TAKING 5: NEEDING SOMETHING TO SAY

1

  There has been controversy over the film The Third Man, made in 1949 in the U.K., & released a year later in America. The controversy rests not with the film’s content (as many current movies use to market themselves) but its provenance. The reasons stem from 2 facts. 1) The nominal ‘director’ of the film, Carol Reed, never before nor after came close to the cinematic heights of this post-World War 2 film noir masterpiece (20 years later he directed Oliver- widely considered 1 of the worst Oscar winning films ever). Reed was a prototypical studio director who took assignments rather than championed works, directing pedestrian fare like Odd Man Out (1947) & The Fallen Idol (1948). 2) The ‘nominal’ star of the film was Orson Welles- 1 of the greatest & most influential directors cinema ever produced.

  The visuals are unmistakable- poetic use of chiaroscuro & shadows, low angles to add mythic nature & grotesque stature to a scene or character- called Dutch angles, forced close-ups, & interesting background action- hallmarks of Welles’, not Reed’s, filmmaking vocabulary. Because of box office failures & political leanings Welles was blacklisted by Hollywood, during the anti-Communist hysteria of the day. The only way to get a film made was in Europe, with a known director like Reed, sympathetic to his cause, beard for him. Evidence comes from not only the film, but minor players on the set recounting Welles was, indeed, the director. Reed, Welles, & the studio denied this until their deaths- they had to, only grudgingly admitting Welles wrote a few memorable lines for his character- Harry Lime, the murderous penicillin black marketeer: ‘In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.’

  As for the film? Into post-war Vienna comes Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), who writes pulp Westerns & knows nothing of real literary figures like James Joyce. He’s offered a job by his college pal, Harry Lime, but finds he’s been hit by a truck & killed, as friends & co-workers watched. British authorities in the city are eager to send Martins home, which makes him suspicious. He investigates Lime’s death & learns a missing man- a 3 rd man- was at the scene of the accident, which no 1 tells a straight story about. This is classic film noir set up- a corrupt power structure, weak or corrupter law enforcement, & a determined hero- except for 1 thing: that’s not this hero. Martins is ineffectual & weak. The British military, especially British military gendarme Calloway (Trevor Howard), treats him & his claims with derision & contempt.

  He hooks up with Lime’s grieving girlfriend, Anna (Alida Valli), whom he met at Lime’s funeral, & worries of being deported behind the Iron Curtain. Lime bribed the Russians into giving her fake credentials. As the pair learn more of Lime’s racketeering & the misery it wrought Martins falls unrequitedly in love with Anna, & Lime’s ‘death’ looks more a ruse to avoid capture by the British. They dig up his coffin & discover 1 of Lime’s ‘employees’ buried in his place. The ‘3 rd Man’ at the accident was none other than Lime, supervising the removal of the body of the man he killed to take his place. While the British have no leads on the Lime’s whereabouts, Martins’ muckraking flushes him from hiding. He 1 st sees Lime at night, when the city seems some Expressionistic horror of cool damp misreflection. Instead of chasing Lime it ends up Martins is chasing a shadow on the wall. The Platonic implications of this visual cue are manifest. Who are we? Is Lime what Martins remembers, what has been claimed, or something unknowable, behind it all, or skimming above the lip of the pellicle we wade in? In 1 of the justifiably most famous scenes in film history, Lime confers with his old pal as they ride a gigantic Ferris wheel. He offers Martins a chance to become his partner in crime, explains what got him to this point, & gives a brilliantly nihilistic, as well realpolitik, view of human history: ‘If I said to you, you can have 20,000 pounds for every dot that stops, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, without hesitation, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?’

  The viewer senses Harry Lime is not so much a born monster as a made 1. Were it not for the war he would probably ended up a dandy or rogue preying upon the upper crust. But war served as an invaluable finishing school, much as prisons often only corrupt minor criminals further. After it, & the depredations Lime saw & suffered through, he may have reached his limit & ‘turned off’ to suffering. After the slaughter of millions, the people at the amusement park may truly look like mere dots- & their lives, in the long run, do mean little more than dots- even Anna’s. It’s no wonder the only character that feels no revulsion for Lime is his cat.

