The Stone: Man Or Myth? Hey, Stone, I hope you don't mind me writing about you. I'll even use your real name. Not the name you were born with, the old one you gave up when your mom married the General. I told you that I'd do this someday and man your day has come. The real hope is that you'll read this somewhere and show up on my doorstep demanded payment, changes or the keys to something. But I'll have trapped you then, old friend. Just another excuse to hang out, be together again, and have some coffee, coffee I said not that Tengo, Night Train or Mad Dog 20-20 that you made me drink that time with Billy Beers. You can sit down and tell me what you've been up to, what your latest adventure has been. Hey Stone, this is for you, just for being you... The Stone was the biggest little kid of us all when we were little kids. If he ever messed with you, if you were mad enough or crazy enough to mess back, you banded together, 2 or 3 of us, just to knock him down. He would get you in turn, depending on how bad you got him or he felt like you needed to get. After he dragged my friend Johnny Gebbia through an entire hedge (tossed him in one end then ran him through the length of it) he was then regarded as a force of nature. He could be both a hero or your worst nightmare. Seeing an entire world war two battlescene, complete with trees, mud and those green plastic army men, was something, but seeing it taking up Stone's entire bedroom, set up on plywood and sawhorses was special. Seaview movie theater, about 12:45pm, some movie. I was about 11. I was with Marc and I heard him squeal. "What?" I said. "Stone." he said back, slouching down. Stone comes sneaking up behind him. I smile. Trouble. He kicks Marc 's chair to intimidate him even further. Glares at poor Harold, younger than us and twice as scared. "Gum," he says, "Chew it up, quick." And he handed each of us two pieces of bazooka. He looked behind himself and started to scare us. Getting caught was one thing but getting caught with him something else. We chewed: Marc, me and Harold F., who I'd one day catch doing a perfect imitation of me, which I still smile about. "Okay, now spit," he commanded and we all looked at him as if he were insane. He held his hand out. Would he kill us if we spit into his hand? Was this a test or a joke. He just growled and we spit and felt kind of sick. Until he wadded up our gum, plus his own, then planted an M-80 firecracker in its center (eighth of stick of dynamite)...lit it and threw it at the screen. It hit a foot or so higher than dead center of the screen, hung for an infinite second then exploded. Pandemonium. We sat there, shocked on many levels, then our adrenaline took over. The screen had a huge hole in its center and lots of smoke. I was first up. Around us a sea of madness, kids and adults running every which way. I looked at Stone and he at me. I said the baddest word I knew in celebration. Then I slapped him on the back as we took off, leaving the chaos he'd caused behind as he stormed towards the emergency exit. It was a magnificent feat, and I was proud to know him. He never meant anyone any harm, he was just bored and stuffed with a lot of energy. He put his heart and himself into any thing he did. He lived down the block from me, (sang "Downtown" to me once, made me sing the chorus when he pointed). The other boy with no father, until his mom married... the General. The General, a white racist pig whose first wife screwed around on him in front of the whole block, then stormed out one day, left him humiliated, with two almost grown sons already, so tried to break his new son's spirit continuously but ultimately failed. Later life tried to break his spirit but it too failed. He really was a force of nature. The General had the biggest, meanest German shepherd I've ever seen, Rebel. The General smiled his sick smile at the anticipation of the confrontation. But the Stone and the Rebel got on famously. They growled at each other. Stone went down on all fours and looked him square in the eye. Rebel, apparently, had never had a human not be afraid of him and thought Stone his equal, and that was that. They were the best of friends. One time I remember seeing the Stone and it scared me. Bloody bruised and very, very angry, he was a man on a mission. "What happened?" I said. I hoped he didn't kill me in his rage. "I was in the projects and I got jumped. I'm going back..." For anyone that's never lived in the inner city, the projects were low income housing. For the Stone to get jumped in there, it must have taken an army. Meanwhile the Stone had disappeared into his house. I asked if he needed some backup, even though I was pretty useless. I wanted to run but I held my ground. On the Stone's back was a quiver full of arrows and his bow. He was mad but he smiled. Rebel ate more in a day than I weighed at the time. "No thanks, man. See you when I get back." "What are you going to do?" "Payback." He left with the snarling