New2view's Blog   Life on The Blue Marble

the True Hero

Note: The following is a story based on real youth experience of the author.
Names, and story ending, are fictional. If you enjoy it please make a donation, thanks!
(copyright © 2002 all rights reserved)

No one remembered who had injected the ‘brain-wave’ into the usual excited chatter that noon hour… perhaps it was divine intervention.?
The day began normally enough. Terry’s customized English Morris Minor convertible squirted around the neighborhood picking up buddies. Their raucous 10 minute ride to school ended in a gravel-flying slide beside the shop teacher’s new Buick.
There was just enough time to jostle with the rest of the gang, while other students condemned world pollution. By the time the warning buzzer sounded a dozen cigarette butts lay crushed on school steps.
Classes dragged on even more than usual that morning. Dry school curriculum simply couldn’t compete with hypnotic shafts of autumn sunshine spotlighted pine desktops as it filtered down classroom aisles.
Acting like isolated prisoners, the youthful gang members only glimpsed each other between periods as they shuffled along crowded, green, locker lined halls to their next classes.
The student body was a multi-racial collage of shapes and sizes. Male recognition of passing friends resulted in heartily punched shoulders, while girls merely snickered and waved multi-ringed fingers.
As another long-awaited lunch hour reunion approached, final seconds were counted off. Finally the noon hour buzzer echoed through the neighborhood like amplified killer bees – it was a bugle call to freedom for the cafe crowd!

Exploding from school exits with miraculous renewed energy, some of the students foot-raced three full city blocks in order to claim scarce booth seats at the Roses’ café… (just outside school jurisdiction).
Time was of the essence, late comers and junior wanabees would be relegated to socially inferior counter stools.
A gray and grizzled waitress/owner braced herself as the first sweaty teenagers came charging in. Dusty venetian door blinds banged loudly against a steamy glass door. Moments later, all four plain wooden booths were filled…. only a few spaces were saved for less athletic but attractive females who would eventually make their entrance.
As brown-bagging students, like me, retrieved flattened peanut butter sandwiches from under shirts and sweaters, others competed for the harried waitresses’ attention by all shouting their orders at once.
Her body language quickly re-establish authority, with narrowed puffy eyes and flashes of nicotine stained teeth. The gang correctly interpreted this as the ‘cease and desist if you want to eat’ signal. It quieted them temporarily.
Brad Gawdin carefully timed his arrival to coincide with freshly delivered ‘tatter dogs and Pepsi’s to customers. His prized cherry red and chrome ex-police Harley skidded across boulevard and sidewalk, stopping just inches from the large greasy front window, (low on gas as usual).
Some of the gang acknowledged Brad with a subdued, but friendly, cheer as he made his grinning entrance, pleased to be re-united with his former school chums. Even a flicker of recognition from the scowling waitress’ didn’t go unnoticed. He quickly combed his lengthy black ‘duck tail’ hair while squeezing into the central booth.
Brad really hoped to forget his fruitless days of job hunting since quitting school at mid-term. For the moment, reconnecting by school friends, while mooching a few bites from their lunches, was comforting.
His lean semi-adult six-foot frame perfectly matched the prized Harley. He rode it with sublime confidence, hair flying up from under a vizard ‘Marlin Brando’ motorcycle cap. But away from his bike, a boy-man personality emerged with slouching posture, gaunt acne spotted cheeks; and deep dimpled chin.
His well-worn black leather jacket and sunglasses portrayed a motorcycle gang persona, but his friends knew him better.

“Good ‘old B.G.!” cried freckle faced Ron Andrews as self appointed spokesman.
Someone else chimed in;
“No books; no exams; no hassles; you’ve got it made Brad!!”
“Yeah, just call me Marlin, he said, slightly self- conscious of his noticeably deeper voice…

“Who’s got all the cig’s?”
Brad certainly wasn’t above taking advantage of the temporary adulation, besides, bumming cigarette’s served to temper the attention overload he was now feeling.
Soon a free-for-all conversation flowed quickly through familiar topics, including ‘schoolteacher dictatorships’; ‘bikes versus cars’; and of course ‘dating’. It was then that something truly unique came up…
Brad was expertly striking a huge wooden kitchen match with his thumbnail while maintaining a firm grip around Josey Scotts’ pink sweater with his left hand, as ever-grinning Gary Philips took advantage of a break in the general din of noise to ask;
“Hey, do you guys realize this is Halloween and no one’s got any plans yet?”
It was really only intended as a checkup, to make sure he wasn’t being left out of anything, but the immediate loud response surprised him.

“Yeah, that’s right!”
There was an immediate chorus of voices from all booths – each sex having a completely different agenda in mind.

