Searching for Yesterday

by Gary W. Cantor

   Standing on his sister�fs porch, Steve Levinson looked up.  It was ideed a nice day.  The sky was blue and the few clouds above him floated slowly to the east.

   Normally, weather like this would have given him a burst of energy.  But, this wasn�ft a normal day.  He had just spent a week at his sister�fs house after getting word from her that his brother Mike had died suddenly of a heart attack.  The news had come as a shock.  It didn�ft seem possible to him that Mike could be dead.  He was only 46.  But, of course it was true.  And so, right after his sister�fs call, Steve had quickly gotten on a plane from New York and spent the week with her while they and their relatives mourned Mike�fs sudden death.

   Now, after saying goodbye to his sister, he felt for the first time since he arrived at her house a sense of utter emptiness.  Perhaps this awful feeling had eluded him during the week because he had been so busy.  Helping to make the funeral arrangements and talking to people that he hadn�ft seen in years had been exhausting work for him.  Finally, however, that was over and it was time to go back to New York.  He had promised to be back at work the following day.  But, he felt that there was something wrong about just getting back in the car he had rented and driving to the airport.  For whatever reason, he had the feeling that he hadn�ft really said goodbye to Mike yet.

   But Mike was gone.  He knew that was a fact and there was no way to bring him back.  So, whatever he did now to help himself get over Mike�fs death would be done for his sake, not for Mike�fs.

   He thought for a moment.  As he did, the sky above him became an illusion and in it he and Mike were playing in their room in their old house.  As he watched this scene, the idea came to him.  That�fs what I�fll do, he thought.  I�fll go to see the old house.

   He walked slowly to his car and opened the door.  Then, he drove down the street in the direction of the expressway that would lead him back to the old neighborhood.

   Once on the expressway, Steve started to have doubts about what he was doing.  It was a silly idea, he thought.  And dangerous.  The area where they had grown up had been a middle class Jewish neighborhood, but the neighborhood changed about thirty years ago, and as far as he knew no Jews had lived there for about 25 or 30 years.  It had become just another black inner city neighborhood riddled with drugs and crime ? just another symbol of a nation�fs losing battle with its cities.

   As he drove, he wondered how often white people drove through the streets of that neighborhood these days.  Not very often, he assumed.  If he went there, he thought, people would probably stare at him.  Some of the children who live there, he figured, rarely see white people.  Maybe policemen and a teacher or two, but that�fs about all.

   These thoughts reminded him of an incident that occurred in that neighborhood when he was six or maybe seven years old.  He was standing on the porch of a friend�fs house.  The friend, Ken Greenberg, said in a whisper, �gLook, there are some Negroes.�h  He looked up and saw a black man and a boy, probably his son, walking down the sidewalk.  At the time, no blacks lived in the neighborhood.  As far as he knew, Ken hadn�ft meant anything bad by the remark.  It�fs just that blacks were an oddity there at that time.

   Of course, now, the opposite was true.  White people were an oddity there, and he imagined that if he drove through the neighborhood there would probably be a young black child or two who would point out this event to a friend.

   As the car rolled down the expressway, Steve thought about abandoning the idea and going straight to the airport.  But there was something that was pulling him back to the old neighborhood.  What was it?  He wasn�ft sure, but he knew that it had something to do with feelings that somehow bound him to his brother.  And these were feelings, he assumed, that he could only experience fully if he went back to the place that was the source of the memories that connected his life to his late brother�fs.

   But there was more than just the connection with Mike.  To Steve, the old neighborhood symbolized something lost that he wanted to get back.  But it wasn�ft something that could be easily recovered.  It was a feeling that he had when he lived there that disappeared the day they moved.

   The day they moved�cHe could still remember that day.  After everything had been taken into their new house in the suburbs, his father stood in front of the house with Mike and himself.  His father was clearly overjoyed.  The new house was nearly twice as big as the old one and included a large yard and air that was fresher than anything the old neighborhood had to offer.  But Steve couldn�ft share any of his father�fs joy.  He loved the old neighborhood.  He loved its stores and its playgrounds, and much more than that, he loved its people.

   Of course, there were people in the suburbs, too.  And some of them would be nice, he thought.  But on that day he was sure that he would always miss his old friends.  And he did.

