I Pledge Allegiance Read Free

League baseball to the more competitive Babe Ruth League and not one team drafted Rudi, the other three of us pledged to take the year off. That was the most boring summer of my life, and the point where I realized I loved baseball even more than I did Evelyn DelValle, but we got through it.
    When Rudi first joined us, it was the first day of fourth grade. Except for Rudi. For him it was the
second
first day of fourth grade, since he had done the whole year already and was back for more.
    That first day, we did what everybody did to a kid who got kept back. We teased and tormented him like the helpless, harmless hamster that he was. I didn’t even think anything of it. Matter of fact, I didn’t even think that
he
thought anything of it. I simply believed, in my lead box of a young boy’s head, that this was the way guys did stuff and everybody was more or less understanding of that situation.
    Until I found Rudi, on the way home, on his knees. I was walking on my own up Centre Street when I passed the turn splitting off into Moraine Street and South Huntington Avenue. And there were two of Rudi’s former classmates, big-shot fifth graders now, dumping the contents of Rudi’s book bag into the gutter, laughing. Rudi was in praying position, just off the curb.
    “You ain’t doin’ it right,” one of the kids said.
    “Of course he’s not doin’ it right. Rudi never did nothin’ right, which is why he’s in fourth grade forever. Right, Rudi-doody?”
    “That’s right,” said Rudi, hands folded, voice cracking.
    Right?
Right?
Okay, maybe this wasn’t way differentfrom the stuff we were doing to him in the school yard, but … it wasn’t right.
    You know what else wasn’t right? When the two guys looked at me, I walked on.
    I left Rudi right there, on his knees, in the gutter, with all his books and pencils and papers splashed around him.
    I dreamed about it that night. I still dream it sometimes now.
    I didn’t bother Rudi the next day, though it was still a popular sport. I just couldn’t do it. Don’t get me wrong: This was not because I was a good guy all of a sudden and nobody else was. It was because I felt like a bad guy, and nobody else seemed to. I watched. I didn’t do anything to interfere with other people bothering Rudi, so I couldn’t have been all that good. But I also watched everybody else, and I could see that they didn’t see anything wrong with what they were doing. It was natural, it was the way of things, and they were all right.
    For some reason, though, I had an impulse. To invite friends home with me for the afternoon.
    So we walked together, me and Beck and Ivan, toward my house, the regular route.
    “What are we going to do?” Beck asked.
    “I don’t know,” I said. “Stuff. The usual stuff.”
    “The usual stuff at your house is kind of boring, no offense,” said Ivan.
    “No offense, no problem,” I said. “I’ll work on it. It’ll be less boring.”
    Then we came up to Moraine Street. And there he was.
    Rudi, on his knees in the street, among all his things. Praying, just like yesterday.
    For several seconds we all just stood there, staring, taking in the scene. Actually, I was watching my friends while they took in the scene. As if I needed their reactions to tell me what I should think.
    I didn’t have to wait long.
    “Oh, no,” Beck said.
“No.”
    “Uh-uh,” Ivan said, stomping toward the scene.
    Now I knew how to feel: outraged.
    “Hey,” Ivan said to the guys, the pair of big fifth graders named Arthur and Teddy we knew too well from hockey battles, and I knew too well from the day before.
    The two turned quickly and nervously. Then they changed right away to defiant, like you do when you know you’re guilty. “Hey
what
?” snapped Arthur.
    “Hey, leave the kid alone,” said Ivan.
    “What’s it to you?” asked Teddy.
    “He’s a friend of ours,” said Beck.
    Rudi, still on his knees, allowed himself a small smile.
    “Don’t get too