A Hero Grows in Brooklyn

by Jeffrey Rubin

A couple of students throw paper airplanes as soon as Mrs. Vogt’s back is turned. Their classmates laugh. The students sitting in front of Steve are whispering about what TV show they watched the night before. Steve thinks to himself, this is one of those teachers who don’t got no control over her class! I’m screwed!

  Suddenly, a sharp pin is poked in Steve’s butt. Steve leaps up, spins around, and screams, “Who did it?”

  Tom and Ron’s wide smirks quickly fade as they see Steve’s eyes throw flaming daggers at them. Neither answers.

  “If it happens again I’m going at you first,” Steve screams, pointing to Tom, “and then you,” pointing to Ron. “And I don’t care if you can take me. I’m going at you and I’m going to keep going at you. IT’S A STUPID JOKE! IT’S A STUPID JOKE!!”

  All the time that Steve is screaming, Mrs. Vogt is hollering, “What’s going on back there?!”

  Steve spins around and sits back in his seat, the fingers of his left hand are tapping hard on his desk, and the fingers of his right hand are curled in a fist.

  “If you boys think you can do whatever you want in here,” shouts Mrs. Vogt, “you have another thing coming. Another outburst like that and you’re all going down to the principal.”

  As Steve sits there his heart is pounding, his fury building higher and higher. He almost wants Ron or Tom to stick him again. Just let them dare. “I’ll kill ‘em! I’ll kill ‘em! I’ll kill ‘em!”

  Mrs. Vogt continues with her lesson. He tries to listen. “In French, the word ‘aller’ means ‘to go.’ It is a verb. This is how we conjugate it…”

  At the same time he’s focusing on what she’s saying, Steve’s straining to hear if anything is going on behind him. At one point, he hears some movement back there and he spins around ready to fly into Ron and Tom with everything he’s got, but Tom had just dropped his pencil and he’s innocently picking it up.

  Finally, the lunch bell rings. As the class lines up, Steve hears Tom arguing with Ron. “You better tell him you did it,” says Tom.

  “Quiet,” whispers Ron, “da new kid will hear ya.”

  “If you don’t tell him,” Tom replies, “he’s always gonna suspect it might have been me. Tell him! Tell him or I’ll tell him!”

  “Okay already!” Ron cries. He turns to Steve. “Listen, new kid, it was me who stuck ya, okay?”

  “It’s a stupid joke!” Steve yells.

  “It kinda seemed like it would be funny at the time,” says Ron, “and when you leaped up with your eyes bulging out it was kinda…”

  “IT WAS A STUPID JOKE!” Steve hollers.

  “ALL RIGHT!” Ron hollers back.

  “Ron, that’ll be enough out of you!” Mrs. Vogt says. Then, turning to Steve, she says, “Young man, when you get down to the lunchroom, you’re to report to the vice principal, Mr. Lantern. You can’t miss him. He’s the red headed man down there. He’ll assign you a place to sit.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Steve scans the lunchroom. There’s no grownup with red hair over there by the food line. There’s some steam coming out of that big gray pot. I bet it’s some kinda soup. It smells pretty okay, but I ain’t really hungry, my stomach’s not quite right. There’s a guy with red hair by that table. Marone, it’s noisy down here.

  “You’re Mr. Lantern?” Steve asks over the roar of several hundred students trying to be heard.

  “That’s me, young man. You must be the new member of our team.” He glances at a clipboard he’s holding. “Steve Marino?”

  “Yeah. I just moved here.”

  “Welcome,” says Mr. Lantern with a smile and a hand shake. “Follow me.”

  They walk past rows of long rectangular lunch tables until they get to an empty spot right across from Ron DeFelipo.

  Mr. Lantern, pointing to the empty spot, says, “Why don’t you have a seat right here? This is where the students in your homeroom sit.”

  Oh no, Steve says to himself. Well, I better not say anything. Ron will think I’m scared of him. “Here, Mr. Lantern?”

  Mr. Lantern nods.

  “Okay,” says Steve, attempting an air of nonchalance.

  Mr. Lantern smiles and walks away.

  As Steve begins to sit down, this very pretty girl who is sitting just to the right of where he has been assigned leaps up screaming. “I can’t believe this! I can’t believe this!”

