9. Michael McDonald

These were my heroes at the time: Robin Hood, Dracula, Batman, Willie Mays.

And Michael McDonald. Though of course I could never tell him that.

Here’s what he did one time: there was this show we always wanted to see called “Dark Shadows.” It was on in the afternoon after we came home from school, and was supposedly really spooky, ghosts and vampires and things. We often overheard the older kids talking about it the bus stop.

The problem was that neither Michael’s nor my mother would let us watch it. My mother, usually such a pushover about these things, said she was sorry, it wasn’t appropriate for kids. She wouldn’t discuss it.

It made us crazy that we couldn’t see this show. It was even on in the afternoon, not late at night when we were in bed. It didn’t seem fair.

So Michael found a way. When Jay Himmelson’s family went away on vacation during April break, one afternoon Michael snuck into their house and watched an episode on their TV. He said it was easy. They hadn’t even bothered to lock their back door. The TV was right there in basement. Michael admitted he’d felt a little nervous while he was doing it, had put the sound on the TV down so low he could barely hear it.
He said the show was a little scary but not as good as he thought it would be. He said there was one spooky vampire named Barnabas but he only came on for a few minutes here and there. You had to listen to a lot of talk to get any Barnabas.

Michael had been the lead in our class play the Christmas before. The play was called “Rudolph’s Big Night,” and it was about Rudolph having to take over for Santa on Christmas Eve and being helped out by the Nutcracker and the Grinch. Our teacher, Mrs. Miller, had written it. It was pretty corny, but it was fun to get out of our regular classes to work on it.

I played a toy clown, and didn’t have much to do except sit on the stage during certain scenes and pass a sponge ball back and forth with the other two toy clowns. Michael was Rudolph. He had a very elaborate full-body brown costume with floppy ears, which Mrs. Miller had made herself. Michael also had a lot of lines. I was amazed that he could memorize them all. He told me it really wasn’t so hard. He just listened to what the other actors said and that reminded him of what he had to say.

Michael got beaten up by Mark Carmody because of the play. Mark was only one grade above us but a big kid and occasional bully. He used to give us a hard time at the bus stop, steal our baseball caps during the warm months and mittens during the cold, throw them down near where the sewage pipes let out so they would stink for days and then make fun of us for smelling bad. We were too afraid to give them to our mothers to clean.

Mark was constantly threatening to beat us up but he never did until the time with Michael. He probably wouldn’t have hit Michael either if Michael hadn’t goaded him into it. We were coming home on the bus and Mark came up the aisle from where he sat in the back and said to Michael, “I can’t believe you’re in that play.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Michael asked.

“It’s just lame, that’s all.”

It was usual Mark Carmody bully-talk, and if Michael had just let it go I’m sure Mark Carmody would have walked away, returned to his friends in the back.

“You’re just jealous,” Michael said.

Mark Carmody laughed. “Of what?”

“Jealous,” Michael said again. “That’s all. Jealous.”

It went back and forth. Michael wouldn’t say anything else but the word “jealous,” over and over again. The more times Michael said it, the angrier Mark became. Maybe he was jealous, or maybe he just wasn’t used to anyone standing up to him.

“Shut up or I’m going to beat your ass when we get off this bus,” Mark said.

“Jealous, jealous,” Michael said, in a sing-song.

When the bust stopped at our stop, we tried to run. We were sitting up front, were off first. Still, Mark Carmody caught up with us. He grabbed Michael by the arm and flung him across the gravel.

Mark Carmody must have frightened himself. He took off in a run the other direction. I started running after him, then came back. Michael was sitting up in the gravel. He was sniffling, bleeding. But he was smiling, too. Smiling and crying at the same time.

I told my parents the whole story that night, and my mother and I went over the next afternoon and brought Michael some brownies. He hadn’t come to school that day. Michael was still dressed in his pajamas, and had bandages all over his face. He didn’t want to talk about getting beaten up so instead we played with his demolition cars, which were just old baby-ish cars that Michael had taped pieces of paper on so they looked like they had racing stripes. We stood on each side of his basement and hurled the cars as fast as we could at each other. It was a cool sound when they collided in the middle.

At the beginning of the summer, Michael went to the drive-in to see a movie called Green Berets and from then on his favorite game was Army Guy. In the woods, we’d make believe we were on patrol, searching for Germans. We had to be absolutely silent. Even the slightest sound of a twig breaking could give us away. Michael took the lead: he’d walk up a few steps ahead of me, peer around a tree. Gesture for me to follow him forward if the coast was clear. Or if he saw something, if he was acting like he saw something, he’d make another gesture and we’d both hit the ground, lie close and slow down our breathing. Pull leaves over ourselves for camouflage.

After a few minutes, Michael would slowly rise and give me the signal: the coast was clear. Time to move on. Time to save the world from bad guys.

Batman was great, Willie Mays was awesome. Best was having your hero right there.