Palisades Park

  Around noon she started getting hungry—and then it hit her: It was Tuesday. She was supposed to have lunch today with Slim.

  At the park!

  Oh God, she thought in a panic, jumping back on her bicycle. She pedaled in a frenzy, racing as fast as she could with her heart keeping pace. She knew that by now Slim might have already gotten to the park, gone inside—gone to the pool, where he expected to see his girlfriend sitting there in her white lifeguard’s outfit, perched on a red lacquered chair …

  She biked madly up the snaking horseshoe curves of Route 5, huffing and puffing by the time she reached Palisade Avenue. She biked to the visitors’ parking lot, weaving amid hundreds of cars until she spied the familiar ’39 Oldsmobile—and Slim walking out of the park, toward it.

  She braked, jumped off the bike. “Slim! I’m sorry, I forgot—”

  Forgot what? Forgot to tell him she had quit her job, and why? But she didn’t need to finish the sentence—the disappointment she saw in Slim’s eyes as he drew closer told her he knew everything.

  “Toni,” he said, “what the hell is wrong with you?”

  His judgmental tone wasn’t unexpected, but it still hurt. “There’s nothing wrong with me,” she replied stubbornly. “What’s wrong is what they’re doing at the park.”

  “Go back in there right now and tell them you’re sorry and you want your job back,” he said in a tone she had never heard from him before. Those beautiful blue eyes of his had turned hard and disapproving.

  “I … can’t do that,” Toni said.

  “You mean you won’t do it.” He shook his head. “Christ on a crutch, Toni, what are you thinking? Giving up your job so some dirty coloreds can take their bath in a pool meant for white people?”

  She felt her stomach cramp, tasted bile at the back of her throat.

  “They’re people, Slim. Just like you and me.”

  “They’re not like us, Toni, can’t you see that? Just look at them!”

  All Toni saw was the memory of the boy she had loved, ghosted over, like a double exposure, the face of this stranger.

  “I thought I knew you,” she said softly.

  “I thought I knew you.” His tone was edged in resentment and contempt. “I guess you are a nigger lover, after all.”

  She saw red at that. He turned away, and she wanted to lash out and hit him for his words, for not being what she wanted him to be.

  Instead she jumped back on her bike as his car engine coughed into life, and she careened out of the lot, down Palisade Avenue and Route 5—keeping her tears at bay all the way home to Edgewater, where in the privacy of her own room she finally let them flow.

  * * *

  Sunday morning, Toni met the group from CORE at the Edgewater Ferry Terminal and asked if she could picket with them. An unassuming man with several cuts on his face—the one Patrolman Bruns pinned from behind while a park guard slugged him—introduced himself as Jim Peck.

  “If you do,” he told her, “you have to play by our rules. That means that no matter how you’re provoked—verbally or physically—you do not fight back. If they punch someone next to you, just keep on picketing. You yield the moral high ground when you engage in the same violence they do. If they grab you and start dragging you away, let your body go limp. Don’t fight, but don’t make it easy for them to get rid of you, either. Is that clear?”

  Toni agreed, and Peck gave her a brief demonstration of what he meant, how to let your body fold up when seized. Later, when their bus reached the summit of the Palisades, she was stationed along with six others, men and women, at the park’s main gate. There they were to picket as well as to distribute leaflets, which urged people to boycott the park.

  The Cliffside Park Police Department was positioned menacingly on both sides of the street, standing or watching from cars. Chief Borrell stood in front of Duke’s restaurant, drinking a cup of coffee. The seriousness of what she was doing sank in—she could go to jail—and her hands trembled a little as they picked up a handful of leaflets and her picket sign.

  The young woman next to her, who looked to be about twenty-five, noticed Toni’s nervousness and asked, “You okay, honey?”

  “Oh, sure.” She tried to sound casual and grown-up. “I’ve … just never been arrested before, that’s all.”

  “I was scared too, my first time. I was marching in an Easter Sunday Peace Walk down Fifth Avenue—protesting the bomb. I was arrested along with my friend Marion. Believe me, I was terrified when they marched us into the Women’s House of Detention.”

