The Noggin

Betty Grable

      Two Negro teenagers from the inner city were strolling along the boardwalk of the beach on a late summer Sunday afternoon in the mid-1940s, self-consciously trying to look nonchalant. But they were  aware from the stares they received that they didn’t fit in, that they were not welcomed. All those white  people on the beach, lying on towels and blankets, getting suntanned.  If it weren’t for his hair and lips, Moe could have passed for white, but Riley was almost as black as the ace of spades.  Because they were not welcomed, except as dishwashers and latrine cleaners, Negroes were rare on the beach, located a half-hour trolley ride north of the  city.  Moe and Riley had never been to the beach before, had never seen the  white sand, the cresting waves crashing on the shore, with the blue ocean beyond. 

      They had heard about the  amusements  and the rides, but it was the  notorious attraction, The Noggin, at the southern  end of the boardwalk, that they were there to see. Knocking stacked metal milk bottles over with three balls was a staple on boardwalks and in  carnivals, as were  cotton candy and Fat Ladies, but hitting Negroes on the noggin was a rare, if not unique attraction.

      Moe and Riley heard the barker explain the purpose of the of The Noggin  in the racist spiel that he shouted over and over to passersby: “Hey! Hey! Hey! Hit the Negro on the Noggin. Hit the Negro on the noggin three times in a row and  win a gorgeous Betty Gable kewpie doll you’ll display proudly on your mantel or display case.” Betty Grable, the blond Hollywood actress, had been the favorite pinup for G.I.’s during the Second World War, so the barker had named the alabaster  kewpie dolls with the blond mane after her to make  males feel  they had to win a doll to prove their manhood. The barker had learned during the war that a Statue of Liberty doll could not compete with a Betty Grable kewpie. Patriotism had to take a back seat to pulchritude.  

On this late Sunday afternoon, as on Sunday afternoons generally, there were very few transient down-and-out inner city Negroes lined up  behind the canvas to stick their heads through the hole. There  were few Negroes because there were few white customers. The crowd on the boardwalk and the sunbathers on the sand tended to thin out on late Sunday afternoons as  Monday loomed like novice dentists or a conference of undertakers. So Moe and Riley found themselves getting closer  to The Noggin as the white spectators in front of them thinned out. They watched for a while, but when the hole in the canvas became unoccupied, Riley and Moe decided to leave, having seen more than enough. But the barker, who had had his eye on Riley for several minutes, interrupted his spiel to say sotto voce to him as he was turning to leave, “Psst! Hey, boy, You want to earn a fast two bucks for a half hour’s work?” the barker had spoken to Riley but it was  Moe who answered.

      “Two bucks?” Moe complained. “Is that all?”

      “Two bucks ain’t  nothing to sneeze at,” the barker said, annoyed that Moe was answering for Riley.

      Though he had figured it out for himself already, Moe asked, “What does he have to do for the two dollars?”

      “Do you know what the federal minimum wage is?” the barker asked Riley, ignoring  Moe. 

      “No,” Moe replied, again answering for Riley. 

      “It’s only forty cents an hour. That’s what it is,” the barker said to Riley.

      “Come on, Moe, let’s get out of here,” the disgruntled Riley said, having also figured out what the barker wanted him to do. But Moe, always playing the angles, as he did when he played billiards, wanted to continue the palaver.

      Eying the dolls on the shelf, Moe said, “Only two dollars for getting his brains  knocked out?”

      After a moment’s deliberation, the barker flipped a ball to Moe, saying, “Here, Sambo. See how light that ball is?”

      After catching the ball, Moe gave it a couple of test squeezes. Affecting surprise, he flipped the ball to Riley. 

      “I guess these balls can’t do much harm,”  Moe told him.

      “You mean can’t do me much harm. What do you think I am,  a numbskull?” Riley asked.

      “Late Sunday afternoons all we get are cockeyed drunks,” the barker said to Riley. “They couldn’t hit you in a month of Sundays.”

      “I’m not going to let nobody knock me on the  noggin on Sunday or any other day,” Riley said, folding his arms defiantly on his broad chest. 

      Moe fixed his gaze on the barker for several seconds, as if trying to size him up. “I’ll tell you what, Mac,” Moe told him. “If you’ll give my bro two bucks and me one of those dolls up there, it’s a deal.”

