The next morning, Nicky and Lester stood in the Building B vestibule and watched the rain pour into the courtyard of Eggplant Alley. The drops hit the pavement so hard, they appeared to bounce. Water chuckled in the drainpipes. Spattering pools formed on the courtyard walkways. The boys looked up at the rain. They looked down at the two baseball mitts, the two Spaldeens, the broomstick. They looked up at the rain again. They felt foolish, like two boys carrying surfboards in a snowstorm.
“Maybe it will stop,” Lester offered.
“Yeah, sometime the next century. Dirty rotten rain,” Nicky said.
“I think it’s letting up some,” Lester said.
It was not letting up.
The boys made themselves small in the doorway to keep from getting wet. Nicky took a seat in the threshold and folded his legs out of the rain. He took a big, sad sigh. Lester sat next to Nicky and imitated him, exactly, down to the big sigh.
“Guess we’re not playing stickball,” Nicky said.
“Maybe it will stop.”
“Even if it stops. Maybe we oughta face it. Nobody plays stickball around here anymore,” Nicky said, realizing for the first time in his life that ideas hatched with enthusiasm late in the night usually seem silly the next morning.
Lester didn’t say anything.
Nicky said, “I wouldn’t blame you for moving back to the country.” He was surrendering to the gloomy weather.
Lester made a grim face. “The country wasn’t so hot.”
“Whaddya mean? With those baseball games in the meadows. And all those kids?”
Lester shrugged.
“There were a lot of kids. But I didn’t really play with them much.” Lester spoke slowly and sadly, in the tone of a confessor. Nicky thought he saw a terrible, private hurt behind the thick glasses.
“I was always kind of the outsider,” Lester said, and he stopped there. Lester had the look of someone locking away wounds, the kind that cruel children inflict through breathtaking viciousness and stone-cold neglect.
“I know how you feel,” Nicky said. “I been in those shoes.”
“I don’t think so. You seem like the popular type.”
“Me? Popular? Yeah, sure. You think it’s been easy around here?”
Lester shrugged. He was sinking into a deep well of gloom. Nicky didn’t like this—Lester was the optimistic one. If he turned grim, all would be lost.
Nicky said. “With all the kids moving out of here? Even my imaginary friend moved away.”
“Very interesting,” Lester said as the rain quickened. And the corners of Lester’s mouth turned up. Officially, a smile.
“Mom’s great idea was for me to play with kids my own age,” Nicky said. “Great idea—play with kids my own age. All the kids my age moved out of here. Then I switched schools. And, you know what? All those kids at school already knew one another. It’s hard being the odd kid out.”
“I am aware of that,” Lester said.
“Why would I wanna play with kids my own age? No kid my age knew Willie Mays’s lifetime batting average or how to pull the wings off a fly without killing it. Roy told me that stuff. No kid my age knew where to buy cherry bombs and how to put pennies on the railroad tracks and how to make crank phone calls and who commanded the Third Army during World War Two and …”
“General George S. Patton,” Lester said.
“Correct,” Nicky said. He nodded. “Pretty good. You’re a regular Encyclopedia Brown.”
Lester’s eyes were looking past Nicky toward Summit Avenue. Nicky turned to see a black boy huddled under the archway to Eggplant Alley. The boy wore a yellow rain slicker and stared out at the gray curtain of rain.
“What’s HE want?” Nicky said sharply.
“Probably to get out of the rain,” Lester offered.
“What’s he doing over here to begin with?” Nicky knew that each black face on Summit Avenue was a threat, an omen, a terrible warning that slowly, surely the residents of Eggplant Alley were being surrounded.
The door to Building C groaned open and Mr. Misener stepped out, shovel in hand. He stalked across the pathway in the rain toward Building A. The black boy under the archway caught his eye.
“Hey, fella!” Mr. Misener called out. He tugged down his blue cap to keep the rain off his face. “Hey, fella! There’s no loitering allowed here.”
The black boy said, “Oh, yeah? Who are you?”
“Never mind who I am. I’m the superintendent of this building, that’s who I am. And there’s no loitering allowed here.” Mr. Misener’s shirt was splotching dark in the heavy rain.
The black boy made a face and stepped out from under the archway and clomped wetly down the steps. He walked out of sight onto Summit.
“Good!” Nicky declared.
Lester said quietly, “Oh, come on. Put yourself in that kid’s shoes.”
