Twerp Page 18

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “You know … Battle.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a deck of cards.

  “It’s a card game?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t you ever play it?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “What are the rules?”

  “You put down a card, and I put down a card, and then whoever comes out higher wins.”

  “You mean like War?”

  He shook his head. “No, Battle.”

  “I don’t want to play Battle, Danley.”

  “Why not? My dad used to say a game of cards never hurt nobody. He used to play cards with me all the time. He doesn’t live here anymore.”

  “What happened to your dad?”

  “My mom kicked him out. But he used to bring me hot dogs with sauerkraut.”

  “Oh.”

  “Also, one time, he let me drink beer. I drank half a can of beer by myself. I could’ve kept going too, but he took away the can and drank the rest himself. Did you ever drink beer?”

  “No,” I said.

  “It tastes bad.”

  “Then why did you drink it?”

  “I don’t know.” He started to smile again. “I must be a retard, right?”

  That cracked both of us up. He was laughing and shaking his head. For the first time, I felt kind of wrong about what I was doing.

  “Why don’t you ever hang out with us?”

  He tilted his head to the side. “You mean with you and your friends?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Your friends play too rough.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re bigger than the rest of us put together. If you played Johnny on the Pony, you’d kill us.”

  “I’m real strong,” he said. “I weigh two hundred and eleven pounds.”

  “You’d break us in half!”

  That got him laughing again, even harder than before.

  “You should think about it. I could take you to Ponzini—”

  “What’s Ponzini?”

  “That’s the lot where we hang out. It’s around the corner on Parsons.”

  “I walked up Parsons before,” he said. “But I never saw a lot—”

  “It’s behind the apartment building. You can’t see it from the sidewalk. That’s the point.”

  “What do you do there?”

  “Whatever we feel like doing. Whatever comes to mind. It’s our place.”

  He thought it over for a split second. He leaned forward as if he was going to stand up, but then he sank back down onto the stoop. “C’mon, let’s play Battle. You could get good at it if you practice.”

  “Danley, it’s freezing cold out. I’m not going to sit on that stoop and play cards.”

  “C’mon, I’ll let you win.”

  Then, at once, I had an answer. “How about if we play tag first, and then we play Battle?”

  That caught his attention. “Can we play Battle first?”

  “It’s too cold to play Battle first,” I said. “We’ll play tag first to warm up, and then afterward we’ll play Battle.”

  “How long do we have to play tag?”

  “Just until you catch me.”

  He laughed at that. “I can’t catch you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know how you run. Plus, look at me.”

  “Your legs are a lot longer than mine.”

  “C’mon!”

  “You never know until you try,” I said.

  “I just have to tag you once?”

  “Just once.”

  “And then we play Battle, right?”

  “As soon as you tag me,” I said.

  “You promise?”

  “I promise, Danley. As soon as you tag me, we’ll play Battle.”

  He smiled and put the deck of cards down on the stoop. Then he stood up. I’d hardly ever seen him standing up, and for a second I got scared. There was just so much of him! His shadow seemed to go halfway up the block. Sure, he was shaped like a pear and had rounded shoulders. But if he jumped off the stoop, he’d be right on top of me. It would be like getting away from a falling tree. Once he took a step down, though, I relaxed. It was a slow, heavy step, almost like a slow-motion step. He took a couple of slow, heavy steps toward me, and I didn’t move. I let him get real close, and then he lunged and I dodged him. He turned, laughed, then lunged again, and again I dodged him. He lunged a third time, and I jumped backward, then ran about ten yards up the block.

  “Play fair!” he said.

  I realized the tough part wasn’t going to be dodging him. It was going to be letting him come close enough to think he had a chance of catching me. He had to believe that, or else he’d never follow me the entire way to Ponzini. Except after about a minute, he started to have a good time. I’m sure it was frustrating. But the thing was, how much exercise did he get sitting on that stoop? It was a change of pace. Plus, running after me was keeping him warm. His hands were out of his pockets, and he was flailing his arms, and the hood of his sweatshirt was flopping around behind his head, and he was making a noise that sounded like a squeal, except happier, probably because he was outside, off the stoop, playing like a regular guy.

