brother was the New York Times literary critic, Anatole Broyard, also visited as did her husband, Franklin, who was a former ambassador to Ghana and a close friend of Bob’s from their early NAACP days. Rhoda Karpatkin, who was the executive director of Consumer Reports and Bob’s dear friend since her late husband worked with him at the NAACP, also visited sporadically, as did Dick Bellman and his artist wife, Bobbie Beck. There were also friends from Bob’s bridge club and Rose Ryder, his former neighbor, close friend, and traveling companion.
Whatever the combination, conversations about books, politics, theater, opera, family, and the pleasures of eating and travel were our staple. Humor and poking fun alternated with seriousness.
One year Bob and I walked down the rocky little road from his villa to the nearby Caribbean-hugging tourist hotel. I was wearing my threadbare “Reverse the Arms Race” T-shirt and bathing trunks, and Bob wore a designer shirt and Bermuda shorts. Our destination was the hotel shop, which carried the New York Times. The doorman had allowed me unchallenged access the day before; today he intercepted Bob and questioned him about his destination. The guy was black himself, but he had his orders. Faced with Bob’s show of authority, the doorman backed off and waved us through.
“Even in Jamaica.” Bob shook his head ruefully.
“He just recognized the well-dressed man,” I wisecracked.
“I guess that’s it.” Bob scowled, chuckled, and added, “But just you remember we have a dress code for dinner. And there’s no fooling around about that.”
Another time we were having a discussion about opera singers, when I made the mistake of mentioning my friend who wrote opera reviews for the New York Times and New York magazine. Bob frowned, saying, “I don’t know about him and his put-downs of Jessye Norman, and for writing all that stuff about Kathleen Battle being difficult to work with.” Bob was friends with Norman and thought she was the greatest. Kitty and I thought she was superb, too.
“He’s said wonderful things about both of them,” I replied. “He just gets a little critical when the prima donnas start thinking too much of themselves. He said cruel things about Beverly Sills when she sang certain roles well past her prime.”
“Sills used to call him up and leave irate messages on his answering machine,” Kitty added.
“Just because he’s your friend,” Bob teased, keeping the conversation playful and serious at the same time, “you come to his defense, but you know as well as I do that he sees black singers as being in a different category.”
I didn’t think Bob was right, but I knew that discussion would go nowhere. I understood Bob’s concern, however. It’s rare that black people reach the pinnacle of their profession. Once they get there they are all too often shot down or accused of things that whites are suspected of doing all the time. So of course Bob got his back up.
I remember the time in Jamaica we talked about the Republican “Contract with America” rhetoric coming out of Washington, and the O. J. Simpson trial, which had polarized the country. On the former issue we all agreed that America was headed in a frightening direction, and that the Democrats were too spineless to stop it. The OJ trial was more controversial. We got Court TV down there. I remember when the trial was at a standstill because Judge Lance Ito was holding one of his endless hearings. It was all a sideshow. The defense revolved around an allegation of planting evidence by a racist cop, while the prosecution had everything but a videotape of the crime. The whole thing hinged on a predominantly black working-class jury.
After working on the Carter-Artis case, I knew only too well about juror predispositions. We had a tape recording of the detective in charge telling a hesitant key witness that he should finger Rubin and John because “colored people are only out for themselves,” and not one of the white working-class jurors thought twice about registering a guilty vote. They didn’t seem to care whether the police had planted key evidence.
As it became clear that OJ stood a good chance of getting off because his jury might buy the very true charges of police racism, white Americans became apprehensive. Poll after poll showed that a large majority of blacks believed that OJ was innocent, while a large majority of whites, including me and Bob’s other white houseguests, thought he was guilty. Bob was more judicious, wanting to