"This is a good place
for the two of you," said Mr. Czupryna, the lunch room monitor and
Business Studies teacher. "All we
need are bars to put around you to complete the picture."
"Picture of
what?" asked Joey.
"Imbecility,"
answered Mr. Czupryna. "Late stage."
Joey laughed his silly
laugh, but frankly I was embarrassed to be insulted by a teacher, of all
people. I took it to mean he assumed we
were too stupid to know his behavior was wrong.
The boiler shaking away
behind the wall helped muffle the comments we made concerning the sophomore girls in our class and the
other high school maidens up through the
more buxom senior girls. The
lunch room monitor couldn't hear us over the noise, even when he came down to
our end of the room. In the 1950s,
discussing female anatomical measurements in public would have landed us in
detention. Joey and I normally used superlatives and seldom noted
our observations in inches, preferring instead to describe a young woman's
attributes with reference to one garden vegetable or another. I suppose that would be two garden
vegetables. The produce stand of our
imagination provided an adequate vocabulary to carry on our conversation, and a
rich set of gestures allowed us to communicate our adolescent impressions over
the noise of the furnace.
An older kid, a senior
named Ronnie, soon began to show up at
our table, but he sat 12 feet away at the other end. We tolerated his presence because he good
naturedly ignored us. He was therefore a
much more acceptable table mate than someone who would have considered us
moronic and said so. I recognized Ronnie
from the ball field, had spoken to him a few times and knew him to be what my
mother called a gentleman. He never said
a bad word about anyone. Ronnie was the
kind of kid who would acknowledge you
... he wasn't stuck up ... but he seldom engaged in conversation unless
you spoke to him. And if he didn't like
what you were saying, he would politely make sure it ended.
Coming from the upper classman end of the
school, Ronnie always arrived five minutes after Joey and I sat down. Each day he brought his unusual lunch and set
it up at his end of the table.
He had chosen our all but deserted
spot because he needed room to spread out his lunch of multiple dishes and
serving paraphernalia. A wide place
simply wasn't available at the other tables, crowded as they were with the next
generation of criminal nitwits.
He gave us a nod while he
hefted his shopping bag up on to the table and emptied out the contents. Joey and I interrupted our girl watching to
enjoy the show at the other end of the table. Compared to my consistent fare of
either warm baloney or peanut butter and something sugary, Ronnie's repast
usually came in a square cake pan which held meat or a pasta dish. There was always a saucer of coleslaw or
vegetable wrapped in tin foil, a bottle of A&P soda and usually two
cupcakes. There were other bits and
pieces, such as celery stalks and scallions and maybe a good sized chunk of
garlic bread, probably from last night's Italian dinner. The reverent way he handled the dishes and
arranged them in a precise pattern held our attention. I am quite sure that if allowed, he would have
brought a candle and lit it with a long taper.
Equally interesting was the
ritual he used to serve himself the food.
He did not eat out of the cake pan or the other dishes, but neatly laid
out three or four five-inch paper plates
designed to hold a piece of party cake.
Then he stood and served food out of the containers onto the little
plates. Ready at this point to eat,
Ronnie sat down, blessed himself and said a quiet prayer of grace. Only then did he begin his meal.
Joey and I returned to our
discussion of onions, oranges, grapefruits and cantaloupes while we privately
longed for that great day in the future when each of us might frolic in our own
garden. Something funny caught our fancy
... something funny probably happened 2 or 3 times each minute in the school
lunchroom ... and we roared with laughter.
Mr. Czupyrna gave us a threatening look.
We laughed even harder, but not out loud, with our arms held up hiding
our faces. Ronnie was unmoved by any of
this. He seemed not to care whether his
future garden held cumquats or zucchini and I doubted he ever discussed the
topic. He was always aloof and sometimes
I sensed he felt superior to us. I was
sensitive to what I imagined was his judgment, because Joey was beginning to
wear on me with his juvenile antics. He
had made suggestive comments to a few girls and then laughed like a hyena when
they walked away. I was more and more
embarrassed by him, but I was not yet
ready to search out new friends.
When a red headed girl
walked by our table, my comment to Joey was louder than I intended. She stopped and turned to me and demanded my
name. I ignored her.
"Stand up," she
said.
I immediately had a bad
feeling.
"I said, 'Stand
up.'" she said again, this time louder.
