This needs to be said: J. Edgar Hoover, this nation's premier law enforcement officer, despised King. Hoover hypnotized his agents into believing King was "dangerous" and a "communist." He called him burrhead as a matter of course. No American president had the guts to kick Hoover out on his loathsome ass.
I remember the Monday after King's assassination. Sunday night thunderstorms had broken an unseasonably warm spell. The rain had cooled off the rioting as well. Still, there was no school that day. Over the weekend, newscasters and city officials had filled the airwaves with warnings for parents to keep their children home for the foreseeable future but my friends and I weren't having any of it. We organized a bike caravan to the forest preserve on North Avenue at the Des Plaines River. It was a good five-mile ride, fairly adventurous for a gang of 11- and 12-year-olds.
We started off with Pollack Julian from up my block as well as Louie LaFemina and Ronald Micci. We pedaled to the home of the tough Lenczyck boys, Danny and Terry. As we waited for the Lenczycks to come down, their younger brother Paulie begged us to let him come along. Danny at first was miffed when he heard this, then he relented. "Okay," he said gruffly to his little brother, "but no high heels!"
Paulie was 10 and never usually wanted to come out of the house. He preferred to stay indoors and walk around in his mother's feathered mules or dress pumps. Once, he answered the door wearing lipstick.
None of us ever teased Paulie for these quirks. Either Danny or Terry would have fattened our lips had we dared. They weren't happy about Paulie's pastime but he was still their brother. Paulie rode with Ronald, whose bike had a banana seat and therefore could fit two riders.
When we got to the forest preserve, Paulie started a fire and cooked us lunch. He'd brought a soup pan, a package of spaghetti, and a bottle of ketchup. When it was ready, we dug in and slurped the spaghetti like the Meryl Streep character in "Defending Your Life." By the time we were finished our shirts and faces were speckled red.
Sated, we leaned back and began discussing - what else? - baseball. The traditional opener in Cincinnati, scheduled for that afternoon, had been postponed, like many events in the aftermath of the killing but we were eager for the season to begin. The year before had been the first in decades during which both the Cubs and the White Sox had finished with winning records.
All of us were Cubs fans except for Louie LaFemina. He always seemed a contrarian and so it was with his baseball loyalty. It worked out well for us, though, because every spring he'd trade us all his Cubs baseball cards for our White Sox cards. Louie argued valiantly for the superiority of the Sox that day. We ridiculed him but he only argued more determinedly.
Finally, after 20 minutes of squabbling, Pollack Julian piped up. "Shut up, Louie," he yelled. "The Sox suck. They got too many niggers."
Well, Louie had nothing to counter that argument with and so he fell silent. It was Paulie who challenged Julian. "That's not a very nice thing to say," he said.
Julian snorted, "Whaddya, some kinda Martin Luther King-lover?"
"What's wrong with Martin Luther King?" Paulie asked. "I think he was a good man."
Oh, Julian howled! He laughed until he had to clutch his side in pain. "Didja hear that?" he hollered.
Ever since I'd met Paulie, I'd shunned him. I was afraid of him, quite frankly. What was I to make of this kid who enjoyed dressing like his mother? I was curious, though, about why he wanted to wear high heels. Of course, I never asked him outright why he did so. Merely posing the question might put my own preferences in doubt among the guys and, gulp, maybe even myself.
But that day even a scared rabbit like me realized that Paulie was the bravest among us. God forbid I would have told him so, though. It would be years before I could muster that kind of bravery.
