THE TEENAGERS

When I spoke to the Rector of Trinity Parish about doing "good work," he suggested I accompany Larry to the Cathedral swimming pool with the teenagers. I agreed.

Shortly before six the next Friday I walked to the church and found eight black teenagers standing in deep shadows at the side entrance. They were tall young men with long arms and legs. Their speech patterns were unfamiliar. I said hello and waited for one of them to speak. When the time interval became awkward, I raised my voice and asked the group if they were going swimming. No one answered or turned. With their backs to me, they continued talking without a break.

I stood there for a little while, not knowing who or what, and finally to ease the tension walked back to the curb, sat down and waited. In a few minutes Larry drove up. He introduced himself, and told everyone to get into his car.

They all squeezed in, six in the back and three in the front, including me. I sat on the outside edge of the seat in front and kept slamming the car door into my hip until the teenager next to me lifted himself off the seat and allowed me to slip a hip under him and finally get the door closed.

I tried to make a joke out of the lack of space and said I was sitting on my imagination. The teenagers hissed, "Shiiiii," without sounding the "t."

We entered the Cathedral through the side door that was so familiar to me as a young boy. In the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson the Rector of the Episcopal Church took all the boys in the choir to the Cathedral to swim on Saturdays. I followed the teenagers down the stairs and into the locker room to change into swimsuits. Larry left at the entrance of the locker room and went immediately to the pool area without changing.

I chose a locker near the front, removed from the action. They still treated me as though I did not exist. I also was aware my pale, winter white skin compared very poorly with the rich shades of brown and black of the teenagers. In the poorly lit and chlorine smelling room I wished it was summer and I was tanned.

How did Larry control this group of young black men? He was slight of build; his neck and wrists extended out of the material of his long-sleeved shirt as though they weren’t connected to anything else; the loose bulk of his shirt seemed to flap without support and his chest and arms seemed never to touch the inside of his shirt. He was about the same height, five foot nine or so, but he was twenty pounds lighter and stooped as though in constant deference to someone in front of him.

I was a strong swimmer, pass receiver, tennis and squash player, and baseball pitcher, agile at everything I played, but the teenagers radiated violence that was a new feeling for me. I wondered what would happen if I were put in charge.

They were tall and muscular. Their joints seemed to be encased in fluid with long lengths of muscle in between. They banged into each other and engaged in a lot of towel snapping and suit snatching when undressing. Jokes about penis size prevailed.

Perhaps we would all be equal in the water. I entered the pool area with them and did a racing dive into the deep end and circled the bottom for a minute before coming up at the rope separating the shallow and deep ends.

The teenagers clung to the handrails in the shallow end and splashed water and hurled challenges at each other that were neither accepted nor refused. When one of the boys left the rail and came up on another boy from the open water, they all yelled and Larry came over and leaned over the side and screamed threats at the transgressor until he returned to his place at the rail.

I swam leisurely into the middle of the shallow end and invited several of the boys to swim with me.

“Nobody ventured out from the rail. Nobody looked at me or answered me. I gave up and swam back to the deep end and swam laps and did some deep dives. Finally I gave up and just sat on the edge of the pool and watched Larry and the teenagers. I was anticipated a revolt against Larry’s screaming, but the revolt never came. The boys just clung to the handrail and yelled when another boy tried to pull them off, and Larry rushed to lean over the victim and threatened the attacker.

Larry seemed perfectly at ease. There was no strain on his face when he returned to his bench at the side of the pool where he sat watching. They boys didn’t curse back. In fact they did not talk to Larry at all. There was no friction between them, but there was no contact except in the yelling.

When it came time to leave Larry shouted and cursed even louder. His voice was beginning to strain and it squeaked occasionally. The boys got out one at a time as Larry threatened them by name, but when he shifted his attention, the boy slipped back into the water. It took twenty minutes for Larry to get all eight boys out of the pool and into the locker room.

We drove back to Trinity and the boys thanked Larry for taking them and asked about the chances of going the following Friday. Larry said he had exams the next week and couldn’t go. The boys seemed very disappointed. Larry looked at me several times when he was talking to the boys, but I looked away and he didn’t vocalize his question why don’t you take the boys next Friday.

The evening was mercifully over by nine o'clock. The teenagers walked off, still silent and ignoring me. Larry asked directly if I would take the teenagers swimming the next Friday.

“I don’t think that I can handle them,” I said.

He looked surprised, but all he said was, "I don't handle them."
 

