Robinson Geronimo was an old man who lived in a two-room apartment above a Mom and Pop grocery store on the West Side of Chicago during the 1940s and ’50s. The entrance to his walk-up was accessible only from the alley behind Nelson Avenue up two flights of rickety porch stairs that had not been painted or repaired for more than forty years. When Joe and Ida Divino bought the building and opened Divino’s Grocery in 1946, Robinson Geronimo was already in residence. Nobody in the neighborhood knew how old he was, and perhaps he did not himself know. Robinson Geronimo claimed that he was a son of the Apache chief Geronimo. He told Ida and Joe that he had been born “in Apacheria before the coming of the White sickness.” Despite his advanced age, Robinson still did odd jobs around the neighborhood, mostly plumbing. The Divinos never raised his rent, which was ten dollars a month. Robinson Geronimo did not talk much. When Ida Divino asked him how it was he had come to live in Chicago, all he said was, “In my own country I was a chief’s son.”
Roy and his friends, who in 1955 ranged in age from seven to ten years old—Roy was eight—were naturally curious about the Apache Indian who lived above Divino’s Grocery. They especially wanted to know if he really was Geronimo’s son, and if so what life had been like for his tribe back in the old days.
“We should go ask him,” suggested Jimmy Boyle.
“You mean go to his apartment over Joe and Ida’s?” asked Chuck Danko.
“Sure, why not? We walk upstairs and knock on his door. Worse can happen is he don’t open it.”
Chuck, Jimmy and Roy cut down the alley between Nelson and Poland streets and stopped behind the grocery building. It was two days before Christmas, cold and cloudy.
“Who’s goin’ up first?” asked Jimmy.
“We should all go up together,” said Roy, who began walking toward the stairs.
The other two boys followed him. Several of the steps were missing, so they had to climb slowly.
“Robinson should replace these broken steps,” said Chuck. “He’s a handyman, isn’t he? What if he’s comin’ home late at night after he’s had a couple pops too many at Beeb’s and Glen’s and puts a foot into a hole? He’d break a leg.”
“He probably already done it,” Jimmy Boyle said. “I know my old man would. He trips all the time on our back porch comin’ in the gangway from Beeb’s and it’s only got six steps which none of ’em are broken.”
When they reached the apartment door, Chuck said, “Let me knock.”
Roy and Jimmy stood behind him as Chuck knocked twice. Nobody came to the door.
“Knock three times,” said Roy.
“Why three?” asked Jimmy.
“You know that song, ‘Hernando’s Hideaway’? It’s about some guys goin’ to a secret club or bar and they’re supposed to knock three times and whisper low so they’ll be let in. My mother plays that record a lot.”
Chuck knocked three more times. After a few seconds the door opened. Robinson Geronimo stood, tall and still, looking down at the boys. When he spoke his lips did not move.
“Somebody sent you?” he asked.
“No,” said Roy. “We’d like to talk to you.”
Robinson Geronimo’s face was gray, the color of smoke, his narrow eyes were dark and brown without light in them, and his nose was broad, almost round, and had no tip to it. For an old man, his face had very few wrinkles, only pockets like crevices in the smoky skin.
“Talk about what?”
“Was Geronimo really your father?” asked Chuck.
“Did he kill a lot of soldiers?” asked Jimmy.
“How old are you?” asked Roy.
Robinson Geronimo did not say anything for almost a full minute. He stood looking at them, then turned and went back inside his apartment, leaving the door open. The boys waited on the porch without talking. When Robinson Geronimo returned, he was holding a small, black and white photograph which he placed against his chest so they could see it. After each of the boys had examined the picture closely, Robinson spoke.
“My father, forty-eight years ago, 1907, two years before he died. On his horse, Takes Far Away. On horse next to him, my uncle, Wolf Once Was A Man. On other horse behind them, my little brother, nine years old, Nobody Sees Him In Moonlight. He died next year from White man’s sickness. Our mother, too, same year.”
The three boys stared at the photograph. There were cracks in it and some discoloration but the faces of the two men and a boy on horseback were discernible.
“How come your name is Robinson?” Roy asked.
“I keep Apache name. You can’t have it. Go home now. The sky is in trouble.”
Robinson Geronimo went back inside and closed the door. The boys walked down the stairs, stepping carefully.
When they were back in the alley, Roy said, “In a movie I saw one of the Indians was named No Enemy of Horses, but I don’t remember what tribe he belonged to.”
“Indians back then had better names than us,” said Chuck.
“Yeah, Jimmy Boyle said, “even their horses did.”