Joshua: A Brooklyn Tale (50 page)

CHAPTER 59
 

It was a blustering, dreary, February day with remnants of a recent snow on the streets and walkways. Chava Sims, in full winter ensemble, trudged to the local market just three blocks from her home, the wind assaulting her face. She berated herself for not having called for a delivery.

She had been home alone—the girls were in school and Pinchas was at work—and had needed to get out. The weather had kept her indoors for days, and though the house was large, richly decorated, and comfortable, to her it was confining.

It was a new home for them, purchased just the previous year, after Alfred had given Pinchas a sizable raise. It seemed Alfred was becoming more generous with age, or perhaps more penitent. Either way, it was a perfect dwelling for their needs, a one-family limestone row-house, primely located on the south side of Eastern Parkway, just two blocks east of the Lubavitcher main headquarters and synagogue. It was a dream-house, one any woman in the neighborhood would be happy to live in, yet Chava was miserable.

Once she turned southward from Eastern Parkway onto Kingston Avenue, the buildings shielded her from the easterly gusts. She was winded, but had only one short block to her destination. She passed a row of stores, each under Lubavitcher proprietorship, noticing the posters hanging in virtually every window, pictures of the
Rebbe
smiling and waving, with bold lettering underneath,
Moshiach
Is
Coming
!

She recalled how a year earlier she had gone to the
Rebbe
for a blessing, and had stood in line for hours with hundreds of others, waiting to encounter the leader’s magical presence. And when her turn had finally come, she was quickly ushered past him, people standing both in front and behind her, as he held up his hand, mumbled some words she couldn’t hear, smiled, and handed her a dollar bill.

The dollar bill, which the
Rebbe
personally handed everyone who came before him, was a token of God’s beneficence, a reminder that the
Rebbe
was God’s messenger on earth. Chava had taken hers, and had placed it in her jewelry box for safe keeping, and for hope. Yet, a year had passed since that day, and the blessing still eluded her.

Her marriage a sham, her parents practically impoverished, and her mother’s manic depression worse than ever, Chava was finding it impossible to maintain her faith. She wasn’t merely having misgivings, nor was she in a state of disbelief; she simply stopped trusting God. She no longer relied on Him, or harbored any pretense that the future held even the slightest promise. Her world was destitute, and any chance of salvation seemed dubious.

She entered the market, and was surprised—though she shouldn’t have been—to find it crowded with young women. The neighborhood was inundated with new families, lots of children needing milk, diapers, and whatnot; lots of mothers unable to wait for a delivery. Chava took a hand-basket and went about her business.

It was a small grocery, but well-stocked with essentials. The owner, a large, overweight, balding Hasid, stood behind the checkout counter, listening to Hasidic tunes being played on WEVD, an AM radio station with afternoon Jewish programming. He seemed a happy sort, appreciative to have a store filled with customers on a day such as this.

Suddenly the man yelled out, “Oh my God, Oh my God,” and all the women turned to see what was happening. His face was red, he signaled for quiet, and raised the volume on the radio. An emergency report came over the air: Chaya Schneerson, the 86-year-old wife of the
Rebbe
, had just died at New York Hospital.

The man began to weep, and one of the women near Chava gasped and fainted. Chava rushed to the woman’s side to help, as did some of the others. It had all happened so quickly, it was too much to fathom. The
Rebbetzin
was dead.

The woman regained consciousness. Chava helped her sit up, and offered her some juice. The woman was grateful, but still distraught and breathing heavily. Chava continued to try and calm her.

The
Rebbe
and
Rebbetzin
had no children, which was one of the reasons many believed the
Rebbe
to be the Messiah. Since there was no heir to his position, he must
surely
be the last and, ipso facto, the
Moshiach
. Now, with the
Rebbetzin’s
death, the final redemption was undoubtedly at hand, and Chava Sims, tears rolling down her cheeks, felt flames of remorse for ever having doubted.

Rachel Weissman removed her coat from the hallway closet and glanced at herself in the mirror on the inside of the door. She had been in for days with what had seemed to be the worst cold ever, and she looked haggard. The coughing and fatigue were unrelenting, but the
Rebbetzin’s
funeral was not to be missed.

“I still say you shouldn’t go,” Hannah said, putting on her own coat. “You need to stay home and rest.”

“I’ll be okay,” Rachel insisted, coughing with the words. “It only happens when I talk,” she added.

Hannah looked at her, knowing nothing would change her mind.

Rachel feigned a smile. “Please, Mama, don’t worry so much. I’m a big girl.”

“A big girl who doesn’t take care of herself. At least promise me you’ll go to the doctor if that cough doesn’t clear up in the next few days.”