CONFRONTATION

How did I feel during the confrontation with the black men. Scared is too simple. Searching - for a way out. Aware of the difficulty of explaining The Boys Club and my relationship with Michael. Suspended might be how I felt. Suspended between two worlds - way beyond my usual desire for control of situations - way beyond my usual ability to talk my way out of difficult situations. Talk was superfluous. Body language was far more important. I was aware I was closed in by their bodies and I could not gesture like Leon to show I was not an average Honky. I was a victim because victims are in the control of a not understood superior force. In the end I was lucky. My penchant for serendipity held.

MY MOTHER'S WHITE

After the first Saturday I continued to meet all the boys at the Church every Saturday. New boys came every Saturday. Michael was a small, good-looking twelve-year-old boy who said he lived on Washington Street with his mother. He was a bright, articulate and well-mannered boy, but he insisted that his mother was white, which irritated the other boys. In their minds he was claiming his mother was better than the other boys’ mothers because they were black.

The other boys resented this claim. It troubled me too because it was a form of racism I had not expected. The boys reacted by calling him liar, and said his mother was black, just like everyone's. Michael insisted his mother was white. “She ain't like your old black momma," he said. "She's white, like Bill."

Coupling me to his claim that his mother was white really bothered me. This could be a barrier between the other boys and me. I told him quietly not to talk about it, but fights erupted anyway. It wasn't in me to be mean to him, whether because I was a nice guy, or because his claim of whiteness didn't strike me with the same force it hit the other boys, I don't know. I was at a loss for something to do to stop the trouble he was causing.

Color had never been a factor between the boys and me. After the first couple of trips were fun, and I could be relied up to come every Saturday, my whiteness and their blackness simply faded away as we enjoyed our Saturday's together. They were young and had not acquired the anger of their older brothers.

They called each other nigger all the time. I was not sure what they meant when they said nigger. To my suburban white ear it sounded bad, but I attributed that to a subconscious racism in me. I also suspected the boys were aware of their blackness from the moment they toddled up to the television screen or went shopping with their mother.

Michael was toward the light side with even features, but he wasn't the only boy who was light skinned. I tried to be understanding of Michael's need to believe his mother was white, but I couldn't admit any preference for white mothers. When we were alone, he talked about her all the time, and every Saturday he asked me to come home with him to meet his mother.

Finally one Saturday I told Michael that I would pick him up at his home the next morning, meet his mother and take him to church with me. Sunday morning I parked outside of his house and honked. He lived in a big Victorian house on an avenue that had once been the pride of the St. Louis upper middle class. The house had been converted into a warren of small rooms, and the neighborhood was now lower class black. All the paint was peeling from the once grand houses. The screen doors hung from broken hinges, and the grass was worn to smooth dirt by successive waves of small brown children.

Soon Michael appeared on the big front porch to greet me and lead me upstairs to his room. We went up an elegant mahogany staircase past windows with leaded panes toward the third floor. On the way we met several black women, who Michael stopped to proudly introduce me as Bill of the Boys Club. Through open doors I saw other black women lying in bed amid clutters of bedclothes. There were no men and no other children. This was a house of prostitution.

At the end of the hall on the third floor, Michael opened a door and looked carefully into the room before asking, "Can Bill come in?" A soft voice said yes, and we entered and I was escorted to a metal double bed in the center of the room where Michael's mother sat with a satin dressing gown pulled around her shoulders. She was a pleasant white woman in her late thirties. She had just gotten up for the occasion.

I said hello, and that I was pleased to meet her. She said that Michael talked about the Boys Club all the time, and how wonderful it was that we took trips together.

I told her that Michael was a good boy, and that we were going to church together.

"I usually go myself," she said, "But I was up late last night."

There wasn't any room to move about or to sit, so I stood awkwardly at the foot of the bed and talked with Michael's mother. His eyes never left us. He was obviously very pleased with the impression we were making on each other.

Soon the small talk gave out. I looked at my watch and said something about being late for church. Michael insisted on showing me his corner of the room where there was a small metal bed and a bookcase filled with his most valuable possessions. He showed me a compass that he said always pointed to the North Pole. In a box of dry cereal on his bookcase Michael found a handful of flakes at the bottom and offered me some.

I said goodbye to Michael's mother and told her how happy I was to meet her. She said again how happy she was that Michael was going with the Boys Club.

As soon as we were outside the house Michael insisted, "My mother's white. She is, isn't she?"

