This month's blog is a little different: it's an excerpt from a novel I'm writing called Brighton Park. It's a fiction/nonfiction blend like all novels-- not autobiographical in many respects-- yet it describes the foundation for why I live in Asia....
Filled
with rows of identical brown brick bungalows, Brighton Park brimmed with
families who had had their lives upended by war and who now wanted what her
parents called The American Dream, whatever that was. Near as Kate could tell,
the dream meant living in the United States, which her parents said, was the
best country on earth. In America, we have freedom, they told her.
While
the adults went freely about their lives inside the windowless factories where
they worked long shifts, packs of kids played kickball and Horse and hide and
seek in the streets and alleys behind the factories. Daiva and she had met
during games in these streets. If there had been a time when they weren't
friends, she did not remember it.
Brighton
Park was a neighborhood on Chicago's south side. Kate thought it was a dumb
name. It was anything but bright. By noon every day, haze from nearby factories
fogged the air and blocked the sun. And there weren't any parks.
A
better name would have been Lithuania Town since more than half her neighbors
had come to Brighton Park directly from the Old Country.
Her
parents called the Lithuanians DPs. When she was a little kid, Kate didn't know
what a DP was but she could tell by the way they said it that it wasn't a good
thing. Wafting from DP houses was the foreign odor of beet soup and cabbage
instead of the American smell of Hamburger Helper and instant mashed potatoes.
The women tied brightly colored babushkas on their heads. They didn't shave
their legs. The men wore socks with sandals and their pants never quite matched
the color of their shirts. But worst of all was that they spoke Lithuanian in
the shops, and on the streets and buses. This was America for God's sake, her
parents said. People who come here should speak English.
The
Lithuanians did not agree.
Daiva's
and her own parents were in agreement about one thing though: the Brighton Park
Public School was no place to send a kid. The giant stone fortress with gated
windows and steel plate doors a few blocks from their houses looked like a
prison. Neighborhood gossip said the teachers were terrible and that students
were treated like inmates. Daiva's parents were Catholic so they sent her to
all girls Immaculate Conception Elementary School where the students wore blue
plaid uniforms with pleated skirts that they rolled up very short when the nuns
weren't looking. The girls were required to attend mass each morning and school
often dismissed early in the afternoon so the students could sell candy door to
door to raise money. When they weren't in church or doing fundraisers for the
school, Daiva said the older girls smoked in the bathroom and talked about
things they did with boys.
Although
Kate did not have to wear a uniform at her own Missouri Synod Lutheran school,
she could not imagine students being allowed to hang out in the bathrooms,
leave school early to sell candy, or talk about things they did with boys.
Misbehavior was dealt with swiftly and publicly by teachers who were not shy
about using a large wooden paddle they called “the Board of Education” for
things like late homework, skirts that were too short, or overdue library
books. Classes were disciplined, orderly, and quiet.
Daiva's
school sounded like a lot more fun. Kate wondered secretly how she could become
Catholic and go to Daiva's school without her parents knowing.
On
a warm May Saturday morning, the girls sat on Daiva's porch. Mr. Petersonaitis,
Daiva's dad was fixing the family's ancient push mower on the small square of
crabgrass that constituted the family's front lawn. His sleeves were rolled up
to the elbows. Kate noticed what looked like numbers tattooed onto his left
forearm.
“Why
does your dad have that?” Kate asked. “Have what?” Daiva flipped the long brown
braids that reached down to her waist. “Those numbers?” “From the camps,” Daiva
said, still more interested in her braids than in Kate's question. “What kind
of camp puts numbers on people?' Mr. Petersonaitis suddenly looked up from the
mower and quickly rolled down his sleeves. Kate realized that she had been
staring at his arm. He disappeared into the backyard. “Papa doesn't like to
talk about it much. All I know is that there was a guy who put a lot of people
into camps because they weren't Russian.” My parents had to work hard there.
That's why they left the Old Country. Wanna a popsicle?”
Kate
did not want a Popsicle. She wanted to know about camps in the Old Country
where people who weren’t Russian were tattooed and forced to work hard. Were
there a lot of camps like that, she wondered? Were they still open? Was the Old
Country the only place where there were such camps? Kate wasn’t Russian. If she
went to the Old Country, would she be tattooed and put into a camp? If so, this
seemed like a good reason not to go to the Old Country. And yet Daiva and her
parents often spoke of returning to Lithuania. It was confusing. As usual, she
had a million questions and few answers.