“I promise,” Rachel said, hoping it wouldn’t come to that. Hannah had been
noodging
her to see a doctor since the “cold” had started, but Rachel had been resistant. “It’s just a bug,” she had insisted. “I’ll get over it.” She’d had enough of doctors.

They got downstairs, and stepped out into the chilling wind. Rachel placed her scarf over her mouth and walked silently with her mother. She tried to suppress her coughing so as not to alarm Hannah, but she couldn’t. Hannah, feeling helpless, put her arm around her, trying to warm her.

They turned on Kingston Avenue, and were joined by a parade of hundreds walking towards the
Rebbetzin’s
home on President Street, where the funeral procession would start. As they drew closer to their destination, they noticed the streets teeming with thousands of mourners. The crowd was at a standstill; this was as far as they would get. They stood and waited.

Many of the mourners were reciting
Tehillim
, Psalms, as was customary in such situations. Trying to forget the cold, Rachel reached into her pocket for the small leather-bound book her father had given her when she was a child. She opened it to what she considered an appropriate passage for the circumstances, Psalm 130, and began reciting softly, “
A
song
of
ascendance,
from
the
depths
I
called
out
to
You,
God.
Lord,
listen
to
my
voice,
may
your
ears
be
attentive
to
the
voice
of
my
pleas.
If
you
preserve
iniquities,
God,
my
God,
who
could
endure
 
.
 
.
 
.”
It was a prayer of desperation, one with which she had become all too familiar.

She tried concentrating on the words, despite her coughing, and was managing until she suddenly began to feel breathless. She tried to relax, but it didn’t work. She was gasping, and became frightened. Hannah noticed, and asked if she was okay.

“Yes, but I think you were right. It’s too cold for me to be out. I’m going back home.”

“Come, I’ll help you,” Hannah said, taking her arm.

“That’s okay, I’ll be fine. You stay here.” She didn’t want to worry her mother, and she was hoping she’d feel better as soon as she got in from the cold.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I just need to rest. I’ll be all right.”

Hannah was reluctant to let her go on her own, but Rachel insisted that at least one of them should attend the funeral. She reassured Hannah again, then went on her way. Although she walked the few blocks slowly, she had to stop twice to catch her breath. When she finally got home, she went directly to her room to lie down on the bed. She rested for an hour until she felt a bit better, got out of bed to go to the bathroom, and as soon as she took a few steps, she found herself short of breath again. There was no denying it, something was wrong.

Marcia Schiffman stood pensively, scrutinizing the X-ray for the umpteenth time, knowing in her mind and heart that the diagnosis was inescapable. She had already delivered the news to Rachel a few hours earlier, yet she kept looking and searching, hoping that she’d misread something. It was late at night and the office was empty, but she couldn’t go home. She couldn’t budge, couldn’t take her eyes from the film.

She was never one for helplessness or desperation, but at this moment both were all she could feel. She had done her best to remain upbeat and positive when she’d explained it to Rachel and Hannah. “It’s a cancerous nodule in a lobe of the left lung, but it’s operable. The mammogram shows no changes in the right breast, the blood work is fine, so we have good reason to believe it’s contained to this area.”

It was always important to hold out hope for the patient. But it was also important to tell the truth, especially to a friend. So in response to Rachel’s question about the possibility of future metastases to other places, she had responded, “We don’t know,” adding, “I wish I could tell you more than that, but I can’t.”

It had been the most trying dialogue she’d ever had with a patient, yet whatever she was experiencing, it was nothing compared to what lay ahead for Rachel. That much, she knew for certain. She also knew there was little she could do to protect her friend, beyond the usual medical treatment, the efficacy of which was equivocal, to say the least.

Marcia Schiffman thought about the future as she stared at the X-ray, and began to quiver. For the first time in many years, she felt a vulnerability she had thought she had overcome back in her childhood. And for the first time ever, she began to pray.

CHAPTER 60
 

Although on the other side of Brooklyn, the neighborhood of Bensonhurst might just as well have been a million miles from Crown Heights. Bordering the Belt Parkway and Gravesend Bay on the southern edge of the county, its spotless, tree-lined streets were protected by an unwritten code, prohibiting “undesirables,” and levying harsh penalties for even the slightest infraction. A final stronghold of mostly Italians, resisting the swells of integration hitting other neighborhoods, nothing occurring within its borders could bear the slightest relevance to the tempestuous happenings around it. Not until the night of August 23, 1989.

Joshua didn’t learn of the incident until the following morning on his way to the office. It was a pleasant start to a summer day, mild but unusually dry; a welcome reprieve from the heat wave that had been plaguing the city for almost a week; more than enough reason to feel good.

