My head is down about two inches from the single piece of loose leaf on my desk. I can smell the page, the desk, the blue Parker ink from my fountain pen. Ball-point pens aren’t allowed in any grade in Presentation School. Not even in the 8th. The ink comes in cylinders that fit snugly right into the pen. Sometimes I throw out a cartridge that still has ink in it because I like the way putting in a new one feels. Like loading a gun.

My concentration is broken by Sister Fidelis’ shrill voice, "Shelley, keep your eyes to yourself before I smack you silly."

We all snicker at that one.

"Quiet, 8th grade! Or you’ll all stay after school!"

That shut us up. Just thinking about staying after school was the worst thing that could possibly happen. Especially during a science test. You were depressed enough. Even though it was freezing outside and not a very nice November afternoon at all, you could still play touch football in the park. Or go to a fort and look at "Playboys" and smoke cigarettes. Or hang out in the laundromat, listen to WMCA, and talk to the girls. We always listened to the "Good Guys" on WMCA. No contest. There were other cool rock ‘n roll stations, WABC, WINS, but we listened to WMCA. Everybody on our block did. Well, not the old people. They listened to WNEW, and William B. Williams and Perry Como and Frank Sinatra and Doris Day and other totally old-fashioned junk that we couldn’t bear to listen to for more than the time it took to whiz past while looking for a good song somewhere on the dial.

"Shelley! That’s it. I’m gonna give you a good crack!"

Shelley could take a crack. Shelley is not a girl. Furthest thing from it. Shelley is Robert Shelley. But nobody except Sister Fidelis calls him that. We call him Whitey. He’s the tallest kid in the class, maybe the dumbest, and definitely the one who can get a nun up out of her seat, rush down the aisle in a blur of black cloth with who knows how many layers of underwear rubbing underneath, rosaries and crucifixes swinging, and creating a mad rush of wind and rhythm as she winds to smack Shelley across the head. SMACK. "Hey, ouch, Sister," Whitey says in an annoyed tone of voice.

This isn’t one of those vicious attacks. Just the kind to show everyone in the class that Sister Fidelis wasn’t going to take ANY crap from anybody in class, especially the biggest boy. She was going to give him a few love taps and even let him block most of the blows.

We knew better than to laugh at Sister Fidelis now. She’s in such a state that if we were to make fun of her we’d absolutely have to stay after class. Nothing worse than that.

Suddenly a voice from the unknown.

"Attention all classes."

Wow, what the hell is this? The loudspeaker! Sister Thomas the Principal. It’s the middle of the afternoon. She never comes on in the middle of the day, unless it’s for a fire drill or an air raid drill. Even Sister Fidelis stops her smacks on Shelley’s head.

"All Classes are to stop what they are doing. We have just found out that President Kennedy has been shot."

Sister Fidelis grabs her mouth with both hands and whispers, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph."

"Teachers are to bring all students to the Church right now, sitting class by class, for a reading of the rosary."

Some girls just burst out crying, and everybody looks real scared.

ALMOST everybody.

Whitey tugs the fag tag on the back of my white shirt. "Holy shit! Maybe it’s the Russians and we’re gonna have a nuclear war. Wouldn’t that be neat! This test won’t count."

Being afraid of getting caught talking, I just ignore Whitey.

"Shelley! If you make me go over there, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life."

"Yes, Sister."

Sister Fidelis suddenly took her intensity to a new level. "Single file, and NOT A WORD."

We listened. The last time we were this obedient was when some Bishop came to talk to the school about vocations. That’s when they try to convince us that being a priest or a nun is a great career. We knew better. In the 2nd grade, probably 90 percent of us thought we’d be priests and nuns when the Bishop asked. Now in the 8th grade, when most of the guys had probably tongued a girl, and maybe even copped a feel off Tina Robustelli while standing in line for cookies or something, most of the girls realized how they could make boys do pretty much whatever they wanted to if they smiled a certain smile or even hinted that they thought a boy was cute; so the only ones who still considered being priests and nuns were the really weird ones. Like Joanne Martorana. Her average was 98. All she did was homework. I can’t remember ever seeing her out playing, and I’m out playing all the time. Louis Zummo was probably the only boy who still wanted to be a priest. He was a sissy. Didn’t play any sports. Hung around with Patricia Anne Dugan all the time. And he watched helplessly as his little brother Eugene drowned down at the river at 225th Street when we were in the 4th grade. He was never the same after that. Jerome Mullooly might still want to be a priest. Both his parents have heavy Irish brogues, and they never, ever let him watch "The Three Stooges." They even pray the rosary every night. On their knees. Their house smells funny. Like old socks.

