On the way back from the rumble, Bob Martin said, “You guys need to stay away from the Sugar Bowl for the rest of the night.”
“Why’s that?’ I asked.
“It’s the first place the cops will come looking. It’s also possible that the Livernois boys could come around looking for some revenge,” he explained.
As soon as he dropped us off, I headed around to the back of the store to get my bike. Sally came around just as I was ready to ride off. She reached out, touched my hand and said, “Take care of your head. I’ll see you — maybe tomorrow.”
I watched her get into her cousin’s car and drive off, and then started pedaling for home. I was filled with mixed feelings. I was elated with the outcome of the rumble. Even though the adrenaline lift I’d experienced when we ran to the car after the rumble had faded, I still felt a sense of power and invulnerability. However, the sense of power didn’t translate into a feeling of strength. I’d also noticed I was trembling. My hands were weak on the handlebars, my wrist where the chain got me was hurting a lot, my legs could barely push the pedals of my bike, and I shivered as though I was cold. Sometimes, after working for a full day at the racetrack lugging heavy buckets of water and bales of hay, I’d have the same sense of physical exhaustion.
On another level, I’d begun to realize a certain bond developing between Sally and me. She’d been treating me much nicer than she treated anyone else in the gang. I saw levels of caring and gentleness which had never been evident in her before. I enjoyed the way that made me feel. I felt as though I could be more vulnerable around her than I could around most of the others in the gang, except for Billy, of course.
In the car on the way back to the Sugar Bowl, I’d noticed my shirt had some blood on it. I decided there wouldn’t be a good way to wash it on my own, so instead of going up my street in front of the houses, I rode down the alley behind them instead. A few houses down from my house, I took the shirt off and stuffed it into a garbage can behind one of the garages.
I got in the house with about a half hour to spare before my parents came home. I went into the bathroom and saw the top and right side of my head was covered with dried blood. My hair was caked with blood. I filled the sink with warm water, took a washcloth and started to wash the blood away. When the water hit the top of my head, it stung as though I’d put iodine on it. The water turned bright red. I looked at the washcloth and saw it was red as well. I let the water out, rinsed the washcloth and refilled the sink. I kept washing and eventually got the blood out of my hair and off my head, but it wouldn’t wash completely out of the washcloth.
Fortunately, the cut had stopped bleeding. I couldn’t see the cut but I could tell from the bump on my head it was near the top. The bump felt like it was the size of a large marble. I found a tube of salve in the medicine chest my mother had used on small cuts and rubbed some of it where I thought the cut might be. I decided if my parents noticed it or asked me about it, I would tell them I’d fallen off my bike on the way home from the practice. Plus, if they noticed my wrist being sore the bike accident story would fit right in. It would have also explained the washcloth being a slightly different color than it was before.
The interesting thing was — they never asked.
Not long after school was done for the summer, Miss Thomas informed me she would be having a few of her better students put on a recital. “How would you like to be one of my performers?” she asked.
My first reaction had been one of sheer panic. I knew Charlie was one of her students, but I’d never met any of her other students, nor had I ever heard any of them play. The part of me always needing to be better than anyone else, took over. In all my many lesson sessions with Miss Thomas, her criticisms were never about poor playing, but were rather about how to improve on something already good. A second, simultaneous reaction had leaped into my mind as I recalled the day at school when I played the Chopin Polonaise. The feelings of elation I had that day came back to me in a rush. I loved the feeling. I loved the applause. I loved seeing the tears of the teacher. I loved the looks of the giggling girls in the hallways and on my front porch when I practiced. The two reactions then blended into a conclusion that if Miss Thomas thought I was good enough to take part in the recital, then perhaps I was.
“I guess I would,” I answered. “What would I play?”
“I thought it would be good for you to play the Polonaise since you have it sounding so good now, and perhaps the E flat Chopin Nocturne. You almost have the first movement of the Beethoven Sonata learned, so we might be able to have it ready as well. The recital won’t be for a couple of months.”
My concerns about the other students took over again. “How many of us will be in the recital?” I asked with trepidation in my voice.
“I think I’ll have only three of you this time,” she answered with a knowing smile on her face. “Are you worried about something?”
The last thing I would ever have wanted Miss Thomas to think was that I could ever be less than perfect. There were two areas of my life where I felt a need to prove I was worthy. The gang was one, and being worthy of Miss Thomas’ approval was another. I answered accordingly, “No. I was just wondering is all.”
“Good. Then we’ll devote our lessons, and your practice time, to those three pieces. We have time yet, so we should be able to have them ready to go.”
During the early part of that summer, I made a decision not to try to run away. I didn’t want to be living on the streets because I didn’t want to lose the practice time for the recital. I loved the three pieces we were working on, and I was feeling more confident about playing them to perfection. When I would run away, I’d either sneak into the Intermediate school and use one of their pianos in the afternoons, or practice at a friend’s house. I didn’t pack music when I ran away, so the only things I could practice were pieces I’d completely memorized.
There was one time, the summer before when I was on the streets, when Miss Thomas had asked me some hard questions. When I wasn’t living at home, I would always manage to get to someone’s house to take a bath and put on clean clothes before a piano lesson. On this particular occasion, however, I hadn’t been able to. I’d been working at the racetrack, sleeping part of the time on some hay bales, part of the time under porches or in the back seats of cars in garages, and the rest of the time on the floor in the bowling alley. I’d managed to use the bathroom at the Sugar Bowl to wash my face and hands, but I still smelled like a stable and my clothes were filthy. I didn’t want to miss the lesson so I went anyway. I knew how dirty I was because the people on the bus had given me strange looks.
When I walked into the door of Miss Thomas’ studio, she looked up quickly from her desk, smiled, and then looked at me again with an expression of shock and surprise on her face. Her smile faded and she said, “Roland, are you alright?”
The skin on my face turned hot from the blush that bloomed as my embarrassment rose. “Yes ma’am,” I answered in a tight whisper.
“Roland, your clothes are filthy and from the smell of you I would bet you haven’t had a bath in quite some time. What is going on? You need to tell me why you’ve come to your lesson like this.” Her voice was stern and forceful. It was the first time Miss Thomas had ever raised her voice to me. The urge to cry was overwhelming. The tears had begun to well up in my eyes. I could feel my throat closing as I choked back a sob. Miss Thomas was probably the only person in the world whose anger I couldn’t bear.
I swallowed back the tears as my mind searched for an answer to her question. I didn’t want her to know I’d run away from home. I knew if she was aware of it she would have to call my mother and I’d be back home again in no time. I felt as though I had to go to the bathroom as I stood there with my eyes down and my hands stuffed into the pockets of my overalls.
I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind. “I went with some friends to the racetrack this morning, and we were fooling around in the stables and I got dirty. I stayed too long and I didn’t have time to go home before my lesson.”
Miss Thomas looked at me as though she was trying to make up her mind whether or not to believe me. I could feel myself withering under her gaze. Finally she stood up, put her hands on her hips and said, “Well, I can’t let you sit on my furniture with such filthy clothes, and I certainly can’t see how either one of us could concentrate on a piano lesson with you being so dirty. You’ll have to go home now. And Roland, don’t ever come to a lesson like this again, do you understand?”
I squirmed in my devastation. To lose the respect of this woman was more than I could bear. I couldn’t manage to speak or look at her, so I just nodded my head and turned to go.
Just as I was reaching out to open the door, she spoke in her normal, quiet voice, “I will see you here next week, Roland, and if you ever need someone to talk to about anything, you can always talk with me, you know.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I whispered as I went out the door and around the corner of the studio. I didn’t start to cry until I reached the street.
One day not long after school had let out, I decided to go hang out at the Sugar Bowl after I had finished setting pins at the bowling alley. When I got there, I noticed all the guys were hanging around outside. Usually, there were at least a few of them sitting inside the store. When I walked up to them after propping my bike up in the back, Freddy Shaw piped up and said, “Hey, Van Buren, have you ever tried smoking grass?”
I didn’t know what he meant — smoke grass? Why would anyone want to smoke grass? The other guys all started to giggle and laugh. I couldn’t figure out what was so funny. “What’s going on, you guys?” I asked. “I don’t get it.”
Freddy came over, put his big arm around my shoulder and said, “C’mon, Van. Let’s go behind the Sugar Bowl. Anyone else wants some more, now’s your chance.”
