A Hero Grows in Brooklyn

by Jeffrey Rubin

  “I use the money,” Jerry says, “to play the tunes they got here while I wait. In my house, my parents only listen to classical music.”

  Steve looks into the jukebox and sees its got some great songs—“Louie Louie,” by the Kingsmen; “Dominique,” by The Singing Nun; “If I had a Hammer,” by Trini Lopez; “Be my Baby,” by The Ronettes; “Blame it on the Bossa Nova,” by Eydie Gorme; “Blowin’ in the Wind,” by Peter, Paul and Mary; and dozens more. As he taps to the song, “It’s My Party,” with his left hand, Steve dips into his pocket with his right to get out the fifty cents he hadn’t expected to lay out. Oh well, he says to himself with a smile as he begins to hand the money over to Jerry.

  Jerry takes Steve over to the side. “Listen, Steve, you don’t owe me nothing. I made the fifty cent deal with Ron and Tom.”

  “Well, shouldn’t I chip in something?” asks Steve.

  “I got plenty from Ron and Tom. I notice you had a free lunch pass at school. My father was out of work for over a year when I was ten.”

  Steve looks into Jerry’s eyes, then down to the green carpeted floor, and then back into his eyes. After a few seconds, he says softly, “Thanks, Jerry.”

  * * * *

  After their number is called, the boys go over to the counter, rent bowling shoes, and are assigned an alley.

  Steve has never bowled before, and as he waits his turn, he watches carefully every movement of the three guys he’s with who are obviously experienced bowlers. After Ron rolls one down the alley, Steve closes his eyes, and in his mind, goes through each step. He’s not sure just when to begin to swing the ball back, so he opens his eyes and watches Tom step to the line.

  I think I have it now, Steve says to himself, and he closes his eyes to go through the steps again.

  “Whatcha sitting there with your eyes closed for?” asks Ron. “Ya look like a nut case. Grab a ball and take some practice before we get started.”

  “I was just trying something that this guy taught me in some self defense classes I took the last few summers,” says Steve. Not wanting to hold the other guys up, he grabs a ball that fits his fingers, walks behind the line, turns to Ron, Jerry, and Tom, and says, “I’ve never bowled before.”

  “Well, now’s your chance,” says Ron.

  Steve turns to face the pins. He takes a deep breath and slowly, with his cheeks ballooning, blows it out. He begins his approach to the pins, his right hand with the bowling ball in it, arches backwards, and then, while aiming at the head pin, Steve thrusts the ball forward. It rumbles along at an amazingly high speed, but as it gets halfway down the alley it starts to curve sharply to the left, and about five feet before reaching the pins, it rolls into the gutter.

  Steve turns to the guys he’s with and sees Jerry and Tom trying to hold back their laughter but not doing a great job of it.

  Ron looks solemn. “Go ahead,” he says. “Try again, and aim a bit more to the right.”

  Steve waits a couple of seconds for his ball to return, picks it up, returns to the line, and again rolls one down the alley, aiming this one more to the right. This time, his ball curves to the right and it doesn’t get halfway down the alley before it’s in the gutter.

  “I guess Steve’s not so great in everything,” whispers Tom to Jerry with a smile.

  “I don’t think I’m gonna be able to do this,” says Steve, his forehead all crinkled.

  “You’re turning your wrist too much,” says Ron. “After you practice awhile you might want to experiment with a little curve. For now, try keeping your wrist straight. This way,” and Ron gets up and shows Steve that as he releases the ball his fingers proceed to go straight up so, as he finishes his follow through, they are pointing straight up toward the ceiling with his palm facing right at his face. “Ya see what I’m doing?”

  “Yeah,” says Steve, and he copies Ron’s movements without the ball.

  “That’s it,” says Ron. “Now give that a try.”

  As Steve once again picks up a ball, he says to himself, Ron’s being awfully nice to me. He’s usually the first guy to put someone down. I wonder what’s up.

  Steve approaches the line, composes himself, and begins his approach. As he releases the ball, he focuses on not turning his wrist, and on his follow through. The ball races down the lane, and this time it reaches all the way to the pins and knocks five of them down. Steve breathes a sigh of relief.

