Memoir class 2009

You Want Double Cheese on That, Old Buddy?

by Rich Haverlack

David Rogers was a “big kid” back when I was just a “little kid.” By that, he was in the eighth grade while I was only in the fourth.

Like all kids in the ’50s we both had bikes and we rode them often, of course. For me, that meant a daily late afternoon pedal – between getting home from school and dinnertime.

I really didn’t know Dave but I certainly knew of him. He was obviously destined to be what we called in my suburban school a “hood.” That is, Dave was given to a Brylcreamed DA hairdo, black peg pants, and a solid color tee shirt whose hue was coordinated among the like-minded people in Dave’s crowd. Prominent in Dave’s tee was a pack of cigarettes rolled into one sleeve – sported only when well off the school grounds, of course. I seemed to recall that Dave’s particular brand claimed L. S. M. F. T. Dave’s brand Meant Fine Tobacco.

Riding my bike one evening in the gathering gloom I heard, before I saw Dave on his bike. “Hey Haverlack, what are you doing done here?” I was riding down on Guenivere Drive in our Leavittown-like 1950s tract housing plan. I lived up on Cromwell Drive – just four blocks away. However, at that moment, geography was nowhere on my mind. It was totally occupied with Dave Rogers.

I knew that Dave was a person to be avoided. He had a reputation at school – one of the unsavory sort with a string of suspensions as well as a failure to pass on to the next grade. Yes, Dave had actually flunked a grade somewhere along the line For most, flunking was shameful, but among Dave’s crowd, it was sort of a rite to passage to hood-dom. So what to do?

Could I out distance him? Could I just turn and wave jovially but pedal on? Should I stop?. What? I chose to ignore him – pretend I didn’t hear. Taking care to make no moves to reveal my awareness of Dave, I just pedaled on.

Wrong choice.

Dave sped up. Passed me on the right. Swerved into my path and locked the coaster brake on his bike. “Hey fatso, I was talking to you. You think you’re too good to answer? I know you think you’re a smart shit. And I hate smart shits.” Uh-oh. Wrong choice indeed.

I braked my second-hand 24 inch Roadmaster to a stop. Naturally Dave had a 26 inch bike. Naturally it was a jet black Schwinn. Naturally it had chrome trim and a head and even a tail light. Dave worked after school at the Commodore Pizza shop. So naturally Dave had money.

“You fat shit. I’m talking to you!”

“Uh, hi Dave. Just on my way home for dinner. Mom gets mad if I’m late.”

“You shit, I didn’t ask ya where you were going. I asked why ya were here.”

“Uh, just riding around is all. I ride here now and then. Haven’t seen you here, though”

“Well I lost my job for smoking at the pizza shop, fatso. It’s none of your business what I do anyway. Who do you think you are?”

“S-sorry you got fired, Dave.” I said as he unrolled the pack of Luckies from his tee sleeve.

“Didn’t say I got fired, shit head. You think you’re better than me, that I got fired?” He lit up.

“Uh… Uh…”

“You shit! What do you know about smoking? Here, you want to learn?” he now shouted, shoving the lit cigarette under my nose. “Go ahead. Take a puff, fatso.”

“N-no, thanks. I don’t smoke Dave.”

“You don’t smoke? You don’t smoke? Well what do you know about smoking anyway, smart ass?” This was delivered though a full-face sneer. I was now well and truly terrified.

With a sing-song tone, through the sneer “Don’t blubber, you fat shit. Ya like to study, I hear. So I’m gonna teach ya a lesson. I’m gonna give ya a lesson about cigarettes. You’re gonna learn, you shit.”

With that, Dave got off his bike and carelessly let it fall to the pavement. To most of us kids, bikes were sacred. Letting one fall, was unthinkable. Dave was now fully interested in just one thing: Me.

Dave came up close beside me. Flight was impossible now. He was way too close. I couldn’t ride away and I couldn’t run. So I just stood there, still astride my rusty Roadmaster as the big kid moved menacingly closer yet.

“Here’s your first cigarette lesson, shithead. I’m going to start punching your arm, and I’m not going to stop until you name a dozen cigarette brands.”

With that he began pounding my shoulder. It was a nice soft target that would not hurt his knuckles, I fleetingly thought. The smoldering Lucky was firmly gripped in his frown-sneer. The fumes stung my nose.

“Sound off, shithead, or we’ll be here all night!”

“L-L-Lucky Strike.”

Blows continued to land every second. It probably started to hurt, but I was beyond feeling. My mind groped through the terror.

“Chesterfield. Old Gold.. Marlboro…. Parliament……. Carleton……………. Kool………………”

“Faster, shithead! I’m getting tired.” Dave said with glee. Then he added: “And when I get tired, I get mad… Real mad!”

I swallowed. Thought desperately. Oh yeah “Dad smokes Camels and mom smokes Salems!”

