War and Watermelon Read online

  “No, because your name starts with W.”

  “You’ll be all right,” I say. “You’ll just have to study a couple of extra hours every night. It’ll be fun.”

  “Sure it will.”

  “You got homework already?”

  “Tons of it,” he says. “We have to read like ten pages in social studies and do a page of math problems.”

  “We just have to cover our books.”

  “We gotta do that, too. It’s insane.”

  We walk past Euclid. Tony could stay with me for another block, but it’s quicker for him if he turns here.

  “How’s the girl situation?” he asks.

  “Where?”

  “In your class.”

  “I don’t know. Regular.”

  “Regular.” He snorts. “Any prospects?”

  “What do you care? What about Janet?”

  “What about her? I ain’t limiting myself.”

  “I’m not either.”

  I’m not saying a word to him about anybody in my classroom. Blaine’s room is right across the hall, so Tony will see the situation. I don’t want his help. He was no help at all with the other one.

  He leaves, so I walk the last block alone. I’m feeling good. I started the day feeling intimidated, but something shifted. I felt like I fit in. There’s power in numbers, I think. And we aren’t little kids anymore.

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3:

  The Turpentiney Rag

  Ryan has a very small black-and-white TV in his room. The screen is about eight inches wide. Frankenstein is on at eleven thirty, and Mom and Dad told him it’s okay to have Skippy and Jenny up here to watch it after work as long as it’s very quiet. “So you don’t disturb your little brother,” Mom said.

  They’ve gone to bed, so they don’t know that I’m in here watching the movie, too.

  We’ve got a huge bottle of birch beer and a bag of potato chips. All four of us sit on Ryan’s bed, backs against the wall, facing the TV set.

  Skippy holds up a small bottle of vodka and twirls it around. “Who wants some?” he asks.

  Ryan and Jenny hold out their cups, and Skippy adds some to their soda.

  During a commercial Jenny asks him if he has to work tomorrow. Skippy got a job last week loading trucks somewhere over in Moonachie. He starts at six a.m.

  “Yeah, but vodka helps me sleep,” he says. “I only need like four hours a night.”

  I quickly calculate how much I get. I usually fall asleep around midnight, so I guess I average six on school nights and maybe seven on the weekends. It never seems like enough, but I definitely like staying up late. They play better music on the radio then, avoiding the really crappy songs most of the time. Plus I like sports talk, which is on late. Lots of nights I just stare out the window at New York City.

  “How’d you like Mrs. Wilkey?” Ryan asks me.

  Skippy answers before I can. “She hated my guts,” he says.

  “You didn’t have her,” Ryan says.

  “I know. But she had my brother, Larry, like four years before I even got to Franklin, and she thought I was him whenever she saw me in the halls. He was there four years earlier. She’d say, ‘Mr. Hankins, don’t let me catch you leaving school early.’”

  “Larry left school early?” Jenny asks.

  “All the time. He’d go down to the Boulevard to buy cigarettes when they were supposed to be switching classes for science or something. Then he’d come back in time for the next class. But that had nothing to do with me. She wasn’t even my teacher.”

  “Maybe she was trying to be funny,” I say. She doesn’t seem senile to me, just old.

  “Who knows?” Skippy replies. “The whole two years I was at that school, she acted the same way. She even called me Larry sometimes.”

  The movie comes back on and we watch it silently until the next commercial. I grab a handful of potato chips.

  Skippy snorts. “That’s what you get for having a brother who’s a troublemaker.”

  Ryan laughs. “Oh yeah. You never got in trouble.”

  “Not hardly,” he says. “Three suspensions in seventh grade but only one in eighth. That’s because I figured out how not to get caught.”

  “Doing what?” I ask.

  “Smoking in the bathroom. Stealing supplies from the storage room. Stuff like that.”

  “What were the suspensions for?”

  “Smoking twice. Once for setting a fire in shop. A very small fire. And it wasn’t my fault.”

  “Whose was it?”

