"You Can Do This"

By Walter Anderson, White Plains, New York

As appeared in

Barry Williams was my best friend when I was growing up in White Plains.

In many ways, our lives were completely different. He lived in a two-story clapboard house with a backyard; my family occupied a railroad flat in a tenement building.

My home life was troubled; his seemed serene. He was black; I'm white. I dropped out of high school; he went on to Harvard. But what we had in common—what made all the difference in the world to me—was Barry's mother, Mrs. Williams.

I didn't even know her first name. She was always Mrs. Williams, the tall, dignified schoolteacher across the street who was rearing three sons on her own.

Sometimes Mrs. Williams told us stories. "A long time ago, in the marsh country of England, there lived an orphan boy named Pip," she might say. "One bleak evening he was visiting the graves of his parents. The sky darkened, and the wind blew, and the boy, afraid, started crying. Suddenly a deep voice roared, 'Keep still or I'll cut your throat!' and a terrible figure rose from among the tombstones."

"Then what happened?" I asked, enthralled.

"If you'd like to know," she answered, smiling, "read the book Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens." She made me want to go to the library.

Other times Barry and I would be out in the driveway on a Saturday shooting hoops, and his mother would say, "Boys, could you come and give me a hand?" The next thing we knew, we would be helping her with a student she was tutoring. I felt proud that Mrs. Williams valued my help. I didn't realize until much later that by teaching someone else Barry and I were learning too.

Mrs. Williams made sure Barry and his brothers did their homework, and if I happened to be visiting, she watched while I did mine. Usually Barry and I studied at the kitchen table. Mrs. Williams stayed nearby, in case we had a question. At home I lived in fear of my father's alcoholic rages, and I wasn't used to that kind of discipline—or attention.

Her favorite words of encouragement were, "You can do this." I heard them often because I was impatient and easily frustrated. When a math problem refused to yield its secrets or an essay had me confounded, I gave up and slammed my pencil on the table. Calmly, Mrs. Williams took a seat beside me and talked me through the assignment step-by-step. Something about her quiet reassurance, "You can do this, Walter," settled me down, and I managed to finish my homework.

Barry and his brothers went to private schools—an expense that must have strained Mrs. Williams's budget—and she worried about the quality of my education. One day she took me to a local parochial school, had me tested, then persuaded my parents to let me change schools.

I attended for a while, but, after an angry exchange with a teacher, I was told not to come back. Unperturbed, Mrs. Williams took me to another school, had me tested again, made sure I would receive the necessary financial assistance, then convinced my parents that it was important for my future. I made it through two grades in one school year.

When we were ready for high school Barry applied to boarding schools. Mrs. Williams believed that would be the best thing for me as well. Anything to get me away from the streets, where she saw too many kids getting into trouble. I was accepted into a prep school and again awarded a scholarship. But when I saw the other students—kids in pressed shirts and blazers—all my old insecurities came rushing back. I couldn't do it. I entered the high school in town. A year and a half later, failing nearly every subject, I dropped out.