  “All right!” says Ron. “Good! Now we’ll start a game and we won’t play teams or nuttin’. We’ll all just keep our own scores and get a little practice.”

  * * * *

  By the end of the first game, Steve is starting to get the hang of this new sport. Not that he’s anywhere as good as the other guys, but he’s starting to lighten up and have some fun.

  “Ready for a second game?” asks Jerry.

  “You and Tom start without me and Steve for a few minutes,” says Ron. “Steve, come over here for a second. I want to show you something.” Ron takes Steve down about seven or eight lanes from where they were bowling. “You see those girls over there?”

  “The one with the yellow sweatshirt and the one with the black sweatshirt?” Steve asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “I see them, Ron. What about them?”

  “Well, I got a thing for the one in the yellow sweatshirt. I see her on Saturday nights sometimes and I try to talk with her but I turn into a bubble and pop,” and Ron, as he’s saying this, goes through his hand and arm movements. “Steve, you’re real smooth with the girls. You think you can get their numbers and we could double date? Her friend is real cute.”

  “Yeah, she is,” says Steve as he looks over the situation. Both girls have braces on their teeth. The girl Ron likes, the one in a yellow sweatshirt, is waiting her turn, sitting at a seat next to a man and woman—probably one of the girls’ parents. The girl in the black sweatshirt is going into her stride, reaching back, and flinging the ball down the lane. BOOM! Seven pins go crashing down. As she turns back toward the group she is with, Steve sees she has a nice oval face, short black hair, full black eyebrows, and a sweet laugh.

  “Come on, Steve,” Ron urges, “you can do it. Go get their numbers.”

  Steve, stretching his neck, looks over toward their scoring sheet that sits on a table in front of the girls. “They have three frames to go before the end of their game, Ron. Let’s wait till their game is over.”

  “Whatever ya say.”

  Steve sits down at a snack table pretty close to the girls.

  “You’re really gonna do something?” says Ron excitedly, sitting down beside Steve.

  “Maybe,” Steve responds.

  Ron takes out a pack of chewing gum. “Here Steve, ya want a piece?”

  “Na. Listen Ron, tell me something. The first day I met you, when we were down in the lunchroom, you started to say some stuff about Jewish people, remember, and then I discover the next day you’re friends with Jerry Miller. He’s Jewish…”

  “Jerry, Tom, and me, we’ve been best friends ever since I can remember.”

  “Your best friends with Jerry, and with him sitting right beside you, ya say that stuff about Jews.”

  “I was just trying to piss Brainy George off,” Ron responds as he places a stick of gum in his mouth.

  “George ain’t even Jewish.”

  “Well I didn’t know that.”

  “But you knew Jerry, who was sitting right beside you is Jewish,” says Steve who is beginning to rub his temples.

  “Don’t you ever piss off your friends?” Ron asks smiling.

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “Jerry’s all right. Look. He’s over there bowling, having a good time, all in one piece. After I said what I said about Jews, after lunch, he said I was a stupid idiot. I said I didn’t mean anything about it and that was it.”

  As Ron finishes this statement, he notices the girl he likes, the one in the yell
ow sweatshirt, has just rolled a bowling ball that looks like it has some real potential. It’s heading toward the center pin. Everyone she’s with turns silent and fixes their attention to the path of this rolling sphere. As it crashes into the left pocket, all the pins tumble down but the one all the way to the left, which begins to rock back and forth.

  “Nuts!” yells the girl in the yellow sweatshirt as she grabs a hold of her ponytail. She begins to turn away when, at the corner of her eye she notices the rocking pin suddenly plops down. “Yes!” she cries as she leaps up throwing her arms into the air.

  Her friend and the two adults she’s with rush over to her.

  “Great shot, Arlene!”

  “Way to go, Arlene!”

  Ron smiles.

  “She’s pretty good,” says Steve and then he grumbles to himself that he hasn’t gotten a strike all night.

  “That was a nice shot, Arlene,” Ron calls out loud enough so the girl notices. She turns and gives him a smile.

  After a few more minutes, the girls finish up their game.