   After their meeting Martins tells the British, & they plot to catch Lime. Martins backs out. As he is driven to the airport to leave Vienna Calloway stops off at a children’s hospital & shows Martins the suffering Lime’s racket caused- by gouging watered-down penicillin to the impoverished. Tellingly, the film never actually shows us what the suffering children look like. We only see Martins’ revulsion as decency makes him agree to nail his old friend. In exchange Martins makes the British agree to stop Anna’s deportation. As Martins waits for Lime that night at a café, Anna spies him, & figures out her freedom has been bought at the expense of her lover’s. She rails against Martins. Meanwhile, the British have set up a sting outside the café & in 1 grand scene an Austrian balloon man’s shadow towers monstrously through the streets. The British mistake him for Lime, then comically buy a balloon to get the man to leave so they can capture Lime, who has slipped by their gaze due to the distraction of the balloon man. As he enters the café he is warned off by Anna. Before he can shoot Martins the British are after him- they & Martins follow Lime through the sewers of Vienna in a masterful sequence of psychological horror & suspense- the literal underworld a perfect metaphor for the soul of Lime, as well its labyrinthine structure for his scheming mind. He is soon pursued by the Russians, as well. As he is about to escape up through a grating to the street Lime is shot by Martins. The image of his clutching fingers reaching up through the grate, then loosening, is classic. Who knew digits could express such pathos?

  After the real funeral of Harry Lime Calloway is driving Martins down a long country road from the cemetery, where they pass Anna. Martins gets out & waits for Anna to meet him. As she walks to where Martins is standing she does not stop nor say a word. Despite knowing what she knows of Lime, & a good man like Martins loving her, Anna’s misplaced loyalty is unwavering. The viewer wonders what could have happened between the 2 lovers to inspire such loyalty, given we know, from the Ferris wheel, it was Lime who turned Anna in to the Russians to save his own hide.

  The film is filled with myriad little touches that have meaning- none of the main characters is able to get the names of others right. Anna calls Holly Harry several times, Martins calls Calloway Callahan more than once, & Lime’s conspirator, Dr. Winkel, gets upset when people pronounce his name with the W sound, not the proper German V sound. Even the name on Lime’s tombstone is misspelled. Yet, the film loses nothing- the black & white focuses the viewer on the interior drama of the characters, undistracted by real world color & any search for shading. In the closed world of The Third Man everything has meaning, & nothing means everything yet the viewer, like Anna, walks past it all as the flimmer of its falling leaves, recognition, makes an appearance only in recollection, or rewatch, where the fist of such opens newer eyes to what always was.

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AT 6:25 P.M., 10/28/95, I AM ALONE,

IN A DIRTY BATHROOM STALL IN THE RIDGEHAVEN MALL

IN MINNETONKA, MINNESOTA, AND THINK:

As I sit, pants and underpants hung down

about my ankles, upon this public toilet

I wiped clean, I am drifted into the gleaming

white ceramic of the tile defaced

by the indelible black marker graffiti

of punks unknown. The tan metal door

to the stall is bent outward by kicks

and people, very few, echo themselves,

through the tile-wrapped hallway

to the john, going by in a late weekend

evening’s nonrush. As I write down the ideas

for this poem on a piece of unbleached brown

paper hand towel it is hard not to recall

some wafting nostalgia brought to me

on wings of peregrine footfalls:

                                                   I remember

reading books on dinosaurs, as a child,

and being swept back to the battles of beasts

greater than any I could see. And I recall

Margit Blum- perhaps the finest girl ever

I’d know- and how I’d never approached her

with my feelings; for a variety of reasons,

now, all idiotic. And of the first time

I’d read Whitman, and how my mind shook

the disbelief of nonconformity into that

I here transcribe.

                           And the resonant voices

of wind ever chorusing these things, these failures,

to me- however warm and softly;

                                                      and my sister,

at six, sleeping, a hellion in daytime- vain,

manipulative, yet from this vantage mere child.

And that Bicentennial summer at Ricky’s summer house

in the Catskills; I see the children- me, him,

his brothers, his cousins, playing in tides of green

fields floating up to some, now, soft ruby sun-

its rays ripping the bland fabric of its past reality-

twinkling like the mercurial photons of stars

bastardized through atmospheres layered upon

one another as memory.

