OH LAWD chapter 10

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Two Years Older Makes a BIG Difference
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As the days passed I was doing pretty well in school even though I had a lot of other interests.  

Marly didn't cling to me as much since she had a boyfriend. She was just a year younger than me, and I had always been her protector.

Sooner or later I knew it would happen and sure enough, some of the older boys began to pick on me.

Two years make a lot of difference in size and weight at my age so I tried to avoid them as much as possible.

Finally one of them couldn't wait any longer and started to push me around.

The playground director saw what was happening but let it go on, even after I was knocked down.  

It seemed that the playground director was enjoying the problem I was having, and so I decided I had better protect myself.
 

Had to Defend Myself
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All the stuff Paddy and others had taught me was going to come in handy now.

Once I got to my feet I wasn't going to let him hit me again. I danced around him, and kept just out of his reach.

He was getting frustrated by not being able to hit me, and when I saw my chance, I hit him hard in the stomach and when he folded over, I gave him a hard right to the right eye. He was down and wouldn't get up even though I goaded him to do so.  

His friends were standing nearby, and I asked them, “Who's next?”

About this time, the Director came over and grabbed me, and told me to leave and not to come back to the playground.

I didn't want to tell my Pa about this so I told Paddy what happened, and he took me back to the play ground, and immediately grabbed the director and asked him to explain why he put his hands on me and ran me off.

 
After Paddy gave the director a sparing lesson I was welcomed back with open arms.

There was a navy ship that came into port for a week or ten days and the sailors were given some leave while minor repairs were being made.

Lady and a Sailor
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One of the sailors named Oscar came to the restaurant and ate there several times. 

 

Now Oscar was a ladies man or at least that is what Noonan called him.

I didn't understand exactly what that meant, but got the idea that the ladies had better watch out.

Oscar was a good looking guy in a crude sort of way, and he was after all the gals' downtown. While in port he dated several of them.

The reason I know so much about what he was doing was he would bring the girls down to the restaurant and eat there. After which they would go to the movie house.  Then they would have a few drinks at the local beer joints or so Noonan told me.

I suppose he took them home after that for that is all Noonan told me.

Noonan told me it was what was called a cheap date for the food at the restaurant was very reasonable and the movie was only a quarter.

All of this got my attention so on Friday night I finally convinced Ma to let me go to the movie house at night, since I didn't have to go to school the next day.

Usually I could only go to the show on Saturday matinee. She said I could go but would have to take Marly with me for she was begging to go also.

When we got to the show we paid our dime each and went in. I sat in one of the back rows while Marly went down to the front seats for she wanted to be as close to the actors as possible.

Oscar had been at the restaurant with this girl when I left, but it wasn't long before they came in the theater and sat on the back row near me.

I slid down in the seat as much as possible for I didn't want them to see me.

After a while Oscar started getting friendly with his date, in fact she thought he was too friendly. This went on for about thirty minutes, and I was getting scared for he was doing things he shouldn't. 

All of a sudden she stood up and spoke out in a loud voice saying, “Hands, hands, hands.” She then slapped him real hard and left.

I tried to get lower into my seat as he left a couple minutes later.

I didn't understand what was going on but I figured she didn't want to be as friendly as he did.

I went and sat down with Marly, and finished watching the movie, but so far I hadn't seen much of it.

When we got home I went to bed, but the events of the day kept me thinking for quite a while before falling to sleep.

Oh Lawd!    

To be continued