Afternoon in the dust

I grew up in a safe haven far from gangs, hoodlums, and brutality. At least no evidence of that was ever to be seen on our quiet streets. We knew our fathers were good, we respected what they did and we accepted that we would be like them one day, welcomed that. We ate well, were provided for, and did not want for anything.

In our deepest hearts, though, we knew that what we were so sure of did not exist everywhere and, further, we knew some kids in our midst lived very differently. It was a generally peaceful place to be.

"I'm calling you out!"

This was the biggest threat of all to us. You got called out by an enemy. But, no one really had enemies. None of us did that we knew of. We hardly knew what an enemy really was.

You got called out and the certainty of a showdown was electric, and the news traveled like wildfire.

"Jackson got called out!" Eyes widened, hearts pounded. Jackson was going to get it, was going to eat it, didn't have a chance. But he was a tough, a bully, might even be a gangster. We speculated about all of it, and had no idea what any of it meant. We were soft, naive, stupid really.

"What happened?"

"Why's he gettin' called out?"

Every kid who had a pulse knew something was up. Your blood drove you forward to watch, and you watched with an intensity reserved for life-and-death moments, like dog fights, floods, car wrecks.

Billy Jackson was surrounded by a mob of tough kids, boys who bristled and jostled. Fight. It meant fight. There would be a fight. Robert Durkney was calling Jackson out. After school, when teachers lost control, kids slipped out of their grasp, they would be free to entertain their blood lust. There was no way Jackson could hide from Durkney. "Jackson's gonna fight Durkney. He got called out!"

Jackson lived down by the river and was trouble all the way through. He already drank, did things most other kids couldn't even imagine. We'd heard all the stories. He threatened adults, raided houses, trashed yards, shoplifted, shot his BB gun at dogs and killed pets. He was a tough rotten kid. If he called you out, you were dust. Why Durkney called him out was not known and it didn't really matter. But, it was Durkney who did the calling, and Durkney was just as tough. None came tougher. He was seldom even at school, had cuts and bruises on his face, raged with a cold fire in his eyes. In our minds, Jackson was mean but Durkney was murder. Both were wiry, strong, tough street kids who did not get love and did not want anything to do with calm reasoned understanding.

Jackson and Durkney were going to beat the living daylights out of each other. No one knew why and everyone wanted to see it. And everyone felt an excited dread in their hearts but didn't know why. It was like a tornado was going to be on our school grounds at 3:30. Our lives were quiet, simple and ordinary. We didn't have parents who beat us up and drank and cursed and got arrested. We knew of that side of life in our town because we caught glimpses of it on Durkney and Jackson's faces, in their eyes, in the jut of their chins, the grip of their fists.

The only badness in the rest of us allowed us to be silent in class to avoid investigation by the adults. If we were silent now, we could witness the mayhem later after the bell rang.

We heard the clanging and then we few hundred kids moved as a pack to the lower playground sand pit. Bursting out of the confiningn doors we were one mob with one frightened but maddened heart. We needed to see the darkness unleashed between Jackson and Durkney. They couldn't not fight now. It wasn't their choice anymore. What had been decided hours before now was all of our destiny.

The mob moved quickly and at its heart was a blood lust. Everyone was surprised by it and yet seduced by it; we moved with a shuffling trot east across the upper playground, rounded the corner of the building and poured down the short hill to the sand pit where forlorn and empty swings hung and the afternoon breeze gusted between them.

Durkney and two friends, strangers to us, stood together by the side of the pit. We halted and then waited. Jackson and his two walked down the hill. The boys glared at each other and spat. Then no one said anything. The two wore jeans, white t-shirts, shoes. No weapons, no dogs, nothing. It was just two mean angry boys filled up to the bursting point with adrenaline, anger and no sense at all. Durkney was blond, short and his arms looked strong. He never took his eyes of Jackson who had dark hair, more of a swagger about him and just as strong.

The rest of us were just kids who lived and died by the cruelty of rumors on the playground. Someone could say something to someone, just the smallest thing, and it was all over the school in what seemed like a moment. Adults existed in another realm that was remote and oblivious to our code, incomprehensible. We were our own tribe of little beasts, much worse in our own minds than ever hoped for in reality. We were capable of turning on each other just as quickly as we were able to grab a snack. More likely to be destructive of one another than empathetic, a duel in the sand pit after school between two hate-filled boys was the best that life had to offer our idle minds on a spring afternoon.

While Durkney and Jackson eyed each other for an opening, we watched as one single unit of preadolescent cruel curiosity. The only stake we had in it had nothing at all to do with the fighters. We were curious and we felt excited to be witness to the mayhem because it wasn't ours.

Someone yelled, "Watcha doin', ya pussy?" Jackson snickered and that's all Durkney needed. He sprinted forward so quickly we barely realized the fight was on. The lieutenants joined each other and there was nothing but white t-shirts grabbed by tough dry cuffing hitting fists and flying legs. Dust lifted above the gang of fighters. As quickly as the fight began, the shouts went up in the mob. The ugliness of the moment both shocked and thrilled us. We didn't need drums, we had our own heartbeats and stomping feet.

Then, the fight separated and the boys glared from a few feet. They stood very slowly back to their full heights and we stopped yelling and stomping just as quickly. They uttered low insults but stayed apart and then began to shuffle away in different directions, both away from us and the school buildings.

We stared and we accepted the verdict. The warring toughs who lived lives we had the barest glimpse of were now silently swallowed by distance and time. We were hushed and somehow sated, did not need any more than that vision of a vault of loneliness and mean silence that they occupied. They were not and never had been part of our world, had emerged from our midst for a moment to thrash each other and then disappear, leaving us with the reaffirming belief that our lives, handed lightly and sweetly to us, were surely delivered from evil.