                                       And that night,

when Ricky and I saw something we forgot on purpose,

and the next morning’s breath of dew distilling

the intimacy of night, like death, however frightening

yet sirenian.

                    And my adult years, my best

friend, Joe, and his vague siftings

through despaired personal ads and females

faceless, mirroring my own voyage, yet

not as tough, not as solid, and my hand-

this- to him.

                    And odd, as my mind

details always the horrors yet freed

my heart only the softness of time-

                      how did I get so alone

                      in this place, this now?-

in memory, the scars of moment will fade; the effect

of neglect, oddly, a benison; the broad loom

of individual things and events reduced to a blur

as we drift away from them, unstirred, we shift redly

in peace:

               all crimson but the luster of remembrance,

               the soft chimes of mere recognition

of that which is what was-

                                           like this rhapsody

I read, or will read, decades from now

written decades ago in the millwork

of a mind finished wiping its ass, compelled

to record these feelings even if their power

only felt by me, pulling up my underpants and pants,

leaving this public bathroom behind in private

thoughts too public, wondering what is left.

What is left to say.

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2

  50 years after the emergence of Harry Lime as 1 of cinema’s great screen villains (or anti-heroes? After all, he’s merely doing the quintessential capitalistic American thing- making a buck!) emerged another great filmic antihero whose name was not Lime, but was called The Limey- in Steven Soderbergh’s film of the same name. Whereas the character & portrayer of Harry Lime dominates The Third Man by his absence for the 1 st 2/3s of the film (even though other characters are obsessed with him), the character & portrayer of The Limey (Terence Stamp) equally dominates his film being in virtually every scene. Stamp is so good the viewer can see him acting even when his character is silent, brooding, & glaring off into his own life’s nothingness.

  The Limey is a British crook named Wilson, fond of cockney rhyming slang, with a world-weary demeanor, who has flown into Los Angeles to track down the man he believes responsible for the death of his daughter- Jenny (Melissa George- only seen in flashbacks)- after he’s been paroled after serving 9 years. The film opens with Wilson’s voice alone on a black screen demanding, ‘Tell me about Jenny!’ We see assorted scenes of Wilson’s presumed arrival into LA, his acquaintance with a friend of his daughter’s, Eduardo (Luis Guzman), who sent newspaper clippings of Jenny’s death by seeming car accident, & a bit of how Jenny hooked up with this famed record producer, Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda). Despite warnings Wilson views Valentine as his White Whale, & Ed helps Wilson start his revenge plot by buying guns & bullets from teenagers in a schoolyard.

  This film is almost all a memory film- these things we see are in the past. The film’s brilliant editing gives clues when Wilson meets up with Jenny’s acting coach Elaine (Lesley Ann Warren), & their conversation occurs uninterrupted in 3 different locales. This can only be because the conversation is in Wilson’s mind & he’s not sure which of the 3 locations he was at with Elaine. We learn the car accident occurred when Jenny seemingly ran off a road into a canyon & perished in the explosion.

  We also learn background about Valentine. He, like Wilson, is a 60ish man who is a criminal, except he rose to fame & wealth producing hit records in the 1960s, & has the means to cover up his crimes. Jenny was 1 in a string of nubile young lovers- his latest a gorgeous brunet, Adhara (Amelia Heinle), the daughter of old friends. Valentine is haunted by Jenny’s death & finds in Adhara a confessor he can bare his soul to. In a great move, Soderbergh not only has the film’s protagonist & antagonist being portrayed by 2 1960s film superstars (Stamp in the U.K., & Fonda in the U.S.), but both their characters made sizable sums of money from rock music- Valentine from record producing & Wilson from stealing receipts from a Pink Floyd concert. This 1 of many parallel character traits Wilson & Valentine share, an important point, & the core of the movie. The realization of this fact in the film- as great a character study as ever filmed- really packs an emotional punch, for only when Wilson realizes his daughter turned to Valentine as a surrogate for himself does he realize he’s as much to blame for her death as Valentine is.

