Jackie Blue

1975 was the year I said goodbye to P.S. 163 (and hello toP.S. 75)…I have a few more memories from P.S. 163… its located right next tothe apartment building where I grew up and so I used to look down on it from myterrace or from the hallway and stairwell windows of my building when I gothome…I would go to school there, play in the yard with my friends from schoolduring recess, and then after school play with a bunch of other kids…some ofthose kids I went to school with, some I didn’t, they went to other schools…ormaybe they went to P.S. 163 and I didn’t have any classes with them?…

I never tried to guess where they went to school or why theycame to the P.S. 163 playground to play…we were always playing stickball orsome form of urban baseball…there was a basketball court on the other side ofthe concrete baseball “field” but I only played there once or twice…the olderkids would play basketball and the silly young kids would play their form ofbaseball…I happened to notice this a lot…when I would get bored or tired andleave, I would go to my building, get in the elevator and take it up to the 11thfloor…before I would go to my apartment, I’d look out the window of the hallwayto see what they were doing and most of the time they’d be gone…I guess when Ileft, others left and it was contagious?...like one by one?...or I was alwaysthe one who gave the other kids the idea that it was time to go home??...

if I was conceited I’d start thinking I was the “life of theparty” but I was far from that as a youth and so I was mystified…did the gamesreally revolve around me?...I remember this Puerto Rican kid named FreddieRoman…he had two older brothers, twins…”Ralphie” and “Johnny”…I don’t remembermuch about the other kids, names or faces…this was over 35 years ago…we wouldall play ball, just a random group…and my three best friends were usuallythere, sometimes not…Chuck, Billy, and Boris…they lived in my same building…

I even went to the playground on the weekends sometimes…it’scalled the “Happy Warrior” playground because that was the nickname of AlSmith, for whom P.S. 163 was named…I’d often confuse him with Alfred E. Neuman,the cartoon character from the cover of Mad Magazine, but no…Al Smith was thefirst Catholic to run for president on a major party ticket…in 1928…

So this one day…not sure if it was a Saturday or aSunday…there was a small group of us…probably about 10…this one kid came alongthat I had never seen before…black kid, by the name of Kippy…he was a couple ofyears older than my friends and I, we were all about the same age…some of thePuerto Rican kids seemed to know him and they seemed to be a little fearful orwary of him…and then announced that he hates white people and was going to beatup a white boy…

The racial dynamics of our group and I guess of New Yorkschool kids in general was interesting…the different kids coming from differentcultures and neighborhoods…all of the different experiences and attitudes andhow they interacted…although it was “interesting” to me then, it was just whatwas…everyone in my little world at this time was either black, white or PuertoRican…whites were a distinct minority in my school at the time…about20%...blacks maybe 35%, Puerto Ricans maybe 45%...Puerto Ricans are not likeMexicans…anyone born in Puerto Rico after 1913 has had automatic Americancitizenship…so they are far more Americanized…within my little group ofplayground friends, the majority was Puerto Rican, with only a few blacks, andthen maybe twice the amount was white…let’s say my little group was 75% PuertoRican, 20% white, and 5% black…

Who hates who was also interesting…you’d have blacks whohate whites but not Puerto Ricans, or who hate Puerto Ricans but not whites…theblacks seemed to be the most racist of the three ethnic groups…then you’d havePuerto Ricans who hate whites but not blacks, or who hate blacks but notwhites…the white kids pretty much didn’t hate anyone based on race…they oftenstuck together out of common interests, liking the same things but not out ofdislike for other races…

And so when Kippy showed up saying that he was going to beatup a white boy today, I was scared as hell…terrified…I didn’t know how tofight…I didn’t have the first clue…and I had no confidence in myself…I didn’tknow how to fight kids my own age and size much less a tough inner-city black kidwho was a few years older…I had the feeling he was going to beat all of uswhite kids up, one at a time…there were three of us whites in our group on thisday, two black kids, and the rest were Puerto Rican…and I felt soimpotent…gutless…like why don’t the three white kids just band together andjump him?  Would the other black kids inour group join Kippy based on race if we did that?  I didn’t know.  I guess the other two white kids were justscared like me…I was thinking of just bolting…but I was frozen solid with fear…maybeif I ran he would have caught me and then I would have been the one to get beatup?  Do nothing, I suppose…

The Puerto Rican and black kids in my group didn’t like it…theywere quiet, but you can see it in their faces they were scared even though theywere not Kippy’s targets…and so I saw Kippy start to make his way towardsMichael Petit because Michael was the closest one…Micheal was a kid withstraight dark brown hair and dark brown eyes…we always thought there wassomething wrong with him, we didn’t know what to make of him because he neverspoke…that fact was actually intimidating to me…I used to mess with people andmouth off to them and I messed with Michael one time, I think I took his ballor some other piece of his property and he gave me this pissed-off look like “don’tfuck with me” he looked like he was ready to mix it up and so I backed off andsmiled and gave him his stuff back, and ever since that time I was scared ofhim…I was always sure to be nice to him, and from then on to me he seemed likea guy who could fight…I had never seen him back down from anyone he was a niceguy but if you messed with him he would get up in your face…he never spoke buthe gave you this look like “yeah, fuck with me, I’ll kick your ass”…that andthe fact that he never spoke was intimidating to me…I imagined he was a bad-assand tough guy…

we thought Michael was incapable of speech but about a yearor so later, I found out he wasn’t…i was in the Happy Warrior Park, in theconcrete baseball “field” (probably looking for balls)…he was on the handballcourt playing with his parents and little sister…he yelled out something to oneof them and he had a very high-pitched voice, like a girl…so I thought, “aha!  That’s why”…neither him nor any of his familymembers saw me…and that was after I had transferred out of the school…