She
followed Daiva to the corner mom and pop store where they sold cigarettes,
milk, Wonder bread, bagels, candy, and popsicles. Kate got a red/white/blue
Rocket Blaster. The Popsicle was so cold it stung her tongue as she bit off a
chunk of blue ice. Daiva licked her Dreamsicle and talked incessantly about the
reward a priest at her parish had promised she was going to get when she cut
off her braids after she graduated in two years from eighth grade. Kate thought
the whole thing was weird. Why would a priest make Daiva promise not to cut off
her braids until she was in eighth grade and give her a reward because she then
did? Kate had tried to get an answer from Daiva about this. Daiva said it was something
someone who wasn’t Lithuanian wouldn’t be able to understand. Kate said, “Try
me. What’s the reward?” “That’s what I mean,” Daiva said. “You don’t
understand.” But Kate did understand. She was an outsider.
The
wind shifted and the air began to smell like a feedlot. For years her mom had
explained the stink by saying they lived near The Back of the Yards. Chicago after
all was the hog butcher to the world. But by grade 6, Kate knew the
slaughterhouses had closed years ago. This smell actually came from the Darling
Fertilizer Plant. Darling and dozens of other factories that hedged Brighton
Park on all sides spewed fumes day and night but Darling's mix of ammonia and
manure pierced the nose and clung to clothing in ways the others did not.
Besides
Darling and the Lithuanians' food concoctions, the other prominent olfactory
feature of Brighton Park was the smell of the many of dimly lit taverns that
occupied the corners of most blocks. When the doors of these establishments
swung open, the reek of stale beer, cigarettes, and urine wafted out. Most of
the taverns had some patrons who parked themselves on the tattered vinyl stools
when the bars opened at 9 am and who drank and smoked uninterrupted for hours.
These devoted drinkers could not be troubled to stop long enough to get up to
use the toilet. Yellow puddles pooled beneath their seats. Daiva's parents did
not go into the bars. Both of Kate's parents did.
In
fact, they were frequent visitors to Ona's and Baly's Tap just across the alley
next to their bungalow. Adjacent to the bar was an 8 x 10 patch of dirt
surrounded by a chain linked padlocked fence. A large black Doberman named
Prince paced the pen all day and well into the night. Baly said he was a guard
dog although he never seemed to be allowed outside the pen.
Every
morning on her walk to school, Kate studied the fence to see if there might be
a way to help the dog escape.
That
evening at the supper table, Kate asked her parents about the camps and numbers
she had seen on Mr. Petersonaitis’ arm. “Stalin was the man who put the DPs in
labor camps after the war,” her dad said while opening the fifth of many
bottles of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer he would have that night. “Had the right
idea, too. Those DPs helped the Nazis. If you ask me, we should get the balls
in this country to put troublemakers into camps like Stalin did. Round ‘em all
up and make ‘em work. I bet that nigger King never worked an honest day in his
life. And he’s coming here to lead marches and stir up the jungle bunnies? Go
back to Africa.”
Kate
doubted that her dad could find Africa on a map.
“Oh,
Bob, you don’t mean that,” her mom said quietly. She had only had two bottles
of beer.
“Who
are you to tell me what I mean?” He slammed his fist on the table causing a
plate to clatter and break upon the stained linoleum floor. Not for the first
time, Kate studied her parents and thought the two of them made quite a pair.
Although he was only in his early thirties, her dad was almost bald and looked
twice his age. With his big beer belly hanging over his belt, he reminded Kate
of Jackie Gleason on The Honeymooners, but with less hair. Like Jackie, he was
powerfully built. Her mom on the other hand had all her hair but was rail thin.
Full of nervous energy, she waved her hands when she spoke and often flitted
about whatever room she was in. Kate secretly called her Bird Woman.
Physically, Bird Woman was no match for Jackie Gleason. And Kate knew from
experience that what was about to happen was going to get physical.
She
excused herself from the table and went for a walk. It was best not to be in
the house during her parents’ arguments. By the time she got back, the fight
would be over, her parents would be at the bar, the house would be quiet, and
she could go to bed.
Kate
knew that a black man named Martin Luther King was supposed to lead a march for
something called open housing in nearby Marquette Park. Lots of Lithuanians
lived in that neighborhood, too. And just like Brighton Park, there were no
black people there. The only time Kate saw blacks—her Uncle Wally called them “the
colored”-- was when he took her on the Archer Avenue CTA bus downtown to visit
the Art Institute, Adler Planetarium, or The Shedd Aquarium. Once downtown, she
would see many black people on the sidewalks, in the museums, and on buses. Her
uncle under his breath often pointed out how thick colored people’s lips were
and how curly their hair was. Kate didn’t think these things needed pointing
out since she could see for herself but she didn’t say anything. Her uncle was
probably going to buy her lunch in a restaurant which was a rare treat. No good
could come of starting an argument. But after lunch when she pulled a stick of
Juicy Fruit from her pocket, her uncle grabbed the pack away and told her it
was jungle bunny gum. She said it tasted good and demanded it back. He refused
and called her a jungle bunny. She put her hands above her head in imitation of
rabbit ears and began to hop out of the restaurant. People stared. He returned
the packet of Juicy Fruit.
