A quarter of the way through the second non-conference collegiate game, Lafayette College versus Penn, which was turning out to be a non-competitive affair, Richie leaned across Sally’s back and said to Jimmy, “Let's go. By the time we get back and I drop each of you off, it will be when Sally and Estelle’s parents are expecting them back.”
Through the din of the crowd, Jimmy nodded his head and moved towards Estelle to deliver Richie’s message, while Sally, who could hear the conversation behind her, got ready to leave. They waited for a timeout and then walked up the aisle through the tunnel onto the main concourse before Richie got his bearings and pointed to an exit. This time, they departed onto Jones Way, a side street that bordered the Palestra.
“Which way?” Jimmy asked, who was once again holding Sally’s hand.
Richie looked to his left and then to his right, having come out of an unfamiliar exit. “To your right.” Then, grabbing Estelle’s hand, they all proceeded in that direction.
Under the Palestra, the small locker room was a madhouse. Marist, having avoided a trap game on their way to the NCAA’s, had defeated one of their strongest non-conference rivals.
Cutting through the noise and chaos, one voice boomed out above the others, “Nice game, Superman.” Bobbie White, recognizing the author of those words, turned his head, in just enough time to see the All-American Marist fullback, Billy Jack, barreling towards him. They hugged each other in jubilation. They had entered Marist as freshman, and each athlete during their college career had dominated their individual sport. Both Negroes, had matriculated from the South, rooming together during their freshman year, they had learned the ways of the big city together---becoming close friends in the process.
“Get dressed, Superman, said Billy Jack. I have two ladies waiting for us at their apartment. Come on, Man, stop basking in all this adulation, take your shower, and let's get going.”
“Where you parked?” Bobbie asked?
“A side street, about a ten minute walk. Come on, Man, they’re not going to wait forever.”
Shorty recognized Irish Mike and his crew as soon as they walked up the street and turned into the alley, an out-of-the-way location away from prying eyes. He got out of the '56 black Chevy Impala convertible as did the rest of his crew, and before he took a step towards the approaching B&C gang, he said to his gang members in a menacing voice, “Everyone clean. Each side is going to pat down the other, so I don’t want to be dealing with any bull shit while I’m trying to make you niggers money. Waiting for an answer…the first to break ranks was Tallboy, followed by Faye and Will. Whatever they had, Tallboy took it and deposited it in the trunk of the Chevy.
“Okay, that’s better,” snarled the leader of the Devils, who looked stylish in his black leather trench coat and Bollman chapeau as he led the West Philly crew towards the first of hopefully many profitable meetings with the B&C Gang.
After walking around for ten minutes trying to find their car, Jimmy said to Richie, “I have no idea where it is.”
“Neither do I,” was Richie’s immediate rejoinder. A slight panic started to enter the minds of all four suburbanites. One thing was sure: they were no longer on Penn’s campus. Sally was the first to speak up, “Look, let's go back to the Palestra and retrace our steps. We were in such a hurry to get to the game that we didn’t notice any landmarks.”
“Sally’s right,” said Estelle. “Let’s just go back and retrace our steps.”
Sally held tight to Jimmy’s hand as she led the way down a street, then into an alley. Richie and Estelle followed, assuming that Sally knew where she was going.
In a secluded spot in the alley and out of sight from prying eyes, Irish Mike and Shorty were coming to terms on exactly what the B&C gang would pay and what the Devils would supply. Samples had been exchanged and territories tentatively defined. They were just about to conclude the deal when Finn stepped out of the shadows and announced to all, “What do we have here?” With that statement, all ten members of both gangs suddenly emerged from the shadows.
“Looks to me like a negro with a white girl and a white with a negro girl. Then, in Tallboy’s best cracker voice, he snarled, “Boy, there are laws against this.”
Instinctively, Richie pushed Estelle behind him, and Jimmy did the same with Sally. Richie realized that the odds were against them, especially if they were carrying. It had been a while since he had been in a fight. In a one-on-one confrontation, he knew how to handle himself, but a street fight was different.
