A Stone for Danny Fisher (1952) (2 page)

I
GO
back to the beginning of memory, and it is my eighth birthday. I am sitting in the cab of a moving-van, scanning the street-corner signs anxiously. As the big van neared one corner, it slowed down. “Is this the block?” the driver asked the coloured man sitting next to me.

The big Negro turned to me. “Is this the block, boy?” he asked, his teeth, large and white, showing in his face.

I was so excited I could hardly speak. “This is it,” I squeaked. I squirmed to look at the street. This was it. I recognized the houses, each looking like the others, with a slim young tree in front of each. It looked just as it did the day I went with Mamma and Papa, the day they bought the house for me, for my birthday.

Everybody had been smiling then, even the real-estate man who sold Papa the house. But Papa hadn’t been fooling. He meant it. He told the real-estate man that the house had to be ready by June 1 because that was my birthday, and it was my birthday present.

And here it was, June 1, my eighth birthday and we were moving in.

Slowly the truck turned up the block. I could hear the soft biting of the tires into the gravel on the street as the van left the road. My new street wasn’t even paved yet. It was covered with
greyish-white
gravel. Stones rattled as the tires picked them up and threw them against the mudguards.

I jumped up in the cab of the truck. “There it is!” I shouted,
pointing
. “That’s my house! The last one on the block! The only one that stands by itself!”

The truck began to roll to a stop in front of the house. I could see our car standing in the driveway. Mamma and my sister, Miriam, who was two years older than I, had gone on before us to take the loaf of bread and box of salt into the house and to have things ready. Mamma had wanted me to come with her, but I had wanted to ride on the truck, and the head driver had said I might.

I tried to open the door of the cab before the truck had stopped, but the coloured man kept his hand on it. “Wait a minute, boy,” he said, smiling. “You’ll be here a long time.”

When the truck stopped, he released the door. Clambering down from the cab, I slipped on the running board in my hurry and sprawled in the street. Strong hands picked me up and put me on my feet.

The Negro’s deep voice asked in my ear: “Are you hurt, boy?”

I shook my head. I don’t suppose I could have spoken even if I’d wanted to; I was too busy looking at my house.

It was brown-red brick halfway up and then brown shingles up to the edge of the roof. The roof was covered with black shingles, and there was a little porch in front of the house, like a stoop. It was the most beautiful house I had ever seen. I drew a deep proud breath and looked down the street to see if anybody was watching. There was no one there. We were the first people on the whole block to move in.

The coloured man was standing beside me. “Sho’ is a pretty house,” he said. “You a mighty lucky boy to own a fine house like that.”

I smiled at him gratefully. Then I was running up the steps and
knocking
at the door. “Mamma, Mamma!” I hollered. “It’s me. I’m here!”

The door opened and Mamma was standing there, a rag tied around her head. I pushed past her into the house and came to a stop in the middle of the room. Everything in the house smelled new. The paint on the walls, the wood on the stairs, everything was new.

I grabbed at her arm. “Mamma, which room is mine?” I asked. For the first time I was going to have a room of my own. Before this we had lived in an apartment and I had shared a room with my sister. Then one morning just before Papa decided to buy me a house, Mamma came into our room as I was sitting up in bed watching Mimi get dressed. Mamma looked at me and later that day at breakfast told us that we were going to get a house and from now on I would have a room of my own.

Now she shook her hand free of mine. “It’s the first one at the side of the stairs, Danny,” she answered excitedly. “And keep out of the way. I have a lot to do!”

I bolted up the stairs, the heels on my shoes making loud clumping sounds. At the top of the stairs I hesitated a moment while I looked around. Mamma and Papa had the big room in front, then came Miriam’s room, then mine. I opened the door to my room and walked in softly.

It was a small room about ten feet wide and fourteen feet long. It had two windows in it and through them I could see the two windows of the house across the driveway from us. I turned and closed the door behind me. I crossed the room and put my face against the window-pane and tried to look out, but I couldn’t see very far, so I opened the window.

