Brick City: A Novel

By George Stanley

In the late 1960s, the New Jersey projects stood like tattered, tired sentinels across the Newark skyline. Some saw them as eyesores; others called them home. Despite the comfort of familiarity, it certainly wasnt easy being poor and black in the projects in 1962. Its a good thing four young boys had each other.

Diesel, Bugs, Loony, and Larry are barely teenagers when they meet and become inseparable, bonded by poverty and race. They come of age in an environment they dont even realize is hostile. Summers are spent on adventuressometimes legal, sometimes not, and many times not safe. These wild days and nights keep the boys together.

But the projects arent all friends and fun. The boys deal with abuse, rough cops, and romantic connections that dont end well. They grow into men in this place affectionately known as brick city, yet they dont leave unscathed. For better or worse, the projects turn these boys into men, but not everyone gets out alive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491770283

George Stanley

George Stanley was born in Newark, New Jersey, and lived in public housing until he was eighteen. He has an MFA from the University of California, Riverside, and a BA from Georgia State University. He spends his time between New Jersey and North Carolina. This is his first novel.

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Brick City

Copyright © 2015 George Stanley.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-7029-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-7028-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015909345

iUniverse rev. date:  07/09/2015

Contents

Introduction

1

2

3

4

5

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7

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9

10

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51

INTRODUCTION

One has to wonder what was going through The Almighty’s mind while looking down at the millions and millions of bricks that shaped the Newark skyline during the mid-sixties. The bricks that totaled some finite number, that God would know, but like the grains of sand on a beach would be too numerous for mere mortals to count. Some felt that the previous skyline was interrupted, even ruined, by the high-rise government housing projects that grew from the polluted soil that once cultivated slum tenements. New Jersey’s largest city was freckled with these behemoths. The feeling at the time these apartment buildings germinated, and grew into the hi-rise monstrosities, was that maybe they weren’t too bad. The buildings were initially just a slight blemish on the face of the city. It was something that a little greasepaint could hide. But the small flaw spread and multiplied and festered until makeup would no longer suffice and eventually dynamite was the only solution. It seemed as if aesthetics never entered into the equation during the planning of the buildings. So when more and more projects went up, either from the necessity to house people or to continue the flow of money to purchase bricks, they were the dominant feature in Newark.

The politicians convinced the humble citizenry that the building of housing projects would be good for the city. People who lived in squalor were rapturous over their new brick haven. Those of means were just as jubilant, though for other reasons. They could rest easy in white picket fence neighborhoods because the threat that could rock their tranquility had been incarcerated in a prison without bars. This allowed the suburbanites to pass into and out of what appeared to them as a jungle. Their smug demeanors indicated that they knew who held the turnkeys.

Like the bricks that were stacked on top of each other rising into the cosmos, so were the families that resided in the projects. And many of the families that lived there were very large. When a family got the news that they were accepted into a housing project, it was a time for jubilation. They would be leaving behind a slum existence. Where at the beginning of the month, the landlords swooped down like a seagull that plucks a fish from the ocean and rides the wind to its next meal. Families were packed into apartments like Vienna sausages. Congested places with rats as big as cats and the cats that feasted on the rats were as big as dogs. And the only dogs around were the ones sifting through the garbage cans in the alleyways between buildings. There were no pet dogs. The only ones around were the mutts that the neighborhood kids claimed and housed in one of the abandoned buildings in the neighborhood. They would feed them the scraps scraped together to keep the dogs strong enough to fight whatever champion dog there was on the next block. But in the home, another mouth to feed was not welcomed. The animal that was many a kid’s best friend and protector was absent. Whether or not canines added to a young person’s experience of childhood has been debated. There are those youngsters who learn responsibility and companionship from pet ownership. Owning a dog was inconsequential anyway, because before moving into the projects the dog would have to go. Inside the veritable haven surrounded by bricks, no dogs were allowed.

So when a family moved from the conditions of the slum tenements they were gratified. They were overjoyed with the prospect of leaving behind the crowded tenement where slumlords crammed as many families into their buildings as the law or a bribe would allow. Families no longer had to endure the rabies infested vermin that threatened the innocent, unsuspecting, babies lying in their cribs. Far behind them was the rushing of their toddlers to the City Hospital Emergency Ward because a lethal amount of lead laden chips of paint peeling from the walls were ingested. They were being set free from the dark stairways and hallways where danger lurked above the squeaky floorboards. Emancipated from the buildings that would forever possess a cave like dankness and the musty smell of old folks. The families were jubilant, and rightly so. Look what they were leaving behind. And nobody could augur the sour notes life would strike amongst the brick, steel and concrete. Understandably, nobody looked past the blinding reflection reverberating off the freshly painted, shiny, walls and tiled floors. One has to wonder if the building of the projects was a way to relieve social problems or was it a way to keep those problems in one concentrated area. In life there always seems to be a price to pay. No matter how good something seems to be, it is always a tradeoff at some point. This payoff is never cheated, sort of like karma. As it is in church after an inspirational sermon, the spell is broken when the collection plates circulate the sanctuary.

