Nick Cherniavsky Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Nick Chedavsky 120
There was some question and discussion afterwards as to why he ~s there.
OE course the only reason anyone d d want to c m into a c m WB to
pilfer something because there ms a lot of stuff to pilfer. But he was
such an u d type of a person to te there because you mld expect
tJho mula- look &here near of that high stadkg in soc'ieq. He
did lo& like an intellecW1 or m r of the upper level of society, but
that ka a middle level . . . well, ell-off? and there also was a
question whether the guard actually had to shoot him, hther it ms not
possible to stop him without his being shot. In any case, that vas another
Fncident that ws mKth ~tionhg.
Zhe other incident: happened also at the s e place, at the salvage property
yard, and to me, and I r d r it very distinctly to this day, it ws a
clear indication of *at m r , or potential powier does to tihe hwm
character. This happened at the end of the mrk day dm the Chinese
mrkexs ere being processed throclgt.r the gate on their way out of the
cmpmd. Since IE had started to have a great deal of item being stolen
from the compound, the wxkers =re searched as they were leaving the
cmrpolmd, by the Navy guards at the gate. And so one of the Qlinese tho
was being searched, was stopped and plenty of itans of clothinq--I don't
reumber what it ws, but I think it ms smthing of a ladles undemar
that was stuffed underneath his own shirt and jacket and trousers, etcetera,
and so he was stopped and the navy guards =re giving him a dressing
down, &en one of the four seamen *o =re mrking with me approached and
took over the questioning, or actually the dressing dom of this particular
Chinese. And this particular fellaw is the only guy whose I remmber,
because he actually mre of my friend than other kids with &can I
mrked. lk ws young; he ms nineteen at the th, and his nanae was
Johnny Q l y of Orlando, Florida. I remmber this because, like I said,
we were mre £riends than I was with other kids with tJhm I worked, and so
the usual routine of showing the photographs of his girl friends, of his
parents, of his family haw and around there had been taken care of. He
and I participated in a great ice crean robbery when w robbed a few
gallon cans of ice cream frcan the storage property, at the ccmpound, and
had a day-long ice cream party going on. Stuffing ourselves with ice
crem to the degree w couldn't wen think abut ice cream for weks
afterwards.
So here, at this time, Johnny approached this Chinese wrker and really
started taking after him in hglish. Of course the m s e didn't
understand a wrd -ept that he was being told that &at he did was very,
very wrong. kt the mssage nas clear-and then, somehow Johnny got the
notion, I preaim, of the £utility of dt he was doing. The Chinese
didn't understand d-mt he was telling him. He ms getting the mssage,
trut he ms not understanding the mrds. So he looked around and he spied
a rather sizeable rock lying off the road by the gate. And he mtioned
for thi~ mese to cae out of the line and stand in frat of one of the
pillars af the gate, and just about *re the rock wis, and I d d say
the rock was about the size of a conventional sized wastepaper basket. I
d d say it mi&d fifty paunds, smething like that perhaps, maybe a
little mre , myway it was a rock, you know, poorly defined shape--it va8
a rock; and Johnny m o t i d to the Chinese to pick it up, which this
Qlinese did. And then he mtioned to him to hold it with both hands over
his head, which the &ires@ did.
Nick Cherniavsky Memoir, vol. 2 - Archives/Special Collections - Norris L Brookens Library - University of Illinois at Springfield - UIS