I COULD HAVE BEEN A HERO - Book 2

Book 2 – THE SCHOOL CARNIVAL

Even though Willy Mays, who was my childhood hero, would have hung his head in shame at the way I acted on and off the field that Friday afternoon at Aztec School, all was not wasted.  I was able to gather a following, and after all, that was my goal.

My parents were hoping that maybe the new friends and the atmosphere would be a blessing to me and them.  There was a gang of guys I ran around with about which my mother was none too happy.  Don’t misunderstand, gangs, when I was in the sixth grade in the late 50’s, was nothing like what one pictures now when the word “gang” pops up in a conversation.  We were just a group of 5 or 6 gangly kids that were always looking for someway to amuse ourselves.

As I think back, I can understand why my mother looked so worn out when she was but 30 years old.  It seemed that I was always getting into some kind of trouble and being sent to the principal’s office.  This was really frustrating for my mother, because she knew what a wonderful little boy I was.  In fact, she was the only one who understood, I think, as I pleaded my case after each suspension.  I could not understand how a guy could get suspended for something that was not his fault.  You be the judge.

I spent most of the sixth grade at Beardsley Elementary School.  We did not move into town until later that year.  I guess it was fashionable for the girls to chase after the boys and try to put lipstick or rouge on them, or at least it was at Beardsley.  I had no idea why they did that, but to tell you the truth, there was a little of that testosterone thing going on as well, because it was a little titillating knowing that a bunch of girls were chasing you.  There was a rule at the school that prohibited running in the hallways, but everybody did it.  In fact, the only time kids walked down the hallway was when a teacher was yelling at them to stop running.

I had managed to lose the girls successfully at one point, but just to make sure; I halted my flight to freedom just long enough to push my back against a side wall and ever so carefully rounded the corner of the hallway with just the edge of my eyeball.  As I was looking down the corridor, Mrs. Schotz, who had been teaching at Highland School ever since schools had been invented, snuck up behind me.  Now, if she would have tapped me on the shoulder, or cleared her throat, or just plain yelled at me, I would have turned around, said something dumb, and then would have been on my way.  But that was not the way Mrs. Schotz did things.  She tip-toed up behind me, stood tall, which was saying something since she was only about five foot two, folded her arms and planted her feet firmly on the floor.

“There he is!” one of the girls at the other end of the hallway screamed.

“Oh crap.” I mumbled as I turned to scramble down the hall and out of their reach.

I tried to explain to the principal that I was sorry that I knocked Mrs. Schotz down, and I was terribly sorry that she was rushed to the hospital and that I hoped that her broken hip healed soon.

My poor mother just sat there beside me with this pitiful look on her face.  Mr. Harvey, the principal, glared at me over his glasses that sat on the end of his nose.  He said nothing, just stared.  The silence was killing me.

“Mr. Harvey, it really wasn’t my fault.” I begged.  “I didn’t know that those dumb girls would spot me, and I certainly didn’t know she was standing behind me.  Besides, if she would have retired way back when she got too old to teach, none of this would have happened.”

Mr. Harvey finally spoke.  But he spoke to my mother instead of me.  He told my mom that perhaps she might want to encourage me to stop talking.  Which, I did.

I’m sure my dear sweet mother was hoping that this would be the end of her having to come in to see the principal about her darling little boy.  I was hoping the same thing, but it just wasn’t meant to be.

“DO NOT BOUNCE THE BALLS IN THE HALLWAY!”

That was what the sign read that was posted on the door of the equipment room.  That rule never did make sense to me.  If there was a teacher trying to teach their students something in an adjoining classroom, I would have understood how it could have been disrupting.  But the fact was, students were not permitted to check out balls except during recess and during recess all the classrooms are vacant.  So, I just assumed that the rule was made a long time ago, and it was no longer enforced.  Besides…everyone did it.

I was going through my usual routine, which was crowding in front of the fifth graders so I could get one of the better balls.  After I checked out the ball I wanted, I headed down the hallway towards the playground where a bunch of my friends were waiting to play kickball…I was bouncing the ball, of course.

At that moment, I thought of a way to test the supreme accuracy of my eye/hand coordination.  “I wonder how close I can bounce this ball to my foot, without actually hitting it.” I thought.  Never in a thousand years did I think I would hit the corner of my shoe, but I did.  The crazy ball hit right on the edge of my big toe.  Now, it could have bounced straight up, back into my arms, but nothing is ever that easy.  Yes, I know, it is much more likely that the ball is going to carom off in an unpredictable direction.  As such, it could have hit against numerous objects without causing alarm…a classroom wall, a bulletin board display, even a girls head.  But, it flew up against one particular part of the wall…the exact, precise area where the fire alarm was attached.  It was a perfect bull’s eye.  In fact, I have thought about the incident since, and have come to the conclusion that I could have probably stood off about ten feet or so and threw the ball at the fire alarm and never have hit it.    

