5906 - Gonzalo

The boys were all of 12 and 13. They played baseball together, they road their bikes together, they went rowing at the lake where they encountered enemy ships which they pelted with water balloons and paddle splashes and they sometimes gave one another bloody noses.

They had also banded together as Knights of Dublin Lane in the garage. They turned broom sticks and curtain rods into lances and the tops of metal trash cans into shields. With these they charged full bore at one another.

Most of the boys lived on the same block, although skinny John lived around the corner and chubby, cherubic Georgie lived two blocks over.

Hank was the unspoken leader of the pack. He was the best fighter and that was a fact everyone had felt, including Mark who was the beta runner up on account of the fact that he was smarter and had been more places than anyone else. Hank and Mark held an uneasy ostensibly friendly truce.

Hank had the best knight's shield. His dad had fastened leather strips on the inside which made it easy to handle and secure. Mark's shield was impressive but useless. Painted red with a big silver "M" on it, he had fashioned it after a Roman Legionnaire's shield with laminated steel over a cabinet door. It was really heavy. Mark had overlooked that legionnaires weren't knights. Their shields were built to serve as a wall while standing ground. He was going to have to rethink this.

But of all the shields, Georgie's stood out the most. It was small... made from a pizza tray or the metal cover to something. It was flimsy and made even flimsier by little gold chains which looped out and around from some fancy glued-on knob in the middle. It was painted white and gold and he proudly showed it to everyone.

Several days after everyone had presented their shields and the first Tournament had been held, Hank pulled Mark to the side and said, "I donno about Georgie... He doesn't really belong in the club, do you think?"

"Whaddya mean?" Mark asked.

"Well look at that flimsy excuse of a shield that he's got. I mean what kind of man puts together something like that?"

"Well...we all make mistakes," Mark said evasively.

"... and after the first fight, the stupid chains got loose and he was fussing about fixing them... I mean shit... "

"So...he'll eventually make a new one."

"And have you seen his room...?"

Actually Mark hadn't.

"He has stuffed piggies on his bed!"

"He does?"

"I've seen it."

"Well that's his business; didn't you have stuffed teddy bears?"

"I did but not now."

"Do you actually want him in the club?" Hank asked in the way one would say, do you really want dog shit on your plate?

"Well...no... but that's not the point."

"Well what is the point?"

"I mean he's been our friend, a member of the club. He has a right to explain himself... "

"You say we should have a trial?"

"Well, I guess... yeah..."

"Where?"

"We can hold it in my garage."

The club wasn't that big. The situation was explained to an older boy on the block who agreed to be the judge. Hank took on the job of prosecutor and Mark, since it was his idea, got to be the public defender. That left a jury of about three or four.

Innocently, unknowingly, Georgie ambled onto the block later in the afternoon in his unmistakably rotund way with his little giggly smile. Mark noticed that his lips were kinda ruby red.

Hank approached him and in abrupt and certain terms told him he was being accused of faggotry and would have to defend himself before the club. Georgie turned sheet white. He started to protest this outrage, but Hank told him it was either a trial or he could get his ass kicked right then and there.

"Don't worry," Mark said, "I'm going to be your lawyer."

Georgie submitted.

Frank the older boy sat on a steamer trunk, opposite the three boy jury while prosecution and defense took their positions on the left and right.

Hank was merciless. Demanding that Georgie answer "yes" or "no" to a long list of high crimes and misdemeanors. It was true, was it not,

that he lived with his mother and three sisters

that he collected little nic-nacs,

which he kept in a class case,

that he used some kind of cream on his skin,

that his shield was a useless, girlie contraption,

that he was fat and ran like a sissy,

that he giggled

It was all undeniable and the best Mark could counter with was that Georgie did own a baseball mitt. Mark argued that it wasn't Georgie's fault that he lived with his sisters and that it was normal to collect things.

Hank turned ferocious. "You collect things?" "Well yes," Mark answered. "Ok.. I've seen your room," Hank retorted, "but you collect models that you build and cars. Robert here has his bowl full of marbles but no man collects little porcelain pussy cats and miniature Chinese dolls!"

The porcelain pussy cats and miniature dolls cinched the matter... that and Georgie's suspiciously rosy cheeks. The jury deliberated all of two minutes before returning their verdict.

Hank demanded that Georgie be banished forever from the block and Frank pronounced the sentence in a cold unfeeling way.

"Dont show your sissy faggot face on the block ever again," Hank added, "or I'll shit can your ass. "

The last Mark ever saw of Georgie he was headed toward the corner, bowed over and sobbing while the others jeered. He never showed his face on the block again.

Several years later, during one of Mark's vacations from school, Hank mentioned, that he had run into Georgie down in the night club district. Oh yeah? Mark said.

"Yeah. You know, i think he's gone over to the other side."

"Well, it's no wonder, Hank, after what you did to him."

"I didn't do nuthin.  He was a fag; that's all there is to it."

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