Bramhall Square American dreams BY CAITLIN SHETTERLY

Last week, after a long day running through lines of Othello with incarcerated teenage boys, I came home to change and run to the Y. I wanted to try their spin class, and I needed to let off some steam. I have a scholarship at the Y, which means I pay less than the average member because, as my taxes unfortunately indicate, I don’t make much. At the desk, a young, light-skinned black man questioned my scholarship status when I approached with a fist full of quarters to pay the reduced rate for the class. I had been told that I would be entitled to half off the cover charge for spin (the only class that is extra $ at the Y). I must have seemed too eager or too entitled to the class, beginning in three minutes, because he became aggressive. He told me there was no documentation which told him that I was, in fact, allowed a discount. He told me I was lying.

Now, I can imagine what he thought: Here comes a blonde, white woman with a T-shirt that reads "Eli’s Manhattan" and biker shorts (both full of holes, but no matter) and she wants something free, extra, more than she already has. But would it have been different if I had looked like Christy Turlington? Or if I were Latina? Or just very rich?

This man at the Y is beautiful to look at — dark eyes, tall, muscular, perfect skin. In moments, he reduced me to feeling like a second-class citizen, or worse, something to be kicked. I have no idea if he’s poor, or lower income, or middle class, or a world-class athlete, or if he lives in a mansion on the Western Prom. It makes no difference to me. And his race was certainly not a factor anywhere in my mind. I just wanted to go to my spin class and I expected to be believed and let go, because, I am used to people opening doors in fundamental ways for me.

When he sneered at me, told me I was trying to get out of paying, inferred that he would not let me go to the class at all, I ran, reduced by this beautiful man to tears because I was so shocked that at the Y, of all places, someone would accuse me of lying, or worse, treat me poorly because I have less money. I realized that race and economics play a deadly duet everywhere we go.

Difference is a given, but what matters is that we’re decent. The other day at Wild Oats, a black guy working behind the counter, younger than me by a little, started to pull out a sandwich I had chosen for Cowboy (you know the turkey one on focaccia with basil aioli?), when I asked if he might grab a different one with crispier crust. He looked at me and said really nicely, "Would you say please?" He was so dear about it, and so right. I was being demanding and had forgotten manners in my desire to be efficient with my time. I had treated him as if he did not matter. He was right, and I told him so immediately.

I have no wish for the man at the Y to be fired because of the way he treated me. We all behave badly at times. My worst fear is that he would feel that a white woman got a black man fired. The historical sting would be too much.

When I finally parked my car at Mackworth Island after fleeing the Y, the fog was rolling in off the water. As I began the first of two loops around, the trees peered at me from the mist looking particularly Shakespearian, and my mind went back to Othello, with whom I’d begun the day.

Caitlin Shetterly can be reached at bramhallsquare@yahoo.com