  Toni had a horrifying presentiment of her future self: haggard, drawn, dressed in drab prison coveralls, scrubbing clothes on an old washboard in the prison laundry. And her life had held such promise!

  “We were out in three days. It was no big deal. I’ll be right there alongside you, like Marion was for me, okay?”

  Toni felt, if not exactly relieved, then at least not so alone. “Thanks. My name’s Toni, by the way.”

  “Vivien Roodenko.”

  “How long ago did this happen?”

  “About four months back,” Vivien said. Toni’s eyes popped. Vivien laughed. “See? You’ll be an old pro at this in no time.”

  Toni laughed nervously. As the Palisades gate prepared to open, the man in charge of the group told them all to take up their positions. Toni proudly held up her picket sign, prepared to distribute the leaflets in her other hand, and began marching in step with her CORE compatriots.

  They hadn’t even made a full circuit of the block before Chief Borrell walked up to one of the men in the group and announced, “Your group is engaged in disorderly conduct. You are ordered to disperse immediately.”

  “What?” the man said. “What’s disorderly about it?”

  “You’re causing a nuisance—obstructing passage on a heavily trafficked street.”

  “We’re not obstructing anybody. And may I remind you, the Supreme Court has upheld the right to peacefully picket and distribute leaflets?”

  “Not in my town,” Borrell said cheerfully. “I refuse to recognize your so-called rights, and if you insist on asserting them, my men will arrest you.”

  “We stand by our legal rights,” Vivien said doggedly. “We’re not going anywhere.”

  “Wrong again. You’re going to jail.” He signaled his men and they moved in, seizing the demonstrators, snatching away their signs and leaflets.

  “Hey! That’s our property!” someone objected.

  “Didn’t think you folks believed in personal property, comrade,” Borrell said with a chuckle.

  Toni’s right arm was being held in a vise grip by a patrolman and her first instinct was to pop him in the nose with her free hand. But she saw the other picketers go limp as the cops tried to lead them away, and Toni forced her body to relax into something like a 120-pound bag of concrete.

  “Not her!” Borrell called to the cop holding Toni. “Let her go.”

  The patrolman obeyed, letting go of Toni’s arm, which only infuriated her. “Why not me?” she demanded, stepping toe-to-toe with Borrell.

  “You’re not a member of this pinko organization, are you, Toni?”

  “That’s bull. Uncle Irving doesn’t want me arrested and making bad publicity for him.”

  “I just follow the law. You’re free to go.”

  “What if I decide to stay here and picket?”

  “With what?” Borrell asked with a grin.

  She saw a patrolman loading the signs and leaflets into a police car.

  Stubbornly, Toni marched up and down in front of the burgeoning line of customers queued up at the ticket booth.

  “Don’t get cool at the Palisades pool!” she exhorted them, her voice trembling a little. “Get your relaxation where there’s no discrimination!” But the customers were looking at her in amusement, not enlightenment. Clearly, you needed props for this sort of thing—and company helped too.

  As her friends were herded into squad cars, Toni—feeling guilty
and angry at her freedom—skulked away to the nearest bus stop.

  * * *

  Picketing continued for the next two Sundays, with Chiefs Borrell and Stengel quickly and violently rounding up the demonstrators in flagrant violation of their constitutional rights. On the second Sunday, as the arrests began, Toni watched Vivien boldly go up to Irving Rosenthal and begin talking to him in a language she didn’t recognize. They actually had quite an extended, almost cordial conversation; after which Vivien returned to Toni’s side. “What language was that?” Toni asked.

  “Yiddish. Turns out the Rosenthal family comes from the same part of the Ukraine my family does. We talked about the war. He tells me, ‘Look, I know what persecution is—I have relatives who were put in concentration camps, even killed, by the Nazis. I’m not like them, I’m not doing this because I hate anyone, it’s just business. Now won’t you please go get your friends and try to persuade them to get out of here?’”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him there were probably some German businessmen who didn’t hate Jews but only thought they were bad for business, too.”

  Minutes later, the whole group, minus Toni, was led off to jail.