He stopped at a newsstand, grabbed a paper, handed the proprietor a dollar bill and waited for change. Always with a smile and a hearty “good morning,” the proprietor was a pleasant old black man—tall, thin, and gray. Joshua had patronized the same stand every morning for at least ten years, and hadn’t spoken more than four words to the man. Today, it was different.

“You’re really gonna like that one,” the man said sarcastically, pointing to the front page. “Gonna like it a lot.”

Joshua looked down at the headline:
Black
Youth
Killed
by
Whites;
Brooklyn
Attack
is
Called
Racial
. “Holy shit,” he said, just loud enough for the man to hear. He started reading the article:

A sixteen year old black youth was shot to death Wednesday night in an attack by 10 to 30 white teenagers in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, the police said.

“I told you, you were gonna like it,” the man said.

“Yeah, sure,” Joshua reacted, not even realizing what he was saying. He was in a daze and began to walk away, his eyes still on the article. He bumped into one of the magazine piles, turned back, and said, “Sorry.

“It’s okay, nothing fell.”

“Yeah, thanks. Catch you later,” Joshua muttered, continuing on his way, still trying to read and walk.

“I told you, you would like it,” the man repeated again, this time louder.

Joshua stopped, turned around, and looked at the man, who held his hands up, as if saying,
Hey,
what
can
I
tell
you
? Then, the man said, “I think its gonna get bad.”

“It already is,” Joshua said to himself.

By the time he arrived at the office, Joshua had read most of the article. Apparently, the white teenagers had been looking for trouble, hiding and waiting for a black youth they believed had been dating a neighborhood girl. The victim, Yusuf Hawkins, had been in the neighborhood with three friends, reportedly to look at a used car. He was shot twice in the chest, and died shortly thereafter in the hospital. The police had already rounded up four suspects and were actively searching for others.

The article was provocative, comparing this incident to another racial fracas back in 1986, in Howard Beach, Queens, in which a black youth had been killed in oncoming traffic, while being chased by a gang of Italian teens. Already, politicians were out in full force, criticizing the Koch administration for not having been able to gain a handle on racially motivated crime. It was, after all, an election year.

Joshua knew this was going to be a field day for Thompson and Williams, who had been in the forefront of the string of protests that had followed the Howard Beach slaying. He had gotten used to seeing their faces on TV, and would, once again, in just a matter of hours. He dropped the paper on his desk, opened his briefcase, and began organizing himself for the morning. Mrs. Sawyer came into his office with a thick handful of phone messages.

“These are all from today?” he asked. “We’re open barely an hour.”

“The phone hasn’t stopped. It’s that Bensonhurst thing.”

“What does Bensonhurst have to do with us? We have enough of our own problems.”

“Mr. Eubanks,” she said with her usual austerity, “you are a member of the community board, a leader in the community…” She stopped herself, seeing that he wasn’t listening, and in a most uncharacteristic manner, said, “Look, Joshua, you’re a player.” She placed the stack of messages on his desk, and added, “So play!”

She marched out of his office, leaving him flabbergasted. He looked at the stack of messages. The top one was from Marcus Sterling, and was marked, “URGENT!” He wasn’t in the mood to talk to Marcus just yet, so he looked at some of the others. There were a few from members of the community board and the commerce association, some from local newspapers, radio stations, and even one from a CBS-TV reporter.

He got about halfway through, when he landed on one from none other than Alvin Thompson, and another from Reverend Jerome Williams. He would never have expected a call from either of them again,
not
for
any
reason
. The waters were indeed stirring.

Then, at the bottom of the pile, no doubt strategically placed by his dutiful secretary, was the one he was looking for, his daily message from Rachel, stating the usual “when you get a chance.” He picked up the phone, and dialed her number.

She came on the line sounding strong and upbeat.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Today’s a good day, so far,” she answered.

She had concluded her chemotherapy treatments six months earlier, and was still regaining her strength. The lung operation had been successful, and so far the cancer hadn’t reappeared. No one knew anything about the future.

“That’s great,” he said, trying to sound enthusiastic.

“What’s wrong?”

“Wrong? What makes you think something’s wrong?”

“I can always tell from your voice.”

He knew she was certain to learn about it eventually. “Have you seen the paper this morning?”

“Not yet. Why?”

He proceeded to fill her in.

“Joshua, it’s a terrible thing, but Bensonhurst is on the other side of Brooklyn. I really don’t think anything’s going to happen here.”

“Rachel, this place is a seething cauldron, just waiting for a chance to explode. It has been for years. Things on the community board have been bad, tensions are higher than ever.”

She was silent for a moment. “You’re really worried.”

“More than you can imagine.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I have about a million phone messages from the press, other board members, you name it. Seems a lot of folks share my concerns. And get this, both Thompson and Williams called.”

“Oh boy.”