   As his father looked up at the new house admiringly, Steve looked over at Mike.  Mike had already been looking at Steve.  As they stared into each other�fs eyes, the message to Steve was clear.  Mike was as miserable as he was�c

   Steve saw the sign for the exit leading to the old neighborhood.  He maneuvered the car to the right and pulled off of the expressway.  Then, he drove down the service drive that ran along the expressway for about three or four blocks and turned right.  The street that he was on now was one that he remembered from his childhood.  He could clearly remember driving down the street in his mother�fs old Ford.  In those days it was a busy shopping street filled with supermarkets, drug stores, shoe stores, and restaurants.  But now it was different.

   As he looked to his left and right he saw that about a third of the storefronts were boarded up.  What wasn�ft boarded up was completely unfamiliar to him.  He remembered one corner where a Texaco station once stood.  Now, there was a fast food restaurant there.  Across the street from the fast food restaurant there was a liquor store.  That, Steve remembered, used to be a drug store.  And next to the liquor store there was a laundromat that had been a barbershop.  Steve could remember walking down that street with Mike and entering the barbershop.  And he could still recall the way it smelled like shampoo and hair tonic.

   The car approached a red light.  Steve stopped the car and then, when he looked to his right, did a double take.  The sign on the building that caught his eye read �gThe Sunrise Baptist Church.�h  I shouldn�ft be surprised, Steve thought.  That�fs the way it always goes.

   �cThe church had been the synagogue that Steve�fs family belonged to.  It was called Beth Israel.  On the high holidays it was packed with worshippers, and they even had policemen outside directing traffic before and after services.

   Like most other kids he knew, Steve didn�ft enjoy most of the time that he spent in the synagogue.  He sat there hour after hour listening to words and chanting prayers that he didn�ft understand.  On occasion, as a way of signalling his boredom, he would look over at Mike and roll his eyes.  Mike would then respond in kind or at least flash a sympathetic smile back to Steve.

   However, there was one aspect of the services in that old synagogue that Steve found inspirational.  It was the singing of the cantor.  As the cantor stood on the altar, facing the open ark, and sang out in his powerful yet melodic voice, Steve would look down at him from his seat in the balcony and feel the power of his presence.  The cantor�fs voice never seemed to tire.  On the contrary, it seemed to get stronger and stronger.  And as he sang to the congregation and to his God, Steve would always notice that the back of his neck would turn from white to pink, and then to the reddest color he had ever seen on the flesh of a man.

   As he listened to the cantor sing, Steve would feel a certain lightness.  It was almost as if he were floating.  Something about the power of the man�fs voice and the belief that it communicated so clearly pushed away the forces of gravity that normally gripped his body and anchored it to the ground.  It was a wonderful feeling.  But that wonderful feeling always faded away when the cantor ceased his singing�c

   The light turned green.  Steve pushed the accelerator and moved quickly through the intersection.  Then, he looked back in the direction of the church.  When he did he saw that on the side of the building there was still a Star of David engraved deeply into the wall.

   This made him think of a conversation that he overheard a long time ago�c  It was when he was in high school, long after his family had moved to the suburbs.  The boy who sat in back of him in his biology class hated Jews and occasionally made anti-Semitic comments to the boy sitting next to him.  Steve often heard the boy�fs comments, but never said anything to him about them.

   One day, Steve overheard the boy saying, �gWherever the Jews live, blacks are sure to follow.  A Jewish neighborhood today is sure to be full of Niggers tomorrow.  Goddam Jews.�h

   Steve was disgusted by the utterance.  But, it also made him think.  He thought about his own experience.  He too had come from a Jewish neighborhood that had turned black.  Why did Jews always move, he wondered.  Were they just weak?  Could they be pushed around so easily?

   Perhaps blacks, he thought, were the opposite of Jews.  Whereas Jews were always running, blacks were always pushing.  They didn�ft run in fear, he thought; they made others fear�c

   The car approached a corner and Steve turned onto a sidestreet.  He was now only two blocks away from the old house.  As the car glided along, he looked at the houses on both sides of the street.  Most of them didn�ft look familiar to him, but there were a few that he remembered passing on his way to and from school a long, long time ago.

   Everything was quiet, and there was nobody to be seen except for a mailman who was walking along the sidewalk off to Steve�fs left.   When the car passed him by, the mailman glanced over at Steve and seemed to do a double take.  The eye contact made Steve feel uncomfortable.  I�fm not where I belong, he thought.  But, he kept driving and soon found himself in front of the old house.  He parked the car in front of the house and looked at it.

