After Steve bounces the ball for about a minute, he walks over to the guys and says, “Listen, I’m planning on playing in a handball tournament in Brighton Beach this spring and I need to practice. You know anyone around here who might want to play handball?”
Indeed they do. They quickly sit on the cement ground and put on the sneakers they brought for gym. Ron, Jerry and Steve tie the laces of their white canvas high-top Keds while Tom ties the laces of his P.F. Flyers, also canvas high-tops but mostly black.
“Me and Tom will take on you and the new kid,” says Jerry to Ron. “You can serve first.”
“Okay,” Ron replies. “We’ll play until the ‘line-up’ bell rings. Whatever team is winning at the bell wins.”
Ron steps up to the serving line about fifteen feet in front of the handball wall, bounces the ball, steps into it, and slaps it hard down the left line toward Tom’s left hand.
Tom hits the ball as hard as he can back to the wall.
Steve watches the spaldeen as it leaves Tom’s hand, and anticipating where it’s heading, he positions himself. When the ball bounces off the wall, Steve is standing where he can hit it with his right hand. And when Steve does hit the ball he wallops it and in a streak it passes to the left of his opponents before they can flinch—point for Ron and Steve’s team.
Tom takes Jerry over to the side of the court out of Steve and Ron’s hearing range. “Did ya see that new kid smack that ball?” he whispers.
“Yeah,” Jerry answers.
“Well,” says Tom, “I’d tell ya to start hitting the ball, if ya could, to Ron, except Ron ain’t half bad himself.”
“We’ll hit to Ron whenever we can,” Jerry responds. “As good as Ron is, he’s not in the same league as the new kid. I got to see him yesterday in gym. He’s real quick, and now, the way he just hit that ball, well, just hit it to Ron when you can. Listen, Tom, I played handball all summer long over in Manhattan Beach. I can’t hit as hard as Steve but I worked on some shots quite a bit. Let me play the right side. Give me the middle too, and I bet we can take these guys.”
“Okay,” says Tom, and the two step back into position to receive a serve.
Soon, the dashing about, the hard whacks, and some dazzling saves begin to get the attention of some of the nearby students milling about. Cliff Schweitzer, the sports writer for the school newspaper, is one of them.
Suddenly, Jerry Miller smacks the ball on a straight line from his hand to the very bottom of the wall, and when it bounces off it rolls on the ground—a perfect killer.
When Cliff sees this shot he shouts out, “Nice killer, Miller.” Others, watching, smile at the sound of this.
Because of Jerry Miller’s killer, Steve gets to serve. Jerry and Tom move way back in the hopes of neutralizing his hard-hitting.
Steve, noticing this, steps a couple of yards in back of the serving line. He bounces the ball in front of him and begins to move forward toward the serving line, and just as he reaches the line he smacks a low line drive toward Tom. Jerry Miller, playing a hunch, had begun to move in and toward Tom’s side of the court just as Steve hit the ball. The ball hits the ground and only takes a short skip before it’s ready to hit the ground a second time. Jerry just gets to the ball in time and manages to slap it back to Ron.
It’s a fairly easy shot for Ron to return. He positions himself and goes for a killer. The ball is hit a bit too high on the wall for it to roll off.
Jerry Miller steps in and puts the shot away with his second killer of the game.
“Killer Miller!” cries Cliff from the sidelines where the spectators are beginning to root for their favorite team.
It’s now Jerry and Tom’s turn to serve. Tom goes first, hitting a deep shot to Ron.
Sneakers scrape and slap on cement.
“Humph,” cries Ron as he hits the ball back with all his might.
“Hit another killer, Miller,” several kids cry out in unison.
“Yes!” replies the crowd when Jerry obliges.
The four players battle on for twenty minutes, at which point Steve and Ron are down by a point, 5-4. Jerry checks his watch and announces, “One minute till the line-up bell.”
Ron sets himself to serve.
“We need this one,” says Steve.
Ron nods, bounces the spaldeen, and serves deep to Tom, and then begins to take a step backward figuring Tom will hit the ball high off the wall like he has been doing all game.
Tom, noticing Ron is backing up, tries to drop the ball low down the left line.
Ron dives for the ball in such a way that he keeps his knees, with his school pants, from scraping on the ground, the toe-tips of his sneakers holding one side of him up while his right palm holds the other half up, and with his left hand he reaches out. From the corner of his eyes Ron spots Jerry racing over from his right toward the left side of the court. Ron, as best he can, swipes the ball in the opposite direction of where Jerry is moving.
Jerry puts on his brakes, dives to his right, lands on his left palm, taking care to use his toes to keep his knees from scraping on the ground, and reaches for the ball with his right hand. On his swing Jerry just gets a little piece of the ball with his fingertips, propelling the ball softly toward the wall. It falls a foot short. The game is tied, 5-5.
RING!
“There’s the line-up bell!” cries Ron.
“Great game!” Cliff shouts while pumping his fist.
“Who’s the new kid?” asks one of the spectators.
A few girls giggle and throw looks at Steve.