Finn, equally outraged, joined Tallboy and stepped towards Jimmy and Richie while the rest of the mixed gangs stood their ground. Finn got to Richie first, and before he could say a word Richie clocked him with a right cross, knocking him out cold. Jimmy, knowing that there was no honor in a street fight, immediately tackled Tallboy and threw him to the ground just as he had been taught as a Big Ten bound defensive back. With those two acts of aggression, all hell broke loose as both girls screamed, and the rest of the gang moved on Jimmy and Richie. Richie managed to stay on his feet, although barely, as he fended off multiple blows. He had no idea how Jimmy was faring, but his guess was not good. It was only a matter of time before both of them went down and were left to the mercy of their attackers.
He could feel it before he could see it. Two oversized men, one well over six feet, long and rangy, and the other a muscular bull, built like a linebacker, had suddenly come out of nowhere, tossing bodies left and right as the odds suddenly evened out. From the outside looking in, it looked like a professional wrestling match when all the wrestlers entered the ring in a free-for-all. At first, Richie didn’t hear the sirens or see the lights, being too busy defending himself. He found out after the fact that eight patrol cars were blocking off both escapes from the alley. Apparently, Shorty and his gang had been under surveillance for quite some time by the vice unit of the Philadelphia Police Department.
“Break it up, Break it up,” were the first recognizable words that Richie heard as he finally stepped backwards. Jimmy, who was on the ground, quickly got to his feet and then, standing next to Richie, said under his breath, “At least we're alive.” The girls who had stopped screaming stood beside them.
Richie immediately recognized the first of his two rescuers, Bobbie White, the six-foot-eight-inch center for Marist who had made the final game winning shot. The other, Richie, had read about and seen in the sports pages, Billy Jack Jones, Marist’s star running back.
The police had separated the combatants into four groups; the B&C Gang were in one, the Devils in another, Richie and his friends in a third, and the two college rescuers made up the fourth. While they were frisking the gang members, the police found something that piqued their interest. Meanwhile, Jimmy and Billy Jack looked like they hadn’t been in a fight at all. They were standing off to the side, talking to two Negro policemen who were listening and laughing as they were recounting how it was that they came to be where they were.
Surrounded by three policemen, Richie and his cohorts were wondering what would happen next. The one officer with seniority over the others asked the first question, “Any of you over 18?
Richie answered for the group, “No.”
“Okay then, let’s head over to the precinct and sort this out.”
Richie and Jimmy rode in the back of one squad car, and Sally and Estelle in the other, all glad to be alive, regardless of the consequences. When they arrived at the police station, one of the cops said to Richie, “I saw you play during the City versus Suburbs Xmas tourney. My younger brother plays for Central.” Then in a low voice, “ I’ll tell them that your parents are out, and if you have your coach's phone number, ask if you can call him? Then, stepping away, he said, “They put up a pretty good game for three quarters. Then, pointing first at Richie, then at Jimmy said, “You and that negro are gamers.”
The Captain in charge came up to Richie, who was sitting with Jimmy, and said, “You and the college boys gave more than you were given. Some of those Devils and B&C boys are pretty busted up. Serves them right. I understand that none of your parents are home… well'll just have to wait until someone can pick the four of you up.
Richie, right on cue, asked, “Can our Coach get us and take us home. I have his number.”
Looking at the wall clock, he thought for a second, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “Why not. I understand from one of my associates that you two are really good football and basketball players. Baseball was my sport. Pitching. Go make the call before I change my mind.”
The Coach Allen who met them at the police station was not the task master coach from the court. Since neither Richie nor Jimmy had taken his psychology or speech classes, they had never seen this side of the man. After he signed the required papers and the four of them piled into his car, the first words out of his mouth were, “How’d you get here?’
“I drove,” Richie answered.
“You remember where you parked?
