The Patsy

Our neighborhood was full of young families with children.  By the time kids stopped being born the head counts went something like this:

1. Tebo (that’s us)  3
2.  Ruff (left side of us) 4  (later replaced by the Benedicts with 3)
3. Graham (across from Ruff) 2  (underachievers)
4. Coatta (right side of Graham)  6  (There is about a 20 year spread between number 1 and number 6)
5. Mattson (left side of Graham and across from us)  4
6. Conti (down on the corner by the park) 3
7. Prested (right side of us) 27

There were other families with children too, but these are the kids I grew up knowing and playing with.  Mitch came from around the block and joined us almost every day.   When Mitch’s younger brother, Jimmy, got older he joined us too.  We played in back yards (Graham’s had a swing set), the street, (tennis and baseball with a tennis ball), driveways (tennis ball hockey), assorted games of frozen tag/poison tag, hide and seek, and the ever popular, politically insensitive, “cowboys and Indians.”  All good stuff until the porch light came on and you had to go in.  (Families could only afford one car so the empty street was part of our play yard.)

The highlight of the street took place in the summer.  When summer storms rolled through, the storm sewer couldn’t handle the rain and the street flooded.   We had our own swimming pool.  When the rain let up, we just ran around in our bathing suits to cool down.

We also had a park at the end of the street where, when we got older, the guys all played baseball.  One day, on the way home from one of our baseball games, Bill Graham and I got into an argument.  The argument grew as we walked down the street, and ultimately, came to blows.   I don’t remember the argument, but I remember the blows.   It’s the only time in my life that I  got into a real, honest to goodness, knock down, drag out, toe to toe, boxing match.  It was our version of the Gillette Blue Blade Friday Night Fights on a Wednesday afternoon.

Bill struck the first blow by slapping me with his baseball glove.  That blow led to some basic pushing and shoving.  We started exchanging punches and the full-out battle began.  At one point Bill ran across the street towards his house.  We ended up between his house and the Mattson’s.  I pushed him up against the fence a couple of times, and yelled at him repeatedly to take off his glasses.  He wouldn’t.  I grew tired of my frustration and blasted him in the face, breaking his glasses and enraging the bull.  We exchanged a series of punches.  Half of Bill’s glasses had fallen to the ground and the other half remained on his face.

The fight ended when we both got tired.   He was mad because of his broken glasses. I was mad because he hadn’t taken them off.   By the time the fight was over we were both mad because we didn’t know what we were fighting about.  Bill and I were like most boys.   When the fight was over, we went back to being friends.

I thought my parents would be mad about the broken glasses, but they weren’t.   Bill was supposed to get new glasses so the broken ones just expedited the process.  Lucky me.

Before the summer was over “lucky me” turned into “what the heck me”.  Bill got his new glasses as planned, but several weeks later they were broken.   I wasn’t involved.  I really can’t say how, or why, they were broken but one afternoon my mom called me aside to tell me that a man was coming to our house.   “When the man arrives, you need to tell him that you broke Bill’s glasses.”

“You mean when we had the fight earlier this summer?”

“No, you need to tell him that you broke them now.”

I didn’t understand.   I didn’t break them now.

“The man is from our insurance company, and you need to tell him that you broke Bill’s glasses.  You’re not in trouble, but the man needs to know that you broke the glasses, so he’ll buy Bill some new ones.”

When the insurance man came, I did as mom directed.  I was an eleven-year-old crying liar.   I sobbed and sobbed as I retold the tale of the fight and how I had broken the glasses. And although the insurance man told me everything would be alright, I didn’t feel that way.

Somewhere around the time I turned 45 or 46, I figured all of this out. We committed an insurance scam so Bill could get new glasses. Our insurance company would have paid for Bill’s glasses when I broke them during the fight. He didn’t need new glasses then because his parents had already bought him new ones. Later, when he did need new glasses, I was directed to tell a false truth so he could get them.  My mother felt I should take the blame so everything would be OK. Bill would have new glasses. I had broken his, even if I hadn’t broken the ones, I was directed to claim I broke. I was The Patsy.

All the homes in our neighborhood had two doors.  The front door was where most kids went to call upon their friends.  For example, if I wanted Bill to come out to play, I would stand on his front porch and call his name repeatedly until someone answered.

“Billeeeeey!!! Billeeeeey!!! Billeeeeey!!!”   Eventually, someone would answer the door.

The side door was the child door.  All the kids entered and exited through this door.  You stepped onto a “landing” when you entered.  You either went up two steps to the kitchen or down a dozen to the basement.  You entered through a double door system.  The first door was a screen, or glass door,  depending on the season.   The screen door was installed during spring, summer and fall.   The glass door was for winter.   Fathers were in charge of installing and replacing the screen, or glass, insert from season to season.  The wooden doors were white unless the owner decided to paint them a different color.

One summer day somebody took crayons and drew pictures all over our next door neighbors, The Prested’s, child door.  When Mrs. Prested (AKA Gert) discovered the vandalized door she asked several of her 27 children who was responsible for the “coloring”.   The 27 children all came forward with the same story.   “Robbie did it.”

I’m here to tell you that Robbie didn’t do it.  I’m Robbie.   I don’t know who did it, but I know I didn’t.

Mrs. Prested came over to my house to tell my mother about the “coloring” on the door.  I wasn’t  around during  the trial, but when I did appear the judges (my mom and Mrs. Prested) and the witnesses (the 27 Prested kids) determined I was guilty.  While I declared my innocence, my mom wouldn’t listen.   My sentence was to wash the door, remove all the “coloring”, and then report to my room for the rest of the day.  I was punished for something I didn’t do.  The 27 members of the “liar liar pants on fire” collective colluded to convict me.  Once again, I was The Patsy.