  Right then, I was even thinking that maybe he wouldn’t mind too much getting egged. The eggs would wash off. I won’t fake like he was going to be one of us afterward. He was too old, even if he wasn’t the way he was. But at least he’d be the guy from the end of the block who got egged and took it like a man.

  Meanwhile, the two of us were making pretty good progress. He’d chased me the entire length of Thirty-Fourth Avenue, and I kept it interesting by darting in and out of empty driveways and around rows of bushes. I stuck to the sidewalk. I never once ran him out into the street because you don’t want to mix a guy like him with moving cars. The entire way, I kept glancing at my watch. By the time we made the turn at the corner of Parsons, I had three minutes left to get him to Ponzini.

  So I sprinted ahead and hung a quick left into the alleyway that wound behind the building and led to Ponzini. He trailed me to the edge of the alleyway, then stopped in his tracks. He put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. For the first time, he had a suspicious look on his face.

  I took several steps back toward him. “What’s the matter? Did you give up?”

  “Where are we going?”

  “It’s just Ponzini,” I said.

  “I don’t want to go there.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t like it,” he said.

  “How do you know? You’ve never been there.”

  “Are your friends there?”

  “Maybe, but I doubt it.”

  “But are you sure?”

  “Look, do you want to play Battle or not?”

  He’d caught his breath by then. He took a long look at me, sizing me up. I guess, looking back, right then was when he was making the decision to trust me. But that’s not what I was thinking at the time. I was thinking I had another minute to get him back to Ponzini. I guess I should have thought about it more. Also, I shouldn’t have lied to him about my friends not being there. That kind of stuff always seems clearer looking back. But how can you look back while the thing’s happening? You can’t. It’s like you’re on a ride, except it’s your life. You can’t call time-out, think it over, and then get back on the ride.

  So, yeah, I did it. I shouldn’t have done it, but I did. I turned and trotted down the alleyway, and a second later I heard his footsteps follow. I let him get close and then cut hard around the corner, and I heard his footsteps fall back, and then I slowed up again until he was right behind me, until I could almost feel his breath, and then, one last time, I tore out. I sprinted through the gap in the fence and into Ponzini.

  The guys were crouched down together by the garage door, off to the side of the fence. I caught sight of them as I flew past, but I kept going. I didn’t look back until I heard Danley yelling, “Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!”
>
  By the time I turned around, the first eggs had hit him. It was just a barrage. Each guy was holding his own carton, grabbing out eggs and throwing them as hard and as fast as he could. Danley was staggering back and forth like a duck in a shooting gallery, not even ten feet from them, waving his hands in front of his face, begging them to stop, yelling, “Don’t!” and “I give up!” and “No more!”

  But the eggs kept coming at him, wave after wave. He tried to turn his back, but the guys circled around him and kept going. You could hear the thudding against his chest and sides and back. His entire upper half was scattered with eggshells and drenched in yolk. But the eggs kept coming and coming.

  The thing was, he was such a huge target, and he was so close and so slow, how could you miss? The only misses I saw were a couple of eggs aimed at his face. That seemed like what he was most afraid of, getting hit in the face. He had his left hand in front of his face and his right hand cupped over his hearing aid, and he kept them there even though that left the rest of him wide open.

  But then an egg hit him in the crotch, and you could hear the air rush out of him like a punctured tire, and he dropped his hands. Right off three eggs hit him in the face—one on his right cheekbone, one on his chin, and one on the bridge of his nose. He screamed and brought his hands back up, but a second later you could see blood between his fingers. I didn’t know what to think. I mean, they were just eggs. How could eggs do that to a guy’s face? It didn’t occur to me that that was the difference between getting egged on Halloween and getting egged in late December. The eggs are harder, and your skin’s colder and tighter. I realize that now, but I didn’t realize it then.