      “What!” the barker interjected, feigning astonishment. “Do you know how much dolls costs?” 

      “Probably no more than two bits,” Moe replied. 

      The  barker made a long face as he said,  “I probably should have my head examined, but OK I’ll give you the doll and Sambo the two dollars. Now go around to the back,” he said to Riley, “and put your head through the hole. But remember. Don’t look up. Keep your head down.  Getting hit in the face can do more damage than getting hit  on the noggin. And don’t forget  the house rule. You got to keep your head in the hole till your half hour is up. Otherwise you don’t get  a dime.” Sullenly, Riley went back and stuck his head through the hole in the canvas on which was painted an idyllic scene of a southern plantation with slaves harvesting cotton.

      It took only a couple of minutes for a heterogenous trio of  white high school seniors  to stop and laugh when they saw Riley’s head sticking through the hole in the canvas. 

      “This should be a cinch for you, Lefty,” the shortest of the high schoolers said  to the tallest boy, a lanky blond who wore the  sweater he had been awarded after pitching in the regional high school all-star game. 

      “Those aren’t real baseballs, Shorty. You should know that,” Lefty said to his  bespectacled classmate, who was the equipment manager of the team. “It would be like pitching a wiffle ball. I could throw my arm out.” 

      “Well, if you won’t do it I will,” Shorty said, seizing the opportunity to show he was not as short in his hunger for glory as he was in height. 

      “You?” Lefty said. “You think you can substitute for an all-star?”

      “I can try,” Shorty said,  slipping his hand into the back pocket of his jeans and pulling out a five dollar bill. He handed it to the barker, who handed him back four dollar bills and four quarters. When Shorty put down one of the quarters on the counter, the barker put down three balls. At the close  of each day the barker  whitewashed the balls to make them look like new baseballs, but by late afternoon the  balls had lost much of their white luster. 

      Rubbing his hands together eagerly, Shorty picked up one of the balls. “This is the right distance for me,” he said squinting at the canvas through his thick glasses.  He began a slow, elaborate windup, trying to imitate the windup he had seen Lefty make many times for the  team. But he didn’t  come close to hitting Riley with any of the  three balls, each of which plopped to the inclined floor of The Noggin and rolled back down to the  barker. 

      Emboldened by Shorty’s bad aim, Riley ignored the barker’s warning  and lifted up his head to look at Shorty. “He’s blind as bat,” Riley muttered. Shorty may have been blind as a bat, but perhaps by way of compensation for his visual handicap, he had acute hearing, like a bat.

      “Did you hear what that black s.o.b. just said about me?” Shorty asked, turning around to speak to Lefty. It was Billy,  the stuttering second baseman on the hight school team who answered.

      “N-N-N-No,” Billy said. “W-W-W-What did he say?”

      “He said I was blind as a bat,” Shorty said.

      In an attempt to put Shorty in his place, Lefty asked him, “How tall are you, Shorty?” 

      “As tall as Napoleon,” Shorty replied, giving the  answer he had ready whenever he was asked how tall he was.  

      “H-H-H-How tall was Napoleon?” Billy asked.

      “None of your business,” Shorty said brusquely, taking another quarter out of his pocket and throwing it down on the counter like a gauntlet. “Three more balls!” he told the barker. The next three balls got no closer to Riley’s noggin than the previous three.

      Frustrated, Shorty plunked down a third quarter. On his next three throws, he didn’t bother winding up.  Feeling humiliated by his failure, he threw the balls as quickly as possible, without trying to aim them. Not aiming made the balls  even wilder than the previous three. When his third ball missed badly and plopped to the inclined floor,  Shorty  shouted angrily at Riley, “And stop that chuckling.” 

      “I didn’t hear h-h-h-him ch-ch-ch-chuckling,” said Billy.

      “Lefty,” Shorty said, “are you gonna let him get away with chuckling at me?” 

      “I didn’t hear him chuckling,” Lefty said. “But if  those were real baseballs, he wouldn’t be acting like a smart ass. What’s he doing out here on the boardwalk anyway? He belongs in the ghetto.” 

      “That’s right. Put  him back in the ghetto, Lefty,” Shorty said. “Here, I’m putting my last  quarter down for you.”

