kitchen faucet ran.
“You want anything else?”
“No, thank you.”
“I have another matter to discuss,” my mother said. “Edgar has been invited to go with that little girl Meg to the World’s Fair.”
“Well?” my father said. “Why not?”
“Of course, you know whose child she is,” my mother said.
“Whose?”
At this moment a bus pulled up to the curb under my window and the doors hissed and the engine idled loudly. The doors closed and the bus drew away, its gears grinding.
“I hate gossip,” my father was saying. “In fact, that’s worse than gossip, that’s slander. How would you feel if people went around telling stories about you?”
“These are not stories, these are facts. Everyone knows. It’s common knowledge in the neighborhood.”
“Well, supposing it’s true. That was years ago. The man is dead.”
“How has she gotten by all these years?” my mother said. “Do people change that much?”
“I’m not interested,” my father said. “She sounds like a nice enough woman to me. I’ve seen his little friend. She’s a sweet girl. Let him go. He can take care of himself. I’ve been meaning for us to go to the World’s Fair.”
“One of your promises.”
“Yes, one of my promises. And I will make good on it. In the meantime, if he has the chance he should go and enjoy himself. There’s little enough for anyone to enjoy these days.”
“You’re telling me,” my mother said.
When the day came, I was ready. I dressed in a shirt and tie and wore my school knickers and my new low shoes, of which I was very proud. I had until recently worn the old high lace-up kind. Folded in my pocket were two dollars that my father had given me with instructions that I didn’t have to spend all of it if I didn’t need to; but that if I needed to, then I had it to spend. I understood this instruction. It was a great morning of the spring. I raced down the hill from the Concourse, crossing Eastburn at 174th Street, and ran along past the schoolyard, crossed at 173rd, went right by my old house, turned left at Mt. Eden Avenue and ran through the Oval, and up the hill to Meg’s house overlooking Claremont Park. My mother had wanted to walk me here so as to “thank” Norma, as she said, but I knew that wasn’t a good idea and talked her out of it. She would have let Norma know what a great responsibility it was to take care of another woman’s son for a whole day. I didn’t think Norma needed to hear that. However subtle my mother believed herself to be, however delicately suggestive in her statements, she was in fact brutally direct. It was a characteristic I had come to rely on, knowing in no uncertain terms where I stood—that was her phrase, no uncertain terms—but it took getting used to. I didn’t want Norma to hear from my mother in no uncertain terms.
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