All Quiet on the Playground Front

-It’s your turn now, Phil!

Nine Jacks lie motionless on the ground, scattered between Sal’s feet and the group formed by the other children.

-Sal couldn’t even catch three Jacks! He’s so bad!

-I was just unlucky, that’s all… You’ll see next time.

Phil intervenes and takes the ball from Sal’s hands. He takes off his hat and gives him to Joe. Joe would do anything for Phil.

Michael looks at them from a distance. He is sitting next to Jimmy on the grass, not too far away from the other kids playing baseball. He is afraid the ball might hit him, the kids look older than them. They can probably throw the ball very hard. The playground is not big enough for baseball.

Michael moves a little, then gets up to stretch his legs. He has already played –he managed to catch four Jacks– and now he’ll have to wait for a while before his turn will come again. Without thinking about it, he adjusts his pants with his hands as he gets up. They feel cold and a bit wet: the grass stained them. Darn. Mom will get angry now.

-There, you see? Five jacks! –Phil holds five fingers up and waves them in front of Sal’s face. –I could have easily caught six or seven of them!

Michael turns his head towards Jimmy again. He doesn’t look impressed. He is probably the only kid who can challenge Phil at Jacks. The contest is between them really. Nobody else can win.

-I bet he couldn’t have done it- Jimmy whispers to him. –He just likes to brag.

-I bet you’re right –Michael nods. Mom will definitely get angry about the pants.

-And nobody is really good here, anyway –Jimmy says with that tone of voice he uses when he wants to tell you something interesting that you didn’t know. Trouble is, he often knows interesting stuff other people don’t.

-I’ve seen other boys playing in Manhattan, –he goes on- they are good. Really good. You know they play in the streets there?

In the streets? What do their parents say? Mom once caught Michael chatting in the alley behind the park with Tom, and was so upset that she immediately took him back home. She even slapped him. Mom always thinks he is too young for doing anything. But aren’t there too many cars in Manhattan?

-Isn’t it dangerous to play in the streets there?

-Not if you were born there. Those kids were smart and knew their backstreets very well, you could tell by just looking at them.

-I would love to live in Manhattan. All the craziest and most exciting stuff happens there.

-Have you seen the Empire State Building yet?

-You mean the new skyscraper? Isn’t it still under construction?

-Yes, but it already looks great! You have to see it, it’s bigger than… -he hesitates- it’s bigger than everything I’ve ever seen!

-Bigger than the Chrysler Building?

-Much bigger!

That really sounds darb. Nothing really interesting happens in Brooklyn.

-Jimmy’s right, that building is huge! –Sal jumps into the conversation. –My mom and dad went to Manhattan to watch a movie last week, and when they came back they were only talking about the new skyscraper.

Now, that’s silly. If you go to the movies, you want to enjoy the show and have a good night out and maybe eat some popcorn –you don’t waste time going around. What if you arrive late? Michael can’t even remember when was the last time he went to the cinema. With the new baby around, mom and dad have practically stopped going out.

-What movie did they go to see?

-Oh, it was something about the war. They didn’t want to take me with them because they said it was violent.

-Everything’s Quiet on the Western Front? Isn’t that the title?

Of course Jimmy knows the title.

-Yeah, something like that. My dad liked it a lot. He fought in the war and he told me that the movie was very realistic.

-He fought in the Great War? Did he go to Europe? –Michael is always impressed by the stories about the war. His dad told him that it was the greatest war America had ever fought in. There were hundreds and hundreds and thousands of soldiers and they joined myriads of others in Europe. English, French, Italians, even Russians. How the heck did they understand each other? And they all fought Germans, dad had told Michael. Dad hates Germans, and according to Michael every boy in New York should hate them. Dad never went to Europe, though. He was in the army, but stayed in America. He was too young and they didn’t call him. What a pity.

-Of course he went to Europe! He fought in France and Belgium. He still has friends there.

-What was the movie about, then? –Here’s Jimmy again. Always pragmatic and straight to the point.