  Steve takes out a comb from his back pocket, slides its teeth through his golden highlighted brown hair, returns the comb to his pocket, and walks over to the two girls, his heart racing. First, he nods to the two adults that the girls are with, looks up into their eyes and smiles. Then he turns to the girls. “Me and my friend Ron over there,” says Steve as he’s pointing to Ron, “well we were hoping you’d join us for a couple of minutes.”

  “Who’s this guy?” the man demands to know. Steve turns to him and notices he is large, stout, and looking rather stern.

  “I’m Steve Marino,” says Steve looking squarely into the man’s eyes and extending his hand out.

  The man looks at Steve’s hand, hesitates, shrugs his shoulders, and finally reaches out, clasps his large hand around Steve’s. As he does so, he says: “I’m Arlene’s dad, Frank Murgola.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Murgola. And you must be Mrs. Murgola,” says Steve turning and putting out his hand to the thin, pleasant woman in the group.

  “Yes,” she says smiling. Warmly, she takes Steve’s hand.

  “Me and my friend, Ron DeFelipo,” says Steve, “we’re just sitting right over there, and we’d like to talk to your daughter and her friend just for a couple of minutes. I know you’re having fun bowling. We won’t hold you up for more than a couple of minutes, if you don’t mind?”

  Mrs. Murgola smiles, and looks over toward her husband.

  “If that’s what they want to do, it’s okay by me,” says Mr. Murgola. “As long as it’s just a few minutes. I’ll go get some drinks and then we’ll be ready for another game.”

  “Thank you,” says Steve, and he leads the girls over to Ron by the snack table. “I guess,” says Steve to Ron, “that this girl over here with the yellow sweatshirt is Arlene Murgola. That color looks great on you.” Then Steve turns to the other girl. “I didn’t get your name,” he says to her.

  “Fran Lobasso,” she says looking a little nervous.

  “Hello, Fran,” says Steve with a disarming smile. “Me and Ron, we go to Cunningham Junior High.”

  “We go to Mark Twain,” says Fran.

  Steve, addressing himself to both girls, says, “Apparently, my friend Ron over here, for the past few months, has been captured by your beauty. When he pointed you two out to me, well I could see why.”

  The girls blush.

  Ron is beginning to develop some sweat on his upper lip.

  “You girls go bowling pretty regularly?” asks Steve.

  “Yeah. It’s fun,” says Fran.

  “I’m just learning,” says Steve. “Ron is teaching me.”

  “I’ve watched him a couple of times,” says Arlene. She turns to Ron. “You’re real good.”

  “Well, I’ve been coming pretty regularly,” Ron responds. “Mark Twain. I have a cousin, Phil Carchiolo, that goes there.”

  “Oh, I know Phil,” says Arlene. “He’s very funny.”

  “That’s my cousin,” Ron replies. “Funniest guy in the family.”

  “Do you girls like to go to the movies?” Steve asks.

  Both Arlene and Fran nod enthusiastically.

  “Well I’m a little short on cash right now,” Steve says, “but I just got a part time job on the boardwalk and in a few weeks maybe we could go together. If you give us your numbers we could give you a call.”

  Steve has with him the pencil he was keeping his bowling score with and a scrap of paper. He lays them down in front of Arlene.

  Arlene writes her name and number down on the paper and then Steve pushes it over to Fran. As Fran begins to write she says, “If money’s kinda tight for you right now, why don’t you boys just come over to my house next Friday and we could listen to some records?”

  “That would be great!” says Ron.

  “Well,” says Steve, “I’ve been wanting to learn how to do the Twist. You think you could teach me?”

  “Yeah,” says Fran. “I could teach ya.”

  “Well, clear it with your parents and I’ll call you later in the week to see if it’s set,” says Steve.

  “Okay,” says Fran.

  As the boys and girls get up, Ron sheepishly says to Arlene, “I’m real glad we finally got to meet.”

  “Me to,” says Arlene, and then she touches Ron’s shoulder, looks up into his eyes, smiles, and returns to her parents.

  * * * *

  When Steve and Ron get back to Jerry and Tom, Ron excitedly shows them the telephone numbers.

  “We were watching you two guys put the move on those girls,” says Tom. “Pretty gutsy.”

  “Yeah,” says Jerry, “pretty gutsy.”

