On the Street Where I Lived

On the Street Where I Lived

Autobiography of a ChildBy Roberta Weiner Markbreit

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Roberta Weiner Markbreit
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4567-1196-2

Contents

Joy...................................................1The Court.............................................11Our Place.............................................15The Neighborhood......................................31School................................................37Lake Shore School.....................................39The First Real Christmas..............................41Shoes.................................................43Then, Nettelhorst.....................................45The Neighbors.........................................55"Cubs Park"...........................................63Blossoming............................................67The Beauty Shop.......................................75Fish..................................................77We Four...............................................81Dress Up..............................................87The People on the Street..............................91Things I Needed to Learn, and Did.....................93Trading Cards and Movie Stars.........................95The Weiners...........................................99The Mausoleum.........................................103Visiting..............................................107The Ostermans.........................................121The Depression........................................141Mommy.................................................147Daddy.................................................151Chores................................................153The Birth of Confusion................................155The Fairy Tale........................................157America...............................................167The War...............................................169Portrait: My Mother in the Window.....................171Victory Over Germany!!!!..............................175The War Comes Home....................................177Post-War America......................................181Dramatic School.......................................185Miami Beach...........................................189Uncle Oscar...........................................203Smoky.................................................205Hide-'n'-go-Seek......................................209Our Heritage..........................................213My Bad Self...........................................215My First Love.........................................219The Beauty Shop.......................................221Boyfriends............................................225Nature................................................227Bittersweet...........................................233Brightness............................................243The Truth, at Last....................................249

Chapter One

The Beginning

Joy

I keep coming back.

It would be late afternoon, and there was I, sprawled on the shadowed sidewalk, playing jacks, the chill along the insides of my arms and legs, and under me, inside my skin, the chatter of my friends swirling about me. The sun was settled beyond the street where I lived, warm against my back. It warmed the pavement's bumps so they sparkled and mixed with the cold against my thighs.

He would appear in the distance, from the lake, a dark speck among others. Closer, and his slight smile would be pleasant, his eyes satisfied and tranquil; walking in an even, slow rhythm, dressed in an immaculate suit and tie, the edge of the front of his jacket flapping slightly behind the wind.

I would get up to meet him, shy with excitement. I ran to him.

We would walk. Sundays would be the best. Spring, Summer. The breeze was all around us, and we walked toward the lake.

"What's the matter, can't you keep up?" he would ask suddenly, a challenge.

The remark was familiar, and his deep brown eyes would flick heavily my way. I would be overwhelmed and a blush raged helplessly from within. The pain in my side was sharp. There was an ache to be his equal and his pride.

I said, quickly, inaudibly, "Yes, yes," and struggled to catch up.

He kept right on walking, his gait unbroken, the small paper bag clutched lightly against his chest. His other arm swung in concentrated ease. Every so often he looked down and cleared his throat.

He was dark, with straight black hair and thick, coarse cheeks that sagged. The top of his hand was silk as it brushed against mine and the inside was thick and smooth and warm when it closed around mine in reassurance, gently firm. I looked down, too, sometimes, to see his shined, pointed shoes.

We walked and walked, the sun's warmth hugging our shoulders. The full wind of Lake Shore Drive wallowed up and smacked against our faces as we reached the boulevard, even as we turned left and crossed the corner toward the park. The lake was blue and thick, alongside us, no matter where we went; it created a coolness that went through our hair and around and around the backs of our necks. My father's knit collar rose lightly every now and then.

Once the boulevard was crossed, we plunged into the wide tunnel. The walls were thick and curved upward to make a roof and a darkness that ended in the vast distance of a hot, sunny square. There was much cooler air here and deep silence. It was damp, and I could see large letters stretched onto a cement wall.

Automatically, he would hand me the sacred bag; and then he would swing his arms all the way in back of him; then he wound them forward and his palms cupped and splashed together in a secret way, creating an elegant sound, like soft thunder, throughout the complete dark. Again and again, until stifled heat blanketed our faces and our eyes began to blink from the approaching screen of sun. We came out of it, and the bright, wide newness seemed hot.

We walked. Everything glistened. The specks in the sidewalk sparkled quickly. The flat, coal-black bridle path glittered all the way to the end of the harbor, where the water curved to go back again. The spaces between the leaves were sunny, and the wide grass was moist, the trees thick, giving shade. The fence on the other side protected us from the high sidewalk edge so that we couldn't possibly drop into the water; its spokes were steel pyramid tips that blended and raced alongside us.

We passed everything; everything passed us. Men and women sat on green wooden benches, facing the lake. Children crawled in and out of the slats of one, hanging loosely from the back of the seat, and I wondered that they climbed in a way that I never dreamed of doing. I had my first glimpse of a boy on a two-wheeler. He whizzed by from behind us and his body was languid and swayed with the rhythm of the bike as one; then he stood higher on the pedals, his legs taut and stiff and confident.

