Shades of Black
New York City: July 1956
Traffic crossing the Brooklyn Bridge was stop and go.
“Where you from, Mitch?”
Surprised this hadn’t come up before, “Chicago.”
“Ol’ ‘Chi town’, eh. So tell me, your town really as windy as they say?”
“Yeah, Pal,” Glancing at Ruby, “it sure does get windy, but no worse than here at times, except maybe downtown or along Michigan Boulevard.
Where you from, Ruby?”
“Baltimore now, but my mother's family originally from New Orleans. That’s why I’m named ‘Rubidoux’. It’s French. You see I’m named after my great, great grandpa...” looking at Mitchell, “who was a slave holder.”
Stopped in traffic, “A ‘slave holder’ ?” Looking to his right, his eyes locked with Ruby’s.
Knowing only what he had learned of the south in school, to a twentieth century boy from Chicago, slavery – even thought history books say it existed – was a phenomenon that was so far removed from Mitchell’s mind that it was almost an incomprehensible fact.
“You mean he actually owned slaves... ‘Owned’ people? No shit!”
“Yeah, he did! And ol’ Rubidoux; and from what I’ve been told he was a miserable son-of-a-bitch, forced his, uh, attentions on my great, great gra’ma. And his son, Rubidoux Junior and, oh, God, how I hope both’a them pricks are rotting in hell, forced himself onto my great gra’ma, even though she was only twelve.”
Another incomprehensible fact, “ ‘Twelve’!” Hearing the horn from the car behind, Mitchell pressed on the accelerator. “You mean they were able to do stuff like that? To just, uh, do ‘it’ if they wanted? To anyone?”
“Mitch, those fuckers were like kings!” Ruby said bitterly. “They were the ‘masters’! They could do whatever the hell they wanted to anyone, so long as they were ‘shvartzers’ and the fuckers owned ‘em!”
“But, Ruby, a white guy? To just, uh, do ‘it’ with a negro girl?”
“Jesus, Lipensky, you’re so naïve! ‘fuck’ ‘em! You don’t think white guys want to fuck shvartzers?”
A memory:You don’t think white guys want to fuck shvartzers?
*
Mitchell remembered when he was... what? sixteen; when most of the Caucasian families had moved out of his old neighborhood on the west side of Chicago and the negro families had moved in when he was trapped – although he did enjoy doing it and was glad it had happened when – he was trapped into playing softball with Junior Johnson and some other negro kids.
Junior had introduced Mitchell to his girlfriend, Louise, and even then, more than six years later, in his mind’s eye, he could see her:
Louise was small, about 5’2”, and young, possibly fourteen. Dark skinned, almost black, Louise had a thin nose with wide nostrils, full, but from his viewpoint not too full, sensuous lips and, for a girl her size and age, unusually large breasts.
When Junior introduced them he’d thought: God, what a Beautiful girl! And a moment later, noticing the circular protrusions of the aureoles of her nipples beneath the tightly stretched material of her cotton T-shirt, his heart thudding, his penis engorging, not knowing how to respond to Louise or what might be considered an insult and certainly, at that time, completely intimidated by Junior and his friends, merely muttering a timid, “Hi,” Mitchell turned away from the girl wondering if there was something wrong with him for wanting... Hell at that moment he would have given anything he had or might have in the future to be alone with Louise, naked with Louise, to look at, touch and suckle on those, Oh, God, wonderful looking ‘tits’... And maybe, maybe even ‘fuck’ Louise...
And he did!
For the next two months, until his family moved from the west side to Skokie, Mitchell looked at, touched, and suckled on those, Oh, God! wonderful looking ‘tits’.
And indeed Mitchell did ‘fuck’ Louise!
And he did it night after night and occasionally in the afternoon... in his hand held fantasies.
And during that time, when he thought about it, the fact that her skin was black only added to the mystique of Louise.
*
You don’t think white guys want to fuck shvartzers?
“Yeah, Ruby, I guess you’re right. I met this beautiful negro girl once...”
