Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech

Jimmy was a bill collector in Chicago; he had a rough voice which he used to his advantage over the phone, and which he had mastered as a kid growing up in a rough middle-class south side neighborhood. He was of mixed race, and had a family, and a stable middle-class kind of life, car, house, and the whole thing, but his rough upbringing seemed to always be peeking over his shoulder. When he heard about a major gang, a huge gang, taking on the Star of David as its symbol, back down on the south side, he recoiled in the sudden intensity of his memories, remembering his days in that neighborhood, as a teenager, when he'd had that idea himself.

His group of kids, about half a dozen of them, had a rival group that consistently wore black Sox paraphernalia and got away with it. They were marked; everyone knew who they were; that identification was important, and Jimmy and his group strongly felt the need to have a similar marking. Cubs baby blue was out for obvious reasons, and Bears also wouldn't work, but they settled on Packers, as they had an affinity for the green and it was common enough, even on the south side; there was more than one Packers fan in the neighborhood. But they were figured out by a school principal who made one of them, Robo, name a single Packer, and he couldn't do it, not even Vince Lombardi or one of the famous ones, and the school administration figured that people were wearing gang colors and marking turf, and outlawed the colors. It was a sensitive issue; it made the principal and his people hot, and they weren't going to allow any group of kids, Jimmy especially, to go around marking themselves as members of a group that could be considered a gang, and was a gang, for all intents and purposes. What about that rival gang, Jimmy felt like saying; he felt like pointing out Pablo in his Sox jacket and all Pablo's buddies, but knew that would lead to more trouble, so he kept his mouth shut with the principal. No Packers stuff, that was the rule.

Jimmy was supposed to be studying the usual stuff, English, Phys Ed, Biology, and History, that kind of stuff. He got into an argument with Mr. Crims, his History teacher, over the topic of freedom of speech and freedom of association. To Jimmy it was beginning to be an issue of principle. Was there freedom of speech or not? Not that he cared about the Packers; why should he? But the right, or lack of it, to wear a color, or a hat, or any hat, was important to him.

So he got the idea one day, walking along in an old Jewish neighborhood, and stepped into a store and bought half a dozen Stars of David. The lady gave him a weird look but Jimmy just gave her the money and got out of there quickly. He gave one to each of his friends and told a couple more where to get them; they were cheap. Solid metal, but cheap. The friends started wearing them around their necks immediately. Kick us out now, you b-'s, he muttered under his breath, and waited for the principal to do something. He got mostly dirty looks; of course they were onto him and his friends; they saw the stars around their necks; they were undoubtedly checking the rule books to see what they could do.

Jimmy himself was singularly insensitive to the different meanings people could put onto that metal six-pointed star. He'd lived among Jews and the different racial hostilities of his neighborhood for many years; he didn't have any particular feeling for or against the Jews that he'd known in his neighborhood; in the same way he didn't mind using them or their symbol for his gang if he thought they could now get away with something they couldn't before. He despised Pablo in his Sox jacket and wanted to show Pablo he had a gang and wasn't budging an inch, wasn't afraid of Pablo and his gang, wasn't going to back down at all. That's all he felt. At the time, he felt nothing about Judaism, not good, not bad. It was just a symbol.

Other members of his gang had a little different take, of course; one guy, Little Steve, mouthed off a lot because he thought they should have another kind of symbol. Another, Maxie, was actually part Jewish, and he was seen by his uncle one day wearing the thing and then had to explain it away; his uncle, thinking he was now into Judaism, started suggesting local temples, and he had to actively resist so that he could still have his Friday nights free. Jimmy held firm and said the gang needed a common symbol and this was the best one because the school couldn't kick them out or ban it. One day, though, he got out of school and was on the el when an old lady got on, sat next to him, and lit into him upon seeing the star and finding out he wasn't Jewish, saying that six million people had died that would love to be wearing that star; who did he think he was, wearing it when he wasn't even Jewish? He had actually offered this lady his seat, but she'd asked him if he was Jewish right away. She turned out to be a nice lady, he got along ok with her in the end, but the star had obviously stirred her up and made her unable to just enjoy an el ride in peace sitting with a young guy with a piece of metal around his neck. It was a little uncomfortable; he felt like hiding it maybe, but it was a little too late; at this point that might be even worse.

Another night he was with Little Steve and another guy, Robo, on the same el going downtown on an errand for Robo's sister. Suddenly Pablo and four other guys got on the train and saw them; they were outnumbered, and poorly armed, though they were wearing their stars, having just come from school. Robo said something under his breath to them, which they heard, and somewhere near Comiskey Park they bolted off the train and ran, Pablo and his gang following them. They were faster than Pablo and his gang, and had the jump on them, through the turnstiles and out onto the street, but Little Steve was wearing out after a couple of blocks, and when they came around one corner they saw an open store door where they could duck in away from the street, and they did. The old Jewish storekeeper's eyes got wide in horror seeing three young disheveled guys charge into his store; he saw the fear in their eyes, surely, but he also saw the stars, and seemed to know immediately that they needed to hide; he pointed to a counter over to the side, and the three boys ducked behind it. Jimmy could see the old man, but couldn't see the street or the door clearly; still, he knew when Pablo and his friends came by, and he saw the old man stare with steely resolve, out the door, saying with his look, not in here boys, don't mess with me. A clock ticked loudly and broke the silence; Jimmy, Little Steve and Robo stayed ducked, breathless, hearts pounding, behind the counter, for what seemed like an eternity; the old guy went about his business, dusting the counters, closing the store, puttering around. Eventually he kind of ran them out, didn't want to wait all night, but was still friendly, and never asked them about the stars, didn't seem to want to find out that maybe they weren't actually Jewish. They and the old man had an alliance, Jimmy thought, against random, senseless violence, and this was lucky, because it allowed Jimmy and his friends to escape, take the bus, which was the long way home, and then to live through high school; Pablo himself was pushed in front of an el about two months later, in an unrelated incident, and hostilities between the two gangs kind of died down after that. In fact, even the stars disappeared; the friends stopped wearing them, gradually. They weren't really necessary after a while; each guy had more or less moved on to bigger problems.

Now, years later, his family in a brick bungalow, his neighbor took to wearing a Packer hat in winter; Jimmy, of course, wasn't going to say a thing. Don't dredge up old times, don't even mention the gangs of today or the gangs of his childhood. What's the point? The star was buried somewhere, in an old chest that he hadn't gotten out for years. And he didn't intend to.
(10-08)