He probably winced when it hit, and possibly cried, but 15 year old boys would rather be dead than cry in front of friends.

 

He was rushed to the hospital, probably by car.  In those days an ambulance would be called for a car accident or heart attack in the middle of the night, or unchecked bleeding from any part of the body. He was probably in sharp pain from the BB lodged in his inner thigh - my guess - close to his butt.  

 

In the emergency room at Newton Wellesley in 1971 the BB was removed under anesthesia, and without warning he had an allergic reaction that turned off his lungs.  Someone noticed after 4 minutes. He laid in a coma for the rest of his life… 28 days, or 26 days maybe.

 

Four boys next door to four girls were Mark, Steven, Mitchell and Peter Aronson to Vicky, Nancy, Linda, and Pammie Pollen who’s father Lou was also born on my birthday.  They lived on Park Ave. It was always a mystery to me how these two families, the Pollen and the Aronson happened to end up sharing a split driveway of broken asphalt.

 

Mitchell and I were petty vandals.  We got caught once after burying the Turin’s swing set with sand from their own sandbox I remember.  I must have been 6 at the time.

The Pollens had vicious Dachshunds that never left the house.  They were purchased as a pack to keep away the 4 Aronson boys who never had new clothes.  Herb, the father - was an engineer of some kind who smoked a pipe and read Life magazine while the 4 boys played with every imaginable toy not allowed at 139 Brackett Rd where I grew up.  They waged wars on each other, and on us - using chestnuts when we only had acorns.

 

He was the 3rd son in a family of 4 boys who always had meatloaf and potatoes for supper.  They didn’t keep Kosher, so for lunch they could eat ham ‘n cheese sandwiches. The mother Claire was a perky brunette who with a single bare hand wiped snot from their faces.

 

We eventually drifted apart as children do when physical changes become more pronounced, but continued playing together until an age when we became aware of the mismatch.

 

In the house I grew up in their clothes would have gone to the Morgan Memorial, or used by May (a live-in maid from Alabama who ran off one night with a professional baseball player), to clean the oven.  May would force us to watch ‘Hullabalu’ or ‘Shindig’ (I think I remember) instead of ‘Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color’.

 

In the Aronson’s den I watched ‘Get Smart’ and ‘Mission Impossible’ for the first time and saw comic books - not at a barber shop They had a cousin named Larry, from Revere or Quincy who came on the weekends, dressed in a Barrakuta.  As if the havoc they wrecked normally wasn’t enough.

 

No one had much hope for Mitchell who couldn't reach his own fly to zip up.  He smelled of unwashed clothes, and his cheeks turned bright red in the winter.  This was his only armor... He waddled around in a hand/me/down/shirt and runny nose still -  at 14 with a smile on his face so young he would never have to suffer acne. Only a gang of wreckless, mean kids could make room for him in their crooked circle.

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He probably winced when it hit, and possibly cried, but 15 year old boys would rather be dead than cry in front of friends.