so anyway…back to the story…Kippy started making his wayover to Michael and I see this look of nervous fear on Freddy Roman’s face, andthat of the other Puerto Ricans…Freddy was sort of their “leader”, or the mostoutspoken one…they all did what he said…and I looked at the two black kids inmy group and they had this very forlorn look on their faces…no one wanted thisto happen…the calmest one of us all was Michael!!…he had a look of concern onhis face…he wasn’t taking the challenge lightly he was scared as anyone shouldbe but not scared in the cowardly sense…I could tell he wasn’t going to run…hewas going to stand up and fight…I was thinking, “wow!! Good for him!”, inadmiration…he was looking right at Kippy and he had his two fists balled up andready to go…

so Kippy started getting closer to Michael and I heardFreddy call out, “nah, nah!”…”he’s cool, leave him alone, he’s okay”…and thenthe rest of the Puerto Rican and black kids chimed in, in agreement…all sayingthings like he’s a good guy, he’s a good white boy you should leave himalone…he’s okay…he’s our friend…

so Kippy agreed and turned away from Michael…then he lookedaround, looked at me and turned towards me, balled up his right hand into afist and started coming towards ME!!...and so my mind started racing about whatI was going to do…I was really thinking I should snap out of my fear paralysisand RUN…and then there was a small part of me that was very angry and I startedtelling myself I should fight…just try my best…punch as hard as I can, kick ashard as I can…but then I started thinking well I could get seriously injuredand so then the “sensible” part of me said no…I was thinking I was going to runmy ass off…but even then I had no confidence in my ability to outrun Kippy…Ididn’t know what to do…all of these thought processes took place literallywithin the span of about two seconds because much to my shock and surprise,Kippy had not even taken two steps towards me before the Freddy and the rest ofthe Puerto Rican and black kids started saying “no, no, no he’s cool leave himalone”…and then Kippy turned away from me without really getting anywhere nearme…

this was a total shock to me because I thought they didn’tlike me but they jumped to my defense even quicker than Michael’s…it took thema few seconds to call off Kippy when he was heading towards Michael but as soonas they saw I was his next target they called him off…they spent more timelauding Michael talking about how cool he was don’t beat him up and in my casethey just said, “no, no, he’s cool too”…but I didn’t care…

I was relieved, the whole thing happened over the course ofseconds and so I was glad I wasn’t going to get my ass kicked or have to run…I hadmy friends to thank for taking care of me but I still hated the wholesituation…and so there was only one white kid left and either he was going toget beat up or the rest of the kids in my group would call him off the one lastwhite kid and dissuade him from kicking anyone’s ass…something told me thatwasn’t going to happen…I didn’t think Kippy was going to leave “empty handed”…

Part of me was thinking the Puerto Rican and black kids inthe group should have spoken up but I sensed the situation was that look, Kippywanted to beat up a white kid and they saved Michael and then me but it’s likeSOMEONE had to get their ass beat up…Michael and I got exemptions but we couldn’tALL get exceptions…and so the only white kid left to beat up was DanKirkpatrick…a slightly chubby kid, blue eyes and very light, thin, blondehair…almost had the look of an older man who was going bald…or sort of ababy-face…thinning hair, dimples, big forehead…

This really sucked because Dan was the weakest off all of usthree…there was no way in hell he could hope to win or even to run…Michaeloften had this look in his eye like he wanted to fight…like he had it rough andcould scrap…one of these kids who had it really rough and learned how to fight…soMichael would have put up the best fight…I knew I was a total punk-ass but Danwas even weaker than me…like I could have beaten Dan up had it ever came downto it…the boy was a pussycat…I had gotten roughed up a couple times by my olderNew Jersey cousins and I knew a LITTLE about fighting…but Dan…no way…

and so Kippy made his way towards Dan and the Puerto Ricanand black kids were silent…they looked really said but they turned their facesaway, and started stepping back, as if they were going to just walk away…theydidn’t egg Kippy on…”yeah, beat him up”…they didn’t want Dan to get beat up butI sensed it they felt like they had to give Kippy someone…

I could see it in Dan’s face, he at first had this look onhis face like he was waiting for the Puerto Rican and black kids to bail himout…”what about me?”…he was kind of surprised they didn’t stick up for him…andthen after a few seconds he had this look on his face, “here it comes”…

So Kippy walked up to Dan, said a few words that I didn’thear and then punched him in the mouth…I just saw blood coming out of Dan’smouth and nose and he fell to the ground and started crying…then he got up andran away…and so our little group was silent and scared, and just stepped backand stared…then Kippy issued threats to both me and Michael and walked off…

I felt horrible for Dan…especially since I had tripped himonce in school before…about a year earlier…I was watching too much Bugs Bunnyfor my own good and became obsessed with tripping people…for a long time I wasalways on the lookout for someone running so I could stick my foot out and tripthem and see what happens…and at this particular time, that someone was Dan…poorguy always had bad luck…

He was running across this large area outside the school’sauditorium…running full speed, and so I stuck my foot out…he dropped his booksand went flying…from an execution standpoint, it was perfect on my part…hisbooks went flying through the air and he had his arms in front of him whichbroke his fall or let’s say kept him from falling face first to the floor… thefloor was kind of waxy, those janitors were always cleaning and waxing thefloors in school and so after he fell he slid a few good feet…if it wasn’t sostupid on my part it might have been comical…funny thing is that he didn’t knowit was me or he did know it was me and pretended to not know…but I don’t thinkhe or anyone else knew it was me…I had been standing with a group of people…ormaybe he thought it was his fault like I was standing still and he tripped overme by mistake…at any rate, I was waiting for some anger from either him and/orothers but no one knew it was me…

Dan got up and was kind of stunned and everyone was lookinglike holy shit…but no one asked who did it and he just got up and collected hisbooks…and no one really knew it was me or accused me of it…no one was payingattention they were all talking to each other when it happened and when Danwent flying they were like “wtf?”…then went on about their business…thought hemust have just tripped…

and I remember thinking, “Terry, what an idiot youare!”…angry at myself not for being mean but because I could have seriouslyhurt him and gotten in trouble…and there was a part of me who would not want tosee another kid seriously injured…I didn’t want to see any bloody kids I hadrecently got punched in the mouth by a black kid named Vaughn, and it requiredstitches…so I didn’t want to inflict a blood injury on someone else…I likedoing bad things to people but not like that…just teasing and such I didn’twant to really hurt anyone…and so that ended my fascination with trippingpeople and even for a while after that if I would see someone running I’d avoidthem so they wouldn’t trip over me by mistake and I’d tell them to slow downthey could get hurt…