Crazy Jimmy, Sammy, and Bobby joined Freddy and me as we walked around to the back of the building. The guys all started giggling foolishly as Freddy reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a large, hand-rolled cigarette. It was so fat it almost looked like a cigar. I’d seen hand-rolled cigarettes before because some of the guys preferred to roll their own rather than pay for regular cigarettes, but this one was a monster. I wasn’t able to see what was so funny other than the ridiculous size of the cigarette, and I thought to myself that these guys were sure acting strange. Freddy pulled out his matches and lit the cigarette. He sucked in the smoke, held it in his lungs for a few seconds, and then slowly let the smoke flow out of his mouth. The smell did make me think of burning grass. I’d wondered at the time if they were really smoking someone’s lawn.
He handed the cigarette to me. “Suck it straight into your lungs, Van. Don’t hold it in your mouth first. Then hold it as long as you can before you blow it back out, and don’t blow it out fast.”
I took the cigarette and looked around at the other guys. I was still suspicious about what was going on. They were all grinning from ear to ear, pointing at me and nodding their heads, urging me to go ahead. I figured since I had just seen Freddy do it, it would be safe to take a chance. I sucked in the smoke the way Freddy had described, and held it in my lungs. The taste and smell were strange to me but I hadn’t found it unpleasant. As I gradually let the smoke drift out of my mouth, Bobby reached over, took the cigarette and did the same. I watched as each of the guys took their turn. As the cigarette came back around to me, Bobby told me that this cigarette was called a joint, and the drags off it were called tokes.
After the third or fourth time of taking my turn, I’d begun to notice I was feeling lightheaded. It almost felt as though I was floating. Time seemed to slow down and the urge to laugh was uncontrollable. A feeling of numbness crept into my lips and cheeks. The sense of not caring about my problems was overwhelming. All my usual attitudes of being tough and straight-faced vanished.
“What is this stuff?” I asked.
“It’s good shit, right Freddy?” Jimmy piped up with a giggle.
“Yeah, good shit,” Bobby chimed in.
“It’s ‘maryjane’,” Freddy said. “It’s ‘mary-wanna’. Right you guys?”
By that time, everyone was laughing uncontrollably, including me. As I would think back on that first experience, I would be filled with wonder at how relaxed and carefree we all were. I’d never felt such euphoria. Being able to drop the cares and woes of my life, even if for a short time, was irresistible. When Freddy announced he’d be getting some more marijuana in the near future, and he’d have some he would sell, I knew I wanted to have some of my own. I had to find some money. I wanted to be able to feel this way whenever I chose.
I never did manage to get the money together to buy the grass. It was just a few days after my experience smoking marijuana for the first time when I discovered the adoption papers in the attic of my parent’s house. Something in me went through a drastic change that day. My resolve earlier in the summer not to run away dissolved completely. I’d have to figure out some other way to practice for the recital without living at home. I knew I’d have to get away from my parents — not just for a few days or weeks — but permanently. If I hadn’t found those papers, I would have undoubtedly used some of my “run-away” money to buy the grass. Not so any longer. After learning about being adopted the money became vitally important. The grass could wait. Running away from home was no longer something I would just try to do once again — it had become something I knew I must do.
In the days after I found the adoption papers, my mind had begun to settle down so I was thinking more clearly. I knew I needed to find better work. I knew I needed to make decisions about going to school. I knew I needed to find places to sleep, take baths and change clothes. I knew I had to become more brazen about robbing stores for clothes and food. I knew I had to become more street-smart in order to avoid the police.
I’d initially decided I wouldn’t talk with my parents about the adoption, but rather, would just disappear when I was ready. I changed that decision when only a few days after the adoption discovery, my father dragged me back to the attic and gave me the worst beating he’d ever given me. I ended up with a black eye, a swollen jaw, several bruises on my arms, chest and back, and I twisted the same wrist I hurt in the rumble when I tried to stop myself from crashing into the wall.
I knew then I wanted to confront them. My hatred had grown to the point where I had a terrible need to hurt them before I disappeared for good.
While I’d thought I needed to get all the details resolved before I left home for good, that all changed one afternoon at the bowling alley. It was just a couple of days after my father had given me the awful beating. It had been a particularly busy day and both Billy and I were jumping from lane to lane without a break. The bowlers were in a lively mood and the balls seemed to be flying down the lanes faster than usual.
When our shift was finally over and the night pin-setters showed up, Billy and I grabbed our jackets, lit up a smoke, checked in with the boss to get paid, and headed for the back door. As we walked to the area behind the building to get our bikes, Billy asked, “Hey Van, you going over to the Sugar Bowl later?”
“Yeah, I thought I’d go over there now. You going?” I said.
“Nah, not right now, but I might go over later. I got something I wanted to tell you, though.”
I turned and looked at Billy. We were both standing next to our bikes with our shoulders hunched up against a cold wind that had started blowing.
“I was noticing you had some more bruises and cuts on your face. Your old man do that?” Billy asked.
“Yeah. He got me again the other night,” I answered.
Suddenly, Billy’s face got hard. His jaw clenched tight as he stared into my face and said, “When are you going to just get the fuck out of there for good, goddammit?”
I hadn’t told Billy about the adoption papers. I hadn’t been able to make up my mind about telling anyone. I was about to tell him about it — and tell him I was making my plans to run away for good, when he continued.
“I just heard about a bunch of jobs opening up down at the riverfront. There’s a wholesale market going to open soon, and they need guys to help unload trucks.”
“What kind of trucks?” I asked.
“I don’t know, all different kinds, I guess. You know, vegetables, fruits, flowers, whatever they’re going to sell at the market. The good part is the work is happening during the night. A couple of guys I talked to are starting at ten o’clock and getting off at six in the morning. That means you could sleep during the day and stay off the streets at night,” Billy said.
“Yeah, if I could find a place to sleep during the day,” I said. From my experience with being on the streets, I thought it would be a heck of a lot easier to find places to sleep at night.
“That should be easy,” Billy said. “The guys in the Dukes would be able to let you sleep at their houses during the day. Especially some of the guys where their mothers work on day shifts and their fathers are in the army.”
Such exciting news from Billy had set my mind on full speed. I got the information from him about where to apply for the job and instead of going to the Sugar Bowl, I headed for home, went to my room and closed the door. I needed to think and plan. I realized Billy’s news had solved several problems. I would have a job away from the neighborhood. It would be during the night, and I would be off the streets during the times I was most vulnerable to being caught by the cops. At least some of the time it would solve the problem of where to sleep, take baths, and keep myself clean. It probably wouldn’t solve food problems because most of the guys were poor and their families barely had enough for themselves. I could still rob stores for food and smokes before I went to work. It wouldn’t solve the need for keeping clothes clean and repaired, especially if the work was rough and dirty. Again, I knew I could steal clothes from stores at night, and depending on how much I made at the job, I might be able to buy clothes. I’d also learned how to be a good panhandler. I knew I could always find more money if necessary.
The next day I went down to the place Billy had told me about. It was down by the Detroit River in the dock area. The only other time I’d ever been in the same area was when the church youth group went on one of the Bob-lo Island boat excursions. There were a number of warehouses all around the area. When I first pictured the place Billy had described, I thought it would be right in among those warehouses.
However, when I got there I realized the place I had to go was further along the riverfront. There were no actual buildings, but rather the area looked similar to the boarding area of a railroad station. There were several wide, raised, block-long covered walkways separated by recessed driveways. The driveways were also wider than a regular street. In a railroad station, the driveways would have had railroad tracks in them. These driveways would be where the trucks would arrive to be unloaded. When I walked around looking for the office, I saw some of the driveways at one end of this huge area did have railroad tracks, so there might be trains to unload as well as trucks. It was dark except for the long stripes of sunlight that would stream in between the covered walkways. Each of the driveways seemed to act as tunnels for the breezes coming off the river making it cold and damp. It was quiet there, but I imagined this would be a busy place once it opened up.
I’d found the office at the far west end of the area. It was nothing more than a wooden shack the size of a small, one-car garage. There was a sign nailed next to a window on the front of the building that said, “Now Hiring – Apply Inside” in bold red letters. I wore my State Fair Dukes jacket and peg pants that day. My hair was longer than usual, which I hoped would make me look older. I pulled myself up as tall as I could and walked in the door.
Inside were two desks, one on either side of the door as I entered. There was a chair in front of each desk. A man was sitting behind the desk to my left smoking a cigarette. A kid who looked to be a little older than me was sitting in the chair in front of that desk. The chair in front of the desk to my right was empty. The man sitting behind that desk took a slow drag off his cigarette, looked me over carefully, and then asked, “Can I do something for you, kid?”
“Yes sir,” I said. “I want to apply for a job in the new market.” I was surprised I wasn’t nervous. I felt calm and confident.