“You fat shit, that’s only ten” It was nine, I thought gratefully. I wasn’t a cigarette brand expert by a long shot, so Dave’s miscount was a break indeed

“Uh… Stuyvestant.”

“One more, dopo. You’re supposed to smart.”

My mind raced. TV adds flashed through my head. Magazine adds, too. Slogans and jingles. What was it? …Call for…

“… Phillip Morris!” There!

But no let up.

“Gimme one more for good measure now. One more for me, you slob.”

Ahhh! Search for more ads! More slogans! But nothing came.

Then, desperately: “Weymans!”

Dave stopped in mid-delivery. “What? That’s a chewing tobacco. How do you know about that?.”

It was. It was the tobacco my grandad, Jaja, chewed. But it was all I could think of. So mind shifting into high gear, I frantically fabricated, “Well my grandad rolls it into cigarettes.” Buy time! Buy time!

Dave laughed with his teen voice cracking back to its high pitch. “That’s not a cigarette brand.”

“Well it’s a tobacco brand and it can be made into cigarettes.” My mind whirred on.

Dave’s mind worked to grasp this idea. His brow beetled. He shrugged. And he started punching again. My mind whirred on. What was it? …I’d rather fight than switch…

Desperately: “Taryton!”

“There ya go, shithead. See? Your first cigarette lesson. Ya Pass! Ya get a D!” The last with a tone-shifted laugh-bark again.

“But you made me tired. And when I get tired, I get mad. So you better get out of here while ya still can.”

I needed no more urging. I jumped on the right pedal with all my weight and took off.

Dave yelled after me: “Next time I catch you down here, you’re gonna get you second cigarette lesson. You’re gonna have a smoke, fatso,” with a final laugh-bark.

It was a couple of days until my mom noticed the blue-yellow bruise spreading below the short sleeve of my tee shirt. A hasty lie about a bike fall seemed to satisfied her.

The next time I would ride on Guenivere Drive, it would be years later and behind the steering wheel of a car.

Even more years after that when home from college one late night I discovered that Dave bought the Commodore Pizza shop from which he had been fired many years in our childhoods’ past. I made this discovery when I stopped into the tiny, dingy, shop for a late-night pie.

The place reeked of cigarette smoke. As I recognized Dave’s antiquated, greasy DA and his tee complete with a pack rolled into one sleeve, Dave recognized me too. “Ricky…? Ricky Hallerjack, right?” Dazed, I could just nod. “We were neighborhood kids years ago – Longvue Acres. Wow! Good times, huh?” And then a slight shift – just a hint of worry – “What’ll ya have, Ricky? We got it all, and you’ll get a 10% discount for old time’s sake, natch! Good ol’ neighborhood buddies! What’ll ya have, Ricky?”

Copyright Haverlack 2009, All rights reserved

The Big Bully

by Jean B. Fleischauer

Bill Carrick lived on Locust Street four doors from the corner. We lived in the middle of Locust Street. My brother and I never played with him. We were too young and he was too big. He was two years older than I was even though we were in the same grade. I think he had to stay out a year for rheumatic heart. We were a little afraid of him, but he never did anything to me. Freddy claimed he was always punching him, but I never saw it. Bill would have made two of me. My little brother being four years younger than me and small to boot would have been mince meat, if they had tangled.

The year of the incident I was in seventh grade and Freddy, my brother, in second. I was walking home from Ambridge Junior-Senior High School humming Dance, Ballerina, Dance, twirling my closed umbrella and remembering how Miss Zawaski bawled Tony out while he sat there in his chair looking out the window and wearing a perfectly lovely pout. It managed to contain anger, disdain and sorrow all at once. Miss Zawaski was infuriated.

My revery was shattered by Freddy’s screech. “Jeanie, Jeanie, help me. Bill’s going to kill me.”

I swivelled around and saw Freddy running at full speed with Bill coming up close behind. “You wait till I get you, you little monster,” shouted Bill.

I charged up the slope toward him waving my umbrella over my head. Freddy swung around behind me and Bill slowed.

“You big Bully, picking on a little kid.” I called in righteous anger and ran up to him. I got one umbrella swipe in before he ran in the other direction. “Don’t you ever touch my little brother again.”

Bill ran off down the street across Fourth street and away down Oak Street.

I turned and headed home. Freddy was grinning and dancing a war dance.

“You got him good. I knew you would.”

As I cooled down reason took over.

“What did you do to him?” I asked Freddy.

He laughed, “Oh, I was just teasing him a little. I called him a dumb coward .”

“You dope. He could smash you into tomorrow.”

“I knew you could take him. I saw you before I said anything and figured I was fast enough to get to you before he caught me.”

“Oh, good, then I could get smashed. You idiot. If he decided to fight me, I wouldn’t have had a chance.”

Laughing he raced into the house.

I sighed and trooped after him debating whether to tell on him or let this one go, still marveling, truth be told, that the Big Bully had actually run away.

Copyright Fleischauer 2009, All rights reserved