Mother, May I Talk to Strangers

"No one blames you." My father was making that face that told me he was losing patience.  Standing there in front of the bookcase, once again he repeated to me how brave and grown up I had acted in a very dangerous situation.



I was eye level with one of his books, Rommel the Desert Fox, I pictured a fox walking in the desert.  It made no sense because there was a picture of a soldier on the cover, not a fox.  And why did dad keep praising me?  It made no sense.  I was overtaken by a feeling worse than guilt and lower than shame.  No on seemed to understand.  They kept interrupting my words with meaningless adult talk that turned my betrayal into an act of courage.



Days later, my classmates were tripping over each other to tell the story.  The air was charged with their excitement.  Most of them did not actually see it happen, but had heard about it from someone who knew someone who was there.  (If this were true, the crowd could have half filled Yankee Stadium).  In reality, only a handful of people were there on a little side street in Astoria on that warm September day in 1954.



They spoke quickly in half sentences, interrupting each other constantly to confer, correct and fill in the facts, thus recreating the scene as it actually unfolded.



Carol and I walked into class late, as usual. She made fifth grade more bearable but right now I was finding it difficult to forgive her. Carol was my best friend.  An only child, gawky and thin, all legs and arms. We were always together, laughing at everything or nothing in particular.  We had a  knack for causing minor disasters but what sealed our friendship was our  mutual love for teasing my brothers.



Angry tears glazed my eyes but I quickly regained control.  No one was going to see me cry.  A sudden hush fell over my classmates and all eyes turned towards me as Mr. Bernstein entered Room 5-3, looked at me and broke the silence.



“Christina, I heard about what happened last week after school.  You were very brave and showed maturity beyond your years.  That was quick thinking on your part in an impossible situation.”



I was totally unprepared for his praise. I felt as though he had stepped inside my heart and erased the hurt with his soft voice.



I looked up at him standing behind his desk.  He was so handsome and he was wearing my favorite tie today; the pale blue one that reflected the pastel blue in his eyes. We all knew that this was his first year teaching and we all took advantage of his kind nature.



I smiled for the first time since it happened.  Mr. Bernstein smiled back. I knew that I could tell him the whole story and he would understand but he might think differently of me and I didn't want that.  While everyone was praising me, I was silently feeling lost and alone, guilty and deceitful because I did not deserve their admiration.  Where were they when I needed someone to help me?

 

All of a sudden non-stop questions were coming at me.



"Why didn’t you call the police?"  "Why didn’t you shake Teddy until he told you the truth?" "Why didn't you smack Carol?" 



Next came the comments.



"You should have stood in the middle of the street and screamed at the top of your lungs."  "You should have hit them with your books."



They had all the answers and they knew just what to do.  Too bad they weren't there when I needed someone to help me.



“HELP ME. HELP ME PLEASE SOMEBODY!  MY BROTHER IS BEING KIDNAPPED!"



The back door of the car was still open, but the man was standing there waiting for me.  I ran around to the other side where Donald was sitting and banged on the window.



“Donald, unlock the door!  Hurry up!” 



Donald turned to look at me with that innocent baby face.  One of his golden curls fell forward and I instantly thought of how mom loves winding those curls around her fingers.



"Oh God, somebody help me."



The man was standing at my side in a flash. He touched my shoulder and started to unlock the door.  He was going to push me in!  “NO!” I screamed in a voice that seemed to come from someone else, and pushed the man with all my strength.  He moved easily.  A woman got out of the front seat and calmly said,



“We are taking your brother home.  Please come with us.”

 

I ran past her over to Carol and Teddy, who were standing at the curb.  I put my two hands on Teddy’s shoulders, bent down towards him, and looked straight into his scared brown eyes.



“Teddy, what happened?” 



Teddy looked at me  and shrugged with all the demeanor of a child who never questioned the motives of an adult. I was sure that he saw what happened, but was afraid of getting into trouble.



Carol was standing next to Teddy and nervously stepping on and off the curb.  Each time she stepped down, the bottom ruffle of her dress would bounce up exposing bony legs and making her look like a scrawny puppet.



