Racing the Slamming Door

Every day as a pre-teen I’d race from my family’s apartment in the Marlboro Housing Projects in Bensonhurst across the long open-air terrace onto which all the apartments on the floor opened, towards the elevator, straining to reach it before the door slammed shut behind me. If I could beat that door; if I could get there before that door slams, I told myself … if I could push myself hard enough and fast enough then there’ll be no more wars. Everyone would live in peace. Black people will have equal rights. Everyone’s life would be meaningful. If I could only beat that slamming door!

Ever since sixth grade, all the way through High School, I’d invent games in which, in my mind, the future of the Civil Rights movement, or ending the escalating war on Vietnam, or even the good health and happiness of my family would depend on my ability to discipline myself sufficiently to master some seemingly unrelated and irrelevant situation. Going up the stairs, I’d sprint from the downstairs door straining to reach the landing before the door slammed shut. Invariably, I was successful, by a hair’s breadth, and Nazism, racism, or death itself was defeated, dead to the world–at least until the next time I raced the slamming door. Each time I added a greater distance I had to run in order to win. The combination of elation and relief with every “victory” (and this occurred at least once every day for eight or nine years), empowered me over conditions I wanted to change but over which I had no control.

I fought against the temptation to “waste” this effort on minor or personal desires, like getting an A on an exam. These games, in which I was the only one involved but in which every occurrence became some sort of private signal and each rearrangement of reality became an esoteric omen, were reserved for only the most important world-shaking questions. “If I don’t beat that door, it’ll prove that god exists,” I’d think, and, fancying myself to be of scientific, non-religious mind despite five years in Hebrew school, I’d never fail to beat the slamming door, never fall down, always straining against my own physical limits, never setting it up as an easy goal, and thus, always giving abstract philosophical questions a real physical dependence.

None of my friends believed in god. That was the first philosophical/religious encumbrance we’d discarded before turning the age of 12. I inadvertently caused a school scandal in P.S. 248 when I refused to read a bible passage to the honors assembly at the end of the 6th grade, after having been chosen by the teachers as the best reader in the school. The year before, I had beaten out my best friend Lloyd in the spelling bee by spelling correctly the word he missed “bouquet” before the entire school. I then spelled the word “gymnasium,” which was long but straightforward, and I was crowned the school champ –in the fifth grade!– and sent off to the district contest.

Susan Sussman congratulated me after school. She had a crush on me in fifth grade and I couldn’t care less. By sixth grade, however, our feelings had switched. I thought Susan was adorably cuddly. She had long blond hair, and wore a red velvet dress for special occasions. I dreamed about touching her dress. I called her once to go to the movies with me and my parents, but she didn’t want to. It took me half the day to build up the nerve to call her. By then, it was Susan who couldn’t care less.

My teacher, Edna Capellina, called my parents in to see her. “Your son refuses to read the bible. It’s a non-sectarian passage. It’s from the old testament. It doesn’t mention any one religion or even Jesus Christ.” My parents told her that they would stand by whatever decision I made. My dad went further and said that bible readings of any kind don’t belong in the public schools.

After a few days, Lloyd was chosen to read the bible in my place. Lloyd wasn’t as firm in his beliefs as me concerning god, but he didn’t want to scab on my decision. Out of solidarity he informed the school that, no, he was not going to read it either.

The school principal, Mrs. Manbeck, was scandalized. She now felt she had not only to find a bible-reader but a Jewish kid as well, to avert the innuendos. Finally, they asked Susan Sussman. Susan did believe in god. Her family was very religious. She leapt at the chance to read. Mrs. Manbeck was relieved. Lloyd and I tormented poor Susan by reciting the forbidden word to her: “Ye-Yaw!”, which was a phonetic transliteration from the Hebrew of god’s name that was never, never said under any circumstances; instead, for some peculiar reason, it was read as “Adonoy,” another forbidden word except when praying; we were supposed to say “Adoshem” when we came across the ever-present “Ye-Yaw” which in our minds was “Adonoy.” We also were supposed to write god’s name G-d, said Susan, as if it was a dirty word. “F-k that s-t,” I wrote to her along with “congratulations.” I never wanted to touch her red velvet dress again.

When I was 11 and my brother Robert was 9 we went off to the Boys’ Club camp in Port Jervis for two weeks, our first time away from our parents. Robert and I were the only Jews in the camp, and some antisemitic creep pulled a knife on us, saying “Jewboy, go home.” My parents came and took us home.

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