WilliamRuiz                                                                                                                                                                         

Instructor: Gaylene Crocker

English 101

February 13, 2013

Boys Will Be Boys.

By William Ruiz

The year was 1984 and the cafeteria at P.S. 75 in Brooklyn, N.Y. was buzzing with excitement. I was in the fourth grade and had many friends. Every boy I knew was going crazy because just a fewhours earlier we were given some amazing news. I remember when our teacher walked into the class room; she had a big smile on her face that I will never forget. She addressed us in a child’s voice and asked the class, if we had ever heard of the Worldwide Wrestling Federation. We took a moment to look at one another and answered in unison, “yes”. Some of us in the class quickly asked, “why, teach”.   Shesmiled again and said, “Well, I just wanted to know what to do with this invitation I received”. The classreplied, “What invitation? My teacher went on to tell us that the whole school was invited to watch a few wrestling matches. Some of the students in my class, me included, were pretty knowledgeableabout the wrestling world so we asked her what day the invitation was for. All the boys in the class had this daffy look on their faces. The moment she said the date the class exploded; I am sure we could beheard all through the school. Kids were shouting and cheering, we thought our teacher was the coolest lady on the planet.

            Hulk-A-Mania was coming to Madison Square Garden! It was like a dream come true for most of the boys in my class. Over the next two weeks the anticipation grew as days went on. Kids were coming to school dressed in favorite wrestling outfits: wearing bandanas, wristbands and even painting their faces like their favorite wrestling star. The excitement was a little too much for some of us,because a lot of us were misbehaving and getting into trouble. I remember some of the students in school didn’t get to go because they were in hot water with the Assistant Principle.

The day was finally here. I remember feeling so happy that I was going to Madison Square Garden to see Hulk and Hogan and most of my favorite wrestlers were going to be there too. When I arrived at school and looked at the playground  full of kids wearing yellow and red T-shirts I knew just how much we all believed that we lived a Hulk-a-Maniac  lifestyle. The bus ride into Manhattan took forever and we seemed to drive into one traffic jam after another. I can still recall the way I felt when we finally pulled up in front of “The Garden” as it is known to the people of New York City. It was fantastic, with the large red and black message screen displaying the upcoming events.
 I had never seen so many vendors in one spot before.  They were selling everything with a wrestling logo onit. We stopped to buy some souvenirs at one of the stands in front of the building. Most of the class bought pointer fingers and twirly flash lights.As we made our way through the crowded lobby, up the escalator and to our designated seats in the arena, I had an anxious feeling, like the one you get when something bad is about to happen, but I just chalked it up to nerves. When we got to our seats, most of the kids were so run riot that no one wanted to sit down. At last the teacher told everyone to settle down and remember our manners. After a short while that seemed endless, the thunderous music started to play and the lights in the auditorium started flashing the many colors of the spectrum. Fireworks were going off. The WWF knew how to put on a show. Movie stars would often make special guest appearances and sometimes start a beef with one of the wrestlers. The show was all about building drama and excitement and I could not get enough of it. I was having a blast and at this time we were all out of our seats again, screaming, laughing and cheering. The first match was incredible; we were so amped. Boys were pushing and punching one another in the arms, acting wild and crazed. We also started daring each other to do stupid and dangerous things.  We were all caught up in the moment and one of my class mates dared me to throw a battery from one of our flashlights into the crowd. When I told him that he was crazy, he called me all sorts of derogatory names like wimp, punk, and a word that rhymes with sissy. When I ignored his crud attempts at persuasion, he got some of my classmates to help egg me on to throw the battery up in the air. Finally he got my attention with an offer of money and I agreed to do it.

             As I looked around at all the people that surrounded me in this giant sized arena, I knew if this was to be executed, we would have to plan it out. So I started organizing my look-out kids for the task at hand. Something came over me and the feeling of wickedness raced through my blood like a wildfire. Then looking around again at my cohorts to make sure the coast was clear, I quickly launched the D sized battery into the air. As I watched the battery spin through the large, open space above us, one of the teachers shouted to the rows behind him, “What was that?”.  We all kept a straight face and said, “What was that? Teach”. Almost immediately he started asking the other teachers if they too had seen something black spinning downward from the stands. No one else saw anything but this teacher. He would not let it go. He insistedthat he was going to find out what was going on. My friends and I didn’t think much about because he was a teacher from down the hall and besides that we told ourselves that he didn’t have a witness for his claim. We continued to watch the remaining portion of the show and seem to forget about what I had just done.

Hulk Hogan’s match against King Kong Bundy was legendary, he pick up this largely; heavy setman and body slammed him twice for the One, Two, Three count.  We all knew that he was going to win, Hulk Hogan always made a sort of victory speech, but it was more like trash talking after every match.  He would start by saying “Brother, it’s like I told you, no one can defeat the man with the 24 inch pythons,” he was referring the size of his arm muscles and ended with Hulk- A-Mania rules.  The show was over and as we slowly walked through the jam packed building and down the escalator. One of my fellow student was pulled to the side by our teacher, he later informed me that his brother was stuck in the by the battery I threw, the same battery, he paid me to throw.  To say we were shitting bricks is putting it mildly. As we all loaded into the bus, I knew something bad was going to happen and boy was I right!

              That teacher found one boy, who said that he was told that a kid named Billy threw the battery that hit the boy in the head but he didn’t know anyone by that name. Unluckily for me, my
 teacher knew exactly who they were describing.  As she walk toward where I was seated on the
bus, my heart felt like it was going to pop right out of my chest. She looked at me and said you know
Billy; you could have seriously injured this boy far beyond the three stitches that he received on his
head.  What the hell were you thinking, this was the first time I ever saw her lose her cool. My teacher was such a women, I felt bad about trying to lie my way out of it, but she was very smart. She grew up with five older brothers and knew when a boy was lying.  She simply looked at me and said turn on your flash-light.  There was nowhere to turn to, I was caught.  She asked if anyone else was involved, I simply said no. We had a packed at school “stiches get stitches” and I was not above the packed. 
              When we got back to school, I was taken to the Assistant Principal’s office and waited for my
mother to arrive before talking about what happened.  When she walked in the greeted one another and we sat down. He explained the event as he knew it; he painted an ugly picture of what happened. I didn’t mind the five day suspension however; I was labeled a trouble maker, a title that would haunt me for the next two years, which made thing very hard at school. I learned a lot from this experience and it helped me stay out of trouble and crowd pleasing for a long time. My mother saw to that!