It was actually kind of funny.  There were kids running all over the place screaming and causing quite a stir.  Teachers were standing around looking at each other with that look of “what’s that?  It sounds like the fire alarm.  What are we supposed to do, again?”  Fire drills occur during class, not during the recess, as I recall.  The whole playground soon was pandemonium.  Everyone, that is, except my teacher, Mr. Busser.  He had been standing down at the end of the hallway doing his daily supervision gig and saw my exercise in expert ball handling.

“Hello, Mom?  Mr. Harvey said that I have to call you and ask you to come down to the school for a meeting.”

“But, Mom!  Mom! I didn’t do anything.  Really!”

The third week of March was always a festive time at Beardsley School, plus it proved to be my last hurray there because it was the very next week that we moved back into Bakersfield where I finished up sixth grade at Highland Elementary School.

There was a carnival that some weekend outfit had put together to entertain school kids.  They set up their Ferris wheel and other less spectacular rides in the field across the street from the school.  In reality, the carnival was not all that entertaining, unless you liked gawking at poor animals that looked as if they had missed way too many meals.  However, the reason the kids loved the carnival so much was because we were released from school a lot during that time.  The highlight of the week, according to the parents and school staff, was Black Thursday, as we called it.  Apparently, one of the school board members thought it would be a great idea if all the parents were invited to go to school with their children on that particular day.  They would actually go around with us and sit by us and listen to the teachers as they presented their very polished lessons, obviously, for the benefit of the parents.  In theory the whole concept of this special day sounded pretty good.  But, when you’re a sixth grader…it was Black Thursday.

One of the advantages I had throughout the week was the fact that my father worked during the day.  Therefore, I only had to please my mom, which generally wasn’t all that difficult.  My dad, on the other hand…just let me say, if Dad had been with me on Black Thursday, I wouldn’t have been able to sit down for a week, after the commotion I some how inadvertently caused.

I was really trying to be on my best behavior, because I really did want to make my mom proud of me.  And, how much trouble could a guy get into with his mother sitting in a chair right next to his desk all day long?

I guess it must have happened during a breakdown in concentration.  I can remember Mr. Busser talking about something to do with Joaquin Murrieta and his band of merry robbers, when it happened.  I was really trying to listen, but at the same time, I was dreaming about my mansions on high, an activity I did quite often, as I recall.

I had one of those old kinds of desks that had a hole right in the middle up toward the top.  When we asked our teacher about the purpose of the hole, we were told that they were for the bottles of ink used by the students years ago.  That fact, alone, made me wonder how kids survived those days.  Imagine, a bottle of ink setting right there on the top of a ten year olds desk?

 

I was fiddling around with the brand new pencil my mother had given me so I could start this special day out on the right foot, as the saying goes.  I was lost in deep thought as I pondered all the ways a guy could use that ink.  My pencil had a nice sharp point on it and I hadn’t had time to chew the eraser off yet.  I was trying to balance the pencil on the rim of the ink well.  The eraser was nestled up against the wall of the hole, and the point was sticking straight toward Billy Shields, who was sitting directly in front of me leaning on his desk with his head resting in his hands.

Billy was pretty good at faking out Mr. Busser.  He would appear to be totally engrossed in whatever Mr. Busser was saying, but, actually, he was fast asleep.  I can’t imagine how Billy thought anyone was fooled, especially when his body started jerking and jumping all over the place like what happens to some of the people who fall asleep at church.

Well, as fate would have it, on that particular Black Thursday, Billy wasn’t sleeping, and suddenly, without any kind of warning, he decided to lean back in his chair and stretch.  He threw his arms out to his side, and slammed his upper torso against the backrest of his desk chair with amazing velocity.

Billy screamed so loud that Mr. Busser dropped his book.  Even though I knew it meant another trip to the principal’s office, it was kind of funny.  That pencil was stuck right smack in the middle of his back.  Even when he jumped out of his seat, the pencil remained intact.  It looked as though he had been shot with a little yellow arrow.  I tried to be a “Pollyanna” about the whole thing, and looked desperately for something positive about the predicament.  “At least they won’t have to bother my mom at home.” I thought as I glanced over at her for the first time since Billy’s blood curdling scream.  She had this horrified expression on her face, and I just knew this wasn’t going to end well.

