Shoeshine Boy [1959]

—1959—
Shoeshine Boy



Christopher Wright was walking home one evening; he was 12 ½ years old, a strong looking lad, reddish hair, determined if anything to make a few bucks. He had already made $4.35-cents; he charged .15 to .25 cents per shoeshine, depending on the bars he’d go into, and the composition. Yes, even at thirteen, or almost being thirteen, he was using psychology to make a living, or better put, to at least figure out if he could outsell his opponents, for there were other shoeshine boys on the beat. If he saw one—competition that is, the shoeshine was automatically .15 cents, for he knew the other boys were charging between .25 to .35 cents. Plus, when he charged .15 cents, he always got a tip, making it .25 cents anyhow. The end result, it was a busy evening, and he had to get home by 11:00 O’clock, or his mother would surely be fuming thereafter [wondering and worrying], and so he made his last bar, next, he leaned against the building to count his money, as the arc light along side of the street, glowed in his direction, and started counting his pocket full of change—one coin at a time.
—Not looking about, just counting, counting and recounting, with a smile on his face, it all came out to be $4.35 each time he counted; as a result, he was satisfied with the tally.
Glancing up, he noticed dust had crept in, as his blue-greenish eyes, then back down to the coins he looked, at the coins in his hand, as his sensitive ears heard a voice, a demand:
“Hay boy!” said the voice “…hand it over…!” the stern voice unrelenting, a harsh.
When he looked up, holding two hands full of change, it was a tall thin white boy, about sixteen or seventeen years old, possibly too tall for his weight; --Chris being about 5’5” at the time, and this kid was close to being all of six-feet tall, he simply looked up, stretched his neck a bit, and looked straight into his eyes, not saying a word; as if to say: you talking to me? (But of course he didn’t say that’)
“I said boy, hesitated, somewhat in disbelief, then as he adjusted to the surroundings, taking in a deep breath, as if he had but a second to deliberate and spit it out, if he was at all going to say something or anything, a yes or no, would do, he said:
“No-pp!” and the boy stepped two feet in front of him, grabbing his shoulders firmly, pinning him against the brick wall. Now things were seemingly becoming a little gloomier.
“Hand it over, or I’ll beat the shit out of you, knock your head against that brick wall!!” there was a pause, and he repeated himself,
“I said boy…hand it over or…!”
Just then, another voice came from behind this tall white robber, it was a heavy voice this time—heavier I mean than the tall white boys: a strident voice, it had kind of an accent to it, and when Chris looked around the thin kid’s lower part of his right shoulder, he saw even a taller person than the white lad, a big tall black man: the scene became a bit dubious (was he going to rob the tall white boy after he rob me, Chris was thinking? Inasmuch as that was one thought, it was not his only; but often times when such things happen like this, one swears—hours pass by, when in essence it is but a few seconds if not minutes, yes, time for Chris was lost somewhere in-between.)
Before Chris could run and escape, or come up with something magic, something peculiar happened, the voice said behind the white tall boy:
“Leave the boy alone… [a silent and deadly pause took place]!” Said the rustic voice of the black man—as the pandemonium thickened the ghostly scene of the evening.
Chris looked, at the taller black man’s eyes, eldritch-dark, they had opened up wide, like umbrellas, big and broad and strong, real burly looking. The white boy didn’t pay too much attention to the voice behind him at first: only giving a morbid twitch with his mouth and eye [or at least that is what Chris observed], and then the voice said in a more gaudy way, a second time—more macabre than ever:
“You just can’t hear, can you, I said NOW!” and as the huge black man was about to grab the white lad, the white chap turned about, his eyes opened up as wide as White Castle Hamburgers, for they were (all three of them) right across the street from one of those White Castile cafés on Rice Street (St. Paul, Minnesota). With one hand the Blackman pushed the tall white lad away from Chris like a twig: making everything a ting more haunter,
“You want to make something of this?” he asked the white boy, adding, “if so, let’s get to it, if not, get going before I flatten you on the cement.”
And the white lad was gone, just like that. The Blackman then turned to Chris [whom at this time was more concerned about getting home than a punch in the face],
“You bes’ be gettien on hom’, yous lucky tonight,” he added with a grin and smile as if to say, ‘…can’t believe a black man stood up for me, --haw?’ Had he been reading Chris’ mind that did occur to him for a millisecond.

—Chris, up to this moment in time, never really knew a black person. But this deed or call it act of kindness or even endeavor on behalf of the Blackman was imprinting for the most part, his first encounter with a black person would stick thick with him the rest of his life. If anything, as he would progress in life, he would see the character of a person vs. the color before he made his future judgments, and not even knowing why; that is to say, he didn’t know why, until he was much older in life, when most people examine the ‘whys,’ and ‘ifs,’ of life. If anything, racism would be a foolish noun to him, not fully comprehensible, not fully accommodating, yet in life despairing moments would prop this noun up, here-and-there; it would not have the impact it had on others for him, it would not dominate his life, nor alter his sleep like others. One might oversimplify it, as he did, by scarcely looking at it, yet observing it he did, but such perfect simplicity would mean being somewhat naive, and if anything that may have been his worse sin in a world he was about to enter, for it was the being of the 60’s.