   It was much smaller than he remembered it.  But that wasn�ft the only thing that seemed different.  The brick, which he remembered as being bright red, seemed lighter and was chipped badly in places.  Also, the paint was peeling and the tiny square-shaped lawn was overgrown and filled with weeds and dandelions.

   He looked away from the house for a second and noticed that a woman in the house to its left was staring at him from a window near her front door.  Steve remembered that house well, and for a second the image of his boyhood friend Brad Feldman, who had lived there, flashed before his eyes.  But the image faded quickly.  Everything is different, he thought, and there�fs no reason for me to be here�c

   But regardless of such thoughts, he took a deep breath and then opened the car door.  As he did, he looked in the direction of the next-door neighbor�fs house and noticed that the woman who had been looking at him was still doing so.  What�fs she thinking about, Steve wondered.  Perhaps she thinks I�fm a cop, he thought�c  Or maybe a social worker.

   However, as he walked slowly in the direction of his childhood home, he realized that whatever that neighbor was thinking was of relatively little importance.  The problem is, he said to himself, what in the world will the owner of this house think?  He was afraid that he would be thought of as some sort of nut.  And the possibility that the owner might become angry, or even violent, also crossed his mind. Why in the hell am I doing this, he wondered�c  Why don�ft I just get back in my car and go to the airport?�c   That, he was sure, would be the rational thing to do.

   But, even as such thoughts filled his head, his legs kept moving.  Then, he rang the doorbell and waited.  After waiting for about 30 seconds or so, he heard footsteps.  Someone was approaching the door.  Then, the door opened slowly and a black woman who looked to be about 35 or 40 years old appeared before him.  Her voice shook ever so slightly as she spoke.

   �gWhat can I do for you?�h she said.

   Steve hesitated.  For whatever reason he had been expecting a man to answer the door.  There was no reason for that expectation.  But, nevertheless, the fact that a woman had answered the door threw him off balance.

   He tried to collect his thoughts.  How am I going to explain what I�fm doing, he wondered.  He thought of a few roundabout ways to make his request, but then decided to be as direct as possible.

   �gMy name is Steve Levinson.  A long time ago, I lived in this house.  I know that this is going to sound strange, but I wonder if you�fd let me in so I can look around for a minute or so.�h

   The woman didn�ft answer immediately.  Instead, she took a step back and tilted her head up and then down, seemingly in an effort to get a good look at Steve.  Then, with a rather dubious look on her face, she nodded slowly.

   �gSure, come on in,�h she said.

   Steve walked in, and then after taking a few steps heard the woman close the door behind him.  He looked to his right and saw a living room with a TV, a sofa, and a couple of lounge chairs.  There was also a baseball and a mitt, along with a few toys lying on the floor.  Steve listened for the sounds of children, but there were none.  They were obviously not in the house.

   Steve then looked back at the woman.  She made a gesture that Steve took to mean, �gGo ahead and look at whatever you want.�h

   Nevertheless, Steve hesitated for a moment, but then walked slowly through the living room and into the kitchen. The woman followed closely behind.  It was a tiny room, just as Steve had remembered.  A huge refrigerator seemed to take up half of the space in the room, and to Steve it seemed a bit out of place.  On the other hand, space was obviously saved by the fact that there was no big oven in the room, as there had been in Steve�fs childhood.  There was just a little microwave stuffed into a corner and barely visible due to the bulky refrigerator.

   After he left the kitchen, Steve walked over to the stairway and stood at the foot of the stairs.  He looked up, but didn�ft start climbing the stairs until he heard the woman�fs voice.

   �gGo ahead,�h she said.

   Steve looked back at her and then started walking slowly up the stairs.  As he did, he started feeling more and more awkward about what he was doing.  I�fm a grown man walking around someone else�fs house, he thought.  And this adventure, whatever it was supposed to do, wasn�ft making him feel any less lonely and depressed.  But, I�fve come this far, he rationalized.  So he decided that he might as well go upstairs and see the rest of what had once been at the center of his world.

   As he reached the top of the stairs, he glanced to his left and then walked slowly toward the threshold of what had been his parents�f room.  It was a small room with a double bed and a large dresser.  The dark red carpet looked old and faded in several places.  While looking at the room Steve realized that besides the fact that it had been his parents�f room there was nothing about it that he remembered.