And so as with a lot of things in my life I had at timesdone some bad things or gotten some bad happens and then learned it’s wrong andthen started going in the opposite direction…

But the entire incident with Kippy really got methinking…what would I have done if he had come towards me and they hadn’tcalled him off?  I started thinking Ishould learn how to fight.  I even signedup for judo courses at the YMCA about a year later, but it was a bunch ofbullshit…a lot of ceremony…we did pushups on our knuckles, we bowed and didwhatever type of Chinese or Japanese courtesies and rituals that are a part ofit…we learned to address each other respectfully…it was more like acalisthenics class than anything…finally we learned how to do some throws butthat seemed like a bunch of bullshit, too…I wasn’t strong enough to throwanyone and these kids in the street aren’t going to just let you throw themlike your “opponent” in a judo class will…the whole time, I was like “when do Ilearn how to fight”?...

These black and Puerto Rican kids were scrappers…this judoshit would be useless against them…and so I hated judo class and quit…I startedthinking hey I’m just a born punk-ass and no one can teach me how to fight…andso I lost interest in learning how to fight until many years later…the entireKippy incident faded into my memory and I just remember thinking I should usemy wits to stay out of trouble, just not hang out in the street where troubleis, or learn how to run very fast…

Looking back on it now, I’m pissed!...every time I think ofit…”damn white city liberal parents don’t teach their kids how to fight!”…thekid’s name was Dan Kirkpatrick…Irish…I thought fighting was in the Irish’sblood??...it is, but poor Dan had been sissified by liberal white urban America…theblack and Puerto Rican kids were so much tougher and I won’t even say it’s outof natural fighting ability, but ATTITUDE…

I wish more parents would instill a fighting spirit intotheir kids…I’m not saying to teach kids that fighting is the answer toeverything or you should want your kids to run around beating people up…I justmean giving the kids the attitude they need to stick up forthemselves…sometimes when you’re facing a bully all you need to do is show himyou’re willing to fight back, and often that’s enough…they might kick your assbut you know you’ll get in a few good shots and some bullies don’t want that,they want easy targets…so sometimes it’s just the willingness to fight and notthe actual ability to fight that can help you deal with a bully…kids need to betaught self-confidence!!…

Teach your kids…”this is how you break someone’s nose”…”thisis how you put down a male attacker, kick him in the nuts”…”if you’re scaredenough then pick up an object, practically anything you can get your hands oncan be used like a weapon”…”use the element of surprise, if you think someoneis going to attack you then you attack them first to knock them off theirgame”…”the shin is a weak point on any human being so kick him in theshins”…”pull hair if you have to, it’s not for sissies, anything to win”…”gofor the eyes, throw a liquid in the eyes or put something over their head toblind them temporarily”…and then, ”these tactics are not so you can walk aroundlike a bad-ass and pick fights with people, they are in case you have to defendyourself”…teach your kids the mechanics of how to defend themselves and theywill develop confidence…teach them to AVOID fights but that when they mustfight they should give their all…teach them how to fight but also WHEN to fight…

It would be nice to be able to go back in time to that Kippysituation, knowing what I know now…I’m not even saying that I would have beenable to kick Kippy’s ass…but I would have done something different other thanstand there paralyzed by fear watching my friend get punched in the face bysome bully…maybe I couldn’t have kicked Kippy’s ass and maybe I’d have gottenmy ass kicked but I’d have felt like more of a man if I’d have stood up to him…butI was never taught these things…in a lot of ways, I had to raise myself…

Young Americans

One finalP.S. 163 memory…like I said before, 1975 was the year that I said goodbye toP.S. 163, my mom transferred me over to P.S. 75, which was almost half a mileaway…long enough to make for a sucky walk but not long enough to entitle me toa “bus pass”, school-issued cards that allowed kids to ride free on the bus…thedamn things didn’t have any photos on them, so they were easilytransferable…kids would buy them and sell them…and the bus drivers didn’t givea crap…city employees didn’t care…

For a shortwhile, I was stopping in this donut shop on the way to school…it was on thewest half of Broadway between 96th and 97th streets…nowthis building “The Columbia” is there, erected in the mid-‘80s…I would read“Highlights for Kids”, this kiddie magazine, when I was in school or visitingthe doctor’s office…I hated reading so I’d never read the articles but I likedthe cartoons…”Goofus and Gallant”…it was a preachy type of panel cartoon aboutthese two kids that looked like twins…”Goofus does (XYZ bad things)”…”Goofusdoesn’t clean his room and he’s rude to people”…”Gallant always keeps his roomneat and respects his elders”…and Goofus always had an angry look on his facewhile he was doing something bad and Gallant was a nice, smiling boy”…so it wasa little panel cartoon “educational”, trying to teach kids to do right…

But onearticle had something to do with kids approaching their parents for an“allowance”…like parents should give their kids a few bucks a week spendingmoney…and so by this time I had asked my dad for an allowance…I think I got 5dollars a week…and so I’d spend my money at that donut shop…this was 1975 andso I bet a donut and a glass of O.J. could not be much more than a dollar…

When you’re alittle kid, pretty much all of the adults that are around you are some type ofauthority figure or “caring” adult…your parents, of course, are the firstadults you come into contact with…then there are relatives like aunts anduncles, then there are family friends, and teachers, camp counselors, etc…andso at this donut shop it felt weird to be around a bunch of adults who lolreally didn’t give a shit about you, who were living their own lives…I wasalmost expecting some adult to come up to me and say “hey kid, you know youshouldn’t be eating donuts, they are bad for you”…I know it’s something that myparents or teachers would say…but nope, it never happened…