CHAPTER 19
Just about the time Steve finishes his handball game, Pete is in his own schoolyard standing off by himself looking over his baseball cards. From the corner of his eyes he spots Glen coming over.
“Hey, Pete, where’s your big bad brudduh?” asks Glen. “At the welfare office?”
Toby Flatow, Marty Finkle, and a few other first graders are looking on.
“I decided ta handle you and your brudduh myself,” says Pete, his shoulders up and his head pushed forward.
“What’s zuh matter, Pete? Your brudduh don’t care about you enough ta stick up for you?”
“I decided ta handle you and yer brudduh myself. I’m not dragging my brudduh inta this. You can say whatever ya want ta me an’ I’m gonna let ya get away wit’ it, see. But if ya touch me, I’m goin’ at ya an’ I don’t care what your brudduh does.”
“What’s your name new kid?” asks Toby while fiddling with her long, brown, braided hair.
“Pete. Pete Marino.”
Marty Finkle starts to look over Pete’s shoulder to see his baseball card.
“I got this here Yogi Berra card,” says Pete. “Ya wanna see it? It’s my best card from the summer. I wannid ta get a Mantle all summer but I never got it. Still, I got this here Berra.”
“Yogi Berra!” says Marty. “Sure! I’ll take a look at it.”
Glen and a few other kids begin to gather around Pete trying to get a peek.
* * * *
After their handball game, Steve and his fellow handball players get on line to enter the school building. They begin to hop on one foot making clumsy efforts to switch back from their sneakers to their school shoes.
“Let’s play every morning,” says Ron as they enter the school.
“Yeah,” says Tom. “We’ll keep a record to see which team is the all-time best.”
The boys begin to mount the steps to their eighth grade homeroom. Mysterious Jane, a few students ahead of Steve, turns her head in profile to respond to something said by a girl walking beside her. He notices the sudden increase in his heartbeat and the swimming sensation surging in his head. The curve of her nose, the sparkle of her lovely green eyes, the sway of her voluptuous body strikes a whole new set of chords in him he has never previously experienced.
“Hold these,” says Cliff to Jerry Miller as he hands him the books and snea
kers he had been carrying to class.
“Are you shitting me?” Jerry asks in a strained whisper while glancing up to see if Mrs. Kreetch might overhear him. She’s usually on hall duty up by the next landing. “Yuh know, I got a pretty heavy load of my own, you ass!” Nevertheless, he complies.
Cliff takes out a note-pad and pencil from his back pocket. “Steve, let me ask you a couple of quick questions for my sports column.”
Steve shakes his head trying to clear all that is stirring inside.
“You hit the ball pretty hard on the handball court, Steve. You throw as hard as you hit, I mean when you’re playing baseball and stickball?”
“I ain’t no Sandy Koufax, or anything like that, Cliff, but I guess I got a good strong arm.”
“Where’d you live before moving to our neighborhood?”
“Bensonhurst, by 82nd Street and Bay Parkway.”
“How come you moved here?”
Steve pauses on this. He looks down at all the feet heading up the stairwell. Then he looks up to Cliff and smiles. “I guess it was just time for us to get to know a new neighborhood.”
“What’s your strongest sport?”
“Baseball!”
Cliff reaches his homeroom, which is just to the right of the stairwell. “Thanks a lot, Steve. It should appear in the Cunningham Gazette next Friday—the back page. My column’s called ‘The Sport’s Scene’.” Then Cliff grabs his stuff back from Jerry, and turns into the SP Homeroom.
As Steve and the rest of the kids who haven’t yet reached their homeroom walk on, they pass by a group of girls who start to giggle.
Steve—upon hearing the gigglers—stops, turns around, looks squarely into the eyes of the girl who appears to be the leader, and with a smile in his eyes, asks, “What’s so funny?”
The girl turns red, and she, along with the rest of her friends, break out in hysterics.
Shrugging his shoulders, Steve goes on his way.
* * * *
By lunchtime, even though this second day at Cunningham Junior High is going fairly well for Steve, he’s feeling tightness in his chest and rumbling in his stomach. Maybe it’s because he had only a glass of orange juice for breakfast and he’s hungry. Maybe it’s because being around so many kids that are still strangers is wearing on him. Maybe it’s because Mysterious Jane is sitting beside him. Or maybe it’s because he’s getting ready to use, again, his dreaded free lunch pass. He’s really not sure why, but for some reason he’s biting his lip.
In less than a minute after he sits down at his lunch table, Ron and Brainy George start going at each other, incessantly growling and snapping at each other.
“You’re stupid,” says George.
“At least I’m not a maggot,” says Ron.
“Moron!”
“No. You!”
“Drop dead!”
Steve, feeling edgy, finally just can’t take it any longer without saying something. He doesn’t want to say something. He feels that he’s just beginning to be friends with Ron and he best just stay out of it. But finally, he becomes so exasperated that words just leap out of his mouth.