  Earlier, nothing deters Wilson from vengeance. In a brilliantly staged shootout at the warehouse where Valentine’s thugs deal dope Wilson singlehandedly takes out the drugdealers after suffering a severe beating. Yet, we do not see the graphic reality. Soderbergh lets our minds roam freely as Wilson’s. The lone survivor scrambles away only to have Wilson, stained in blood, shout, ‘Tell him I’m coming! Tell him I’m fucking coming!’ Later, Wilson & Ed crash a chichi party at Valentine’s mountaintop mansion. Wilson fantasizes about shooting Valentine dead. As he’s about to do it Ed intercedes & restrains Wilson, under the watchful eye of Valentine’s head security guy Avery (Barry Newman). As the 2 men go outside by the valley-overhanging pool to cool off Wilson tells Ed to get their car. Avery sends his biggest thug to bounce Wilson. Instead, Wilson headbutts the thug & tosses him to his death in the valley. The scene is shot from inside the seemingly secure mansion, over Terry Valentine’s shoulder. As guests realize a death has occurred Wilson leaves the house & shoots Valentine a deadly glance. Meanwhile, Avery attempts to stop Ed from leaving the party in his car. Wilson tosses him to the ground & the 2 take off down the mountain.

  Avery follows at breakneck speed, takes a shortcut, cuts Wilson & Ed off by crashing into their car. He whips out a shotgun & shoots. Wilson backs their car up right at Avery, who takes cover off the side of the hill, as his car is knocked to the valley below. Wilson & Ed take off, but Avery overheard Ed say Wilson’s name. Returning to the house Valentine informs Avery how he covered up the death as a suicide. Avery, who seemingly has dossiers on everyone, tells Valentine Wilson is Jenny’s father. Valentine orders Avery to ‘take care’ of things, but keep him out of it. As he heads up the stairs with Adhara he notices Wilson stole a photo of Jenny he framed. He knows his troubles with Wilson have only begun.

  Avery hires 2 incompetent contract killers to take Wilson out. They stalk him & Elaine but as they are about to shoot a swarm of DEA agents pounces & saves the duo. Wilson is ferried into the office of the head agent (drolly played by Bill Duke). This is 1 of the best scenes in the film because, thinking his scheme busted Wilson goes into standard Cockney doublespeak to confuse the agent, who doesn’t give a damn Wilson plans on murdering Valentine- he welcomes it. The DEA has been trying to bust Valentine for years. In a chillingly real life moment the head agent ‘accidentally’ lets Wilson look at a file of photos of Valentine’s retreat in Big Sur- 1 has Valentine’s address. Wilson, understanding he & the DEA are after the same thing, is let go.

  Wilson, Ed, & Elaine head off after him. Avery has Valentine & Adhara bunkered down with a small army of guards. The 2 bungling assassins make their own plans to doublecross Avery & steal money they’re convinced must be why Avery wants Wilson dead. Soon, the Big Sur home is under siege. Wilson takes out several security guards but the 2 assassins exchange fire with Avery & his men, mortally wounding all. With his army in shreds Valentine makes for the exit, only to be met by Wilson. The 2 men struggle. Adhara stabs Wilson in the back, enabling Valentine to get away. Wilson slaps Adhara unconscious, removes the thing she stabbed him with, then takes off after Valentine- who’s taken the gun from the hands of Avery. He heads down wooden stairs to the beach. There is a great moment as Wilson passes dying Avery as he attempts to shoot him. Too weakened to raise the gun Avery expires to Wilson’s life-sucking glare. Wilson pursues Valentine, who wanly shoots, but misses. Valentine trips on the wet rocks on the beach & breaks his ankle. Wilson pounces & demands the words that opened the film, ‘Tell me about Jenny!’ Valentine relates the accident was no accident. Jenny found out about his illegal activities & threatened to go to the cops. In a fit of fury Valentine may have accidentally killed her. Avery covered things up by driving her body off a cliff to make it look like an accident. Valentine pleads for his life by saying he had no choice- Jenny was gonna rat on him. Wilson understands now, because he related to Elaine Jenny often threatened to rat out his criminal schemes, too. Wilson knew her well enough to know she’d never do it. Valentine didn’t. He senses it was his fault for not being there enough in her childhood, due to his incarceration, to prepare his daughter for the fact not all men will know her as well as her father. His selfish pursuit of crime set her on the path to her own demise. Valentine did what Wilson would have done to anyone but Jenny had they threatened him. At this realization Wilson lets go of Valentine. Apparently, he does not kill him. The film seems a memory Wilson has while flying back to London from LA, & ends with a younger Wilson playing a guitar, wistfully singing a tune.

