Grandma Chin was a woman of great wisdom. She lived 2 doors south of my family on Stephen Street. She was a woman greatly admired & respected by the rest of the block. This was a bit odd if only because it was rare for the white people I know to hold in esteem anyone who was manifestly different. The black people who lived a few blocks away, across the Brooklyn border were in their 'right place'- redlining & the United States Housing Administration (under the 1937 Wagner-Steale Housing Act) had seen to that decades before the early 1970s. They had determined that the mixed neighborhoods that dominated pre-Great Depression New York needed to be fixed. Poor white people, ravaged by President Hoover's blight, needed to feel superior, again, to the black folks they had once been free to look down upon. The Depression had been a great leveler- everyone is equal when no 1 has anything.
But the government of FDR & the USHA schemed to change all that even before the 2nd World War, & after it, when prosperity reigned, it was white folks who were granted low interest home loans to move out into new developments on Long Island. Black folk- even veterans- need not apply. Along with the denial of citizenship to boatloads of emigrating Jews from Nazi Europe, & the internment of Japanese-descended American citizens, this outrage was 1 of the worst - pardon the pun- black marks on an otherwise great president's resumé. It also had the direct effect of creating slums from ghettoes- a term previously only meant to designate an area by its predominant ethnicity, but by the time Grandma Chin wove her tales to the Stephen Street kids a term synonymous with poverty & criminality. This meant that the very governmental act of denying 1000s of qualified veterans access to their entitled benefits by virtue of their race alone, helped create the conditions that have suckled classism, poverty, racism, & economic disparity to this day. Creating economic areas that are 'desirable' to 1 group while denying another directly ties in to the perceived property values of said communities. The act of deliberate segregation created economic wealth for 1 group, while denying it to another, based on nothing more than where some 1 lived. Neighborhoods that had been fully integrated in Queens in the 1930s, & had stable real estate markets, all of a sudden found that as more white people were allowed to by newer homes in nearby Nassau County, by virtue of low interest government loans in the late 40s & early 50s, their properties were declining. So, more white folk applied for the loans that were denied to blacks & other ethnic minorities, got them, & sold their homes in the integrated neighborhoods to the only folk the real estate agents would sell them to- other minorities. Those middle class black folk who wanted to move to newer homes were 1st denied loans, then found that they could not get nearly the value from selling their homes as their white counterparts did. The net result was that by the mid 1950s, in less than 20 years, New York City's outer boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn & Queens, which had nearly ˝ their neighborhoods approaching full integration in the Great Depression, had been nearly totally resegregated by President Eisenhower's 2nd term. The twin forces of the Federal government's racist loan policies, & the Triborough Bridge & Tunnel Authority's near dictatorial powers of eminent domain allowed the city to socially engineer a caste system that nearly 400 of years of progressive integration had almost made a relict.
The TBTA was the domain of the dark visionary Robert Moses who did more to both improve & simultaneously destroy NYC during his 40 year reign of power than any other person before or after. Under Moses the City would claim people's homes under eminent domain, break up many neighborhoods- often those that were highly integrated, & plunk bridges, elevated railroads, subways, & highways down in their place. Often 1 side of a highway would end up white & the other minority-filled. Such was the case with the L Line, which de facto separated the extremely poor, minority-dominated Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick from the merely poor, working class white Queens neighborhood of Ridgewood. The TBTA model of 'urban renewal' did provide some nice housing, but it also resegregated New York to pre-Colonial levels, & became the 'highly successful' model most American cities would follow during the post-World War 2 years.
Aside from segregating whites from non-whites the redlining of neighborhoods also created divisions within the white communities. By the time the 1970s dawned there were 3 major divisions amongst white New Yorkers. There were the upper crust white breads- a group ranging from the super-rich descendents of Gilded Age barons, & the original Dutch aristocracy, to the suburban-bound middle classes- all of whom rarely had to deal with minorities, save as maids or doormen. There were the highly visible white trash- the so-called black sheep of American life. They were poor, violent, & shared all the traits associated with the minority groups they lived with. The lone difference is that their subcultural defects were recognized as having provenance in their socioeconomic status, while the same negative traits exhibited in minority groups of a similar socioeconomic range were attributed to their group's or race's innate flaws. This 3rd group of white folk were the white meats- these were the utterly forgotten majority of people who worked hard, made little, & barely kept their necks above economic sea level. They worked with minorities & often lived a block or 2 away, but almost always within their own 3 or 4 square block ethnic enclave. This is what the Ridgewood I lived in was- a white neighborhood with the occasional minority owner or renter- but there were other Ridgewoods, too. The greater tension was between decent hard working white meats like my dad & the growing violence that the white trash spread- usually racial violence as their younger members would sometimes go on latter-day pogroms into neighboring areas merely to beat up or 'make gone' a black or Hispanic they did not like.
