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Authors: Richard Grossinger
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“Baruch atah Adonai elohaynu melech ha’olam,” so I obediently mimicked the jingle each night as my head dropped onto the pillow. And, though he told me the words meant “Blessed Art Thou, O Lord and God, King of the Universe,” I didn’t know what that meant except someone like my ethereal benefactors. The story bridged the gap between melech ha’olam and sleep. It made there be a King and a Universe and placed me in it too. My spaceship couldn’t be as sacred and important as “Baruch atah Adonai …,” but it was.
At a hint of warm weather in March, Phil brought out a Spaldeen rubber ball and tossed it toward me down 92nd Street. I stabbed at his throw, but it hit my hands and bounced off; I picked it up and heaved it back as best I could. We repeated this ritual wordlessly, as he raced ahead, making leaping grabs.
“Like this,” he said, demonstrating how not to throw like a girl.Then he gestured for me to loft the ball opposite where he was. I tried, but it went sideways, rolling down the street.
He tore after it, stopped it on the run and, after faking a side-arm throw, brought it back. “Up high,” he pointed.
I aimed it away from him; he sped down the sidewalk, leaped, caught it, and threw himself onto the hood of a parked car.
I wanted to be able to do this, yet I flubbed even the easier flips he lobbed my way.
Phil was Bill-Dave’s star athlete and leader of our club that included Freddie, Herbie, Davey, Ronnie, me, and Al. We eyed him for instructions. If the Bill-Dave was marching home in its orderly column he would signal a detour and we would surge behind him through bushes onto dirt, rejoining the main party on the other side of the loop. In tunnels we would answer his howls with our own, kids pretending to be Indians pretending to be animals. We bowed flamboyantly on each pass of Cleopatra’s needle, imitating Phil’s voodoo-sounding gibberish. Most of the other kids ignored us, but a few were provoked to rebut, a quick charge and shove or calling out “Dummies!” as we bowed.
Herbie brought a magnifying glass to school and used it to incinerate ants in the yard—a thrilling demonstration of the power of curved glass to pull the sun’s fire onto Earth. When Phil handed the death ray to me, everyone shouted to get the spider. I held the magnifier over it. Ambling along, it scurried, curled, and melted, squirming in a stream of smoke while my friends cheered. Then Billy burned the wings off a fly. I realized, in sudden consternation, we were imitating Bert’s Korean tortures.
For weeks afterwards I pictured that poor creature just going about his business, reduced to fragments and ash. It is a regret I still have, an unsquared issue between him and me, a stone in my heart. Yet boys do mindless things even as a cat claws apart the wings of a struggling bird.
When a bunch of us visited Phil’s apartment on 93rd Street he sassed his parents (mostly under his breath). His mother called out, “Hello.” Phil said, “Hello, ma’am,” and then, in a whisper to us,“… idiotbrain.”
One afternoon, as we poured from the elevator into the apartment, Phil’s father intercepted him for introductions to adult company. “Good to meet you,” he said with exaggerated politeness, courteously shaking each hand. Then, in front of the grown-ups, he began shaking our hands too: “Good to meet you, Herbie. Good to meet you, Al. Good to meet you, Richie. Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” At the conclusion of the charade we galloped into his room for games and comics.
Phil had a peerless collection of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Mickey Mouse, Tubby and Little Lulu, piles of Donald Ducks and Uncle Scrooges. I would grab a stack and shuffle through them, looking for ones I hadn’t read: Bugs and Elmer wrapped to a post with Indians around them, Bugs slicing carrots into a piggy bank, Mickey giving a bath to a yelping Pluto while water splashed all about.
It was an afternoon’s treat to
At a hint of warm weather in March, Phil brought out a Spaldeen rubber ball and tossed it toward me down 92nd Street. I stabbed at his throw, but it hit my hands and bounced off; I picked it up and heaved it back as best I could. We repeated this ritual wordlessly, as he raced ahead, making leaping grabs.
“Like this,” he said, demonstrating how not to throw like a girl.Then he gestured for me to loft the ball opposite where he was. I tried, but it went sideways, rolling down the street.
He tore after it, stopped it on the run and, after faking a side-arm throw, brought it back. “Up high,” he pointed.
I aimed it away from him; he sped down the sidewalk, leaped, caught it, and threw himself onto the hood of a parked car.
I wanted to be able to do this, yet I flubbed even the easier flips he lobbed my way.
Phil was Bill-Dave’s star athlete and leader of our club that included Freddie, Herbie, Davey, Ronnie, me, and Al. We eyed him for instructions. If the Bill-Dave was marching home in its orderly column he would signal a detour and we would surge behind him through bushes onto dirt, rejoining the main party on the other side of the loop. In tunnels we would answer his howls with our own, kids pretending to be Indians pretending to be animals. We bowed flamboyantly on each pass of Cleopatra’s needle, imitating Phil’s voodoo-sounding gibberish. Most of the other kids ignored us, but a few were provoked to rebut, a quick charge and shove or calling out “Dummies!” as we bowed.
Herbie brought a magnifying glass to school and used it to incinerate ants in the yard—a thrilling demonstration of the power of curved glass to pull the sun’s fire onto Earth. When Phil handed the death ray to me, everyone shouted to get the spider. I held the magnifier over it. Ambling along, it scurried, curled, and melted, squirming in a stream of smoke while my friends cheered. Then Billy burned the wings off a fly. I realized, in sudden consternation, we were imitating Bert’s Korean tortures.
For weeks afterwards I pictured that poor creature just going about his business, reduced to fragments and ash. It is a regret I still have, an unsquared issue between him and me, a stone in my heart. Yet boys do mindless things even as a cat claws apart the wings of a struggling bird.
When a bunch of us visited Phil’s apartment on 93rd Street he sassed his parents (mostly under his breath). His mother called out, “Hello.” Phil said, “Hello, ma’am,” and then, in a whisper to us,“… idiotbrain.”
One afternoon, as we poured from the elevator into the apartment, Phil’s father intercepted him for introductions to adult company. “Good to meet you,” he said with exaggerated politeness, courteously shaking each hand. Then, in front of the grown-ups, he began shaking our hands too: “Good to meet you, Herbie. Good to meet you, Al. Good to meet you, Richie. Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” At the conclusion of the charade we galloped into his room for games and comics.
Phil had a peerless collection of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Mickey Mouse, Tubby and Little Lulu, piles of Donald Ducks and Uncle Scrooges. I would grab a stack and shuffle through them, looking for ones I hadn’t read: Bugs and Elmer wrapped to a post with Indians around them, Bugs slicing carrots into a piggy bank, Mickey giving a bath to a yelping Pluto while water splashed all about.
It was an afternoon’s treat to
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