Italian Quarter

Italian quarter.

My brother and our friends on the street used to say it like an epithet, almost a racial slur. Kind of like "Jewing him down." or being an "Indian giver." Or even the more mundane "What a gyp!"

I don't know if it started out financially. "Hey, you trying to cheat me out of my share? Don't you be givin' me that Italian quarter."

Or maybe it was a little more pedantic going back to Mussolini and the fact that he was known for not giving any quarter to partisans in world war 2. "Hey, what gives? I stopped, you can stop too! Don't give me that Italian quarter!" Which would usually result in a purple nurple or a dead arm.

Either way it was in our lexicon, and none of us could figure out how it got there. Its not like any of us were Italian. None of our parents were from Italy, and none of us had a more than average passing interest in history. The closest to Italy any of us ever got when we were growing up was the time when Chuck's sister spent a summer abroad in France.

My brother, Lou, was always the ring leader since he was oldest. He would always puff himself up and say "Age doth have its privileges." which would result in a slug in the arm. He was three years older than me and got to stay up an extra hour at night which never seemed fair. He'd also get me up early in the summer time. He'd fix me a bowl of cereal and together we'd wolf down our coco puffs, eyes glued to channel 22 (they had the best cartoons during the week) before slapping on shorts and tee shirts.

Grabbing our bikes, Mike would usually be waiting for us as the garage door opened. He was almost Lou's age but a lot taller. He wore the same clothes every day until they could stand up themselves. I wasn't much on personal hygiene but even that went too far for me.

The three of us would go over to Eric and Steve's place next. They were heavy sleepers and it usually took at least 5 minutes of straight knocking on their window to get them to start moving. At first I could never tell them apart. Supposedly they were identical twins. Lou said they were clones whatever those were. But Steve had a scar on his left knee that was always a dead give away in warm weather.

The twins would move painfully slowly in the morning. Threats of leaving them behind or pranking them later were the only ways to get them going. They had the squirt guns though. The battery powered kind that could shoot up to thirty feet. So leaving them behind was never really an option, especially since their parents were the best about buying batteries.

And the last person of our crew that we'd pick up was Snot. His real name was Charles, but we all called him Snot. Two guesses as to why, summer hay fever wasn't good for him.

His parents traveled a lot. And it was his sister who had been to France. She was just about to graduate high school next year and we could never figure out how the two of them had come from the same parents. They were night and day different. Water and fire. Lou said Snot was adopted, from a traveling circus. Snot himself was pretty cagey which is why we kept him around.

In dodge ball he was only OK, a decent side arm throw but always too slow to dodge. But, in capture the flag, he was definitely the guy to have on your side. The weirdest thing about him was that he could hold his breath for nine whole minutes, a full 5 minutes longer than Lou and 7 minutes longer than me.

That was our crew from East Hemlock street. And that was the ritual we would follow every day of summer vacation.