The most prominent piece of white trash on Stephen Street, however, was the mother of 1 of my best friends- Tommy Stasiak. But, this is about his mother, not Tommy- his turn will come. She was a piece of trash that actually came from Dixie- Alabama, I think. She was, to me, sort of like an older version of Talia G.- ugly, but fascinatingly so. She was not pretty, of average build, save for a larger than average rack, had short cropped brown hair that always seemed oily & stringy & broad features & tanned skin. She may have had some black blood in her, which would have made her disliked even were she not such a rotten person. She had lived with her husband- Tommy's father- in an apartment building a dozen or so houses down, in the same building where sweet & pretty blond goddess-in-the-making Diana Purduch & her single mom lived, along with the block's most noted gossip & kvetch- Mrs. Ferrence. The building manager was Diana's white-haired & chain-smoking grandma- the cranky as all get out Mrs. Kramer- 1 of those stereotypical buttinskies whose idea of fun was hanging out her open apartment window & gossiping across the brownstones with other like-souled buttinskies. The only thing all the people in that building had in common was a distaste for Tommy's mother. I do not know what her real 1st name was, nor do I ever particularly want to know. She was a wreck. By the summer of 1971 Tommy's father had moved out of the apartment & gotten joint custody of Tommy. Tommy split his week with both, so I saw him less than I used to do. The rumored reason for the breakup of the Stasiaks was that Mrs. Stasiak was addicted to both prescription drugs & booze. She also, apparently, had cheated on Mr. Stasiak countless times. My dim recollection was that he was a nice quiet man with a mustache. It was also rumored that she had had many abortions without Mr. Stasiak's knowledge- at least this is what emanated from the grapevine chartered by Mrs. Kramer & Mrs. Ferrence, as told to my dad.
I do recall 1 day, while soliciting some passing johns in a car for some hookers, me & this black kid I forget the name of saw Mrs. Stasiak meeting up with 1 of the local pimps & drug dealers, then going up to his crib. Whether this was for sex or for blow I cannot say. But, to put it in the jargon of the day, Mrs. Stasiak was a 'known' commodity on the street.
Of course, this was all unknown to Tommy, who was uninvolved in such things, & buffeted about in his own life by his parents' divorce, as well as his mother's abusiveness toward him. He would often have black eyes, cuts & bruises that went above & beyond the usual we hellions would inflict upon each other. My mom took to liking Tommy because of 2 basic reasons, she felt sorry for him & his discombobulated life, & he also had the coincidental distinction of sharing the same birthdate with my mom's stillborn child, Robert. To mom, Tommy was like another son- not that she saw him as a replacement for Robert, but as a child who could use a strong positive female presence. Sometimes you could hear Mrs. Stasiak screaming as you walked outside the building, even on a bundled tight winter day. Just such a day occurred as Christmastime, 1971 approached.