  After Jerry and Tom finish the game they started while Steve helped Ron with Arlene, the boys all get back to bowling. Steve is meeting with some success. He throws a powerful ball that crashes into the pins knocking them to kingdom come, but he gets too many splits and is inconsistent at picking up spares.

  “I bet this is the last time you guys are gonna invite me to bowl,” says Steve as they finish up. “I’m just nowhere in your class.”

  “With bowling, it’s not like basketball,” says Jerry. “You can keep your own score and try to improve your own game. You weren’t a problem to have with us.”

  “Actually,” says Ron with a smile, “strange as it seems, the fact that I can beat you at something now, well I actually like you better.”

  * * * *

  After taking off their bowling shoes the boys get on line to square things with the guy at the counter.

  “Ron,” says Steve, “why do you let Brainy George get to you so much?”

  “It pisses me off that I beat him up easily three times and he still won’t admit that I can take him,” says Ron.

  “When you beat him up, Ron, George doesn’t believe he loses.”

  “No? I twisted his arm and he was screaming at the top of his lungs. That doesn’t mean anything? I beat him fair and square. Everybody seen it.”

  “To George,” Steve says, “he doesn’t lose. You’ll never be able to beat George at fighting—not so you’ll convince him. I was talking to him about this book Crime and Punishment he’s reading. The way George got it figured, if you break his arm, you’ll suffer more because you’ll be punished, both by the law and your own guilt.”

  “My guilt?” exclaims Ron.

  “Yeah,” says Steve. “George says that even if you kill him, he figures he’ll have to die sometime while your life will be ruined worse than his. Even if you can outsmart the law at first, something in you will suffer so much that you’ll either eat yourself up alive in the end or arrange for the police to catch you.”

  Ron, scratching his head, looks at Steve.

  “Well, I’m not so sure I understand it myself,” says Steve. “Just let it sit on your mind a bit and don’t worry too much about it.”

  “Hey, look,” says Tom, “there’re t
hose girls ya got their numbers from.”

  Steve and Ron look over and notice they’re waving goodbye to them while heading toward the door. As Steve and Ron begin to wave back, the girls break into wonderful flirting smiles.

  “Boy, they’re really cute,” says Jerry.

  “Ya think so?” asks Ron enthusiastically.

  “Really cute,” Jerry replies.

  Steve checks out the line to pay and sees it’s still gonna be a couple of minutes.

  “Hey, Ron,” says Steve, “mind if I ask you for a favor.”

  “What is it, Steve?”

  “The SP kids, I want you to stop giving them such a hard time. You think you could do that for me?”

  Ron doesn’t say anything. A couple of minutes go by. The guy at the counter turns to Ron.

  “Here ya go buddy,” says Ron as he gives the counter guy his bowling shoes and pays his bill.

  In return, Ron gets back his street sneakers and a thank you.

  Now it’s Steve’s turn to pay. He turns over a couple of singles and gets some change.

  As Ron starts to put his right sneaker on he says to Steve, “I guess I can leave the SP kids alone. I don’t even know why I let them get to me.” He pauses for a few seconds, begins again to tie the laces of his right sneaker, stops, and smiles. “I guess I just don’t like to think of someone as smarter than me.”

  “There’re different smarts, Ron,” says Steve. “You got your kind of smarts and they got theirs.”

  “I guess so,” says Ron. “Cliff, that guy who writes sports for the school newspaper, he don’t bother me so much. It’s just that Brainy George. He acts like a know-it-all.”

  “Yeah, he does. He seems to want to brag about being smart. I don’t like it when he does that either. Still, he does know a lot of school stuff.”

  “I guess so,” says Ron.

  CHAPTER 23

  Sunday is another sparkling, beautiful day. At the boardwalk, the seagulls cry out to anyone who will listen. Little children answer their cries with laughs and by pointing at their floating friends in the sky. One young boy in a blue sailor outfit tosses up pieces of bread, and in midair a seagull swoops down to make a fine catch.

  Steve and Pete meet up with the heavyset Mersh Blumfeld and his friends by the brick building around ten. Mersh greets the boys with a big smile and puts his hand in his pocket to make sure he has some change. Then he sits down on a bench, points to Steve, and then his shoes.