      “Those balls are probably aerodynamically unstable, Lefty said, as if the laws of physics would be against him.

      “You can do it, Lefty,“ Shorty urged him. “Hit him on the noggin.”

      “No. I don’t want to get involved,” Lefty replied. “I might throw my arm out.”

      “I can’t believe it,” Shorty said.

      “What can’t you believe?” Lefty said.

      “How chicken you are,” Shorty said. 

      “C’m-m-m-mon, Lefty,” Billy said. “You’re not ch-ch-ch-chicken, are you?”

      “Oh, all right,” Lefty said. Reluctantly, he picked up a ball, but he didn’t wind up. He  pitched from the stretch, as if there was a runner on first. Lefty was perfectly still for a couple of seconds, as if he was staring at a batter. His head still sticking out of the hole in the canvas, Riley continued to brazenly keep his face up, staring at Lefty, who suddenly threw the ball, his long arm unwinding like a whip. Riley blinked when the ball missed him and hit the canvas, but  his head remained upright. The second ball  landed about a foot below his head.

      “Hey, Lefty,” the disappointed Shorty said. “You ain’t any closer than I was.” 

      “I wish I had some some rosin,” Lefty said, wiping his palms on his pants. 

      “Sweating, huh?” Shorty needled him. 

      The third ball Lefty threw was as far away  as the second ball had been from the first.

      “You must have thrown your arm out in the all-star game,” Shorty said sarcastically. 

      “M-M-Maybe you’re too close, L-L-Lefty,” Billy said.

      “What?”  the crestfallen Lefty said, in somewhat of a daze.  

      “He said maybe you’re too close,” Shorty said.

      “Too close?” Lefty repeated, nodding his head, as if being too close was a concept he had trouble understanding.  

      “Yes. T-T-Too close,” Billy repeated.

      “Too close,” Lefty said. I’m too close. Sure! That’s it. I’ve never been this close, not even as  a Little Leaguer.” Lefty studied the dimensions of the wide boardwalk. “Wait a second,” he said. 

      “What’s up?” Shorty asked.

      “I’ve got an idea,” Lefty said, walking backwards until he was almost off the boardwalk. ”Shorty,” he said.  “Get me three more balls.” When Shorty paid a quarter for three  more balls, Lefty told him, “Stop passersby.” 

      Shorty didn’t need to stop passersby because  when they saw Lefty standing with a ball in his hand, like a pitcher on the mound, staring at the head of a Negro sticking through the hole in the canvas, they stopped and watched, wondering what he was up to. From the increased distance, Lefty took his full windup and threw the ball with a tremendous effort, grunting as he released it. The ball hit a stunned Riley right on the nose. Even though blood started trickling from his nose, Riley refused to protect his face by bowing his head. He felt he would be betraying his manhood and his race if he didn’t hold his head up.

      “What’s going on here?” the puzzled barker asked. “He can’t throw from out there.”

      “Is there a rule against backing up a bit?” Shorty said, looking around mockingly. “I don’t see a sign saying there is.”

      “Backing up a bit?” the barker objected. “He’s practically on the beach.”

      Ignoring the barker, Shorty said, ”Groove another one, Lefty.”

      The second ball Lefty threw hit Riley on the left eye.

      “Bull’s eye!” the elated Shorty shouted, throwing Lefty another ball.

      Having turned into spectators, passersby were impressed by the speed and accuracy of Lefty’s pitches. Like fans in a major league ballpark, they waited for his third throw, as if he had two strikes on a batter. The first passersby explained to late comers what the score was, figuratively speaking.

      “Bingo!” Shorty said when Lefty’s third pitch hit Riley on the mouth, splitting his lip.  “We get the doll.”

      “W-W-W-We get the doll!” Billy said enthusiastically. 

      “Yeah, you bastards get the doll,” the barker cursed while taking a doll down from the shelf. “Now get the hell away from here.” 

      Impressed by Lefty’s feat, several of the younger males among the passersby came over to the counter, eager to show their stuff. Though Riley’s face was battered and bleeding, his half hour was not yet up and the barker was eager to squeeze some profit out of his presence.

Meanwhile, Lefty, Shorty, and Billy strolled down the boardwalk, taking turns proudly carrying the kewpie doll.