  The piece is a snippet culled from a 1967 British film, Poor Cow, about a petty thief named Dave- just Dave, as Wilson in this film is known as just Wilson. It’s as if the 2 films represent 2 distinct, self-contained, but unfulfilled ½s of a life, with The Limey a sequel to that film, 3 decades later. The grainy black & white quality of the earlier film’s interpolations is perfect as a memory piece, especially contrasted with the memory pieces made specifically for this film. Critics argue film used as memory fails because it’s almost always shown from an omniscient perspective, yet when I recall things I almost never recall them from the POV of my eye, but from an improvised omniscient position outside my body. Every person similarly recounts they recall in the omniscient, not the real eye level POV. Most dreams are this way as well- the dreamer shifting between perspectives.

  What is most interesting about the film is how accurately it portrays memory, guilt, & responsibility. The question all the main characters ask is how could things have been different? There are no answers. Wilson, by film’s end, accepts the past. Aside from great performances by Stamp, Fonda, & Newman, bravura directing, editing, & a great, insightful script the film, like The Third Man, abounds in wonderful little touches- when Wilson imagines Jenny’s accident he envisions her with her hair down & bangs cut, like the little girl the film portrays she was when he last saw her in person. When Ed thinks about her death she has a long ponytail- like the adult he knew. The film cuts goes back & forth through the progressive remembered narrative of the film, sometimes seeming to act (to the viewer) as foreshadowing or depicting obsessive compulsion.

  The character development is strong. Valentine is a weak man who runs away not only from Wilson, but his past, only to ironically retreat into it with memories of Jenny. Wilson is running away from the past & himself. The difference is he does not retreat into the past to avoid it. At a certain point he realizes this & confronts it by dashing the easily understandable & obvious motives behind his obsession, which only serve as the newest version of his excuse to avoid the past. While there have been other interesting noir criminals in recent film history- Ben Kingsley’s ferociously riveting Don Logan from Sexy Beast- none have the complexities Wilson does. Nor do those characters radiate a warmth, the way Wilson radiates affection for Ed’s help in tracking down Valentine by fondly calling him Sancho (as in Panza). The film asks serious queries of the human psyche- not just those of kind like what is good?, & what is evil?, but those of degree like what constitutes a crime?, & when does it become a crime? An argument could be made the whole film may have just been a fantasy or dream, & the question asked- did Wilson ever really get off the plane?

  I think so. The Limey is clearly a memory film, not a dream film. The Third Man is also not a dream film, bit a living nightmare for all involved. Whereas The Limey is the hope for every wronged soul in the world Harry Lime is every soulless entrepeneur who ever preyed off a weaker foe. Where Wilson is resigned to a lonely future Lime, in his arrogance, embraces the future- our past. His smirk is that of every opportunist America wretches up from its bowels- be it Robber Barons like Rockefeller & Carnegie, frauds like Joseph McCarthy & Richard Nixon, or hypocrites like Thomas Jefferson & Bill Gates. In the world of The Limey Harry Lime has become Terry Valentine, & does not need the protection of a corrupt empire like the Soviet Union- he can now pay for his own armies & killers. American triumphalism wins in the end. Who knows if what Valentine told Wilson of Jenny’s demise was the truth, or what he sensed would save his skin from the ravages of an avenging, but emotionally vulnerable, father? Terry Valentine is no dot, but while, like Lime, he knows the price of everything he also knows the value of nothing, & the fist of a new world, the next morning, will waken him as it has before. The only question is whether he, unlike Lime, will be ready for its power.

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ON OTHERS READING OF MY CRUSHING THE SKULL OF MY BEST FRIEND

INTO CONCRETE AT THE AGE OF 'IWELVE

As Ricky slumped to the ground I had a choice:

     to leave him alone or to pounce upon

him. So I pounced. What other choice could I make?

