Al Jaffee's Mad Life by Mary-Lou Weisman

Author:Mary-Lou Weisman [Al Jaffee and Ryan Flanders with Douglas Thomson ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062042507
Publisher: HarperCollins

While Al lived with the Pincuses, he attended PS 6, where the art teachers took note of his prodigious talent. Given his immigrant background, he astounded his teachers and fellow students by winning most of the spelling bees. Because of his success in spelling and his dazzling artistic talents, his teachers advanced him rapidly—Al finished what should have been a two-year course in a year and a half and graduated in January 1935.

Even though Al was by now allergic to the kindness of strangers, he sought friendship from kids and found a real pal in Hilton Spikony, a boy his age who lived in the same building. “He was a very American boy; he had roller skates and a hockey stick. I pestered my father, who was at that point the lowest of the low in the post office, and somehow I got him to buy me a pair of roller skates and a hockey stick. I knew they would make me feel more American. Hilton took me to the top of the hill at Bronx Park South. The street went downhill for several blocks and ended abruptly at a waterfall at the Bronx River. I hadn’t been on skates before, except for one time in Zarasai, with disastrous results.” Al had dared to skate on Zarasai’s only sidewalk, whose owner threatened to beat him if he ever showed up again. “I laboriously worked my way six blocks up to the top of the Bronx Park South. Hilton warned me that we were out of the Jewish neighborhood and that if we encountered roving gangs of Italian kids they might take away my roller skates and my hockey stick. I remember the fear of Zarasai coming back. This is America? This isn’t supposed to happen here.”

As they flew down the hill, the boys ran into trouble. “Out of nowhere about twenty-five kids of all sizes came after us. Hilton, who was very good on skates, turned, jumped the curb, and found sanctuary by parking himself behind a pregnant woman with a baby carriage. Today, of course, these kids would simply knock over the baby carriage and punch the pregnant lady to get at Hilton. But that was then. So now all twenty-five of them are racing after me and I’m going down the hill out of control. I have no idea of how to stop on roller skates. I’m picking up speed, but they’re gaining on me. I hear the big boys egging on a little guy who was maybe nine or ten. ‘He’s yours, Rocco!’ they’re yelling. ‘Get him!’

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