Cool Steve Confronts Poverty
by Jeffrey Rubin, PhD
Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Welcome to From Insults To Respect.
When thirteen-year old Cool Steve’s parents no longer can afford the rent where they had been living, they move to a less expensive, run down apartment. Steve has to start a new junior high school even though it’s the middle of a school year. Let’s see if we can learn something when we see how Steve handles his first day there.
* *. *
At lunchtime, Steve’s teacher informs him, “Young man, because this is your first day here, when you get down to the lunchroom, you’re to report to the vice principal, Mr. Lantern. He’ll assign you a place to sit. You can’t miss him; he’s the large, bald gentleman down in the lunchroom.”
“You must be the new member of our team,” says Mr. Lantern, amidst the noisy sounds of the lunchroom. He glances at a clipboard. “Steve Marino?”
“Yes, Mr Lantern.”
“Welcome to Cunningham. Follow me.”
They walk past rows of long rectangular lunch tables until Mr. Lantern, pointing to an empty spot, says, “Why don’t you have a seat right here? This is where the students in your homeroom sit.”
“Okay,” says Steve, nervous but attempting an air of nonchalance.
As Steve begins to sit down, this very pretty girl who is sitting just to the right of where he has been assigned leaps up wildly screaming. “I can’t believe this!”
Steve looks around for some answer to this crazed girl’s actions.
“I can’t believe this!” she screams. “The incredible power!”
Steve sees that she’s talking to him while intensely staring at him.
“You have a very old soul,” she continues, “an ancient soul of some mighty leader. I’ve never sensed such power! This is incredible!” Then she touches Steve’s arm and her shining, green feline eyes drift up as if leading her to another dimension and she swoons, “Ohhhhhhhh!”
Steve, shaking his head, sits down, looking bewildered.
“Don’t mind her,” says this broad, dark haired guy sitting opposite to the girl. “You’ll get used to Mysterious Jane.”
“Mysterious Jane?” Steve asks.
“Yeah,” says the guy, “we call Mysterious Jane, Mysterious Jane, because she’s strange. Anyways, I’m Ron DeFilipo.
After Steve introduces himself, he looks over the situation. Directly to Steve’s right sits Mysterious Jane, with her long glimmering black hair, lovely green eyes, strikingly beautiful facial features, and, even as a thirteen-year-old, her curves are hard to ignore.
Ron points to a guy on his left. “This here is Jerry Miller, the best athlete in eighth grade.” Jerry, thick dark brown hair, swarthy, and wearing a silver chain around his neck with a distinctive Star of David hanging from it.
Steve gives Jerry a respectful salute.
Jerry returns the gesture with a nod.
“You see those kids over there?” says Ron to Steve, referring to the table two feet away. “They’re the SP kids, the biggest wimps at school.”
We had SP students, those in the “Special Progress Program” for super smart kids in my last school, Steve thinks to himself.
At the SP table this blond-haired, blue-eyed kid who, upon hearing Ron calling SP kids wimps, turns to Ron and yells, “We aren’t wimps, you are!”
Both glare at each other.
“Personally,” says Steve, “I like some of the kids that got school smarts. I like to have a couple of them for my friends ‘cause I’m not all that great with school stuff, capeesh? They help me to understand some stuff.”
“I don’t need no help from any wimpy SP kids,” says Ron.
“We wouldn’t give you any,” the SP kid bitterly responds.
“Ya wanna be friends with those jerks, ga’ head,” says Ron.
“I’m not saying you have to be a school wizard to be my friend,” says Steve. “I like to know kids with different kinds of talents.”
“So you’re a new kid here,” says another kid sitting at the SP table.
“Yeah. Today’s my first day.”
“Well, I’m Cliff, Cliff Schweitzer, and this blond guy sitting across from me who is always arguing with Ron; well, the guys call him Brainy George.”
“Your real name is ‘Brainy George’?” Steve asks smiling.
“Na. George Beck.”
Steve looks him over. His fine blond hair is sloppily combed mostly to the right, but some haphazardly falls over to the left. Thick glasses magnify his pale blue eyes.
Steve turns to look at Cliff. Even though he’s in the SP program like George, Cliff hardly looks like an intellectual. Dark and athletic looking, Cliff is quite a contrast to his buddy, Brainy George.
“Just because these guys are in the SP program, you don’t like them, Ron?” Steve asks.
“Aaa, they’re a bunch of losers,” Ron responds.
“What did he say?!” asks a student who is sitting to Cliff’s left.
“Shutup Abromowitz!” Ron hollers.
“I don’t like this kind of talk, Ron,” hollers Jerry Miller, his gold star of David glimmering reddish blue like an igniting flame.
Mr. Lantern points to Steve’s section of the lunchroom.
“That means it’s time for us to get in the lunch line,” says Mysterious Jane to Steve touching his arm and smiling into his eyes.
As Steve begins to get up, he feels an intense anxiety pang. Great, he says to himself. Now I gotta get on this lousy lunch line and use this damn free lunch pass I got at the welfare agency.
* * *
The aroma of chicken soup, peanut butter sandwiches, and fried fish cakes drifts into Steve’s nostrils. He picks out a peanut butter sandwich, a container of milk, and some ice cream. Then he shows the cashier his free lunch pass. Ron DeFelipo, standing right behind Steve, starts to laugh and says to Mysterious Jane, “Look at this! This is the guy with all the power! He can’t even afford to buy himself lunch! What a joke!”
When Steve hears this, it feels like a knife has been stuck in his gut. His face becomes hot, he pleads with himself not to have tears well up in his eyes, and he looks down avoiding everyone’s eyes.
Jane looks at Steve, turns to Ron, shoves him, and says, “You have no brains.”
“Don’t ya get it?” says Ron. “He’s got all this power and…”
“Lay off. It’s hard enough,” says Brainy George, who’s standing nearby.
When Steve gets back to his table, his appetite’s gone. There’s a sour feeling in the pit of his stomach. After a few moments he accepts that he isn’t going to get any food down, so he pushes his tray away.
A few minutes later, Ron turns to Steve and says, “Can you believe this? This ugly midget George says he can take me.”
Now Cliff, who has been quietly reading the Daily News sports page while eating, decides to put in his two cents. “If it’s important to you to be a good fighter, Ron, why don’t you join a wrestling team or karate club? Or learn to box. There’s a boxing club not too far from here where the former world heavyweight champ, Floyd Patterson, trained when he was growing up. Join one of those things. You’ll find that, compared to people who train regularly, your skills are awful. With training you can develop them and test them respectfully against other people who are also skilled.”
“I don’t need no training,” says Ron. “I can take anyone around here.”
“Anyone?” Jerry Miller asks.
“Well, maybe not you, Jerry,” Ron comes back, “but pretty much anyone.”
“Look,” says Cliff, “all I’m trying to say is, no matter how good you get at fighting, it’s not going to prove who’s a man and who isn’t. Patterson was the champ. Sonny Liston beat him and now he’s the best fighter around. He can take all of us. Does that mean he’s the only man around and the rest of us are wimps? And what happens when someone finally takes Liston? Does that mean that one day Liston’s a man and the day he loses suddenly he becomes a wimp?”
Steve once again begins to wrestle with his food and this time he gets some of it down, though it tastes like sawdust.
* *. *
Well, that’s my story for today. I hope it provokes some thoughtful reactions about how poverty isn’t just a shortage of money; it includes embarrassing experiences and opportunities to be cruelly looked down upon.
My Best,
Jeff
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