I smiled my best John
Wayne I-don't-give-a-damn-Ma'am smirk and got out of my chair. Her timing was perfect. As I came up from my
seat, she stepped in toward me and her elbows shot out from her side. Her cupped fists shot up under my chin and
would have connected with a terrific force had I not caught her wrists just in
time. Still, she connected and my tongue
was caught between my teeth. I could
taste blood in my mouth. Incensed, I
began to push her downward by the wrists.
She broke free and began to wildly slap me about the head. Stepping back, I stumbled over the chair and
went down backwards on the floor.
Grabbing on to the chair, I
worked my way up to my feet, my head spinning. I didn't want to hit a
girl. But this redhead was ready to swing
on me again.
She stood with her fists up, ready for me to come at
her. I didn’t know what to do or
say. So I swore at her and left the
lunch room. On my way out, I found Mr.
Czuprna and, blood dribbling off my tongue into the corners of my mouth, I announced
there was a girl student out of control who had just tried to injure me.
“Grow up,” he said.
When I saw her in the
hallway the next week, I turned and walked away, twice making myself late for
class. I stopped going to the lunch
room. Joey just laughed it off and he
continued to sit at the Furnace Table alone, except for Ronnie.
Ronnie came up to me at the
bus stop the next week and peered inquiringly at me. He smirked and rubbed his jaw.
"Man," he said,
"that was certainly impressive. She
floored you."
"I tripped," I
said.
"I notice you haven't
been back to the lunch room, though," he said, trying to needle me.
"Got other things to
do," I said.
"You're running from
her, aren't you?" he said.
"Ronnie," I said,
raising my fist, "I'm warning you.
Shut up and move along or you'll get some of this."
"No." he said.
"I don't think so. You're a
coward. You've been running from her.”
"Oh," I said,
"you think I should beat her up?
That doesn't sound like Mister Ronnie Manners"
"Or
apologize to her,” he said. "Look, it’s none of my business, but you
were wrong. A gentleman would admit it.”
“And
you’re the expert, huh?” I said. “With the four square lunch your Mommy makes
you? You know all about being a man.
I’ll just bet you do.”
The
smirk left his face and he looked down at the sidewalk.
“I
make it myself at night,” he said.
I
sneered. “Well, cooking is really
manly.”
“I
live with my older brother,” he said.
“Very
helpful, cooking for him, just like a mother,” I said, with emphasis on the
last word.
“My
mother died last year in a car accident,” he said.
I
looked at him. He wasn’t kidding. His eyes carefully checked out the concrete
surface below as if an army of ants was staging a war dance. He seemed to have
lost all interest in me.
“My
Dad never came back from the war.” he said.
“There’s just the two of us at
home now.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Well, I’m … a … well …”
"It’s
my main meal of the day, " he said, "and I ... pretend they’re with
me. My brother won't allow it at home.”
I
didn't say anything. He sighed, then
looked up at me.
“You
should make more of an effort to become a gentleman,” he said. “Especially since your mouth gets you into more
trouble than you can talk yourself out of and you don’t like to fight.”
He
walked off before I could punch him. But
of course I wouldn’t have hit him. I was indeed a physical coward. He had that right. I didn’t feel bad about it. I’d learned my lessons in grade school and didn’t
want to get my nose busted any more.
I
walked around for a few days and wondered if I was a gentleman. I reluctantly decided I was not, but I
aspired to be one. After all, my father
was certainly a gentleman in the way he acted with everyone. He came from a family with a rough style, but
he developed his manners by what he learned from others. I had his example and I could have my own
experience work for me if I hung out with the right people.
The
next afternoon I found the red headed girl sitting on the pipe railing by the
sidewalk outside of school. She stood up
when I approached her, but didn’t raise
her fists. There was a mixture of fear
and determination in her eyes, eyes that were really quite pretty. I wondered if she might date me. It couldn't hurt to ask. One never knows, I've heard, when the love of
your life will come along.
“I
just wanted to apologize,” I said. “For
anything you may have heard me say.”
“OK,”
she said. No smile, no comment about
what a great gentleman I was to apologize.
Not a good sign, coming from the woman I might marry some day ... if she
promised not to hit me again.
“Well,” I said, “I’m just trying to do the
right …
“Get lost,” she said. She sat back down on the railing and opened
her book. An unkind comment came to
mind, but I resisted the urge to say it.
Instead, I got lost.
Nobody said being a gentleman would be
easy.
copyright 2012, David Griffin
Windswept Press
Murrells Inlet,
South Carolina
www.windsweptpress.com