By this time I had greatly matured from the previous Christmas- I have detailed some of the reasons & will give you more as you read on- & it showed in my bearing. I also was alot more streetwise- knowing things about life that many people do not know upon graduating from college. My mom, ever protective, seemed to instinctively realize this when she saw fit to let me travel on the Myrtle Avenue bus to & from St. John's Elementary School, located in 'Upper' Glendale, & our apartment in 'Lower' Ridgewood. 1 afternoon in December, while walking home past Mrs. Stasiak's apartment I saw her struggling to get a pull-behind carriage of groceries up the brownstone stoop. She waved & asked me if I would help her carry it up to her apartment. I did not like Mrs. Stasiak for I knew what she did to Tommy, & just found her repugnant. But this day she was acting nice & sweet, & she needed help. So I grabbed a couple of bags & carried them up to her apartment. As it was cold, she offered me some hot chocolate. I asked when Tommy would be coming home. She said he was doing something after school- he went to the nearby public school on St. Felix Avenue. Mrs. Stasiak wasted little time stripping down to her bra & panties in front of me. This was not unusual & I was not so unsettled by this, as she often lounged around her apartment in such a manner, even when Tommy & I were around. I noticed the Christmas tree they had & Tommy's new train set. She told me Tommy's dad had gotten it for him but I could play with it. Trains were ok, but not my style. I declined & drank my chocolate. Then Mrs. Stasiak started scooting around the apartment, spraying some flowery deodorizer. The apartment started to stink. Then she asked me to help her move some furniture. Later that night 1 of Tommy's 'uncles' was coming to visit. I helped but was tiring of waiting for Tommy & wanted to go home. Mrs. Stasiak had slipped into a black leather miniskirt & newer, more revealing bra. She asked me to snap it from the back. I was reluctant but did so. Mrs. Stasiak then pulled away, the bra fell to the floor, & there I saw her naked tits with huge brown areolae. This disgusted me but I did not move as Mrs. Stasiak juked & gyrated, then started taunting me about being a 'foundling orphan' & that I had never sucked on 1 of 'these' before. Tommy had & he'd be willing to share. It should be stated that during this whole time Mrs. Stasiak had been liberally imbibing. As I was ready to leave she grabbed me, picked me up & thrust my face into her bosom. She started singing & dancing with me. After a few minutes she fell on to the couch & held me on top of her. I started squirming & said I did not like this. She told me she would only let me go if I sucked on her tits a bit. By this time I had moved past disgust & into curiosity, however morbid. Seeing as she was much bigger than me, & I knew how she'd kicked Tommy's ass on more than 1 occasion, I consented to her wishes & suckled for a few minutes until she seemed satisfied.
She let go but I found that the chain lock to the front door was above my reach. Then Mrs. Stasiak let me know that she knew what Ziggy & I often did to make money. She said she did not think my parents would approve. I called her bluff, but before I could make my next move she asked me if I knew what was under her skirt. I said her cunt, not really knowing what that meant, except that it meant pussy or beaver, & did not know what they meant, save cunt. So, here I was, in the same room with a drunken, nearly naked female whore & pedophile who was my best friend's mother, & at the tender age of 6 I was paralyzed by the philosophical conundrum of the circularity of meaning.
Need I say that Mrs. Stasiak showed me what all 3 terms meant? Sitting, back on her couch, she guided my hand under her skirt & a gushy wetness came. Mrs. Stasiak was happy, but I wanted some Ivory Soap! Fortunately my little fingers so enthralled the orgasmic Mrs. Stasiak that she did not notice I had picked up my schoolbag, moved a chair in front of the front door, unlocked it & hightailed it down the stairs. It was only a few weeks later that Tommy's father got permanent custody of him- had some 1 reported her after seeing & hearing what she did to me?
As with the later incident of forced pleasuring by Talia G., there was not much concern nor guilt in my brain- this was just how things were. People did weird things. Even though I washed my hands thoroughly when I got home I did not hate Mrs. Stasiak, merely pitied her. Without Tommy, Mrs. Stasiak ran off & left New York with 1 of his 'uncles'. Tommy moved in with his father & grandmother- called 'Omar' near Grover Cleveland High School. A year or so later they both left New York. Here is how I dealt with this incident in a poem a few years back:
WHY I HATE EGGS SUNNY SIDE UP
It was white,
the winter. In 1971,
at Christmastime, the boy would often walk
past his friend's- Tommy Stasiak's- apartment building
on the way home from school. His mother, a whore
from Alabama, was such a skank-puss that the boy knew
something was coming. When she asked him to help her
carry groceries up to her apartment
the boy asked her if Tommy was home.
Her "no" did not deter
his eager assistance. Inside
she let him play with her
son's train set. He almost forgot about
her ways until she reappeared
in black leather miniskirt
and unhooked bra, asking the boy
to do the honor. As he approached
her cheap perfume hooked its essence
into his memory/
/It happened:
she jerked away.
Her bra fell
to the floor.
She turned around
as the little boy
grimaced and grabbed
for his bookbag,
then bolted outward/
/as Mrs. Stasiak laughed hysterically at him
as he ran out of her apartment. In his hurry
he stumbled, his bookbag spilling
his books tumbling down the stairs
and into the front vestibule; its tiles
clean-white with reflection. And her laugh
displaced her perfume as he noticed
an unopened black umbrella leaning
against the tile, slanting. His history
book lay opened past the index
where the pages were all white, as that youth,
defining the day, which reveals itself,
like a wart that is and persists
through the years, formerly infinite
in perception, until- one morning- it is gone,
without anything you could have done,
despite all the things you had tried.