The man took another drag off his cigarette, reached behind him to a small table, picked up some papers and held them toward me. “Take these and fill ‘em out over there,” he said as he pointed to my right at another small table with two chairs I hadn’t noticed when I came into the office. “When you’re done, bring ‘em back to me.”
I took the papers and sat down at the table. There was an ashtray on the table, so I pulled out my Luckies and lit up. There were two inkwells with pens stuck into them. As I began to look over the papers, I saw they were application forms asking for my personal information as well as job information. I’d picked up one of the pens and as I was filling out the first part with my name, I had begun thinking about what to put for my address and phone number. I decided since I didn’t want my parents to know where I was working, I would put a false address on the form. I just made one up using a street on the west side I remembered from my travels. I put the phone number of the Sugar Bowl instead of my own. I also decided to lie about my age and put down that I was sixteen. I knew I looked older than I was, so I hoped the man would be fooled. I decided not to lie about working at the bowling alley and put that down as well.
When I’d finished filling out the application I turned around and looked behind me. The man who had given me the papers motioned I should sit at his desk. After I sat down, the man took the papers, glanced at them briefly, slid them over to one side of his desk and asked, “Are you able to work from ten at night until six in the morning?”
I nodded.
The man looked at me with a smirk on his face and asked, “What about those bruises and cuts on your face, kid? Did you get those in a fight?”
I felt my stomach go into instant knots when he asked me that question. I hadn’t given my appearance much thought other than hoping I looked old enough to get the job. I wasn’t sure how to answer and I couldn’t tell what answer he was looking for by the look on his face. My mind was racing at full speed. I needed that job. I decided to lie. “Nope. I got these when I fell off a horse at the track in Hazel Park,” I said with a shrug and a smile.
“That’s good, because you need to know anyone gets into a fight on the job here, it won’t matter who started what — you fight — you’re fired on the spot. You understand?”
I nodded again as I felt my stomach relax.
“Would you be able to start working about two weeks from now?”
“Yes sir,” I answered as I thought about how I would have to be out my house before then.
“Good,” he said as he reached into his desk drawer and took out a small card with a number on it, looked at my application, wrote my name on the card and handed it to me. “We work six days a week. No work on Sundays. The pay starts at two bucks an hour. You get a half hour for a lunch break without pay. You get paid once a week. Your foreman will tell you when. You’ll be unloading flower flats off trucks all night. You’ll be starting at the same alley-number as that number on your card. The alley-numbers are at the top of each alley; you’ll see them when you walk down the street out there. You start two weeks from today. Be at your alley at 10:30 for instructions from your foreman. You’ll need to bring that card with you. Any questions?” he asked.
“Nope,” I answered.
I looked at my card as I walked out of the office and headed down the street. The card number was 22. I saw the numbers up under the peak of the roofs covering the alleyways. The office was under number thirty. I walked until I got to number 22 and looked up at the number and thought about what it would be like to earn fourteen dollars a day.
I smiled and headed for the streetcar to take me back to my neighborhood.
The next step in my preparations to leave home was to get my clothes stashed somewhere safe. Once I had figured out where to stash them, it would take several days to gradually move them. I needed to talk to the guys at the Sugar Bowl.
That same afternoon at the bowling alley, I had a chance to talk with Billy. I told him I had the job at the wholesale market and when I would be starting. I said I needed to talk to some of the guys about sleeping at their houses, and to find somewhere to stash some clothes.
It was a slow day so Billy climbed down from his shelf and lit up an Old Gold, a new brand for him. He’d always been a Lucky smoker. He squinted from the smoke getting in his eyes and said, “I’ll bet either Bobby Cook or Freddy Shaw will let you sleep at their houses. There’s nobody home during the day. Both of their old ladies work in one of the factories.
“Isn’t there anyone else living with them?”
“Bobby’s old man is in the service, and Freddy hasn’t seen his old man in years. Freddy has a brother, but he’s in the service too. Bobby does have a sister, but I think she works downtown someplace, maybe at Hudson’s.”
I was still sitting up on my shelf, but had turned around to face Billy who was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. I lit up a Lucky Strike and asked, “What about clothes? You got any ideas about where I could stash some?”
“Nope. Can’t think of any. Ask around the Sugar Bowl. Ya never know.”
When I got to the Sugar Bowl in the afternoon, I saw Bobby and his girlfriend, Judy, were sitting in one of the booths by the door. Most of the booths were filled. Sally and a couple of the Duchesses were in the next booth. I went over to the counter and ordered a chocolate coke. When it was ready, I walked over and sat in the same booth as Bobby and Judy.
I didn’t know how to start the conversation about sleeping at Bobby’s house, but, as it turned out, I didn’t have to. Judy started the conversation by asking, “What happened to your face, Van? I noticed your bruises the other day and was wondering who you were fighting.”
I explained about the bruises and told Judy and Bobby I was going to be running away. I told them about my night job and about needing a place to sleep during the day.
Bobby piped right up. “You can sleep at my place most days. Sometimes, me and Judy want to be there, but other than those times it should work out. Not on weekends, though. My old lady’s home on weekends.”
Then Judy broke in and said, “If you got stuck without a place sometimes, you could probably sleep at my cousin’s house. She lives over on the west side, but you can get there by bus, easy. No weekends there either, though”
“Okay—hey, thanks you guys. You just solved another problem for me.
Billy told me that Freddy might be able to let me sleep at his house sometimes too. Now, I just need someplace to stash some clothes where I can go and change when I need to.”
It got quiet. I could see that both Bobby and Judy were thinking. I offered everyone a Lucky and we all lit up. Bobby and Judy finally shrugged their shoulders and looked at me as if to say, “Sorry. We can’t help you with the clothes.” I sipped on my coke and looked out the window. I could see Sally’s reflection in the window and she was looking out at the street. I wondered if she was looking at my reflection too.
She got up a couple of minutes later and as she walked by the booth where I was sitting, she motioned with her head to follow her.
I took a final sip off my coke, smiled at Bobby and Judy, got up and started to follow Sally out the door. Bobby got a big grin on his face as he called out, “Hey, Van. You got a girlfriend there?”
I felt my face starting to flush. I shook my head and went out the door.
Sally had walked around near the back of the store and was leaning against the building lighting a cigarette. When I caught up to her, she looked up at me and said, “I heard you telling Bobby and Judy that you were going to be running away again.”
“Yeah. Something happened about a week ago and I’ve gotta get out of there for good.”
“I was wondering what happened. Your face looks like shit.”
My left hand went up to touch a sore spot by my eye. “Yeah, my old man did this. But that’s not the whole reason.”
I couldn’t believe it when I heard those words come out of my mouth. I hadn’t made a conscious decision to tell Sally, or anyone else, about the adoption. Yet, there I was about to tell this girl the truth.
“What’s the whole reason?’ Sally asked.
“A couple of days before my old man beat me up, I found out he ain’t even my real old man. I’m adopted.”
Sally’s eyes got big for just a second, and then they narrowed as she took another drag off her cigarette and stared into my face. “How the fuck did you find that out?” she asked.
I told her about my search for money to buy some grass and about the green cash box.
“Shit, I’d be running away too, if that were me!” Sally said. The anger on her face was almost frightening. “I heard you say you were looking for someplace to stash your clothes.”
I nodded.
“Another cousin of mine used to live downstairs at my house. He built a closet down there and it’s empty now since he’s moved out. I’ll bet my Mom would let you put some clothes in there.”
“What will you tell her so she’ll say okay?”
“I’ll just tell her your parents make you wear stupid-looking clothes all the time. I’ll tell her you need a place to put some better clothes to wear for school. She’ll think that’s funny because she used to make me wear dumb-looking clothes too, until I got her to change her mind.”
“Do you live with just your Mom?”
Sally nodded, and then went on to ask, “When do you need to move your clothes?”
“Right away,” I answered. “I have to be out of there right away—in the next couple of days.”
I thought for a moment and then went on to ask, “What about your cousin, Diane? Would she be able to bring her car over so we could move everything at once?”
Sally shrugged. “I’ll ask her. I gotta go home now, but I’ll see you tomorrow and let you know.”
I watched her as she walked away, the skull and crossbones emblems so prominent on the back of her State Fair Dukes jacket. She crossed the street and started down a path through a vacant lot. She moved with certain ease, even with that little limp. I was feeling as though something special had happened, but I didn’t know what it was.
