Sometimes... when you're a kid... you lie awake at night and ponder the kinds of questions that grownups have long since stopped asking. Questions like - What did it feel like to be dead? Are time and space really infinite? What was there before the universe began? Why are there people like Wayne?
I could never figure it out. Even in his sleep, my brother seemed to hate my guts. I guess he'd just never forgiven me for something I did to him very early in life. I'd been born. Then, to make things worse, I stayed.
As my brother and I walked home that day, I guess we both knew that things would never be quite the same between us. Everything would be more complicated now. Now, we both knew... that I could hurt him. The funny thing was, I'm not sure I was glad about that.
It's hard to imagine being twelve years old... and going without certain things. Like three months off in the summertime. Or a good bicycle to cruise the neighborhood on. More than anything though, it's hard to imagine being twelve years old...and not having a best-friend like Paul Pfeiffer. Paul was the nicest kid I ever knew. He would have done anything for me - I know it. And I would have done anything for him. At least, I always thought I would.
[Playing basketball] And then it happened. It was the miracle. It was the impossible. It was the dream come true. [Paul shoots a wild hook-shot, hitting Mr. Cutlip on the head] In that instant... that brief ping of rubber against steel... basketball... became fun again. Well, we still got slaughtered. But for the first time in a long time, it just didn't seem to matter. And Paul and I got back to the way things used to be. The way they would stay... for many years to come.
In nineteen-sixty-nine, we had the Vietnam war for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I guess it was inevitable that we stopped paying attention. You had to stop paying attention.
And that's how I started the great Kennedy junior high peace walk out of nineteen-sixty-nine. As I said... some men pursue greatness... and some men have greatness thrust upon them... while they're in the bathroom. I'm not sure we really changed anything that day. I suppose the war would have gone pretty much the same if we'd stayed in home room. But one thing would be different. We wouldn't have the memory to carry with us today, of eight-hundred children on a football field, singing. And... it wouldn't all be on our permanent record.
Kevin has a nightmare about being intimidated by the walkout
ARAcademic Record
Arnold, Kevin. SUSPENDED
Nightmare continues into a scene of astronauts returning to Earth being greeted to Washington Post March.
AAnnouncer
Apollo 31 has just returned from Mars, commanded by Colonel Kevin Arnold. This American hero is an example to all...oh wait, in seventh grade he was suspended!
In junior high school there were days when you felt like nothing was worth getting out of bed for. But then, you remembered... you were going to see her... Your day was gonna have all these moments... moments that were full of... possibility. When you were sure that something - something... was going to happen. And then, there were the moments that made you really, really... nervous. I don't know why, but ever since I'd broken up with Becky Slater, I felt uneasy whenever I saw her and Winnie together. I started to think... a dumpee could really do a lot of damage to a dumpster.
But then... something inside me... snapped. From deep inside I felt rage! Not just for me, but for every kid who had ever been picked on... humiliated... bullied. For every kid who'd gone home ashamed. I put every shred of dignity and self-respect I had into that punch. Unfortunately... my aim was bad. Even more unfortunately, Eddie's wasn't. Those next ten minutes were... kinda a blur. Still, as Eddie worked out his deep-seated feelings of inadequacy, I began to realize something. Sooner or later this would be over. And I... would survive.
Eddie Pinetti. The scourge of RFK junior high. He gave new meaning to the word "mean". Not that Eddie had any particular reason for being rude, insensitive and sadistic. It was just kinda... who he was... a bully. Eddie was a force of nature. Like tornados... or flash electrical fires. Or fate! That was it. Fate. Maybe I knew even before it happened... that I... had an appointment with destiny.
When Paul and I were little kids... we had our birthdays only four days apart. Come to think of it, we still have our birthdays only four days apart. But I guess birthdays aren't as big a part of life as they used to be. Man - we has some classic parties. Year after year we reached for manhood together. When we fell short... we fell short together. God - we couldn't wait to get older.
And so it turned out to be a great birthday after all. I slow danced with Paul's Aunt Selma. I ate more than Mrs. Pfeiffer could have dreamed possible. And in a funny way... when I look back on it... I sorta feel like it was my bar mitzvah, too.
I didn't sleep. I laid there... thinking about what had happened to Karen... to me... to all of us. About how big the world is, and how full of strangers. And how I might never see my sister again. In nineteen-sixty nine, people tried so hard to find themselves. Sometimes they got lost. Sometimes they found their way home again.
