Fire Escape
It is 1935 and America is in the grip of the Great Depression. A young Steve Rodgers has made his frequent and terrible mistake of defending a fellow classmate from the school bully. Instead of sending Rogers home with a broken nose and bruised ribs, the school teacher had caught them squaring up in the playground and now honor would be defended, over a game of marbles.
The circle was carefully drawn in the alleyway by a practiced marble player. White chalk in a small hand was bumping roughly over the chipped concrete behind a neighborhood grocery in Brooklyn. Model A cars noisily rumbled and sputtered by with the rare clip clop of horse hooves. Occasionally, an engine would backfire making the assembled crowd jump. Boys uneasily shifted their feet in worn, holey shoes. A few lifted their wool caps to run a anxious hand over their short hair before replacing it. Nerves were running high because some had cut school to make a few bucks for their families doing a quick odd job. While their parents would appreciate it, some would get lickings for missing school. Most were waiting to see what was about to unfold before them in the marble court.
Steve stood up, dusting his hands off, admiring his virtually blemish free circle, all 360 degrees of it in pristine white chalk. "Ok. What's the wager?" he said officially looking around at the larger boys for the playground bully. All of them were in the seventh grade together, but Steve was perpetually the runt of the litter.
A few calculating sneers were visible on faces when a kid with a spray of freckles over his face and mop of red hair, marking him as clearly as an Irish immigrant, stepped forward slightly, "You're out of your league Rodgers. I should have beat you when I had the chance." His voice was a mix of brogue and Brooklyn.
"Deal's a deal. What is the wager?" Steve shot back, his bright blue eyes flashing like sapphires.
"Ok, rat. I want your red corkscrew shooter and your set. You lose; I get it and the whole bag full." The redhead spit into his hand and held it out. Steve, not to be deterred by the larger boy, did likewise. In the back of his mind, he heard a small voice remind him that that marble set cost two full month's salary and he only had his mom, who worked low paying, exhausting jobs for them.
"Deal. And you stop bugging Sam at school. Got it?!" Steven said strongly as the redhead ground the bones of his hand into dust in the grip of the handshake. Rogers tried not to wince and shake his hand out afterward in pain.
"Sure. Let's play." The redhead said and stood outside the circle as the crowd parted slightly to give them room.
"Pat, kick him in the pants!" a boys voice from the back encouraged the redhead as he dropped his blue glass shooter in the ring.
The marble rolled forward and just stopped a few millimeters short of rolling out. "Beat that." Pat sneered. Steve took his position and rolled his prized red corkscrew shooter. It rolled just barely out of bounds. "Ha! I get first shot." Pat crowed and bent down to retrieve his shooter. He chucked Rodgers his marble and Steve almost dropped it.
Both boys knelt silently and set up the cross of thirteen marbles in the center of the ring. Boys jostled for position on top of crates and trashcans while the match was being set up. One heavier boy jumped up and pulled down the fire escape ladder and hung on the bottom step like a swing.
Pat had first shot and he broke the formation sending one mib skittering out of the ring along with his shooter. Annoyed, he picked up the marble and his shooter, and moved aside from losing his turn. Some spectators groaned at the poor shot as Steve took up his position. Strangely, he noted his best friend James was not among the crowd. Not sure if that was a good thing, he knuckled down outside the circle and viewed his options.
The marbles broke in a cluster to the left and a few were relatively close to the edge. He saw his favorite green glass one and aimed his shooter. With a flick of the thumb, the green marble was out, but the shooter did a nice backspin and stayed in bounds. Picking up the marble, Rodgers pocketed it and took another turn. One of Pat's agates was next, the red corkscrew not disappointing him. The crowd moved restlessly. No one suspected that Steven Rodgers was good at anything, except being a punching bag, let alone marbles.
Pat shot a dirty look at a boy standing behind Steve. Getting down at ground level, Steve eyed his next shot. Just as his thumb set up for the flick, the boy behind Rodgers coughed loudly causing Steve to misfire his marble. It skittered out of bounds.
"Oh, too bad. My turn." Pat commented smoothly and sauntered over to take a shot. Steve glared at the taller boy and his accomplice, but was powerless to say anything. The count was one for Pat, two for Steve with ten more marbles to play.
The next few turns gave Pat four more marbles until his shooter was sent out by a large crack in the ground. "Hey! No fair, this court isn't smooth!" he groused.
