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#Post#: 36--------------------------------------------------
Battle Hill
DIR By: StoryGod
Date: December 9, 2019, 9:08 am
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They were walking. They were walking and walking, at first
through residential neighborhood that made Zia feel nervous
about trespassing, even though the fifteen or so students
tramped along on a public road that twisted and turned like a
trail as it made its way down a hill. The houses were large, and
the trees surprisingly green for this late in a hot summer. The
houses had no walls or individual gates, so it was hard to tell
where the property ended and the public space began.
Along the edge of the road were low stone walls, many built
without mortar. The history teacher pointed out the "dry walls."
He said some were centuries old. European colonists had taken
over this part of the Western Hemisphere centuries before they
had attempted to do so in Africa where the climate prevented
them from settling. Unlike in Kenya where the Luo and Kikuyu
were a fait a compli, in this hemisphere, the Europeans had
exterminated the natives and then pretended the land was theirs.
These walls were their beach head.
In the distance, cars whooshed and whizzed. Zia could hear them
as they cruised to and fro on Central Avenue. She had been here
once before in her parents rental car. She had missed the rendez
vous for yesterday's Central Avenue Neighborhood Walking Tour.
Now she was on a walking tour to White Plains, a historical
walking tour to White Plains, though it was hard to think of
this swath of pavement as having a history.
"String out!" yelled the history teacher, a balding man whose
orangey Caucasian pate glistened in the warm September sun. Yes,
it was September, and yes afternoons in the northeastern United
States were positively hot. "Don't walk four abreast on the
sidewalk!" bellowed the history teacher. With him was a Suite
Advisor with long, baby fine, light brown hair that she wore
loose. The hair came just to the top of her buttocks.
The Suite Advisor brought up the rear. She and the teacher must
be old hands at this, Zia thought. The buildings on Central
Avenue were seedy, and the older ones remodeled so often, they
looked like they could never age gracefully or be new again.
They passed small stores with what looked like Chinese
characters on them. They passed a school and ornately trimmed
brick and stucco apartments. "Much of the neighborhood here is
Japanese," explained the Suite Advisor. "What do they think of
us?" asked a girl in the group. "They hardly notice us. This is
a very urban area, in spite of all the greenery.. You see those
apartemtns."
When they reached the entrance to a small cemetery they stopped.
This according to the Suite Advisor was Hartsdale Pet Cemetery.
Zia stared at the tiny headstones, each representing a dog or
cat, lovingly laid to rest. Americans like English were deeply
sentimental about small animals. "Some day maybe we'll have a
tour of the place," the history teacher indicated they were not
going to visit today.
The group passed more forest and more stores and an office built
to resemble a cute white barn with a light blue roof. Before
they reached the office, Kristin, the girl with corn silk
colored hair in her eyes complained. "How far are we going?" she
moaned. "God, how embarrassing!" Zia thought.
"All the way to White Plains," the Suite Advisor did not miss a
beat.
"Shit!" snarled Kristin. The Suite Advisor and history teacher
pretended not to hear.
The cemetery and stores gave rise to an empty space called Webb
Park. The history teacher explained that there had been a school
there until twenty years ago. That was how the park got its
name. Beyond the park stretched an endless shopping center. "If
you don't mind walking, this is a great place to go," the Suite
Advisor told the group.
"Who walks here?" asked a girl in wide pants covered with a
pattern of orange hibiscus.
"Lots of people," the history teacher spoke up.
"I don't see them walking," the girl taunted. Kristin shook her
head, making her corn silk bangs dance. Orange hibiscus pointed
to the vast parking lot.
"Look down," the history teacher told her.
"Huh?"
"What's under your feet?"
"Ground."
"What kind of ground?"
"Sidewalk."
"It's there for a reason. Now look across the street what do you
see?"
"Apartments, a pizzaria, a deli that serves subs.... "
"And in front of the buildings what do you see."
"Bus stop," a boy caught on putting orange hibiscus to shame.
"We use our Mega Metro cards for the bus" Kristin piled on.
"Could we have taken the bus here?" asked Kristin.
"Yes but you wouldn't have seen as much. The world goes by too
fast when you ride."
The tour group waited for the traffic light. Zia felt relieved
they weren't going to explore the shopping center, though she'd
have no time to shop once school started. She didn't have much
money and would spend it all. Her mother's words about
temptation came back to her again just as the light changed.
Still, there didn't seem to be as much on the side of the street
across from the shopping center, just ordinary apartments and
small stores. The group threaded onto a street called Chatterton
Parkway. It was a hill. It was a steep hill. Both orange
hibiscus and Kristin groaned. The adults pretended not to hear.
Several of the other kids shrugged. Some hearty boys probably
didn't even feel it.
Zia pretended not to feel it either an then she didn't have to.
She was quick to notice. She wished she had not noticed but the
houses and apartments on Chatterton Parkway and later Battle
Hill were not as nice as the ones closer to her school. They
looked mean and sad and... even the stores had the meanness of
little, market shops where one had to worry whether the
proprietor washed their hands.
