REGGIE
That same year, for some reason which I could not comprehend girls seemed to find me irresistible. I found
them absolutely irresistible too, but that wasn’t new. What was new was, I had a little money. I had a few
friends. I had a car. My work (painting, writing) was moving along steadily, nicely, and I had gained some note
as a painter. I was doing alright for someone who didn’t know what the heck he was doing, let alone why. So, I
thought I’d give a little back, as they say. I thought about it for a bit and then called an organization which put
fatherless boys together with young men so the kid might know what it’s like to have a male figure in his life—
someone who cared about him and set an example of what it was to be a man.
I had a phone put into my studio specifically so this organization could call me and so, when my kid was
assigned, I could call him. They sent me a packet with a brochure and some forms to fill out. I must admit I
looked pretty good on paper. And before long I was assigned a kid; his name was Reggie. I was given his
home phone number and another pamphlet to read, and told to talk to him grandmother (his guardian). Then I
took a deep breath, picked up my new phone, and set up a date. The pamphlet stressed that I must prove
myself reliable in the eyes of this kid. If I made a date with him to meet up and go somewhere, the most
important thing on earth was that I kept that date. These kids had already had enough disappointment in their
lives. If I wasn’t willing or able to do that, the pamphlet urged me strongly to quit before meeting the kid and
save everybody the sadness. But I was ready, willing, able and on top of it, I was eager.
So, after making arrangements, I drove over to the frightening little neighborhood where the kid was to meet
with me and I parked my car out front and I went jauntily to the door and I knock knock knocked. An old black
woman looked out through the crack that the chain bolt allowed and eyed me.
“Is Reggie here?”
‘You the man from the organization?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” she hesitated, then opened the door enough for a skinny little black kid—he must have been 10 or
12—to slip through. He tugged on a baseball cap and stood there looking up at me, ready to go.
“When will you be bringing him home?” she asked from behind the door.
“I guess in about two hours.”
“TWO HOURS? No, no, no, no, you had better get him home ‘for that, now.”
“I thought we’d go to the park and then maybe have some ice cream somewhere.”
“One or the other,” she said in a commanding voice. “You choose what y’all are gonna do together but you
have him back here in an hour…and a half. OK? No more than that.” She looked at a watch and tapped it with
her finger. After she shut the door, I think both of us could feel her presence still behind it as we climbed into
my car and drove off.
During the ride Reggie did not look directly at me even one time that I was aware of. From the glances I took
of him, he was delighted to be going out. We talked a little and I asked him what he would like to do. He didn’t
know, he didn’t care. I offered him the park and he shrugged. I offered him ice cream and ice cream was the
resounding winner in an immediate landslide victory.
I’m not a political person, but I’m not completely unaware of the political pulse of our society either and I made
a kind of weird decision to go to a place where they had previously denied me service. By the time this event
took place the working theory was that a freshly scrubbed, properly attired black person could now sit at a
soda fountain just like your average big fat stupid redneck in overalls. We were about to test that theory. So,
we drove right up to the Plantation Room just like we belonged there and we marched right in, just like
everybody else and the hostess looked at us as if something foul had been dragged in on someone’s shoe.
Did I say there were brand new federal laws in place?
She lead us, without a spoken word, to a booth. Reggie scooted into a seat and I scooched into the seat
across from him. As he looked around, he saw only wonder; as I looked around, I saw only cold reality. People
throughout the entire section were gawking. There was such a hum about the place that people in the
adjoining rooms were standing up and craning their necks to discover what that vibration was about. I didn’t
know if it was because of the kid or because of my hair or the peculiar combo that we made up, but the good
customers of that very fine establishment had no qualms whatsoever about staring. Little beady eyes squinted
at us from the midst of round pink faces wherever I looked.
Reggie was oblivious to it all. He was delighted to be there. This was, after all, THE place where you’d go if
you wanted the very best banana split you could get in all of Richmond. So, I managed somehow to talk him
into having a banana split, and I somehow managed to talk myself into a chocolate malt. When the waitress
came, she had nothing to say; just stood there with her pencil poised and waited. Somehow the very process
of taking our order irritated her. I gave her our orders jovially, but she was having none of it, and she
disappeared, martyr to a greater cause.
When the good stuff arrived it was dumped coldly upon the table and a bill was torn from a pad and slapped
down on the tabletop. The message as I read it was, “Eat up, pay up, and get out.” I didn’t know whether the
unspoken pronoun was nigger lover, or hippie, but we ate, and we enjoyed ourselves. As we ate, we talked a
bit—though neither of us was much for talk—we talked. We talked about how good that ice cream was, and
after checking to confirm, we had to admit that it was very good. For the entire time I was aware of the hatred
beaming our direction, but I’m absolutely sure he wasn’t. (If I had thought for a moment that he noticed, I would
have taken him by the hand and left that place.) As said, we had a good time. But, when we were finished,
instead of pushing it, I took the bill directly to the hostess and gave her the sum in round figures, and smiled
as we walked out the door. “Boy, the air is sure fresh out here,” I said to the kid as we stepped outside.
After driving Reggie home, I went back to my place and collapsed.
The next day I called Reggie’s grandmother wanting to set up a meeting for the coming week and she said,
“Oh, you know, the fella down at the organization asked me to tell you to call him.”
“The fellah at the organization wants me to call him?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Ok,” I said, “I’ll do that. But, what about next week?”
“I think you better call that man first.”
So I called the fellah down at the organization and he told me that, well, you know, things being what they are
and all, they really didn’t need any more volunteers at the moment, and someone else, you know, another
really well-qualified young man, had been waiting patiently to have a kid assigned to him and, you know, he’d
been over-looked somehow, and he was sorry but he didn’t think they would be needing me any further.
I never really knew if it was because I was white, or because I had long hair, or because I took Reggie to that
place and that was seen as putting the kid in danger, but they could hardly admit to any of that. You couldn’t
say I hadn’t been warned though; what dream had I been living in? My entire Richmond experience should
have prepared me for this.
After putting my foot right through a painting, I broke down into tears. In those days I did that sort of thing.
Some day I hope to walk away from that phone conversation; meanwhile writing about this has been like
opening an old wound.