It’s funnythat even back then, I knew donuts were crap…like people frowned on eatingsugary junk…so for a few weeks, before I got bored of it, I would go to thedonut shop every morning and buy a strawberry frosted donut and a glass oforange juice, and sit at the bar looking out the window while I had my littlebreakfast…it’s funny how I rationalized it, I told myself the donut is bad foryou but I’m washing it down with fruit juice which is healthy…they always toldus fruit juice was good for you…it wasn’t til much later that I learned thatthe stuff they call “fruit juice”, the stuff I was drinking was probablyTropicana, was almost as bad for you as a soda…

There wasthis kid named Antonio at P.S. 75…Puerto Rican kid…he grossed me out because hewould eat chocolate candy bars and drink Coca-Cola with it…now I KNEW that wasbad…and his teeth were very dark brown, almost black…I was telling him of mygood friend Freddy Roman one time, and he said “I hate Romans”…and wasthinking, “wtf?  His name is Roman andhe’s Puerto Rican, not Roman”…idiots…anyway…on to my story…

For the threeyears I attended P.S. 163, my routine was to go to the school yard after schooland play baseball with my friends from 3 until about 6, then go upstairs fordinner…my school, the school yard, and the apartment I grew up in were all onthe same block and I could live my entire week without having to cross onestreet…

At first Ididn’t want to transfer to P.S. 75, but kids don’t get to make that decisionand so you know how it is, when a change is forced on you that you don’t like…anew life, basically…you try to “keep” as much of the old as you can…I really“made the rounds” during the summer of 1975: trip up to Lake George, NY, a few weeks with some family upstate (theFresh Air Fund), and then the obligatory week in Freehold, NJ with mycousins…during this time period we also took a trip down to Richmond, VA, tovisit with family there…I’m not sure of what year it was but my best guess was1975…and then after the summer was over, starting a new year, I had to go tosome strange school…part of how I coped with it was that I told myself that at3 p.m. when school let out, I was going to go back to the schoolyard at P.S.163 to play baseball with my old friends…I had no say in being transferred toP.S. 75 but I was determined to just do my time there and keep my old friendsand hang out with them…

but it wasweird when September came, the first day of school and then I went back to theschoolyard of P.S. 163 to play…there were a lot of new people there…FreddyRoman was there along with a few other kids that I knew, but…most of the kidsthere playing ball, I didn’t know…they were mostly older kids…Freddy Roman andmy other friends knew them, I guess…or were just playing with them anyway…buthere was another change I didn’t like…so the first few times I went to thatschoolyard after school I didn’t even try to play, to get on a team…and nobodyasked me…I was thinking about trying to get on a team…had to work my courageup…I started standing closer and closer to the action each day…I kind of feltexcluded that no one asked me if I wanted to play…eventually, I started standingso close to the action it’s like I was on the field…

this one day,I was standing to the left of the batter’s box…someone “got a piece” of a pitchand hit a foul ball, bouncing towards me…so I picked up and then didn’t throwit to the pitcher…I just looked at it…all of a sudden, everyone was looking atme…my old friends, and plus all these new kids…

I guess I wastrying to show off or look like a big man, or I was just fooling around…and soI said “I’m going to roof your ball”…one kid said “you better not”…and so Ithrew the ball towards the part of the school that is one-story…the schoolbuilding made an “L” shape and so one part of that “L” was where the classroomsare and I started throwing the ball at the part of the “L” that I think was thecafeteria…one story…

Of course Ididn’t want to roof the ball…I wanted to scare them…so I kept throwing ithigher and higher towards the roof…trying to bounce it off the school as highas possible without actually throwing the ball on the roof…and these kids were gettingpissed…angrier and angrier every time I looked at them…and so I was going tomake a few more throws and then give them their ball back…it was gettingboring, anyway…and…you guessed it…finally with one throw, I threw the ball onthe roof by mistake…and then I was scared as shit…I had about four or five kidscoming towards me…

During mytime at P.S. 163, there were some kids who knew how to climb up on to theschool roof. It was something that I always wanted to do, but didn't think Icould and for a long time I was too scared to try. I had tried a few timesbefore, I would be at the point where I climbed up on the outer window ledge,but that was it…I was to scared to push up with my feet and pull up with myarms. I was scared of falling and getting hurt…there was a metal window guardcovering the window and it had very small holes…the best way to describe it wasthat it looked like a chain-link fence, but with very small holes…with a normalchain link fence, you stick your feet in the holes and then climb up with yourhands, almost like a ladder…but it was impossible to do that with this windowguard, the holes were way to small to fit your feet in…

I was alwaysthinking it would be fun to climb up there and walk around. I had a fascinationwith buildings and their inner workings at this time…stairwells, roofs, etc… inany given building you go in…you walk the stairwells and all the floors lookalike except when you get to the very top or the very bottom…then you see theguts of the building and that was fascinating…I even kept my fascination withstairwells when I became a young teen and started smoking weed…they were greatplaces to explore, hang out, and get high in….but P.S. 163…I had a clear view ofthe school building from my terrace and also from the windows in my apartment,and sometimes I'd see people walking around up there, workers… There were thesedark, grayish pebbles that they put up there, I guess to protect the roof? …

So I had fouror five big kids coming towards me…one of them said, “you better go up thereand get that!!”…and so at that point survival took over and the first thing Ithought to do was say, “oh I’ll go get it. No problem”…I don’t know why I said that…to buy myself a few seconds more??...theywere going to kick my ass…

So I turnedand started heading towards the window ledge…I climbed up on the ledge easilyenough, as I had done a few times before…but then what??...I stuck my fingersin the small holes and just started pulling myself up…it hurt likehell…basically I was putting all of my body weight pressure on my fingers, thethin steel cutting into my hands…then I got close enough to reach for theroof…grabbed the roof, and muscled my way up onto it…I did it!!  What a weird feeling…a combination of reliefI wasn’t going to get my ass kicked, and amazement at “wow, I did it”, combinedwith my instant realization that the only reason I did it was because I knewI’d get my ass kicked otherwise…the fear of falling and the pain in my fingerswas outmatched by the fear of having all of those people mad at me…it was totaladrenaline…

It was anamazing world up there, like walking on the surface of the moon…first thing Idid was look for these guys’ ball…I started to mildly freak out when I realizedI COULDN’T FIND IT!!...still nervous as hell…finally after looking around for awhile I found their ball, and threw it down to them…and they resumed theirgame…getting them their ball was the first order of business….