“Listen! George, Ron. Listen! Last night on TV, I was watching this show and on it there were these two characters. They were arguing, over and over, who makes the best pudding. And I looked at them and tried to figure out why these guys were such wimps. And as I studied them, it came to me that it was mainly the way they were putting each other down. The way they argued. The way they were so desperately trying to impress the other guy. ‘I’m the better pudding maker.’ ‘No! I’m the better pudding maker.’ I mean, if you argue with someone, do it respectfully, and if you can’t convince them in a reasonable period of time, for Christ’s sake, get on to something else!”
Some of what Steve is trying to say gets through pretty quickly to George.
“You’re saying me and Ron are wimps! That’s what you’re saying, Steve! That me and Ron are wimps!”
Steve gathers himself and with a strong voice and steady gaze, he responds, “The way you argue with each other comes across to me as… well I got a dad who’s always putting people down, so maybe that’s part of it. But I’m not saying you’re wimps. In fact, some of the things I’ve seen you two do, don’t come across that way at all. I saw Ron today play handball and he showed me plenty of heart out on the court. And as for you, George, sticking up for me in the lunch line when I had to use my free lunch pass—well…” Then, looking squarely at George, Steve gives him a nod.
* * * *
Things quiet down for a while. As they wait to be called to get in the lunch line, Cliff begins to read the Daily News sports section. Ron starts to read a Green Lantern comic.
“If you guys are going to read,” says George, “I might as well too. I only got another week before this book report is due,” and as he’s saying this he takes out this huge volume, Crime and Punishment.
Steve stares at it in bewilderment as if he is seeing the sunrise at midnight. “Why’d ya pick such a big book?” he asks. “I always pick a book as thin as I can find.”
“This is the greatest, all time super-greatest book, ever,” George answers.
Suddenly Cliff starts pointing excitedly at something in his newspaper. “Look!” he says to Ron. “They’re really going to build a new Madison Square Garden!”
“No way!” says Ron. “Too many people would get pissed. The old Garden has such a super history. What’s wrong with it anyway? It’s great the way it is. Why, it would be sacrilegious. It’d be like building a new Yankee Stadium!”
Steve begins to listen to George with one ear and the Cliff/Ron discussion with the other. George, noticing this, starts to get annoyed. How dare a conversation about sports interfere with his conversation about Crime and Punishment? Fed up, he starts to make vomiting sounds. He’s getting louder and louder, trying to drown out Cliff and Ron’s conversation. Ron, looking as if he’s pleased that Steve can finally see what an ass George is, says, “You see what I mean?”
Steve’s face muscles scrunch up his nose as he begins to rub his forehead. Marone, he says to himself, I ain’t got the stomach to hear any more of this crap. He turns to Ron and Cliff, “I hope we can discuss Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden together some other time,” he says firmly. “George, if you don’t mind, let’s you and me go over to that table over there where we won’t be distracted. I want to learn more about your book.”
“Anything to get away from that jerk!” George says as he gets up from his table’s seat.
“Good riddance!” Ron replies.
“Mind if I join you two handsome men,” Mysterious Jane says while quickly leaping to her feet. “I won’t bother you.” Her lovely green eyes gaze into Steve’s. “I’ll just listen.”
“Is that okay with you, George?” Steve asks.
“You have to be joking,” George replies. “Mysterious Jane may follow me whithersoever I goest.”
Jane smiles with delight and takes George’s and Steve’s arms, and the three of them glide off.
CHAPTER 20
After lunch Steve has English with Mrs. Kreetch. She is wearing a loose black jacket with deep pockets stuffed with papers. Dipping into one of these pockets she pulls out a mimeographed piece of paper with blue printed words. “This is the poem entitled, ‘In Flanders Fields,’ she says sternly. It was written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrea, a surgeon during World War I. “I trust you all did your homework and read it and then wrote a paragraph on what the poem means to you. Remember, Flanders is a cemetery where many who were killed in a major battle were buried. Listen carefully to the words.”
Mrs. Kreetch lifts the paper she’s holding and starts to read.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scar
ce heard amid the guns below…
As she reads these words her voice is solemn and her right hand stretches out to the students.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Her outstretched hand now is curled into a fist and she pounds it into her chest. Her voice begins to rise as she reads on.
After her dramatic reading, Mrs. Kreetch looks around the room and then points to a girl with pigtails and says, “Miss Levy, what is this poem about?”
“Ummm…” The girl begins to squirm in her seat. “Ummm…”
“I see you are not prepared, Miss Levy,” Mrs. Kreetch responds with a great display of disdain.
Who does she think she is? Steve asks himself.
A few minutes later she pulls out of her pocket another poem.
“If, was written by Rudyard Kipling,” Mrs. Kreetch says in her slow, distinct manner. As she begins to read the poem, her eyes gaze out into some unknown distance. And as she reaches the final verse her voice turns up a few notches in volume, and with great, deep resonances, she cries out:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise…
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!
She finishes up the poem with a firm pound of her fist on her desk. Steve thinks he can, on her stern, pale face, make out for the first time since he met her, a hint of a smile.
“What does Kipling’s poem, If, say to you, Mr. Marino?” she asks him.