The English called such places "off license." "If you have money
to burn, that place sells authentic tacos and empenadas," the
history teacher's voice came from far away. "Was he joking?" Zia
wondered. Then it hit her. In Nairobi, she would never have been
allowed to walk in a neighborhood like this, even if she had
wanted to, and she had no reason to want to. Here... no one
bothered a big group of privileged school children. Was this
what her father meant, by "a more open society and a broader
view of the world." Maybe one day she would have to eat
empenadas here, whatever those were.
At the summit. Battle Hill formed a plateau with a park built
into the grassy incline. The History Teacher gathered the
students around several plaques and a cannon and explained about
the Battle of White Plains in the Revolutionary War. It was a
stalemate. It was English settlers fighting against English
troops. Two bands of conquerors fighting for land. The original
inhabitants.....
In Kenya it had been different. In the 1950's the natives had
rebelled and taken back their country. Britain gave Kenya their
independence and not to other British but to Kenyans themselves
in 1960. All of Zia's grandparents had been part of that
revolution and several of them served in the first government.
Zia wished the Indians had wiped out the English and the Dutch.
She wished it was still their country. She felt gray and sad as
she stared from the summit of Battle Hill to a city with
incongruous silver skyscrapers looking like something out of
futuristic painting beyond the rusty railroad bridge beyond the
Bronx River Parkway. Europeans had dug themselves in and built
this land pretending it had always been theirs several centuries
ago.
#Post#: 40--------------------------------------------------
Re: Battle Hill
DIR By: StoryGod
Date: December 11, 2019, 5:50 pm
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Marion, stared down at the Bronx River Parkway and out at White
Plains. Then she looked at the brass canon and the plaque that
told the story of the sad battle, of White Plains. It must have
meant something to someone. There was so much ancientness under
Marion's feet. Yes, the Spanish had settled Texas setting up
missions and such, but not really as far north as the
Dallas-Fort Worth area. The Indians seemed long gone from Malta,
New York, and the Indians in Texas....
The Northeast went much further back than Texas, all the way to
the 1600's. That was a long time. Marion thought of a visit to
Rome when she was five years old. That was the year, the family
trialed Shaunna. A five year old who will soon be six, is too
old for a nanny. Shaunna was a daughter or niece of someone Dad
knew. She had a Bachelors in elementary education, and no
criminal record, and needed work. Dad owed a favor. Marion and
later she and Nestor had a governess.
But that summer it had just been Marion and Shaunna. Mom and dad
were touring and staying at a resort in the mountains, and the
babies were back with Gabriella, the nanny. Jason, was not even
born yet, and Liza drank from a bottle and had to wear a diaper.
That meant Marion could go sight seeing like a "big girl," and
big girls walked.
It was just the girls visiting the Colosseum, Circus Maximus,
and Vatican. The Pope was old, sick, and hiding in his
apartment, according to Shauna. The Colosseum and Circus Maximus
were ruins. Nobody bothered to fix them up, and that made a
young Marion sad. Here in Westchester, they built around the
stone dry walls and put a new coat of paint on the old houses
and gave them additions. It was much better that way.
"OK, it's all downhill from here," announced the Suite Advisor
who could sit on her light brown, baby fine hair. The road
switchbacked like on a mountain. It was Battle Hill Highway. It
took several walk signals to get across the Bronx River Parkway.
White Plains looked mostly new and sharp with its glass and
brick skyscrapers, except...it was three hundred years old or
more.
"What happened to all the old buildings?" Marion asked the
history teacher.
"Most of them got torn down before I was born," the teacher
answered. "Like Texas," Marion thought.
Kristin ] asked if they could stop in the Galleria for a drink.
The Suite Advisor said "no." The adults showed the girls two
Nineteenth century Churches and then took them across Hamilton
Avenue toward the Metro North train station that sat on high
pilings with just a small entryway leading to the main action by
the tracks. They did not go in the train station but instead
into a parking lot across the street. The lot was in a multi
story garage and it had poles for each bus or group of buses.
The Suite Advisor showed the students how to read a bus stop
diagram and then took them to wait for the Number Twenty.
"It runs every fifteen minutes, so we don't have long to wait,"
she explained. The girl in orange hibiscus pants let out an
audible sigh of relief. Marion checked her phone. It was about
four which meant their would not be much time to get caught and
sent to study hall though there would be a long line until
dinner. There was one more day of vacation camp, and then school
would start on Wednesday, just as it did in Malta. "It's time
for summer to be over," thought Marion who remembered that
students had already been going to school for at least two weeks
down in Texas. She hoped she'd have time to text her mother from
somewhere private. She wondered what her day had been like. Did
she miss her kids? Marion realized she wouldn't have news of
Nestor, Liza, or Jason any more. She hoped no one had taken
mom's phone.
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