  “Nobody’s really. Just some turpentiney rag near my cigarette.”

  “Well,” I say, “she seems all right to me. Lots of rules, but she doesn’t pay much attention. Not so far, anyway.”

  “She liked me,” Ryan says. “I don’t know why. I always gave her a hard time. You’re like that in seventh grade. There’s nothing more boring than sitting there in class.”

  “You met me!” Jenny says.

  “Yeah, but that didn’t pay off for years,” Ryan says with a laugh. “You thought I was an immature little jerk.”

  “You were!”

  “No kidding.” He holds out his cup and Skippy pours more vodka into it.

  “You turned out okay,” Jenny says. “The first day of class you tried to act really cool, like you were one of the ‘it’ crowd. I saw right through that. You were about as cool as a light-bulb.”

  “And you were the perfect little student,” he says. “You never fooled around in class.”

  “With you guys? All you wanted to do was burp and throw things.”

  “Still do.” Ryan takes a big swig of his drink and burps for emphasis.

  I finish my potato chips and reach for another handful. Skippy gets up, opens the window, and lights a cigarette. “I should quit,” he says.

  “Smoking?” Jenny asks.

  “Heck no.” He takes a big drag. “Work. Who needs it? All they do is hassle you and make you feel like dirt.” He smiles. “I get enough of that at home. Eleven years of schooling—I deserve better than that.”

  “Twelve if you count kindergarten,” Jenny says.

  “That’s right. Twelve years. That’s enough to drive anybody to drinking.” He takes another long drag from his smoke. “Anyway, I am quitting that job soon. No way I’m spending the rest of my life loading trucks. I got a way bigger future than that.”

  THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4:

  Wobbly but on Target

  They don’t waste any time getting the intramural league started. There are six seventh-grade classes, and we’ll play each of the other five twice in touch football. The courtyard outside the school is all blacktop; not a blade of grass in sight.

  We play Mr. Blaine’s class in the opener. The games are at lunchtime, so everybody goes down the block to Chicken Delite or Lovey’s Pizza to grab a quick bite beforehand. Then we hustle to the locker room and change into our gym uniforms: baggy gray shorts and blue T-shirts with numbers in a white block. Mine is XS-107. The XS is for “extra small.”

  Blaine’s class has a lot of the smart kids, and I’m surprised I’m not in it. On the other hand, Tony is, so the criteria can’t be all brains.

  There are twelve guys in our class, and we’re supposed to play eight at a time. But Douglas Richter has a metal plate in his head, so he’s out, and Thomas White says he gets too wheezy.

  Fine by me. More playing time. Magrini assigns himself the quarterback position and tells me to play flanker. I look around. Diane is in the huddle.

  “You cheering?” Magrini asks her.

  “No. Playing.”

  “Who says you can play?”

  “Who says I can’t?”

  Magrini frowns and shrugs. “Okay.” He looks her over. “Play safety.” He gives everybody else assignments on either offense or defense or both. I’ll be an outside linebacker, too.

  Basic rules. Two completions in a row equal a first down, as long as there’s forward progress. A touch has to be with two
hands. Conversions are worth one point. No field goals, since there aren’t any goalposts.

  It isn’t easy to score. The “field” is about sixty yards long but narrow. And we only have about half an hour for the game. Mr. Eckel, an eighth-grade teacher, is the referee. His eyes are severely crossed, so it’s almost impossible to tell if he’s talking to you.

  The game is scoreless when he says we’ve got eight more minutes. Blaine’s class has the ball and has completed four passes in a row, but they’re only a few feet past midfield. Benny Allegretti is the quarterback.

  Tony is glaring at me, but he breaks into a smile when I meet his eyes. He’s my responsibility. He does a simple square-out and nabs the pass, but I stop him immediately.

  “I saw Patty and Janet yesterday,” he says, walking back.

  “So?”

  “Just thought you’d want to know. Patty asked about you.”

  His teammates start making noise about getting back onside, so he jogs to the huddle. When he splits out again, he’s got a bigger smile.

