“I stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with the iron.” — Tillie Olsen; “I Stand Here Ironing.”
I was standing at an ironing board, pressing the white smock I wore as an attendant at a psychiatric institution when my friends Gina and “Byrd” came trembling into the doorway. I lifted my head from the ironing board when Gina said my name: “Jon.” She spoke hesitantly, and I could not read the expression on her face, but “Byrd’s” face had an imprint of fear. Gina hesitated a moment, then said, “Dr. King has been killed.” I paused for a second, looked down, and continued my ironing. The date was April 4th 1968.
In 1968 I returned to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh to complete my education as a graphic designer after having dropped out in 1966 to earn more money for tuition. I worked and saved for a year and when I returned to school, met Gina and “Byrd,” who — in addition to being fellow art students — lived in an apartment near me. I do not remember why I was at their apartment except that I did visit occasionally, but when I lowered my eyes after hearing her words, my artist’s color palette was reduced to black and white and I did not want those two white girls to see my pain. And in the silence between us there roared a question from my friends: “Do you hold us responsible, we two?”
Gina was a tall, dark-haired gamine who aspired to be a model; “Byrd,” (I’m not sure if I ever knew her given name) was a short woman with a hilarious attitude and the wit of a stand-up comic. My social life was limited by my obligations — in addition to attending school from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., I worked from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. — and I usually went to bed after school, but would sometimes stop by the girls’ apartment to visit and chat. In the short time that I knew them, they were fun to be around, and on that April night, I did not want to be angry with them. I left their apartment and caught a bus to work; the 8th floor ward of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic was quiet, but the nurses and attendants were buzzing like high-tension wires.
Whether or not you subscribe to the theory that Bobby Kennedy made a speech that kept Indianapolis from burning, no such speech was made in Pittsburgh, Penn., and the city exploded in pain and anger. My bus ride to school the following morning took me through areas that were still smoking from the rampages of the night before. On April 9th, I stayed at my mother’s house on the Hill District, which was closer to my job. The small grocery store across the street from her apartment, where she had credit and I used to buy 25 cents’ worth of Braunschweiger and a fat pickle from a sad-faced man, was destroyed. I walked to work that night and when I emerged from the park that was near the hospital, I was stopped and questioned by a police officer. It took some convincing to be allowed to walk the last two blocks to my job at the hospital.
April 1968 was a test for me and for all who feel as I do, of the beliefs that we espouse and demonstrate. Not just of what we say, but what we do. I surfed the wave of anger and landed on the shore of peace, clear-eyed and knowledgeable about both the manias of man and the quality of mercy. And for Gina and “Byrd,” I hope you knew this answer before this day: I did not blame you.