Rebel. I went through the backyard to check out the action. He yelled and shot arrows. He released Rebel. He got his playback. He was the terror of the Projects and gained a lot of fear and respect. He did the right thing. He insured his safety. A few years later I had this cat, Honey. the color of honey. She didn't like me, so I gave her to my mom and is. My mom used to keep her tied up on the porch outside. One day a pack of wild dogs came upon her and shredded her. Mom was trashed from it. The minute I got home from the country, Stone came out his front door and saw me. He came down and I met him halfway. "Hey." "Hey." "Listen, I saw what happened to your mom's cat. I stood on my porch and watched it. I couldn't do a damned thing, it happened too quick." He looked down on the ground, as if he'd failed my mom. I knew he'd taken care of the body and blood and Mom and all. "Yeah, I couldn't stand the fucker, but Mom loved her." "Wait here." Five minutes pass. He comes out with two bows and a quiver full of arrows. "Let's go." he said. I wasn't scared because he was with me and we did what we had to do that day. For the first time in my life I became a warrior. We went into the lots, found the pack and loosed arrows at them. We'd bring one down. Then hit and kill another. We weren't scared. We weren't mad. We did what needed to be done. They were dangerous and had killed a poor defenseless cat that had no chance of escape. There were lots of little kids about and because we were older and stronger and... They had put a big hurt in my mom's heart. But the Stone and I did it without joy. And we never spoke about it again. One time he came to me and said, "Let's go." Uh, oh. He took me into the abandoned supermarket on the corner of our block. I thought, "What did I do, and why does he want to take me here to murder me?" Picking his way through the rubble, we came to a cone of snow let in by a hole in the roof. A mother cat had had a litter of kittens. The Stone turned to me and said, "We have to help them." And we did. We fed the mother and took care of the kittens. Kept them warm and found them homes. I don't think he ever had a cat of his own or even liked them too much, but one time I saw him beat the living shit out of a guy who'd done something really bad. It made him furious and then there was no stopping him. I led the big crazy lug for stuff like that. We'd both grew up practically without fathers and the fathers we had left scars. In some ways that was part of our bond. And raised by single mothers who gave us their spirit without the bullshit. We wouldn't let any one or any thing get in our way. Ever. We were both too smart for our own good. And I saw him come back from the brink of death. Cracked out. Skinny and dirty. I turned my face from him that day... something I would be ashamed of forever if not a year later stepping into a friend's house there was a roar from the kitchen. Bigger than ever. Crazier than ever, drunk on sheer life was the Stone. Back from the dead. He ran to me screaming and hoisted me into the air like a toy and held me there, shaking me... I still had his fingermark bruises on my ribs three days later. Rarely have I been picked up and shaken like that. I And he knew I had seen him when... but shrugged it off. "It wasn't me, was it?" he said. I wore those marks proudly Hey Stone, hey Stone, I told Parker one of your stories last week. A bad one. Remember Francis? What he did to that cat? Remember what you did to Francis? Well, Francis, the visions of hindsight tell me that that, mean real Marine Corps Drill Sergeant of a father of yours did you in. Broke your back a little. That's called grace. I give him the credit of what he did to you fucked you up. Francis was about 3 or 4 years older than us. Pretty reserved, a snotball. Francis had tied a big firecracker to a cat's rear end and lit it. I think my mind has blanked out most of it by now. All I remember was Stone. The look on his face as he'd heard how this had happened. Stone himself had happened along to the cat. Still alive, laying in the gutter at the end of our block. He was the one who'd put it out of its misery. We told him the story. It was the first time in my life where a fight was in like a cartoon. Stone went on the hunt, walking from the lot down the block to Francis' house. Us in tow. Francis pulling up in a car and getting out. Unaware. Much bigger than Stone. Stone called to him before Francis opened the gate. Whirling Arms like in the movies. That's what I saw. Mayhem among all of us. 30 years later and I still remember those arms, the sickening hatred, the disgust, and those whirling arms; I still think that scummy Francis deserved it, and more. It makes me want to find him now, even after all these years, ring his doorbell, and punch him in the face. You get to ring the bell, Stone, if you come. There's more, but it all comes slowly. I just wish that doorbell would ring.
Copyright © 1996 Lawrence Peters |