  I guess what I felt, watching it, was … amazed. I was too amazed by the sight to feel anything else. I know I should’ve felt something else. I know I should’ve done something else. But I just watched it. I watched them pelt the guy with eggs until their arms got tired, until he dropped down to his knees, let go of his face, and was crawling back and forth. Blood was dripping from his nose, and still the eggs kept coming and coming. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t say anything. I just watched it. How could that be? I just watched it. What I mean is, you could understand how the rest of them could get caught up in what they were doing. How their hearts could speed up and how they’d lose their minds. You could almost forgive it because they couldn’t take a step back and realize what they were doing. But I watched it. I stood by and watched it. How could that be?

  It kept going and going, and I watched it, and I didn’t do a thing or say a thing to stop it. One by one, the guys were running out of eggs. Danley crawled over to the garage door and pressed his face against it. The last few eggs hit him in the back, and then the eggs stopped, and it was over.

  Ponzini got real quiet—I mean, not even the wind was blowing. Except you could hear Danley sobbing. It was a sickening sound. We were watching him and listening to him, and the guys were huffing and catching their breath, and Danley must have sensed it was over because he turned around and faced us. He sat with his arms at his sides and his back against the garage door, and he was bleeding from cuts under his right eye and the bridge of his nose.

  But then, out of nowhere, he started to smile. He was still sobbing, but I swear to God, the guy was smiling! You could see his teeth, and you could see blood on his gums and in the creases between his teeth, and you could see tears and blood mixing together and rolling down his face. We were staring at him, all of us, and no one said a word for maybe ten seconds.

  Then I heard Lonnie say, “Hey, Jules, think fast!”

  I glanced up just in time to see him flip his last egg underhand in my direction. I caught it in both hands, and I held it. It was cold, but I could feel the yolk sloshing around inside.

  “Your turn,” Lonnie said to me.

  I looked down at the egg and then up at Lonnie, and he was nodding at me, and I don’t remember what I was thinking. But I looked at Danley, at how he was smiling, and I remember getting mad. I knew he didn’t mean it, and maybe he didn’t even know he was smiling, but there was something in that smile that got under my skin, and I felt the egg in my hand, and I knew it was a wrong thing to do, but I looked at Danley, and I looked at that bloody smile of his, and I threw the egg. I did it. I threw the egg. I knew it was a wrong thing to do, but I threw it anyway. It doesn’t make sense. I knew it was wrong, but I threw it anyway. I reared back and threw the egg as hard as I could.

  I missed him by about three feet. The egg hit the garage door about three feet from Danley’s head and exploded. The shell disintegrated. There wasn’t a trace of it stuck to the wood, and the yolk splattered like teardrops in every direction. It was a relief, to be honest, the fact that I missed, even though I knew I’d get teased, because I knew it was a wrong thing to do, and I knew, when I saw how the egg exploded against the garage door, how bad it would’ve been if I’d hit Danley in the face. I mean, as bad as I feel now, if I’d hit him, I’d feel that much worse ….

  Why did you make me write this, Mr. Selkirk? To make me feel bad? Is that the point? Because if that’s the point, then you win. I feel real bad. I did a wrong thing, a stupid thing. I’m sorry. If I could travel back in time, if I could live that day again, I wouldn’t throw the egg. I wouldn’t trick Danley into following me to Ponzini. I wouldn’t go along with Scrambled Dope Day. But that’s not how life works. You don’t get do-overs. What do you want me to say?

  I know what you want me to say. Both of us know what you want me to say. I didn’t miss. I didn’t miss. I reared back, and I threw the egg, and I threw it as hard as I could, and I didn’t miss. I hit him in the mouth. I hit him right in the mouth. It was me! I’m the one who knocked back Danley Dimmel’s teeth. It was me! What did I do? God help me, what did I do?