As I sat on his chest and heard him cry

I grabbed his head in my hands. No mistake

would I make. For I pounded it like a boy

should- into the ground- until I heard a crush

that released all the lust such a sound brings,

understanding the how, if not the why,

for we become one- as men- in this sphere:

     the joys of destroying worthwhile things

beyond any reasons we state. O, this rush

of eyes onto I- in this- for I fear

when I speak of I, I could be anyone.

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3

  As I muse on the relationship of Holly Martins & Harry Lime in The Third Man (depicted as having been petty criminals together) I think of my own relationships with males: my bloodbrother Paco Robatillo, the end result ended up with Paco dying in the Harry Lime role. There were also boyhood friendships with Ridgewooders Ziggy, Georgey G., & Tommy Stasiak, as well St. Johnners Marc Taylor & Josh Harte. Of all I think back with wonder the most upon Ricky Gerhardt.

  After the fight I describe in the sonnet above 2 things happened that forever altered Ricky’s & my friendship. The 1 st was I crept into myself. I realized a part of me desired to murder this boy who was my best friend- perhaps the best friend I’d known. It wasn’t just the impulse to be rid of him, but I enjoyed the crunch of his skull. I loved the sound of the smashing fist into things. A few months earlier I heard a similar crunch while playing around before heading to Forest Park for a game of baseball. Ricky was freely swinging an aluminum bat & accidentally hit Stacy Steiner in the head. The sickening crunch of aluminum on skull stuck with me- the louder, deeper snap of a Nestle’s Crunch bar. Yet, here I was, on top of my good friend, not long before he would develop before me, grow bigger & stronger. A similar noise came from his skull on concrete & it spurred me. Then I stopped- not only beating Ricky’s head against the ground, but my whole functioning violence, by taking over. It would be years before I deemed myself disciplined enough to control my primal urges.

  My darker nature sublimated. I was at war with my impulses. This manifested in 2 urges that persisted through my mid-20s. 1 was The Twitch. When angry I would get this impulse to smash things by punching it or them with my right fist. Instead, I repressed the urge & could feel my right inner elbow tense up, literally constricting my arm against my will. I would massage it for a while to ease the tension & unfold my arm. Sometimes it would literally go numb with chills. The 2 nd was The Throb. While I’ve never had headaches I suffered The Throb. I would sometimes wake from dream, or sleeplessly fidget as my head throbbed with rages. Anger propelled it- my treatment by Brenda Hiram, Irene Bruno, or a boss. Other times it was guilt over betraying Paco Robatillo, my bloodbrother, by destroying the Omega 7 through anonymous tips to cops. I would wake, sweating, feeling my head was gonna explode. The Throb was more dramatic, but both manifested my inability to easily put my truer natures to rest. All that stemmed from my realization, as I banged Ricky’s skull into concrete, I loved violence, & would give into it if I did not learn to control myself. If I could feel these impulses toward my best friend was anyone safe if I loosed my anger, admixed with my intellect, upon the world?

  Ricky was my best friend. Yes, he was a coward- like the night I stood up to the 80 th Street Gunner while he ran, but we hit it off. He was cool with playing sidekick- a role usually mine in male friendships. Later. our natural growth trends- his white breadedness & my white meat life- would sunder our friendship. Ricky started hanging with losers from his St. John’s class- a tall redhaired kid- Jimmy Malone, & 2 brothers- Milton & Evan Tarver. Milton was a big, wimpy kid who actually grew taller & stronger than Ricky, but Ricky made a sidekick out of him as I did him. Faggy Keith O’Dougal nicknamed Ricky ‘The Gawk’ for his clumsiness- like his accidental bat assault on Stacy- but the name applied even more to wimpy Milton. 1 day, he tried to verbally fight back against me after I beat him in a stoopball game. Even though larger he was scared of me- a lifelong Glendaler, while I a born Ridgewooder. He tried to insult me saying ‘your mother’. At 1 st I laughed, then saw how scared he was of my pending reaction. I recalled an incident a year earlier at the Forest Park ballfield.