My mind raced.  What could have happened here in the few minutes it took Carol and me to turn the corner behind Donald and Teddy? I ran back to the car just as the man was closing the door and the woman was getting into the passenger side of the front seat. 



“Donald,” I screamed.  They were really going to take my brother and no one was going to help me to stop them. This time, I stood by the driver's side front fender of the shiny black car.



“Please don’t take my brother, mister, please!” I pleaded now, close to tears.



He leaned out of the window, backed the car up then pulled up alongside of me.  Cold terror seized my heart and squeezed hard.



"Why don't you come with us and show us where you live?" He said in a calm voice.



I was confused by his soft tone.  He had a pleasant voice, and could have easily pushed me into the car with my brother, yet he didn’t.  He moved out of my way when I gave the slightest resistance.  And why was Donald sitting there so quietly without putting up a fight? 



NO, it’s a trick.  That’s what they wanted me to think.  They were strangers.  Why would strangers want to drive us home?



“Donald!”  I screamed my brother’s name.  “Please somebody help me, they’re kidnapping my brother.”



At that moment all I wanted to do was sit in the street and cry.  A man stopped his car and stuck his head out of the window.  Then he went on his way as if he had just viewed a few frames of a B Movie and suddenly lost interest.



The shiny black car started pulling away as I ran across the street, up the hill and through the empty lot in back of the A&P.  I stopped once because I thought my lungs might burst and I saw that my new dress was covered in a fine dust. It needed to be washed and ironed.  Mom would not be happy.  I turned and saw Carol and Teddy running behind me, but I could not wait for them.



I started running again.  Scattered thoughts filled my head.  I was never to lose sight of my brother.  I had to hold his hand when we crossed the street. And I had to bring him straight home after school.



I thought of all the times I had teased Donald unmercifully.  If only this was a terrible nightmare that I could wake up from.  I would never tease my little brother again. My sides ached as I ran up 33rd Street.



“Please God,” I said out loud.  “I will never tease my brother again.  Don’t let him die.”



I ran the rest of the way home down two long blocks and through two red lights without stopping.  When I reached our apartment, I bounded up the steps of the front stoop, burst through the front door ready to scream,



"CALL THE POLICE!"



But the image of my brother silenced me.  They were all standing in front of the bookcase in our living room.  The man was talking to my uncle and the woman was speaking softly to Donald.  They all stopped and looked at me.



I stood there like the child that I was, feeling confused and relieved. 



The man continued.  “I tried to tell your niece that we were not kidnapping Donald.  He had stepped off the curb and ran in front of my car. Luckily, I saw him and jammed on my brakes, but the front fender tapped his knee and he fell to the ground.  We wanted to drive him home in case he needed medical treatment.” 



The woman looked down at me and I could see the kindness in her eyes that I saw earlier and mistook for deceit. I wondered if they had children.  The man was leaving his telephone number and promising to pay any medical bills.



I looked at Donald.  I felt like a coward.  I was a coward.  He was only six years old and I left him to die with strangers.  I wondered if Donald would ever forgive me for betraying him. 



My father kept repeating the same sentence that would haunt me for years.



"Christina, if they were really kidnapping your brother, and you had gotten into the car, then mom and I would have two dead children.  You did the right thing." 



Yes, I did exactly what I was taught to do, run screaming from strangers who offered me a ride home.  I had covered all the bases.  I was in the clear and my punishment for the ultimate act of betrayal was that I was called a hero by everyone.  Adults had all the answers, but their reasoning left me with an empty feeling and haunting thoughts that followed me everywhere.



Donald looked at me with a half smile on his face.  There was an exciting story brewing behind that smile, and I knew that I could be assured of a cameo appearance with Carol and Teddy in supporting roles.  And in his exciting story, Donald would be the hero who saved his sister’s life from terrifying kidnappers and that was just fine with me.



A few weeks later, the nice man and woman sent us a beautiful game of Chinese Checkers and wished us well.