They
had a silent ride home on the CTA bus. Uncle Wally never took her on another Saturday
expedition downtown. But by that time, Kate had an allowance and knew how to take the bus to
the museums by herself. She continued the Saturday expeditions alone. This
was preferable to going with Uncle Wally although she could not afford to treat herself to lunch even though museum admission was free. But now
that her uncle was no longer with her she could spend hours studying the
exhibits in detail and return to her favorite museum again and again. Kate spent
the next year of Saturdays in the Art Institute of Chicago puzzling over Impressionism and Asian antiquities.
The Art Institute had many galleries of Impressionistic art. Most of the paintings were
by French guys named Renoir, Cezanne, Monet, Manet, Matisse, and Degas. But there were also other paintings by
people like Sisley and Cassatt who weren’t French but had gone to France to
paint. From what she could tell from Impressionism, the light in France was
very different from that on the south side of Chicago. It was much more
beautiful. French light shimmered. Someday she would go there and see it for
herself.
Kate
liked Renoir’s art the best because it glowed with the most color and joy. She
found herself especially drawn to his painting of two young sisters sitting on
a terrace by a lake. The girls had rosy cheeks and radiated health and youth.
Both wore big hats. The older sister’s was red which was Kate’s favorite
color. What fun it would be to sit on a shimmering lake terrace wearing a red hat
in a happy glowing world. But for no reason at all, tears sometimes came to
Kate’s eyes when she stood in front of the picture of the sisters. The tears
always surprised her and she quickly blinked them away. Crying, she was pretty
sure, wasn’t going to help her see the beautiful world the Impressionists saw.
The
museum’s Asian galleries were even bigger than the Impressionism ones. Uncle Wally had taken her to see the Asian collection once to show her examples of “Jap” art. He
was an ex-Marine who had fought in the Pacific during the most recent worldwide war. Bird Woman told her that Uncle Wally's wife divorced him while he in Japan. Now he lived alone in a rooming house near 47th and Archer. He held the Japanese responsible for this. Referring to some sculptures of the Buddha, he hissed, “Japs pray to these
statues. Didn't help them win the war though, the bastards.” Her uncle apparently had not noticed that museum signs said the art was from
many places in Asia, not just Japan. Or maybe he thought all of Asia was just one big
version of Japan?
“When I was in Japan right after the war ended", Uncle Wally said, "a family gave me a meal. It tasted good but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I asked
the cook to tell me. He pretended he couldn’t speak English. But his English
had been OK up to that point. I said he better tell me. ‘Rat’, the Jap said. I
went around back and threw up. Then I thought about shooting him. A buddy who
was with me told me it wasn’t worth risking a court martial for." Uncle Wally chuckled.
Kate
wondered if the cook had actually played a trick on her uncle because Americans won the war. But what if rats
were the only kind of meat the Japanese had left when the war ended? Or maybe, the
Japanese actually ate rats on a regular basis just like Americans ate hotdogs? Had
her uncle ever asked an American cook what was in a hotdog? If he got an
answer he didn’t like, would he consider shooting the cook?
Knowing that her
uncle would not appreciate these questions, Kate didn't ask them. They left the museum shortly
thereafter and then went to lunch. It was at that lunch that the Juicy Fruit
incident occurred.
On
her post Juicy Fruit trips to the Art Institute sans uncle, Kate noted the
Japanese woodblock prints and Chinese jade carvings with interest but was
especially attracted to the hundreds of sculptures of the Buddha from various
parts of Southeast Asia. Kate didn’t know much about Buddhism but she liked the
fact that all the Buddhas looked pretty relaxed and were smiling. Their eyes
were half closed like they were watching some inner movie. Were they smiling because
they saw the same shining world the Impressionists did?
Kate wanted to see what the Buddhas saw. Even if they did eat rats.
Daiva
said she thought how Kate spent her Saturdays was weird. “You mean your parents
let you get on the bus and go downtown by yourself?” “Yeah. They're usually
too hung over in the morning to ask a lot of questions. They think I’m going to
the library.”
“All
day?” “Yeah, I tell them I have a lot of homework.”