“Last Halloween, me ‘n Bill laid a dummy on the Renfrew Street Hill and tied fishing line to it… we hid behind a bush”,
Gary continued between heavy bites on his tatter dog, while checking to see if he was getting sufficient attention.
“Along comes this guy in a pickup truck, screeching to a stop just before running over it.”
Gary began his very infectious chuckling…
“…so this old guy jumps out to check on the body, an’ just when he bends over to get a closer look, Bill yanks it across the street! The guy was so mad he chased us for two blocks!”
Rose cafe now exploded with unrestrained teenage cackling. The waitress could only shrug and sigh, conceding yet another noon hour without ‘legitimate’ paying customers.
Several more Halloween pranks were next recounted, some real and some imagined. Each sounded more daring than the last. Fiendish new pranks were quickly hatched with brain storming group input. Finally, as their fateful noon hour was running out, a proverbial fuse was lit…
“Hey Brad, why don’t you call the office and tell ’em there’s a bomb planted in the school, so we can all get the afternoon off!”

The source of the challenge was long debated afterwards. Now Unusual quiet suddenly fell over the cafe gang crowd, as if waiting for a mandatory response to a fight. Attention once again focused on Brad as his social instincts told him that ignoring the question might increase the growing distance with his former school peers. On the other hand he sensed an opportunity to improve his rebel image.
Brad took a deep drag on his unfiltered Player’s cigarette, dramatically allowing twin streams of thick blue smoke to flow, mouth to nose, allowing tension to build.
Then he said flatly;

“I would if I had a dime.”
A wry grin flickered at the corners of his mouth as he inwardly congratulated himself on his politically correct, non-committal, answer.
But before his attentive audience could even react, a shiny dime seemed to literally materialize right out of the smoke filled air and came spinning to a stop on the initial-carved table, right in front of Brad!
Regardless of the dime’s secret launch-site, it was More than enough reason for delighted teenage howls of laughter. It seemed to bring noon hour festivities to a natural conclusion.
In fact within minutes the whole conversation was mostly forgotten by the cafe gang. Reluctantly paying bills, they headed back to their ‘love to hate salt mines’ just in time for afternoon classes.
None had even noticed Brad scraping up the dime and stuffing it into his worn jeans’ watch pocket.
Some of his former school friends watched admiringly as Brad expertly kicked the Harley to life and roared away down the street in a cloud of smoke and dust.

It was just over one hour later as fourth period class neared the end, when the Principal’s personal secretary disrupted classes with an urgent public address summoning the principal to the main office.
Only one of the gang suspected what was coming.
But when their portly white haired Principal, himself, came on the p.a. and ordered immediate evacuation of all 2200 students – followed by nerve-jangling fire bells – many of the cafe gang began to suspect that good old B.G. had indeed answered his Halloween challenge!
Strictly controlled by teachers, students quickly filed out of the school complex. They lined up on sidewalks and school playing fields, looking like military recruits. Most believed it was just another fire drill. With no opportunity to retrieve coats, shivering students and teachers complained.
Minutes dragged by as only the cafe gang crowd realized what was afoot, and they dared not break their code of silence!
Finally, instructions were passed along outdoors: “school is closed for the rest of the day – students are dismissed”. Only teachers willing to volunteer for unspecified duties were allowed to re-enter the building at all.
Finally, any remaining doubts in the minds of the cafe gang disappeared as a police ‘bomb squad’ truck arrived, escorted by several police cars, sirens wailing!
Forty minutes later wide-eyed fellow teenage conspirators tried to burn off excess adrenaline by dancing to the beat of ‘blue suede shoes’. They had rendezvoused at their favorite after school hangout, latch-key Ron Brown’s musty basement rec room.
Now they anxiously awaited their hero.
When Brad did arrive, after cautiously phoning first to make sure it was safe, it was clear he too was surprised and a little shocked by the dramatic reception to his telephone call to the school office.
Joining his back-slapping friends, his fearless motorcycle hands now trembled slightly. Pleased as he was to receive accolades from his contemporaries for his bold telephone booth performance, small seeds of doubt nibbled at his conscience. Still it was another good excuse to collect more cigarettes from his admirers.
Some of the group actually shared his telephone conversation experience vicariously. Other’s now proudly suggested they had a role in dreaming up the idea at the cafe.
But somehow, both the originator of the idea, and the fateful contributor of the dime remained anonymous.
However, unknown to the gang, major events were unfolding even as they reveled in their imagined triumph over authority.
In fact memories were being deeply etched in the minds of school volunteers. Fearful, anxious, men and women, police and teachers, searched courageously through storage rooms; boiler rooms; classrooms; and student lockers.
And after finding the carefully wrapped package containing 13 sticks of dynamite, breathlessly defused by the bomb squad with its simple but deadly timer; none of them could possibly know that teenage school drop-out, Brad Gaudin, was, really, a ‘true hero’.
– the end –