-Well I’ve just told you, I don’t know exactly. It was about the Great War. I think the protagonists are Germans.

-Germans? –Michael can’t believe his ears. –You can’t make a movie about Germans!

-Why not? –Phil intervenes. –They make movies about gangsters and thugs. Germans are exactly the same. They just live in another country.

-They’re much worse!

-All of them? –Joe asks. Apparently, nobody is playing Jacks anymore.

-Well, most of them anyway. Do you know what they were doing in Europe before we went there?

-Do you?

-Of course! –Michael looks quite confident now. This is one of his favorite topics with his dad. –They were invading other nations and killing other people all around. They wanted to conquer all of Europe! And they would have managed to do it, hadn’t we intervened to stop them.

-My uncle told me that they weren’t so bad after all… -Joe continues. –The Germans, I mean. It was their Emperor. Can you believe they still have an Emperor? It was his fault, his and of all the people who followed him.

-Europeans can’t handle things on their own when the situation gets bad. –Phil adds. –It’s up to us to sort things out.

-I don’t know, Phil –Jimmy interrupts him. –I wouldn’t care. I mean, let them be. They have their bad people, we have ours here. I think everybody should do what they want, really.

-Yeah, suppose we lost that war… -Sal looks quite thoughtful while he says this.

-Oh, c’mon! –Phil dismisses Sal’s thought with a flick of his hand. –Do you hear yourself?

-Phil’s right. Of course we won that war. We are Americans! –Joe agrees with Phil, as usual.

-All I’m saying is that America could have had trouble there. Any sort of trouble, you never know. It’s not our business, it was the French and the Germans, I would have left them fight or quarrel, whatever. What did we have to gain?

-You don’t understand –Michael is quicker than Phil and Jimmy, which is quite a feat. –The situation was bad, the Germans were very close to conquer all the other nations there. Even the British. You like the British, don’t you?

-I don’t really mind, British or French are the same to me… -Jimmy looks even more confident than usual, but he has some strange ideas today.

-The situation was bad and was about to get worse. –Michael continues. Phil (and Joe, of course) seem to nod and agree with him. –I’m sure the Emperor would have tried to attack the United States next.

-Yeah, let him try! –Phil laughs.

-In that case you might be right –Jimmy finally agrees. –But still… I don’t know, I don’t think we should fight with any other country if it’s not really necessary. And the Germans are peaceful now anyway, aren’t they?

-You bet! I don’t think they would attack anybody now…

-Michael!

All the kids turn their head. Michael’s dad is standing at the entrance of the playground. He looks a bit bored. It is usually mom who comes and fetches Michael home, that’s probably the reason.

-Come Mike, dinner’s almost ready! Good evening, young chaps.

-Evening, Mr Floyd. –All the kids reply almost in unison.

Michael says goodbye to his friends and follows dad down the road. He didn’t want to play Jacks anymore in any case. Now he would like to talk to dad about the war and how it was exactly to be in the Army, and what did the older soldiers say about the fights in Europe. He knows many of dad’s stories already, but this is one of those topics of which he never gets tired. Those years were so much more exciting and thrilling. There were villains –real villains– and consequently there were heroes.

But there is one thing in particular that Michael would like to ask.

-Do you think there will be another war, dad? –Michael drops casually, while walking next to him on the road that leads to their house.

-Gosh, I hope not! War’s the last thing we need now.

Michael becomes a bit thoughtful.

-I wouldn’t worry too much, Mike. America is a peaceful country.

-But, say, in maybe ten years? When I’ll be eighteen or something?

-Well, I have no idea. –Dad turns toward him with a surprised look on his face. –Is everything all right, Mike?

-Yeah dad, sure. It’s just that I was thinking about your stories and the fact that you couldn’t go to Europe. I know war is not a good thing and that people get hurt or worse, but it must be a great thing to do –to kick the tyrants in the face and force them to stop. It’s like you always say, isn’t it? You never know with those Germans!

Davide