“You’re…” I began.
She cocked her head. “What?”
“You’re, we’re, wait, you’re not…?” I stammered.
She smiled. “What?”
“You’re not … related to me, are you?” I asked.
She giggled softly. “Yes, I’m related to you!”
She told me who she was; the familiar last name made my blood run cold.
“Then we can’t,” I said.
“Sure we can,” she countered. She tried to kiss me again, but I spun out of her grip.
“But, we’re cousins!”
“So what?” She grinned. “That’s why God gave us cousins … to learn how to kiss.”
“No it’s not!” I figured she was kidding.
I started backing away from her. “I, uh, I better get back to the game.”
She shrugged. “Okay, Ralph. It’s your funeral.”
Whatever that meant.
“This never happened,” I hastened to add.
She smiled. “But don’t you kind’ve wish it did?”
“No!” I said, louder than I intended.
I sprinted back to the Capture the Flag game while her words kept jumbling around in my head. But don’t you kind’ve wish it did? Maybe she was right—but no, she couldn’t be right. After all, she was my first cousin. Still … I’d felt a thrill like I’d never before experienced in that moment … even if it ended before anything really happened.
Sky Hook and a Bacon-Stretcher
I SAT AT the kitchen table watching Tommy try to memorize the Boy Scout law. Dad sat across from me, drinking coffee and reading the Boston Globe.
“Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind,” Tommy began. Then he stopped and looked up helplessly. “I’m stuck, Ralphie. What’s the next one?”
“Obedient.” I couldn’t resist adding, “No wonder you couldn’t remember that one.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Because you never obey anyone,” I shot back.
“Yes I do!” Tommy’s eyes flared, but then his expression turned sly. “Anyway, I’m going to be a Boy Scout, just like you and Jimmy. Dad already bought me the uniform, right, Dad?”
Dad nodded.
“Being a Boy Scout is more than just wearing the uniform,” I reminded Tommy. “A lot more.”
My father was reading the newspaper. I didn’t think he’d been listening to this conversation, but he now caught my eye and motioned me to follow him. We went through the back door and onto the porch.
“What did I do?”
“You were a little hard on Tommy.”
“Yeah, but he—”
“Deserves to have a clean slate,” Dad said, yanking my sentence in a different direction than I had intended. “He shouldn’t feel like he’s trouble before he’s even gone to his first Boy Scout meeting.”
“I guess,” I said reluctantly.
“Anyway, I’m trying to look on the bright side. Maybe Boy Scouts will be good for him.”
“But he’s my brother,” I pointed out. “If he starts acting up, I’ll get blamed too.”
Dad shook his head. “You take care of yourself. You’re not responsible for what your brother does.”
That was the first time I’d heard that one. I was supposed to be Mr. Responsibility, a role that had two parts. I had a responsibility to set a good example, sure, but I also felt responsible for how my siblings acted.
“Just give him a chance,” Dad concluded. “I seriously believe Tommy’s ready for the Boy Scouts.”
Maybe, I thought. But are the Boy Scouts ready for him?
Ready or not, Troop 88 accepted Tommy as one of its members. Mom sewed two cloth 8 patches onto the shoulder of his uniform, just as she had for Jimmy and me. Mr. Briggs asked if I wanted him to be in my patrol, which would put him under my leadership.
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather not have him,” I said.
Mr. Briggs smiled. “I understand.”
Tommy got assigned to Andy Hunt’s patrol. He had waited a long time, and he was thrilled to be in the Scouts—finally!
* * *
On Tommy’s first camping trip things got off to a rocky start, though it wasn’t all his fault. We set up our camp not far from another troop. Mike Simon, our assistant scoutmaster, immediately sent Tommy on a mission to the other troop to borrow a few things, necessary items Mr. Simon had forgotten. Tommy hurried off, eager to help. After a half hour I noticed he hadn’t returned, so I went to check in on him. He looked tired when I found him.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Mr. Simon said I have to get some stuff from the other troop,” he explained.
“What kind of stuff?”
