Way back when we were barely teenagers, we hung around Hudson Street Playground. It wasn’t much of place, but it was ours. It was a ¼ basketball court with a single hoop, nestled on the hill near the Hungarian Church overlooking what had been Regan’s Farm. It was located in a valley town which was dominated by the mill.
The town had been generally tough, but tougher now that the mills were starting to struggle. The grit which spewed from the mills made the town tough; Hell, it made us tougher than young teens should be.
We were a loose knit group of about 8 guys. Bob always lugged around an 8-track player, which was normally playing Shook Me All Night Long. Don, Dan and his brother were the usual’s.
Bob was tall. I mean tall for a kid. He was damned near 6 foot 4. He was the athletic one.
Adjacent to the Hudson Street Playground was an awkward trailer court. No, it wasn’t a campground. It was a small place where a handful of trailers were permanently attached. We had never met anyone who lived there.
One typical day at Hudson Street Playground, we were sitting around as normal – spitting tobacco juice and sipping on snitched beers. We were quite busy with that ritual when a strange voice broke the silence, “Hey” it said.
We turned and saw a kid our age whom we had never seen before. He said, “I’m Biff. I just moved into that trailer park”.
The fact that he was new, lived I the odd trailer park, and carried a cassette player blaring REO Speedwagon made this new guy tough to like.
He hung around for a bit, made some awkward attempts at forced conversation, and meandered over toward the trailer park.
Using idiot teenage logic, we decided we didn’t like Biff. However, Biff stopped by the playground from time to time and annoyed us with his awkward forced attempts at conversation, such as, “Hey, did you see the tits on that chick?” or “I really like Barry Manilow”, or the infamous, “I think Jo Polniaczek is hotter than Blair Warner on The Facts of Life.”
One day, as the summer wore on, we were all sitting at the picnic table. Suddenly, we saw Biff riding his bike in circles on Hudson Street. It was hot. We were busy spitting tobacco juice onto the slag, but we didn’t have any snitched beers. We watched Biff Circle, with his cassette player blasting “Mandy”.
After a while, Bob said, “I bet I could hit Biff with a rock.”
Now, mind you that this was an innocuous teenage bet. Also, Hudson Street had to be 150 feet from the picnic table.
Biff continued circling.
We kept discussing the odds of hitting him with a rock. And, those odds seemed slim.
Someone said, “Hell, at that distance, you won’t be able to even reach the street, no less hit a moving target.
Bob says, “Okay, it’s a bet!”
He reached down and picked up a silver dollar size piece of slag.
He watched Biff circling.
Bob finally went into a Baseball style wind up. His right arm cocked backward, he stepped forward, and threw the rock towards Hudson Street.
Biff circled.
We watched the rock. It arced upward on a high trajectory.
As the rock started coming down, we watched Biff circle.
Then, we were all horrified – We realized that the trajectory of the falling rock directly aligned with Biff’s path.
Dan said, “Ain’t no way it’s gonna hit him n’at.”.
Anyway, Dan was wrong. In fact, he couldn’t’ have been more wrong.
The rock popped biff on the right side of his head. He pedaled two rotations after the impact, then his hand wobbled on the handlebars.
He crashed the bike right in the middle of Hudson Street.
Barry Manilow stopped playing.
We heard crying. He got up off of the pavement and headed toward the trailer park.
We all beat a path out of there.
Over the next day or two, we all sheepishly gathered at Hudson Street Playground. No one mentioned the rock incident.
Suddenly, Biff walked up behind us. He had a new cassette player and a big piece of gauze taped to his head.
He said, “Man, I really wrecked my bike bad the other day.”
No one had any words. They were taken by the frog in our throats.
Biff’s mom yelled out of the trailer door for him to come to dinner, and he trotted off.
We spent the rest of the afternoon in silence. Spitting tobacco and staring at each other, and secretly feeling bad about Biff.