ACT ONE THE HILL DISTRICT PITTSBURGH They call it Little Harlem the city within a city A mile east of downtown it is a mishmash a melting pot of workers and their kin Syrians Africans Poles and Jews Irish Haitians Germans and Italians their row homes apartments and shacks jam-packed between sloping streets On April 27 1945 in a tiny apartment behind Bella’s Market Frederick August Kittel Jr is born Named for his father a white German baker who sometimes visits with bread in his hand but mostly is not around
Now Freddy walks down Wylie Avenue with his mother Daisy Wilson past barbers butcher shops bakeries where people speak Italian Hebrew or Greek their unique voices blending like an orchestra their smells corned beef lamb okra fettuccini making his small mouth water Summer nights in the backyard Daisy plays card games with the neighbors as someone strums a guitar their laughter drifting over children playing dodgeball and stickball loading the bases Freddy plays but he’s an observer too always watching and listening When night falls and the children are called inside he notices how most of them have a mother and a father to tuck them in But not Freddy Instead with just a sixth-grade education and a job cleaning other people’s homes Daisy reads to him at night filling him up with stories words and hope If you can read you can do anything you can be anything
beans tomato soup rice BREAKING THE CODE Loops and lines in long neat rows but what do they mean Mother reads she knows He likes to turn the pages feel the lightness of paper Look here Freddy she says pointing to labels His eyes follow her finger to the shelf his mouth sounding them out soup tomato rice beans He is smart curious He is four One morning on the way out the door he spies Sister’s schoolbook open on the floor
jam butter wheat cereal The sun’s light brings the leaves out and suddenly the loops and lines begin to mean Each day after he practices textbooks newspapers street signs clothing labels drinking the words in faster and faster By the time he turns five he even reads breakfast Golden Yellow and ready to spread Parkay Strawberry Jam Smucker Company the brand you can trust Post’s Grape-Nuts Flakes it’s Hopalong Cassidy’s favorite whole-wheat cereal Mother stops her washing She looks at the table then back at her word-loving son Get your coat Freddy We’re going out
