LITMIR.BIZ

      MY LITTLE BROTHER Johnny went into training on a Wednesday in April, two and a half weeks before the fight. That afternoon I got a note in my two-o’clock study hall telling me to report to the office of Mr. Emory D. H. Bascomb, the principal, after school. Mr. Bascomb was the principal of both Barrington Junior High, where I was in the seventh grade at the time, and of Goodey-Gormley grade school across the street, where my brother was in fourth grade.

      When I got the note I thought maybe they had found out about the brass knuckles I had made in shop class, but that was unlikely because I had sneaked them out and now they were at home, and then I figured they must have found out who cut the brake band on Miss Miller’s bicycle. Miss Miller was a Spanish teacher, and she always called me Gutierrez instead of Gordon because I was dark and spoke Spanish well. My friend Hank McGaffney and I cut the brake band on her bicycle one day in the fall during football practice while we were supposed to be doing laps, and she ran into the back end of a semi at the College-Manhattan intersection on her way home. She broke her left arm and I felt quite bad about the whole thing.

      When I got to Mr. Bascomb’s office I was in something of a sweat. He couldn’t see me right away, and I had to sit in the outer office with his secretary. His secretary’s name was Mrs. McBain, and she had pock marks on her face and weighed about two hundred pounds. Whenever Mr. Bascomb grilled you in order to make you admit something, Mrs. McBain always sat in on it. I had a couple of pachuco friends who told me they’d much rather tangle with Evaristo Orozco, the well-known truant officer.

      Mrs. McBain smiled at me, and told me to sit down. She was in an amazingly good mood for her, and asked me how the track team was going to do. I told her I didn’t know because I was playing Babe Ruth ball for Apodaca’s General Store, but I heard it was pretty good. She said she had heard that I was a pretty good ballplayer, and that made me feel fine. She said she knew that I’d won the MVP trophy in the American Little League the year before, and she heard about the three-hitter I pitched against Los Alamos in the first All Star game. I told her I didn’t know she was a ball fan, and she said she certainly was one. She never missed the game of the week on TV and she went to see the Falstaffers every Sunday. She said she was crazy about Buddy Blattner, thought he was wonderful, but she couldn’t see why they didn’t fire that big loudmouth Dizzy Dean. The Falstaffers were the local semi-pro team, and if I hadn’t got bone chips in my throwing elbow I probably would have played for them myself sooner or later. I asked her what she thought about Solomon Sena, who was the Falstaffers’ best starting pitcher, and she said he was plenty fast but had control trouble, especially in the late innings, which was hardly news to anybody. I said yes, that was because he developed a hitch in his wind-up when he got tired.

      Just then Mr. Bascomb buzzed her on the intercom and said he was ready to see me. Mrs. McBain smiled at me and said, through that door.

      Mr. Bascomb was a very dignified-looking man; he could have passed as a bank president or the chairman of the board in the movies, and he was always very nice to me. This was because he was a strong Republican, and my mother is something of a wheel in state Republican politics, a big wheel in fact, and Mr. Bascomb wanted a nice tenure job with the state system. The pay was better than in the city system. He had to act like a nonpartisan, of course, so that he wouldn’t get the city school board on his tail, but he wanted my mother to know what his principles were, and that was pretty lucky for me more than a couple of times. I didn’t know any of that then, only that he seemed to like me.

      “Sit down, Jerry,” he said to me, and pointed at a chair. “I’ve got grave problems to discuss with you.”

      “Yes, sir,” I said and sat down and started thinking about Miss Miller and her cast.

      “It’s about your brother Johnny,” he said, and I relaxed.

      “He’s done something wrong, sir?” I asked.

      “Not exactly wrong. In fact the whole situation is very unusual, and I’d like to have your help in trying to solve it peaceably.”

      “Sure, sir,” I said.

      “Well, it seems your brother’s been threatening people. He’s terrified one boy so thoroughly that the boy’s mother has called and asked that I intervene.”

      “No bull?” I asked. “Johnny got sore at somebody for real?”

      Johnny was by about two inches and ten pounds the puniest kid in the fourth grade, and the only argument he ever had with anybody before that I knew about was when he made me beat up Larry O’Leary, the undertaker’s son. That was when Johnny was in the second grade and O’Leary took all his marbles, including a good steelie and some clearies I had given him, so I had to beat O’Leary up, which wasn’t exactly easy.

      “Watch your language, Jerry,” Mr. Bascomb said.

      I said that I was sorry, but that I was surprised to hear that Johnny had had an argument, much less threatened anybody.

      “So was I,” Mr. Bascomb said. “But the boy’s parents have called on me and I have to do something.”

      “Who is it?” I asked.

      “Melvin Oglethorpe,” Mr. Bascomb said, and I couldn’t help laughing. Melvin Oglethorpe was not tough or anything, but he was one of the biggest kids in the fourth grade and he must have been at least a foot taller than Johnny.

      “It must be some kind of joke,” I said.

      “No,” Mr. Bascomb said. “It’s no joke. In fact, it’s very serious because the boy’s future well-being is involved. Mrs. Oglethorpe called me up and told me Johnny has been threatening young Mel on his way home from school, and Mel is so upset that he isn’t hungry any more. Mrs. Oglethorpe took him to Dr. Barnaby, who said the boy is growing very fast. He’s five ten already, and malnutrition could be disastrous to his future health.”

      I said, “Well, what can I do?”

      “We have to find out what’s at the bottom of this,” Mr. Bascomb said. “Of course I’d like to settle it peaceably—it’s not good to let grade-school children indulge in violence—but if we can’t patch it up we’ll have to put the gloves on them. I want you to explain this entire situation to your mother, and between the two of you perhaps you can discover what’s troubling

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