The year is 1968, we've just moved from my home town of Montreal, Quebec to Tonawanda, New York. A little city in Erie county New York, about 20 minutes north of Buffalo, New York. I am all of 12 but look older..and enrolled in a school that is 75% black. My peers are predominately black, seem not to like that my soft leather, Marlboro man brown boots are “Bad,” (slang for 'cool') and my round, rose colored wired sunglasses have interchangeable lenses. Nothing seems to be going right on this 1st day of junior high in I am being followed home from school on this my second day..by what seems like ten or eleven black kids. I hurry along the dirty snow covered Tonawanda streets trying to remember the way back to this home we've lived in for all of 3 days.I do not like it here..I miss Montreal..I miss my friends..I miss the comforting familiarity of people places and things I know...like I know the back of my hand. My only thoughts since arriving are of leaving as quickly as I can..of running away and back to that which I know. As a family we have changed addresses and countries like some people change clothes. Dad's job takes him and us..to many different places...sometimes more than twice a year. They do not understand this sudden transformation from the child who loved the changes to the now prepubescent need I have to be around that which is easily recognized..that which I know intimately...that which requires as little assimilation as possible.
There is five dollars and some Canadian change at the bottom of my fringed suede purse..it is my ‘get away’ money..my runaway money for the trip to Montreal..the trip back home. I smile as I rush..they don’t know that soon I will be gone..back to safe ground and friends..back to happiness. I look up from the ground to get my bearings..ah I think I see the new street I live on..good.
Whack..I am lying flat on my back on dirty slushy snow..there are what seem like ten’s and twenties of black faces peering down at me in anger..mouths all moving..words I don’t completely understand or have ever heard before..I look frantically around..what is going on?
“Give us your boots honky bitch..take them off her..you..you there, get her coat. I am standing outside of myself watching as one hard earned twenty-five dollar tan boot is being tugged and yanked off my cold unobliging foot..an arm is half way out of the black wool Maxi coat..some buttons are laying in the snow..I must pick them up. I am confused..frightened..who are these people..why are they doing this?
I see another black pair of hands reach down and pull at my fringed bag..I am back in the struggle..this..this they cannot have..this is my reprieve..my second chance..my choice and my plan. I fight back mightily..kicking and screaming at them to leave me alone..they will not take my purse, they will not! Many pairs of hands are reaching down to hold me in place. I manage to curl one booted foot under myself and dodge many of the blows..it seems now as if the blows are landing more on them then on me. I go limp..there..there in this dirty Buffalo snow is my treasured wallet. My purse is still wrapped tightly around the one wrist and hand..somehow though the wallet..my treasure is up for grabs.
I hear shouts and whistles of success..”Money, look, check it out man she has coin. I lunge forward on the snow..after all I am on the ground and closer to it..hands yank and drag me back. I am crying now..only now..now that my hope is out of sight and in someone else’s hands do I allow defeat to show. The tears are in anger too. I go limp again I don’t care any more..why should I fight back..I am stuck here now. I feel myself being pulled to my feet and the black kids are running away laughing..pointing at me..slapping each other on the back and high fivin.. not unlike a team after a well earned game point. I catch the face of the kid who I saw kick my money away from my hand as I reached to grab it back. I file that face away..I resolve to get my salvation back. Red & blue lights are coloring the yucky slush a surreal shade of pinks and soft blues.
”Are you all right..what’s your name. where did they hurt you?” “Miss..hey kid,” comes the voice of the man who shouted at them to break it up. Through wet eyes I finally see whose hands pulled me up and out the middle of what I will come to label as “My own eye in a human hurricane.” He reminds me of my father..his eyes show concern and kindness. Somehow they get me home..I am not hurt..not physically..as I limp up the slippery steps..I realize I have only one tanned ‘bad’ boot on. For the first time I begin to fully understand the meaning of this word I've often heard, ‘Pride.’
I understand it well..because that day..my battle scars were not visible to the naked eye..no, not to the naked eye. That day marked the beginning of my life where I could be hurt by another human being outside of my family unit..they could no longer protect me..no..nope not from this kinda stuff..not any more.
