Attila the Hun
II
by Don Drewniak
I managed to
avoid getting into much trouble in school from
kindergarten through the early days of fifth
grade. That changed dramatically about the time
the 1954 Major League Baseball season was
drawingto a close.
I entered
kindergarten at the Slade School in Fall River,
Massachusetts in 1949. My family moved to a
different part of the city when I was in first
grade causing my transfer to the Laurel Lake
School. It was strictly a grammar school with no
seventh and eighth grades. We moved back to the
old neighborhood during my fourth grade days.
The shooting
of marbles and tossing of baseball cards were
prime activities, especially for boys, at Laurel
Lake. These were non-existent on the Slade
playground. This was because some of the over
aged, soon to be in jail seventh and eighth
graders would kick away the marbles and steal the
cards.
Instead, there
were fads. One of these was the twice-a-year yo-yo
fad. Once in the fall an Asian salesman from
either Duncan Toys or Royal Tops graced the
school with his magical yo-yo presence. His
counterpart from the other company materialized
in the spring.
Kids from
grades three to six were force marched to the
auditorium. Then came the showman’s
inexhaustible bag of tricks: Walk the Dog;
Forward Toss; Rock the Baby; Round the World; the
Yo-Yo That Ate Fall River and a host more.
Effortless,
easy. “I can do that,” fantasized most
of the captives, especially the boys. And so,
dozens of kids would raid their piggy banks or
mortgage their allowances to place orders for
what were perceived as the greatest toys in the
universe. Within two weeks of delivery, most yo-yo’s
were consigned to the bottom of toy boxes, the
result of tangled strings, broken strings, and
the reality that most tricks bordered on the
impossible. Toss in lumps on foreheads and bloody
noses from attempting Round the World.
October
brought a new fad to the school. A nearby variety
store began selling compact, but relatively
powerful, water pistols. You were walking in a
hallway. Zap! You were minding your own business
on the playground. Zap! After a few too many zaps,
I bought my own weapon, strictly for self defense
of course.
I knew it was
only a matter of time until Principal Mendoza,
who taught at the school before being appointed
principal, took action. The classroom door opened
a day later, and in thundered Attila the Hun II.
“Boys,
stand!”
He walked to
the clothes hooks and felt the pockets and
sleeves of all the jackets. Bingo! Two pistols
found. After identifying the felons, he turned to
our teacher, Miss Clausen, and snapped, “One
week’s detention!” (Detention was
served from 12:30 to 1:00 before the afternoon
sessions.) She dutifully wrote down the names.
How dumb
can they be trying to hide them in their jackets?
He then
checked the desks of the boys starting with the
column nearest the door. All the desks had hinged
tops that could be opened to a near
ninety-degree angle. This allowed him to look
down at the contents. With my desk located near
the windows, I enjoyed the show as he picked off
three more felons. All three had their pistols
sitting on top of their school books.
Super dumb!
“One week
detention!”
With a barely
concealed smirk on my face, I watched him inspect
my desk. No water pistol in sight.
Move on,
Mendoza!
He paused and
then picked up the school books from the higher
of the two piles.
Uh-oh!
And there it
was, a super thick volume of The Complete
Works of William Shakespeare. My smirk was
gone. Sweat was pouring out of every one of the
zillion pores running from the top of my head to
the soles of my feet. A thinly disguised smile
formed on Mendoza’s lips. He slowly opened
the book. Surrounded by internally jagged pages
was my light blue water pistol, complete with
traces of water.
“One week
detention for the water pistol. Another week for
destroying a book.”
Turning his
attention to me, he growled, “Report to my
office at the close of school.”
I had rifled a
small cardboard box filled with old books in the
basement of the tenement in which I lived.. The
Shakespeare book was the only one large enough
for my master plan. Leaving the first dozen or so
pages at the front and the back intact, Iused a
jackknife to carve out a rectangular prism just
big enough to hold the water pistol. (Alright,
I had no idea back then what the shape of my
carving was called.)
As soon as
Attila left the room and closed the door behind
him, absolute craziness broke loose with a few
kids treating me like a hero, but most calling me
an idiot. Once the class settled down, I prayed
for the wall clock to stop. Instead, it
accelerated to near the speed of light.
In what seemed
to be a blink of an eye, the dismissal bell
sounded. As the rest of the kids lined up in
order to escape, I prepared for the worse. I
walked as slowly as possible to my meeting with
Attila. He wasn’t there, but his secretary
was. She had a nose that looked like a small ice
cream cone. It was pointy enough to pop a balloon.
“Are you
Donald?” she asked in a tone of voice that
she must have learned from Attila.
No, I’m
President Eisenhower.
“Yes.”
Miss Ice-Cream-Cone-Nose
handed me a sealed envelope. “You are to
have the letter inside signed by both your
parents. You are to return it to the office
tomorrow morning.”
If I don’t
return it, can I stay home forever?
She then gave
me Shakespeare. “This to be shown
to your parents. Do you understand?”
Yes, Miss
Ice-Cream-Cone-Nose.
“Yes.”
“Good-bye.”
I left the
office hating her as much as I hated the New York
Yankees. Maybe more.
On the way
home, I tried to assess the damage. Two weeks
detention and possible grounding for two years. A
plan. I needed a plan other than running away
from home or hoping that someone would bump off
Mendoza. Finally, I figured my best chance to
limit the damage would be to wait until
supper was finished. Then I could hand the
envelope to the Old Man. Maybe he would be in a
hurry to get some work done on the Birch Street
house that he was building for us and would tell
Mom to take care of it. I could then convince her
to fudge his signature.
Bad omen.
Supper was liver, steamed broccoli and mashed
potatoes. The potatoes were good, but the other
two, especially the liver,were about as bad as
food can get.I went to the bathroom three times
so that I could spit out mouthfuls of it into the
toilet.
Supper
finished, the moment of truth arrived. I went
into my bedroom and brought out the envelope and
Shakespeare. Handing him the envelope, all hope
that he would pass it to Mom ended when he opened
it. As he read the letter, I could see that he
was struggling not to laugh.
Perfect!
Without
hesitating, I passed him Shakespeare.
Upon opening it, he burst into laughter. My
mother read the letter, “Donald, that was a
terrible thing to do!”
“He’s
a boy. That’s what boys are supposed to do.”
She threw up
her hands and stormed out of the room. “Get
me a pen,” said the Old Man while still
chuckling. After signing it, he told me to have
Mom sign it.
What I did not
know at the time, and would not know until two
decades passed, was that my father was a chronic
truant in grammar school. His father died of a
heart attack at age thirthy-six, and an older
brother was killed a year later, having been
struck by a car. He dropped out of school while
in fifth grade in order to help support his
mother and three sisters.
Somehow I made
it through ten days of detention. Along with a
revolving crew of fellow felons, I sat on one
of the two wooden benches in a small
waiting area outside of the office from 12:30 to
1:00 for each of the days. We were monitored by
Miss Ice-Cream-Cone-Nose. The rules: No talking,
no going to the boy’s room, no standing up,
no raising your hand, no reading a book.
We were
allowed to breathe.
|
