Free Palisades Park by Alan Brennert Page B

think you’re goin’?”
    He punctuated the question with a fist into the man’s solar plexus.
    Doubled over in pain, the colored man tried to speak between gasps of air: “I—I was just goin’—to the drugstore—”
    Eddie came running up and cried out, “Hey! What’s going on?”
    Cold, hateful eyes glared at him. “You takin’ this nigger ’s side?”
    The word no longer sounded descriptive. It sounded like a cocked gun, ready to go off.
    “But—what’d he do ?” Eddie asked.
    “He knows what he done,” another man said. “Don’tcha?”
    He kicked the colored man’s legs out from under him, toppling him. Eddie jumped in, pushing the attacker away from the Negro. “Stop it!”
    “Yankee Doodle’s a nigger lover.” The first man slugged Eddie in the jaw, staggering him. Then all three dogs were on him at once, hammering at his face, his stomach, and the coup de grâce, a boot-kick to the balls.
    Eddie collapsed and blacked out.
    When he awoke he found himself lying next to the colored man—face bruised, battered, and bleeding, like Eddie’s—who was just coming around himself. Oddly, they were now on the opposite side of the street, as if dragged there. “You okay?” Eddie said, helping the man to his feet.
    “Yeah. Thanks for tryin’ to help. But it was my own damn fault.”
    “What was? What did you do?”
    “I was in a hurry gettin’ to the drugstore, and I went walkin’ on the wrong side of the street. The white side.”
    Eddie was dumbstruck. He couldn’t imagine this ever happening in the Ironbound.
    He never used that word again, and couldn’t hear it now, even from affable Lew, without seeing that young colored man’s bloody, battered face.
    *   *   *
    When Eddie and Adele arrived in the Palisades ballroom they found the place packed with dancers—all white as the driven snow—stomping to a blend of swing, blues, and hot jazz tunes. Mrs. Armstrong was a handsome woman in her thirties wearing an elegant white gown and matching top hat, conducting the band with a baton when she wasn’t herself performing at the piano. She attacked the keys with gusto, no daintiness about it, whether it was in the swing-flavored number “Hotter Than That” or the more down-tempo “Lonesome Blues,” in which her forceful piano punctuated the mournful saxophone of George Clarke—the latter identified by Clem, who was standing at the back of the ballroom, beaming as he watched. “I just knew Palisades dancers would go for these colored bands in a big way,” he told the Stopkas. “Never could convince the Schencks of it.” Eddie and Adele even had time to do a little stomping of their own.
    After half an hour they had to go back to work, and had been at it for less than an hour when Eddie, working the candy floss machine, heard a woman say, “I’ll have a cotton candy, please, Eddie.”
    Something about the voice sent a jolt of adrenaline through him and he turned to find himself staring at a young woman in her early twenties, dark-haired, fair-skinned, with a nervous look on her pretty face.
    Eddie said, “Viola?”
    Whatever apprehension Eddie was feeling was quickly lost in the light of her smile. He jumped the counter and threw his arms around his sister.
    “My God! Viola!” He took her in. “You’re so beautiful!”
    She laughed. “You look good too, Eddie. It’s…” Her voice broke. “It’s so good to see you again.”
    She began crying, and he embraced her again. “It’s okay, Vi,” he said. “I’ve missed you too.”
    But even as he held her, he couldn’t help glancing up and around to see whether she was alone or not. From all appearances she was.
    Adele, having seen all this from across the midway, wandered over to find out exactly who her husband was hugging, not once but twice.
    “Honey,” Eddie said, “this is my sister, Viola. Viola, I’d like you to meet my wife, Adele.”
    Adele, surprised, embraced her too. “It’s so nice to meet you,