The Cross and the Switchblade, Page 4

  “Lonesomeness,” said Angelo.

  It was a strange answer; lonesomeness in a city of eight million people. But Angelo said the feeling came because nobody loved you. All of his friends in gangs were lonely. The more I came to know New York, the more I realized that Angelo was right.

  These boys were never far from violence. I know of one instance when a fight took two months to plan; but I know of another case when at two o’clock in the afternoon ten boys were standing around a street corner drinking pop, and at four o’clock that same afternoon one of the boys was dead, two others in the hospital: A major war between rival gangs had flared up, raged and ended in the interval.

  I reached the point where I could spot peddlers of drugs. They were bold and pushy. They talked freely about their trade.

  Once, during my long walk, I heard a high, piercing scream. No one paid the slightest attention. The screaming went on and on.

  “That sounds like someone in pain,” I said to a woman who was resting her arms on a first-floor windowsill in the same building.

  She lifted her head, listened a minute, and shrugged her shoulders.

  “Third floor,” she said. “It’s terrible. He’s twenty years old. It’s heroin. He’s really hooked and can’t get a fix.”

  “You know who he is?”

  “Since he was in diapers.”

  “Can’t we take him to a hospital?”

  The woman looked at me. “Mister,” she said, “you’re new here, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You try to get a hooked boy into one of these hospitals and see where you get.”

  How those words would come back to me in the months to come.

  Fighting and drug addiction: These were dramatic manifestations of the needs of New York’s teenage gang members. But as Angelo said, they were just the outward symbols of a deep inner need: loneliness. A hunger for some kind of significance. I found on this long walk how pathetically low these boys’ sights were. They were pitifully isolated, each in his own small turf. I met dozens of Brooklyn youngsters who had never been across the Brooklyn Bridge for fear of enemy gangs in Manhattan and the Bronx.

  A pattern emerged. It was a pattern of need, starting with loneliness and extending through the gang wars, the wild parties, the addiction, and ending in an early grave.

  To check my own impressions, I visited police stations, talked with social workers and parole officers, and spent many hours in the library. In the end, my total impression of the problems of New York teenagers was so staggering that I almost quit. That was when the Holy Spirit stepped in to help.

  This time, He did not come to my aid in any dramatic way; He simply gave me an idea.

  I was driving back to Philipsburg, and I asked myself, “Suppose you were to be granted a wish for these kids. What would be the one best thing you could hope for?”

  I knew my answer: that they could begin life all over again, with the innocent personalities of newborn children. And that this time as they were growing up they could be surrounded by love instead of by hate and fear.

  They’ve got to start over again, and they’ve got to be surrounded by love.

  The idea came to mind as a complete thought, as clearly as the first order to go to New York. Along with it came into my mind the picture of a house where these kids could come. A really nice house, where they would be welcomed—and loved. They could live in their house any time they wanted to. The door would always be open; there would be lots of beds, and clothes to wear, and a great big kitchen.

  “Oh, Lord,” I said aloud, “what a wonderful dream! But it would take a series of miracles such as I’ve never seen.”

  7

  I made my next trip to New York a week later, in a strange state of mind. In part I was elated by my new dream, and in part I was confused.

  The enemy lurked in the conditions that made up the slums of New York, ready to grab lonesome and love-starved boys. He held out easy promises of security and freedom, of happiness and of retribution. Against his strength, I considered my own weakness. I had none of the usual weapons. I had no experience. I had no money. I had no organization backing me. I was afraid of the fight.

  I found myself remembering another occasion when I’d seen a fight coming and had been afraid. It happened when I was a boy, and we had just moved to Pittsburgh. I was always skinny. The very idea of a fistfight left me shaking.

  Still, the funny thing is that, all through my high school years, I never had to fight because I had a reputation for being tough. That ridiculous situation came about in a peculiar way, and the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if it might have significance for me now.

  There was a boy in school named Chuck who was a bully. I learned he always beat up the new kids, and he was especially tough on preachers’ kids.

  Chuck had me shaking before I ever saw him. What was I going to do when we finally did meet? I asked God this question and an answer came quickly and clearly: Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit. I knew it was a Bible quotation—Zechariah 4:6—and then and there I took it for my motto. When the time came to face Chuck, I would lean on this promise; God would give me a boldness that would be equal to any bully.

  One afternoon I started home from school. Suddenly, I saw a boy walking toward me. I knew in an instant this was Chuck. He was strutting down the opposite side of the street. But when he saw me he crossed over and bore down on me like an angry bull.

  Chuck stopped dead in my path. He must have weighed fifty pounds more than I, and he towered above me so that I had to bend my neck to look him in the eye.

  “You’re the preacher’s kid.”

  I was scared to the core.

  Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit. Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. I kept repeating this sentence over and over to myself while Chuck commenced to give his opinion of me. First he picked on the fact that I looked stupid. Then he worked over the obvious truth that I was a weakling. After that he had a few words to say about preachers’ kids in general.

  By my spirit, saith the LORD. I still had not spoken, but inside me an amazing event was taking place. I felt fear melting, and in its place came confidence and joy. I looked up at Chuck and smiled.

