1983

A short and so far incomplete tale from adolescent years.

I grew up in Northeast Philadelphia, on Delphine Street between North Fifth Street and North Third Street in Olney. My mother's family had resided in this locality since the early nineteenth century. Fifth Street was the heart of the neighborhood and was well populated with stores, restaurants, and other services. Olney was plebeian, sullied, raucous, and racially homogenous, with a few exceptions; being the exception is something I have come to embrace about myself. I had a few friends on my block; we would hang out in vacant lots, abandoned buildings, Fisher Park, under the bridge, in the alley, or on the railroad tracks that divided our area from the others.

Back in the 70s somebody inspired had the luminous idea on how to break up the neighborhood gangs; we will bus them to different schools. Luckily I was chosen for this "busing" experiment, I use quotation marks because it was only a name, as no buses were actually involved. So, instead of attending a school with all my friends, I went to school with everybody else's friends. Now the kids my age weren't too much trouble, but I had about 20 minutes to get off the streets before the big kids got out of school and began prowling the streets looking for victims. Normally, I would leave school and walk home down Fifth Street, stopping at a video arcade to play the latest arcade games, like Pacman, Asteroids, and Donkey Kong. I would hang out for ten minutes or so then be on way so I was sure not to run into any of the older kids.

By and large I had no problems until one day I was halfway home from school by way of the arcade when I realized I had left my school books at the arcade. I ran back to recover them and as I was leaving the arcade the older kids strolled in. They recognized me immediately and knew I was alone and in the wrong neighborhood. I plowed through the middle of them and bolted out the door certain things were about to turn ugly. I strode down Fifth Street with a group of older kids on my tail, steadily berating me with an assortment of colorful comments about my lack of courage, the unsophisticated clothes I wore, my mom, and other obvious attributes. Growing weary of the verbal assault, they took to physical assault; one at a time a kid would run up to me and punch me then run back to the group triumphantly celebrating. This was going on in broad daylight on a crowded street in the middle of Northeast Philadelphia. I remember even at such a young age, thinking that people are callous and unfeeling. I took off running in effort to escape my pursuers and avoid further dishonor as the physical assaults were rather innocuous. I ran into a McDonalds, which is no longer there, and sat down without making a purchase. The group came in behind me and sat down surrounding me and continued their harassment. It wasn't long before the store manager became aware of my situation and he quickly approached me. I'll never forget his words, "look, kid, if ya ain't buyin' nothin' you gotta get out." He was looking directly at me, and I was pleading with my eyes directly to him, he was unmoved and focused on me. Looking back he was probably more frightened than I. So, off I went down Fifth Street again. Ahead of me I could see the old stone railroad bridge across Fifth Street, the unofficial border between their territory and mine. As I ran under the bridge and into home territory I noticed some of my friends playing "smear the queer" in the alley and called to them for help. They all knew exactly what to do and in well rehearsed fashion ran to the defensive positions near the railroad bridge on Third Street. At these strategic positions we had stockpiled glass bottles, railroad spikes, broom handles, and myriad other improvised weapons. We began pelting the intruders with the missile weapons and brandishing the broom handles as clubs. The invaders soon retreated overwhelmed by the ferocious assault. They fell back to their side of the bridge where they reformed and began to salvage their courage and devise a counterattack. The sky above the bridge was filled with the improvised arsenal, the ground was covered in broken glass, and the air filled with belligerent shouts and brave challenges. It was just another afternoon in Olney.

Reviews

[Dave M. Pitman]

Great job with this story, I really enjoyed it. The last sentence really brought it all together for me: that this was just another crazy, typical day.