The following day, Sally came into the Sugar Bowl and told me her cousin would be driving over on Thursday night. It was perfect, because it was my parent’s night at church choir. I talked with Freddy Shaw and he said I could sleep at his house during the day, but I’d have to ask him first each time because his mother worked on different days. I decided to talk to my parents the Friday night after I had taken my clothes over to Sally’s house. I would walk out right after I told them I knew about the adoption. I knew I would have to sleep either at the bowling alley or in cars in garages for a few nights until I started my new job.
On Thursday night, Diane and Sally came to the Sugar Bowl about seven o’clock. We drove over to my house and we loaded all kinds of clothes, some of my books, all of my music, my baseball glove and ice skates, into Diane’s car.
When we got to Sally’s house, we pulled up to her back door and hauled everything down into her basement. One corner had been walled off from the rest. There was a single day bed in there and a stand-alone closet made out of cedar. We took the clothes on hangers and hung them up, and we took the rest of the things and stacked them on the floor of the closet. I had put things like underwear and socks into boxes so we put those on top of the books on the floor.
I took another quick look around the walled-off room. I noticed there was also a toilet and sink in another small cubbyhole over in one of the corners. “Hey, Sally,” I asked, “Do you think I could ever sleep here?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I’d have to ask my Mom. She cleans houses, so she doesn’t work every day. She might also be scared to let you if the cops are looking for you.”
We all looked at each other for a second, I smiled and nodded my thanks. We turned out the lights, climbed back into Diane’s car and headed back to the Sugar Bowl.
I hadn’t realized it at the time how everything had fallen so beautifully into place. It had been easy compared to what I still had to do the next night.
I wasn’t scheduled to go to work at the bowling alley on Friday until noon. I would be working for only six hours. I knew my mother was going to be taking a bus downtown to go to an organ concert. My father was at work as usual. I was glad they were both gone for the day, because I was afraid they would see my empty closets and drawers. I stayed home all morning and practiced the piano. The practice wasn’t good because I was so nervous about what would happen when I told them. I could only work on the parts I had memorized because all my music was at Sally’s house.
My mind kept playing different scenarios. I saw my mother starting to cry in one scenario. I saw both her and my father vehemently denying everything about the adoption in another. I saw my father grabbing me and trying to make me go up to the attic. I saw them trying to grab me and hold me back when I headed for the door to leave. Every scenario was different. I had made a few attempts at rehearsing what I was going to say, but I hadn’t made up my mind on anything for sure. I paced around the house when I couldn’t calm myself enough to stay seated. I looked into my empty closet and drawers a half dozen times. I looked all around the basement to see if there was anything else I should have taken. I never had any second thoughts about telling them or about leaving that night. I only wanted to get it over with sooner, rather than later.
Noon finally arrived and I was able to go to work. It was another slow day and neither Billy nor I were busy.
“I heard around the Bowl that you’ve been making plans about getting out of your house,” Billy said.
“Yeah. I’m gonna leave tonight.”
“Tonight! Wow, I didn’t know it was that soon,” Billy exclaimed. “Are you all set? Do you have your clothes out and everything?”
“I’m all set. Sally and her cousin helped me.”
“How are you going to do it? Are you just going to walk out?”
“Yeah, I’m going to tell them before supper that I’m leaving tonight, and then I’m walking out the door.”
“Hey, why don’t you come over to my house after instead of going to the Sugar Bowl. The Bowl might be the first place they send the cops. At least you can be off the streets until later.”
When I got home after work that evening, I left my bike parked right by the back door instead of putting it in the garage as I normally would.
My mother had started to put the dinner on the table. My father sat in his chair reading the paper. Dinner smelled good. I hadn’t expected to feel any pangs of guilt or regret, so I was surprised when I had some thoughts about knowing I would never eat my mother’s cooking again. Other thoughts had raced through my mind about my bedroom and I wondered when I would ever have a room of my own again. I had felt my resolve begin to waver a bit when I looked into the living room at my father sitting there hidden behind his paper. I felt the tension creep back into my body. All the doubts and feelings of regret vanished immediately.
I went to the bathroom to wash my hands. I delayed coming out until I heard my mother call out that dinner was ready. I heard my father fold his paper and grunt as he hoisted himself out of his chair. He had on his slippers and I could hear him shuffle across the room. I could hear the creak of the dining room chair as he lowered himself into it. I heard another chair creak as my mother sat down.
“Come on, Roland, we’re ready,” she called out.
I dried my hands and walked into the dining room, but I didn’t sit in my chair. I walked up behind my chair, put both hands on the chair back, and gripped it for all I was worth. Even with such a tight grip, I felt my hands quiver. I could feel my legs trembling. My heart was beating a mile a minute. It felt as though it was going to explode out of my chest. My parents both looked up at me with puzzled expressions on their faces.
I gulped in a deep breath, cleared my throat and blurted, “I found out about being adopted.”
My parents both gasped. Their eyes looked like they were going to pop right out of their heads. The complexion on their faces went white. Their mouths were agape. I remember thinking at the time how grotesque they both looked.
My mother started to speak, “How did ……?” but I interrupted her and continued, “I know you’re not my real parents, and I hate both of you. I’m leaving here now. Don’t call the cops on me. If the cops make me come back, I’ll just run away again.”
I turned away from them, and as I started to move quickly through the kitchen toward the back door, I heard my mother say, “Roland, where are you …..?” My father interrupted her and in a harsh voice said, “Rettie, leave him go. He’ll be back when he gets good and hungry.”
I tripped as I was going down the stairs to the back door, and had to stick out my hand to keep from falling. I naturally used the same hand with the sore wrist and let out a loud, “Goddammit!” from the pain which shot through my arm. I slammed open the back door, jumped on my bike and pedaled furiously down the driveway. I was going to turn right and head to Billy’s house, when I got a sudden urge to see my Aunt Dorothy, so I turned left and headed toward Eight Mile Road.
When I parked my bike next to Aunt Dorothy’s back door that night, I felt a change come over me. I didn’t know what it was at the time. It seemed as though the air felt lighter, cooler and fresher somehow. Even though it wasn’t cold, my face felt as though a mist had washed over it, just as though I had ridden through a light rain. I don’t know how fast I was going, but I knew I had pedaled my bike faster than I ever had before. Some of the extra energy must have been from the sense of excitement about leaving home again, coupled with overwhelming relief since I had jumped the hurdle of telling my parents I knew I was adopted.
I knocked on the frame of the door as I looked through the door’s window. I could see my Aunt Dorothy’s shape through the lace curtain as she came down the stairs. The minute the door opened and I saw her surprise at seeing me standing there, all the relief, the tension of the weeks before, the adrenaline and the tough street kid vanished instantly. A flood of emotion poured into me. I was a scared eleven-year old child as I burst into a torrent of tears.
Even though I had never seen Aunt Dorothy hug someone, she reached out, wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close to her. “Oh, Roland,” she crooned over and over again. “What has happened to you? Are you hurt?”
She pulled me into the house and stood holding me as I sobbed into her chest. My cousin, Diane, came to the head of the stairs and said in a frightened little voice, “What’s wrong, Mommy?” Aunt Dorothy reached up to her with one of her arms and helped Diane to come down the stairs. She pulled Diane into her protective embrace and held both of us tightly. Diane started to cry also. Aunt Dorothy continued to murmur words of consolation as she stroked our backs.
As my sobbing slowly subsided, I lifted my head and sheepishly smiled up at my aunt. At that same moment, my nose picked up the scent of some wonderful food odors. I suddenly realized I was ravenously hungry. Aunt Dorothy must have heard my stomach growling because she asked, “Roland, have you eaten?” I shook my head as I snuffed away trying to get the tears out of my nose. “You come in now and have some dinner with us. Then we can talk about why you’re here. But you sit down and eat first.”
The meal was wonderful. There was a pot roast, baked potatoes, fresh green beans and gravy. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but at the time, it was unusually delicious. I’m certain there was some realization about how I wouldn’t be eating like this again for quite awhile.
Aunt Dorothy kept the conversation going at the table, talking about her nursing work, getting Diane to tell me about her art project she was working on as a summer activity. Uncle Lisle was his usual quiet self as he listened and smiled. Diane kept looking at me with a question in her eyes. I knew she wanted to find out what I was doing there.
“Let’s give the meal a chance to settle before we have dessert,” Aunt Dorothy said as she stood up from the table. “Roland, why don’t we go for a little walk while Uncle Lisle and Diane clear the table?” She gave me a serious, meaningful look and reached out her hand to get me to stand up.
When we got outside and had begun to walk down her street, she said, “Alright, Roland, why are you here? What’s happened?”
