"ROCK FIGHT"

The best laid plans of boyhood went awry on a glorious summer day in 1965.

“ROCK FIGHT”

The best laid plans of boyhood went awry on a glorious summer day in 1965. What should have been an enjoyable afternoon at a community pool became a bloody, rock strewn battle when war was declared in our Harrison, New York, neighborhood.

         That morning Mom announced we would be swimming at Purchase Pool when Dad got home from work. She told my 10-year-old brother, Peter-Paul, and me (almost 13) to stay out of trouble. Little did she know that our band of Station Park brothers, the Massés, the McCarthys, the Fratterolas, Jerry Marotta and Brendan Richards, would soon be battling the hated Hyatt Avenue kids, one street over.

         A bunch of us were riding bikes around the neighborhood when we heard the Huns from Hyatt were planning to cross the stream (actually a drainage ditch) and invade OUR Coakley Avenue woods. That would be an act of war, and we would have to retaliate. But how?

         We met with 14-year-old Joe Krasnansky, who was bigger, stronger and (we assumed) wiser than any of us. He said we should start gathering rocks, sticks and branches as weapons to fend off the pending assault. He named me his #2 in command, and I couldn’t have been prouder.

         We raced our bikes to the half-acre of trees, shrubs and underbrush we called “the little woods.” Inspired by Krasnansky’s words and weekly episodes of the TV show “Combat,” I did my best to rally the troops. We chose a large hollowed-out bush as our headquarters and armory. Someone said he would get a knife and start carving branches into spears. But that idea never progressed because the Hyatt Avenue kids began their sneak attack.

         “Where’s Joe?” someone asked as panic spread.

         I ran into the street and shouted for Commander Krasnansky. But he was nowhere to be found. We would later discover he was wooing some girl.

         The guys looked to me. “What do we do?”

         “Grab some rocks and big sticks and move out.”

         We were outnumbered at least two to one. So I told my friends to disperse along OUR side of the stream. “Wait till they get close, and then let ’em have it.”

         The enemy were standing in knee-deep weeds across the battlefield. We Coakley Avenue kids had the high ground, but we were also exposed. Loud cursing and taunting continued for a couple minutes. Then someone threw a palm-sized stone that landed near my feet, and the fight was on. I sneered, knowing how far and well I could throw a baseball. The runt who had tried to hit me was dead meat.

         But just as I was about to nail him, I was struck in back of my head with a shotput-sized rock, and I retreated to a nearby stump. Meanwhile, a flurry of sticks, stones and dirt clods were whizzing back and forth as battle cries filled the air. I sat trying to clear my noggin when I heard Peter-Paul screaming. He was running crazily along the stream banks, his face a bloody mess. “He’s been hit,” someone yelled.

         I rushed out and subdued him while he bled all over our white T-shirts. Back home, my harried mother had been helping our 8-year-old sister, Marguerite, and 4-year-old brother, Drew, get ready for the pool. Then my wounded bro and I barged in with me shouting: “Mom, come quick.”

         We never went swimming that frantic afternoon. Instead we journeyed to Dr. Breiter’s office, where Peter-Paul got a couple of butterfly stitches across his brow, and I was diagnosed with a concussion. When we returned home, some of our fellow combatants told us how the battle had ended. After we Massé boys left battered and bloodied, our gentle Irish giant Brendan Richards rose up like an avenging archangel, charging across the stream and into the gaggle of Hyatt Avenue kids, who ran in terror.

         Brendan’s bravery was inspiring, but we were all surprised when Petey Fratterola came by to apologize for casting the first stone that hit me. He had been trying to lob rocks at the enemy from a safe distance behind the frontlines. We were both grounded that July. My “sentence” was precautionary while his was punishment for perceived cowardice. There were multiple injuries in the rock fight, but Petey was perhaps the one true victim of OUR neighborhood war in the summer of ’65.

© 2022 www.markmasse.com

###