FRIENDSHIP
1958 Brooklyn
Johnny Milford wasn’t allowed to watch much TV ‘cause the nuns said it’d rot your brain, but when he did watch, his favorite show was Sky King. Second to that was Father Knows Best. He imagined himself as Bud, and even though Bud had sisters who bugged him, at least he had a family.
Three years ago Johnny’s parents had died in a railroad accident, and a month later he was sent to St. Michaels’s orphanage. He shared a room with three other boys, and that was fine by him. Sharing didn’t make him feel so alone in the world.
Today was his twelfth birthday and he’d just gotten his first two-wheeler. He was the proud third owner of a black and red Schwinn Panther. His best friend, Vinny DeMeneo, walked around the bike, nodding, grinning, and said, “Not bad, not bad at all. I knew you was gonna get somethin’ good.”
“Whattaya mean by that?” A little offended, but not quite sure why, and not sure he wanted to see the answer on Vinny’s face, John looked down at Vinny’s black mutt, Skillet. Vinny was the only kid in the place who had a dog, and the nuns let him keep it as long as the dog didn’t cause no trouble. The dog was kinda cute and the only family Vinny had. Wasn’t anything in life he loved more than that goofy dog.
“It’s ‘cause the sisters love you. St. Mike’s can’t afford no bike, but for you, well, you’re different.” He shrugged. “They stretch the rules a bit ‘cause,” Vinny popped him upside the head with a grin, “I dunno, you’re all good and shit.”
Johnny wasn’t sure what he meant by that, he thought Vinny was just as good as he was, but two months ago on Vinny’s birthday, all he’d gotten was an old pair of metal roller skates they’d wound up using on a wooden milk crate to make a go-cart. They hadn’t known how to make brakes though, so they’d had to drag a sneakered foot until they slowed down enough to not kill themselves by running into a tree or a brick wall. Vinny’d gotten a beating that day for wrecking an old pair of shoes, but all Johnny had gotten was a stern lecture about appreciation.
Even at twelve, Vinny was what the sisters referred to as a hood. Johnny disagreed with them, but knew if he voiced an opposing opinion they’d point their bony old fingers and send him straight to hell. Vinny was a good kid. He was. Sad sometimes, but decent. Sure his dad, it was said, was a mob guy who’d been gunned down, but that didn’t make the kid bad, just the parent. Vinny didn’t talk about that much.
But one night when they were playing Rummy, Vinny tossed his cards down in the middle of the game and just sat, staring off into space, with a look on his face that made something cold run down the back of Johnny’s neck. Vinny pulled his knees up to his chin and wrapped his arms around his legs. The look in his eyes was distant and hard, and Johnny knew he was about to find out something awful. Something maybe he should never know. Something no kid should ever hear. But because they were friends, and because he’d never seen a look like that on Vinny’s face before, he asked, “Vin, you okay?”
“Today’s my ma’s birthday.”
“Yeah?” John said carefully, thinking maybe this wasn’t gonna be so bad after all. Not all the kids at St. Mike’s were true orphans. Sometimes the parents just didn’t want the kid no more and that kid got dumped, which to John’s way of thinking was probably worse than having no parents at all. Still, a friend had to ask. “You, uh, gonna call her? Maybe make her a card or somethin’?”
Vinny shook his head slowly, still staring off at nothing. “Two days after they killed my pop, they killed my ma, John. In the kitchen, right there while she was fixin’ me some hot cocoa, at ten o’clock in the morning. Before my pop was even buried. Two men came in the front door and the look on my ma’s face, the fear, well, I knew she wasn’t afraid for herself. I could see it in her face, the way her eyes cut to me, the way she screamed at me to run, the way she pushed me away from her...that fear was for me.
“They opened up on her and riddled my mama with bullets, and they fuckin’ laughed while they did it. I knocked over my cocoa as I got up to run, but my legs were shakin’ so bad I didn’t get more than two steps toward the front door when one of them grabbed me by the back of my shirt. I peed my pants and they laughed louder. Then one of them,” Vinny stopped for a minute remembering, and the look on his face was a man’s look. Filled with hate, and mean.
“That guy, Johnny, he threw me down in a pool of my mama’s blood, made a hand motion like a gun, and said, ‘Some day, you brainless fuck, it’s gonna be you.’ He made a firing motion with his thumb and forefinger and even though he didn’t have a gun in that hand, I flinched. Just flinched like a damn pussy.” Vinny swiped at his eyes and his voice came out hoarse and as jagged as broken glass. “I never been so mad or so scared in my life. They killed my ma. Just like that. For no reason.”
