Helen's Dishonor

BY BILLY SNEAD

I enrolled at Binford Junior High School in February of 1948, having completed my elementary education at Fox, where I knew most everyone from the 6th grade down to the 1st.

But Binford drew from a much larger area, which included Gamble's Hill, Oregon Hill, the Boy's Home, and Maymont area, the Swan Lake and Fountain Lake, all of the Fan up to the Boulevard, and West Avenue. Diversity. Of course, "the Fan" didn't get it's geographically descriptive name until many years later.

At Binford, the students from all of those areas were split up into different homerooms and it took a while to meet new people and make new friends, and foes. Fist fights occurred almost daily on the school yard, much more frequently than I was use to.

By early June I had met many new friends and had even ventured into strange parts of the city to see them on weekends, mainly to see the girls. After all, I was thirteen. I had made the baseball team that spring and although I got very little playing time, it had allowed me to become, so to speak, one of the boys.

I was comfortable in my new environment and I was having fun, managing to avoid confrontations with the school toughs. And Binford had plenty of them seeming to all fit the same mold...they cussed a lot, smoked cigarettes, had bad teeth, and were loud, rude, and usually ugly. They would start a fight at the least provocation and sometimes with none. One of those guys was named Jimmy and I had been told of how mean he was, although none had ever really seen him in action.

About a week before school was out for the summer, I was standing out front of the school talking to some of my Fox School friends, waiting for the first bell to ring, when a surly looking bunch of guys came out of the front door led by Jimmy. They were headed our way, and Jimmy was glaring right at me.

"I wanta talk to him a minute," he said, still glaring, as my buddies eased away and into the school.

"Imo beat your little ass after school for what you said about my girlfriend, and don't say you didn't say it."

Say what, I wondered not even knowing that he had a girlfriend. I was stunned and not just a little bit afraid. "I don't even know your girlfriend, Jimmy", I stammered. Fear, I'm sure, apparent on my face.

"I knew he'd lie about it, the little chicken", Jimmy said to his entourage who all agreed with chuckles.

"Bobby Morgan said that you told him some stuff about me and Helen, and you're gonna pay for it."

I knew Bobby but I didn't know Helen and I knew that I was innocent of these charges.

"Meet me over there by the bike racks after school and you better show up or Imo come after you."

The first bell rang and they all went back in the front door leaving me standing there stunned, like a little boy lost, which indeed, I was. But I knew that nothing on Earth could have kept me from showing up. Not that I was brave, it was that I just wanted this thing to end and to end quickly.

The impending showdown completely consumed me for the rest of the school day. I could think of nothing else...I rehearsed it over and over in my mind.

My main goal was to confront Bobby. Bobby was small and meek, always smiling, and always seen hanging around with the girls. Everybody liked him, even the bullies.

I saw him in the hall going to second period, but when I yelled his name, he glanced my way, quickly averted my eyes, and lost himself in the crowd. I knew he had lied and he had just proved it.

I waited in the cafeteria at lunch until I saw him taking up his tray and I cornered him at the window.

"Bobby, what did you tell Jimmy that I said about his girl?"

He started to tear up. "It wasn't you, it was Holland. I told Helen what he said and she made me tell her who told me. I couldn't tell her the truth because Holland would beat me up, so I said it was you. It was the only name I could think of."

"Well you've got to tell him it won't me", I argued.

"I can't, then both of them will beat me up and Helen will be mad at me."

"Who is Helen?"

"Right there, I was sitting next to her," Bobby said.

I turned and saw Helen who was looking my way and not smiling. Helen was a beauty! Small boned, but budding, large grey eyes and curly hair that she had peroxided in all the right places, and a wide mouth with pretty white teeth. She always wore bright red lipstick on her perty lips, and bright colored beads around her long thin neck. I did know her, but only through seeing her in the halls. She was in her second year and very popular with the boys as well as the girls. I didn't really know her but I was a secret admirer and could never say anything bad about her even if I was privileged to know anything bad.

She turned and said something to the other girls and now they were scowling my way. I wanted to scream out my innocence, but I didn't and when I turned back to plead again with Bobby, he had vanished.

As the day went on, it only got worse. Every time I turned around, Jimmy was there with his crew. They, all with mean looks in their eyes. It was terrorism and it was working. I was, quite simply, scared to death of my unknown fate.

My buddies from that morning had asked me what Jimmy had wanted.

"Nothing, just something about some girl."

I had already decided to see this through alone and so I told no one of my impending doom. I guess because I didn't want them to see me humiliated. When the bell rang ending the school day, I tarried in my seat, wanting as many kids to leave as possible, thus reducing the size of the audience, which by now, must be gathering on the side yard.

I was the last to leave my homeroom and when I got to the steps, the halls were almost clear. At the bottom of the steps was the side door, maybe the last door I would ever exit. It was showtime!

As I came out of the door and the semi-darkness of the hall, I was temporarily blinded by the afternoon sun, but my eyes quickly focused on the view to my left.

There were about thirty or forty people in a semi-circle, mostly girls, most of the boys viewing this as a one-punch event and therefore not worthy of attendance. My heart was pounding like it would soon break from my chest and it seemed like I could feel the blood racing at breakneck speed through my veins. My stomach was knotted solid and my mouth was bone dry. The crowd stopped jabbering when they saw me, and Jimmy, with his back to me talking to Helen, turned in disbelief.

"Well, I'll be damned, I sure didn't think you'd show up. I thought sure you'd be too chicken."

"You're gonna get your little ass beat for what you said", Helen reminded me.

Oh please don't curse me. I'm innocent, but most of all please don't curse at all and spoil my image of you, I said, but only to myself.

"Go on and hit him, Jimmy", the crowd said. But Jimmy was now giving me a different look. A puzzled look, a look like, "How dare you show up, you're suppose to be chicken."

I was tensing up all over in fear, when Jimmy made an astonishing announcement.

"Naw, I ain't gonna fight him, he's too little. Imo wait ‘til Jeff gets here and let him do it."

Jeff? Who was Jeff? I didn't know him and wasn't being accused of saying bad things about his girl. And besides, how could someone who didn't even know me want to beat me up.

"Comah, Jimmy, we want you to do it, you said you would," the crowd said.

"Let's just wait for Jeff."

I simply could not stand the wait and started sobbing uncontrollably. I think it was now more anger than fear.

"I want to fight you", I mustered through tears – the waiting becoming more and more unbearable.

Jimmy turned sideways to the crowd, "Look at the lil' cry baby, I told y'all he was a sissy."

He was no longer calling me a chicken, I noticed, even through all my fear. My dread could wait no longer and when he turned back around to face me, I advanced and shoved him in his chest making him lose his balance slightly.

Hush went the crowd as the air was heavy with silence. I pushed him again. Now all eyes were on Jimmy expecting him to uncoil at any second, but he didn't. When I went to push him again, he quickly moved behind Helen. The crowd knew that it was Jimmy, who was chicken.

"I'm leaving", Helen announced as she turned and walked right by him saying nothing.

And it was over, just like that. The crowd turned and started walking south across the playground with Jimmy trailing behind hanging his ugly head.

By the time they got to Main Street, Helen already had a new boyfriend.

I went to the rack and got my bike and headed as fast as I could down Floyd Avenue. I was late for carrying my papers.

What just happened? I wondered. I had won a battle, having never been in a fight. Whatever it was, I knew I would sleep good that night. My knots were gone.

Jimmy left school for good when the semester was over and took a job delivering telegrams for Western Union on his bike.

Later that summer, Bobby was hit by a city bus and killed at the corner of Meadow and Main. I went to the funeral...sat next to Helen and held her hand when she cried.