I lived in a ghetto when I was eleven, after several adverse family-related events occurred, and we had to leave our suburban home in Smithtown, Long Island, and move to projects in Staten Island. My best friend suddenly switched from my white friend Brian to my black friend Wesley, in a place where the only time I saw "white people" was on TV. I had the opposite experience growing up in Smithtown. I was excited about meeting "black people." Unfortunately, they were usually not as excited to meet me.
I was the fastest runner in both Smithtown and Staten Island, and could jump over a 4-foot fence without touching it. The jumping skills perfected as a child were priceless in surviving the Staten Island terrain. I usually out-ran prejudice, but sometimes found myself trapped in alleys, climbing up walls or cutting through yards protected by dogs. I suffered the consequences of my color only once, when 7 black girls older, bigger and stronger than I gave me a good beating. I definitely escaped before they were finished with me, and lived to tell.
Wesley was my next-door neighbor. He was the kid all the girls wanted to date, everybody's friend, and the strongest in the neighborhood. When teams were picked for basketball, he was always picked first. I was always chosen last, as I had no prior training whatsoever in basketball, street football or stick-ball. My friends nick-named me "little man," and never made me feel like an "outsider." I spent most of my time with Wesley, who always stuck up for me, and saved my life at least 100 times. He also tangled me into quite a bit of mischief. At that point in my life, I hadn't even held a girl's hand. Wesley, on the other hand, was already "doing the wild thing." We were both eleven.
Comic relief was also in my Staten Island "survival bag." I coincidentally memorized a few of Bill Cosby's comedy records just prior to the unanticipated move from Smithtown. I couldn't get enough of Cosby's humor. I searched for his albums every where. I memorized every line and every change of tone in each of his stories, and entertained my Smithtonian friends with them. In retrospect, Smithtown was my "rehearsal" era, quickly followed by "stand-up" to my skeptic audience in Staten Island. I once heard comedian Jerry Seinfeld memorized those albums as well.
I was nerdy in Smithtown. I was first in my class, and couldn't get enough of this thing we call "education." In Staten Island, I was quickly learning to "walk the walk"... I missed about forty percent of my sixth grade due to the moves during that year. Luckily, Smithtown put me far enough ahead to compensate for the lost class time, and I can't put a price on what I learned in Staten Island. It was definitely a much different experience than summer camp USDAN for the Performing Arts, where I learned theatre, guitar and singing, and enjoyed Broadway shows and ballet performances with my other privileged friends.
I remember hearing "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" blasting through the concrete wall between my apartment and Wesley's, which his brother played repeatedly. The wall would vibrate so strongly, you could "feel" the music. My grandfather Jim, a big and brawny Irish-American truck driver, was never happy about that. "Big Jim," who looked like John Wayne, could instantly tell you the sum of any five five-digit numbers, and when I'd say "hey gram-pa, how did you do that," he'd say "hay is for horses." His favorite shows were "Sanford and Son" and "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson." His wife (my grand-ma Anna) died a few weeks before we moved to Staten Island. Jim died exactly one year later, soon after we moved back to the suburbs. Jim was madly in love with Anna, and died of a broken heart.
My mom moved us back to the suburbs later that same year. She bought a run-down house in Seaford, that used to be a horse barn, from the money made from her new profession as a real estate agent. She took a job at Big Chief Lewis in Massapequa and immediately became their best real estate sales agent. Her commissions were the ticket out of poverty. We shopped for clothes at the charity St Vincent de Paul, which had out-dated bell bottoms and paisley shirts. So I secured 4 paper routes, cut my neighbors' grass, and bought my own clothes. My mom said she would take care of the food and roof. Nice clothes were an amenity of the finer things in life, which she had no concern for at the moment.
My mom started her rental property business soon after buying her first 2-family house for $3000 in another run-down neighborhood. In Smithtown she was a "homemaker," i.e., cooking and cleaning, taking care of her children. Her first rental property marked the beginning of her new title of "home-maker," i.e., she actually started building homes. When she told people what her profession was, everyone thought she was a "stay-at-home" mom. Pretty clever woman. She loved to dance, and she and her girlfriends met regularly to do so, after having their weekly dinner meetings at a local diner.
I returned to see Wesley when I was 15, mostly just to thank him. I am sincerely grateful to that angel who saved my life 100 times, and his mother Shirley, who fed me when my mom and grandfather could not get home in time for dinner.
Wesley told me he had hot-wired a brand-new Trans Am and hit a bank for $45,000, with two other buddies I used to play street football with. "Cash-money millionaires." They ditched the car and split the loot 3 ways. One of his girlfriends was eight months pregnant. He was taking another girl out that night to a movie house on 42nd Street, Times Square. He told me he was going to settle down when the baby was born. His older brother was hooked on heroin.
I asked Wesley what he did with the money. He said he spent it all in 2 months. "On what ?," I asked. His response was "wine, women and song."
I left the Vanderbilt Avenue projects late that night with Wesley and his girlfriend. Fearlessly we walked down the long road to the Staten Island Ferry, which took us to a subway in South Manhattan. I declined Wesley's offer to join them in Times Square, and got off at Penn Station, to catch the Long Island Rail Road. I hugged and thanked him, then saluted him as his subway left the station. He winked back, then smiled. It was already past midnight. I headed home to the barn in Seaford, and thought about the day.
My pennysavers were waiting for me, which I had to fold that same night, before I delivered them the next morning. My mom helped me, as I filled her in on my adventure. When I mentioned the news routes were a pain in the neck, she reminded me that I didn't look good in bell-bottoms. I then went up to my room, prayed, and thanked God for giving me such a great mom, and a home again, in the suburbs. As "horrible" as that barn was, I never compared it to the nice high-ranch in Smithtown because I already realized it was not the worst-case scenario. I had my own room, I had a dog, and I had my own yard. And after all that training in Staten Island, I was often picked first for sports. I guess the relativity of it all made me appreciate that horse-barn in Seaford, and the meaning of a glass half-full. I agree with Forest Gump's mom: "Life's a box of chocolates."
I haven't seen Wesley since, though I think about him often. I looked for him on the web. One person with the same name lived in a penthouse apartment in Brooklyn. The other had passed away some years before. (thank you, Wes, and of course, Bill Cosby.
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." - Theodore Roosevelt
"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." - Buddha
"It doesn't matter what you did yesterday. It's in what you do today." - Rosemarie Martin
"Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may happen. Keep in the sunlight." - Benjamin Franklin
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. " - Mark Twain
"My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. " - Mark Twain