  Steve checks her chair and then his for any sharp objects but doesn’t see anything. He looks around for some answer to this crazed girl’s actions.

  “I can’t believe this!” she screams. “I’ve never sensed such power! It’s incredible!”

  Steve sees that she’s talking to him while intensely staring at him.

  “You must have a very old soul,” she continues, “an ancient soul of some mighty leader. I’ve never sensed such power! This is incredible!” Then she touches Steve and her shining, green feline eyes drift up as if leading her to another dimension and she swoons, “Ohhhhhhhh!”

  Steve, shaking his head, sits down, looking bewildered.

  “Don’t mind her,” Ron says. “You’ll get used to Mysterious Jane.”

  “Mysterious Jane?” Steve asks.

  “Yeah. We call Mysterious Jane, Mysterious Jane, because she’s strange,” Ron responds while pointing to his head and making little circles with his finger.”

  Steve looks over the situation. He and Ron are sitting at the end of their lunch table. Directly to Steve’s right sits Mysterious Jane, with her long glimmering black hair, lovely green eyes, strikingly beautiful facial features, and, even as a thirteen year old, her curves are hard to ignore.

  Ron points to a guy on his left. “This here is Jerry Miller, the best athlete in eighth grade.” Jerry is wearing a thin gold chain around his neck with a Star of David hanging from it resting just below his throat.

  Steve straightens out his pointer and middle finger of his right hand and puts them close together while curling his other fingers close to his palm. Then he brings the two straightened fingers up to the right side of his forehead and gives Jerry a respectful salute.

  Jerry returns the gesture with a nod and then begins to check Steve out, his height, his broad shoulders, the quickness of his eyes, and finds himself taking a deep gulp.

  “You see those kids over there?” says Ron to Steve, referring to the table two feet away. “They’re the SP kids, the biggest wimps at school.”

  We had SP students in my last school, Steve thinks to himself. SP means special progress. That’s for extra smart kids.

  At the SP table is a blond haired, blue eyed kid who, upon hearing Ron calling SP kids wimps, turns to Ron and calls him a pussy.

  “Come on, you wimp!” Ron hollers leaping up. “Right here!!”

  “Fine with me pussy,” the blond kid hollers back while also leaping up. He’s nearly a foot shorter than Ron.

  Before a single punch can be thrown, Mr. Lantern comes racing over, hollering, “Both of you guys, you either sit down and lower your voices or we go upstairs to my office and call your parents.”

  Ron and the other guy continue glaring at each other, but slowly sit down.

  When Mr. Lantern walks away, Ron says to Steve, “Ya see what I mean about SP kids? They’re the biggest wimps around.”

  Just as the SP kid is about to return the insult, Steve says, “Personally, I like some of the kids that got school smarts. I like to have a couple of them as my friends ‘cause I’m not all that great with school stuff, capeesh? The way I got it figured, their smarts, at times, well ya put their smarts together with mine and ya really got something. And, say someday ya might need a lawyer. Ya don’t want ta have ta come ta somebody like me for somethin’ like dat, now do ya?” Steve pauses here grinning broadly.

  Many of the kids around him break out laughing.

  “In my last school,” Steve continues, “a couple of SP kids helped me out a few times
.”

  “I don’t need no help from any wimpy SP kids,” says Ron.

  “We wouldn’t give you any,” the blond kid bitterly responds.

  “The cool thing about SP kids,” says Steve, “is that because they’re good with school stuff, well that means they usually know that they’re good in at least something. Sometimes they have enough confidence so I can let on with what I’m good at without worrying that they’re gonna feel like I’m putting them down.”

  “Ya wanna be friends with those jerks, ga’ head,” says Ron.

  “I’m not saying you have to be a school wizard to be my friend,” says Steve. “I like to know kids with different kinds of talents.”

  “So you’re a new kid here,” says another kid sitting at the SP table.

  “Yeah. Today’s my first day.”

  “Well, I’m Cliff, Cliff Schweitzer, and this blond guy sitting across from me who is always arguing with Ron; well the guys call him Brainy George.”

  During these introductions, Ron curls his eyes upward.

  “Your real name ‘Brainy George’?” Steve asks.