It took over fifty years for the hi-rise public housing projects to run their courses in Newark, New Jersey. It will take a lot longer than that to extirpate the last vestiges of The Bricks. The projects created a social dynamic, the effects of which were carried in the genes of the residents’ offspring. The children of the inhabitants of public housing got caught in a cycle of project dwelling that spanned several generations. This was in contradiction to the concept that public housing was supposed to help a family get on its feet and eventually move out to a better standard of living. Many times this did not happen, for whatever reasons. But no one could deny that destroying all the hi-rise public housing projects in the city extinguished the possibility of future generations being caught up in the vicious cycle where children and grandchildren of the initial project family also raised their children in the bricks.

The experience of public housing has not been totally negative. There are the good times and bad times of any life experience. The propinquity of individuals had positive and negative consequences. In fact, being a youngster in the projects was in many ways better than the childhood of youngsters living in other environments. For one thing, there was never a lack of having someone to play with. There was also no shortage of having someone to fight with. The fun that the children experienced greatly outweighed the few altercations that would escalate into fights. And it is a funny thing, but the children growing up in the bricks had no idea of just how poor they were. There would be times when a child may have been denied an expensive pair of sneakers or toy but it was soon forgotten. Mostly, they were just kids having fun.

During the 1960s, a tenth of the nearly half million Newark souls were plunged into in high-rise government housing projects that rose vertically into the cosmos. Even if a person was not living in the bricks the chances were overwhelming that they went to school with, or knew someone who resided in the projects, or had relatives who lived there. This could be why the most of the residents of Newark embraced the name Brick City.

Even though the quintessential inhabitants of public housing were law abiding citizens, some projects were breeding grounds for crime and drug abuse. Due to the tireless efforts of the mayors during the latter part of the Twentieth Century into the beginning of the Twenty-first Century and the citizens of Newark, these hi-rise monstrosities no longer exist. Today, the bricks do not represent the building materials used to construct these edifices. The bricks depict the people of Newark joining together to build a great city.

What follows is but one story from the projects inside a place affectionately known as BRICK CITY.

1

The sun had barely risen, but already the heat was being absorbed into the molded clay bricks repeatedly baking them like when they were formed. The day solemnly promised to be a hot one. If the sun hit the buildings a certain way the hue turned crimson. Like the red earth formed from volcanic eruptions over millions of years on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. The buildings the color of the iron enriched earth that formed the majestic soil of the land also known as the Garden Island. It could have been destiny that the earth would settle in the Garden State. The bricks combined to shape the architecture that arranged the combination of buildings may have been distant ancestors to the red clay of Georgia.

This particular Housing Project displaced five square blocks of slum tenements, several bars, a few neighborhood grocery stores and a couple churches. The places that the Projects dislodged did not go quietly in the night. Change is difficult for the most people, but folks can become comfortable in most situations as later the projects proved. But before the old buildings were torn down there were those who called them home. The slumlords were making a sizable profit, but after a time the buildings became more trouble than they were worth. The tenants had the audacity to want repairs done to the properties. So eventually, the money that was offered to the slumlords to sell started looking better and better. That is for those landlords whose buildings were not accidentally burned down for the insurance money. As the old saying goes, You can’t fight city hall, was especially true when the projects went up because it was a losing battle. City hall was run by an Italian-American mayor who eventually landed in jail many years after the kickback money was spent.

It was a quiet morning in the summer of 1962. The morning dew had filtered the pollution from the air. The smell of flowers was still evident in the air as in early summer. Life began to stir inside the complex of buildings. A few early birds headed sleepily for the bus stops to begin their journey to work. For some it took two or three buses to get to the areas where jobs existed in the secluded suburbs. Some were faithful employees at factories in the city; some worked as domestics and handymen in suburban neighborhoods, a world away from where they started their daily sojourn.