  Me, Stan O’Dougal, & Ricky wanted to take some cuts with a bat & ball, but found the field occupied by kids from the next block- 79 th Street. Included were blond Vito Manzano- who would later become a major guinea & work in the produce department at Finast supermarket, brothers Hank & Don Enkh- the latter would also work at Finast, as a cashier, 4-eyed brunet mulleted Lenny Meeks- whom Stacy Steiner turned to after giving up on me, & 2 smaller brown-haired brothers- bespectacled Matt & wimpy Harry. The leader of this not-so-magnificent 7 was a tall, ecru-haired, bespectacled kid in my homeroom at JHS 119- Teddy Everman- who resented me because I was smarter &, though shorter, stood up to his bullying, making him look foolish to girls he liked. Worse, I gave him the nickname ‘Everwoman’, & he suffered about being a faggot over it. This day, Everwoman got his revenge. I asked the 79 th Streeters when they’d be done with the field. Teddy got in my face, asked me what I was gonna do to make them leave. I said I was just asking. He cursed & called me out. I saw Ricky & Stan cowering- they were not 1s to stand up for themselves. I told Teddy to knock it off, we’ll go elsewhere. Teddy called me a little faggot & told me to take my suckbuddies & beat it. I walked away & said, ‘Your mother!’ Immediately Teddy got in my face & said his mother was a saint, blah, blah. He waved a bat menacingly at me & I found myself surrounded by the 7 79 th Streeters as Stan & Ricky did nothing. Outnumbered 7 to 1 I had no choice but to recant my comment on Everwoman’s mother, but saw how effectively the faux defense of mom ploy could intimidate others. I saw in Ricky’s & Stan’s faces they knew I hit a tripwire, 1 they’d not dare. Teddy Everman’s insecurity (& his group’s greater #) forced us off the playground, but I knew kids could be intimidated by the reaction to a ‘your mother’ comment.

  Thus was the fear in Milton Tarver’s eyes as he uttered those same sentiments. I used a faux anger, & tested how far I could push Milton. I chased him for blocks. He managed to keep a car between us. After over an hour’s pursuit he tired near Durow’s Restaurant, & I caught him. He fell to his knees, begged for forgiveness, & recanted his slur. I laughed as I held the larger boy in my grip, & slapped him playfully across the face in front of his house. His younger, retarded, even larger, brother Evan came running out & threatened to kick my ass. He lunged at me. I ducked. I tossed him to the ground & held him down till he gave in. Milton just watched, & pled for mercy for both. I was amazed how I was able to physically subdue 2 far larger boys just by threats & the fears of my reaction. Yet, Ricky preferred hanging out & drinking with the Tarvers & Jimmy Malone, playing ‘cool’ to white bread chicks, while I desired real excitement.

  Yet, Ricky was my best friend as I beat him. Ziggy, for all my attachment, was a mentor 1 st- a friend 2 nd. Ricky was not. 2 years younger than me Ricky looked up to me not only because I was older & smarter but I came from his mother’s legendary natal nabe. His mother’s family moved to Glendale from Ridgewood years before mine, so Glendale was the only nabe Ricky ever knew. To white bread Glendalers Ridgewood a mythic place of degradation & vice, especially Lower Ridgewood, where I came from, which bordered on the more legendarily repellent Bushwick. Ricky turned to me as the older brother he never had (brothers Randy & Wally were younger). But, Ricky & I were fundamentally different. It may have been his upbringing by his bitterly racist father, but I think it was deeper. Ricky approached the world with fear- I did not. This manifested itself the evening on the 80 th Street overpass where we pelted passing cars with snowballs until 1 stopped. I stayed & faced a possible hitman’s wrath, while Ricky tore ass.

  The reason for our fight is long passed from my memory. I do not recall actually pounding him, but recoiling when I heard his skull crack. Ricky’s mother was a nurse- she rushed out to save him as he wailed. He needed stitches. The incident was written off as ‘boys being boys’- much as an incident a year earlier had. Ricky & I were biking south on the 1 way north 79 th Place. We were ½ a block away from the corner when a car turned down the block. Seeing the car Ricky panicked & steered his bike into mine. I crashed into a parked car & the impact threw me literally over the car’s hood where I landed tooth-1 st onto the curb in front of Maude Meese’s house, cracking the front left tooth by the gap in my front teeth. I had to get the nerve removed & have worn a succession of caps since. It was a thing that happens to boys when they play. Such was the fight between Ricky & I. I realized I needed to set limits on my anger- not because it was all-powerful, but I so enjoyed it. To what lengths would such self-pleasuring lead? Was I a Harry Lime or Terry Valentine aborning? A week later, when Ricky was better, things went back to ‘normal’ between us- but not really.

