See all mentioned classmates except Hez
Frances La Motta was one of their classmates. Jake La Motta, the fighter whom the motion picture "Raging Bull" was about was Frances' first cousin. This sweet thing with raven black, shiny hair was everybody's favorite. Her shortcoming was a Jimmy Durante schnoz that she was obviously hampered with. She also was not one of the girls and besides, no one wanted Jake coming down to punch out his lights. Only negative here, Willie Davis was expelled from school after splashing rainwater on the raven-haired princess. Sorry Willie, but when you're black, get back. Jack never saw Willie at the school again! Graduation came, Jack wore his hand picked outfit and he, in all honesty cannot recall who paid for his part of the celebration at Iceland the famous smorgasbord restaurant we agreed to eat at.
At high school most of the fun came on the way home. As Jack remembers, the other three guys were looks alike for celebrities. George Patterson a replica of George Reeves the former television Superman. Kenneth Baker, if strings were attached to this guy, he could have been Howdy Doody. Earl Ford, a Flip Wilson clone, and Jack. He didn't know who he looked like or who he was. What was he doing in this school? This school prepared students for college. Was that what he really wanted? He had the brains but where was the incentive? Certainly no one at home had ever told him of this great potential. Does not some inspiration come from home? But of course Dad and his wife were doing their own thing. About this time they lived on West 61st. in Hell's Kitchen. No place could have been more aptly named. What a dismal, stinking cesspool.
Margie Roberts, effervescent, vital and lively, lived directly above Jack and they liked each other. His lack of confidence kept him from asking Margie out and a new boy scooped her up. His name was Henry Jones and they all would say " save the bones for Henry Jones ‘cause Henry don’t eat no meat", maybe not, but he took Jack’s potential piece of meat, Margie.
On the top floor lived Mr. Maynard, a man from Jamaica. Living with him was a white woman. One day there was this strange sweet, sickening odor pervading the tenement. Upon investigation the woman was found dead. Mr. Maynard had cut out all her private parts and was doing a Jeffrey Dahmer. This didn’t help the feelings most blacks held against West Indians. More about this later.
Up the street stood Power Memorial Academy, Catholic High School attended later by Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar). In this completely integrated neighborhood , Jack, using his enterprising skills would go to Errico's butcher shop get four chops and keep the change for himself. Told to get two dollars worth, he would calculate an approximate amount and everyone was satisfied. Many times Danny, the butcher, would cheat by pushing down on the scale with his hand out of sight. Also at the time one would have to be a genius to figure how much was two dollars worth when the scale didn't calculate as they do now.
Jack felt why let Danny cheat his folks, he could do it better! At about this time he started to sneak and smoke. Naturally, in school in the boy's restroom and at home whenever he walked his dog, Bobbie. Bobbie, so named because of his cropped tail, was a replacement for Queenie whom Jack had last seen when he tied her to the back of a car to look in a store for some comic books. Jack wondered for a long while if the owners of the car saw his dog before they pulled away. Then he laughed to himself as he pictured the dog running to keep up with the car. He hoped this had not happened.
His cigarettes, Lucky Strike certainly didn't taste good, matter of fact they were lousy! Although his father never caught him smoking, he one day without Jack’s asking granted him permission to smoke. He said he preferred that Jack did not sneak around smoking behind his back. Not long after that, one day while he and his Mrs.were indulging, he offered Jack a drink. As mentioned earlier Carstairs was bottom of the barrel, rot-gut stuff and Jack didn't like it. His father was formally a deacon in Zion Chapel Baptist Church and maybe hadn't the experience to choose a better brand. Maybe Duxie suggested this brand. Maybe it was a conspiracy to stunt Jack’s growth. Who knows? Who cared.
Traveling back home with his buddies, Earl, George and Howdy was great fun. It highlighted his days. People would laugh both at and with them. Several events stood out in his mind. One day all of them noticed that the hand that George was using to hold his books was aligned in the crack of a lady's ass. They later, after the crowd had thinned asked him about it. George innocently replied,"she was feeling my hand with her ass." This reminded them of when someone asks the boxer if was he being hit and the boxer said "no, I'm blocking every thing he throws." At which time the trainer retorted "yeah you're blocking everything, you're blocking them with your nose, your eyes and your mouth."