“Excuse me? Mr. Expert? Put yourself in our shoes,” Nicky said. “You haven’t lived here long enough to know. But you’ll find out. Besides, you know what? I have been in that kid’s shoes.”
“You have not.”
“Have too.”
“What are you talking about? You haven’t.”
Nicky grinned. “All right, Encyclopedia Brown. Wanna hear another story? This is a good one.”
“I’m all ears,” Lester said. “Unless the rain stops. Then we play.”
So Nicky told his story.
When Nicky was five years old, he acquired an odd habit. He began to pick a word or phrase and say it over and over again, just to hear the sound. He liked the way certain words struck a chord. Words such as sausage links; leotard; whirling dervish; chicken delight; ham. Nicky would lock on to a word and sing it out, over and over, like a new hit song.
Mom said it was an inherited habit, from her side of the family. There was a Scalopini family story about a great-uncle Paolo who liked to repeat words, just for the sound. He was a riveter who worked on the Empire State Building. On the day he died, in a fall from a seventy-fifth-floor construction beam, he had been saying “Smoot-Hawley” on the job for over a month. His family presumed he was pushed.
Nicky also made a real nuisance of himself. He nearly drove everyone in the family over the edge. Dad would go “shopping” for six hours on Saturday afternoons just to get away from him. Roy threatened to murder him as he slept. Mom would turn up the kitchen radio to drown him out.
One night Nicky woke up frightened, and wanted to wake Roy for the company. Roy was mumbling in his sleep about Marilyn Monroe, so he would have been grouchy if disturbed even for a good reason.
Nicky said, “Hey, Roy. Roy. Pssst. Roy.”
“Whazzat?”
“Smelts. Smelts. Smelts. Smmmmelts.”
Roy bolted upright. He stared at his little brother through bleary eyes.
“Lulla-by … and good smelts …,” Nicky sang cheerfully, giggling.
“Hey, Nicky-boy. You know what?”
“Smelts?”
Roy propped himself on one elbow, making the bedsprings cheep, and said, “I guess it’s time someone told you this. Mom and Dad are not your real parents.”
Nicky giggled. He said, “Aw, stop smelting. Smelts. Smelts.”
And Roy skillfully went to work, his words low and soft and sincere in the dark. He summoned every drop of his considerable big-brother rat fink powers. Roy explained that Big Nick, the black man who worked part-time as janitor at Eggplant Alley, was Nick’s real father. “And whoever his wife is, she’s your real mother.”
Nicky didn’t say anything. The words seeped into his sleepy head. Could it be true? His name was the same as Big Nick’s. That was true.
Roy continued. He explained that Big Nick and his wife already had twelve children when Nicky was born. They didn’t see how they could feed and clothe a thirteenth child on a janitor’s paycheck. So they asked Mom and Dad to look after Nicky for a few years, to take him in as one of their own.
“It was awfully nice of Mom and Dad to do it,” Roy said. He lay on his back again, bedsprings cheeping, hands behind his head. “Awfully nice.”
“You’re lying,” Nicky said, but his pink brain was infected by the crazy idea. Could it be true? Dad was extra friendly with Big Nick. That was true. Whenever Dad saw the janitor, he’d say, “Hey, Big Nick, how’s business?” And Big Nick would smile and say, “Oh, just great. I’m cleaning up.” It was their little joke. Now Nicky wondered: Why was Dad so friendly with a black fellow who pushed a broom? Why? Why?
“Wait a minute,” Nicky said. “I’m white.” He held up his arm into the dim light from the courtyard. “Big Nick is colored. I’m white. You lie like a rug. I ain’t stupid.”
Roy chuckled softly and said, “You don’t know anything, do you? Of course you’re white NOW. All kids are born white. Colored kids don’t turn black until they’re about six or seven. You didn’t know that? It’s like a Dalmatian getting its spots.”
Nicky wrinkled his brow. Could it be true? He was confused. The awful notion wormed into his head. It was the kind of farfetched idea that could take hold in the middle of the night and become rock-solid truth.
“Wait,” Nicky said. “You lie. I’m telling Mom. I’ve seen black babies on the bus. Little babies. You’re lying.”
“Well, they must have been born in Africa,” Roy said calmly. “American black babies don’t turn dark until they’re six or seven. It has something to do with less sunshine here. You don’t know nothing, do you? Say, how old are you anyhow?”