Mr. Harvey was pretty cool with the whole ordeal, actually.  I wasn’t sure if it was because my mother was there or what, but he only lectured me for awhile, and told me how dangerous it was and all about lead poisoning and such, but I wasn’t suspended.  If the week could have ended on that note, everyone would have been much happier, but it was not the case. 

During the carnival week, as tradition dictated, there was a big baseball game between the fifth graders and the sixth graders.  The sixth graders usually won, but on occasion the fifth grade would come up with a couple of super stars and would show the sixth graders who the real pros were.

We were kind of cocky and figured this would be the usual year in which we would kick the fannies of the fifth graders and was pretty confident that it was going to be a lopsided affair.  And, it should have been, had it not been for Mr. Weeks.

Mr. Weeks was a fifth grade teacher, and he decided that the teachers ought to be able to play if they wanted.  That was a definite disadvantage to us, because Mr. Busser was rather rotund, to say the least, and was a little on the feminine side of life.

“This is just great!” I said to myself.  “Mr. Busser probably doesn’t even know who Willy Mays is.”

Mr. Weeks, on the other hand, was a jock.  He was OK when it came to playing sports, but then it was really hard to make an accurate assessment.  After all he was playing against a bunch of elementary school kids.  Even though he was a pretty cool teacher, most of the guys didn’t like him when he donned his sporting gear.  He was always talking about how great he was, and how he was an all-star in every sport when he was a kid, etc, etc, etc.  And…worse yet, the girls thought he was cute, which was just wrong.

The game went as I thought it would when Mr. Weeks announced that he was going to play.  We were getting our proverbial butts kicked, thanks to Mr. Weeks hitting the ball into the kindergarten playground every time he came to bat.  I was getting more and more frustrated as the minutes ticked by.  My only consolation was that the busses were ready to take kids home, so the game would have to end soon.

“All right, we have just enough time for me to bat one more time.”  Mr. Weeks yelled.

I groaned.

He stepped to the plate, turned and looked at me.  “Well, Mr. Catcher,” he said with a pompous grin smeared across his face.  “Watch me knock the cover off it.” he smirked.  I really just wanted to spit on his nose and be done with it, but figured it would probably just hit my mask’s crossbar, so I discarded that thought as quickly as it came to mind.

Sure enough, with one mighty swing, the ball quickly sailed out of sight.  I do not recall what came over me at that point, but watching Mr. Weeks jogging around the bases laughing and holding his arms in the air like he had really done something special, well, something inside me snapped.  As he rounded third base heading for home, I faked it like the ball was being thrown to me.

“Thanks, Mr. Busser!” I yelled.  “Come on you guys, throw the ball.  We can still get him!”

Mr. Weeks didn’t turn around to check out the situation, which would have made it clear to Mr. Weeks that I was bluffing him.  All he would have seen was a bunch of dazed sixth grade boys staring at the scene that was unfolding.  So, because Mr. Weeks thought I was on the up and up, he got this real serious look on his face and started pushing himself down the line.  As he got closer and closer to the plate, I played as if the ball was almost in my glove.  It was a little surreal in that it seemed like everything had switched into slow motion.  I saw his eyes as they glared in determination.  The fatty part of his cheeks was bouncing up and down on his face.  I could even hear his belabored breathing as he stumbled toward me.

At that moment, I really had no control over what my body was about to do.  Even though Mr. Weeks was playing in black slack pants, a white shirt with his tie loosed about his neck, I couldn’t resist.  When he struggled toward the plate, slightly off balance, I ever so carefully stuck my foot out.  I didn’t really expect him to fall face first into the powdery dirt, and I really didn’t expect him to jump up and start chasing me all over the field.  However, as I think about it now, it must have been quite a sight.  There he was, a grown man covered in dirt, chasing a little kid around the ball diamond yelling and shaking his fist, with another grown up, Mr. Busser, chasing behind him, pleading for him to stop.

Being a hero can be really confusing sometimes.  All the kids thought I should have been chosen player of the century…even the fifth graders.  But instead, Mr. Harvey said that even though I was moving that weekend, he was going to inform the principal at Highland that I was enrolling at his school with a suspension hung around my neck.  And the worst of it was that I got my butt whipped so hard that evening, thanks to my dad’s lack of a sense of humor, that I couldn’t help much with the loading and unloading of boxes that weekend.  So, actually, I guess it wasn’t a bad trade off.