  Chuck was getting mad. His face turned red as he challenged me to fight.

  Still I smiled.

  Chuck started to circle me with his fists clenched. In his face, though, I saw a hint of alarm.

  I circled, too, never taking my eyes off his, and all the while I smiled.

  Finally, Chuck hit me. It was a hesitant little blow that didn’t hurt, and it happened to catch me on balance so I wasn’t thrown. I laughed, low and secretly.

  Chuck stopped circling. He dropped his fists. Then he turned and took off down the street.

  Next day at school, I began to hear how I’d beaten up the biggest bully in town. Chuck had been telling everyone. He said I was the toughest guy he ever fought. Apparently he laid it on thick, because after that I was treated with respect by the entire school. Perhaps I should have told the kids the truth, but I never did. I had a kind of insurance policy in my reputation. And, hating to fight as I did, I wasn’t about ready to turn my policy in.

  Now I wondered—wasn’t I facing the same problem, an enemy far bigger and more powerful than I? I knew absolutely that I could not depend upon myself. If I were right in dreaming about a new beginning and a new environment for these boys and girls, perhaps God would choose just such an ill-equipped person as I, so that the work from the very start would depend on Him alone. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.”

  I decided to take a first step toward making my dream come true. The very first thing I needed to know was whether I had any right to be glimpsing such visions. Was it really possible for teenage New York gang members to change in the radical way I was dreaming about? I remembered how Grandfather insisted that at the heart of the Gospel messa
ge was a transforming experience. I knew by memory the passage in John 3 that he was referring to. “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

  If these boys were going to change dramatically, the transformation would have to come about in their hearts. I knew I could never bring this about: It would have to be the work of the Holy Spirit. But perhaps I could act as a channel through which the Spirit would reach these boys.

  I started making inquiries: What were the toughest, hardest gangs in town? Time and again two names recurred—the Chaplains and the Mau Maus. Both were in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

  These gangs had their turfs in one of the world’s largest housing developments: Fort Greene Projects. More than thirty thousand people lived in these towering apartments, a heavy percentage of them on welfare.

  The Chaplains were African Americans; the Mau Maus, Spanish. The two gangs did not fight each other, but joined together to protect their turf against outside gangs. I decided Fort Greene would be the testing ground.

  One Friday morning I picked up a friend of mine, a trumpet player named Jimmy Stahl, and the two of us drove over the Brooklyn Bridge and into the Fort Greene Housing Project. We parked our car.

  “You stand here near this lamppost,” I told Jimmy, “and start blowing. If we get a crowd, I’ll step up on the base of the post and talk to them.”

  Jimmy began to play “Onward Christian Soldiers” on his trumpet. He played it over and over, lively and loud.

  Windows flew open and heads popped out. Children began to swarm out of the buildings. Next, the teenagers began to arrive. Everyone wore sunglasses.

  After Jimmy played his piece fifteen or twenty times, around a hundred boys and girls had gathered. They milled about shouting to each other and to us, obscenities mingled with the catcalls. I climbed up on the lamp base and began to talk. The uproar increased. I didn’t know what to do next. Jimmy shook his head. “They can’t hear you!” he formed with his lips.

  At that moment the problem was taken out of my hands. I saw a police car pull to the curb. Officers stepped out and started working their way through the crowd, poking with their nightsticks.

  “All right. Break it up.”

  The youngsters parted to let the police through but closed ranks again behind them.

  “Get down from there,” one of the officers said to me. “What are you trying to do, start a riot?”

  “I’m preaching.”

  “Well, you’re not preaching here. We’ve got enough trouble in this neighborhood without having a mob on our hands.”

  Now the boys and girls began shouting that the police couldn’t stop me from preaching. It was against the Constitution, they said. But before Jimmy and I knew what was happening, we were being shoved bodily through the crowd toward the police car.

  At the station house, I picked up the theme the kids had used. “Let me ask you something,” I said. “Isn’t it my right as a citizen to speak on a public street?”

  “You can,” admitted the police, “as long as you speak under an American flag.”

  Half an hour later Jimmy started to blow “Onward Christian Soldiers” again. This time we had an enormous American flag floating behind us, borrowed from the sympathetic principal of a nearby school. And this time, instead of preaching from a lamppost base, I had a piano stool to stand on.

  Again windows flew open, and small children swarmed around us. And again we were faced, a few minutes later, with a hooting, catcalling teenage mob. Only now we were heroes, because we had been taken in by the police.

  Our new popularity, though, did not improve the manners of our audience. I stood on my stool and tried to raise my voice above the din. But nobody was listening. Directly in front of me a boy and girl were doing a grinding dance that brought whistles and clapping from onlookers. Others picked up dancing themselves, cigarettes hanging sideways from their mouths.

  In despair, I bowed my head. Lord, if You are doing a work here, I will have to ask You even for their attention.

  While I was still praying, the change began.

