Jesse Owens

"Can I have a kiss?" he asks.

Rudy Steiner. My best friend. Just being himself.

"NO, or I'll give you the worst whipping of your life."

Me, being myself.

Rudy was my soccer playing friend, my neighbor friend, my friend at school, my friend in thievery. He was my best friend.

Note about Rudy: He was famous in the neighborhood for his crazy ideas. His most famous (or infamous, depends how you look at it) escapade was known as the Jesse Owens stunt. Rudy fancied himself as the best runner, not without reason. In 1936, the Olympics were held in Berlin. Jesse Owens dominated the track despite racial discrimination. So Rudy decided that he was Jesse Owens. The next day, he painted himself black and went running around the school track, until his papa dragged him home. That tells a lot about Rudy. He was his own person, and he wouldn't give up.

We played soccer, all of the neighborhood kids, as a respite from our troubled nation. Soccer could help us forget the scene of Jews marched through the village on the way to concentration camp. Rudy and I took pleasure in this simple return to innocence and childhood. We were the little mischief makers who ran around with no discipline, and we loved it.

Rudy was my comrade in everything, and that includes thievery. We joined a gang of food thieves, driven by hunger and poverty. We stole together, and reaped the profits together.
Rudy died at the age of twelve in the bombing of Himmel Street. No one could have had a more loyal friend. I wept over his body and granted his persistent request.

"Yes, Rudy. You can have a kiss."

December 24, 1946