a late Easter was especially brutal—I would impose my own holidays by feigning sickness or just playing hooky and hoping I could put off my off my teacher’s request for a note—an “excuse” it was termed then—from the folks. (Privately, I will tell you that I successfully played hooky by dodging the excuse request every time. I have never bragged about this considerable fete because I still harbor the great suspicion that my teachers knew what I had done, but having earned their fondness, they chose not to nail me to the blackboard, and I never pushed my luck.)
But never was school more bearable—even more so than the return from the Memorial Day holiday after which one need only hang on for three more weeks—than the glorious span between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas.
And, of all those wonderful trans-December periods spent in school, the most superb was the one that closed out 1964.
I had turned 13 that August—a relatively young eighth grader—and, for the first time in my life, my body started doing things I liked. I made gains athletically, got off the “husky” rack for my clothes, and let my lifelong crewcut grow out into a nice blonde pompadour. I also acquired the nickname Rockhead because I had no clue that girls were starting to flirt with me—and this was a constant source of humor for my close circle of friends.
I guess these very same friends must have held some kind of meeting about the unfathomable thickness of my head because Robby O’Donnell asked me to meet him after school on The Avenue—which meant Broad Avenue, the main drag in Palisades Park, New Jersey.
Robby was a ninth-grader and our neighborhood’s alpha male because he was not only in the grade above us, but 16 as well. It’s a long story, but it can be assumed that Robby was even less enamored of school than the rest of us put together.
He had attended St. Michael’s Catholic school—whose Roman façade glared across Central Boulevard at our pigeon-infested junior high—and in his ignominious nine years there, the Inquisitors could not break him. Robby had wanted out from the moment he was enrolled and, finally, he forced the administration’s hand when he decked a nun who had taken a ruler to him for an offense he claimed he did not commit. We in the neighborhood had no problem believing he didn’t do the misdeed. Robby was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a liar.
Robby sort of knew, too, that the Palisades Park school district wanted him out as soon as possible and would pass him through the ninth grade, hoping he would leave the school district and attend the regional Bergen Tech High School to learn the trade of auto mechanic. It was understood Robby would do well at Tech because he already knew how to hotwire anything that was powered by an internal combustion engine. Robby had also put our school’s high command on notice that if he failed ninth grade, he’d return for another try and demand a space in the faculty parking lot because he’d be driving to school, too. This possibility was most likely the deal maker because, sure enough, Robby was off to Tech that next September without attending more than a few classes in our pigeon-infested junior high.
It was during that first week of December, in Robby’s only year as my schoolmate, that he caught me in the hallway as we changed classes. Well, I was changing classes. Robby was changing bathrooms to make it more difficult for teachers to catch him smoking them up. And, really, I’m not so sure any teachers were looking for him—he could probably punch out most of them—but the image of him as the artful dodger only added to his mystique as a public school outlaw.
In the brief moment we had, Robby instructed me to meet him not only on Broad Avenue, but under The Clock, which meant the large rotating clock affixed high up on the National Bank at the intersection of Broad and Central. His tone was serious and, because I couldn’t get anything else out of him, I didn’t know if he was going to give me a heads-up that either somebody was looking to kick my ass or another ominous event was about to befall me.
After school, I went straight to The Clock and sat down on the ledge of one of the bank windows facing Broad Avenue. Within minutes, I heard his cackling echoing down Central Boulevard. He had a booming voice to begin with, but his laugh just sounded kind of evil, like he was up to something and, most times, he was.
I arose from the ledge and stared at the street corner, knowing he’d be appearing any moment. When he did, I was surprised that he was walking with Suzette Sayer, a ninth-grader who lived somewhere in my neighborhood.
I had a secret crush on Suzette, a quiet, seemingly shy girl with a winsome smile and penetrating dark brown eyes. What I liked most about Suzette was that she didn’t wear any make-up. She was the kind of girl we described as natural. She had shoulder-length, honey-blonde hair, lush to the point that she could comb it up from one side and over to the other and it would hold. Every so often, while passing each other in the halls, I’d notice her hair had begun to slip down over one eye, and when we exchanged glances and hello’s, she seemed to be peeking mysteriously out at me, as if she were silently telling me I had no idea what I was missing. But, in those days, I figured it was just my imagination trying to get me in trouble again.
Another thing that struck me about Suzette was that she wore her outfits in a flowing manner that nearly obscured her shape. I would later learn it was called the peasant look. I may have been wrong, but one Saturday afternoon I think I understood why she dressed as she did.
I had no idea where she lived other than it was beyond my house. That much I knew because I would sometimes see her she walk home from school past the top of the block where I lived. Now, on this particular Saturday, I was riding my bike home after a sandlot tackle football game in Leonia, the next town north from Palisades Park. As I swung off Grand Avenue and up a slight incline, I saw up ahead a girl raking leaves with a younger boy whom I guessed was her brother. It was a mild autumn day and the work probably made it even warmer for them. And I guess that’s why the girl wore only a t-shirt for a top. As I drew closer, the girl, who had her back to me, turned, recognized me and waved. It was Suzette. I think I waved back. I have always hoped I had the wherewithal to return my mouth to a closed position, but I probably didn’t. The way she filled out the t-shirt need not be explained.