"Yes," I said. "She is white, and a very nice lady, and I am glad I got to meet her."

The following Saturday Michael couldn't wait for me to tell the other boys that I had met his mother and she was white. "Bill met my mother, and she's white. Tell em Bill, she's white, ain't she, just like you."

I was taken by surprise. When I agreed to meet Michael's mother, I was concentrating so hard on his needs I hadn't thought about how this would affect the other boys. I wasn't prepared for this. "Yes, I did meet Michael's mother," I said, "and she is a nice white lady, but I have met a lot of your mothers too, and they just as nice."

Michael wasn't happy. He wanted more for all his weeks of being called a liar. He wanted me to say his mother was white like me, and that she was the best mother of all.

The boys weren't happy either. I was doing this badly. Michael was determined not to let his moment of glory escape. He punched James in the arm and said, "See, my mother's white, and you got just an old nigger momma."

Naturally James tried to punch him back, but Michael dodged and knocked into Louis, who shoved Michael into a circle of all of the boys. The circle might have been a coincidence, but I was afraid Michael was in more trouble than he could handle, so I pushed to the middle of the circle and grabbed Michael by one arm and a leg and lifted him high in the air. He began kicking and screaming. He was furious. James reached up and punched Michael in the stomach. I pushed James back with my foot and let Michael down. When his feet touched the ground, he whirled and started punching me.

Though he was small, the blows had the energy of frustration and anger, and they were painful enough to make me grimace. The look on my face made the other boys laugh. Michael heard the laughter and assumed they were laughing at him. He broke free of the group and started running down the sidewalk.

I wanted to follow him, but as soon as Michael started running the other boys tightened the circle around me and I couldn't break loose without a lot of pushing and shoving. Michael's insistence that his mother was white had caused a division in the boys club, and this was the boys’ way of making me side with them. It was easier to let their wishes guide me, and I didn't struggle.

I did yell for Michael to stop and come back, but Michael was too far down the sidewalk to hear my calls. The boys started yelling "nigger momma" so I was glad he couldn't hear us.

We went to a friend's farm in the country. It was a normal, quiet day, and we all had a good time, but on the way home my mind turned to Michael again.

It was after dark when I dropped the boys off at the church. I drove home, showered, put on fresh clothes, and drove over to Michael's house on Washington. There were a few lights on, but the front door was locked and my knocking didn't attract anybody on the inside.

When I turned to leave there were six black men standing in the sidewalk waiting for me. My car was parked at the curb. They were between the car and me. The direct route led me right into their midst. If I tried to walk around them that was a sign of weakness, an admission that I expected violence. The only viable choice was the direct approach down the center of the sidewalk toward them.

The first man moved aside slightly when I approached him confidently. The second man stepped out to block the sidewalk and I was forced to stop. Then they gathered in a circle around me.

"What you want here white boy?" said the man who blocked my path. "What are you looking for?"

"I know a kid who lives on the third floor," I explained. "I'm looking for this kid."

"Who you think you're fooling white boy. You want black pussy," said a voice behind me.

The street light at the corner made a circle of brightness there, but it was dark where we stood. Their faces were a blur in the dark, but the distrust in their voices came through clearly.

"I'm looking for this kid who lives on the third floor," I said directly to the black man who blocked the way and might be the leader. "He's a little black kid. I take these kids on trips every Saturday, kind of like a boy's club, and I'm looking for this kid."

Someone asked, "You like black ass white boy?"

“No, man, I'm looking for a kid," I said.

"The white boy's queer for little kids," he announced.

I was getting in deep now. My answers were confusing. My white ways were putting them down. There wasn’t anger in their voices yet. They were just putting me down. I was on their turf. Before violence exploded I had to escape. Could I back up a step? My mind raced for answers. If the man behind me wasn't crowding too close, and if I didn't push against him, maybe I could seize the initiative and walk quickly to my car before they decided what to do. If I pushed into the man behind me though, he would push back, and then it would not end quickly or well for me.

I thought of the night I met Leon in the street and how different our body language was. My reserved and proper English manner could be regarded as a superior attitude, an affront to them, but I was frozen with fear and couldn’t do anything about my body language.

Before the men decided how far they wanted to carry this thing with me, a large black woman came out of Michael’s house and stood on the front porch, lifted one large bosom out of her dress, and yelled to the men.

"Hey you men! Does you want some tonight!"

The men all looked away from me.

