The Kid in Apartment 6A

A while ago, blogger Susan of phansythat, put out a call for stories to other bloggers asking them to write about about something they would like to see happen that would make the world a happier place". The contest is over and the winner has been awarded a beautiful hand-painted scarf. But since I promised her I would write a story, and because the question has been dogging me since she posed it, I wrote this:

What would make the world a happier place?

For me. That's easy. I would bring back my friend Keith Jenkins.

I was 10 when I met Keith. The year was 1973 and he and his family had just moved into our building at 807 East 6th Street to apartment 6A, right before the school year started. He came to our building after having lived the first 10 years of his life up on 8th Street and Avenue D.

We became fast friends, me and Keith. I don't recall how we met. It was probably a shared love of the New York Mets, and in 1973 there was much to root for in that team. They had gone from worst to first in the final month of the season edging out the Cardinals and Pirates for the National League East title. In October, they took it to the Cincinnati Reds - the Big Red Machine - in the National League Championship Series. They then faced the Oakland Athletics and were one bad call at home plate from winning their second championship in five years.

I can clearly remember us talking about the Game 3 fight between Pete Rose and Bud Harrelson and how "little" Buddy stood up to Rose who tried to intimidate him after a hard, but clean slide. And, we we're both incensed when the ump blew the call in Game 7 of the World Series on Willie Mays' slide into home. Ray Fosse never got the tag down in time.

Baseball was not the only "ball" game we shared. Growing up in New York City, there wasn't much else to do but play ball if you wanted to stay out of trouble. We played them all back then, all except soccer. No one really knew what that game was until Pele joined the Cosmos. We played basketball, whiffleball, Chinese Handball, Off The Bench, Errors, Football, and, sometimes, just catch.

We used to hang out alot together in each other's apartments. He'd come down to 5D and always greet my parents politely. Likewise, I was always warmly welcomed into the Jenkins home. I remember his little brother Larry and older brother Johnny, but not his sister's name. I guess it's because she was hardly ever home. I also loved listening to the stories Mrs. Jenkins would tell about their family "down South". She always spoke fondly of her South Carolina home but there was always a touch of melancholy in her voice. What I know now that I didn't then is that she was a real life example of an African-American who was both happy and sad for having migrated North to an urban center like New York in search of a better life.

The year 1974 held much promise for our friendship. Through the winter and spring since his arrival, Keith and his brother Larry integrated nicely into our little clique that hung out on the benches outside of 90 Avenue D. By the time, summer rolled in, we were back playing our favorite ball game -- off the bench. Keith picked up the game pretty quickly, and being a fast kid, he we was always one of the first to be picked when choosing sides. He also had a ready smile; always a smile, especially when we got going on the "mother jokes."

Ah, your mother's so old, she owes Moses a nickel.

Then it happened. In mid-July 1974, me and several of our group got shipped off to sleep-away camp in Harriman State Park for two weeks. Keith wasn't one of them. Camp Wabenaki was a well-maintained camp run by an old Jewish, ex-WWII Marine sargeant, Ralph Hittman, who ran the place like a military base. We never questioned why Keith didn't join us. Though the cost of the trip was modest, even by 1974 standards, it was still too much of a stretch for some families. Little did I know that it would be the last time we saw Keith alive.

One of the first posts I wrote on this blog was about being homesick in India on a business trip and how I had compared it to being a camper at Camp Wabenaki. I wrote about how worried I was at camp that something bad had happened to someone in my family, to the point where my counselor, David Yakowitz, had to set me straight. "Everything's fine at home," he said to me. He was wrong.

When I returned home in late July, my father pulled me aside and told me he had some bad news for me. Instantly, I thought that something bad happened to someone in my family. I started to freak and cry and he calmed me down, telling me everyone was fine. That's when he looked me in the eye and said that my friend "Grich" had died.

"Grich?" I asked him. "I don't know anyone named Grich."

In Spanish he said to me, "You know who I'm talking about. The kid from 6A."

"6A? Keith? Keith? Ah no, not Keith!"

I could only imagine this scene played out for all of his friends who went away to camp.

The story of how he died was worse than the news of his death. My mother told me he was killed crossing the FDR drive trying run away from muggers. He was playing baseball with some of his old 8th Street friends two days before we came home, when the muggers showed up. Keith and his friends scattered, some making it across 10th street pedestrian overpass. Keith went South towards the 6th Street overpass, but never got that far, choosing instead to run through an opening separating the park from the FDR Drive. I told you, he was a fast kid and he would have easily made it all the way across the highway had he not gone back to get the sneaker that fell off.

He was struck first by a North-bound car, which lifted him up and into South-bound traffic, where he was struck again. He died instantly.

My mother asked if I would join her at the wake, which was being held the night I returned home, and I agreed. It was the first time I had ever been to one, so I looked to Mom for cues on how to behave.

I followed my mother in the procession to view Keith, and after we knelt by his coffin and recited the Lord's Prayer and a Hail Mary, me and Mom stopped by to offer condolences to Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins. I recall how Mrs. Jenkins thanked my mother for paying respects, shaking hands with her warmly. When I went to hold Mrs. Jenkins's hand, she pulled me into her and gave me a hug. She looked at me and recalled with fondness how welcome I made Keith feel when they moved in the year before. Then, with her familiar melancholy voice, she said to me "Please don't forget my child." I promised her I wouldn't.

Here I am, 34 years later, still keeping my promise. I still wish I never had to.