  “Na. George Beck.”

  Steve looks him over. His fine blond hair is sloppily combed mostly to the right, but some haphazardly falls over to the left. Thick black-rimmed glasses magnify his pale blue eyes.

  Steve turns to look at Cliff. Even though he’s in the SP program like George, Cliff hardly looks like an intellectual. Dark and athletic, Cliff is quite a contrast to his buddy, Brainy George.

  “Just because these guys are in the SP program, you don’t like them, Ron?” Steve asks.

  “Aaa, they’re a bunch of loser Jews,” Ron responds.

  “What did he say?!” asks a kid who is sitting to Cliff’s left.

  “Shut up Abramowitz!” Ron hollers.

  “I’m a Protestant,” says Brainy George, his foot tapping wildly.

  “I don’t like that kind of talk,” hollers a girl sitting next to Mysterious Jane.

  “Me neither!” hollers Jerry Miller, his gold star of David glimmering reddish blue, as if it’s reflecting an igniting flame.

  “I’m Joey Pirrello,” says a kid who’s sitting a little further down the SP table. “I’m Italian and Catholic.”

  An Asian girl, with a twinkle in her eyes, is sitting across from Joey, and a smile is playing about her lips. After a few seconds, she says, “I’m not Jewish either,” and she lets out a high-pitched laugh that she muffles with her two hands covering her mouth.

  Mr. Lantern points to Steve’s section of the lunchroom.

  “That means it’s time for us to get in the lunch line,” says Mysterious Jane to Steve touching his arm and smiling into his eyes.

  As Steve begins to get up, he feels an intense anxiety pang. Great, he says to himself. I just managed to make this Ron guy, one of the biggest guys in my new school, hate my guts. And now I gotta get on this lousy lunch line and use this damn free lunch pass me and Pete got at the welfare agency.

  * * * *

  At about the same time Steve stands up to get in the lunch line, his little brother, Pete, back in his new elementary school, has picked out what he wants for lunch. He shows the cashier his free lunch pass. Then, the kid behind him laughs and begins to taunt Pete saying, “Get a load of dis, guys, the new kid got a free lunch pass. Whatza matter, yer parents can’t afford ta buy ya lunch?” Then the kid laughs again.

  Pete turns around and takes his lunch tray filled with a bowl of hot, gloppy chicken soup, a sandwich, and a carton of milk, and dumps it on the guy. Then Pete jumps on him, wrestles him to the ground, and starts pounding until a pair of lunchroom aides pull him away. Both students are dragged down to the principal’s office.

  “Alright, Glen, what do you have to say for yourself?!” the principle hollers at the guy Pete just roughed up.

  “I didn’t do nuttin! He just jumped on me.”

  “Five students reported that you were teasing him about his lunch pass!”

  “That ain’t no reason ta jump on me. My big brudduh’s gonna get him good.”

  “I got a big brudduh too!” Pete replies.

  “That’s enough out of both of you boys!” the principal yells. “Now, Pete, I’m not saying Glen was right for what he did, he was wrong and he’s going to be punished for it. But you’re going to get teased at school about a lot of things. Every boy gets teased in every school. You’re going to have to learn to figure out some other way to handle it than fighting.

  “As punishment, both of you boys are going to sit silently in my outer office for an hour. If I hear a peep out of either one of you, we’ll make it two hours, and then three. If you want to go home today after school you better keep your mouths shut and think about what you’re going to tell your parents. I’m going to call them now and let them know what happened!”

  * * * *

  Back at Cunningham Junior High, Steve gets in his lunch line. The aroma of chicken soup, peanut butter sandwiches, and fried fish cakes drifts into his nostrils. He picks out a peanut butter sandwich, a container of milk, and some ice cream. Then he shows the cashier his free lunch pass. Ron DeFelipo, standing right behind Steve, starts to laugh and says to Mysterious Jane, “Look at this! This is the guy with all the power! He can’t even afford to buy himself lunch! What a joke!”

  When Steve hears this, it feels like a knife has been stuck in his gut. His face becomes hot, he pleads with himself not to have tears well up in his eyes, and he looks down avoiding everyone’s eyes.

  Jane looks at Steve, then turns to Ron, shoves him, and says, “You have no brains.”

