Below the “Z”, near the bottom of the trolley, you can see the tilted shelf our sneakers clung to.
Clang-Clang-Clang went the Trolley
The Bronx 1940
It was early Sunday morning. Horses, clip-clopping over cobble-stoned Boston Rd. had already pulled their Sheffield Farms milk wagons to their stable.
Elderly Black female congregants, hidden under yellow, white, broad-brimmed straw hats were struggling up the steps of the Tried Stone Baptist Church adjacent to Hermann Ridder J.H.S. in the Bronx.
The stoops, our dugout, were unoccupied. Ronny and I sat on the bench outside Mrs. Baretz’s candy store on Seabury Place when the silence was interrupted by the clang–clang-clang of a trolley. It discharged a few passengers opposite the Esso gas station on Boston Road then rode past our bench.
Donny turned to me and said,
“Let’s hitch a ride on the next trolley.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“It doesn’t matter where we are going. What counts is that we are going to hitch a ride.”
I wasn’t confident that my worn Keds sneakers would grip the 45 degree projection near the bottom of the streetcar, but how could I exhibit fear? After all, I was eleven years old, and Ronny, who was about a foot taller would look down at me as a wimp.
In ten minutes another trolley came by and stopped at the church. We crouched, then dashed towards the streetcar. Discharged passengers looked aghast as we gripped the rear windowsill and set our sneakers onto the 45 degree shelf.
The trolley was in motion, we rode past Mintz’s deli, Leff’s candy store, P.S. 61’s schoolyard, and then Annie’s deli.
At first, gripping the windowsill required very little effort in spite of gravity’s downward pull. But, as the trolley continued its run, its vibrations made a greater and greater demand on my fingers.
Fortunately, the trolley stopped opposite the Loew’s Boston Rd. theater. We climbed down to the street.
“You see that little store Ronny? That’s where I got my corduroy knickers.”
“Get rid of those brown rags. We’re going to Junior H.S. next term.”
“OK, We had a ride. How about going home?”
No, not Ronny. He wanted to get his money’s worth.
Why did I follow him? Was it because I wanted to show him that his height had no advantage over me?
So, there I was hanging on to the trolley again, and heading towards the McKinley Square Theater.
Whatever urged me to look at Ronny? We glanced at one another and began to laugh. My fingers were losing their grip on the sill. Cars behind us were honking their horns as if to warn us we were doing something dangerous.
I knew I couldn’t hold on any longer. Someone up there must have been watching over me, because the trolley came to an abrupt halt opposite the McKinley Square theater.
Without saying a word, I hopped off and ran home.
More memoirs in my book, Seabury Place: A Bronx Memoir
danielwolfebooks @aol.com