It was the Summer of 2009; I was
running along the path of Sinnissippi Park in Rockford, Illinois. My usual
route involved crossing over the Main street bridge, into the neighborhood of
Harlem (non related to Harlem USA, home of the Black Rennaisance movement) and
across the Harlem Bridge.
While in the Harlem neighborhood, I
came across the most adorable thing; two kids setting up shot at a homemade
lemonade stand made of cardboard. Granted lemonade, fresh, cold or not isn’t the
chosen drink for a runner on a hot summer day, but I couldn’t resist the urge
to approach, purchase a cup of their untaxed elixir and perhaps support their
need for capital into their dancing team, or school scholar program, whatever the
case may be.
Coming closer, the sign read “Lemonade,
$.75,” quite pricey I thought to myself but hey it was for a good cause.
The two little girls were obviously
sisters, one about 7 years of age and the other around 5.
“I’d like a glass of lemonade please
little ladies,” they smile, watched me reach for three quarters in my arm brace
and hand it to them. The younger one grabbed the empty pitcher, turned around
and headed for the house. When she returned, the pitcher was full again,
sweating with a few lemons floating around in the sea of ice. My mouth begin to
water.
When the 5 year old poured me a cup
of lemonade, the 7 year old looked at me and said “That’ll be $.75.”
“I just paid
you.”
“No, you didn’t
sir.”
“Yes I did,
before your little sister went inside to get the new pitcher.”
Knowing she
had more tools in her arsenal of deception and embezzlement, the 7 year old
turns around and yells “MOM!”
A lovely blonde woman, undoubtedly their mother, who resembled a modern-day Stedford wife, sort of a blonde Audrey
Hepburn from Casablanca, approached in haste and asked “What’s the problem here”
as politely as she could, so much so, I knew I had an alley.
“Ma’am, there seems to be a problem,
I paid your daughter $.75 and she’s claiming I didn’t pay her.”
The mother
turns skeptically and looked down and said “McKinsey, did this gentleman pay
you for the lemonade.”
She returned
the glance to her mother, with big doe innocent eyes and said “No mom.” And
that was enough to lose my alley
“Maybe you
should move on sir, shame on your trying to take advantage of my daughters.”
“Ma’am your
daughters are in this nice neighborhood committing fraud, next thing you know
they’ll be on Wall Street robbing poor retirees for their life savings in
stocks!”
“Are you
calling my kids liars?”
“Why not?
They are calling me, an ADULT, a liar.”
Wrapped into
the debate of the Lemonade bandits, I almost failed to notice the emergence of
the neighbors, chatting and preparing to form a suburban lynch mob.
“My
daughters wouldn’t steal a dime from anyone.”
“I’m sure
they won’t not because they have raised their stakes of robbery to $.75! Why
settle for a dime?”
Then it hit me, I’m a black guy, in a predominant
white neighborhood, in conflict over child crimes. To stand up for my right for
cup of overpriced lemonade was something I was prepared to do but not at the
expense of a shattered skull from a police officer that was sure to be on the
way.
“I’m going
to leave now but I warn you lady, watch those bandits; I have no doubt there is
a reason they raise the most money from bake sells!”
And with
that I ran off, thirsty, $.75 down and jogging with the reality that I was
taken by a 7 year old at a lemonade stand. Man and his pride.
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