string beans. That night I merely pick at them with my fork, lift them up, look at them, put them down, but never eat them. In her thick French accent, the wardenlike Madame says, “You will eat those string beans or sit here all night.”
I choose the latter. I sit there, past my bedtime, until finally I fall asleep with my head on the kitchen table. There is no way I am going to eat those string beans. Anytime my eyes flutter open I still see them; the mere sight makes me sick to my stomach.
I wake up at two in the morning and sneak off to bed. Later that morning, I get up and go into the kitchen with my sister, Carole, to have breakfast and then get ready for school. There on the kitchen table are those damn string beans, sitting cold and limp on my plate. They have not moved from the very spot where Madame left them.
Suddenly, as if she has a GPS tracker on me, the tough-as-nails Madame appears out of nowhere. “You will eat those string beans,” she commands firmly.
The sight of them makes me want to puke. “They’re gross and cold,” I tell her flatly. “I am not going to eat them.”
Madame snaps back, “You will not have breakfast until you eat those string beans.”
“No, I won’t.”
The string beans and I have a staring match. Finally, I skip breakfast and go to school. That afternoon when I get home, the string beans—by now a cold, shriveled lump of green something—are still there on my plate. Madame pounces: “You will eat those string beans for dinner, then!”
“I will not eat those string beans”—I pause and look down at the mangy lump—“or whatever you call them.”
Later, Carole is eating her dinner, and I have my string beans sitting in front of me, which I am not eating. I stubbornly refuse and go to bed. The next morning, I walk into the kitchen, and they are still there, on the same plate, now beyond recognition. Madame keeps insisting, “You will eat your string beans.”
I stand firm. “I will not. They are disgusting.”
Unruffled, Madame says, “You will eat these string beans or you will not eat another meal!”
“Fine, I’m not eating.”
Mom, who never gets up before ten o’clock, rises early that morning because she is on deadline for a project. She walks into the kitchen after hearing the commotion. She peers down at the putrid mass of green on the kitchen table and asks, “Lorenzo, what in God’s name is that on your plate?”
I look up and explain, “Well, these are string beans from two nights ago that Madame Lasaire wants me to eat.”
Mom goes, “What!” She then turns to Madame and asks, “Madame Lasaire, what is going on?”
Madame pushes out her chest proudly. “Well, Miss Dahl, your son is not eating his string beans. So he will not eat another thing until he finishes his string beans.”
After two days of not eating, I am so famished that even those godawful string beans are starting to look good. But bless her heart, my mom, for once in my life, sticks up for me. “Madame Lasaire, how dare you!” says Mom, outraged. “You will absolutely fix my son his breakfast, and you will never again make him eat food he does not want to finish. Is that understood?”
I cannot believe it. My sister cannot believe it. Never have we ever heard Mom raise her voice—ever. I keep looking at Mom and Madame Lasaire as they stare at each other without saying another word.
Taking a deep breath, Madame Lasaire explodes, “Well, I never!” She takes the plate, string beans and all, throws it into the trash, and storms out of the kitchen.
Mom smiles as she looks at me. “Well, I guess your mother is going to make you breakfast this morning.”
I am so excited and thinking, “Yeah, thanks, Mom.”
She makes me French toast. It is still the best French toast I have ever had. After that, I wish Mom would make breakfast more often. And she does, at least until she hires a replacement for Madame Lasaire.
But the series of nannies Mom hires to look after my sister and me cannot compensate for the void in my life left by Emmy, my father, and my California friends. Most days, I feel all alone and more frustrated than ever.
Mom never really addresses my pent-up anger and frustration. We never really talk about it. Instead, that fall she enrolls me in the fourth grade at Trinity School, an Episcopalian private school in Manhattan. It has a strict dress code: gray slacks, a blue blazer with the school crest on the pocket, a white button shirt, and a tie—every day. I am sure my mother hopes the change of environment will be good for me.
For some reason, Trinity does not bus students from the east side of town, where we are, to its campus, which is on the west side. In the morning, I either ride my bike to school or take the public bus, using the bus pass Mom has purchased for me. Getting there by bus is not easy. In fact, it takes two buses—catching the first near Seventy-eighth and Park Avenue and riding it down Fifth Avenue and then transferring to another bus that goes cross-town to school. But to get from the first bus to the second, I have to walk across Central Park, then a haven for heroin addicts and homeless people. These were the days when John Lindsay was mayor of New York, and you could not walk anywhere and feel safe. Even Forty-second Street and Times Square looked nothing like it does today. Back then X-rated movie houses dominated the real estate, and drug dealers peddled their wares on virtually every corner.
One morning, as I—a straitlaced, clean-cut, well-dressed eight-year-old—am walking my usual route across Central Park to catch the second bus, four older black kids suddenly jump me from behind. They push me and roll me to the ground, rough me up, kick me a couple of times, and pick me clean.
“What do we have in here, rich white boy?” the grungy leader says as he rifles through my wallet and plucks out ten bucks cash. “This all you are carrying?”
I stammer, “It’s all I have.”
After he and his gang of hoods work me over some more, they rip my bus pass from my shirt pocket, snatch my Samsonite briefcase from the ground, and run off. (Trinity required every student to have either a leather or Samsonite briefcase.) I am so scared I do not know what in the hell has just happened. Later I do: I just experienced my first New York mugging.
I hustle on foot to school, with grass stains on my trousers and the top two buttons missing from my shirt. My teacher immediately sends me to the principal’s office for being late. I tell the principal why. Looking at me down the bridge of his nose from behind his glasses, he says calmly, “Okay, you should go home and tell your mom what happened. You should either take a cab to school from now on, or your mother should find some other way to get you here.”
Obviously, it is not safe for me to cross Central Park. I will get mugged again—or something worse—if I do. I go home and tell Mom what happened.
“Oh, that’s terrible,” she says in a motherly tone. “Are you all right, darling?”
“Yeah, I’m okay, Mom.”
I have a fat lip, so Mom says, “Let’s put some ice on that.”
I figure Mom has me covered. Tomorrow, she will give me cab fare to take a taxi to school. Seeing how badly beat up I am, there is no way she will put me on a bus again.
The next morning, I get up and have breakfast—a bowl of cereal. Mom comes into the kitchen and chirps enthusiastically, “It’s a new day!”
“Yeah, it is. Can I have cab fare to go to school?”
“Oh, no, honey,” Mom says. “You’re going to have to take the bus.”
Mom’s lack of understanding flabbergasts me. “Mom.” I pause. “That’s how I got mugged in the first place. You have to give me money for cab fare.”
Here we are talking about the safety of her flesh-and-blood son, but Mom classically says, “Oh, it’s not going to happen again. Today’s