“Who were they? Why? Why your mom?” Johnny’s hands clenched around the cards, bending them into a crushed ball.
Vinny shook his head. “I asked. No one would say. Maybe it was the cops wanting revenge. Maybe it was Mafia cause my pops screwed up. Coulda even been an Irish gang. I probably won’t ever know.” Then his face closed up and that was the end of that. Johnny didn’t dare ask another question. Couldn’t even say he was sorry out loud because it was all too tragic for a simple I’m sorry, and the whole sad mess of it made Vinny get tears in his eyes and then Johnny’s too and Johnny figured Vinny hated that part the most. They both sat there, quiet, not playing cards, not talking or goofin’, just sittin’ like two old men whose brains didn’t work.
Vinny never talked about his mom again after that night and Johnny knew better than to bring it up. He had heard though, that Vinny had family out there, somewhere in Brooklyn, but they wouldn’t take him in because of fear of retaliation.
Even with something as horrible as that in his past, Vinny was a decent guy and Johnny still remembered all the good times they’d had over the last few years, growing up and walking to Ebbets Field to see the Bums play until the team moved West, and flipping each other for baseball cards. They hung out on 15th Avenue, went to the Marboro Theater on Bay Parkway, sipped egg creams, skated in the middle of the gutter, and bought small cokes in real glass bottles. They made up games with sticks and Spaldeens, pea-shooters, bottle caps, tin cans, and broom-handles. Sometimes they got into fights and punched each other black and blue, but within an hour or so they learned to get over it.
They were never bored. And they were never bad.
Sure, they were sometimes reckless and did stupid things, and sometimes they saw other people do stupid things but they had the foundation of St. Mike’s to keep them from going too far or being too stupid. It was a time of innocence and trust.
They wore the clothes the nuns gave them, even if they were first used by an older brother, sister, cousin or some kid they’d never even met. Sneakers got worn out fast. Coats were cherished. Sometimes, when things got tight, the nuns had to give them what Vinny called “wish” sandwiches.
“What the heck’s a wish sandwich?”
Vinny rolled his eyes. “Johnny, you really that dumb?”
He didn’t think so, but he still didn’t understand what Vinny was talking about, so he just shrugged and said, “Guess so.”
“A wish sandwich, you goof, is this.” He wagged his bread and mayo at John. “Two pieces of bread with mayonnaise, but you wish there was meat and cheese in the middle.”
Johnny watched him kneel, feed his sandwich to Skillet, then scratch him behind the ears. Not much Vinny loved in this world, other than maybe Johnny, and definitely that dog.
One of the essential lessons of Brooklyn was survival.
Vinny seemed to come by the instinct naturally, but Johnny learned that hard lesson one horrible fall afternoon when him and Vinny were on their way to get some Nik-L-Nips, those wax bottle candies with the flavored syrup inside, from a candy store two blocks away. They’d just cut through an alleyway to sav
e time, and they had to hurry or it was gonna be dark soon. And no one, ever, dared to get back at St. Mike’s after dark. Getting back late meant staying in on the weekends for four weeks in a row. Plus extra homework. And a long lecture that made you feel shame for causing the sisters to worry.
They were halfway down the alley, fenced in on one side by a six-foot concrete wall, and blocked on the other side by the closed back doors of the neighborhood stores when out of nowhere, or so it seemed, six teenagers, all older, all bigger, came strolling down the alleyway like they owned the place and no one had better get in their way.
Him and Vinny moved aside, but the six boys stopped. One of them said, “Hey, Guinea pig, ain’t you the one whose dad killed a cop?”
Johnny turned his head, wondering who the heck they were talking to, and saw six sets of angry eyes all focused and glaring at Vinny. Johnny’d heard the bad words before, the racial slurs, but Vinny was a good kid, and ain’t no way he deserved being called names like that. Besides, these guys were stupid. Vinny’s dad never killed no cop. “What’re you guys talkin’ bout? He ain’t done nothin’ wrong.”
Vinny elbowed him in the ribs with a loud “Shhh”, and pulled Skillet closer with a tug on his leash. “We don’t want no trouble. We’re just walkin’. You micks got the wrong guy.” And he made to move past them.
One kid, the biggest of the six, slammed Vinny up against the concrete wall with hands bigger than catcher’s mitts and a look in his eye that spit pure hate. For the first time since his parents had died, Johnny was scared. Not worried scared. Piss in your pants scared. He stuck his hands in his pockets so the older kids wouldn’t see how bad they were shaking.
