One of the many irreplaceable things children are missing out on in this new age of pandemic panic and Zoom non-learning are the enduring lessons gleaned, not in the classroom, but at the bus stops, in the lunchrooms, and on the playgrounds of our public schools.
It’s all well and good to master your addition and subtraction … memorize some state capitals and verb conjugation … survive the science experiments and show-and-tells. But after you grow up and leave school behind, you just don’t find yourself in that many spelling bees, or kickball games, or having to write a lot of descriptive essays.
What you do find yourself dealing with, deep into the rest of your life, are the blunt, hard things you learned in the rough-and-tumble of recess, the cloak-and-dagger of the back of the bus, the give-and-take of the cafeteria line.
The tough reality that you’re not always – and maybe not ever – going to be picked first for the team. That sometimes, you’re going to like the girl who likes someone else. And that, sooner or later, you’re going to have to learn how to handle people like Tony Vargas.
I have often wondered what exactly I did that made Tony so angry.
I was new to his fifth-grade domain. He had a reputation for being tough, and no one to mess around with. I had a reputation for … nah, I didn’t have a reputation. I had an odd voice. I was thin as a needle, too blind to be of much help under the basketball hoop, and too new to Melvin E. Sine Elementary to have much in the way of friends or defenders.
Soon enough, though, I learned to be on perpetual lookout for Tony, in his dark blue jeans and snow-white t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He had a squinty-eyed, Eastwood-in-a-mean-mood stare that he saved mostly for me, and a laugh that bubbled up whenever he’d decided to inflict some pain. I’ll say this much for Tony – he laughed every day.
Teachers, I was saddened to learn, have blind spots. They’re not always adept, while on playground duty, at searching the far corners of the field for incidents aborning. I only had to wander too far out a couple of times – and find Tony and his posse standing menacingly between me and the teacher’s wandering line of sight – to learn it was best to pass my recess time very close to wherever the-teacher-on-duty was standing.
A somewhat more reliable defense came in the form of Adolph San Miguel. Adolph liked me, for reasons as obscure as why Tony loathed me. Maybe because I helped him with his spelling, or because I could always make him laugh. At any rate, during my years at Sine, Adolph was a tough and dependable Fonzie to my Richie Cunningham, more than once sauntering up to put himself between me and Tony just as things seemed headed for brutal conclusions.
Unfortunately, Adolph had an eye for the ladies, and they an eye for him. Many a time, I found myself in acute need of his intervention, only to spy Adolph over beneath the palo verde trees, pitching his highly effective woo to some admiring middle-school maiden.
Left to my own devices, I learned that a good Jerry Lewis imitation could sometimes distract Tony and his pals for those long, long minutes until the afternoon bell rang, or until some stray football bounced in among us and diverted them while I sprinted toward the teacher. I also found that sometimes, there was nothing for it but to stand there and let Tony mock me, or put a deep purple mark on my bicep with his fist.
One afternoon, feeling footloose and fancy-free, I strolled a shade too far afield on the playground. I suddenly turned to find Tony looming behind me, a cold glint in his eye, a sneer on his lips. It was too late to go back. The teacher on duty was 200 yards away and absorbed in a cheerleader’s bright-eyed question. Adolph was courting. Even Tony’s posse was AWOL. We were niño y niño.
These are the moments that make men of boys. I looked deep into Tony’s eyes – and did not like what I saw there. No Jerry Lewis or wandering pigskin, I could tell, would deliver me today.
He laughed that ominous laugh. I fled.
No one in that year’s Olympic trials could have stayed on my heels as I sprinted the length of the playground. But Tony gave it his all. I ran a few serpentine laps around the basketball court and dodged through the group of girls skipping rope. But my would-be escape route had taken me in the wrong direction, to the far-end-of-the-yard fence. Trapped, I leapt up onto a big tree stump rooted there, gazing frantically about for where-else-to-go … then whirled as I heard Tony trotting up behind me.
He muttered something in Spanish – a language I didn’t actually know but understood fluently when Tony spoke it. He explained in words I’d been taught not to use what he was about to do to me. Then he lunged.
At the last second, to my considerable astonishment, I leapt nimbly clear of the stump. Tony sprawled across it with a pained grunt and rolled to the ground. I looked with admiration at my agile feet, then over at his flashing eyes. I knew now what I had to do.
I broke for the elaborate swing set / slide combination erected mid-field, Tony staggering up and after me. As he closed in, I began ducking in and out and between the high-flying swingers – every time he grabbed for me, some squealing girl would come hurtling back between us. One slammed against him, knocking him to the ground again as I scurried over to the top of the slide.
Tony was not enjoying this. Glowering, he darted for the ladder, but as he started up, I crept partway down the slide. He jumped down and headed for the foot of it; I scrambled back up to the top. Whichever way, he moved, I repositioned for maximum advantage. I could hold this high ground for quite a while, I realized, what with all the other sliders moving to give mad Tony a wide berth.
The bell began to ring.
I gauged my moment just right – slid halfway down the slide as he was halfway up the ladder, then hurled myself into space and hit the ground running. It was a grand feeling, running full-out, and with a good enough head start to make the classroom free and clear. I glanced back. Tony was a dozen yards behind and limping. I giggled.
And tripped.
I tumbled headlong and a moment later, Tony was lifting me off the ground by my shirt collar, muttering obscenities, fist cocked and ready.
I looked up into his furious face, then over his shoulder – frowned – glanced back at him again.
“Teacher wants you,” I said.
Even I, at 10 years old, knew that was the oldest trick in the last-ditch playbook. But it worked. He instantly loosed my collar and spun around. I looped one foot under one of his and shoved him, hard. He went face down into the dirt, and I was vaulting over him, sprinting again and home free.
All afternoon, I sat at my desk, working out math sums and humming a happy little tune to myself. I was thinking how I’d tell this story, over the dinner table. I had – if not exactly stood up to the school bully – at least exhibited some remarkable survival skills. I was smart! I was light on my feet! I was unscathed!
I basked in a confidence I hadn’t felt before. Tony no longer frightened me. I knew now I could take care of myself.
The next week, our P.E. teacher had the bright idea of a cutthroat dodgeball game – using medicine balls. Still flexing my nimble limbs and enjoying my newfound agility, I soon found myself the last one standing on my side of the line, facing a crowd of other-team peers as they struggled to hurl the leaden balls at me, the great survivor.
I was feeling loose, feeling limber. One of the massive balls rolled by me. I dashed forward to grab it, but it edged over the line just as I got there. Two hands swung down and retrieved it.
I straightened up and looked into the waiting eyes of Tony Vargas. He squinted. He laughed. And from two feet away, he slammed that medicine ball as hard as he could into my face.
I lay flat on my back, dazed … trying to breathe through my flattened nose … feeling the pieces of my shattered eyeglasses on the court around me. Over in the blurry crowd, I could hear Tony laughing.
I didn’t laugh, as I brushed the blood from my nose. But I will confess to a tight, rueful grin.
’ve had many another occasion, in the course of a crowded life, to grin that particular grin. And to hum a happy tune to myself, confident and content. I’m indebted to Tony for introducing me to both.
You learn things – good things, hard things, enormously useful things – out there, far and away from the classZoom.
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