We shuffle single file out into the cold afternoon, not even stopping to put our jackets on. The girls always go first in alphabetical order. The boys follow. Some guys get to sit behind the girls if their name begins with an A, B, C, or maybe even a D, because the girls sit first seat, first row, and go down the row from there. But being an S, I’m always a few rows in back of them. In eighth grade it’s easy to get excited about girls. Just sitting behind them is enough to get aroused. Unless you’re right behind Deborah Laturza. She’s fat, ugly, and smells so bad that one day in 6th Grade, Miss Gannon actually drenched her with a can of Lysol. I felt sorry for her. She still smelled everyday after that. Miss Gannon left the next year. We heard she was working as a guard in a women’s prison.

We’re waiting to hear more about the President. All of the nuns are crying and praying on their knees. It’s the strangest sight. Nuns never cry. Nuns made kids cry all the time. Even Whitey Shelley. But now they’re all crying. Kennedy’s like a saint to us. He’s Irish, Catholic, and he even lived in the Bronx for a while. OK, it was the Riverdale section where only super rich people live, but still, it was the Bronx. When Kennedy was running for President, it was like somebody from the neighborhood was running. We had to go to rallies, carry signs and cheer. We even had to take the subway all the way downtown one time, and stand on 5th Avenue just so we could be there when he drove by.

Everyone has pretty much realized that the nuns aren’t really paying attention to us, so kids are starting to whisper and goof around a little. I can see Bobby Bailey listening to Brian Pratt right next to him, whispering in his ear. Bobby turns around and whispers to me, Whitey Shelley, and the other kids with last names that start after the letter "M."

"He’s dead. The Reds killed the President."

Who killed him? The Russians? Are we at war? I gotta know.

"Sssshhhhh!!!" A nun took time out from the rosary to shut us up without missing a word of the "Hail Mary."

We were taught to fear the Russians. Ever since first grade, we would have air raid drills where we’d have to sit in the hall in the dark on the floor, with our heads between our legs and our hands over our heads, as the nuns cruised by reciting the rosary. Those lousy dirty stinking godless Russians who kill the poor Czechoslovakian Catholics!

In the second grade, Sister Thadeus posed the following question: "If a Russian soldier burst into this very classroom, right this instant with a rifle, and asked if you loved Communism or Christ what would you say?" Every one of us knew the answer. I love Christ, not Communism. We’d all rather die. We had no idea what the hell Communism was. But we sure as hell knew it was something awful.

The rosary was over. And Sister Thomas announced we should all go back to our classes in silence, get our jackets, go home, and continue to pray with our parents. My parents were both at work and wouldn’t be home till after 5, so we made plans to meet at the flagpoles for some touch football instead.

It’s sure a strange walk home today. Like always, we walk in groups, and make fun of the kids in the lower grades. I can’t wait to get out of this stupid uniform (white shirt, blue tie with the little "PS" for Presentation School in white, blue pants, and laced black shoes) and put on my play clothes (dungarees, sneakers, striped tee-shirt, zippered jacket). But the grown-ups on the street are silent. Some have tears in their eyes, and some are sobbing.

"I’ll call for you as soon as I’m changed, Whitey."

"Alright. Who’s bringing a ball? Mine’s dead."

"I’ll bring mine."

"See ya, Vinny," Whitey says as he bounds up the four steps from the sidewalk and onto the courtyard edged with a green and white wooden picket fence.

Here I am all alone at the flagpoles, usually the scene of many important after school activities, like touch football or fist fights. But it’s about as empty right now as Christmas morning, until Whitey finally shows up.

