“Through My Brothers’
Eyes”
Foreword
“Road trip!”
I looked at Pete. A sly grin slid across his
face as he giggled like a teenager.”Well, bro‘, it’s D.C. or bust.” Our
destination, Washington D.C., was 2000 miles away. It was August 17, 2009, and
my brother and I were about to leave Albuquerque, New Mexico en route to our
nation's capital. I had flown in from my home in Connecticut just the day
before to join him for the journey. Pete had accepted President Barack Obama’s
offer to be the new Assistant Secretary of Energy. A new and grand adventure
lay ahead and we both looked forward to the drive across America. We both
looked forward to what was coming--the conversations, the laughter, the
memories of our long-ago youth. We grew up together, sleeping in the same bed
for most of our childhood. As we grew older, we grew even closer.
I have come to
realize this journey of life on which we travel can be extraordinary, it can be
dreary; it can be fraught with danger or joy. I suppose it all depends on which
road we take or avoid, or on which road we are placed when we begin our
journey. I only know that mine has been delicious. I have been to many places
in my life and have experienced many things, from my birth on Chicago’s
Southside in 1945 to my arrival in Connecticut in 1989. My life’s journey has
taken me to jail when I was barely 18 years old, when I sat in protest against
the brutality of racism which scarred the very soul of America. Four years
later, in 1967, I traveled across the Pacific Ocean to Southeast Asia and
fought for this country even though the rights for which I fought were not
always afforded me. Yet I stand in defense of the ideal of what America can be,
with the hope that it could be attained in my lifetime.
I’ll start this
book by telling you about an awakening. It wasn’t something I understood way
back when I was 12 years old. I must confess I’m not sure whether I have truly
awakened as of yet. All I know is that I am obliged to open my eyes and take
notice that it is time to wake up, and confront what I believe to be the truth
of this country.
I could begin this
story where it ends, but that would be too easy. The end of a story never
really tells us the whole truth. The end of a story reveals only the conclusion. Concentrating only on the conclusion robs a
story of the pathos and beauty in it, and that I refuse do. So permit me to
start from the beginning, at least the beginning as I remember it. It was the
first day of school the day after Labor Day, Tuesday, September 3, 1957.
Chapter One
Schooling
I peered through
the glass in the top half of the old oak door and saw a woman, my new teacher,
working at her desk. The secretary in the school office had told me her name
but I had quickly forgotten it. The only thing I could recall was the room
number, 108. For whatever reason that number stuck: 108.That was it, room 108.
When I left the principal’s office I turned to the right as the school
secretary had instructed and ventured into a place that I was not familiar with,
into a world that would probably reject me. There were two things I noticed
about the school when I entered the building that morning. The first was the
smell. In my old school the fragrance of polished wood was permanent. The
janitors kept the school spotless. The floors in the hallways, the wooden beams
on the ceilings, and the doors in every room were always clean and shiny. The
aroma of the polish the janitors used penetrated my memory. I missed that smell
terribly. But now I was here, in this school, and there was something peculiar
about how the place smelled. It was kind of sharp, like old cheese, something I
would someday have to get used to. But not this day.
The second thing I
noticed about the school was the floors. They were tiled in white and black
squares, making the hallways look like a giant checker board. The sound of each
step I took echoed off the walls, like the quick sound of someone rapping on a
closed door. The noise was unlike the soft, muffled sound that I remembered
when I walked on the wooden floors at my old school. Here even the noises
seemed alien to me.
As I made my way
down the empty hallways I could hear the muted sounds of children and teachers
talking as I passed each classroom. The hum of unfamiliar voices mixed
inharmoniously every time my foot hit the tiled floor.
I searched for my
assigned room and found it easily. It wasn’t difficult, since the numbers were
prominently displayed in shiny jet-black ink just below a window set in the top
half of each door. When I found it I didn’t go in immediately. I stood
motionless, staring through the glass window of room 108.
What I was able to
see in the classroom wasn’t very clear. The glare of the sun, which streamed
through the windows on the other side of the room, cast ghost-like shadows on
everything. The only things visible were shimmering silhouettes of children
seated in rows of desks, kids I would soon have to face. In front of them sat a
woman, evidently my new teacher. The hem of her dress was the only thing I
could actually see clearly, because it fell around her ankles and the desk
shielded it from the glare of the sun. It was blue. She hadn’t noticed me, nor
had any of the kids in the classroom, maybe because the bottom of the window in
the door was at eye level, so only my eyes and the top of my head could be seen
from the inside. I dreaded entering the room and walking to her desk, which was
about 25 feet from the door. The walk to where she sat was going to be
terrible. The distance from that door to her desk may as well have been 25
miles.
I stood frightened
and unsure, wondering whether I should just walk into the room or knock on the
door. I wasn’t at my old school, McCosh Elementary, anymore, the place where I
knew all the rules. This was Dixon Elementary, on the far Southside of Chicago.
I was in a new school, maybe with rules I didn’t know....
I had walked to the
school alone that morning, insisting to my mom that I was big enough now. My dad
had to go to work early so he wasn’t around, and so Mom, being the only parent
at home, had to take my brother Marty to his new school. I honestly felt that
was best, since he was younger than I was and he wasn’t going to the same
school. When we moved to this new neighborhood we found out that in this school
district children in fifth grade, as Marty was, attended Jane A. Neil School,
which was for kids up to the sixth grade. Then they would go to Dixon
Elementary. I was 12 years old and in the seventh grade, so I attended Dixon. I
felt that I was old enough to go to school by myself.
But now I felt very
much alone, and regretted my boastful decision. At that moment I didn’t feel so
big or confident. What I really wanted was my mom.
As I stood looking
unnoticed into my future, trying to decide what to do, I heard someone coming
down the long corridor. The thud of the unfamiliar steps echoed off the walls,
the crash of each footfall more threatening than the fear in front of me. Not
wanting to face the creator of those thunderous steps, I made my decision, and
I reached out and grabbed the door knob, pulled on the heavy door and quietly
entered the room. I didn’t knock; I just walked in.
To be continued.....
No comments:
Post a Comment