Happy Junior Fence Day

(Originally published on June 28, 2016. Happy Junior Fence Day!)

Today is Junior Fence Day. It is indeed and has been since I recorded the date on a piece of loose leaf paper chronicling the noteworthy events of 1978’s spring and summer. On that June 28th—a Wednesday by the way—I found myself reading the novel Jaws 2 at a front window overlooking the sidewalk below. I spied two youths—who shall remain nameless—run past and didn't give it a second thought, because in those days kids played outside all the time and did a lot of running. However, several seconds later, I saw a fellow whom we knew as “Junior Fence”—son of "Mr. Fence," of course—race by. This running game had assumed new meaning now because the boy and girl in question were thirteen and ten, respectively, and Junior Fence was a grown man in his twenties. He was a scary dude, too, with—the preponderance of the evidence concluded—a serious drug and/or alcohol problem.

I subsequently uncovered the whole truth and nothing but the truth concerning the “Great Chase” I had witnessed. The two youths had been tossing rocks atop the Fence family back porch awning, which was made of aluminum. One stone, apparently, missed its intended mark and crashed through a glass door leading into the Fence family kitchen. And the fleet-footed Junior Fence was out for blood—for justice—in a New York minute. The boy in question laid low for a while because the Fences were vigilantly on the prowl for the guilty party or parties. The little girl had been promptly exonerated when her father told Junior Fence in no uncertain terms that she was a good girl and to bug off. Fortuitously for the boy, his family went on vacation for a couple of weeks beginning on July 1st. By the time he returned to the neighborhood, the manhunt had pretty much been called off and life returned to normal.

While making my appointed rounds today, June 28, 2016, I was reminded of Junior Fence Day when a car pulled up alongside me and an angry young man got out. Coincidentally, he wanted to know if I had seen a couple of kids run past me. Evidently, they had thrown an egg at his car in the vicinity of Ewen Park, which isn’t very far from where the Junior Fence incident went down. He pointed out the splatter as Exhibit A and said he was after the juvenile delinquents. I hadn’t seen them but a couple of others seated on a nearby bench had and told him as much. Like Junior Fence thirty-eight years ago, he was hopping mad and intent on exacting justice the old-fashioned way.

Returning home after this encounter on this solemn day, I walked past a couple of school kids—a boy and a girl—and overheard a snippet of their conversation. Girl to boy: “Genesis don’t like you no more because she thinks you like Chase.” Why would anybody name a kid after a bank? Let there be light on this Junior Fence Day.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Catching the June Bug

Once upon a time, the month of June stood out from the pack. It embodied so much: long days, the school year's end, backyard barbecues, baseball in its many incarnations, and imminent summer vacations in exotic locales like the Jersey Shore and the North Fork of Long Island. Thirty years ago in June, I regularly attended a poetry open mic at a now defunct establishment called Sidekicks Café. A poet named Ron—who was especially good and the exception to the rule—recited his original verse in a soothing Southern accent, a muted cadence not typically heard in the Bronx. One poem of his repeatedly referenced the “June bug.” It was quite evocative as I recall. Brought to life was this awkward insect wandering the night, careening its way toward a light source, while rowdily crashing into countless windows and screen doors in the process.

In the beetle family, the June bug was not a sight for sore eyes. Contrarily, its nighttime companion, the lightning bug, was a welcome summer visitor. Flashing on and off as the fledgling summer days of June turned dark, few insects could compete with that light show. Meanwhile, the June bug might just as easily bump into your head as a window or screen door. I don’t imagine the creature was dangerous—not a carrier of malaria or sporting a lethal stinger—but it was gross nonetheless. Come to think of it: While the lightning bugs were impressive visuals on warm summer nights, human contact was not recommended. Their inevitable calling cards: a nasty, lingering odor not easily scrubbed away. And, too, in the bright light of day, they were rather unsightly.

June was the ultimate anticipatory month, a time to get the summer ball rolling. We had the June bug, as it were, and it impacted all ages—from those of us who waited patiently for the Good Humor man to make his daily evening rounds to the adult set who commenced with their nightly stoop sitting. Stoop sitting was an urban art form for generations. It’s still practiced to some degree, but not as extensively as when I was a boy. It supplied the ideal setting for neighborhood gossip, the perfect stopover for passersby, and furnished a ringside seat for the unexpected. Like the time a new neighbor and homeowner was seen chasing his sister down the street while uttering an extended string of profanities. I wonder what that was all about. Footnote: The man lived in the same house for fifty years before passing away last year. I don’t know whatever became of his sister, if she inherited his property, or if she's even among the living.

Just as Good Humor retired its fleet of trucks and became exclusively a supermarket brand, so many of those who caught the June bug along with me have gone the way of a funeral parlor’s laminated prayer card. It’s fair to say that I’m not quite as enamored with June as I once was. Still, the June bug lives on in nature and in many memories as well. I’ll have a grape-lemon-flavored Bon Joy Swirl please.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)