A NEW MOVE 

    During the fifties our family moved from Pittsburgh to Miami. We eventually settled in North Miami where my father bought a house from a friend he had known for a long time. It was our new home for several years until my brother and I went off to college. After that my parents sold it and moved back to Pittsburgh.

   Our new home was situated on high land about 16 feet above sea level (high for South Florida) in an ancient copse of giant live oaks where the air was humid and dense especially after the daily rains that saturated the sandy sea sand earth that contained very small fossil seashells from even more ancient seas. Air plants, ferns, and  waving Spanish moss grew among the heavy almost horizontal-stretching tree limbs. It was a Nature lover's paradise for a young boy, with various tropical lizards and the occasional snake.   The humid gently moving air and earthy scented heat made any degree of physical activity almost impossible.

   My father bought new appliances for our home; a washer and clothes dryer, a kitchen stove, and a refrigerator, and they were delivered from Sears and Roebuck in a big lumbering van driven by a white boss and a Black helper. The moving work was hot and sweaty. The Black man did most of the laborious lifting and moving of the appliances into the house and into the garage where there was some relief of coolness and shade from  burning sub tropical sun.

   At the end of the appliance installation,  the two men were wasted and drenched in sweat. They slowly walked back to the van parked under the moss laden oaks, and both workers sat down for a short rest on the bench seat before driving back to the store.

   My father saw how exhausted they were and offered them some cold water. The white man drank off the water poured out by my Dad from the ice cube tinkling pitcher first, but he didn't make a gesture to offer any to his Black helper who was sitting next to him in abject silence.

   Then Dad said, "What about him, your helper? Doesn't he need some too--here, give him this glass of water."  The boss man said, "He don't need no water."  Dad was intensely silent for a moment, staring at the ground. Lifting his head to eye level he said, "Well, if he doesn't get any water, you don't get any more either." 

    Dad walked to the other side of the truck and poured out the water and handed the cold, sweating glass of water through the rolled down truck window  to the helper who waited for a long time as though thinking, and then drank the water.

   The boss sat there stunned and motionless.

   Dad took back the two glasses and pitcher, and he walked up the front red tile steps of our home.

                                                                              Frank La Rosa Mazza        May 2022