…ever sincethe idea of the possibility of climbing up on the roof had occurred to me, Iwas always thinking that one of the first thing I would do was hunt forballs…to us baseball freaks, it was all about balls…balls were kind of like acurrency…baseballs, softballs, rubber balls, tennis balls, you name it…I hadalways thought, “if I ever get the chance to climb on that roof I’m gonna beRICH!!...i’m gonna have so many balls”…because lots of balls get roofed bymistake…and so that’s what I started thinking…but then right away, a new fearcame over me…how am I going to get down??...

so I frettedover that for a while…and I also realized that I didn’t have a bag oranything…if I just collected balls and toss them off the roof and climb down Icould only carry so many and also some of the kids I don’t know could just takethem I figured that since “I know how to climb on the roof now” I would justget a bag and then climb back up later…I got them their ball back and I reallywanted the entire stressful situation to be over with, and also…this is apersonal tendency of mine…if I have some sort of “moment of truth” event comingup…something I have to do that I’m not sure of…I want it to happen NOW…I don’tlike sweating things out or dreading some future situation…as a grown-up Ihated hearing, “the boss is mad at you and wants to meet with you on Monday”…itwould ruin my whole weekend because I’d be sweating the load…and so I couldn’treally “enjoy” my roof time not knowing if I could get back down…and I startedworrying what I’d do if I couldn’t get down??...

so I made myway towards the part of the roof where the window was that I scaled…climbingdown was a lot easier than climbing up…just climb down the window to whereyou’re low enough and jump to the ground…

I rememberthinking I just want to get the hell out of here, and go home…I don’t even wantto hang out in this playground anymore, I don’t know any of these new kids andI think I don’t like my old friends from the playground anymore…I decided tojust spend more time hanging out with my friends in the building…Chuck, Boris,and Billy were my homeboys…we were the proverbial Three Musketeers…and so wewould just visit one another in our apartments…and so I slowly stopped going tothat schoolyard…except a few years later, once in a while to smoke weed…

I DID go backto the schoolyard a few weeks later, on a Saturday…and I brought a bag thistime…the playground was often empty on the weekends, as it was this day…and Itried to climb up on the roof at the same location and in the same way I haddone a few weeks earlier, but I couldn’t…that’s how I KNEW it was the fear thathad gotten me up there a few weeks before…

I was stillobsessed with climbing up on that roof…I felt cheated!!  I had climbed up it the one time but didn’tget a chance to get all the balls up there…I felt robbed…I thought about it fora long time…and so maybe a year or so later an idea came into my head:  I was going to pick a time and just walkaround the entire circumference of the building and find a spot where I couldget up on to the roof…this was no small undertaking, it was major to me…theschool building is HUGE in terms of acreage…it’s like one block wide and twoblocks long and there are all of these fences you have to navigate…like you can’tjust walk around the school building there are bushes in one spot, a smallplayground in another spot, there’s the part that’s three stories high and I knewI wasn’t climbing that…some of it was facing the street, some of it was behinda black fence with spikes on the top which was not easy to climb…

I knew it wasgoing to be an adventure, and a challenge…maybe almost another year elapsedbefore I finally got up the balls (no pun intended) to go and walk the entirecircumference of the building and find a good spot to climb up…it actually didn’ttake very long…I found this guard railing near one of the main entrance doors…stoodup on that and then there was some grating on this window that was EASY toclimb, and voila…I got up on to the roof…I looked around and I didn’t see verymany balls…I think I saw about six…and I forgot to bring my bag so I juststuffed as many in my pockets as I could…

That was at atime where I had stopped caring so much about baseball and was more intosmoking weed…I went up there a few times…I think I got high up there once butother than that it was a place to hide from people…I had my one spotoverlooking 97th street that I just liked to chill at and lookacross the street at “120/180”…this huge building that was across the street…

Eventually I gotbored of going up there…climbing up there was too much of a pain in the ass andit occurred to me that I was a sitting duck up there…like if I was up there andsome other kids climbed up they could mug me and I’d have no place to run to…therewas one way to climb up there and one way to climb down and so if I was upthere and some kids came they could gang up on me, beat me up, take my moneyand there was no “escape route”…so I was through was climbing up there exceptfor one last time..

A few yearslater when I was a teenager and had been smoking weed for a while…think thiswas in the summer of 1982…I was carousing my neighborhood with about four orfive of my buddies…and I was thinking to myself, “hey, it’s been a few years”…andso I convinced them and we all climbed up on the roof…we did some graffiti,smoked some weed…one of my friends saw an opening with a metal cover and priedit off to see what was underneath…

He pried ifoff, look down and it was a ladder…”we can get in the building!!!”….ahahah!!...sothey climbed down…I didn’t really want to but we did…we were in the janitor’scloset…with all the mops and brooms and cleaning equipment…machines…wax, soap,cleaners and what have you…we opened the door and YES…we were in the school…”hello,old friend!” I was thinking…I had not been inside this building in the last 7years…

We vandalizedkids’ art work and community announcement boards…wrote graffiti…and I pissed inone of the hallways…we had a grand old time…then left…went back on the roofthen went back in and did some more…

And then afew weeks later my mom got a letter in the mail…it appears that one of my oldschool teachers was living in Park West Village,the complex that was on the other side of the school from my building…Mrs.Beck, who was my second grade teacher…she recognized me and she knew my mom or Iguess got her address out of the phone book…whatever…and sent my mom a lettersaying she saw me with some other kids climbing in there…I’m sure it was bignews LOL when people came back to school…idk what happens to elementary schoolsduring the summer…do they just lock the buildings up in june and reopen in September??...iguess these days the buildings get used for something, year-round…

And so my momconfronted me about it and of course, I lied J…Isaid Mrs. Beck must have the wrong person and my mom believed me, gave me thebenefit of the doubt…but it was me J

And that wascertainly the last time I climbed up on that roof!!...but I went back in thereone more time in the ‘80s to vote…and this has been my final P.S. 163 story…goodbyeP.S. 163!!