I told her about finding out I was adopted, moving all my clothes to a friend’s house, telling my parents I knew and how I was not going to live there any more. When she asked what I was going to do, I explained about having a job and places to sleep.
“What are you going to do about going to school in the fall?” she asked. “If you don’t go to school, the truant officers will be after you, you know.”
“I don’t know what I’ll do about that yet,” I answered. “I asked them not to call the cops on me this time. I told them I would just keep running away if they did. Maybe if they don’t get the cops after me, I can go to school.”
“I don’t think the school will allow that, honey,” Aunt Dorothy said. “I think you have to be living in a home with a family.”
I didn’t respond to her. I knew I had options through the gang I didn’t want to mention to Aunt Dorothy. As far as I knew she didn’t know anything about my belonging to the Dukes and would probably be upset if she did.
We turned and started walking back to the house. “Roland, I am so worried about you. It’s not right for someone your age to be living away from home. I know why you’re doing this, and it makes me sad. I’ll have to be honest with my sister and tell her you were here. I won’t do it tonight, though. I’ll wait until tomorrow.”
“Can I come here sometimes to see you?” I asked.
“Yes, of course. But you’ll have to understand that I will call your mother and tell her I saw you.”
“After I’ve gone?”
“Yes, after you’ve gone,” she said with a little smile, although her smile quickly faded into a look of concern and sadness.
Dessert was apple pie and ice cream. I had a second helping.
The first days on my own were a repeat of all the other times I had run away. It would be the following week before I was scheduled to start the new job, so I was still sleeping at night and working at the track during the day. I ended up sleeping at the bowling alley most nights. I did have to sleep in a car parked in a garage a couple of nights. I had enough money to buy food and had picked up a few extra bucks at the track.
The need to be practicing for the recital had become a priority. I got the music for the three pieces from Sally’s house and was able to use the baby grand piano at the intermediate school in the early evenings. I had made friends with the janitors at the school when I was going to rehearsals for the play. They were always in the building from late afternoon until around ten o’clock at night. I lied to them about how my piano at home had some keys busted and I needed to use the piano in the music room. They didn’t give me any trouble, in fact there were a few times when I noticed them hanging around outside the door to the music room while I practiced.
I was constantly on the lookout for the cops. I didn’t have any idea whether my parents had called them or not. I stayed off the main streets. I didn’t hang out at the Sugar Bowl at all. I didn’t work at the bowling alley. I did go over to Billy’s house a few times to keep him posted on what I was doing and where I was.
The time came to start the new job downtown. I hadn’t given any thought to changing my sleep schedule ahead of time, so the day I was to start working I had sneaked over to the Sugar Bowl and asked Bobby if I could sleep at his house that day. He said it would be okay. I wanted to get some sleep but I just stared at the ceiling in his bedroom most of the day. Bobby came home early in the afternoon and told me I had to leave because his mother would be home soon.
I wandered around his neighborhood and ended up at a little diner where I sat and consumed several cups of coffee and some dinner while I killed time. As it got later in the evening, the owner of the diner came over and asked if I was okay. I explained my circumstances and he gave me another piece of pie and a cup of coffee on the house.
The excitement of starting the new job, and a full load of caffeine, kept me from noticing the lack of sleep. I took a bus to Woodward Avenue and transferred to a streetcar which took me the rest of the way downtown. I had never ridden the buses or streetcars at night before.
There were only a few passengers, and with one or two exceptions, most of them were sleeping drunks. The smell of alcohol was strong. There was one guy who kept waking up and cursing something or someone. I wasn’t able to figure out what he was saying, but he would yell out some words and then fall back into his stupor. Usually, I liked to sit in the back of the bus or streetcar, but I decided to take a seat nearer the front where I could sit closer to the driver. At one point the driver told me how these guys would ride to the end of the line where he’d kick them off. Then they would get on the next car going back.
They’d do that all night, going back and forth from one end of the line to the other. Something clicked in the back of my brain which has stayed with me all my life. Do whatever you have to do to avoid having to live a life like that!
The streetcar reached Jefferson Avenue and I got off and started walking to the dock area. I eventually got to the alleyway marked with the big “22” and looked around for someone in charge.
I took the card out of my pocket I had received the day I was hired and showed it to an older guy that was standing there. “Where’s the foreman?” I asked.
He pointed over to a man standing by a table about mid-way down the alleyway. “That’s him over there. He’ll tell you what to do.”
As I approached the table, I could see several other men standing nearby smoking and talking. The man who stood by the table was wearing a black knitted cap, a black jacket that looked like leather with a vest under it, black leather gloves, heavy work boots and dungarees. The cap was pulled down low on his forehead. He was a big man. There was a cigarette hanging from his lips, which were mostly hidden by the huge mustache which had handlebars down to his chin. I looked up at him as I showed him my card.
He took the card, looked at it with eyes squinting from the cigarette smoke curling up into them, looked down at me and said, “Geez, Van Buren, you’re a young one ain’t ya?”
I just kept looking at him. I didn’t know what to say.
He handed me another card. “Here, print your name on the top of this card. Then put your starting time on it where it says ‘Start’.” He pulled a pocket watch out of his vest pocket and glanced at it before putting it back. “That’ll be ten-thirty for you, which is about five minutes from now. When we knock off at six in the morning, you take the card out, write the quitting time on it where it says ‘Stop’, and give it back to me. You get two bucks an hour. You get paid on Saturdays. You get a half hour for lunch. I’ll come and tell you when to go to lunch.”
It was right about then when I realized I hadn’t thought about lunch. I had money, but I hadn’t brought anything to eat.
“Big trucks will pull into this alley here,” he said, pointing to the alleyway behind me. “Other smaller trucks will pull in on this side.” He nodded his head toward the alleyway behind him. “You’ll unload the flats of flowers off the big trucks and load the small trucks. If there ain’t no small trucks, you’ll put the flats on the dock until a small truck gets here. You got it?”
I nodded.
“Okay, Van Buren. Go stand over there with those guys. When the trucks start coming in, just watch them and do what they do.”
It was only a few minutes later before the first big truck came rumbling into the alley in front of us. Three guys jumped down into the alley. One guy opened the back of the truck and two of them climbed inside. The guys on the dock started to form a line starting at the back of the truck. I got in the line along with them. The guys inside the truck passed the flower flats down to the guy in the alley. He passed them to a guy standing on a small platform next to the dock who passed them to the first guy in the line. The flats were passed from one guy to the next and across the dock to another smaller truck on the other side.
There was some good-natured banter between the men as they passed the flats along. “Hey, c’mon—my arms ain’t long enough to reach that far.” Or, “Hey shithead, what’re you doing, taking a nap. Keep these things moving.”
The guy that was handing the flats to me started to kid me. “Jesus Christ, kid. You need to start growing some. I have to reach way down to hand you these things. You better start growing before I break my fucking back! Maybe I can find you a step stool to stand on or something.”
I wasn’t much shorter than him, but there was lots of kidding like that going on with most of the guys.
This went on until two o’clock when the foreman tapped me on the shoulder and told me to go eat. “Be back in line at 2:30, Van Buren,” he said.
I was so physically tired I could hardly move. The bowling alley work was hard and heavy, but at least there was rest time in between setting the pins. The same was true for the race track work. The work at the new job was relentless. As soon as one truck was empty, another one pulled in to take its place. The only time we stopped was during those few minutes when the trucks were moving in and out. As soon as the empty truck would start up, the guys all grabbed for their cigarettes and lit up. Other than the banter going on there was hardly any talking except for the few times when someone would move either too slow or two fast, then the guys would yell out, “Slow down!” or “Move it!” until the rhythm settled down again. I had not thought to buy heavy leather gloves, so my hands were raw and I had several slivers from the wooden flats. The flats weren’t heavy, but there were hundreds of them on each truck. My shoulders and back were aching so much I didn’t think I could lift my arms. Plus, my wrist was still plenty sore. I tried not to think about still having another four hours to go.
I had watched some of the other men go to the end of the dock and sit down to eat their lunch, so I decided to go in that direction to see if there was anything close by where I could get a sandwich. A few alleyways down towards the main office there was a man standing behind a handcart with a sign that said ‘Coffee & Food’ on it. I got a bologna and cheese sandwich and a cup of black coffee. I dunked the sandwich into the coffee so I could gulp it down easier. Doing that had also cooled the coffee enough so I could down it quickly. I rushed back to work and managed to finish the day.