“Oh boy’s right. Look, glad you’re feeling good, sorry to spoil your day. I’ll try and stop by later tonight. Right now, I’m going to see what I can do to avert another world war.”

The meeting had been called for seven-thirty, and went till past two in the morning. It was held in Jerome Williams’ storefront church which, due to the pastor’s fire, brimstone, and all-around dynamism, had become one of the most well-attended in the area. In fact, the congregation had recently started looking for a bigger building.

And they needed one. The place held, at maximum, slightly under a hundred people, though the usual crowds were almost twice that. The fire marshal had apparently been turning a blind eye.

It was Joshua’s first time inside, and he immediately noticed the peeling wallpaper, worn linoleum floors, and rickety pews. Yet, there was a distinct aura of sanctity. It reminded him, ironically, of the synagogue in which he used to work.

All eight black members of the community board were present, several members of the clergy, as well as a few key members of the various block and commerce associations in the neighborhood. In total, about thirty who could potentially sway the sentiments of thousands. Marcus Sterling, the senior official, chaired; Jerome, the host, sat by his side, and Thompson was right up there with them.

For the most part, there was a lot of bantering about perceived injustices in their neighborhood. As Joshua had feared, the Bensonhurst incident was being used as an excuse to rile up the locals. He sat, watched, and listened to calls for protests in the streets, boycotts of Italian owned businesses, and lots of yelling. One board member, the one who had called Joshua a “Jew lover,” even suggested boycotting Jewish and Korean owned businesses, while others applauded.

Joshua finally raised his hand, and was recognized by Marcus Sterling. “Yes, Joshua Eubanks, we are anxious to have your input.” The room quieted. Just as Joshua was about to begin, he saw Thompson lean over and whisper something in Jerome’s ear.

“Mr. Chairman, I’ve been sitting here for over four hours, listening to my colleagues voice concerns that are both legitimate and troubling. There is, no doubt, tremendous need for change and development in our community, and there are many here this evening who labor tirelessly toward that end. But tonight,
tonight
we have gathered for a different purpose. We haven’t gathered for our own needs, but rather for the needs of the family of Yusuf Hawkins and the other young men who were with him. We must support those families, and
yes
, we must protest the injustice, but we shouldn’t do anything that would detract from that cause.

“Mr. Chairman, we here in this room are the leaders of a large community. The decisions we make, and the tenor of those decisions, can have a profound influence. We must forever be diligent and mindful of that fact.

“I fear, Mr. Chairman, that protesting on
our
streets, addressing
our
issues, will only serve to detract from this great tragedy; namely, the racial attack that occurred in
Bensonhurst
, not in Crown Heights. And I also fear that such protests would lead to needless, useless violence. We owe it to Yusuf Hawkins to not allow
his
memory or
his
cause to become confused. For too long, we have attacked our own neighborhoods in battles that should have been waged on other fronts. We have protested in, burnt, and looted our own streets, and where has it ever gotten us?
Where
?

“I agree we
must
respond, but we must respond with clarity of purpose and objective. We must respond in a way that sets an example, not in a way that further fuels the flames of hatred…”

He was about finished when Thompson jumped out of his seat, and yelled, “Tell me, Mr. Eubanks, will
you
go to Bensonhurst to protest?”

Joshua had anticipated this. “Yes,” he yelled back. “I
will
go to Bensonhurst, and I
will
protest against violence and hatred! But I
will
not
participate
in violence or hatred, neither in Bensonhurst, and certainly not here!”

The room was quiet for a few seconds. Then came the responses to Joshua. The discussion went back and forth for a long while, until a somewhat less than unanimous decision was reached. Joshua won; there would be no official protests in Crown Heights. Everyone would encourage friends and neighbors to join the already scheduled protests in Bensonhurst. The problems in Crown Heights would be tabled “for now.”

At the conclusion of the meeting, Thompson approached Joshua. “So, Mr. Eubanks, you shall be joining us on the streets after all,” he said gleefully, as if victory was actually his.

“Yes I will,” Joshua answered firmly, cloaking any hint of ambivalence. “By the way,” he added, “it won’t be the first time. I was at the march to city hall the day after Arthur Miller died.”

“Were you now?” he asked, his grin sobered.

“Indeed. You know, Professor, there
are
times a man must stand up for what he believes.”

“Yes, seems I taught you something, didn’t I?”

“More than you know.”

Joshua was about to leave, when Jerome caught up with him. “Did you get my phone message?” he asked.

“Yes,” Joshua said, appearing embarrassed at not having returned the call. “I had so many messages about this meeting, I didn’t think it was necessary to…”

“It wasn’t only about the meeting.” His expression was somber.

Joshua looked at him curiously.

“It was also about Celeste.”