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.