Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family (19 page)

We understood we belonged to a minority that had suffered in the past and was still subject to discrimination and exclusion. However, change was coming fast. Jews were quickly becoming accepted into the white majority and our parents taught us that nothing that really mattered was beyond our reach and we had little to fear as we moved through the world. We were safe in this assumption except, ironically enough, when Rahm was “black.”

While I had inherited my father’s complexion—so fair that I easily burned before developing a tan—Rahm and Ari had my mother’s skin coloring. Both of them needed just a few days in the sun to turn
the color of café au lait. By the end of the summer the two of them were almost chestnut brown. With curly black hair and a broad, flat nose, Rahm could easily pass for an African American.

We got most of our ultraviolet rays at Foster Avenue Beach, which became our regular summer hangout. In yet another demonstration of her confidence (today it might be called child neglect), our mother would send us off alone to spend entire summer days playing in the lake and on the sand. I led the troop down Winona, through the Foster Avenue underpass that let us safely cross Lake Shore Drive, and then into the park, where the beach stretched northward for a quarter mile or so.

In this time before cellphones, our mother did not need to hear from us every half hour to be reassured that we were okay. As the hours passed, she somehow assumed we were fine, and for the most part, her confidence in us and the city was well-placed. Less crowded than most city beaches, the strand at Foster Avenue was patrolled by lifeguards who kept watch as we built complex sand castles, dove into waves, and engaged in brotherly fights. Exceptions arose when some stranger decided to call Rahm and Ari “niggers” and demand that we get off the beach.

Although legally open to anyone, in the 1960s Foster Beach was segregated by custom and practice. Certain people—mostly white males between the ages of ten and fifteen—made it their business to enforce the unwritten whites-only rule. When they called my brothers niggers and tried to bully us off the beach, we—naturally—refused to move. Instead one of us would answer with some defiance—“You can’t make me leave.” The other two would stand to support him. The argument would quickly escalate to threats and sometimes punches.

Usually these confrontations ended quickly because we presented a united front and we would create enough commotion to attract the attention of the lifeguards and others. When shouting wouldn’t work and we had to fight, we remembered the stories the Big Bangah told us about union organizing. In every case we would return to the beach the next day because the beach was at the heart of our summer routine
and we wanted to make sure these bullies knew they could not scare us away.

As a parent reflecting on these days at the beach, I am flabbergasted by my mother’s behavior. I certainly would never have let my daughters spend the whole day at the beach unaccompanied, especially when they were under ten. But there must be something unspoken that passes from generation to generation, because my children have ended up spending a lot of time in Africa and Israel, and they would frequently go to dangerous places, such as displaced persons’ camps near battle zones. They would never tell me beforehand, even though I could do nothing about their trips. They would only call me after they returned safely.

Similar incidents happened to Rahm, Ari, and me on sidewalks, and in playgrounds and alleyways. On a few occasions passing remarks led to fights. It may seem paradoxical that boys raised by a pacifist in a house where plastic squirt guns were banned were so willing to throw punches. But we felt no inner conflict. We were not pacifists. When we were at the beach or walking the streets, we were city kids, not civil rights activists. If we wanted to move freely and safely around our neighborhood, we had to prove we could not be pushed around. The cuts, bruises, and torn clothes that came in the bargain were a small price to pay for the feelings of confidence and pride that come with standing up for yourself. I don’t remember our parents ever scolding us for these fights, nor did they call the police or search for the parents of the kids who gave us a hard time. Instead they appreciated the way that city life, which naturally included a bit of scrapping with bullies, helped us to become more assertive and independent.

Our strength was reinforced by the bond of brotherhood that grew every time we confronted bullies as a team. In the heat of the battle we always knew we had each other. At night, when we settled into the room we three shared, we sorted through the day’s events. Exhausted from his hyperactivity, Ari would say a few words but then fall asleep
holding on to a favorite blanket that he kept well into grade school. Rahm and I might play catch with the stuffed elephant that was my version of a teddy bear. As the elephant flew across the room Rahm might say something like “Weren’t you afraid those guys were going to kill us?” Tossing it back, I would confess my fears but also repeat what our parents had taught us. “You can’t run away. If you do, then you’ll be more scared the next time.”

During these conversations and the endless hours we spent playing games, we resolved our insecurities and tested the limits of competitiveness. Cheating at Monopoly? That’s normal, so everyone had to keep a close eye on the banker. Arm-twisting during a wrestling match? It’s okay until the other guy starts to cry. Sitting on someone’s chest and tickling him? Well, what else are brothers for? Moment by moment, through contests, conflicts, and confessions, we figured out the limits of behavior and forged an unbreakable alliance. As the eldest, I learned to go easy on my brothers in order to avoid causing serious injuries. As the youngest, Ari pushed things far beyond the point where Rahm and I would have stopped, and exploited his cuteness, appealing grin, and charm to get away with it.