More Than A Feeling.

1976 was the first year I can remember where I knew what year it was…when I first became aware…other stuff I wrote here about times before that was just extrapolations, figuring things out and working backwards…I remember a big deal being made when people rang in 1976 because this was going to be America’s 200th anniversary…200 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence…

It was the “whitest” year I had in this time period, my momhad just transferred me over to a school where most of the kids were white,this was before I started going to Joan Of Arc junior high a few years laterwhere there were like two other white kids and this was before I started goingto the Goddard-Riverside Camp in upstate New York, where there was maybe four…

It was weird going to a school with so many white kids, it was hard to relate to them and ironically, right away when I got there the two kids from school I would pal around with were both black…one was Michael Greene and the other was a kid named Ben (forgot his last name)…Ben lived on 96th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway…when I would go to his house it was the first time I had been in REALLY shitty, ghetto-type housing…creaky floors…old building from the 1930’s or earlier…Freddy Roman’s house was a little bit like that…

Michael’s dad was a superintendent for a building…and so we’d play tag or whatever, run around the basement…HIS apartment was kind of ghetto,too…crap everywhere…I was big time into records, 33 lp’s and also 45’s…I had a rack for them and I would always put them back neatly…I guess even then I knew how to take good care of my stuff even though I would smash things and break them if they didn’t work…I couldn’t get my record player to work one time and I just beat it up…smashed it all to shit…but at Michael’s house he had his 45 records all in one big pile…no paper sleeves to protect them…even then I knew the records would just get scratched up…there was a 45 of Diana Ross and the Supremes - "Stop! In The Name of Love"...Michael was like, what's this?   stop in the name of the law?  I was thinking "no stupid".  I said "stop in the name of love".  I'd heard the expression stop in the name of the law on TV and places but even at the age of 10 I knew the title of the song was a play on the phrase.  Now that I think about it, the records must have been his parents'.

He used to make fun of my mom for wearing sandals in the winter…tell mamma jokes and what not…then I would insult his mom and he’d get mad for real…not even telling yo mamma snaps but just pointing out what was true…even then, just by looking at his parents I could tell they were alcoholics.  I didn't know what alcoholism really is, I just know that it's people who drink a lot and look funny...misshapen…his mother looked kind of like Billie Holiday if she had lived to be 60…she looked a lot older than she was…his father was big and fat with a fat face, walking around with dirty clothes…so it’s funny people tell a bunch of jokes that aren’t true and I just point out hey, your mom is this and your dad is that and they get mad for real…crazy kids…Michael had this glare when he was pissed…he’d stare right at you and not say anything…he did that one time when a teacher, Ms. Bolzano (what’s a black lady doing with a name like Bolzano?  Had she married an Italian?)…Ms. Bolzano took his baseball cards and tore them up and threw them in the trash…he just glowered at her while she did it…like he was gonna kill her…but that's all he ever did, to my knowledge...

We were obsessed with baseball, and baseball cards…I remember that year watching The Bad News Bears and another baseball movie that is quite underrated that I still love, “Bingo Long’s Travelling All-Stars and Motor Kings”…with Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones, and Richard Pryor…we loved Doritos…this was before they started putting them in these silver-type bags…they used to come in regular plastic bags like Tostitos do now…they came in taco or nacho cheese flavor…but me, Ben, and Michael were always in class having to hide our baseball cards and Doritos from the teacher…

there was a Mexican restaurant on the west half of Broadway,between 96th and 95th Streets…Mexican food seemed weird to me…all those strange names for the food…burritos, tacos, enchiladas…and there were pictures of the food on the walls in there, and the pictures looked weird, and the names of the dishes were weird.  What the hell is this stuff??...the name of the place was Taco Rico, with the Fowad discount clothing store across the street...with the cheap clothes out in the street, hanging from these clotheshorses...with cheap hangers…and so anyway, since I switched to P.S. 75 from P.S. 163 and had to walk the half mile there each day, I started learning more about the world of upper west side Manhattan and how to get around…just a little…

One night Ben, Michael and I went to see a movie…it was a double bill “Uptown Saturday Night/Do It Again”…it freaked me out because Jimmy Walker was in it…J.J. from Good Times…I used to love the show “Good Times”, I used to watch it all the time…I was still young and it made no sense to me…I’m watching this movie and thinking, “what the heck is J.J. from Good Times doing in a movie”…

But he wasn’t J.J…in the movie, Jimmy Walker played acriminal…and so I couldn’t believe my eyes…he was cursing, using the F and Swords, beating people up, slapping women, drinking, doing drugs…robbing people…itwas so weird…wow J.J. violent what the hell happened??...it made no sense to mebecause on T.V. he was such a nice guy, the type of person you’d want for afriend…now he’s being mean to people I think in one scene he’s got a guy downon the ground and is kicking the crap out of him and cursing at him…

And so I remembered what I saw for the next week or so…Iremember I couldn’t wait for next (whatever night Good Times was on), so Icould watch it…and so…the next time I sat down to watch an episode of GoodTimes, I was waiting for J.J. to do something bad…he’s turned evil now,right??...he’s changed??...nope…I watched the show and he was the same old J.J…Iwatched the episode and I kept waiting for him to curse or hit someone but hedidn’t…that’s when it started to dawn on me that the people on T.V. and inmovies are just acting…

1976

I don’t remember all of this 100%....but all or most of my summers in the late‘70s...from 1976 to 1980, I would go to day camp in July, and sleep away camp in August…with the exception of 1980, my parents got rid of me for BOTH months…haha…for the summer of 1976, my parents sent me to the YMCA day camp in July and then the YMCA’s Camp McAllister in upstate New York for August…from 1977-1980 they sent me to the hell-hole Goddard-Riverside day camp in July and the sleep away camp in Rifton, NY in August…the day camp in July of 1976 was fun for the most part…there was a fair amount of white kids in the camp, a majority, actually…unlike Goddard-Riverside where there were like three of us…I think one year I was the only white kid…the activities almost always centered around WATER…not all the time…we would go to parks and play ball, or go to the zoo, or the ice skating rink as well, but mostly we would go to some pool or to the beach…