Some tall kid with a black bomber jacket standing off to Johnny’s left asked, “Hey, Danny, you hear that? The wop called us micks.” Face tight, the tall kid took a step closer to Vinny. “I think the dumbass dago needs to learn some respect.”
John’s chest tightened and words rushed from his mouth like an insane Crusader, “Come on, guys, leave him alone. We’re just mindin’ our own business.”
The tall kid hit Johnny in the head so hard he stumbled to his knees. Stars blinked and when the big kid, Danny, pulled a switchblade, Johnny’s stomach seized up in cold terror. Vinny was trying hard to be brave, but his arms were rigid at his sides, his hands balled into fists so tight all the blood left his knuckles. His face was starting to sweat, but still he stood there, not saying a word. His eyes got that look though, that same look he had when he was talking about those men who had killed his mom. It was the meanest look he’d ever seen.
Danny must’ve seen it too, ‘cause he flashed that silver blade in Vinny’s face with a laugh. “So, we’ve got a tough guy, huh? Let’s see how tough.” And he punched Vinny so hard in the stomach it raised him an inch off the ground. Skillet started barking and snarling, and Danny kicked the dog in the head with a booted foot hard enough to shut him up and send him backing away with a frightened yelp. Vinny still had the leash in a fisted hand so the dog couldn’t go far.
The others pressed in. Vinny stood his ground, not moving, just standing there waiting for the inevitable. One by one the older boys threw punches to Vinny’s face, stomach, head, anywhere their fists landed, and when Johnny tried to grab one, to pull him off, they picked him up and threw him several feet down the alley. And they laughed. With each punch they threw, they laughed and taunted. When Vinny’s face was nothing but a sea of blood and swollen flesh, they finally pulled back, and Danny grabbed the leash out of Vinny’s hand. Skillet backed away on his belly.
“You won’t die this time, pussy boy.” He nodded to two of the others and they held Vinny against the wall, not allowing him to move. Then Danny jerked Skillet forward and kicked him until the dog’s eyes rolled back and showed nothing but white.
“Stop it, you’ll kill him!” The words sounded garbled against Vinny’s battered lips, and he thrust forward, bucking, furious, trying to get to his dog, but the Irish held him tight, stopping him from moving. A third boy kneecapped him with an old Billy club from the side, and Johnny could hear the bones break in a sickening crunch, and when Vinny screamed and fell, the other two pulled him back up. And again they laughed.
“Here, doggie, doggie,” Danny said in a sing-song voice, and kneeling down, cut off one of Skillet’s ears. The dog keened a loud, wailing, painful cry, and just looked at Vinny all helpless, confused and in pain, while tears started to roll down Vinny’s cheeks.
“Please,” Vinny begged, “stop. Please.”
“Ain’t that touchin’, all them tears over a stupid ugly dog.” He shook his head, “Poor little doggie.” And he thrust the switchblade into Skillet’s belly and ripped upward until the dog’s guts spilled onto the dirty pavement.
Vinny screamed, horror-stricken, staring at his dog, the one thing he loved most, as though not only his dog’s life had ended, but his too. Tears streamed down his face mixing with blood. Sobs hemorrhaged from his chest.
Something in Johnny snapped, and he rushed forward, his head ramming into Danny’s gut. Danny flew backward and they both landed in a heap. The blade came up, and Johnny didn’t care, didn’t care if he got stabbed or cut, or even killed. This horrible monster of a kid had just killed the only family Vinny had left and Johnny’s brain had turned into a seething nest of fury. Johnny started beating against the bigger kid’s face and when the blade sliced into his arm, he kept on hitting, beating the kid until the other five finally pulled him off and threw him down next to where Vinny lay crumpled and sobbing over his dead dog’s body.
“You’re off lucky this time. Next time maybe we’ll kill you both.”
Vinny looked up at them then, and Johnny watched as the pain in his eyes turned to rage, and then into a grown man’s, a mean man’s, hate.
When the boys were gone, as fast as they’d come, Johnny looked at Vinny and said with tears choking his throat, “I’m sorry, Vin. God, I’m so sorry.”
But Vinny had long since stopped expecting to find any kindness in the world, and he shook his head, silent, but with a hatred so deep it made Johnny afraid. He knew someday those kids were gonna be sorry. There was no doubt in Johnny’s mind that someday, somehow, those kids were going to pay.
When bad things happen to a kid, that kid changes. And that day Vinny changed forever.