My Friend Rocky

By Chanuga Rollins

 

I met Rocky in the third grade on the playground at Immaculate Conception School. It was recess and I saw a large group of kids in a circle screaming and hollering so I went to see what was going on. 

In the middle of the circle was a huge fat kid pounding the crap out of a much smaller kid. After a few minutes of watching this oversized bully I decided to get involved and even the odds a little. So, I ran over to the dumpster to see what I could find, and there I retrieved a 2x4. I hadn’t really thought this out, but before I knew it, I was wailing at this fat kid with the board. 

Unfortunately for me, the 2x4 broke, and now this fat kid was pounding the shit out of me. But once the kid in the center of all this got on his feet and regained his senses, he hollered out “hey fatso,” as the big kid turned around to look, and with superb precision the kid landed a foot right into the fat kid’s testicles ending the fight. With the fat bully rolling around on the ground crying and holding his balls, Rocky introduced himself to me. 

 Hi, I’m Rocky Sullivan, wow, I said, just like in the movie with James Cagney. Yeah, he said, that’s my dad’s favorite movie. No shit, I said.

I don’t care what school a kid goes to, there’s always some little ass-kissing dweeb that thinks he or she is going score points with the teachers if they squeal on their fellow classmates. Our dweeb was Sam Stamoulis.

It seems that while the melee was going on, Sam snuck away and did his little rat number… Because minutes later a horde of rampaging nuns was charging right at Rocky, the fat kid, and me. Those nuns beat the living shit out of all three of us. And besides the nun ass-kicking, we all got detention for a week.  

Afterward Rocky and I became very close, hanging out with him was awesome, he was a free-spirited soul, unfiltered, and utterly fearless. It was like someone turned off the normal boring side of his brain. 

Rocky never ran from a fight, it didn’t matter how big or old a guy was no one could intimidate him. The funny thing was Rocky really sucked at fighting, he got his ass kicked religiously, but it still never stopped him from trying. I remember once over a girl, Rocky got into a fight with an older kid.

For seventeen days in a row, Rocky fought this kid, and for seventeen days in a row, Rocky got the shit beat out of him. Finally, on the 18^th day, and to the older kids’ credit, he let Rocky beat him up just to keep him from coming around again.

On Saturday, Rocky, a kid named Frankie, and I were playing around an old factory called Circle F, the factory was closed for the weekend, so we pretty much had the run of things. It took us no time at all to find an unlocked door. And because we were kids, we decided to explore the factory.

Circle F took up a whole city block so there was much to investigate. The factory for the most part made small circuit boards, but the guys and I found a bin of small ball bearings, using a broom handle we played a little baseball.

After that we found the worker's lunchroom, Frankie somehow knew how to get free sodas out of the vending machine, and Rocky also found a box of stick matches. While sipping our drinks we looked around to see what else we could get into. 

It was about this time that we heard a noise, so being as quiet as we could, we got the hell out of that building. Going out of the closest exit door, we ended up on the loading dock.

On the other side of the dock were several fifty-gallon drums, they were filled with liquid, the guys said that it looked like water because it was odorless. Frankie took the matches away from Rocky and then he began lighting and throwing them into the fifty-gallon drums. For several throws, nothing, all you could hear was the match going out.

Hey, guys, I said, I’ll race you to the corner. The corner was about two hundred feet away, so I took off, I thought the guys would follow me, but I was very wrong.

Frankie tossed his fourth match into the fifty-gallon drum, and for a second nothing happened… Then there was a massive explosion, it sent oil drums into the air for twenty feet, the force of the blast not only threw Rocky and Frankie off the loading dock but, set off car alarms and blew out people's windows up and down the block.

Both Frankie and Rocky were hurt bad, minutes later the street was filled with police, firemen, and EMTs. The explosion even tore up a good portion of the factory's loading dock.

EMTs worked frantically on Rocky and Frankie, both were in really bad shape, Frankie being the worst. The ambulance attendant let me ride to the hospital with Rocky who was unconscious. At the hospital, I told the police what happened, and they contacted the parents of both boys.         

Rocky didn’t regain consciousness for three days, despite having minor burns, a black eye, three fractured ribs, and several cuts and bruises he was expected to make a full recovery. Frankie, on the other hand, was not so lucky. 80% of his body was burned. He had to undergo emergency surgery to remove his spleen, but the blast also injured his liver and kidneys.

I was at Rocky’s bedside when he came to, the first thing he asked was “Am I in heaven?” I waited two days before telling him about Frankie’s condition. Rocky took the news about Frankie hard and blamed himself for letting Frankie have them matches.

