boyhood sketch 5. MONEY PANTS

here we were maybe 8 and 3 yrs

I was ten when Murray was five. He was a beautiful boy with long curly blond hair. I had already aged out of long hair and never had curls, simply white blonde waves. Murray wanted to follow me everywhere, and only as he grew older did I welcome him. Two houses up the street from our home at 10 Clark Street was a lane entrance to the Legion Hall and its large parking lot. One late afternoon, Murray and I wandered there. Men came out of the Hall after some drinks and they looked past me and saw Murray. He was an attraction to them, wearing tiny army fatigue trousers with large pockets down the sides of the legs, and that curly hair of course. They were inebriated, and this was one time that being drunk paid off, for Murray that is. By that I mean the men were drunk. And listen to this. The tipsy men told Murray to hold his pockets open. They would try to throw money into his pockets. Everything Murray caught in those pockets, he could keep they said. They threw coins, nickels, dimes and quarters and fifty-cent pieces. His pants became heavy with cash. Then one man jokingly said, "Let's get his pants.” Five year old Murray was sure he meant it. Murray took off, faster than Usain Bolt or any other Olympic sprinter and he was home before the men stopped laughing. They had fine entertainment at a reasonable price. And me? No curly hair and no cash.