I was used to the beach by this time, I had been going there for years…but I was used to going to Manasquan, not the places we went…so July 1976 was the first time I went to a beach where it was not with my family and so it seemed odd…this one beach I swear it must have been on a lake…in Manasquan, you would look out and see the ocean…this one beach we went to, you could look out and see the water but then off to the side was someone’s house, their lawn, etc…seemed odd…I remember being in the water and staring at the house, trying to see what the people on the lawn were doing…while listening the Beach Boys’ covers of “Rock and Roll Music” coming out of someone’s transistor radio…the most interesting times that month were just riding on the bus…we’d all get on a yellow school bus and a lot of the time it was an hour or more drive to where we were going…so the kids would just hang out with nothing to do…one time on the bus I had some mustard packs I got from someplace and just for fun I opened it up and squeezed it out the window…then this kid from the back of the bus came forward and yelled at me because he got hit in the face with mustard lol….

There was this one white kid who used to bully me all the time, tell me what to do and threaten to beat me up…so all day I tried to avoid him and I usually was able to…we’d go on day trips in smaller groups and he was never in my group…but for those days where we just  hung out inside the park, I had to live in fear of him the entire time…so each day, I was glad when camp was over…I was able to breathe a sigh of relief…no more bullying or possible bullying until the next day…other kids got bullied…this black kid named Paul used to make fun of this Chinese kid…used to make fun of his facial features and used to call him “The Great Wall of China”….there was a quiet kid by the name of Rustam…blond hair, brown-eyed kid…I thought it was a funny name I knew a kid in my building named Rusty and my older brother had dated a chick named Rusty but Rustam??...

I started at a very early age to feel…idk…a combination of sad and pissed off….DENIED…if I wanted something and couldn’t have it…especially if someone else had it…we planned lots of day trips in this camp but a lot of the time we just spent hanging out in Central Park, a couple of blocks away from the YMCA building.  It was located on the northeast corner of Central Park West and 63rd Street…big, old building…it truly was a residence, there were people living there and then there was a small playroom…they had pool tables, ping pong tables, and foozball…I used to want to play those shithead games instead of ice hockey,roller hockey and basketball like the tough kids…so when there wasn’t much going on we’d play in this one section of Central Park, right inside the wall where there were a couple of baseball fields…

The onetime, I was standing near the hot dog cart that was there every day…again,feeling that combination of anger and sadness….LONGING…for some of the treats from the cart that I couldn’t have because I didn’t have the money….watching everyone else get hot dogs, sodas, and pretzels…I hated the food that the camp served us…a piece of fruit, some fruit juice, and some sort of meat sandwich (no, not the kind from Kumar visits Guantanamo Bay)…I wasn’t even a gourmet-type person yet I just hated eating the same shit every day…institutional food…prison food…I wanted a hot dog and soda!  So a lot of the time I’d just sit near the cart, angry….

I must have been obvious because one time, this old man bought me a soda (they were 25 cents a piece at this time!)…it was the new Sunkist orange soda…I had heard of Sunkist orange juice before but Sunkist soda was new…and so I didn’t know what to say I took the soda and wow!  I got what I wanted…I started drinking it and then halfway through I felt gross….even at this time I was aware that soda was not healthy…I don’t remember if I finished the other half of the soda out of obligation or a desire not to waste something I got for free…or if I dumped out the other half…but even at that young age I started to realize that wanting the soda and the other treats was not actually 100% because I wanted to drink the soda, or eat the candy, or consume whatever the treat was…I wanted to have these things in order to feel included…in order not to feel left out…everyone else was enjoying their hot dogs, soda, Italian ices, etc…and for me not to have them created a feeling of being denied, excluded, unworthy….and it’s funny how right away…after I got halfway through the soda and didn’t want to finish it, I knew that THAT’S what it was about…

I had two friends at that day camp I used to hang out with at this time…who knows what race they were probably a mix…black and white mix…two high-yellow type guys…one I think his name was Kevin Whitehead…the other guy was strange looking…he looked like a cartoon character…and they were always ducking into Gristede’s (supermarket) on 62nd Street and Central Park West and getting soda…they got sodas so big I KNEW I didn’t want…they would get 2-liter sodas…and I wouldn’t get jealous I thought it was kind of funny…and they didn’t get Coca-Cola or any brand names, they got Gristede’s house brand which I thought was odd…but yes, in general I got mad, or had this feeling of being left out in the cold when other people had money and things and I did not…

This was also a time where I started becoming something of a punk-ass…my “mouth writing checks that my ass can’t cash”, as they say today…I would push it, I would get in people’s face, I would provoke people to fight and then when they stood up to me I would almost always punk out…there were these two kids who were best friends, they were always hanging out together…like they were brothers…two white kids…and they were the two tallest kids in the camp…one of them, I think his name was Elliot…one of them had these geeky-type glasses…like the dudes in Weezer sometimes wear…nerd/geek glasses and I was making fun of him…and he came up to me like he was going to fight…got right up to my face…he was about 4 inches taller than me…and he took his glasses off…started looking me in the eye…and at that point I noticed he was cross-eyed…so I started making fun of him even more!!...pointing at his face “ahahah your glasses look funny and you’re cross-eyed”…

I think that I had that much confidence provoking these two (the guy’s friend was there, also) because I had my friend Billy with me…Billy was my homeboy, one of my best friends, he lived in my building as well…he was also a good fighter…and he was fearless…always willing to mix it up if you piss him off…a nice guy, and not quick to anger but if you’re a rude asshole he won’t hesitate to put you in your place…he was one of my best friends…