  It was the children who settled down first. But when I opened my eyes I noticed that a lot of the older boys who had been leaning up against the school fence, smoking, had straightened up and were now standing with heads slightly bowed.

  I was so startled by the sudden silence that I was at a loss for words.

  Finally I began to speak. I chose John 3:16 as my text: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” I told them God loved them as they were, right then. He knew what they were. He knew their hatred and their anger. He knew that some of them had committed murder. But God also saw what they were going to be in the future, not only what they had been in the past.

  That was all. I had said what I had to say, and I stopped.

  A silence hung over the street. I could hear the flag flapping in the breeze. I told the kids then that I was going to ask for something special to happen to them. I was going to ask that their lives be completely changed in the next moment.

  I bowed my head again and prayed. I raised my head and asked if anyone wanted to come up front where we could talk. No response.

  Suddenly I heard myself saying, without any intention on my part, “All right, now. They tell me that you’ve got a couple of pretty tough gangs here in Fort Greene. I want to talk to your presidents and your vice presidents. If you are so tough, you won’t mind coming up and shaking hands with a skinny preacher.”

  For a minute, nobody stirred. Then someone called, “What’s the matter, Buckboard? You scared?”

  Slowly a big African-American kid left his station at the rear of the crowd and came forward. A second boy followed. On their way through the crowd they picked up two more boys and all four grouped themselves in front of me.

  The big one stepped forward another few inches.

  “Slip me some skin, Preacher,” he said. “I’m Buckboard, president of the Chaplains.”

  I was still innocent of the slang of New York, and when he held out his hand I tried to grasp it. “Just slip it, Preach,” and he slid his open palm along mine. He stood for a minute, examining me curiously. “You’re all right, Preacher. You really bugged me.”

  Buckboard then introduced me to his vice president, Stagecoach, and to his two warlords.

  What was I going to do now? With my heart pounding, I nodded to Jimmy, and we walked the four boys a few yards away from the crowd. Stagecoach kept saying our message was “coming through.”

  I told the four boys it wasn’t I who was coming through but the Holy Spirit, trying to reach them. “The Holy Spirit wants to get inside that shell and help you start all over again.”

  “What we supposed to do, man?”

  In a church I might have asked these boys to come forward and kneel at the altar. But how could you ask them to do that on a street in front of friends?

  Or maybe such a bold step was needed. The change in their lives we were asking for was drastic, so maybe the symbol had to be drastic, too.

  “What are you supposed to do?” I said. “I want you to kneel down right here on the street and ask the Holy Spirit to come into your lives so that you will become new men. ‘New creatures in Christ’ is what the Bible says: This can happen to you, too.”

  There was a long pause. I was aware of the crowd waiting, very quietly, to see what was going to happen. Finally Stagecoach said, in a hoarse voice, “Buckboard? You want to? I will if you will.”

  Before my astonished eyes, these two leaders of one of the most feared fighting gangs in all of New York slowly dropped to their knees. Their warlords followed their lead.

  “Lord Jesus,” I said, “here are four of Your own children, doing something that is very hard. They are kneeling here before everyone and asking You to come into their hearts and make them new. They want You to take away the hate, and the fighting, and the lonelin
ess. They want to know for the first time in their lives that they are really loved. They are asking this of You, Lord, and You will not disappoint them. Amen.”

  Buckboard and Stagecoach got up. The two warlords followed. They did not lift their heads. I suggested they might want to get off by themselves for a while, maybe find a church somewhere.

  Without speaking, the boys turned and made their way through the crowd. Someone called out, “Hey, Buckboard! What’s it like when you got religion?”

  Buckboard told them to lay off, and he was taunted no more.

  Jimmy and I left Fort Greene with our heads swimming. We had not expected God to answer us in such a dramatic manner. Buckboard, Stagecoach, and two warlords falling to their knees on a street corner: It was almost too much to believe.

  Frankly, we’d been better prepared for the reaction of the Mau Mau leaders. They were in the crowd, watching Buckboard and Stagecoach with mingled contempt and fascination. After the Chaplains had departed, the crowd began to call for them.

  “Israel! Nicky! You’re next! Come on. You going to chicken out?” Such shouts urged them forward.

  Israel, the president of the gang, was as nice a boy as I’ve met: He stuck out his hand and shook mine like a gentleman.

  Nicky was something else. I remember thinking, as I looked at him, That’s the hardest face I have ever seen.

  “How do you do, Nicky,” I said.

  He left me standing with my hand outstretched. He wouldn’t even look at me. He puffed on a cigarette, shooting nervous jets of smoke out the side of his mouth.

  “Go to hell, Preacher,” he said. He had an odd, strangled way of speaking, and he stuttered.

  “You don’t think much of me, Nicky,” I said, “but I feel different about you. I love you.” I took a step toward him.

  “You come near me, Preacher,” he said in that tortured voice, “I’ll kill you.”

  “You could do that,” I agreed. “You could cut me in a thousand pieces and lay them out in the street and every piece would love you.” But as I said it, I was thinking, And it wouldn’t do a bit of good—not with you, Nicky. There’s no love on earth that could reach you.