I looked out on the driveway that ran between the houses. Right underneath me was the top of the new car Papa had just bought, and up the driveway behind the house was a garage. Behind the garage was nothing but fields.

I came back into the middle of the room. Slowly I turned in a circle, studying each wall. “My room, this is my room,” I kept saying to myself over and over.

I threw myself on the floor and pressed my cheek against it. The floor felt cool to my face, and the smell of the new shellac came up through my nose and made my eyes smart. I closed my eyes and lay there a few minutes. Then I turned and pressed my lips to the cool floor. “I love you, house,” I whispered. “You’re the most beautiful house in the whole world, and you’re mine and I love you.”

“Danny, what are you doing there on the floor?”

I scrambled to my feet quickly and faced the door. It was Miriam. She had a handkerchief tied around her head like Mamma. “Nothin’,” I answered awkwardly.

She looked at me queerly. I could see she hadn’t been able to figure out what I had been doing. “Mamma says for you to come downstairs and get out of the way,” she said bossily. “The men are ready to bring the furniture up.”

I followed her down the staircase. Already the newness of the house was beginning to wear off. I could see places on the steps where our feet had rubbed off the paint. The furniture was already in the
living-room
, and the rug, which had been rolled up on a big bamboo stick, was standing in the corner ready to be put down when the men were through.

Mamma was standing in the middle of the room. There were smudges of dirt on her face. “Is there anything you want me to do, Mamma?” I asked.

I heard Mimi’s derisive snort behind me. She didn’t like boys and didn’t think they were good for anything. It made me mad. “Is there Mamma?” I repeated.

Mamma smiled at me. When she smiled at me her face softened. I liked her to smile at me. She put her hand on my head and playfully tugged at my hair. “No, Blondie,” she answered. “Why don’t you run outside and play for a while? I’ll call you when I need you.”

I smiled back at her. I knew she was feeling good when she called me Blondie. I also knew it made Mimi mad. I was the only one in the whole family with blond hair; all the others were dark. Papa used to tease Mamma about it sometimes and it
always made her angry, I didn’t know why.

I made a face at Mimi and went outside. The men had unloaded the truck and there was a lot of furniture on the street. I stood there
watching
them for a while. It was a warm day and the Negro had taken off his shirt and I could see the muscles rippling under his black skin. The sweat was pouring down his face because he was doing most of the work while the other man was always talking and telling him what to do.

After a while I got tired of watching them and looked up the block toward the corner, wondering what the neighbourhood was like. The open fields on the next block behind my house, which I had seen from my window, made me curious. In the old neighbourhood there had never been an empty lot, only big ugly apartment houses.

Through the open door I saw that Mamma was busy, and when I called to ask her if I could walk up the block, she didn’t answer. I stepped off the stoop and headed for the corner, feeling pleased and proud, I had such a nice house and it was such a nice day. I hoped all my birthdays would be as nice.

I could hear a dog’s frightened yips almost as soon as I had turned the corner. I looked in the direction of the sound, but couldn’t tell where it came from. I walked toward it.

The neighbourhood just being developed—Hyde Park they called it, in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn. I walked down the street of half-finished houses, their naked white wooden frames gleaming in the bright mid-afternoon sun. I crossed the next street and the buildings fell behind me. Here was nothing but open fields. The dog’s frightened barks were slightly louder now, but I still couldn’t tell where they came from. It was strange how far sounds could carry out here in the open. Where we used to live before, down by Papa’s drug-store, you couldn’t hear a noise even if it was just around the corner. The field in the next block hadn’t been filled in yet and was nothing but a deep empty pit running from corner to corner. As soon as they filled in these pits, I guessed, they would start building here too.