  Feeling solidarity with her friends, Toni attended their trials in the Cliffside Park courthouse, though “kangaroo courthouse” might have been more apt. The prosecution labeled the protests “a Communist-inspired attempt to force admission of minority groups” to the pool. Chief Borrell paced back and forth in front of Recorder Valentine C. Franke and every time CORE’s lawyer brought up the issue of Jim Crow, Borrell objected as if he were an attorney: “This is just a plain case of disorderly conduct!”

  Unsurprisingly, Recorder Franke found the CORE members guilty and fined them each twelve dollars. CORE’s lawyers immediately filed appeals.

  The next Sunday, August 31, nineteen demonstrators from CORE showed up at Palisades, splitting into two groups, and this time Toni insisted on being part of the stand-in at the pool. They found themselves ringed by both park guards and Fort Lee police, with Irving Rosenthal the glowering ringmaster. When he saw Toni, he told Chief Stengel, “Get them out of here, now. No arrests, just put them all on a ferry back to New York!”

  “What about the Stopka girl?”

  “Send her too. Maybe it’ll scare her into giving up this nonsense.”

  As the arrests and beatings began, Eddie ran over from his stand in time to see Toni, her body limp as a rag doll, being dragged off to one side, though not being abused in any way. This was more than could be said for the other CORE members, who were being manhandled roughly as usual.

  One of them, a Negro named Albert Morris, tried to take a photo of the scene. To Morris’s astonishment, Irving Rosenthal stalked up and grabbed the camera away from him. When Morris tried to snatch it back, Rosenthal told Stengel, “Arrest this man for assault!” Stengel did so.

  As long as Toni wasn’t being mistreated, Eddie held back from action, as she had asked him. But it wasn’t easy for him.

  Now she and the other protestors were taken out of the park and onto a bus destined for the ferry terminal. Defiantly, CORE members leaned out the open windows, shouting “Stop Jim Crow!” and other slogans.

  One of the police officers walked up to where Jim Peck was leaning out of the bus, spat in his face, then walked away.

  The police made sure they were on the next ferry to 125th Street in New York, and Toni at least felt a perverse satisfaction that she was being treated like her fellow demonstrators. She came up to Jim Peck, leaning over the ferry’s railing as the salt spray of the Hudson washed away the blood from the cuts he had incurred, and asked, “So what do we do now?”

  He looked at her and smiled. “Go right back, of course! What else?”

  When they reached Manhattan they got more signs and leaflets from their offices, then eighteen CORE members, plus Toni, marched onto the next ferry bound for Edgewater. In less than an hour they were back on the picket line in front of the main gate on Palisade Avenue.

  This momentarily flummoxed the ticket takers and security guards at the park entrance, who were hardly expecting a second wave of protest. Chief Borrell and his men were quickly summoned and they just as quickly began arresting the eighteen CORE members.

  Word of the second protest outside the gates flashed across the park within minutes. When he heard, Eddie tore off his apron and jumped the counter of his stand. “Stay here!” he ordered Jack, but Jack snapped, “Hell if I will!” He dropped the awnings and locked up the stand, even though there was a line of customers waiting to order French fries. He raced after his dad, running toward the Palisade gate.

  When the last CORE member was arrested, Toni, as usual, was the only one not being lined up at the curb to await the arrival of more police cars to take them to the station.

  “Dammit, arrest me too!” Toni snapped at Borrell, but he ignored her.

  At the curb, a park guard suddenly approached Jim Peck, his eyes blazing with hatred. “I’d like to kill you!” the guard declared—but he settled for delivering a haymaker to Peck’s jaw. Toni could hear the snap of Jim’s jawbone, and watched in horror as, knocked unconscious, he collapsed in a heap onto the sidewalk. His fellow CORE members rushed to his aid.

  Eddie arrived in time to see his daughter, enraged, heading for the guard who’d clocked Peck, now turning away with a bloody-minded smile of satisfaction. Toni took several quick steps, standing toe-to-toe with the guard. He was at least a foot taller than she was, but she had her way of equalizing that. Without a word she jerked up her right knee and buried it in the man’s groin. He howled like a cat being gelded.

