The Wagon and The Fight
I was maybe 10 when my Mom decided I needed to get a job. She pointed to the red wagon outside our door. It rested in the hallway which led to the stairs up to the 2nd and 3rd flood apartments. She said in her you-will-obey-what-follows tone: “Take the wagon to the 6th street A & P and ask ladies if you can carry their bags for them. They will give you a coin tip at the end of your journey.” I don’t recall arguing. Mom had a way about her.
I took the wagon handle and banged that red wagon down each of 20 stairs on my way out the two doors of 802 Washington Street. Hoboken used a grid pattern for streets. Numbered blocks were 100 kid steps long and the side streets were 50. Washington Street, for some reason lost in obscurity, was called “the Avenue” as it “I’m going down (or up) the Avenue”. The A&P was 2 blocks “down” and across the street. Every block on Washington Street had a traffic light. The light lasted 30 seconds (city kids know these things)
The A & P on 6th Street took up FOUR normal storefronts – that’s 40 feet of store. Enough room to put bins of vegetables and fruit outside. The guy adding up Customers’ stuff knew exactly why I was there and directed me to wait and HE took over asking the ladies if they needed “a boy” (that would me). My first customer was VERY forgiving as I had not figured the physics of keeping grocery bags upright while dragging a red wagon up and down curbs (note: curbs were curbs back then – no wheelchair ramp enabled curbing). I forget what she gave me for a tip but I was instantly hooked with the Entrepreneurial spirit.
I was never without money from that day on. I even cut back on stealing from my Mom’s coats and pocketbooks. It’s possible she gave me the job to save more of her change. Anyway, whenever little Kevin felt the need for coins, the neighbors and probably most of the neighborhood, heard that red wagon hit every one of the 20 stairs.
One day, on my way back to 6th Street from a delivery on Bloomfield, just one 50 foot block away but with a big incline, Billy Peterson plopped into my red wagon and said “Give me a ride up to Washington, will ya Kev?” Billy Peterson was the neighborhood bully. He was a little older and a little bigger than most of the other kids and liked being the big bully.
“No, Billy,” I said “you can walk it.” He wasn’t moving. I was facing the upside and he was in my red wagon on the downhill side. I saw my only advantage and went for it. With one big effort I picked up the red wagon handle and using gravity to help, dumped Billy onto the sidewalk. He was down and I jumped on him trying to pin his arms to keep him down. If he got lose he’d hit me. My only goal was to hang on till he got tired or someone came to break this fight up.
Here’s where something happens that I have many times repeated in my mind as one of the most frustrating moments in my life. Billy and I are rolling in the street and people are noticing and I can distinctly here the following exchange:
Man one: “Hey, What do we have here?”
Man two; “ I saw it all, the skinny kid started it. He dumped the big guy out of the wagon”.
Meanwhile, this skinny guy is hanging on for dear life and so out of breath I could not shout at the top of my lungs: “NOOOOO, Billy started it by plopping into my red wagon!!” Finally, a Cop came by (yes there was a neighborhood cop) and broke us apart. He recognized both of us (because he was THE NEIGHBORHOOD COP!!!). Told me to get out, grabbed Billy by the collar and started walking him home. Mission Accomplished
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