“A sky hook and a bacon-stretcher,” Tommy explained. “Mr. Simon said we’ll need that in the morning, especially the bacon-stretcher. He said if you don’t use one, the bacon will get all scrunched up. They keep sending me to talk to different patrol leaders, but nobody has one. I have to ask one more guy.”
I understood. There was a tradition of playing tricks on brand-new Boy Scouts. It was harmless in a way, but still …
“Are you really that gullible?” I asked. “There’s no such thing as a bacon-stretcher! Or a sky hook!”
He looked flabbergasted. “There’s not?”
“No!” I shook my head. “Have you ever seen Mom use a bacon-stretcher when she cooks bacon? Do you really think there’s a hook that hangs from the sky? What would it hang from?”
“No, but…” Tommy looked confused. “So those guys were all lying?”
“They were playing a practical joke on you,” I explained. “They did the same thing to me when I first joined the Scouts. C’mon, let’s go back.”
Early next morning we took a short hike to a small lake. We returned to the campground just as a light rain began to fall. Mr. Briggs gathered our whole troop inside a lean-to where we could eat lunch. He brought the patrol leaders outside to plan the rest of the afternoon.
That’s when it happened.
“WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!” someone cried.
“What’s going on?” Mr. Briggs demanded.
“Rocks!” one boy exclaimed.
“Yeah, someone’s throwing rocks at the lean-to!” another boy yelled breathlessly. “Big ones!”
Scouts began pouring out of the lean-to. I was shocked to see that several kids had army knives in their hands.
“STOP RIGHT THERE!” Mr. Briggs yelled.
The troop froze.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mr. Briggs demanded.
“We’re going to find whoever’s throwing rocks—”
“Not like that you’re not!” Mr. Briggs snapped. “Running around with army knives is a great way to hurt someone. Turn around and put that stuff away. That’s an order!”
The kids slunk back inside. Common suspicion led Jimmy, Andy, and me to go check on Tommy. We found him in the lean-to sprawled out on an old mattress with other kids his age.
“What’s all the fuss?” he calmly asked.
“Somebody threw some rocks at the lean-to,” I told him. “Nothing to worry about.”
Things settled down. Mr. Briggs asked the patrol leaders to organize a map-reading activity. He passed around maps and handed out compasses.
BOOM! Rumble, tumble, BOOM! Ba-da BOOM!
“What the—” Steve Fishman sputtered.
“WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!” kids yelled for the second time.
“THEY’RE ATTACKING US AGAIN!”
“SOMEONE’S WHIPPING ROCKS AT OUR LEAN-TO!”
I marched over to Tommy.
“What were you doing just now?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” I asked skeptically. “Where were you when the rocks hit?”
“Lying on this mattress,” he told me. “But I think maybe I saw the kids who threw the rocks!”
“Yeah? What did they look like?”
“I don’t kno
w. They looked older. Maybe high school kids.”
He looked at me, all wide-eyed and innocent, but I still wasn’t convinced. I wondered if Tommy could possibly have stepped outside, lobbed some large rocks onto the lean-to without being noticed, and then ducked back inside a split second before they struck the roof.
Could he? Yes.
Would he? Oh, yes.
Jimmy approached me. “Where was Tommy when the rocks hit?”
“He says he was lying on the mattress,” I replied.
Jimmy flashed a knowing smile. “Yeah, lying all right.”
We glanced over at Tommy. By the peaceful way he was sitting, you would have thought he was the Buddha or Jesus Christ. I remembered Dad’s words: Just give him a chance. I wanted to, but I got nervous when Tommy suddenly started acting like an angel. Could I prove that my brother was involved in the rock-throwing incident? No. But I had learned a long time ago that you could never put anything past Tommy—ever. I made a mental note to keep close tabs on him during the rest of the campout.
The Marshfield Fair
MARSHFIELD HELD A big Lobster Festival every summer, but it was the Marshfield Fair that put our town on the map. This huge, sprawling, old-fashioned, over-the-top country fair featured giant pumpkin contests, pie bake-offs, 4H booths with blue-ribbon pigs, carnival games, the whole shebang. The Marshfield Fair drew people from all over the South Shore, and even as far as Boston.