"Wanna play catch?" Whitey asks me.

"Sure."

Nobody else’s parents let them out that afternoon. Where the heck is everybody?

There was nothing on TV the entire weekend. Every channel, all day was about the President. People all over the world are crying. Even the old anchor guys on the news were crying. My mother cried all through dinner that night. She even talked nutty.

"What’s this world coming to? Why, God, why? That beautiful man! And those children. Why, God, why? I hope they find that bastard and tear him limb from limb."

Every once in a while my parents would say "bastard" or "son-of-a bitch" or "shit." They said "ass," "damn," and "hell" quite a bit. But they never ever uttered the "F" word, or said "dick" or "pussy" or "blowjob" or anything like that. If they said "bastard," you knew they meant business.

By Sunday, things were starting to calm down a bit. Sundays were big days. We all went to one o’clock Mass together. Except my older brother, who dropped out of high school last year to work at the new ski slope in Van Cortlandt Park. He didn’t go to church anymore. But me, my sister who’s a senior in high school, and my parents went every Sunday.

Sunday was usually the day we had company or went over a relative’s house. This day we were going downtown to my Aunt Grace and Uncle Cornelius’ house. I say house, but it was just an apartment in Peter Cooper Village. That’s an apartment complex on 20th Street in Manhattan that looks like a housing project, except there aren’t any coloreds or Puerto Ricans. They even have playgrounds, huge trees, benches, and squirrels. My father hates going there because he hates driving all the way down there on the FDR Drive. I’m not sure if dad is too crazy about Uncle Cornelius. Uncle Cornie (we only call him that behind his back) doesn’t drink beer, watch sports, or curse at all. Sometimes when my dad’s had a few drinks, he says that Uncle Cornelius is a "fairy" nice man. I’m not exactly sure what that means but it gets my mother really mad whenever he says it.

I love going to visit Aunt Grace and Uncle Cornelius. Aunt Grace reminds me of Martha Raye from the Abbott and Costello movies, and they have three kids, Jimmy, Elizabeth, and Walter. They call Jimmy and Elizabeth Irish twins because the were born in the same year, 10 months apart. Walter’s my brother’s age, but they don’t seem to like each other. My brother might be a tough guy, but he sure can be funny. Walter somehow thinks his own jokes are the funniest, even though he’s the only one who ever laughs. But he can sure be mean. He once tripped Jimmy for a laugh, and that’s why Jimmy has a chipped front tooth. But the real reason I love going there is Jimmy and Elizabeth. They’re four years older than me, and they are the two funniest people I know. Elizabeth is really cute and Jimmy’s good in sports. He lets me play with him and his friends at the basketball courts. Sometimes.

My mother’s taking longer than usual to get ready because we’re leaving for Aunt Grace’s right after church. I’m sitting in the bedroom watching the extra TV my uncle just gave us instead of throwing out. I say "the" bedroom because we only have one. Three kids, two parents, ONE bedroom. The Eagans, on the 6th floor, they have four kids and one bedroom. The Pisanis, they have five kids and one bedroom. So we don’t have it too bad.

They’re getting ready to bring the bastard who killed the President somewhere, and they’re going to show it live on TV. It’s really confusing and exciting, too. They’re in a garage or something, and everybody’s pushing each other and stuff and....

BANG! BANG! BANG!

"They shot him! Right on TV! They shot him! They shot him!"

My mother rushed out of the bathroom, half her head still in curlers.

"What? Who got shot?"

"They shot Oswald."

"Good, the bastard."

After she said bastard, she spit. Not a real spit. But a sound like a spit. Italians do that when they’re really mad.

"Come on and hurry, we’ll be late for church."

My father was waiting outside with the ’48 Ford station wagon that we have. We pile in, drive the two blocks to Presentation Church, and sit about halfway back like we always do. Church is a good place to think about things. Most of the time you just daydream, and maybe think about stupid stuff, but every once in a while, especially during the sermon, the priest will say something that gets you to thinking about something important. Father O’Shaugnessy is the priest and while I was off thinking about how Aunt Grace always under cooks the roast beef, Father O really got my attention. He sobbed, right on the pulpit, talking about the President, and how he was Catholic, and how if we really believe, we know he’s in a better place. I could tell everybody was listening for a change. But after the sermon, I went back to kneeling, sitting, standing, getting Communion, singing, exiting, and piling back into the car for the trip to Aunt Grace’s.