“Not sure, replied Richie.”
“On Penn’s campus,” interjected Jimmy
“It’s near a Laundromat,” Sally called out.
“About a ten-minute walk from the Palestra heading west,” Estelle added
Coach Allen knew the parking options near the Palestra, having spent a fair amount of his time watching the various teams play there. Within five minutes, he pulled up next to Richie’s car and asked, “Who’s going with whom?” Getting no reply, he said, “Look, it’s late, why don’t I drive Jimmy and Estelle home, since they live in a different part of the township than the two of you. Richie, you take Sally home to her house. Okay?” All four responded nonverbally with a nod of the head.
Richie, after he got out of the car, walked around to the driver's side and waited for Coach Allen to roll down his car window. Before he could say a word, Coach Allen gave Richie a knowing smile, “As far as I’m concerned, this is between the five of us.” Then he waited until Richie and Sally got in the Galaxie and pulled away from the curb before he shifted his beat-up 58 Buick into drive and headed homeward.
Richie and Sally didn’t say a word, driving in silence on Lincoln Drive as they left the city and made their way home. With a tinge of anger in his voice, Richie was the first to speak and chose to avoid the obvious. “Tell your ‘Old Man’ that the reason you’re late was the second game started late, and I wouldn’t leave till it was over? Tell him that you tried to get me to leave, but I wouldn’t go, and you’ll never date me again. He’ll believe that.”
Sally, in a pensive mood, didn’t respond at first, but instead continued to look out the passenger side window as tears started to roll down her face. Then, turning to Richie, she said wistfully, “Negro dating a white girl or a white boy dating a Negro girl. It’s just not to be. No matter how any of us emotionally feel about the other, it’s just too hard. You can be friends, but you better not get involved. What’s that expression, 'tis better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all’. Well, did we tonight and look at what it nearly got us? If those two Marist guys hadn’t shown up, I don’t want to think about where we would all be right now. Why… because I wanted to be with a negro male and you wanted to be with a Negro female.” Crying uncontrollably, she cried tears of both disappointment as well as relief.
Richie took a deep breath, then stated. “It's my fault. I thought I was smarter than the room. I thought I could beat the odds and be with the one person that I loved. Instead, I nearly got Jimmy and me killed, and I put both you and Estelle in harm's way. What for a kiss that I never got, or to gratify my ego. Maybe in the distant future, a white guy can date a Negro girl, but not now, not 1963. You know what really sucks is that I’ll have to step away from Estelle, the one person in the world who knows me best. Why, because if I care about her and love her, then I have to do what’s best for her. And what’s best for Estelle is to end our relationship before it starts."
Sally, regaining her composure, spoke in words that were barely above a whisper, “Life’s so unfair… it's so unfair… it's so unfair.”
Thirty minutes later, Richie pulled into Sally’s driveway and turned off the engine. Sally then quietly leaned over and kissed Richie on his cheek and grabbed his right arm, and squeezed it hard. “Thanks for trying. Had we not taken the chance, we wouldn’t have known, and we would have always wondered what if?” Sally, with a sigh, opened the passenger side door and got out of the car while Richie sat there watching her run across the grass towards the front of her house. Just before she put her key in the lock, her mother opened the door and let her inside. Then she was gone.
It certainly had been one hell of a night as Richie looked into his rear view mirror and took an accounting of himself, no cuts or bruises on his face, but the rest of his body was sore from the blows that he absorbed. At this hour, he would have some explaining to do to his parents, but he knew if he told them the truth, it was an explanation that they didn’t want to hear, and quite frankly, one he didn’t want to share. Instead, his lateness was going to be due to a flat tire, a slow leak. He would let the air out of the tire tonight in the driveway before going into the house and fixing it in the morning.
Reversing the car back onto the street, he shifted into drive and headed for “The Wicks,” knowing that his relationship with Estelle was finished. He had been living in an upside-down world and try as he might, he knew that he would never be able to turn it right side up.”