  I knew it was wrong. I knew it was stupid. But I threw the egg as hard as I could, and I knocked back his teeth. The way he screamed … That scream is still in my ears. I can still hear it. Right now, I can hear it. When he started to scream, we ran away. We left him there, sitting against the garage door, with his teeth knocked backward, with blood pouring out of his mouth.

  Lonnie yelled, “Cheese it!” and we ran away and left him there like that. I was the last guy out of Ponzini, but I was first through the alleyway and out onto the sidewalk at Parsons. I could’ve kept going. I could’ve run two blocks to Parsons Hospital and gotten help for Danley, but I ran straight home. God help me, I ran straight home. I ate dinner like nothing was wrong, and then I locked myself in my bedroom, and I thought I was going to vomit, but I didn’t. I opened the window and felt a gust of freezing air against my chest. I thought about Danley still sitting against that garage door, sitting in the dark, with the blood frozen in his mouth, and I couldn’t take it, so I told my mom I was going out for a minute. She gave me a weird look but didn’t ask why, except she told me to put on my overcoat because it was ice cold outside. I grabbed a flashlight and ran downstairs and back to Ponzini. But Danley was gone. I found the smeared blood were he’d been sitting and a bloody handprint, and then I saw drops of blood that led out of Ponzini.

  What did I do? What did I do? The guy never did a thing to me except want to play cards. He didn’t even single me out afterward. His mom told the school that neighborhood kids did that to him, and then the guidance counselor made a PA announcement about an “incident.” I think Victor Ponzini told his teacher who did it, and Ponzini’s teacher told the guidance counselor, and the guidance counselor told Principal Chapnick, and then Principal Chapnick pulled us out of our classes and yelled at us and suspended us for a week, but that was it.

  Danley never singled me out. He knew my name, for sure, but he never told. I did that to him, and he never told. What’s wrong with me? Even when I passed him a week later, back out on his stoop, even when I saw him sitting there with black-and-blue welts on his face and with metal braces on his teeth, I didn’t say I was sorry. I didn’t say a thing. I just kept walking. I must have passed him on that stoop a hundr
ed times since then, and I never said another word to him.

  What’s wrong with me? God help me, what did I do?

  July 1, 1969

  Dragging the Couch

  The assignment is over, Mr. Selkirk. I’m done with it. If you want to flunk me, that’s fine. Maybe I deserve to repeat sixth grade, but I can’t keep writing this thing forever. I’ve got nothing more to say about what happened in Ponzini. That was last winter. Nothing’s going to change it. Summer’s here, and school’s over, and I want to run a four-six forty and play soccer with Eduardo. What I mean is, I want to get on with my life. But I’m glad you made me keep going because you made me realize what I had to do.

  The first guy I went to was Quick Quentin. I figured he’d be the easiest to convince, and I was right. I rang his doorbell, and he said yes as soon as I mentioned it. Before I mentioned it, almost. The second I said Danley’s name, Quentin started saying how the thing still bothered him, how he still thought about what happened whenever he looked at the garage door in Ponzini. He said apologizing would be a relief.

  Quentin and I found Shlomo Shlomo and Eric the Red flipping baseball cards out in front of the Hampshire House, and the two of them said yes—though, to be honest, I think they said yes only because they were tired of flipping cards. Then the four of us found Howie Wartnose sitting out back in the playground, just twiddling his thumbs. He said no at first because he figured out it was my idea—he’s still mad at me because of what I said about Beverly Segal—but Quentin talked to him alone for a couple of minutes, and in the end he said he’d apologize if Lonnie apologized.

  That left Lonnie.

  I knew he was going to be the toughest one to convince, but I figured he might go along if the rest of us were on board. The five of us went together and rang his doorbell. He came to the door, and he got a curious look on his face. There was a second—a long second—where no one spoke. Then at last I said, “Look, Lonnie, I’ve been thinking about what happened with Danley Dimmel—”