Now I could tell where the dog’s yips were coming from: the block after next. I could see two boys standing at the edge of the pit there, looking down. The dog must have fallen into the hole. I quickened my step and in a few moments was standing beside the boys. A little brown dog was yelping as he tried to scramble up the sides of the pit. He could manage to get only part way; then he would slip and fall back to the bottom. That was when he would yip the loudest, as he rolled over and over on his way down. Then the two boys would laugh, I don’t know why. I didn’t think it was funny.

“Is he your dog?” I asked.

They both turned and looked at me. They didn’t answer.

I repeated the question.

The bigger of the two boys asked: “Who wants to know?”
Something
in the tone of his voice frightened me. He wasn’t friendly at all.

“I’m only asking,” I said.

He came toward me, swaggering a little. He was bigger than I. “And I said: ‘Who wants to know?’” His voice was even rougher now.

I took a step backward. I wished I hadn’t left the new house. Mamma had only told me to keep out of the way until the moving-men had finished bringing the furniture into the house. “Is he your dog?” I asked, trying to smile and wishing my voice wouldn’t quaver.

The big boy put his face very close to mine. I looked him steadily in the eye. “No,” he answered.

“Oh,” I said, and turned to look at the little dog again. He was still trying to scramble up the side of the pit.

The boy’s voice was in my ear. “Where you from?” he asked. “I never seen you before.”

I turned back to him. “East Forty-eighth Street. We just moved in today. In the new houses. We’re the first people on the whole block.”

His face was dark and glowering. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Danny Fisher,” I replied. “What’s yours?”

“Paul,” he said. “And this is my brother, Eddie.”

We fell silent for a minute watching the dog. He made it about halfway up before he fell back.

Paul laughed. “That’s funny,” he said. “That dopey mutt ain’t got enough sense to get outta there.”

“I don’t think it’s so funny,” I said. “Maybe the poor dog’ll never get out.”

“So what?” Paul snorted. “It serves him right for goin’ down there in the first place.”

I didn’t say anything. We stood there on the edge of the pit looking down at the dog. I heard a movement on the other side of me and turned. It was Eddie. He was smaller than me. I smiled at him, and he smiled back.

Paul walked around me and stood next to him. There was something in his manner that made both of us stop smiling. Eddie looked sort of ashamed. I wondered why.

“What school yuh goin’ to?” Paul asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “That one over near Utica on Avenue D, I guess.”

“What class you in?”

“Four A.”

“How old are yuh?”

“Eight,” I answered proudly. “Today’s my birthday. That’s why we moved. Papa bought me the house for a birthday present.”

Paul sniffed scornfully. I could see that I hadn’t impressed him. “You’re a smart kid, huh? You’re in my class an’ I’m nine.”

“Well, I skipped 3B,” I explained half-apologetically.

His eyes became cold and wary. “You gonna go to Sacred Heart?”

I was puzzled. “What’s that?” I asked.

“Sacred Heart Church,” he answered. “Near Troy.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head.

“Holy Cross?” he asked. “The big church that owns the cemetery?”

“What cemetery?” I asked. I was beginning to feel strange. I didn’t want to answer his question. I wondered what was so important about it that he should keep asking.

He pointed across Clarendon Road. About a block past it I could see the black iron picket fence of the cemetery. I turned back to him. “No,” I said.

“What church you goin’ to?” he persisted.

“No church,” I told him.

He was silent for a moment while he thought it over. “Don’t you believe in God?” he finally asked.

“Sure I do,” I replied. “But I don’t go to church.”

He looked at me sceptically. “If you don’t go to church, then you don’t believe in God,” he said emphatically.

“I do,” I insisted. I could feel angry tears start coming to my eyes. He had no right to say that. I stood up as straight as I could. “I’m a Jew,” I said, my voice shrill, “and I go to shul.”

The two brothers looked at each other, a sudden knowing look in their eyes. Their faces settled into dull, unfriendly masks. Paul took a threatening step toward me. Instinctively I stepped back. My heart was pounding. I wondered what I had said to make them mad.