The extra patience my parents reserved for Ari could bother me and Rahm. However, rough equality—with the emphasis on the word
rough
—is about all you can hope for in a family where three very energetic kids are constantly competing for attention, comparing the results, and calling the smallest inconsistencies tragic injustices. My parents were tolerant of our minor infractions, reserving serious disapproval for those times when we were genuinely cruel or disrespectful to others. The sin was doubly serious when it was committed against one of our brothers.

Fortunately, the competition for attention was usually suspended on our birthdays, when, as Rahm recalled, we each benefited from special status. “Mom would take you on the L to the State Street Marshall Field’s for lunch. We’d take the escalators all the way up to the seventh floor to the Walnut Room, where you could sit by the fountain and get their special turkey sandwich. It came with a huge amount of lettuce on it and drowned in Thousand Island dressing. After lunch
you’d get to pick something out for a present. I once got Hush Puppy shoes. Then you went across the street to Goldblatt’s and sat at the fountain where Aunt Gittie [our grandmother’s youngest sister] would serve you a sundae or a banana split.”

By making sure we each got special treatment on our birthdays, and requiring us to offer respect when it was not our turn, my mother made it easier for her sons to get along. This doesn’t mean we avoided jealousy and competition. Indeed, we had plenty of arguments about who “Mom loves the most.” But the truth was we all got equal treatment. And this equality inside the family bred solidarity as we faced the outside world.

If the family was a tightly knit unit, this togetherness was balanced by the freedom we were granted to explore first the streets around our apartment and, later, the city itself. Chicago was full of places to explore, including movie theaters, libraries, museums, the Lincoln Park Zoo, and shops that sold everything a boy could want. One of my most frequent haunts was a used-book store about two miles from our apartment called Shake, Rattle and Read. It occupied a twelve-foot-wide storefront right next to the Uptown Theater on Broadway between Ainslie Street and Lawrence Avenue.

Built in the Roaring Twenties, the Uptown was an ornate movie palace that occasionally hosted
Queen for a Day
, a TV program that invited so-called housewives literally to compete by telling sob stories in order to be crowned and covered in a velvet robe while receiving a pile of gifts—appliances, silverware, clothes—that symbolized her elevation to the middle class.

While would-be queens cried real tears at the Uptown, Rahm and I worked slowly up and down the aisles at Shake, Rattle and Read. Since the used paperback books cost between ten and thirty-five cents apiece, our unused-carfare stash went a long way. Fortunately, we did not have to depend only on coins acquired on the sly. My parents never hesitated to give us money for books, and we bought them by the armful. I started with biographies—the life stories of Sam Houston,
Daniel Boone, and Thomas Jefferson were early favorites—but my interest quickly widened to include American and world history, with a special emphasis on World War II. To this day, Rahm and I exchange recommendations on history books on a regular basis. Like most boys who read avidly, I was captivated by heroes and adventure and people who overcame adversity. My taste in fiction ran toward the Tom Swift series, which was the boys’ version of Nancy Drew. My friend Skippy had a complete set of the hardbacks and he was generous about lending them to me.

When a particular book was not available at Shake, Rattle and Read I often found it at the local branch of the public library. As the eldest, I was also trusted to trek to the main library in the downtown Loop to read or borrow whatever I wanted. I just loved that library on Michigan and Washington (now the Chicago Cultural Center). The librarians were always patient, and thoughtful in helping me pick out interesting books. But I think what captivated me the most—or at least what I remember to this day—was the architecture of the building and its views. The huge winding marble stairs, the ornate ceiling, the mosaics, the Tiffany stained-glass dome, all enchanted me. And when I tired of reading, I would walk over to the huge windows of the children’s room facing east, and just stare out at the traffic below, the park, and in the distance the Buckingham Fountain. I often wonder if my frequent visits to this magnificent building taught me to appreciate architecture. Again my mother showed extraordinary trust as she let me travel alone to downtown Chicago and be gone for the better part of the day.

It would be hard to overstate the effect that the city, and the freedom we had to explore it, had on us when we were young. It may have been totally irresponsible for our mother to let us wander the city alone, but the experience bred in us a sense of independent self-reliance that never went away. City life was so exciting that even the idea of a sleepaway summer camp filled with outdoorsy adventures held absolutely no appeal.

Of course, other kids and their parents spoke glowingly of camp experiences and one year my parents actually arranged for me to attend
one in rural Wisconsin. My mother and one of her friends drove me north to the camp and stayed around for the orientation and tour. As soon as I was assigned to a cabin group I began to feel uncomfortable. No doubt part of this was my intense anxiety about being in new social situations and having to make friends from total strangers. I just hated to have to walk into a cabin or cafeteria without knowing anyone. Another part was that in my family, in my school, and even in my religious education, I had been encouraged to be an independent thinker. I also had acquired a certain wariness about groups organized to follow the orders of a leader. This did not mean I thought that every time people sit together around a campfire a mob mentality takes over. However, I was aware of how people can lose some of their identity in groups. In the interest of harmony, or because of peer pressure, some might go along with choices they might not make on their own. Everyone in my family felt the same when it came to maintaining a sense of independence and individual responsibility and rejecting uniformity and groupthink.