People lounged on the grass, and had picnics. I saw women laughing as they sat in the shade; blankets were sprawled in front of them. A man pitched a softball to some children who were spread out so far that they were inside the space of another picnic. The man was animated. His eyes were bright, his brows raised; he chuckled expectantly, and urged the boys, and waited. The boys laughed with mischief on their faces; they made jolting, yelling noises. It was a familiar game to them; they were taut with continuous expectation. Then boys and girls on roller skates whirred by. Their feet chopped into the air behind them as they kneeled, pushing their bodies heavily forward; and their arms, one at a time, were thrust back, and they grunted with the effort. The small wheels grated long onto the sidewalk. The picnickers were strange to me; the roller skaters and the boy on the bike, gifted beyond my understanding.

We walked all the way to the end; and here, where the harbor curved and turned back, I saw patches of white everywhere. The lake was bluer and thicker. The sails of boats were flat and bright, their masts gleaming high within the blue, sunny air, like tremendous violin bows, as they dipped from side to side, almost tapping one another. Cabin cruiser decks gleamed in warm, dark wood; the boats bobbed heavily as thick drops leaped and gulped from underneath them.

The dull red of the totem pole gated the duck pond. It was a small embankment off to the side of the hidden bird sanctuary, which was buffeted by thick, dark trees.

We crouched together. I bent down and turned to face my father. He was leaning over the edge of the tiny cliff and his arm was stretched out. The ducks waddled to him, one at a time or in twos, uncertainly at first. Their deeply golden, wide-webbed feet splashed flatly onto the earth. Their heads poked toward his dark, thick fingers; their beaks, with two tiny holes at the tops, were golden like their feet. My father's yearning hands held carefully-cut squares of bread outward toward them; their jabbing beaks reached and snapped shut and made the bread disappear. He cackled softly, his lips parting slightly, his small, squared teeth showing delight.

Uncertain, I imitated him. I offered a piece of bread and watched my father, who leaned forward, indulgent. The ducks now warmed to him, coming closer in bunches; they made wide circles in front of him on the grass. Their beaks stabbed boldly. Now my father, teasing, held a piece of bread and stuck his index finger out; one beak jutted out from all the others and clamped around it. My father pushed the bread forward, with the other fingers resting on his thumb; the persistent beak opened, whisked the square of bread, sucking the tip in spurts; then quickly, it was gone.

My father did this again and again: setting his index finger between the open, willing beaks, gently shoving bread between; chuckling. The ducks were numerous, now, bumping softly together, all hungry toward my father. They climbed onto the little hill. I felt relieved, and unafraid. I wanted to stay for a long time.

The first time we walked, he held me high in his arms, propped against his shoulder, and I was tall! The shadows of leaves and the sun in-between them climbed up our faces and down our backs; we bounced thickly, squinted warmly. We met my Aunt Rose, tall and slim, who was coming down the sidewalk toward us. We all stopped, face-to-face, my father still holding me. We all smiled, and she praised me. Her voice was soft and deep, and it rose and dipped, and her words were indistinguishable. My father glowed, and was warm. It was new, and I, feeling the leaning height.

I keep coming back.

In winter, I am snug in my warm, zippered, jewel-blue snowsuit, the roundness of my nose cold and stiff with redness that I cannot see but know is there; the pointed hood attached and trimmed with white, furry stuff all around my face and on the collar, warming my neck and shoulders; my matching blue leggings with zippers on the sides close to my skin, elastic straps sewed at the cuffs and firm under my feet; my mittens, keeping my fingers close and warm together.

Oh, delight!!

We sit in a circle with my panda baby and her friends on the flat ground, between entrances (mine and Donny's, 507; Jerry's and Mary-Lynne's, 513, right across the way). The raw, solid carpet of snow under us is a sure comfort; our movements are thick and giddy. Jerry wears a snowsuit with an attached hood, too, orange and brown with stark lines that make boyish shapes and a dark scarf around his neck, on top of the front of his jacket. At playtime's end: numb, happy.

I came up from downstairs with Olga and I stood small in the living room, my blue snowsuit still on, an ice-cold blush on my cheeks and nose, the cold inside steaming and waiting under my jacket to be dispersed. The warmth of the room would grab me tenderly and subdue the cold and pinched redness on my nose and I would be happily done with the joy of outdoors.

My mother would pile my dimpled hands inside her slender hands; and, with her eyes glistening with sadness and a wide smile of divulgence aimed at me, she would rub back and forth, teaching me the way to be warmed on a winter day. Then, as she held one hand to warm it in both of hers, I noticed that there was a shiny, sky-blue vein slanted and pulsating like a wriggling river on the hand that rested on top of mine, rising up within the motherly peach-milk of her skin. Seeing it aroused my sorrow for her. As I became shiny and warm inside, my mother stayed bent over me, smiling greatly, her eyes glittery and loving, with the eternal sadness behind them. She undid my blue mittens, set them quietly on the floor, with me wrapped in my bunched coat and hood and leggings, the inside warmth that had settled in me now itching and creeping.