=================================
When I got back to the neighborhood around seven o’clock that morning, I walked over to the alley behind Sally’s house, sat down on the ground behind their garage and fell sound asleep sitting up with my back against the wall of the garage. It must have been an hour or so later that the sound of her mother’s car starting up in the garage woke me. I waited until I heard her car back out of the driveway before I dragged my body into an upright position and went to the back door of the house and knocked. It seemed as though every muscle I had was screaming in agony.
Sally came to the door still wearing her pajamas. Her mouth popped open in surprise and she said, “What the fuck are you doing here? You look terrible!”
“I’ve been working all night and I didn’t sleep at all yesterday,” I said. “I just wanted to ask you if I could leave some food here for my lunches. I need to bring lunches to work but I don’t have a place to put the food. I’ll buy it. I just need a place to keep it.”
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know if my Mom will care. If she does, then you’ll have to stop doing it.”
“Okay. I’m going over to the store and buy some stuff, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I bought bologna, cheese, peanut butter, jelly, bread, milk and mustard. I also bought a pair of leather work-gloves and a lunch pail, and then went back to Sally’s.
“What time will your mother get back?” I asked.
“Not until later this afternoon,” Sally answered. “Why?”
“I just wondered if I could sleep on the bed downstairs for awhile.”
“Okay, but you’ll have to go before she gets back. I’ll wake you.”
Sally followed me down the stairs and I fell onto the day bed after taking off my shoes. As the sleep started to overtake me, I looked up at Sally and saw her smiling down at me. I thought about saying something to her but I was asleep before any words could form.
Sally woke me about three o’clock in the afternoon. At first I thought I wouldn’t be able to get up off the bed. I had never experienced the sensation of not being able to move my body without feeling excruciating pain. It took all my remaining strength just to pull myself into a sitting position. I had an explicit awareness of what it must feel like to have been run over by a truck a few dozen times. I asked Sally if I could take a bath before I left. She said there wouldn’t be enough time because her mother would be home soon.
As I began to move around more, much of the pain and stiffness eased up a bit.
I went into the upstairs bathroom and washed myself as best I could by soaping my face, underarms and crotch area, then rinsing and drying. I went back down to the basement to put on some clean clothes, went back upstairs again, made a sandwich, put it and some milk in my new lunch box, grabbed my jacket and new gloves then headed out the door. I walked over to Bobby’s neighborhood, went to the same diner where I had some dinner and killed time. By the time I got back to the docks my body wasn’t as sore as it had been earlier and the work seemed easier.
At the end of that first week I got paid for the first time. When the foreman handed me the envelope with four twenty-dollar bills and four one-dollar bills I could barely hold in my excitement. I wanted to let out a whooping yell and jump up and down. I had never held that much money in my hands at one time before. The first thought through my mind was how I could now pay for my piano lessons. The second thought was I would get this much money again the following week, and again all the weeks after. Almost instantly, all the fears I had been carrying around about how to survive lifted like they were made of feathers. The sense of freedom was overwhelming.
It was the first time in my young life I felt confident that I could make it on my own.
The following week when I went for my piano lesson I had all three pieces completely memorized. I was able to play them through without looking at the music and made only a couple of mistakes.
“Roland, that was excellent,” Miss Thomas exclaimed. She clapped her hands and came over to the piano and patted me on my shoulders. “We have a few more weeks before the recital so we can begin making these pieces a part of you. Since you now have them memorized, I want you to start to really listen to the music with your soul. I don’t want you to have to think about the notes. I want you to try to feel what these composers were feeling when they wrote these pieces.”
Miss Thomas had begun telling me more about the lives of Chopin and Beethoven. We talked about the movie that everyone liked so much, “The Song to Remember”.
“Is it true that Chopin wrote most of his Nocturnes while he was in love with George Sand?” I asked.
“Many people think so, Roland. Although he may have written some of them during that time of his life, this one you’re learning was written much earlier. He was in love when he wrote it, but not with George Sand. He was in love with the sister of good friends of his, the Wodzinski brothers.”
“What was her name?” I asked.
“Her name was Maria. The way I learned this story was that while Chopin was still a boy, the three young Wodzinski sons had stayed in the boarding house managed by Mikolaj Chopin. Do you remember who Mikolaj was?”
“He was Chopin’s father, right?”
“That’s right. So Chopin became friends with the Wodzinskis during his boyhood years.”
Miss Thomas continued, “In the early 1830’s, Chopin was in exile from Poland. He would have been in his early twenties at that time. He had traveled to Dresden, Germany to do a concert, and while he was there he learned his old friends, the Wodzinskis, now lived in Dresden. The younger Wodzinski sister, Maria, was in her late teens, just a few years younger than Chopin. She was a talented musician. Chopin fell in love with her and wanted to marry her and set up a family home of his own in exile. The following year, while he was on a vacation with the seventeen year-old Maria and her mother, he proposed. His proposal was accepted on the condition that he would take better care of his health.
Chopin and Maria didn’t end up getting married because after a year-long ‘trial’ period, Maria’s parents were bothered by the fact that Chopin was seriously ill during the winter months. They decided he wouldn’t be a suitable partner for their daughter. For Chopin, this rejection was an extremely painful experience. It affected him so much he took all the letters from the Wodzinski family, tied them into a small bundle, and labeled the bundle, ‘My Sorrow’.”
While Miss Thomas was telling me this story, I went into my music bag and pulled out the Nocturne and looked at the first page. It was composed in 1831. That would have been at the same time he was with Maria and her family.
“That part of his life never came out in the movie,” I said. “Maybe he wrote this piece before his heart was broken.”
“That’s probably true, Roland. In fact, this was written while he was just beginning to fall in love. Even at your young age it will help you to feel the music better when you have some understanding of the composer’s frame of mind at the time the piece was written. It’s even more interesting that in 1835, he published a book of works in the name of Maria Wodzinska. One of the pieces in this book is the Nocturne in E-flat that you’re working on. He wrote the words, “soyez heureuse” right in between some of the bars. It means, “be happy” in English. He also dedicated his Valse in A-flat to her. The packet of letters from the Wodzinskis that he had labeled, ‘My Sorrow’, was found in Chopin’s belongings after he died.”
“You sure know a lot about him. Is he one of your favorites?”
“Yes, he is. I love his music. But, when I was learning to play in Jamaica, my teacher always made me learn about the lives and history of the composers as well as the music. I’m glad he did so because I believe it helps to play the piece better if you understand more about what was happening in the composer’s life at the time they wrote the piece.”
“I already know that I like Chopin. I think he’s my favorite too. What about the Polonaise?”
Miss Thomas nodded, and then walked over to a bookshelf and picked out a book. She leafed through it for a few minutes then came over and sat next to me.
“This is a little harder to pin down. There are two references to this Polonaise. Do you know what a Polonaise is?”
“I think it’s a Polish dance, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. Good for you. It was the national dance of Poland. According to this reference book, Chopin dedicated the Polonaise in A flat major to W. Zywny. Zywny was Chopin’s teacher when he was only six or seven years old. He only studied with Zywny for a few years. He started taking lessons with Jozef Elsner in 1822. That’s the teacher they showed in the movie, remember?”
I nodded.
“This book says that ‘Chopin’s Polonaise in A flat major, Op. 53, was composed in 1842 and published in 1843 in Paris, Leipzig, and London.’ It goes on to say that the piece has an image of the thundering hoof beats of a ‘cavalry charge’. This piece also had the nickname of the ‘Heroic’.”
Miss Thomas’ face broke into a smile as she lowered the book into her lap. She closed her eyes for a moment, and then looked up at me. “There is a story about this piece that I’ll bet you haven’t heard. I don’t know if the story is true, but it is one which has been related in many of the history books about Chopin. Apparently in this one instance, Chopin was feeling sick and was running a fever while he was working on this Polonaise. He was working so hard on it and was excited by the music. But because of his fever his imagination began to take over. He thought he saw the walls of his apartment open up, and out of the darkness a band of knights mounted on horseback came riding towards him. Horses and the ghostly riders, dressed in all their war armor, rode in through those yawning apartment walls and closed in on him. He was so frightened that he cried out, sprang from the piano, and fled from the room. It was several days before he would go back into the room and resume work on the Polonaise. I have always loved that story. Can you imagine how he must have felt if that really did happen to him?”
I was getting a mental picture of Chopin in his nightshirt running out of his bedroom looking back over his shoulder. As these pictures floated through my mind, the giggle began to form somewhere in my belly and worked its way up and out of my mouth in a huge guffaw.
“I’m sorry, Miss Thomas,” I said, “I’m seeing this happen in my mind and it is really funny to see Chopin in his pajamas.”
