Ringside to Racism (eBook)

A Love Story

Harry Gossett (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022 | 1. Auflage
294 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-6678-3969-1 (ISBN)

Barbara Rowan was Black. Harry Gossett is White. When they married, interracial couples were extremely rare, and had only recently been made legal by the United States Supreme Court. Barbara, a linguist and a lawyer, taught Harry to allow her to deal with racists with humor. When death did them part, Harry decided to share some of his stories about his brilliant wife.

CHAPTER TWO

Hot Pursuit

“Here are the theft reports on those treasury bills I recovered.”

“Thank you.”

The United States Attorney’s office was in the federal courthouse just a few blocks north of the Wall Street financial district where I worked. It was convenient for me to stop by and deliver documents to Miss Rowan at her office. I always arrived at the close of business, so at the end of our meeting I could suggest we could go out for a drink, or dinner.

“No thank you.” Miss Rowan never made excuses, like other women did. Nothing like, “Oh, I would love to, but tonight I have my violin lesson,” or “I promised to babysit my sister’s kids,” or some other unlikely story.

One day, she was excited to learn from me that both our defendants had recently been released from prison, after having been convicted of selling stolen treasury bills taken in the same theft as the bills I recovered.

I asked, “What is your first name, Miss Rowan?”

“Barbara.” She looked puzzled. “Pete told you that when he introduced us.”

“The initials on your briefcase, and your pen set, are NBR. Isn’t Barbara your middle name?”

“Oh. Those things belonged to my daddy. His name was Norman Barrington Rowan.”

I was charmed by the fact this prim and proper beauty referred to her father as her “daddy.” How adorable.

The only additional information she shared about him was that he was dead, but she did caution me about her name. “It annoys me that every other Assistant is called ‘Mr.’ plus his surname. Everyone, even the young women on the support staff, address me as ‘Barbara.’ I appreciate the fact that you call me ‘Miss Rowan.’”

“Yes, ma’am. Miss Rowan.”

For younger readers, I should explain that prior to the Women’s Movement of the 1960s, females were called “Miss” from birth to marriage and “Mrs.” thereafter.

It was a strict protocol. Accidentally addressing a “Miss” as “Mrs.” could insult her, if she imagined that you thought she was too long in the tooth to still be unmarried.

And calling a married woman “Miss” might set her off if she took it that her elevated rank was not obvious to one and all.

Mumbling “Mizz” was an effort to be polite when caught in the awkward situation of not knowing a woman’s marital status, but you would usually be scolded. “There is no such word as ‘Mizz.’”

Women’s Lib solved the dilemma by making “Mizz” the preferred form of address. They spelled it “Ms.” to conform it with “Mr.” (which does not convey a man’s marital status).

Many, if not most, women clung to the tradition. Barbara Rowan called herself “Miss Rowan” until the day she died, in 2020. She was also Mrs. Gossett, but most folks didn’t know that. Women seeking equal rights back in the day often continued to use their maiden names.

“I hate to cut this short, but I am scheduled to do a presentation this evening.”

After politely declining several suggestions for an evening together, Miss Rowan flipped to the other side of the request late one afternoon in her office.

“Oh. Where?”

“Hostos College in the South Bronx. Wanna come?”

“Sure. What is your lecture about?”

“It’s not a lecture. Merely a little presentation about job opportunities in the Justice Department. Students in the South Bronx would never think to apply. You could tell them about openings in the FBI.”

“No. I couldn’t. I would need permission and that would take days.”

“Sorry. I thought you might enjoy it.”

“If you promise not to tell them I am an FBI agent I’ll go.”

“How do I explain you?”

“Say I am an employee of the Justice Department. That’s true and doesn’t involve the magic letters.”

What Miss Rowan had failed to tell me about the evening class was that it was taught in Spanish, and she would be doing her presentation in an elegant form of that language, while responding to students who spoke new-world dialects.

She was surprised that evening when I said my few words in Spanish. I told the tired night students that I was a Justice Department employee who was helping Miss Rowan prepare for a trial.