Suzette and Robby had now stopped at the street corner. He continued talking to her as he backstepped toward me. Whatever he said in parting made her laugh. I wanted to wave to her, wanted her to wave to me. However, junior-high etiquette dictated that, without a formal introduction, we were too far apart to wave. But I was becoming jealous of Robby. Of all the girls he could charm, why did it have to be my Suzette.
My Suzette?
Slightly shocked, I wondered, Where did that come from? She knows I’m alive. But she doesn’t know me, really. She’s a ninth-grader. Why would she have anything to do with me? Everybody knows ninth-grade girls can’t go out with eighth-grade boys. I quickly reminded myself of the stories I hade heard of the torture ninth-grade girls inflicted on one of theirs who dared date an eighth-grader. The accounts were graphic and legendary for very good reasons.
Although seeing Suzette with Robby made me want her more, I told myself to forget about it. This is December, I reasoned, the Christmas Month. I was to enjoy it, not risk ruining it with some forbidden romance.
As Robby drew nearer, his smile faded under the weight of a furrowed brow and hardening eyes. I felt a little sick to my stomach. I was certain that he was about to tell me that some kid was gunning for me.
Robby veered over to the ledge where I had been sitting and beckoned me to join him. “C’mere. I gotta talk to ya.”
He sat down. Fear had frozen me right where I stood.
“C’mere, goddamn it,” he said, and pointed to the space beside him.
I walked over and slowly lowered myself onto the ledge. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t look at him. I stared down at my shoes and heard him rustle the pocket of his three-quarter-length black leather coat—standard Nicky Newark issue—for his pack of Marlboros. I heard him strike a match. I smelled its smoke as he waved out the flame.
He asked, “You having some kind of breakdown or something?”
“Not yet,” I said, still keeping my eyes averted. “Maybe all that’ll change after you tell me what you got to tell me.”
“What makes you think I got something to tell you, Jock Strap?”
I didn’t think Robby would call me Jock Strap—one of the countless names of endearment he reserved for me—if he were about to share the details of my impending doom. I felt a bit better, looked over at him and said, “Oh, believe me, I know you, man. You got something to tell me.”
A tightlipped smirk spread across his face, but he didn’t cackle, he just snorted out his nostrils. This was not an evil form of laughter. This was Robby being playful. I was now quite sure he was not going to lay some horror tale on me.
“Robby, look, you had me worried the last couple of hours wondering what was with the serious tone in the hall this afternoon. So put me out of misery, will ya?”
Robby looked off to where he and Suzette had stood. “Whatcha think of that?” he asked nodding toward the spot.
“Ya mean, Suzette?”
“Yeah, Suzette,” he said, drawing on his cigarette like big shots in the movies do on cigars.
“Well, just between you and me . . . ” I sighed, gave some more thought to what I was about to say. “I gotta tell you she’s atomic. I swear she’s one of the best-looking girls in school. But, it’s, like, for some reason, none of the ninth-grade guys knows she exists. No one’s ever going out with her.”
“That, my man, is about to change,” Robby said, looking straight ahead.
I had to admit I was disappointed Suzette would date a guy like Robby. It just didn’t fit. Then I told myself that Robby was my friend. I ought to be happy for him.
“Robby, that is so boss. You going out with Suzette?” I nudged him with my shoulder. “Man, that’s great.”
“Suzette? Me? Are you nuts?” he said, with a scowl.
I shrank back. “So what’s going on? You got me confused here.”
“C’mon, Suzette?” He looked away again. “She wouldn’t be caught dead with me. Believe me, I cracked to her at the start of school. And she made it clear that her and me were not gonna happen. Besides, she’s gotten weird. She’s stuck on some other guy. Hey, watcha gonna do? These things happen.”
These things happen.
Those three words were the triggering phrase for an exchange that—however these cultural things get started—had become chic among our circle of friends. The fad wouldn’t last the school year.
At the moment, though, I was required to reply, “Hey, ya gotta play it by ear.”
Robby closed with “That’s what we’re here for.”
The cryptophilosophical exchange completed, I said, “Well, that’s too bad. But, uh, do you, like, wanna tell me what you told me you’d tell me here?”
Robby looked at me like he couldn’t find my nose. “How dumb are you, Melon Head?”
“I don’t know, ah, pretty dumb. How’s that?” I rubbed my hands along my thighs. “Yeah, that’s it. I’m pretty dumb, okay? Now, will you just tell me straight what’s going on?”
Knowing he had me going, he kept up the mystery. “You’re the guy.”
“I’m the guy? I’m the guy?” I was becoming agitated. I looked down both ends of the avenue. A classmate, Billy Podasky, was walking by. Billy saw me look his way and waved. I said, “Hey Billy. I’m the guy. I’m the guy, Billy.”
Billy was a cool kid. Without breaking stride or changing expression, he pointed at me and said, “That’s right. You are the guy, Rockhead,” and kept on walking.
Billy got a chuckle out of me and I settled back down.