"Pat, shut your yap and get over it." Another boy of similar build commented and Pat scowled at him but remained silent. It seemed the assembled boys were leaning to Rodgers side of the match. The spectators were getting energized with only six more marbles to knock out. Steve went to work quickly, sensing if he didn't finish this game quickly, things were going to get ugly. Click, clack he worked the circle and the remaining six were his. The boys were stunned. No body played marbles like that. The boy on the lowered fire escape swung his feet back and forth rhythmically, equally surprised.
"Eight to five. I win. You keep your hands off Sam now you hear?" Steve stood up to Pat as he placed his marbles into the soft cloth pouch.
A storm cloud formed over Pat's face as lightening flashed in his eyes, "Sure thing, pipsqueak!" Making a lunge for the bag of marbles, Pat launched himself past Steve and towards the boy on the hanging fire escape ladder.
"Hey!" Steve shouted in surprise as Pat leaped nimbly past the seated kid and scurried up the ladder towards the upper floors.
"Sorry Charlie… Looks like I win this one!" Pat taunted, looking down briefly before he continued his sprint toward the roof.
"Go get him, Steve!" chanted many of the boys and even offered to lift him up to reach the dangling ladder because he was too short to leap onto it like Pat had.
Setting his jaw, eyes flashing with fury, Steve took them up on it, against better judgment. Racing up the stairs, sometimes two at a time when he could, he began to gain on Pat.
Pat looked back at his pursuer and didn't notice the housewife hanging her laundry out on the clothesline. Crashing into her, shirts and work pants spilled all over the metal grating gliding downward like fallen kites to the ground.
"Why you little brat! I'll have you paddled for this mess!" the lady shrieked and reached out to nab Pat's ear.
"Ow! Ow! Lady! Get off me!" Pat yelled and yanked himself free. That brief collision gave Steven time to get the same level of the fire escape.
"Give me back my marbles, Pat!" Steve hollered between sucking breath and walking forward, hand outstretched.
"You boys are coming with me! What kind of riff raff do we have around here!" the housewife stated firmly.
"Not today!" Pat said triumphantly and threw a large shirt at Steve before taking off again up the next flight.
Rodgers ripped the shirt from his red face, and looked at the housewife, "I'm truly sorry, Ma'am. I'll be back to clean this up." then he sprinted off in pursuit.
"That's it! I'm calling the coppers!" she yelled after them and disappeared inside the apartment. Boys below heard her threat and began to scatter like rats off a sinking ship.
Pat continued upward to the roof, now approaching quickly, when he skidded to a stop, Steven just steps behind. What lay ahead was a broken and dangling causeway that didn't quite make it to the roofline. The metal brackets holding the last horizontal walkway had rusted and pulled away from the brickwork leaving about a two-foot gap.
Turning to face Steve, Pat eyed the gap and formulated a plan, "Hey, I was just kidding around. Really. Here, have the marbles." He held out the bag towards Rodgers as he approached, seemingly not seeing the damaged walkway.
Steve was so frustrated that he had no words but kept his eye on his bag of marbles. Pat smiled a wicked smile and with the flick of a wrist, he tossed them over the railing.
"NO!" Rodgers yelled and plunged forward to try and grab the bag. Simultaneously, Pat nimbly leapt up to the roof edge as the dangling metal produced a loud groan from the shift in weight. Bolts popped loose, supports bent and rusted steel began to peel away from the façade of the building. Pat looked back and saw the scrawny Rodgers dangling by his arms five floors above the alley clinging to the leaning metal walkway. "HELP ME!" he yelled.
The blood in Pat's veins chilled. He was a bully, not a murderer. Terror over took him and he pivoted to run away like a coward would. Before he could get far, Bucky's fist met his jaw and knocked him out cold, crumpling into a heap but Bucky didn't care.
"Steve!" Bucky called worriedly but calmly as not to startle his friend.
"Buck! Help me!" Steve looked up from between his shoulders and then back down the ground below.
"Don't look down! Look at me! Steve, look at me!" Bucky called and looked around for anything he could find to help. Coils of hemp rope were near the roof access door. Racing to them, he quickly tied several loops around this waist and the other end to a roof vent that looked sturdy. Going to the edge he looked at the situation. "Steve, I'm going to hop down and grab you. Ok? So just hang on."
"Ok." There was a tremor in Steve's' voice but his eyes were locked on his best friend in perfect trust.
"Just hang on. Here I come. I'm not leaving without you." Bucky replied calmly and stepped down onto the fire escape. The metal protested and leaned farther away. Steve let out a strangled yelp. "Hang on, buddy. Hang on." Bucky soothed.