"I hate this drive," my dad says.

"Oh, you hate everything," my mother chimes in as she turns on the radio and searches for the only station played in the car besides baseball games...WNEW. But wait! Where’s Perry? Where’s Frank? Where’s William B.? It’s all news. The President’s STILL dead. Oswald’s dead. Over and over and over and over.

The trees along the highway all look dead. Even the telephone poles look like crucifixes. I sure hope Jimmy and Elizabeth are funny today.

"We usually go to the Gristedes over on 2nd Avenue," Uncle Cornelius says, after a long chew on some under cooked string beans. "If you use cue-pons, it’s really quite reasonable."

"Yes, those cue-pons are a life saver!" my cousin Jimmy adds. I can tell Jimmy is getting ready to break into a maniacal funny routine.

My mother knows it too. And since Aunt Grace has been noticeably absent for the past five minutes, she decides to try and cut Jimmy off while she still has a chance.

"Shut up, Jimmy, you little brat. When you have to pay for something around here you’ll be using cue-pons too."

"Aunt Angie, why you pickin’ on me? I LOVE cuuuueeeee-pons." Jimmy’s getting very close to taking off. Elizabeth, who never is the one to start trouble, is just waiting for Jimmy to go nuts, so she can follow closely behind. That’s one way to avoid being the one who gets smacked; just be second.

Jimmy knows that without hardly trying he can have me rolling on the floor. But getting the rest of the kids to join in isn’t so easy. I can tell by the way he doesn’t even look in my direction that he knows I’ll go berserk any minute. I’m already laughing with my mouth full. I know better than to look over at my father, but my mother is giving me that stare, where she looks like she’s trying to see if she can crush her teeth by clenching her jaw.

"Alright, James," Uncle Cornelius says, knowing that Jimmy is on the verge of going off, "that’s enough."

We all try not to explode with laughter as Jimmy opens his mouth, revealing a tunnel full of mashed potatoes and points at himself like, "Who ME???!!!" Uncle Cornelius obviously doesn’t think it’s funny at all.

Uncle Cornelius doesn’t look or sound anything like my dad. He’s tall and thin. Everything on him is thin. Thin eyes, lips, hair, arms, nose, legs, hair, and neck. He has a big office job for some big downtown company. My father says he’s loaded. Nobody’s scared of Uncle Cornelius. Especially his kids.

"Excuse me, I’ll go see what’s holding up Grace." Uncle Cornelius dabs his mouth with a cloth napkin and walks down the hall to the big bedroom. They have three. Three kids, three bedrooms. Wow.

Aunt Grace comes out of the bedroom with Uncle Cornelius. You could tell she was crying. Everyone looks around at everybody else at the table. Things aren’t funny anymore.

"Come on, Grace, your food’s getting cold," my mom says. She always has a knack for knowing how to change the subject and keep things going. Everybody knows why she was crying. Kennedy. She even volunteered at the parish for him during the campaign.

"I’m just not hungry. I’ve got to do some stuff in the kitchen," Aunt Grace says just as she starts to blow her noise real loudly. The honk is followed by a long silence.

"We usually go to the A and P." I look up from my under cooked roast beef in disbelief. My father talked at the table.

He even had something else to say. "The Grand Union near us is filthy. I saw the bum there sneeze into his hand while he was slicing my ham and keep going like nothing happened. After he wrapped it up, weighed and marked it, I said, ‘You expect me to buy that with your snot all over it?’ And he goes, ‘What are you talkin’ about?’ I haven’t been back there since."

"Frank, that was 20 years ago," my mother reminds him, like she does every time he tells this story.

"So what! I’m still not going back there."

"That old German deli guy is dead and buried."

"Yeah, probably from eating that snotty meat." My dad made a funny! And a good one at that.