In mid-July the sight of huge tents being erected on the Marshfield fairgrounds got my blood pumping. I immediately started pestering my parents for extra jobs I could do, anything to earn money for the fair.
Finally the big day arrived. Mom dropped off Jimmy and me at ten in the morning.
“You’ve got three dollars so spend wisely,” she said. “You need to make it last all day. I’ll pick you guys up right here at four o’clock.”
Back then it was common to be left at the fair all day without an adult.
“But we want to stay for the fireworks!” I told her. “Andy says we can get a ride home with him.”
“Yeah, please, Mom?” Jimmy begged.
“Oh, all right.” Sighing, she reached into her purse and gave us each another dollar. “You’ll need to buy something for supper.”
I leaned over and gave her a quick kiss.
“You’re the best, Mom!”
“You bet I am.”
Jimmy found his friend Ricky Topham waiting for him inside the main gate. I quickly located my friends: Andy, Steve, Freddy, and Jim Dean. The five of us made a beeline for the mouthwatering food stalls: fried dough, corn dogs, French fries, and not one but two cotton candy machines. People were already lined up to buy it. I watched, mesmerized, as the woman skillfully twirled a white paper cone, gathering the silken blue/white/pink strands.
“Looks like a little cloud of sugar,” I remarked.
Steve glanced at me quizzically. “Why don’t you write a poem about it?”
“Maybe I will,” I told him.
“You should try to get the merit badge for writing poetry,” Jim Dean suggested. Then he made a big show of slapping his forehead. “Oh, I forgot, they DON’T HAVE A MERIT BADGE FOR POETRY!”
True: The Boy Scouts had a merit badge for pottery, even basket weaving, but not poetry. I guess the Boy Scout powers-that-be didn’t think poetry “merited” its own badge. The journalism badge was the closest you could get, but that one had nothing to do with poetry.
“I can’t hear you,” I said, eyes closed, letting the fresh strands of cotton candy dissolve in my mouth.
Nobody wants to be teased, so in general I found it wise to hide my interest in writing from my friends. But the Marshfield Fair truly was a feast for a young writer, offering all kinds of inspiration. Like when I went on the Ferris wheel, it felt like there was a little wheel of fear, a whirring gyroscope of terror, spinning in my stomach. The first thing I did when I got home that night was to go up to my bedroom, take out my notebook, and write down that sentence. It felt like a seed for a story or a poem I could write later.
Poetry
IN THE FALL I was pleased when Mrs. Larsen devoted two whole weeks to writing poetry. That had never happened before. The first poem I wrote was about the fireworks display on the last night of the Marshfield Fair.
4TH OF JULY
Way high up
in dark summer skies
fiery flowers
bloom
BOOM
and die.
I liked writing poems. For one thing, a poem could be quite short: My Fourth of July poem contained just thirteen words! A poem only had to capture one thought or feeling.
I wrote other poems in school, including one about an ant and another about a bumblebee. When Mrs. Larsen passed back our poems I noticed that other kids had grades and comments on their papers, but there was nothing written on my bumblebee poem. After school I went up to her desk.
“You didn’t write anything,” I said.
“No, I didn’t.”
“What do you think?” I blurted. “I mean, is it any good?”
“It’s fine.” She gave me a long, thoughtful look. “But I think you could do better.”
“Better? How?”
“I could be wrong,” Mrs. Larsen said, speaking slowly, “but when I read this poem, I got the feeling that you were mostly concentrating on the rhyme.”
“I, ah, I don’t know. Maybe.”
“And on forming your letters correctly,” she added.
It was true—every teacher I ever had complained about my sloppy penmanship. Mrs. Larsen leaned forward and smiled.
“Don’t worry so much about making your poems rhyme, Ralph. And don’t worry about your penmanship; I don’t give a hoot about that.”
I blinked. “You don’t?”
“No, I don’t. Just write what you feel. See if you can make your words fly.”
