Everyone one on Broadway Road (which wasn’t particularly broad) locked their doors and had for many years now, after the thrill of the suburbs’ safety was destroyed by certain events which maybe I’ll explain in a later post. However, a lock is either locked or unlocked, there’s no in-between, no degrees of locked-ness. But, somehow, those who lived on Broadway Rd. Wilson NJ, were locking their doors tighter lately. Also, many of their children, not all that great to begin with, found themselves disallowed from certain privileges such as sports, trips to the mall, and attending ‘family night’, simply for forgetting to lock the door behind them upon entering their homes.
The reason for all of this security is their single black neighbor. No,
no,
no, the
residents of Broadway
Rd. (and
Wilson) are not racist! No, no, no, the residents of Broadway Rd. (and Wilson) are not racist! For shame! From the family’s arrival on Broadway Rd., they had been treated with friendliness, with acceptance, with–sometimes–almost admiration. John, the man of this family, was a highly thought of business man who rode the same bus into New York that all the other men rode. The family were equals, they were more than equals, they were special. But that was until last week. That was until the flyer showed up on the Cleary’s (the Black family in question) doorstep.
The contents of this flyer, most of which decency prohibit me from showing here, were of the kind we’ve all come to equate with the Southernmost regions of this country and not, certainly not, places like Wilson. But I won’t go into details about the flyers, I’ll only say that it blamed the well-known problems of Wilson’s children on the well-assumed problems of John Cleary’s people.
Mr. Cleary found the pamphlet, thankfully, before his daughters woke up. He walked all the way down Broadway Rd. looking to see if anyone else had recived such a flyer. This was his first mistake. His neighbors, remembering this walk later on, would be quick to assume that he was planning revenge. But not finding any others, he knocked on the door of the house next to his to see if he had gotten one and already desposed of it. This was his second mistake. His neighbor, Max, was more shocked and disturbed by the racist literature than was John. He asked to see it, to hold it, to read it. It was something of a novelty to him, something that freely, openly, described hatred without covering it up in shades of the passive aggressive and in deeply subliminal buzz words. It all but said, without hesitation, “We (whoever wrote it) hate black people!”. Max read it cover to cover.
When John went home later, he threw the flyer out and, to be honest, thought little more of it. He had experienced racism both in his childhood and as a young adult and was not particularly bothered by a piece of writing probably left by one of the punk kids in the neighborhood, a theory furthered by all the spelling mistakes he had found.
But the reaction was far different in other homes on Broadway. From Max, who called others in a panic, the rumors spread first of a neo-Nazi movement coming to town, in fact, of one which had always been in town and was far more prevalent than anyone new. Then this neo-Nazi movement became a neo-Nazi conspiracy of which there was no less than one cell-member on every street and had been for some time. Then they started looking at one another, seeing who had ever said anything racist, who had ever had John and his wife over for coffee–though few of them had, so they moved on–who had ever voted Republican, who was inclined to watch NASCAR games.
But then they were all left with only one real question: What must John be thinking? Those who were within viewing distance of his home tried to get a peek inside, tried to see what activity was going on. Who does he think did it, probably one of us right, they always jump to conclusions about these things, oh, oh, he’s going to tell us that all white people are to blame, right! And so on. It was established fairly early that John was going to attempt some kind of revenge, What’s the opposite of a ‘cross burning’ was the question asked.
The next morning several parents accompanied their children to the bus stop, just in case, while others set their alarm clocks to go off an hour early so that they would leave the house before having to see John. And everyone locked their doors tighter and stressed to their children the importance of safety.
Have you considered Subscribing to all of this madness?