  At the snap, he darts three steps forward, stops and makes a half turn toward the sideline, then breaks long. I stumble with the fake and he gets past me.

  The pass is wobbly but on target, and Tony’s got me by a couple of yards. But Diane steps in front of him as the ball begins to dive, and she picks it off. I meet Tony as he rushes back, blocking him hard. Then I turn and follow Diane, who’s sprinting along the sideline. Allegretti is zeroing in on her.

  “Behind you!” I shout.

  Barely looking back, Diane flips me the ball, and her momentum carries her into Benny, knocking him to the pavement. I catch the ball, hurdle over him, and break into the clear. Nobody gets close, and I race into the end zone.

  The team mobs me. “Way to go, Winslow!” Magrini yells, putting me in a bear hug and lifting me off my feet.

  We line up for the extra point. Nobody gets open, so Magrini scrambles around until Allegretti gets his hands on him.

  “Defense!” we shout. Allegretti panics and throws four long incompletions. We run the ball three times and take our time getting back. Eckel blows his whistle and we jump up and down.

  I take a seat under the fire escape and soak it all in.

  “Nice run,” Diane says, walking over to me.

  “Great interception. Heads-up lateral, too.”

  She pats her chest. “I know what I’m doing,” she says. “I’ve been playing with the boys forever. I have two older brothers.”

  “Lucky for us,” I say.

  She sits next to me. The girls’ uniforms are blue one-piece things with shorts and mid-arm-length sleeves. No numbers. I guess they step into them and button them up in back.

  “Pretty good team,” she says.

  “Yeah. Magrini has a decent arm.”

  “I mean you and me. That was real teamwork on the runback.”

  “Heck of a block,” I say.

  “I suckered him. You should have heard him cursing under his breath.”

  I look around to see who’s in earshot. “He’s a bit of a jerk,” I say.

  “No kidding. He kept asking me out last year.”

  Interesting. So she’s at that level, popularity-wise. “What’d you say?”

  She lifts her eyebrows. “Nothing bad. He wasn’t a pest or anything, so I was sort of flattered. But I wasn’t attracted, either. I let him down easy. He moved on to other things in a hurry.”

  “Like what?”

  She laughs. “You mean who. Debbie Fitzpatrick. Then Donna Egan. I don’t remember who came next.”

  “But you could have been the first.”

  “Quite an honor.”

  The early bell rings, so we’ve got five minutes. We’re still in our gym uniforms. I scramble to my feet and start to offer her a hand, but she’s already up.

  “Race you to the gym,” she says. And she starts running before I can react.

  I catch her halfway there and look over with a big grin as I pass her. She grits her teeth and opens her mouth like she’s putting everything she’s got into it, but I can tell she’s kidding around. I stop three feet from the gym door and let her get there first.

  “See you in class,” she says, still running as she reaches the hallway to the locker rooms.

  “Wait!” I say. I have no idea why I say it, and I have nothing to say when she stops.

  She looks at me like she’s waiting for something important.

  “I went to Woodstock,” I finally say.

  She shrugs and smiles. “Cool.” And then she goes into the locker room.

  I head into the bathroom and run the water until it turns cold, then splash some on my face and wipe it off with the front of my T-shirt. I look at myself in the mirror. Feeling good.

  The game-winning touchdown. And great teamwork.

  I’m starting to like junior high school.

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5:

  Trick Handcuffs

  I’m still awake when Ryan comes home from work, watching The Honeymooners in the family room with Dad. Mom went to bed an hour ago. It’s the one where Ralph and Norton get handcuffed together on the train to the Raccoon convention.

  Ryan is wearing that red headband again.

  “You didn’t work in that thing, did you?” Dad asks.

  “No. That’d get me fired.” Ryan opens the refrigerator and takes out the pitcher of lemonade. “Of course, that would probably be the best move I could make.”

  “Getting fired?”

  “Sure. Who needs that job anyway?”