This is it. I can tell by the look of anticipation on Jimmy’s face that he knows the time for action is now! He picks up the most under cooked piece of blood-red roast beef off the large blue-and-white china plate which has about a half-inch of beef blood, sticks his finger in it, and pushes it right up about two inches into his nostril.

"Snotty meat! I love snotty meat, too!!!"

All of us kids lose it. Me, my sister, Elizabeth, even Walter, who’s usually a total sour puss, are roaring uncontrollably. In the midst of the pandemonium, I can see that the adults at the table are stunned. I can tell my mother doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Uncle Cornelius and my dad are seething. But like an express train roaring through the local station, Aunt Grace storms out of the kitchen heading straight for Jimmy, "You little bastard." She pulls the meat out of his hand, throws it down into the china plate which splashes everyone at the table with splotches of cow blood and makes everyone scream and the girls squeal even louder. She winds up like Whitey Ford and lands a good loud smack on the back of the head. "Don’t play with food. Now finish and get out of here."

"Vinny, shut your little trap," my mom warns me. But I can’t stop laughing. Jimmy’s got this exaggerated look in his face like he’s in unbelievable pain from the smack on the head and the back of his skull’s gonna fall off. His writhings are ignored by the grown-ups at the table, but sending us kids into uncontrollable fits of laughter.

Then after a particularly flamboyant head roll he says, "God, now I know how the President felt." That was it. The final straw. You could see Uncle Cornelius, my mother, my father, and Aunt Grace stop chewing. Not a sound even from the kids. Then, like in slow motion, Aunt Grace jumps up from her chair, already swinging with her face all contorted and weird and she goes totally nuts, throwing smacks, punches, elbows, anything she can at Jimmy’s face, back, head, and body; anywhere she can.

"You little wretched son-of-a bitch. God have mercy." Everyone is screaming now. "Stop it!" "Don’t!" "Grace, no!" and just squeals of panic mixed with excitement from me, my sister and Elizabeth. Jimmy finally manages to slip out of her clutches and runs like hell down the hall and into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

Nobody’s laughing anymore. Just total silence. The white table cloth is splattered with pieces of blood-red roast beef and red meat juice looking like a war just took place on it.

Aunt Grace looks around at everyone like she just woke up from a dream and sits down in her chair as if nothing happened. "Angie," she says, "would you like some more meat?" "No, Grace, I think we’ve had enough." my mom says. "Let’s start cleaning up before dessert." With that, they start cleaning up the mess on the table in total silence.

We kids just look at each other, figuring that this is our cue to go away from the dining room table in the corner of the living room and go plop in front of the TV set.

Cleaning the table off didn’t take too long. My mother, Aunt Grace and Uncle Cornelius had cleared everything away and were starting to bring out the next batch of plates and silverware for the Italian pastries, cakes, cookies and coffee. My father is sitting with us in front of the TV. I’m flipping the channel changer trying to find something good and keep going back and forth, till my father lets out with his usual, "You won’t be satisfied till you break the damn thing."

The grown-ups have their coffee and we were just getting ready for ice cream and Italian pastries when Jimmy appears. Uncle Cornelius gives him a thin stare. "You just sit down and behave yourself," Uncle Cornelius says in a dead serious tone of voice. Jimmy didn’t utter a word. He looked inconvenienced.

"Jimmy, you think anybody’d be at the courts?" I asked. Before Jimmy could respond, Aunt Grace sternly said, "Nobody’s going anywhere. This is a school night."

"We have to leave soon anyway," my mother adds.

"Can we play with your car race set."

"Nah, we gave that away," Jimmy sheepishly admits.

"Wanna listen to records?" Elizabeth chimes in enthusiastically.

I was up for anything. "Yeah! Let’s do that." Even my sister, who only talks a little more than my father, says, "Yeah, let’s go." Even Jimmy has a look of joy on his face. "By George, Liz, you’ve done it again! Records it is!" he says, imitating an Englishman.

Walter the sourpuss quickly interjects, "Don’t touch any of my records."

"You mean we can’t listen to the Singing Nun! Oh darn!" Jimmy continues in his mock English accent.