  “Don’t ya get it?” says Ron smirking uncontrollably. “He’s got all this power and…”

  “Lay off. It’s hard enough,” says Brainy George, who’s standing nearby.

  When Steve gets back to his table, his appetite is gone. He picks at his food for a while, thinking he’s not going to be eating again until past six. But he has a sour feeling in the pit of his stomach. After a few moments he accepts that he isn’t going to get any food down right now so he pushes his tray away and begins to listen to George and Ron antagonize each other. Back and forth…

  “You’re a pussy.”

  “Maggot!”

  “You’re a pussy. I can take you with both hands tied behind my back.”

  “You’re full of it!”

  “YOU’RE FULL OF IT!”

  At one point, Ron turns to Steve and says, “Can you believe this? This ugly midget George thinks he can take me. Do you believe this?”

  “Personally, I don’t care who can take who,” says Steve. “You guys remind me…” Steve’s voice suddenly trails off. He looks into George’s eyes and then Ron’s. Softly, Steve continues. “You guys remind me of my father.”

  Now Cliff, who up to this point has been quietly reading the Daily News sports page while eating, decides to put in his two cents. “If it’s important to you two to be good fighters, Ron, George, why don’t you join a wrestling or karate club? Or learn to box. There’s a boxing club not too far from here where the former world heavyweight champ, Floyd Patterson, trained when he was growing up. Join one of those things. You’ll learn that, compared to people who train regularly, both of your skills are awful. With training you can both develop them and test them respectfully against other people who are also skilled.”

  “I don’t need no training,” says Ron. “I can take anyone around here.”

  “Anyone?” Jerry Miller asks.

  “Well, maybe not you, Jerry,” Ron comes back, “but pretty much anyone.”

  “Look,” says Cliff, “all I’m trying to say is, no matter how good you get at fighting, it’s not gonna prove who’s a man and who isn’t. Patterson was the champ. Sonny Liston beat him and now he’s the best fighter around. He can take all of us. Does that mean he’s the only man around and the rest of us are wimps? And what happens when someone finally takes Liston? That’s what
happens sooner or later to all great fighters. Does that mean that one day Liston’s a man and the day he loses suddenly he becomes a wimp?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” mutters Ron, but he then quiets down for a while.

  Steve once again begins to wrestle with his food and this time he gets some of it down, though it tastes like sawdust.

  CHAPTER 14

  After lunch, Steve has English class with Mrs. Kreetch, a no nonsense teacher who is finishing up a unit on the novel Johnny Tremain.

  My class in Seth Low was reading Johnny Tremain also, Steve thinks to himself. At least I won’t be completely lost in this class.

  “Okay, class, what have we learned about the American Revolutionary War from reading this novel?” Mrs. Kreetch wants to know.

  A few hands go up.

  “Yes, Miss Flax.”

  “We learned that the Confederates were really bad.”

  “You’re thinking of the Civil War,” Mrs. Kreetch replies. This novel is about the Revolutionary War.”

  A few kids giggle.

  “Now that’ll be enough of that!” Mrs. Kreetch screeches.

  * * * *

  In gym, basketball is the name of the lesson and Steve gets to see Jerry Miller in action for the first time. The P.E. teacher, not knowing Steve’s athletic ability, puts him on the same team as Jerry. He soon discovers his mistake as Steve and Jerry put on a dazzling display of talent. Despite their efforts to not humiliate the group of guys they are up against, their team ends up winning with little effort, 11 to 3. Sides are rearranged, this time Steve and Jerry are placed on different teams.

  Now Jerry dashes for the hoop, trying to pass Steve who is covering him. Steve turns his shoulder and gets his legs going in overdrive. Jerry discovers Steve is right in front of him as he goes up for a layup. His only chance at this point is to try to out jump Steve and he leaps up with everything he has, but so does Steve and Steve manages to get his fingertips to brush aside the ball just as Jerry releases it. The ball misses the rim and a guy on Steve’s team gets the rebound.

  With Steve covering Jerry so closely, other players on both teams get to show more of what they can do and a much better game gets played out.

  “Hey, Jerry,” says Steve as they change in the locker room, “Ron was right, you’re a pretty decent athlete.”