  Eddie thought, Oh, Christ!

  Toni turned and taunted Borrell: “Now will you arrest me?”

  Angrily, Borrell came up and grabbed her wrist, intending to slap a handcuff around it. Eddie started forward—

  But Jack rocketed past him. “Leave my sister alone!” He propelled himself, clumsily but forcefully, into Borrell, knocking him off balance.

  Borrell snapped, “Jesus Christ! No wonder your mother left you two!”

  Furious, Jack took a swing at him, but missed. Two patrolmen seized him as well as Toni, slapping them into handcuffs before they could blink.

  Borrell barked, “Book both of them for assault and fuck Irving Rosenthal!”

  Jack looked at the cops and said with a grin, “Uh-oh. Which one of you has to fuck Irving Rosenthal?”

  Toni laughed. The cop holding Jack, not finding it as funny, raised his hand to give Jack a good slap in the head—but the blow was intercepted by Eddie Stopka’s strong right arm.

  “There’s been enough violence here today, don’t you think?” he said.

  The cop backed off and Toni and Jack were herded, but not violently, into the next squad car that pulled up to the curb.

  “Toni, Jack—keep your cool from here on, okay?” Eddie said. “I’ll be at the station to get you out soon as I can.”

  In the car Toni turned to Jack and said, “Thanks. For lending a hand.”

  “Anytime.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “Who’da thought they’d send mystery men like us to jail?”

  Toni smiled as the squad car pulled away from the curb.

  Eddie watched it go, then stalked over to Chief Borrell.

  “Eddie, I’m sorry,” the chief said, holding his hands palm out, “I didn’t want to arrest them, but they gave me no choice.”

  “Funny, the choices you make, Chief.” Eddie looked him straight in the eye. “You sit in Duke’s, rubbing shoulders with Joe Adonis and Willie Moretti, and you don’t arrest them. How many households in Cliffside Park have a telephone line put in for use by a bookmaker—fifty bucks a week, found cash—but you never arrest any of them, do you? But Negroes who want only to be treated like any other human being, and the people who take their side? Them you arrest, and worse. You goddamned hypocrite.”

  Borrell looked stunned that anyone in “his” town would dare confront h
im like this. “God damn it, Eddie, I brought you into this park … you’ve got an interest in keeping out the wrong kind of elements, too—”

  “You did bring me in. And you treated me fairly and kindly. But as much as I owe you, Frank, I promise—you will not charge my son and daughter with assault or anything else. Because if you do, I will not hesitate one fucking second to go the Feds and tell them everything that goes on across the street at Duke’s, and the company you keep in there. You understand?”

  “I got nothing to say about who chooses to have lunch in Duke’s! I don’t even know half those guys.”

  “Bullshit. I’m not the only one who’s seen you with them, Frank. Anything happens to me or my kids, people will know who’s responsible.”

  “Eddie, c’mon, this is ridiculous! Nothing’s happening to anybody.” He forced a laugh, but the color had drained from his face and he started to back off: “Look—that guard who slugged the guy from New York, that was uncalled for, agreed? So was what Toni did to him—but I guess she’s just like her dad, always looking out for somebody else.” He placed a paternal hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “I’ll talk the guard out of pressing charges, and I’ll forget about that swing Jack took at me. All right, Ten Foot?”

  “All right,” Eddie said guardedly.

  Borrell smiled, a bit sadly. He brushed a piece of lint off Eddie’s shoulder, then fingered the lapel of Eddie’s jacket. “Nice cut. I remember a time when you didn’t have a clean shirt to your name.”

  “Yeah,” Eddie said, tone softening. “You took a chance on a pretty raw-looking kid, didn’t you?”

  “Ah, you had an honest face. Dopey but honest.” Borrell smiled again. “Guess I’m still taking a chance on you, eh, Eddie?”

  * * *

  Neither Toni nor Jack were charged, which somehow disappointed them; but their shared combat—and Toni’s disaffection from Slim—had healed some old wounds. Together they listened to radio shows for the rest of the day, both so exhausted they went to bed before Jack Benny was over.