Besides my father, I am the darkest one in my family and I’ve worn my hair natural since I finished high school.
Once I moved to East Seventh Street, every morning that I had the fifteen cents I would stop into the Second Avenue Griddle on the corner of St. Mark’s Place on my way to the subway and school and buy an english muffin and coffee. It was a tiny little counter place run by an old Jewish man named Sol who’s been a seaman (among other things) and Jimmy, who was Puerto Ricans and washed dishes and who used to remind Sol to save me the hard englishes on Monday; I could have them for a dime. Toasted and dripping butter, those english muffins and coffee were frequently the high point of my day, and certainly enough to get me out of bed many mornings and into the street on that long walk to Astor Place subway. Some days it was the only reeason to get up, and lots of times I didn’t have the money for anything else. for over eight years, we shot a lot of bull over that counter, and exchanfed a lot of ideas and daily news, and most of my friends knew who I meant when I talked about Jimmy and Sol. Both guys saw my friends come and go and never said a word about my people, except once in a while to say, “your girlfriend was in here; she owes me a dime and tell her don’t forget we close exactly at seven.”
So on the last day before I finally moved away from the Lower East Side after I got my master’s from library scool, I went in for my last english muffin and coffee and to say goodbye to Sol and Jimmy in some unemotional and acceptable-to-me way. I told them both I’d miss them and the old neighborhood, and they said they were sorry and why did I have to go? I told them I had to work out of the city, because I had a fellowship for Negro students. Sol raised his eyebrows in utter amazement, and said, “Oh? I didn’t know you was cullud!”
I went around telling that story for a while, although a lot of my friends couldn’t see why I thought it was funny. But this is all about how very difficult it is at times for people to see who or what they are looking at, particularly when they don’t want to.
Or maybe it does take one to know one.
from “Zami: A New Spelling of my Name” by Audre Lorde
