Stupid Things Kids Do….
When I was a kid, growing up in the 60’s and 70’s…Our father forbade us to play with the Puerto Rican kids that lived in the apartment above the local pizza parlor…they were nice kids, but I guess it’s because they were Puerto Rican [?]
We used to say we were going to the baseball field of our school and walk a few extra blocks to the pizza parlor to play with the FORBIDDEN PR kids. We’d climb the rickety fire escape and climb in through their kitchen window. I remember their Mom was really pretty and shy, she’d make us sugary-sweet snacks and let us stay and watch cartoons on their beat up black and white TV set.
One day we were up in their apartment and suddenly I heard my Dad’s booming voice down in the parking lot bellowing our names [my parents gave us all names that were 1 syllable-2 syllable OR 2 syllable-1 syllable because it was easier to call us...example: mine was Sharon [2] Lee[1], my brothers were David[2] Wayne[1] and Paul[1] Richard[2]
Anyway, he was bellowing and he sounded mad…REALLY mad!! We knew he was onto us, but none of us was brave enough to stick our head out the window or answer him, so we just pressed ourselves up flat against the wall and started reciting “Hail Mary’s” hoping maybe he’d go away.
He didn’t go away, instead he found his way into the building and was suddenly at the Peurto Rican family’s apartment door, knocking rather loudly. Their Mom panicked and scurried to answer the door as my brother David dove out the kitchen window and flew down the fire escape quickly followed by Paul and then me.
My brothers both made it down to the ground and were sprinting across the parking lot to freedom, I took a mis-step on my way down the rickety fire escape and ended up falling through some missing grating and I scraped layers of skin off my entire left side from my shin all the way up my side, to my arm pit and up to my fingers. I lay on the ground in a crumpled bloody heap.
My brothers kept running and hid in a grove of trees, covertly watching what transpired. My Dad was above me looking out the PR lady’s kitchen window, he yelled down to me “Now do you see whay I didn’t want you playing down here??” He came down with a towel, wrapped me in it and took me home to my Mom, the Nurse. I still have a scar on the inside of my upper arm from that, and I never told my Dad that my brothers had been with me that day.
