The Way Back Home
Chapter 10
On the way home I tossed my ruined pants and underpants into the first trashcan I saw. As I walked my mind was flooding with questions, “How was Angie able to stop the gang and get away with smacking Tony their leader. Could his dad Donald Cantera kick the gang’s families out of their apartments? It’s obvious the Cantera’s were rich but, how could they have a huge apartment in a building meant for poor people? How was it possible for Angie a kid my age to save enough to fill three large huge big pickle jars with a fortune in silver coins?”
For the first time in my life I realized that we once were poor and now were not very well off when compared to Angie’s family. I got dizzy then lost my sense of direction and didn’t know where I was. Sitting myself down on a stoop and shutting my eyes I waited for my head to clear. When I opened my eyes and looked around, I realized I was on a street that I had walked on countless times. Now the street and the buildings that I knew so well somehow seemed different something had changed. A passerby seeing me sitting on the stoop holding my head in my hands and bandaged up stopped and asked, “Are you Okay kid?”
I nodded a yes, got up and started towards home. The walking helped to rid my mind of the questions I had no answers to. It also gave me time to think of what I was going to tell my parents. It wasn’t until I was standing in front of the stoop that led to the entrance of our apartment building that I realized I was home. When I opened the door to our apartment and walked in, I was ready to face my parents.
When my mom saw me, she shrieked, “Bu-be-le, Bu-be-le, vuss hudt dir ge-shane? “ (Yiddish for, my boy, my boy what happened to you?”)
My dad hearing my mom dropped his newspaper and dashed to the foyer where we were and said, “Ann what is it?”
She said, “Will, look at him.”
He did and then asked, “Were you hit by car? Do you want me to take you over to Dr. Klein, or to the hospital?”
I told him I hadn’t been hit by a car, that a gang of older boys in the Project had jumped me. I didn’t need a doctor and the bandages made me look worse off than I really was.
“Should we go to the Police?” My mom asked.
I said, “Let’s go into the living room and I’ll tell you what happened.”
While my parents were settling down on the couch, a strange feeling came over me. Everything in the room, things I’d lived with all my life and my parents too were different now. I stood there looking at them without saying anything. It was quite possible I’d suffered a mild concussion.
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My mom finally said, “Nu, zhug mir etvus.” (Yiddish, Well say something to me). Her voice brought me back and I began, “Like I said before, a gang of older boys jumped
me for no reason near Patsy’s building. One of them knocked me down and then all of them started beating me. A friend of mine that lives in the building next to Patsy’s got the gang to stop. I don’t know how he was able to do it If he hadn’t stopped them I’d be in the hospital now instead of here with you.”
My mom interrupted and asked, “The boy that did this Mitzva, (Yiddish for, a good deed) do we know him?”
I told her his name was Angie Cantera and that they’d never met him. She nodded her head to acknowledge what I’d just told her.
I continued, “Angie took me to his home, his mom a nurse cleaned and bandaged me up. My clothing was torn, Angie gave me the clothes I’m wearing.”
I left out many details and never mentioned the Cantera’s apartment, I’d take that to the grave with me. A long silence followed after I’d finished. My parents got up from the couch and hugged me gently for a long time. When they let go, my mom gave my dad a familiar look, he returned the look. I knew they’d just communicated with each other without saying a word.
Then my mom said, “Bu-be-le, tomorrow after I come home from work, you and I will visit your friend Angie and his mother to thank them for helping you. They live in the Project so they must be needy. We would like to give your friend’s family a gift of cash and return the clothes they lent you.”
This was not a good idea Angie’s warning was fresh in my mind. Thinking fast I said, “Mom, the Cantera’s would be too embarrassed to let you into their apartment to see how they live.
They’re proud people I know they’d refuse to take money for helping me. And, the clothes were a gift, they’d be insulted if we tried to give them back.”
Again I saw my parents look at each other, then my mom asked, “Are you sure of this?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” I replied.
She hugged me again and then went into the kitchen. My dad patted me gently on the shoulder and went back to his chair and newspaper.
Relieved that my parents hadn’t insisted on taking me to the doctor, hospital or visiting the Cantera’s. Both relieved and exhausted, I laid down on the couch. Closing my eyes I imagined what my mom’s reaction would have been if we had gone to the Cantera’s and she saw the man with the shotgun and gold teeth. I started laughing out loud at the thought, my mom ran into the living room to see if I was alright my father stared at me.
I was almost asleep my when my mom told me into come to the kitchen for a bowl of my favorite food, chicken soup with matza balls. As she turned from the stove with the soup, she saw me wince in pain as I sat down at the table. Putting the bowl down, she went to the bathroom and came back and handed me two aspirins and a glass of water and said, “Take these now, in few minutes you’ll start feeling better.”
Accompanying my physical pain was the spiritual pain I was suffering with for having eaten the traif sandwich and drinking milk with it at Angie’s. The fact that I’d enjoyed both added to the severity of my sins. Once again in my mind I asked God to forgive me. The aspirins were working, and the soup was lessening my spiritual pain as well. By the time I finished eating I was pain free. The relief didn’t last long, that night my sleep was shattered by the pain from the beating and my fear of God’s wrath.