Roy looked for the tall black man whenever he walked past the yellow brick synagogue on his way to his friend Elmo’s house. The man always waved to Roy and Roy waved back but they had never spoken. The man was usually sweeping the synagogue steps with a broom or emptying small trash cans into bigger ones. Seeing a black man working as a janitor was not an unusual sight, but what was unusual, to Roy, was that the man always wore a yarmulke. Roy had never before seen a black person wearing a Jewish prayer cap. Elmo was Jewish, so Roy asked him if anybody could be a Jew, even a black man.
“I don’t know,” said Elmo. “Maybe. Let’s ask my old man.”
Elmo’s father, Big Sol, was a short but powerfully built man who owned a salvage business on the south side of Chicago. When Big Sol was home, he usually wore a Polish T-shirt, white boxer shorts, black socks and fuzzy house slippers. He was very hairy; large tufts of hair puffed out all over his body except for from the top of his head, which was bald. Big Sol was a kind, generous man who enjoyed joking around with the neighborhood kids, to whom he frequently offered a buck or two for soda pop or ice cream.
Big Sol was sitting in his recliner watching television when Elmo and Roy approached him.
“Hey, boys, how you doin’? Come on in, I’m watchin’ a movie.”
Roy looked at the black and white picture. James Mason was being chased by several men on a dark, wet street.
“This James Mason,” said Big Sol, “he talks like he’s got too many meatballs in his mouth.”
Roy remembered Elmo having told him his father had been wounded at Guadalcanal. He’d recovered and was sent back into combat but later contracted malaria, which got him medically discharged from the Marines. Elmo was named after a war buddy of Big Sol’s who had not been as fortunate.
“Hey, Pop,” Elmo said, “can anybody be a Jew?”
“This is America,” said Big Sol. “A person can be anything he wants to be. “
“How about Negroes?” said Elmo. “Can a Negro be Jewish?”
“Sammy Davis, Junior, is a Jew,” Big Sol said.
“Was he born a Jew?” Elmo asked.
“What difference does it make? Sammy Davis, Junior, is the greatest entertainer in the world.”
A few days later, Roy was walking past the synagogue thinking about how he had never been inside one, when he saw the black janitor wringing out a mop by the back door. The man waved and smiled. Roy went over to him.
“What’s your name?” asked Roy.
“Ezra. What’s yours?”
“Roy.”
Ezra offered his right hand and Roy offered his. As they shook, Roy was surprised at how rough Ezra’s skin was; almost abrasive, like a shark’s.
“How old are you, Roy?”
“Eight. How old are you?”
“Sixty-one next Tuesday.”
“How come you’re wearing a Jewish prayer hat?” Roy asked.
“You got to wear one in the temple,” said Ezra. “It’s a holy place.”
“Are you a Jew?”
“I am now.”
“You weren’t always?”
“Son, that’s a good question. I was but I didn’t know it until late in my life.”
“How come?”
“Never really understood the Bible before, Roy. The original Jews were black, in Africa. I’m a descendant of the Lost Tribe of Israel.”
“I’ve never heard of the Lost Tribe.”
“You heard of Hailie Selassie?”
“No, who is he?”
“Hailie Selassie is the Lion of Judah. He lives in Ethiopia. Used to be called Abyssinia.”
“Have you ever been there?”
Ezra shook his head. “Hope to go before I expire, though.”
“How did your tribe get lost?”
“Old Pharaoh forced us to wander in the desert for thousands of years. Didn’t want no Jews in Egypt. Drew down on us with six hundred chariots, but we got away when the angel of God put a pillar of cloud in front of ’em just long enough so Moses could herd us across the Red Sea, which the Lord divided then closed back up.”
“Why didn’t Pharaoh want the Jews in Egypt?”
Ezra bent down, looked Roy right in his eyes and said, “The Jews are the smartest people on the face of the earth. Always have been, always will be. Old Pharaoh got frightened. Hitler, too.”
Roy noticed that the whites of Ezra’s eyes were not white; they were mostly yellow.
“They were scared of the Jews?”
Ezra straightened back up to his full height.
“You bet they were scared,” he said. “People get scared, they commence to killin’. After awhile, they get used to it, same as eatin’.”
Ezra picked up his mop and bucket.
“Nice talkin’ to you, Roy. You stop by again.”
Ezra turned and entered the synagogue.
Walking to Elmo’s house, Roy thought about Ezra’s tribe wandering lost in the desert. They must have been smart, Roy decided, to have survived for so long.
Big Sol was sitting in his easy chair in the living room, drinking a Falstaff and watching the White Sox play the Tigers on TV.
“Hey, Big Roy!” he said. “How you doin’?”
“Did the Lost Tribe of Israel really wander in the desert for thousands of years?” Roy asked.
Big Sol nodded his head. “Yeah, but that was a long time ago. The Jews were tough in them days.”
“Ezra, the janitor at the synagogue up the street, told me that Jews are the smartest people on the planet.”
Big Sol stared seriously at the TV for several seconds. Pierce struck Kaline out on a change-up.
“Yeah, well,” Big Sol said, turning to look at Roy, “he won’t get no argument from me.”