Me, my sister, Elizabeth and Jimmy go down the hall into Elizabeth’s room. Yup, she has her own room. And on a table, a brand new Magnavox portable hi-fi. Stereo! The lid lifts off and has a speaker in it. It’s got a long wire, and you can put it on the other side of the room for stereo sound!

Jimmy pulls off the shelf a 45 box. He opens it, and pulls out a card with every record listed, in the best penmanship possible. Each record in its original sleeve, and separated by a file card from the other records. It even has a special number, glued right onto the label, so you knew where the record was supposed to go in the box.

At our house, none of the records were filed at all. In fact, most of them didn’t even have sleeves or anything, and were just thrown in a 45 box, all rubbing against each other like sandpaper. My mother even left a whole box of them on the radiator once, and they all got warped. Our record player was lousy too. Hi-fi, not stereo.

Jimmy inspects his list. "Wait’ll you hear this."

He pulls out a record that had a plain black label with a plain white sleeve.

"Hey, Vinny, have you heard of The Beatles?"

"Sure," I say. I had heard OF them, but I couldn’t remember what they sounded like. "They’re those English guys."

Elizabeth turns to Anne Marie, "You’ve heard of them haven’t you, Anne Marie?"

"Oh yeah. The girls at school talk about them all the time."

"Do you have any of their records?" Jimmy asks.

"No, not yet."

Jimmy slides his prized possession out of its sleeve and looks across the grooves, looking for the slightest amount of dust. He thinks he sees a speck and blows across it. He holds it by its edges, like the way the priest holds the really big wafer in church called the Host. He gingerly puts it on the spindle, turns on the hi-fi, waits for it to warm up, and places the needle on the edge of the record.

It was like an explosion. A rat-a-tat crack of drums and

SHE LOVES YOU YEAH YEAH YEAH

SHE LOVES YOU YEAH YEAH YEAH

SHE LOVES YOU YEAH YEAH YEAH

It was loud. I never heard anything like it before. It sounded nothing like Elvis, or the Four Seasons, or Gene Pitney, or Neil Sedaka.

All I could hear was YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH. And they sing some words really weird like "yesterday-yay" and "say-yay" and "mie-yind" and then all off a sudden they went "Wooooooooh."

Jimmy and Elizabeth mouth every word and beat their laps in rhythm.

And at the very end of the song, The Beatles sounded like they were going to stop and cry or something, and then they paused and then screamed again, YEAH YEAH YEAH.

I wasn’t sure what that was all about. I never saw my cousin Jimmy sing along with a record that sounded like a girl’s record. You know, like The Shirelles or something like that.

"What’d you think, Anne Marie?" Jimmy had to know.

"It’s good. They have nice voices. Are they cute?"

"Yeeessss!" Elizabeth says in a very deep, throaty, raspy, funny-sounding voice.

She pulls out a box with a bunch of magazines from under the bed. "Look at them. Aren’t they adorable!"

"They write almost all of their own songs," Jimmy adds matter-of-factly.

"And did you hear that guitar work? They play all their own instruments too. I just got this yesterday. I’ve got some others here. Wanna hear ‘em, Vinny?"

I had to think for a second. What else could there be? I already heard them once. I didn’t really get all the words. I usually like stuff like "Itsy Beeny Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" or "Alley Oop" or even "All Shook Up." Well, what the heck, I thought.

"Yeah, let’s hear something else."

"Great. This was their first release." He searches through his box for another.

" ‘Love Me Do’ it’s called."

Just then, my mom pokes her head in the door. "Come, on kids. It’s time to go."

"Awww, we don’t want to go now." My sister and I plead.

"Now. Let’s go."

"Aunt Angie, have you heard of The Beatles?" Jimmy had to know.

"Yeah, I step on ‘em whenever I see one. Come on, let’s go! Now! Bye sweeties."

My mother crosses the room and gives big Italian smooches to Jimmy and Elizabeth.

Back on the FDR going uptown to the Bronx. At least there’s something besides news on the radio. Frank Sinatra sure sounds old-fashioned. My mother knows every word.