He made his high school freshman team and became friends with several black kids who lived in the housing projects a few blocks away. In the 70s, Farragut Houses was no isolated fortress of poverty and despair like other developments around the city. Blacks and whites, European immigrants and those from the Caribbean co-existed. But there was never a proprietary question around the basketball courts that were smack dab in the middle of the cluster of buildings. The black kids reigned. And Jamie had an open invitation to get chosen in.
They called him J—so what if he bore no resemblance to the gravity defying Julius Erving, Dr. J? At least his curly hair, worn stylishly long, could from a distance pass for a reasonable imitation of Erving’s trademark fro.
The courts were quiet on Sunday afternoons when Erving’s Philadelphia 76ers played on national television. Jamie often watched from the crowded apartment of the boy he liked best. Ronald Allen was a gangly six feet tall—gap-toothed and so skinny that the other boys called him Bones. His favorite Knick was Earl Monroe, though his attempts to mimic Monroe’s classic spin moves were comical. His bank shot, however, was money.
“Man, we should go to your house and watch the game,” he said to Jamie one Sunday when Dr. J and the 76ers were playing the Knicks—his favorite team but only a shell of the early 70s championship teams. “Bet your family’s got a nice color TV, better than this old piece of shit.”
That was true, but Jamie made up an excuse that his family was having relatives over. For one thing, he was suspicious of how welcoming his father would be. He hated it when Morris and Uncle Lou used that word—schvartzer. Their attitudes convinced Jamie to make sure that what happened in the projects stayed in the projects.
Beyond basketball, there were other adolescent adventures going on there. He smoked his first joint in a chilly, dark stairwell. He copped his first feel.
Sarah Tompkins’ breasts were fleshy and Milky Way brown. In the half-dozen times they slipped away from the crowd, she confidently guided him under her sweater, never bothering to complicate matters with a bra.
Morris had no clue that his son’s incursions into the projects were producing such interracial indulgences. He still hated that Jamie spent time in a place that his generation believed symbolized failure. They had worked so hard to escape from it.
“I just go there to play ball,” Jamie told him. But Morris learned otherwise one hazy summer afternoon between Jamie’s freshman and sophomore years. Jamie’s team had lost a game and stepped off the court for the boys who called next. Jamie wandered outside the fence where the girls watched and flirted. Sarah Tompkins and a friend were among them.
The friend sidled up to Jamie and said, “You’re not bad for a white boy.” Sarah promptly elbowed her aside.
“Don’t be getting ideas,” she said. “Jamie and I got a little thing going. We have our secret meeting place.”
Jamie blushed, uncomfortable with the public display. Just the same he was aroused by Sarah’s seductive playfulness. She was wearing a spaghetti-strap top with tight shorts that highlighted the tautness of her thighs.
She winked at Jamie and said, “Maybe we’ll meet up soon if you promise to take me on a date.”
“Like where?” Jamie said.
“You know, like a movie.”
The thought of being with Sarah outside the projects terrified Jamie. He played along though, asking her what she wanted to see.
“Something sexy,” she said, rubbing a shoulder against his. This led to a game of pretend fighting and a round of kissy face. Jamie was feeling his fifteen-year-old oats until he felt a hard tap on the shoulder.
He turned to face his father.
“What are you doing here?” he stammered.
“I need you to come home now,” Morris said, red-faced and in no mood to argue.
“Why?” Jamie said. He sensed the others were watching.
“Because your grandmother had a heart attack and is in critical condition. We’re all going to the hospital.”
Morris turned and walked off. Jamie looked at Sarah, who had overheard them. She shrugged her shoulders. Jamie left without saying a word. One of the mouthier boys yelled out, “Don’t worry, Big Daddy. J’s cool. We weren’t taking his money—only his motherfucking Cons.”
It was a reference Morris wouldn’t get—Jamie had bought a new pair of black Converse sneakers that were the envy of the playground.
He got why his father had to come looking for him and why he had to follow him home, lame as it looked to the others. But only the gravity of his mother’s health had eclipsed the shock of what Morris had stumbled upon—his son in the arms of a black girl. He didn’t say a word about it to Jamie, but Jamie read the disapproval in his eyes.
Jamie told his mother, “Every time I pick up my basketball and walk toward the door, he looks at me like I’m going out to join the NAACP.”
“Talk to him about it,” Molly said.
“Yeah, right,” Jamie said.
He knew it was pointless to explain—and why the hell should he? Morris would never understand what his social acceptance in those outdoor courts meant. Even Jamie was incapable of fully getting it until years later when he explained it to his brother-in-law Mickey, who liked basketball. “Going into the projects helped me play all four years in high school. I sat the bench on varsity as a senior because I didn’t have the speed the other kids did. That didn’t matter. I was on the team. I was accepted as a player. Not that it mattered to anyone at home.”
“Your dad didn’t go the games?” Mickey asked.
“Not one.”
“Why not?”
“They were played weekdays, late in the afternoon,” Jamie said. “He’d already left for work. But he had some days off. He just didn’t like, you know, the element. His greatest fear was that I was going to date black girls.”
Jamie, in fact, could still picture the relief on Morris’ face when, years later, he brought Karyn home to meet his parents—the first time he’d brought any woman home. A few bites into dinner, he announced they had decided to get married. Molly cried. Morris hugged Karyn tight. She had him at the mention of her last name—Kleinman.
Jamie had called her a few days after they met. He took her on a dinner date in Brooklyn Heights.
“I thought you would be here at 7, 7:15,” she said when she answered the door. Her one-bedroom, second-floor apartment was in a corner building two blocks from the famous Brooklyn Heights Promenade.
“Your neighborhood has lots of personality but no parking,” he said.
Her building was run down, its hallways musty and dark. But Karyn’s apartment was well-furnished and spotless, painted in light, cheerful colors. Framed posters decorated the walls. The pillows on the couch were set perfectly in the corners. Magazines were carefully laid out on the coffee table as if it were a dentist’s office.
Karyn wore a short black skirt, turtleneck sweater and earrings that fell even with her neck-length light brown hair. She appeared taller than five-foot-four, thanks to a slender frame and the heels on her black Frye boots. She wore granny glasses that slid down her nose just enough to cover a slight bump. On both wrists were bangle bracelets, different colors all—her trademark wardrobe accoutrements. She had on a lemon-scented perfume that Jamie found too pungent but would never have the audacity to complain about.
They ate sushi, which he labored to feign a taste for, on Montague Street. They bought ice cream cones at a Baskin-Robbins next door to the newsstand. Eight months later they were married in the neighborhood in a brownstone synagogue and celebrated modestly