"Ooooooohhhhhhh," she exuded, mimicking the content that I now felt, showing me that the friction of love that she had created is the way to warm oneself after playing in the court on a winter day, a day that lulled one's heart into happiness that comes from being cold and warm, all at once.

In spring, sitting on someone else's back steps in the slender back yard; on either side of me, my panda baby and her friends, the sun forcing their black button eyes to sparkle; the sun and shade, side-byside on my face, making me squint and blink and smile. The thin blades of dark green grass, firmly established into the deep and rich brown earth; the earth gently spewing luscious aromas into our own sky of our sacred play area, beckoning us into summer.

My panda baby. She was big. I carried her to Belmont Harbor on walks with my parents, held her against my chest, and set her beside me, everywhere we went. I never let her go.

When I was three, in winter, during daytime, the frost was stilled atop the long street and inside the clear, cold air. At night, just before I fell asleep, the window was muted and then dark blue and the stars waited patiently to reveal themselves.

One winter morning, I awoke to find thin sprawling patterns on the windows, making little glistening hills, and, in places, soft with tiny stars, a halo above the panorama. Then my mother came in to find me on my knees, holding the bar of the crib, gazing at the spectacle.

I asked her, "What is that?"

"Jack Frost has been here," she said, smiling sagely.

Each winter morning, at five o'clock, the huge pipes throughout the building banged and clanged to their utmost in solid, even rhythm, threatening to burst through the walls, invisible, livid creatures from a monstrous other world. POW!! POW!! BAM!! BAM!!

Here, at dawn, Julius was stoking coal in the basement. With each bolt of loudness, I slid farther down under the blanket, my toes reaching the end of the unforgiving cold of the sheets, making me more and more frozen and stiff, my arms and legs close against my body, begging for warmth. And when I looked through the clear, bare winter air that filled my bedroom, there was no comfort there, either, for it permeated even the sweet humble wood of the furniture. My nose peeked out above the edge of my yellow blanket, forced into the solid, cold air, unprotected; I felt its redness, the chill of it.

The Court

I keep coming back.

The narrow, silvered street, going on and on, piercing the distant square of gray-blue horizon. In all seasons, its apartment buildings were rich in deep reds and pale yellows; deeper and moodier in Winter and soaked lighter in Spring; and, finally, stilled to their utmost in Summer.

507 Aldine Avenue. The way my father said the "dine" part: nasal, deep, important. It was ours.

The court's shallow steps going down stretched outward to trees and bushes at each end of the dark-red brick U-shaped building and the steps stopped in front of a pedestal inside a rectangle of bushes hugging it with an urn high on top. All the way through to the back, along its way, on either side, a gauntlet of trees stood along the continuous brick wall, their leaves dark-green and lyrical, like dancers' arms and fingers.

Halfway down, on either side under a window, a cement bench with curves and swirls carved on its sides sat in an alcove away from the cement path. Here is where Donny, Jerry, Mary-Lynne and I stood in a circle and chatted, creating our own privacy. We were all born within the same year, having met down inside the court when we were five years old. Here, hidden, the brick, the trees towering overhead like green umbrellas shading us, and the tall windows all around created a place opened to the sky above, a dark and soothing place with strong light coming down to touch us, creating a rush of gathering air, making us breathless, euphoric with the hypnotic joy of Life.

One day, the organ grinder lady's music wafted up to us. We all rushed to our windows and threw them open to find her in the very center of the court. Her box of organ music was covered in black fabric, shaped like a pioneer wagon, with wooden wheels and a long handle at the side of it. In a long black dress, she ground away, looking up and all around at us, some teeth missing from her witch's smile, turning, turning the wooden knob, her body pounding up and down, up and down. Gently, so as not to startle her, in soaring arcs, we threw quarters at her, waving and calling to her so that she would look up and know who was sending coins her way and so that she would find them where they fell.

On each side of the fronts of the building there were tall musty basement windows that almost reached the sidewalk. In summers, after dinner, Mrs. Grossman perched comfortably on the width of a cement ledge, making it her seat of the evening before dark, chatting to us as we ran back and forth in front of her, glass jars clutched inside our taut, purposeful fingers, panting with excitement as we chased lightning bugs to steal and save.

She was beautiful, in a movie star way, wearing sleek, ruby polish on her perfectly long nails; and apple-red on her wide, juicy lips, a match to her shiny, rouged cheeks. Even in a flowered bib apron, she was model-pretty; thin and tall, with long, shiny legs suggesting a tan, and black-brown curls that were set onto her shoulders. She should have been in Hollywood.

One light night, I shoved a jar filled with crawling ants under her nose.

She grimaced and said, "Ooooohh," swiftly raising her purply-manicured fingers inches away from her face, shielding herself, revealing her whitish palms like the peach-tinted hue of the insides of pearl shells. In barring me from intruding with my child's street dirt, she nevertheless reacted to me; thus, accepting me as a presence. Gleefully, I watched her disgust, which, in spite of its expression, only enhanced her glossy beauty more.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from On the Street Where I Livedby Roberta Weiner Markbreit Copyright © 2011 by Roberta Weiner Markbreit. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.