 On the same day that Rocky was released from the hospital, Frankie just 12 years old passed away. I didn’t know Frankie that well, hardly at all, really. But Rocky did, in fact, Rocky and Frankie’s parents were good friends.

When you’re a kid you don’t think much about death, in fact, most kids think that they’re invincible. What compounded the hurt for Rocky, even more, was that when he went to Frankie’s funeral, the family turned him away. Frankie’s family blamed Rocky for their child’s death.

I went to the viewing with Rocky and when Frankie’s family turned him away, he ran out of the funeral home. I found him out front sitting on the curb crying, it was the only time that I ever saw Rocky cry.  

Life went on. Four years passed since that horrible day, Rocky and I were both 16, and it was summer again. I just finished my second year of high school and was getting ready to go away to summer camp. Rocky quit school the second that he turned sixteen, and although we were still close friends Rocky changed after Frankie’s death, he still blamed himself.

 At camp, I got word from my parents that while I was sunbathing on the water’s edge, my pal Rocky was doing other things to pass his summer. Like stealing cars, breaking into homes and businesses, gambling, and running numbers for the local hoods.

I got home from camp in the middle of August, the camp was three hours away, up, and back, so my family and I were beat when we finally got home, and we called it an early night. To my surprise Rocky was at my front day early the next morning, it was so good to see him that we hugged.  

Spending the day together he told me some of the crazy shit that he’s done all summer, and how he lost his virginity with a hooker and got the clap, I laughed so hard I almost peed myself.    

A week after Labor Day, I was back at school, this was my last year of high school, and I wanted to make the best of it. One day the school invited all the branches of the military to come in and talk about the benefits of being in the service, I liked what I heard so I joined, and I was scheduled for boot camp that following June.

Rocky was of course flabbergasted when I told him what I did, he of course didn’t see the point of it. He was, however, happy for me, you’re going to get to see the world kiddo, for free. 

The holiday season came up fast before I knew it, we were eating turkey, and I of course wanted Rocky to spend Thanksgiving with my family but unfortunately, Rocky got locked up for getting into a fight at an Arcade, he didn’t get out until the second week of December.  

With school and other extracurricular activities, I didn’t get to see Rocky that much at all. But to my surprise a few days before Christmas Rocky showed up bearing a gift, the gift was a 14-carat gold rope chain with a Saint Peter pendant that I still wear to this day. I confessed to him that I hadn’t even started Christmas shopping yet, but, if he came over Christmas morning, Santa just might have a present for him under the Christmas tree.

Spending that afternoon with Rocky was one of the best in a long time. We laughed and talked about life, what dreams we had, and where we wanted to go from here. He told me that a few days ago he started working at Whole Foods and that he really liked it. He said that it was high time to finally get his shit together and be more like me, I was honored. 

He did mention a couple of guys were messing with him from time to time, but he didn’t say anything more. I knew not to press him, Rocky always worked out his own problems. Finally, he said that he had to go, I walked him out and we hugged on the front porch, I thanked him for the wonderful gift. He started walking away and then turned, thanks, man, for stepping into that fight in the third grade… You’ve been a great friend to me. I got a very strange feeling as Rocky walked away. 

Christmas Eve night, a light snow started, it hadn’t done that in over a decade. The manager at Whole Foods asked Rocky if he wouldn’t mind salting the sidewalk out front. Rocky looked at his watch, the store was closing at 6pm, and with a little more than an hour to go, he grabbed the rock salt and headed outside. 

Making it like he was feeding the chickens; Rocky went up and down the pavement covering it with rock salt. He was halfway finished when a car almost coming to a complete stop in front of Whole Foods beeped to get Rocky’s attention. When he looked up, three shots rang out, all hitting Rocky.

He died instantly right there on the sidewalk in front of Whole Foods.

When I heard the news, I was devasted, I couldn’t sleep or eat, and seven days later I’m not ashamed to say that I couldn’t stop crying at Rocky’s funeral. A piece of me died with Rocky, and I knew that things would never be the same again without him.

Two weeks after Rocky’s funeral, Frank and Luke Wilson turned themselves into the police. They were the Father and older brother of Frankie, the kid who died in the Circle F explosion. The whole Wilson clan blamed Rocky for what happened to their son.

I’m married now with kids of my own, I no longer live in Trenton, in fact, I live hundreds of miles away from it… But every Christmas Eve since his death come hell or high water I go to the cemetery where Rocky is buried and spend the evening with my friend.  

The end 

Copyright 2019