Inching his way down the metal, every step making the walkway bounce he finally crawled out to Steve on his belly. Eye to eye, brown to blue, both boys could see the other was terrified, "I got you. Give me your hand." Bucky said more surely than he felt.
"I… I can't I'll lose my grip!" Steve replied as he gasped from the effort of hanging on.
"I got you. Now give me your hand." Bucky reached out and coaxed him.
"Ok. On three." Rodgers responded.
"Yup. Three." Bucky smiled at his best friend, " One… two!" Bucky's hand shot out and grabbed the arm of Rogers just as the metal gave way. He hadn't told Steve that they were only holding on by two bolts barely secured to the brick. The metal walk way fell away from them and Steve yelled out in terror.
Freely swinging towards the brick wall, Bucky tried to shield Steve from hitting the brick, but it was a rough bump for both of them. "Ow!" they said in unison as rough facing brick bit into their skin. Bucky grabbed onto Steve tighter.
"Boys! Are you ok?" an adult male's voice called down. Bucky looked up and saw a police officer on the roof.
"Yeah! Can you give us a hand up?" Bucky called and more police appeared. Grabbing the rope, the men hauled the boys up the wall and over the edge.
Steve was a white as a ghost and slightly bloodied from the wall scrapes. Bucky was only slightly more composed. Pat was still knocked out on the ground.
"Care to explain yourselves?" the first officer asked dryly as Bucky untied the rope from him.
Bucky drew himself up as tall as he could and summoned his most mature voice, "Well, my friends here and I were playing a bit of a game and it got out of hand. But sir! Did you see the condition of this fire escape? Horrible! Deplorable! A complete disgrace. My mother will be writing the City Council about this and the fire marshal." The officer crossed his arms and looked at him with slight disbelief. Bucky continued, "But thank you gentlemen for helping myself and my friends here. We'll be going now."
Before anyone could think to stop the fast talking teen and his scrawny friend, they let him go, leaving Pat behind to account. Once safely inside the stairwell of the roof access Bucky whispered in Steve's' ear, "Run! Go. Get home. I'll talk to you later."
"Wait, Buck." Steve said, pausing his eyebrows knitting together seriously.
"What?" his best friend asked glancing worriedly upward to the roof, waiting for angry police to chase them.
"Thanks. For saving my life." Steve said sincerely. He grasped his friend's forearm.
"Yeah. What are friends for?" Bucky replied with a cocky smile.
"Maybe someday I can return the favor." Steve said a little sheepishly.
"Yeah, pal. Maybe someday." Bucky replied looking down at the smaller boy, "But let's scram before Pat comes to."
Saturday dawn found Steve and Bucky back at the alleyway to look for the bag of marbles. The upper portion of the fire escape lay bent and twisted where it had fallen the other day. The fourth and lower floors remained secured to the wall. Steve looked up at the remaining steel works, "I was going to help that lady get her laundry back."
"I'm sure she knew you meant well." Bucky soothed, still a bit rattled himself from their adventure.
"Well, I feel pretty bad about it." Steve replied and looked up at his taller friend.
"You can make it up to her later. Let's look for those marbles." Bucky ruffled Steve's hair and stepped away to search among the trashcans and the fallen debris.
In silence, they poked and prodded the heaps of trash that had fallen out of the cans after being crushed from the accident. Steve rooted into smaller spaces while Bucky looked more out in the open. Several moments passed before Bucky exclaimed, "I found one! Your shooter!"
The red corkscrew shooter lay on the ground but it was cracked. Bucky picked it up as Steve joined him, looking at it in the light. The center had been shattered outward like a star in the core, and the fissures haloed the light outward in blue, silver and red circles.
"Well, it's nice to see it, even if it is cracked." Rodgers commented with a note of disappointment.
"Yeah. But it's kind of neat how it broke. Looks like a piece of the night sky." Bucky returned.
"Always on the bright side, aren't you." Rodgers returned looking at his friend and pocketing the damaged marble.
"Only way to go is up, right? I'm hungry. Let's grab some grub." Bucky said and turned to leave the alley. Steve followed behind but looked over his shoulder and back up to the housewife's apartment.
There was a polite knock at the door. When she answered the knock, she looked down the hall and saw no one. Her foot nudged a neatly wrapped paper package tied with twine. She picked up the package and noticed a note attached: "Sorry for your trouble. S.R"
She picked up the package of fresh laundry, smiling and thinking that there was something special about that boy and maybe America was not heading in the wrong direction after all.