   He turned away from that room and then looked quickly into another which he remembered as having been his sister�fs.  Twin beds stood on the left and right of the room.  Between the beds, toys and clothes were scattered about on the floor.  There was also a closet, and a small desk stood in one corner of the room.

   Finally, Steve walked over to the room that he had once shared with Mike.  He looked in from the doorway and took a deep breath.  There were bunk beds in the middle of the room and dressers on both sides of the beds.  Posters of professional athletes took up most of the space on all four walls.

   Steve took a single step into the room and stopped.  Then, he closed his eyes and waited to be overcome by a rush of memories and a tidal wave of emotion.  Something is going to happen, he thought.  He waited and waited.  But nothing happened.  His mind was blank, and so, he realized, was his soul.  He opened his eyes.

   �gAre you all right?�h he heard the woman ask.  She was standing right behind him.

   �gYes,�h he answered softly.  �gI�fm sorry to have troubled you like this.  I�fll be going now.�h

   He turned around and started to walk down the stairs.  The woman followed closely behind.  Then, as he reached the last stair, he heard something.  It sounded like something hitting the roof.  He glanced up.

   �gMy boys are probably throwing the ball up on the roof again,�h he heard the woman say.  He nodded and then opened the front door.  As he walked out, he turned around and thanked the woman for having let him in.  She nodded, but said nothing.

   As his foot touched the ground just beyond the front door, Steve looked to his left and saw two boys.  The older of them looked to be about ten, and the younger about seven or eight.  The older boy threw a ball up onto the roof.  Then, the younger boy, seeing where the ball had been thrown, raced to his left, got under the spot where the ball was going to fall, and caught it as it came down.  Then, he threw the ball up on the roof and the older boy got into position and caught it.

   Steve took a few more steps away from the house and continued to watch as the boys played.  He and Mike, he remembered, used to spend hours playing the same game.  First, one boy would threw the ball up on the roof and the other had to catch it.  Then, the roles were reversed.  The person who threw the ball on the roof would try to throw it far away from the other person to make it harder to catch.  If the ball fell from the roof and wasn�ft caught, the person who threw it would get a point.

   As Steve watched the two boys, he was impressed by their agility.  They�fre really good, he thought.  Time after time the ball went up on the roof and came rolling or bouncing down.  But each time, just before the ball hit the ground it would be caught.

   Steve felt a change come about his body.  He felt lighter and more relaxed than he had just a few minutes earlier.  He realized that he should start moving in the direction of his car, but he was captivated by the game.  Finally, one of the boys, who had been unaware of Steve�fs presence, glanced over at him and startled him.  Steve smiled and nodded, and then walked slowly to the car.

   After he opened the car door, Steve sat down, and then closed and locked the door.  But then, instead of starting the car, he looked back in the direction of the two boys and continued to watch their game.  Once again, as he watched them play and listened to their voices he felt himself relax and grow lighter.  Then, he closed his eyes, but continued to listen to the sound of the bouncing ball as well as to the boys�f excited voices.  His body became lighter and lighter�c

   Suddenly, the voices that echoed in his head changed.  They were no longer the voices of the boys that he had been watching.  They were the voices of Mike and of himself.  And those voices were accompanied by an image of Mike and himself playing the same game.

   Steve threw a ball up on the roof and Mike, who looked to be about ten years old raced to his right and caught it just before it hit the ground.

   �gI got it!�h Mike yelled excitedly.  Then, he looked at Steve and smiled.  Then, Mike threw the ball back up on the roof and Steve raced to his left and caught it.

   �gNice catch!�h Mike said.  Then, once again, he smiled.  It was a nice smile.

   Then, Mike said something else to Steve, but Steve couldn�ft make out what he had said.

   �gWhat did you say, Mike?�h he yelled.  But Mike didn�ft answer.  Again, Steve yelled out, �gWhat did you say?�h  But once again, Mike didn�ft answer.  He just smiled at Steve and nodded.

   Then, that smiling face slowly faded away, and Steve heard a voice...  However, this time it wasn�ft Mike�fs voice.  It was one of the black children playing outside of his old house.

   Steve opened his eyes and looked over at the boys.  Then, he smiled and laughed softly.  �gGoodbye Mike,�h he whispered to himself.  �gGoodbye.�h

   Then, after taking a deep breath, he reached into his pocket, took out the keys to the car and started the engine.  It was time to go back to New York.