So I remember provoking this tall dude even more, and getting ready for a fight…but I was depending on Billy to kick both their asses or something…I don’t know what I was thinking…finally I called over to Billy to jump in, “hey let’s kick these guys’ asses”…and Billy didn’t…and I could tell right away it wasn’t because he was scared…it was because he knew I was wrong…I only half comprehended it at the time…he didn’t come to my aid and I was kind of like“wtf”…I had never kicked anyone’s ass before and I looked forward to it but now it looked like I wasn’t kicking anyone’s ass so I was confused and disappointed…at that point I sort of backed off the dude, shut up, and walked away…I could tell he didn’t want to fight either…maybe he was worried that if he hit me while I was backing off that maybe that would cause Billy to jump in…so the whole standoff ended and for a short while I was perplexed by Billy’s actions…I was pissed off at him for a little while like hey, Billy is not my friend I can’t count on him…but as dumb as I was at this time it was only a short while before I figured it out…

Don’t be a punk…don’t pick a fight with someone you know you can’t beat and then expect someone else to fight your battles for you unless that someone else is just a psycho dying to fight anyone for any reason but that was something that Billy was not…Billy used to make of this counselor guy who used to kick-scratch his leg with the other foot while walking…the kids in the camp were always misbehaving, the counselors used to have to always yell at us, lecture us, harangue us about the proper way to act…and he would say to the kids if they do this or that bad thing, then  "I’m not gonna have a good time, you’re not gonna have a good time, we’re not gonna have a good time”, etc…Billy used to make fun of the dude cos he would say it all the time…about how people “are not gonna have a good time”….

For the second half of July 1976…I got sent to a smaller group of kids…I liked that very much…just like ten of us…I can’t say how much I soooooo prefer that to a large group of people…these were a bunch of kids I felt comfortable with…almost like a family…and we liked the counselor in charge of us…and I liked being on a smaller bus…it was more a feeling of a small circle of friends instead of a big mob…and at the end of each trip…for the bus ride back, we got candy…candy for the kids was part of the package at this day camp…..and so the ride from wherever we went on our day trip back to the building on 63rd street was usually the most fun part of the day, because we didn’t have to do anything…just sit there and eat our candy and look out the window….

This one counselor would tell us stories while he was driving…all these crazy stories…and he would use our names…names of us campers…for the characters in his story…I don’t know why but me and all the other kids were just thrilled to death when our name would get used…like he would be talking about some person doing all these cool things and the person’s name was Terry and it was just the greatest thrill…and the other kids loved it when their name was used…he was like the greatest guy ever to us kids…but we were a bunch of little unappreciative little bastards, lol…because we were always wanting MORE…

He would tell his story and right after he got done, we would all beg him “tell us another story!!  Tell us another story”…and I remember him getting a pissed off, annoyed look…and say something like “not now, I don’t have any more, I need to concentrate on my driving”…and so it was confusing to me at first…”doesn’t he like telling us stories?”...but now I can understand how he felt…he probably put a lot of thought and effort into these stories and the little ingrates don’t appreciate it and are not happy with it they want MORE all the time…

Okay…one last story from July of 1976…by this time, I had already known a little bit about how to navigate around the upper west side of Manhattan…the streets areall numbered from north to south and there were only six avenues that ran north to south from the Hudson River to Central Park…so I knew how to get around there…so there was the upper west side from Columbus Circle up to where my apartment was on 98th Street, all of which my stomping ground, then there was the huge, vast, amazing ocean of trees, paths, roads, and ball fields that is Central Park, and then on the other side was the mystery known to me as the upper east side…it looked like Manhattan but that’s about it…I had no clue where I was when I was there…of course the streets were and are numbered but the avenues made no sense to me…

 One time when my troupe was doing something onthe upper east side, me and another guy got lost from the pack…I was in full panic mode…even then, I knew…cops are our friends and after a few seconds I realized things should be fine…just find a police officer and we’ll be safe…but how will we get back to our group?....i knew that cops are not a free taxi service…were we in trouble??...I was stressed…

but the dude I was with was totally calm…I was freaked out, “how are we going to get back with them??”….and he said, “we’ll just walk back to the building and meet them there”…I was like, “huh??...walk back? How can we walk there??...we’re on the east side and the building is on the west side…you need a bus or a car to get from one side to the other”….and he said, “we’ll walk back through the park”…and we did…I just followed him…

In central to north Manhattan, there are a few large cross-streets…59th,72nd, 79th, 86th, 96th…there are IRT subway stops at each one of these streets on Broadway and Central Park West…and there are also roads that cars, buses and trucks can take that connect east side to west…I just didn’t know it at the time…and there are also sidewalks on either side of each of these roads…of course, these sidewalks next to these roads aren’t the only way to traverse Central Park…there are lots of them…but I didn’t realize there were any at this time, Central Park always seemed like a planet unto itself…or I guess I thought it would take days to try to walk it…the thought of walking it blew my mind it never occurred to me that it was possible…I suppose the entire thing was part of me developing my fascination with accomplishing things that are allegedly impossible...

So we started walking…at first I was scared…with all the cars whizzing by at 60 miles per hour….are they going to hit us??...after I realized they weren’t, it was the most amazing thing…walking across Central Park…and I made sure to remember how to do it…”I got to remember how to do this, for future use”…where to go …the walk seemed like hours…and sure enough…we finally emerged from the sidewalk and we were back on the west side…on Central Park West, and I knew where I was…totally amazing…knew how to walk through Central Park from the east side to the west side back to the YMCA and it was amazing to me….

From then on, that was my fun thing to do…and I figured out one of the many ways to do it so it was a peaceful walk through the park, and not the small sidewalk space with the traffic whizzing by…years later when I was going to the free counselor on the east side…I would spend the transportation money on a soda and a bag of Doritos and eat and drink those while walking to the counselor…and then the transportation money the counselor gave me, I would save it up a little at a time and use it to buy weed….that one mishap of the two of us getting lost resulted in a whole new world of Central Park opening up to me…it was one of my favorite places to go for the next 13 years before I moved out of New York…