I was surprised to learn that she had lived almost all her life a mile from that classroom, just across the 145th Street Bridge in Harlem. I would have guessed Park Avenue in Midtown.

As we trudged through the snow toward the subway station, we encountered a teenage street gang, armed with a variety of clubs and chains.

“Don’t worry,” said Miss Rowan. “They are not here for us. They are waiting for another gang. They’re gonna rumble.”

“How do you know that?”

“That’s what they are talking about.”

That was my first exposure to Miss Rowan’s incredibly keen hearing, and phenomenal language ability.

As we passed, one of the little rascals insulted me, in Spanish, so I stopped, bellied up to the brat, and asked him, in Spanish, to repeat what he had said. He opened his coat to display a .25 automatic in his belt. I opened my coat and showed him my .357 magnum. He gulped audibly. I plucked his pea shooter out of his pants, dropped it in my pocket, and escorted Miss Rowan away, hoping she was favorably impressed.

A few hundred feet later, I said, “Oh, look, there’s a coffee shop on the second floor of that building. Want to have a cup and watch the rumble?”

“Yes. And I’d like to know why you didn’t tell me you’re Puerto Rican.”

“Because I’m not. Why would you think so?”

“The way you speak Spanish.”

“I went to the University of Puerto Rico. Did you or your parents immigrate from Spain? You speak Spanish Spanish.”

“My daddy immigrated from Jamaica and my mother is from Philadelphia. I studied Spanish Language and Literature at the University of Madrid.”

We sat down in the coffee shop and continued to chat while watching the street gangs beat on each other, until the police arrived in force and rounded up the herd of juvenile delinquents.

I asked Miss Rowan, “Did they assign this gig to you because you speak Spanish, or did you ask for it since you live nearby?”

“Neither. Ralph, the professor, wanted his students to widen their horizons. He’s the reason I am an Assistant United States Attorney.”

“He recommended you?”

“No. He got evicted. He and his wife are both professors at Columbia. That’s his day job. So, the university provided them housing, until the powers that be decided to tear down their apartment building to construct more classrooms. They were ordered to move out immediately, midterm, with no opportunity to find a place to move their tons of books.

Other lawyers told them they had no recourse, they had to move right away, despite their workload, but they hired me. Since Ralph is an army colonel…”

“What? That frumpy little guy is in the army?”

“You would never recognize the professor when he is in uniform. Very spiffy. He is a reserve officer now, but he has considerable army experience. He’s a paratrooper.”

“Amazing.”

“Anyway, there are federal laws protecting veterans and I found one that applied. After we won, the judge called me aside and asked if I would like to be an Assistant United States Attorney, because he knew the U.S. Attorney was looking for female lawyers. I said I would love a job like that if it meant trial work. I didn’t want to spend my time writing appeals or something. The judge said he would recommend me as a trial lawyer because I had impressed him.”

“Yeah. You beat the sox off a bigtime law firm representing a major university.”

After the police had mopped up the mopes, Miss Rowan would not let me take her to her door. We parted company on the subway train. She said, “I have been walking home from this station late at night for at least a dozen years. Don’t worry about me.”

Later, I had the .25 automatic fired to compare the bullets with bullets from crime scenes, but it had not apparently been used to shoot anyone. At first, all the cartridges in the weapon failed to fire. They were older than the boy I took it from. Fresh ammo worked fine. There was nothing wrong with the weapon, which was not reported stolen.

In those days, the NYPD returned recovered firearms to their rightful owners, or when that was not possible, as proved to be the case with the .25 automatic, they had them melted down to make manhole covers.

Miss Rowan invited me to go out with her again. “I’m having dinner with a law school classmate. Would you care to join us?”

“Of course, I...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	13.5.2022
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Partnerschaft / Sexualität
ISBN-10	1-6678-3969-1 / 1667839691
ISBN-13	978-1-6678-3969-1 / 9781667839691

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