Miss Thomas smiled and went on with her story.
“His life at the time he wrote this Polonaise wasn’t out of the ordinary for Chopin. His illness was worsening. He learned that Maria Wodzinski got married. He was still in his relationship with George Sand, although they were living in separate apartments in Paris at the time.”
Miss Thomas looked down at the book in her lap and turned a few pages.
She went on to say, “From various letters he wrote during this time it’s apparent that he wasn’t a happy man. He talked about his dreams not coming true. He mentions his heart being heavy. He seems more preoccupied with the subject of death in those letters. In one of them he wrote, ‘Today I completed the Fantaisie – the sky is beautiful and my heart is heavy – but this does not matter. If it were otherwise, then my existence would have been of no use to anyone. Let us wait until after death’. According to this book that letter was written to J. Fontana, who is Julian Fontana, a school friend from the Lyceum, where Chopin graduated cum laude.”
“What’s the Lyceum?” I asked.
“It was a school in Warsaw much like a high school.”
Miss Thomas sat quietly for a minute or two, and then went on, “Chopin was composing many works during this time in his life. He wasn’t healthy, his homeland was in trouble, his love life wasn’t wonderful, but I can’t say those are reasons for the Polonaise. It’s a harder piece to come up with a reason for why he wrote it. It could be that the current popularity is because the movie focused on it as much as they did.”
“What about Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata?” I asked, satisfied I knew enough about Chopin and how his life related to the pieces I was learning.
Miss Thomas looked at me in a way which made me think she was pleased I was interested to learn more about these composers. She also seemed to be enjoying sharing the stories with me.
She walked over to the bookcase, put the book about Chopin back on the shelf, took down another book and began to leaf through it. As she was looking she said, “There were two Sonatas published in 1802 with the same number—twenty-seven. The second one, which we know as the ‘Moonlight Sonata’, is much more popular today than the first one.”
She was quiet as she read something in the book. Finally, she put the book down and had a thoughtful expression on her face.
“It’s quite a mystery as to what may have been going on in Beethoven’s life at the time for him to write such a romantic first movement to a Sonata. Usually, the slower movements are the middle movements. This piece has such a feeling of romance in it. There isn’t a lot written about Beethoven’s romantic life other than the stories about the ‘Immortal Beloved Letters’.”
She picked up the book and read some more to herself.
She nodded, and then went on to say, “These were passionate love letters that he wrote during the summer of 1812, long after Beethoven composed the Moonlight Sonata. By the way, Beethoven wasn’t the one who called it the ‘Moonlight’, that came later and was suggested by a poet named Ludwig Rellstab, who imagined a boat on the waters of Lake Lucerne lit by moonlight.
“Anyway, back to the love letters,” Miss Thomas went on, referring to the book from time-to-time, “no one has ever found out who the letters were written to. They were just addressed to ‘Immortal Beloved’, who was living in a place he called ‘K’ in the letters. Some of the scholars who studied these letters thought this might be Karlsbad. Others thought it might be Klosterneuberg north of Vienna, or any of a variety of other towns starting with the letter ‘K’ in the Czech republic.
“What does get interesting is how the scholars love to try and figure out which of the women in Beethoven’s life might have been the real ‘Immortal Beloved’. It’s a mystery that has never been solved. Mr. Beethoven is the only one who knew, and he didn’t tell anyone.”
I thought that was funny and chuckled as I asked, “Who do you think she was?”
She looked up from the book and thought for a moment, then replied, “I honestly don’t know what I think. There were three of these letters found among Beethoven’s papers after he died, and all three were quite romantic. As you can see from your music for the ‘Moonlight’, Beethoven dedicated the Sonata to Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. When she was seventeen years old, she became one of his students and he did fall in love with her. It’s also interesting that she became his student in 1801, the same year he composed the Sonata. But whether she was his inspiration for the ‘Moonlight’ is anyone’s guess.”
Miss Thomas stopped and read some more in the book.
She went on to say, “It probably isn’t likely that she was the ‘Immortal Beloved, though, because she married Count Gallenberg in 1803, long before the letters were written. Remember too, this Sonata has two other movements which are much more dynamic and forceful.”
“I know that Beethoven went deaf,” I said. “Was he deaf when he wrote this piece?”
Miss Thomas leafed through a few of the pages before she nodded her head and said, “It was right about this time of his life when he first started to notice his deafness. In letters he wrote he often spoke of it. He stopped going to social functions because, as he said in one of his letters, ‘Your Beethoven is leading a very unhappy life, and is at variance with Nature and his Creator’, but he added , ‘when he was playing and composing his affliction still hampered him least – it affected him most when he was in company’.”
“It doesn’t really matter too much why he wrote this piece, I still like it a lot and it is beautiful,” I said. “I like to play it.”
“Good. That’s excellent. Do you think you have enough of an idea about the lives of these composers to have an understanding about the music?”
I nodded.
“Alright, then. That’s it for today’s lesson. Even though we didn’t do much actual playing, we did accomplish quite a bit learning about the composers. You know the music as far as the notes are concerned, and you have them memorized. What I want you to do during your practices now is to try and feel who these men were. I want you to begin to let the music move you emotionally. You might find you’re playing the pieces differently each time you practice. That’s okay. Just let your feelings control how you play them.”
I nodded as I began to gather up my music and stood up to leave. Miss Thomas stood also and came over to me. As she looked at me her face lit up with a smile. I stood woodenly looking up at her with my arms at my sides. Miss Thomas’ hands went to my upper arms as she held me away from her. She continued to smile as she said, “This was an excellent lesson, Roland. Is it okay to hug you?”
I gulped as the emotions flooded through my body. The tears were beginning to choke me, so I cleared my throat and without looking at her, nodded my head. She pulled me close and I put my arms around her.
To this day, I believe that was the first time I had a glimpse of what it meant to love someone.
The rest of that summer was made up of unloading and loading trucks at night, sleeping at Sally’s, Bobby Cook’s or at his girlfriend Judy’s house, practicing the piano at either Freddy’s house or at the intermediate school, and being proud of having plenty of money in my pockets. There wasn’t much opportunity to show off my new-found financial status around the gang because I knew it would be foolish to hang around the Sugar Bowl. It was only a block from my parent’s street. My father drove by it every day to and from work, and my mother would catch buses right across the street from the store. I did go to hang out in the evenings a few times when I figured my parents would be home and not driving by. I couldn’t stick around for long, though, because I had to get on the bus and get to work. I didn’t get involved in any of the gang fights because I had to work at night.
The only night I had off was Sunday nights, and the gang didn’t normally hang around very late on Sundays. I was getting so used to being awake at night that I usually went downtown and sat in one of the all-night movie houses. It was also a good way to stay out of the weather if it was bad.
———- ———
I had learned about using the movie houses as a hiding place about a year earlier. It was one of the times I had run away and was working at the track during the day if the weather was good. Race track work was always dirty work. After a few days my clothes would be really dirty and I would be starting to smell more like a horse than a human boy. There were makeshift showers in the bunkhouse, but I hadn’t been away from home long enough to have thought about needing a bath. Of course, at my age, even being aware of the fact I smelled bad didn’t seem to be on my mind, or if it was, it didn’t bother me.
The day I learned about movie houses was a nasty, rainy and cold day. After I woke up in the bowling alley in the morning, I decided I would head downtown since there wouldn’t be any work at the track. I realized something wasn’t right when I got on the bus. There weren’t many people on it and I took a seat near the front of the bus next to a window. The windows were all closed because of the weather. A man got on a few stops later and took the seat behind me. After a couple of minutes he got up and moved further back. The same thing happened with a woman who started out sitting across the aisle from me, then gave me a funny look and moved further back also.
There is a saying about how the skunk smells its own smell first — well, I guess it wasn’t true for young boys. I was totally oblivious to the fact I smelled like a stable. All I knew was I had this area of emptiness around me on the bus even as it began to fill up. There was no one in the seat next to me – or in the two seats in front of me – or in the two seats directly behind me. The seat nearest to me across the aisle was also empty. Even though there were some folks standing up in the aisle towards the back of the bus, there wasn’t anyone standing anywhere near me. The same thing happened after I got on the streetcar going downtown. It was sort of like being in my own special cocoon — protected by an envelope of aroma that surrounded me.
After I arrived downtown I went into the J. L. Hudson Department Store to get out of the rain. I was just wandering around the store aimlessly when a man in a business suit with a flower in his lapel came up to me. He was tall and thin with a Hitler-like mustache. He stood in front of me as straight as a soldier standing at attention.