“Five years and three months.”
“Oh, in that case, don’t worry about it. You still have another year before Mom and Dad have to give you back. That was the deal. As soon as you turn, you’re going back to Big Nick and Mrs. Big Nick. No blacks live in Eggplant Alley, after all.”
“You’re lying. I’m telling.”
“Mom and Dad will deny it,” Roy said, yawning for effect. “Of course. They don’t wanna scare you. Well, anyway, just thought you should know. Now go to sleep. Good night.”
“You’re lying.”
“Good night, Nick Junior.”
“You’re lying.”
And in the quiet and dark, Nicky reached the awful conclusion that his big brother spoke the truth. Nicky believed every word. It swept over him like a revelation, like the moment he finally nailed down the alphabet. The story made sense. Nicky didn’t want to believe it, but the more he fought believing it, the more he believed it. He had no choice.
He had to face facts. It was true. He was a little black boy.
He would miss Mom and Dad and Roy. He wondered if he would be allowed to visit them. Probably not. He imagined walking through Eggplant Alley, and everyone staring at his black face, slamming their doors, clutching their purses close to their coats, hurrying their children along, fleeing the pint-sized black-faced invader.
Nicky passed the next day moping around the apartment. He hoped to forget the entire Nick Junior story. He hoped the whole matter would simply slip his mind. And naturally the more he hoped to forget, the more he remembered.
When Mom took him grocery shopping after noon, Nicky thought Mrs. Capicola shot him a queer look on the elevator. Nicky thought, “She probably noticed my dark arms.”
And at the store, Mrs. Lombardo followed him, aisle-to-aisle, watching with squinty eyes. Nicky imagined he must be turning black, fast, the process quickened by stress. He angled his face to catch his reflection in the chrome edging of the meat counter. No doubt about it. He was much blacker. Mr. Misener would probably order him out of Eggplant Alley, tomorrow if not sooner.
Nicky thought, “What if I refuse to go?”
Nicky imagined torch-carrying mobs coming for him.
Late that afternoon, Roy and his friends played their daily game of stickball. Nicky sat at the kitchen window and watched the big boys play. He listened to their happy shouts and the thwock of the ball and the clatter of the bat.
“Why the long face?” Mom said.
Nicky shrugged.
“Because they won’t let you play? You’ll play in a few years. When you’re old enough.”
“No! I’ll NEVER play! NEVER! NEVER! And you know it! I know you know it!” Nicky howled.
Mom took his temperature. Normal.
Mom studied Nicky’s face.
“I know what’s going on,” she said. “You might as well talk to me about it.”
Nicky sniffed, “Okay.” Through a fit of hiccups, the kind that follow a hard cry, he related the Nick Junior story, as told by Roy.
“What’s the matter with you?” she said. “How could you believe that?”
Nicky shrugged.
Mom patted his head and moved around the table to the kitchen window. Mom leaned out and bellowed operatically: “Roy MARTIN-EEE! Roy MARTIN-EEE! Get UP here!”
In a minute, Roy clomped through the door, sweating and grumbling.
“Ma, I was in the middle of a game.”
Then Roy saw the wooden mixing spoon, Mom’s favored weapon for special punishments, which she handled like an expert.
“Tell Nicky the truth,” Mom said, shaking the spoon. “Make sure he believes it.”
Roy admitted in a bored monotone that the Nick Junior story was a hoax. Roy promised he was telling the truth.
“May lightning strike me,” Roy said
“I don’t believe you.”
“May lightning strike Checkers.”
Nicky believed him.
“Very interesting,” Lester said, giggling so that his shoulders trembled. He buried his face in his arms. He looked with disbelief at Nicky and bit his lip. He slowly shook his head. “How could you have been so … stupid?”
Nicky shrugged. “But I was right, wasn’t I? I know what it’s like to be black in Eggplant Alley. Sort of.”
“I guess you do,” Lester said. “So tell me, Nick Junior, how did it feel? Creepy and scary?”
“Plenty.”
Lester smirked. “I can only imagine.”
“Hey, you keep sitting in the sun and darkening up, and you’ll know,” Nicky said.
Lester looked at his arms. They were nicely tanned. “My mama burns in the sun. I get this from my daddy,” Lester said. “He’s half Italian. My grammy was a Campanella.”
“Italian? No fooling? You never said that before.”
Lester shrugged. “I didn’t think it mattered.”