  The 2 nd thing that would forever alter our friendship was even though 2 years younger, Ricky hit puberty before me. 1 summer, when he was 11, Ricky grew to tower over me. He was soon bigger, faster, & stronger. He started winning some fights between us. I had always been the dominant partner in our relationship- a rarity. I was not eager to switch positions. To maintain the status quo I would ratchet things up between us in our almost sibling competition. I would take more risks, dare more things, & become more ruthless- in sports, petty crimes, girls. Ricky would try to keep up, but while he gained physical superiority over me, he was never a match for my intellect nor fearlessness.

  For instance, in my last year as a Cub Scout (before Josh Harte’s mother Cloris made attending unbearable) Mrs. Gerhardt decided she would get involved in a St. John’s school bowling league sponsored by the Cub Scouts & overseen by imperious Cloris Harte. Mrs. Gerhardt recruited Ricky, me, & this wimpy blond German kid who lived down 77 th Road to be the 3some she sponsored. Ricky was a solid bowler, the German kid ok, but I was bad. Mrs. Gerhardt & the German kid’s mom turned out to be Little League parents, constantly berating us if we did not do well. I turned off & decided to get back at the older women’s abuse by deliberately bowling badly. This infuriated the German kid’s mom, a real foul-mouthed racist, especially regarding some teams with black kids. The more she bitched the more I fucked up on purpose. Gutterball after gutterball followed her threats & epithets. Spite became my weapon against Nazi mom’s barbs. 1 time I actually made the ball jump the barrier between lanes & I got a strike in the lane to my left.

  At that indignity Nazi mom snapped, & pulled me aside. She laced in to me with a venom endemic in women like her & Cloris Harte, ‘You’re white trash from Ridgewood, & white trash is the worst thing going. Niggers are bad but they can’t help themselves. White trash like you choose to be trash.’ Nazi mom thought that she got me good, like Cloris Harte a few months earlier at a Cub Scout meeting, but she did not know my weaknesses the way Mrs. H did. I steeled myself after Josh’s mom’s assault, so retorted by laughing in her face & telling her to screw herself. I was kicked off the bowling team but after Mrs. Gerhardt told my mom what Nazi mom said I was not punished. Needless to say, standing up to an adult was something Ricky Gerhardt would never do.

  For example- next to the Gerhardts lived the Whitmans- an obese couple with 2 children- Richard, never Richie nor Ricky, the same age as Wally Gerhardt, who grew up to be a jock, & his younger sister, Sally- who, when we 1 st moved to Glendale, was the ugliest baby I’d ever seen. Mr. Whitman was known as a real jackass around the nabe. While a bitter racist- he, years later, threatened to burn down our house if our real estate agent sold it to blacks or Hispanics- he never got along with Mr. Gerhardt. His own inferiority complex led him to lash out against the Gerhardt boys- who just took it. I defended them to the grown man, who dismissed me as typical Ridgewood trash. I responded by labeling the family the Titmans, & soon the whole nabe was belittling the reviled clan. Richard ‘Titman’ got the worst as all variations of his name & its mammarian implications spun out of my mouth.

  While Ricky crept within himself over fear of the world I crept inside myself only partway. My anger & penchant for violence scared me, but I knew at its release I was not myself, Danny Schneider, merely another raging human- generic in toto. To individuate I would need to control the impulse to lose my uniquity to a dot’s gray rage. By doing so I would, like The Limey’s Wilson, set out on a path away from myself, initially, a path which would lead me into the pine barrens of my own regret for many years. But, when I finally found my way back I’d learned the many subtleties that distinguish the gray shades of dots, the difference between prices & values, & knew such meant everything, whether I was anyone or just myself.