“Young man,” he said as he glared over the top of his nose at me, “is your mother with you?”
“Nope,” I answered.
“You’re going to have to leave the store immediately,” he said, his voice almost a whisper.
“Why?” I asked, “I ain’t doing nothing.”
He looked at me as if I might do something awful to him. He clamped his teeth together and in a very tight voice hissed, “Young man, you are very dirty and you smell so bad the customers are complaining! You’ll have to leave immediately!”
Perhaps it was the fact I was spending so much time at the track that the smells of horses, stables and barns were becoming a part of what I smelled all the time. I hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary.
“Whaddya mean I smell bad? Don’t make me go outside, Mister. It’s raining and it’s cold out there,” I pleaded.
It was miserable outside and I didn’t have a jacket or sweater so I really wanted to stay inside.
“You come with me right now, young man. You’re going to leave the store or I’m going to have to call the police,” he threatened.
That was all I had to hear. The word “police” meant going back home and that’s the last thing I wanted. I headed for the exit and left the store.
One of the 24-hour movie houses was just a short walk from the department store. After I paid my twenty-five cents and went in, I had to stand in the back for a few moments to let my eyes adjust enough to be able to see the seats. One of the first things I noticed, despite my own powerful aroma, was the smell inside the theater. I couldn’t see anything so I guess my nose took over. It wasn’t the same sort of smell I was sending out — mine was mostly barn smell — I guessed that this smell was a combination of booze, urine and body odor. Even at my young age, I knew these odors from both the racetrack and the bowling alley. The smell of beer and alcohol was common at both places, and the bathrooms always had a strong urine smell. Body odor wasn’t at all uncommon.
After my eyes adjusted, I could see there weren’t many people in the theater. There were some seats that had more than one person sitting together, usually only two, though. Most of the other occupied seats had only one person in them. I spotted an area over at the side where I couldn’t see anyone in the seats. I sat in a seat next to the wall and sort of hunkered down and started to watch the movie. I don’t remember what the name of the movie was, but I do recall it was a western with guns banging away constantly. It seemed like I had just sat down when suddenly the interior lights were all turned on. I didn’t know it but I had fallen asleep.
Most of the people were getting up and leaving the theater, but I noticed how some of them continued to stay in their seats. After a couple of minutes, a guy came down the aisle and starting asking those who were still there for their ticket stubs.
When he got to my row he said, “Let’s see your ticket stub, kid.”
I got my stub out and handed it to him.
He looked at it, then handed it back to me and said, “OK, you can stay for another show, but then you gotta go, OK?”
After he was done checking tickets the lights were turned off and the movie started again. I watched the movie for a while and eventually fell asleep again. The next time the lights came on I left.
One night at work it had rained steadily the entire night. Even though the temperature had been warm, by the time my shift was over I was cold, wet and miserable. There were roofs over the area where we unloaded the trucks, but the wind had been blowing so hard the rain still found a way to whip around the corners and through the alleyways. Everyone was soaked to the skin.
I followed my usual routine after I got off work—I’d go to a diner downtown and get some hot coffee and something to eat. The diner was always packed with the men who worked on the docks either getting off work or going to work. That morning you could tell the difference—the men going to work were dry—the ones getting off work were soaking wet.
I liked going in the diner every morning. It was always warm and full of the wonderful aromas of roasting coffee, cooking bacon, sausage, toast and eggs. Despite the fact that most of the men were considerably older than me, many of them over the age of being eligible for the draft, they had accepted me as one of them. They were a rough, hard working bunch, struggling to make ends meet in hard times, men who were probably drunk more than they were sober, but I liked being around them. I also took a lot of good-natured ribbing.
“Hey sonny, does your mother know you’re not in bed?”
Or, “Hey, Joe. Who’s that sitting next to you–your baby brother?”
Or they’d yell out to one of the cooks, “Better put his coffee in a bottle with a straw so he don’t spill it!”
The diner was a great place to go after a miserable, cold wet night because by the time you had a few cups of coffee and a hot breakfast, you were dry and warm.
I would stay at the diner until I knew Sally’s mother would be gone by the time I got to her house. Even though I preferred sleeping at either Bobby’s or Judy’s house because I could sleep later in the afternoon, I was sleeping at Sally’s more and more frequently. Sally always had to wake me an hour before her mother came home, usually around three o’clock, so I’d have time to take a bath, make my lunch and be out of there before her mother showed up. Otherwise, I’d make my lunch and have a bath in the morning at Sally’s, then go to Bobby’s or Judy’s to sleep.
Sally would just be getting up by the time I arrived most mornings. We eventually got into the habit of going down to the basement after I had a bath, where I would lay down on the daybed and Sally would sit next to me while we talked.
On one of those mornings, we had been talking about our fathers.
“Where is your father, Sally?” I asked. “Is he in the war?”
“No, he walked out on us when I was about five years old.”
“Do you know where he is or what happened to him?”
“No, and we don’t care, either!” she said. “He lost his job right after we found out I was going to walk with a limp. He started drinking too much and one day he went out to go to the bar down the street and never came back.”
“How come you walk with a limp?” I asked.
Sally’s head snapped around as she looked down at me with fire in her eyes. Her face got red and her jaw clenched as she muttered, “fuck you,” through her tightly clenched teeth. I saw tears had begun to form in her eyes and the tightness in her face relaxed.
“I never talk about it!” she finally said.
“That’s okay,” I said apologetically, “I was just wondering since you just said something about it.”
Sally turned her face away from me and I could see her shoulders slump. I wanted to reach up and pat her—to let her know I was sorry.
“I was born with a defective hip, but we didn’t know about it until I was about four years old” Sally said quickly. “The doctors said they might be able to fix it by operating on it, but then my father lost his job and we didn’t have enough money.”
“Does it hurt when you walk?”
“No. The main thing is it makes the leg on that side grow slower than the other one, so I limp a little.”
“Well, I don’t care. I think you’re pretty and I really like you.”
I hadn’t known I was going to say that and I felt my face get hot after the words were out of my mouth. I wanted to disappear out of embarrassment.
Sally turned toward me, put her hand on my chest, leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. “I like you too”, she said in the softest voice I had ever heard her use. I reached up to touch her hand on my chest, and as I did I felt my hand slide against her breast. I started to jerk my hand away, but she grabbed it with her hand and said, “It’s okay. You can touch it if you want.”
I was afraid to move. After a minute, Sally lay down next to me, took my hand in hers, placed it on her breast and kissed me again, this time on the lips. “It’s okay,” she said again. “It’s okay.”
I kissed her back as I felt myself slipping away into sleep. I felt the warmth of Sally’s body so close to mine. As I drifted off I was still aware of my hand resting on her soft, full breast.
As the summer wore on I was beginning to accumulate quite a bit of money. I was only spending about ten dollars a week on food and bus fare. I didn’t do anything except go to work at night and sleep during most of the day. The roll of twenties in my pocket had reached a point where I realized carrying it around with me all the time could be dangerous, as well as foolish. I had also begun realizing the summer was winding down. I would have to figure out what to do about such things as school, survival during the winter, and keeping some money coming in after the dock work ended in the fall.
Stashing the money was the easiest of my problems to solve. Since most of my clothes, books, and other belongings were in the small closet in Sally’s basement, I just took all but a couple of the twenty-dollar bills, rolled the rest up and stuffed the wad into one of my socks. Then I rolled the sock up and stuffed it down into the toe of one of my ice skates.
As the next few weeks went by, I continued to struggle with finding some solution to the other problems. I knew I would be able to find places to sleep as long as I was working at night and sleeping during the day, but the dock work would end in late September or early October from what the other men were saying. They weren’t offering any solutions either. Those with families were the most vocal about their livelihood. Some of them would try to get into the factories or warehouses. Those who didn’t have anyone other than themselves to support, would join up with the hobo gangs and ride the trains south to warmer weather and farm work. I knew I couldn’t get into the factories and warehouses for work. I was too young.
I asked some of the guys who were thinking of heading south if I could go along, but they just shook their heads and told me young guys could never make it on the trains. They explained how some of the guys who rode the trains did not treat younger guys properly. They never did explain what they meant by it other than telling me I wouldn’t like it.
I had run into some hobos on one of my summers when I wasn’t at home, and they were willing to give me some food. They made it obvious they didn’t want me hanging around them, though. Usually, after I had eaten some of their stew, one of the men would say, “Okay kid, it’s time for you to move on.”
There was something about the way they would say it, or the way they would look at me, where I knew not to ask any more questions.