  Dad gets up from the couch and walks to the kitchen. I stay where I am on the love seat, but I can hear every word they say.

  “Listen, buddy. The guy who needs that job is you.”

  “What for? As if I’m making some great career move by stacking bags of frozen string beans.”

  “Right. You’d be much better off just watching TV all day.”

  “That job rots.”

  “So find a better one. The corporate world is falling all over itself trying to find high school graduates like you.”

  I can hear Ryan pouring the lemonade. There’s a pause, then he sets the glass down with a clink. “I should travel,” he says. “Go see California or something.”

  “In that car you don’t have.”

  “I could hitch. Or take a bus.”

  “With that money you’re not earning.”

  “I am earning money.”

  “Right. By working.”

  I can hear them glaring at each other. “You don’t get it,” Ryan says for about the hundredth time this summer.

  “Listen,” Dad says. “What I get is that it’s very easy to think big when you’re seventeen and you imagine that your future is unlimited. But you’re in total denial, Ryan. September ninth is four days away. The government has a nice birthday present waiting for you. It’s called a draft card.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “There’s been no evidence that you do.”

  “I’m not buying into their fascist system, Dad.”

  Dad’s voice gets loud now, and very intense. “You bought into it the day you were born, buddy. You’re an American. You think I want you going to Vietnam? You think I’m happy that you haven’t done a damn thing to avoid that?”

  “I am doing things, Dad.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like speaking out against this stupid war.”

  “To who? To Brody? To the back-end losers at Shop-Rite? Tell me who, Ryan. Your genius friend Skippy?”

  They’re quiet for half a minute. Ryan mutters, “This is a pointless conversation.” He comes into the family room and flops down on the couch.

  Dad comes, too, but he just stands behind us and stares at the television. Ralph and Norton are now trying to go to sleep in the same bunk, since they can’t get the trick handcuffs undone. Usually we’d be laughing our heads off, even though we’ve seen this episode fifty times. But we all just sit there in silence.


  Ryan slowly pulls the headband off and sets it on the coffee table. I catch his eye and he frowns, then lets out a sigh.

  I switch the station and we catch the end of the sports report; the Mets split a doubleheader with the Phillies. Then they repeat the top news story of the day: The U.S. Army has brought charges against a lieutenant for the massacre of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai last year.

  There’s an episode of The Burns and Allen Show on channel 11, but we just stare at it for five minutes.

  Dad clears his throat. “You know, Ryan, it’s admirable when someone stands up for a cause they truly believe in. Martin Luther King, the Kennedys. But it’s chicken shit when a kid just sits in a safe environment—Mommy making his dinner every night, Daddy paying the bills—and makes a lot of noise without taking any action. At least—at the very least—you need to get yourself into college as soon as possible and give yourself some cover. There’s a real world out there, buddy. Realer than you want to know.”

  Dad heads upstairs. Ryan lies down and stares at the ceiling. Then he shuts his eyes, and I just look at him for a few minutes. The laugh track on the TV show is going strong, but I don’t pay attention. He rubs his eyes.

  Ryan sits up and nods at me. I can tell Dad shook him up. He carefully folds the headband into a square. Then he goes back to the kitchen and returns with another glass of lemonade. He uses the folded-up headband as a coaster.

  “Did you want anything?” he asks softly.

  “No. I’m good.”

  He nods again and chews gently on his lip. “He’s right,” he says eventually. “You do have to take action. . . . And I plan to. Just not the way he wants me to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know yet. More than just speaking out, I guess. Something that’ll make more of a difference.”

  “Oh.”

  I should get to bed; we’ve got another game tomorrow night. But I wouldn’t be sleeping anyway, so I’d rather stay here with Ryan. He’s been there for me. Teaching me how to shoot a basketball or cook a hot dog. Taking me to the movies, even when he goes to the drive-in with Jenny. Giving me things like a Giants jersey he got too big for, or a flashlight when I was four and scared that there was a monster in my closet.

  Now he’s scared. I’m scared, too.