Hankie Pankie
Jimmy and me seemed to always get into it. I think he is the only kid I ever got in a real fight with. It erupted at the bus stop before school one morning. I have no idea how it started or why, but we were wrestling on the corner for a good ten minutes. It was a stalemate but for some reason all the kids thought he won. Mostly because there were always three or four of them traveling in packs and by numbers they had won.
After that incident, I would always be on my guard when I saw him. I remember once seeing him approach me on the way home from my afternoon paper route. I had been carrying around a new Swiss Army knife with me at the time. As he and I made eye contact, I ducked into an alley. He and his crew followed me in. Jimmy saw the knife open to the nail file and nervously laughed it off.
"You was gonna stab me with that?"
I played it off with a shrug then gave the crew my best attempt at a steely cold stare. I wanted him to know that our rivalry was serious and I wasn't going to be pushed around anymore.
It must have worked because he put his arm around me and said, "You know we're just messing around. No hard feelings."
As much of a punk that Jimmy was, he had aspirations. In one of our quieter bus stop moments, Jimmy had told me that he wanted to be a plumber when he grew up. "They pull in like $40 bucks a hour." He had dreams, and I think in that moment as I held that nail file out with my crazy eyes darting at the three of them (Jimmy's little brother and Hankie Pankie), Jimmy knew he wasn't going to let those dreams of being a Roto Rooter man go down the drain because the violence of the mean streets of Providence, RI got a little out of hand.
From that day on, Jimmy and I had a mutual respect for one another. But Hankie Pankie was a different story. He was Jimmy's sidekick. He was Joe Pesci before Joe Pesci was. He was beefy and never had to prove his muscle. Jimmy was tall and skinny which is why I was able to take him on that day at the bus stop. But Hankie Pankie, I'd never even consider the thought of challenging him. Jimmy was the brains and Hankie Pankie was the muscle.
Hankie Pankie found me in the library one day. He had grown tired of throwing pens into the foam tiles in the ceiling of the study room and kicking the chairs of people who were reading. I didn't like the feeling of him approaching me without my Swiss Army nail file on hand. He had caught me off guard. Who would have guessed he'd ever step foot in the library.
He pulled up a chair and turned it around backwards. Leaned forward to get real close to my face which was pretending to be reading a Beverly Cleary book.
"Hey, Kang. You ever have a wet dream is?"
I don't think I ever wet my bed. I had wet my pants on a few unfortunate occasions in grade school trying to make that long walk from the bus stop to my house, but I never wet the bed.
"No way."
Hankie Pankie smiled. "You even know what one is?"
"Sure."
"What is it then?"
"It's when you pee in your bed."
Hankie Pankie laughed. "No, Kang, it's when you have sex in a dream and then you wake up because you came in your shorts."
What!? "Yeah, I knew that."
"So you ever have one?"
"Sure."
"That's cool."
And that was it. He walked away satisfied with my answer. I had answered the troll under the bridge's question correctly and he let me pass.
I went home that day completely confused. I asked my older brother Pete about it and he confirmed that yes, that was pretty much what a wet dream was. Back then, dreaming of sex for me meant I would move in real close to whoever the lucky lady was, the picture would go into soft focus and then the whole dream world would just turn warm and soft like diving into a swimming pool of peanut butter.
But for years I would wish for a wet dream. It seemed like a mark of manhood. Hankie Pankie obviously had had tons of them. I would pray a wet dream would happen for me. And every morning, I would be dry as bone.