Another time they were jostling around pushing each other, when tragedy almost struck. While the subway train was waiting for a connection with another train and Jack’s leg became wedged up to the thigh between the subway car and the platform. The doors started to close and other than his boys, no one realized his plight. Panic big -time. An extremely frightful moment. Instantly Jack’s plight flashed on the screen of his mind. He saw spending the rest of his life as an amputee. The rest of his life on crutches or in a wheelchair.The train didn't pull away but Jack did with all his strength and freed his badly bruised thigh.
Howdy Doody, a regular prankster, swung a connected steel bar used to uncouple the cars, at Jack’s face. In most cars these bars came to a halt six safe inches from one's face. Not today, Sammy, that bar hit Jack flush, chipping a tooth. Flashes of unrelated colors raced around Jack’s vision. Kaleidoscopic caricatures kept swimming in his brain. Too stunned to react, he said nothing and went home in shock. After the shock wore off, Jack wanted to kick ass and Howdy knew it. When Howdy came back to school a week later, most anger had subsided and things went back to normal. It was time. Since they wouldn't let him go to any other school, although he had only a year to go, Jack may have made one huge misjudgment,he quit school.
Working for William Heller Inc., Jack’s take home pay was $29.95. When they had to move from their four room flat on 61st to make room for a city school construction, and the new home of The Lincoln Center, they received 800 dollars for moving. The new place, renovated and nice but after paying only twenty dollars a month for rent, the eighty now seemed astronomical. They agreed Jack would, because he liked this place, pay twenty dollars toward the rent. This hurt Jack but living on less than $10 a week groomed him for the paltry salaries he was yet to work for. One Friday he fell prey to one of the City's 3 Card Monte Games.
Still growing and learning quickly but apparently not quick enough. Jack stood and watched as the plant played "patsy" for his benefit. The plant kept winning and Jack foolishly thinks, "with my smarts how could I possibly lose?" They often "say a fool and his money are soon parted." In this instance soon is too subtle a word. The ten-dollar bill flew from his grasp like it'd been shot from a gun. Jack says to nobody special, "Now I know this was just a tiny streak of bad luck." The card is bent so obviously how can one miss picking it? Again he placed a ten-spot on the bent card, he mused to himself, "just how dumb can this sucker be?" Now we're looking at a five, four ones and change that Jack decided to keep in his pocket. It was so easy for these Card Sharps that they didn't even mind getting short-changed. Hell it was still easy money. A learning experience that lasted Jack these last forty-some years. Jack never played this game again.
Before her busted marriage and during a summer after graduation from P.S.69, Shirley became Jack’s first coital partner. While playing punchball in the schoolyard below her apartment, she from her window, in a bathing suit, called out to him. He had no idea what was in store for him and asked if her mother was at home. By the time she said " no", He was already on the third floor landing and heading for the fourth and last. Earlier he had let Shirl and Janice, a mutual friend, see a condom in his wallet.
Janice who was chatting with Shirley while she ironed, suddenly left and voila they were alone. The ironing ceased and without any foreplay (what's that?) or further word’s, Jack helped Ms.Nixon undo the top of the swimsuit. Out fell the twin orbs, so familiar now, and shortly after, Jack’s virginity came to a screeching halt. Terrorized, speechless and not really knowing what to do, Jack removed the Shiek from his wallet. With the finesse of an old pro he dexterously removed the rubber from the silver foil package. He adroitly pulled the latex over the stiff meat and sat down on the toilet seat.
Jack had no idea how they were going to perpetrate this act and Shirley was offering no help. He stood up, reached behind himself and grabbed the toilet seat to support himself. Shirley approached and straddled him, her wet slit slowly enveloping his rubber-sheathed penis. She sighed softly and slowly began to rotate her pelvis. As best he could Jack met her thrusts with upward movements of his own. He had never had this combination of pleasure and discomfort before. Why hadn’t they used a bed? Jack thought pensively, "Is that all there is". When he came, there were no explosions, no lights.
He left as quickly as he had arrived and later hoped her mother wouldn't find the used rubber he had, he hoped, flushed down the toilet. Showing still further his callous attitude toward Shirley, he didn't kiss her then and despite many having many sexual escapades with this woman, he never has. Could it be that pungency, the strongest ever that he’d smelled, was that the true cause? Maybe "the blacker the berry the sweeter the juice," theory can be applied here because on a scale of one to ten, Jack felt Shirley rated about an eight. So maybe one can say "the smellier the stuff the better." Hezekiah Bell where are you now?
Elementary School Days * No More Gizzards * No, You Didn't * For The First Time
Life In The Garment Center * Jack's Black Queen * Those Were The Days
New York, New York * Dad * Post Office Blues? * DS or BS?