For a long time, I thought about her words. Her advice made sense, but I didn’t know how to apply it, or maybe I needed time to grow into it.
A week later Dexter Harris took us on another expedition to the marsh to dig for clams. Our appearance at the clam flat must have spooked a large blue heron because as soon as we arrived, it squawked and took off. I watched as it stayed low over the water, pumping those big wings, struggling to gain altitude. My poetry sort of felt like that—flapping its wings with all its might, but having trouble taking off.
November 22, 1963
MR. NAGLE WAS MY fifth-grade teacher. There were hardly any male teachers at South River Elementary School, so I felt lucky to have him, not that my other teachers had been so bad.
The school year got off to a smooth start. In October I went on two epic Boy Scout camping trips. We had beautiful fall weather, but by late November the weather turned cold. One Friday morning I went to school with a special feeling, like I had extra money in my wallet. That’s because my buddies and I had planned a huge football game—tackle, of course—at Steve Fishman’s house after school. I couldn’t wait for the game to begin.
Then something happened.
It was just before lunch. Mr. Nagle abruptly stood up and rapped a piece of chalk against the blackboard to get our attention.
“You’re all going home,” he announced. “Early dismissal.”
Stunned silence.
“Wh-why?” Janet Anderson finally asked.
I’d never seen Mr. Nagle’s face look so solemn. “You’ll find out later.”
“But—”
“No talking,” he barked. “Gather your things. I’ll lead you out to the buses.”
Kids jumped up and descended on the coat closet, causing several minor collisions. I got caught in a confused tangle of lunch boxes, boots, jackets, and scarfs. I managed to locate my dark brown coat and grab it, but then I felt someone pulling it in the opposite direction.
“Hey!” It was Bobby Dane. “That’s mine!”
We had a brief tug-of-war until I realized that Bobby was right. I’d taken th
e wrong coat.
“Sorry.” I looked around until I finally found the right one.
We filed outside. All the grown-ups—teachers, bus drivers, parent volunteers—looked tense. Mr. Tobin, our principal, had his arms crossed stiffly, a stony expression on his face. He squinted fiercely, as if a great wind was blowing, though in fact the air felt eerily still.
When I got onto my bus I looked around for my brothers and sister, by habit. Jimmy, Lainie, and Tommy had already found seats. I watched Bobby, who was in first grade, trudge up the steps with a perplexed look on his face. Our driver, Ruben Gonsalves, shut the door, and the bus lurched forward.
“What the heck’s going on?” Steve muttered.
“It’s the president,” Lainie said breathlessly from across the aisle. “Somebody shot him.”
Steve and I stared at each other. “Shot the president? Who?”
“I don’t know. Some guy.”
“But he wasn’t hurt too bad,” added Sharon Oxner, Lainie’s best friend. “The bullet just hit his pinkie finger.”
I didn’t argue with her, though that didn’t make sense. Would they send all the students home from school because the president hurt his pinkie finger?
Mom was waiting at the bus stop. Other mothers—Mrs. Fishman, Mrs. Hunt—had gathered there too, which was highly unusual. We surrounded Mom, peppering her with questions.
“What’s going on?” Jimmy demanded. “Why did they send us home early?”
“President Kennedy got shot,” Mom said in her softest voice. “It happened in Dallas, Texas.”
“But it was just his pinkie finger, right?” Sharon asked.
Mom shook her head. “It’s worse than that, much worse. He got shot in the head.”
Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Steve spin away from his mother in disbelief.
“What?” he asked her. “What?”
“Is he…?” Lainie murmured. “Is he going to be all right?”
“No,” Mom said. Her lower lip trembled. “The president is dead.”
“Really?”
Mom nodded.
Lainie gasped. Jimmy swore softly.
“Mom, Jimmy said a bad word!”
But Mom had already started walking away, and there was nothing to do but follow her. When we entered our house I could hear the TV in the living room. It was a newscaster, Walter Cronkite, explaining in a grave voice that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. It was a word I’d never heard before. Mom didn’t watch TV during the day, but today she sat down on the couch, eyes glued to the screen.
The In-Betweener Page 5