It was a wonderful time to be alive for young Bobby Wilson. He felt the joy of just being sentient. He lived in the carefree world of a twelve-year-old boy. School was out and laid out in front of him was his schedule for a summer of enjoyment. Boy, did he have plans! There was always something to do around the projects even if it all wasn’t safe or, for that matter, legal. Sometimes he wished that he could go down south to Virginia or North Carolina and visit relatives for a week or two like some of the fellas did or, at least, go away to camp. The thing was that he was a third generation Jersey boy, Newark in particular, and there were no close relatives down south any more. And the thought of camp never came up from either him or his parents at the start of summer. So, by the time Bobby really thought about and got serious about wanting to go to camp, the summer was nearly over. Now, though, he was content to just hang around the bricks with his boys.

Bobby’s nickname was Diesel. Everybody had a nickname where he was from, everybody cool that is. He was sprawled on the worn sofa like a pet cat watching the Road Runner cartoon on the floor model black and white television. His three sisters, Donna, Shelia and Cheryl, were in the front room with him watching the cartoon also. Donna was sitting, not too lady like, in a tired looking but comfortable chair that matched the sofa.

How many times have you all seen this cartoon? Donna asked Sheila and Cheryl who were stretched out on the floor way too close to the TV.

They turned around in sync and eyed Donna.

I don’t remember this one, Sheila said. She turned to Cheryl. Cheryl, you don’t remember this one, do you?

I don’t remember this one, Cheryl agreed.

If Sheila said the sun was purple, Cheryl, you would agree, Diesel said.

The two sisters were always mistaken for twins, but they were a year apart. Sheila would be nine-years-old in a month and Cheryl just turned eight. Their mother dressed them in matching outfits for as long as Diesel could remember. The two rarely heard their names separately, mainly because they were very seldom apart. Even when their mom called them indoors they were called together. Shelia and Cheryl shrugged and turned back to face the television.

You two could be a couple of parrots, Donna said. Diesel laughed at his sister’s joke. At fourteen, Donna was the oldest of the siblings. She was very pretty with smooth chocolate colored skin. Diesel felt that his mother was closer to his sisters than she was to him. It probably was because Donna was well developed for her age and often attracted the attention of older men. Their mom noticed the attention Donna would receive and taught her daughter well how to fend off those advances, because she had experienced what Donna was going through.

They are more like a couple of dodo birds, Diesel said. Sheila, would you move your big head? he shouts.

Sheila ignored him.

Do you want me to move your head for you? Diesel threatened.

Carolyn Wilson appeared at the living room threshold. She was wearing a bathrobe and standing with her hands on her curvaceous hips. In spite of giving birth to the brood occupying the living room, Carolyn Wilson kept her figure. She was what men would call fine. She was cute enough to snag the most handsome, if not the most promising prospect from her high school.

Her husband, Joe, was Newark All-City guard in high school and even had offers for college scholarships. One could say the publicity and local fame went to Joe’s head. One bad decision led to another the summer before college. He could be seen at parties all around the city. That’s when he got a taste for alcohol. The booze led to fights. He was good with his hands, and he accidentally put a kid in the hospital. So instead of checking into a college dormitory Joe was processed into the county jail. He received a reduced sentence of two years due to his popularity, but his basketball career was over. In jail Joe did put down the drinking habit, but he picked up gambling. He got his higher education in numbers running while incarcerated. Carolyn stayed by his side the years he was locked up and not long after his release from jail she was knocked up. Joe made some friends while incarcerated who hooked him up in the numbers game. Even after four kids, anyone could see that Carolyn and Joe were still crazy about each other, so she never saw, heard or spoke any evil where his business was concerned.

Approaching her mid-thirties, Carolyn was strikingly good looking. Her form had gotten even better since the children. She often told people that she was too skinny. But when the babies came she added on pounds where it counted others would say. When she took Diesel to the barbershop the barbers would fight over who would cut his hair and then it was always on the house. She would never tell Joe. Diesel would never tell his mother, but she has been the reason for him getting into so many fights over the years. Kids would come out the side of their necks with lewd remarks about getting with his mom and that would set him off. The frequency of his fights honed his boxing skills in a neighborhood where fisticuffs were king.

One day when he was about eleven years old Diesel thought he saw his dad watching him fight, but after the fight he looked for his dad and he was not there. Diesel did not know at that time, but that was when the seed was planted in Joe Wilson’s mind to introduce his son to Coach Smith who ran the boxing gym. Coach Smith knew Joe from his basketball days. Of course, Diesel would not be ready to train for several years.

Bobby, don’t talk that way to your little sister. You’re supposed to protect her not threaten her and push her around. Carolyn said.

But, Ma, I can’t see, Diesel protested.

"How come when there’s school, I