Ham On Rye

People began going to vacant lots where weeds grew. They had learned that some of the weeds could be cooked and eaten. There were fist fights between men in the vacant lots and on street corners. Everybody was angry. The men smoked Bull Durham and didn't take any shit from anybody. They let the little round Bull Durham tags hang out of their front shirt pockets and they could all roll a cigarette with one hand. When you saw a man with a Bull Durham tag dangling, that meant look out. People went around talking about 2nd and 3rd mortgages. My father came home one night with a broken arm and two black eyes. My mother had a low paying job somewhere. And each boy in the neighborhood had one pair of Sunday pants and one pair of daily pants. When shoes wore out there weren't any new ones. The department stores had soles and heels they sold for 15 or 20 cents along with the glue, and these were glued to the bottoms of the worn out shoes. Gene's parents had one rooster and some chickens in their backyard, and if some chicken didn't lay enough eggs they ate it.

As for me, it was the same - at school, and with Chuck, Gene and Eddie. Not only did the grownups get mean, the kids got mean, and even the animals got mean. It was like they took their cue from the people.

One day I was standing around, waiting as usual, not friendly with the gang, no longer really wanting to be, when Gene rushed up to me, "Hey, Henry, come on!"

"What is it?"

"COME ON!"

Gene started ru

"LOOK! HE'S GOT THE CAT CORNERED! HE'S GOING TO KILL IT!"

There was a small white cat backed into a corner of the wall. It couldn't go up and it couldn't go in one direction or the other. Its back was arched and it was spitting, its claws ready. But it was very small and Chuck's bulldog, Barney, was growling and moving closer and closer. I got the feeling that the cat had been put there by the guys and then the bulldog had been brought in. I felt it strongly because of the way Chuck and Eddie and Gene were watching: they had a guilty look.

"You guys did this," I said.

"No," said Chuck, "it's the cat's fault. It came in here. Let it fight its way out."

"I hate you bastards," I said.

"Barney's going to kill that cat," said Gene.

"Barney will rip it to pieces," said Eddie. "He's afraid of the claws but when he moves in it will be all over."

Barney was a large brown bulldog with slobbering jaws. He was dumb and fat with senseless brown eyes. His growl was steady and he kept inching forward, the hairs standing up on his neck and along his back. I felt like kicking him in his stupid ass but I figured he would rip my leg off. He was entirely intent upon the kill. The white cat wasn't even fully grown. It hissed and waited, pressed against the wall, a beautiful creature, so clean.

The dog moved slowly forward. Why did the guys need this? This wasn't a matter of courage, it was just dirty play. Where were the grownups? Where were the authorities? They were always around accusing me. Now where were they?

I thought of rushing in, grabbing the cat and ru

"Chuck," I said, "let the cat go, please. Call your dog off."

Chuck didn't answer. He just kept watching. Then he said, "Barney, go get him! Get that cat!"

Barney moved forward and suddenly the cat leaped. It was a furious blur of white and hissing, claws and teeth. Barney backed off and the cat retreated to the wall again.

"Go get him, Barney," Chuck said again.

"God damn you, shut up!" I told him.

"Don't talk to me that way," Chuck said. Barney began to move in again.

"You guys set this up," I said.

I heard a slight sound behind us and looked around. I saw old Mr. Gibson watching from behind his bedroom window. He wanted the cat to get killed too, just like the guys. Why?

Old Mr. Gibson was our mailman with the false teeth. He had a wife who stayed in the house all the time. She only came out to empty the garbage. Mrs. Gibson always wore a net over her hair and she was always dressed in a nightgown, bathrobe and slippers. Then as I watched, Mrs. Gibson, dressed as always came and stood next to her husband, waiting for the kill. Old Mr. Gibson was one of the few men in the neighborhood with a job but he still needed to see the cat killed. Gibson was just like Chuck, Eddie and Gene.

There were too many of them.

The bulldog moved closer. I couldn't watch the kill. I felt a great shame at leaving the cat like that. There was always the chance that the cat might try to escape, but I knew that they would prevent it. That cat wasn't only facing the bulldog, it was facing Humanity.

I turned and walked away, out of the yard, up the driveway and to the sidewalk. I walked along the sidewalk toward where I lived and there in the front yard of his home, my father stood waiting.

"Where have you been?" he asked. I didn't answer.

"Get inside," he said, "and stop looking so unhappy or I'll give you something that will really make you unhappy!"

21

Then I started attending Mt. Justin Jr. High. About half the guys from Delsey Grammar School went there, the biggest and toughest half. Another gang of giants came from other schools. Our 7th grade class was bigger than the 9th grade class. When we lined up for gym it was fu

"Jesus Christ," said Wagner, the gym teacher, "pull your shoulders back, stand straight!"

Nobody would change position. We were the way we were, and we didn't want to be anything else. We all came from Depression families and most of us were ill-fed, yet we had grown up to be huge and strong. Most of us, I think, got little love from our families, and we didn't ask for love or kindness from anybody. We were a joke but people were careful not to laugh in front of us. It was as if we had grown up too soon and we were bored with being children. We had no respect for our elders. We were like tigers with the mange. One of the Jewish fellows, Sam Feidman, had a black beard and had to shave every morning. By noon his chin was almost black. And he had a mass of black hair all over his chest and he smelled terrible under the arms. Another guy looked like Jack Dempsey. Another guy, Peter Mangalore, had a cock 10 inches long, soft. And when we got in the shower, I found out I had the biggest balls of anybody.

" Hey! Look at that guy's balls, will ya? "

"Holy shit! Not much cock but look at those balls! "

"Holy shit!"

I don't know what it was about us but we had something, and we felt it. You could see it in the way we walked and talked. We didn't talk much, we just inferred, and that's what got everybody mad, the way we took things for granted.

The 7th grade team would play touch football after school against the 8th and 9th graders. It was no match. We beat them easy, we knocked them down, we did it with style, almost without effort. In touch football most teams passed on every play, but our team worked in lots of runs. Then we could set up the blocking and our guys would go for the other guys and knock them down. It was just an excuse to be violent, we didn't give a damn about the ru

The girls stayed after school and watched us. Some of them were already going out with high school guys, they didn't want to mess with jr. high school punks, but they stayed to watch the 7th graders. We were known. The girls stayed after class and watched us and marveled. I wasn't on the team but I stood on the sidelines and sneaked smokes, feeling like a coach or something. We're all going to get fucked, we thought, watching the girls. But most of us only masturbated.