"Does you want some tonight?" she yelled again and grabbed an ample bosom under her thin nightgown and shook it invitingly. The six black men forgot me and hurried up the sidewalk toward the front porch. I hurried toward my car, got in and drove away.

I went back to Michael's house during the day looking for him. The big stained glass front door was always locked and no one answered my knocking. Several times I drove by during the night, but I never got the courage to walk up the sidewalk again.

I telephoned Michael's school. The school secretary said Michael had been absent for some time. Several weeks later a police sergeant who worked the neighborhood told me they had closed down a house of prostitution on Washington Avenue. It was Michael's house.

Michael never came back. I continued to meet the boys at the side door of Trinity Parish every Saturday for three years. Boys came and went, but Michael was the hardest to lose because he was the first, and I remember the look of his back as he ran, and the sound of the laughter and the jeers that followed him down the sidewalk.
 

MOVING OUT

In the Spring I moved out for the second time. The day before was a Sunday, windy and cold. My wife lay on a towel in the back yard, surrounded by a reflecting shield, determined to be the first in her group with a tan. The children, dressed in winter coats and long pants, played in left over snow that lay in the lee of the garage. They wore mittens with a long stand of yarn from one mitten, up the arm, across the back, into the armpit on the other side, and down the arm to the other mitten. When a mitten came off, the child appeared at her mother’s tanning bed for it to be placed on again.

I sat at the dining room table in an alcove that looked out at the back yard, writing thoughts on a yellow legal tablet. The thoughts were dark and incomplete, and when I ran out of reasons, I called a former client who was rehabilitating old houses in mid-town St. Louis to ask if he would rent me an apartment for free if I helped him manage the apartments and forgave thousands of dollars he owed me in legal fees.

Fortunately, Jimmy said he would consider it and we agreed to meet the next day at one of his rehabilitated properties. For several years Jimmy had needed a great deal of legal assistance but was unable to pay. He had a series of wonderful excuses, but he was a nice guy, and I continued to help him. He showed me an apartment in an old row house. He had stripped the old plaster to expose the soft red brick and installed wiring and plumbing to meet code standards. He put new black tile on the floors and opened up the fireplace in every room.

"It's a lovely place," he kept saying. "And you know how much everything costs. I'm going broke."

Jimmy hoped up to the last moment that I would release some cash into his enormous capacity for spending it. He was a fine fellow and a splendid talker, and we were friends, but Jimmy was never going to pay his legal bill, and a free apartment was almost like asking for cash.

Finally the tour was over, and Jimmy handed over the keys and left. I walked alone through the four rooms of the apartment trying to imagine what it would be like to live in those rooms. I imagined putting the big trestle table from my law office in the dining room with the two captain’s chairs and unpainted bookcases and a rocking chair in the living room.

I walked into the kitchen and closed the door of the refrigerator and plugged it in. Remember to call the electric company right away, I thought. Undoubtedly Jimmy is behind in his payments. I turned on the water in the kitchen sink and let it run until the rust left the water. Then I scrubbed the bottom of the sink with my hand. When I rubbed my wet hand across the top of the counter it left a clean streak, so I wet my handkerchief and cleaned the whole counter, rinsed the handkerchief and waved it in the air to dry. I tried to put it back in my pocket, but it balled up and wet through the pocket lining. Finally I folded the handkerchief over a towel rack. It looked good there. This was going to be my home.

BACK COVER

This is the text I choose for the back cover of the book. The back cover also contains a photograph of me - a contrast with the six photos of groups of young black boys on the front cover.

"Iwas raised in the white suburbs of St. Louis County. I didn'tknow what it was like to be black in a white society. Then I moved into an integrated mostly poor neighborhood in St. Louis' inner city. I began meeting all the 10-12 year old boys in the neighborhood on Saturdays. We went to the Zoo, a park in the country, and on two overnight camping trips. The boys were all black. I had to learn about them, and they had to learn about me, and we both moved to the middle in the more than three years that we met at the side door of the local Episcopal Church every Saturday. My new neighbors included Black Panthers, Warlords and Black Egyptians. I was a lawyer, and they had needs, and I became a friend and confidant and an interface with the white world I left behind. This is the story of those days."

Saturdays With The Boys

SATURDAYS WITH THE BOYS is the title of a new book by William C. Honey.

More information on SATURDAYS WITH THE BOYS is available on billhoney.blogspot and eventually will be posted on this blogspot.