“Mitch,” cutting him off, “did you think of her as a girl first, or a ‘shvartzer’ first?”
“Jesus, Ruby,” he said defensively, “she was beautiful!”
“Yeah!” Turning on the seat, gauging the depth of their budding friendship, looking at Mitchell intently, “But what did you feel about this girl, Mitch? What did you really feel about this girl?”
Glancing to the right, thinking, he brought his eyes forward again.
Mitchell did not know words ‘mulatto’ or ‘albino’ and thought of Ruby in the old west term of ‘half-breed’. As shocked as he had been when he’d first met him this morning, now, looking at him, he was surprised because he no longer saw Ruby as a ‘white shvartzer’ but as a friend, and felt as a friend it would be best if he told the truth about Louise and that long ago meeting, although he wasn’t sure he knew the answer to Ruby’s question.
“She was beautiful, Ruby! And to tell truth, I’d have given everything I owned, which sure as hell wasn’t much, just to see her tits... And when I first saw her I thought of her as...” He stopped. “When I first met Louise I thought of her just as a beautiful girl and wanted to look at her tits and fuck her more than anything in the world! Then, I’m sorry, Ruby. But then I thought that maybe something was wrong with me, and felt ashamed of myself for wanting to fuck a...” Hesitating, not knowing if he should use the slang, Yiddish word, but, What the hell, he thought, Ruby uses it. “I felt ashamed of myself for wanting to fuck a
shvartzer.”
Satisfied with the honest answer, “Know what, Mitch? Maybe you and I can be friends.” Looking forward, quiet a few seconds, “Anyway,” going on with his story, “my great, great grandpa raped...”
The rancor in Ruby’s voice causing Mitchell to glance at him again.
“...my great, great gra’ma and thirteen years later the old fuckers son, Rubidoux Junior, raped my great gra’ma, only he didn’t knock her up, and then a little something happened called the Civil War and my great, great gra’ma ran away north to Baltimore. But Baltimore is on the Mason-Dixon Line so even with the Civil War things weren’t so great there either, and after another ‘mixed breeding’ with my great gra’ma my gra’ma came along, who was a real pretty ‘high yellow’ lady that was able to ‘pass’...”
“ ‘Pass’?” Mitchell asked. “What’s ‘high yellow’? And what do you mean by ‘pass’?”
“ ‘High yellow’ means her skin was almost white, and that she had Caucasian features; you know, straight hair and her nose and lips were like yours, like a white person. Understand?”
Nodding his head, “Yeah.”
“And she was able to become... to pretend she was white, to ‘pass’ for white.” Expecting a question Ruby stopped, when none came, “My grandpa thought my gra’ma was white, but when my mama was born she had just enough of my great gra’ma’s features for grandpa to think he knew she wasn’t white, so grandpa... I hope he’s rotting in hell along-side the Rubidouxs... threw my gra’ma out with my mama, and twenty years later someone came along who’d just migrated from Germany: my daddy, Doctor Lewis Meyers. He and mama fell in love, and even though mama told him she wasn’t white, that she was... is a shvartzer, papa didn’t care so they were married and were able to keep mama’s secrete till... Lo and behold, I was born.” Chuckling, “An’ here I be’s ‘Mas’sa’! Why my mama ever wanted to be reminded of those assholes back in New Orleans, and why she named me ‘Rubidoux’, I’ll never know!” He laughed. “Except being a white, Jewish shvartzer and having a name like ‘Rubidoux Meyers’, maybe, would only tend to toughen me up.” Flexing his right arm, thick biceps swelling beneath the taunt flesh, “That’s why I worked so hard to get these, and to keep ‘em. And when I was younger, unless it was a bunch’a kids... Hell, it was shvartzer kids as much as white kids... If it was only one or two at a time I’d take ‘em both on and
beat the shit out of ‘em!”
His voice beginning to rise again, looking at him, “Take it easy, pal,” patting Ruby’s knee, “you’re among friends.”
