Gary paused to light another Parliament. Then he said: You follow what I’m saying, Archie?
Ferguson nodded. I get it, he said. We’re so scared of communism, we’ll do anything to stop it. Even if it means helping people who are worse than communists.
The next morning, while reading the sports pages over breakfast, Ferguson stumbled across the word fracas for the first time. A Detroit pitcher had thrown a ball at a Chicago batter’s head, the batter had dropped his bat, run to the mound, and punched the pitcher, and then the players from both teams had charged out onto the field and taken slugs at one another for the next twelve minutes. Once the fracas subsided, the reporter wrote, six players were ejected from the game.
Ferguson looked over at his mother and said: What does the word fracas mean?
A big fight, she answered. A commotion.
That’s what I thought, he said. I just needed to make sure.
Months passed. The school year ended with no further trouble from Krolik, Timmerman, or anyone else, and then Miss Van Horn’s twenty-three ex-pupils parted company for the summer vacation. Ferguson went off to Camp Paradise for his second eight-week stint there, and although most of his time was spent running around on ball fields and splashing in the lake, there were enough free hours during the post-lunch rest periods and the post-dinner lulls for him to write the articles and map out the design for the third issue of the Crusader. He finished the job at home during the two-week gap between the end of camp and the start of school, working every morning, afternoon, and most evenings in order to meet his self-imposed deadline of September first, which would give his mother enough time to run off the facsimiles at Myerson’s to have the issue ready by the first day of school. It would be a good way to begin the year, he felt, a little jolt to get things off to a fast start, and after that he would see what he wanted to do, decide whether there should be more Crusaders or if this was in fact the last one.
He had promised Timmerman he would let him know if there was going to be another issue, but all the articles had been written before he had a chance to contact him. He called Timmerman’s house the day after he came home from camp, but the housekeeper told him that Michael and his parents and two brothers were on a fishing trip in the Adirondacks and wouldn’t be returning until the day before school started. Earlier in the summer, Ferguson had considered writing the funny, va-va-voom version of the movie actress story and putting it in the issue, but he had killed the idea out of deference to Timmerman’s feelings, understanding how cruel it would have been to run it, how hurt Timmerman would have been by such a witty demolition of his own dull effort. If he had kept Timmerman’s version of the story, he might have considered publishing it as a courtesy, but he had given it back to him on the playground in April, and therefore it wasn’t possible. A new issue of the Cobble Road Crusader was about to hit the jungle gyms and classrooms of Ferguson’s elementary school, and Michael Timmerman knew nothing about it.
That was his first mistake.
His second mistake was that he remembered too much from his conversation with Gary in the backyard.
The fracas in Caracas was old news by then, but Ferguson couldn’t let go of the phrase, it had been rattling in his head for months, so rather than use the headline for a report on what had happened to Nixon, he turned the piece into a boxed editorial in the middle of the front page, with FRACAS IN CARACAS appearing just above the fold and the rest of the article just below it. Inspired by his talk with Gary, he argued that America should stop worrying about communism so much and listen to what people in other countries had to say. “It was wrong to try to overturn the vice president’s car,” he wrote, “but the men who did that were angry, and they were angry for a reason. They don’t like America because they feel America is against them. That doesn’t mean they’re communists. It only means that they want to be free.”
First came the punch, the angry punch to his stomach as Timmerman yelled the word liar and knocked him to the ground. The last twenty-one copies of the Crusader flew out of Ferguson’s hands, and then they began to scatter across the schoolyard in the stiff morning wind, shooting past the other children like an army of stringless kites. Ferguson stood up and tried to deliver a punch of his own, but Timmerman, who seemed to have grown three or four inches over the summer, swatted it away and countered with another blow to the gut, which landed with far greater force than the first one had, not only knocking Ferguson to the ground again but knocking the breath clear out of him. By then, Krolik, Tommy Fucks, and several other boys were standing over Ferguson and laughing at him, taunting him with words that sounded like pus-bucket, faggot, and cunt-brain, and when Ferguson managed to stand up again, Timmerman pushed him to the ground for the third time, pushed him hard, which sent Ferguson crashing down on his left elbow, and within seconds the horrible funny-bone pain had all but immobilized him, which gave Krolik and Fucks enough time to start kicking dirt in his face. He closed his eyes. Somewhere in the distance a girl was screaming.
Then came the reprimands and punishments, the after-school detention, the idiot task of writing the words I will not fight in school two hundred times, the ceremonial, bury-the-hatchet handshake with Timmerman, who refused to look into Ferguson’s eyes, who would never look into his eyes again, who would go on hating Ferguson for the rest of his life, and then, just as they were about to be dismissed by their new sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Blasi, the principal’s secretary walked into the classroom and told Ferguson that he was wanted downstairs in Mr. Jameson’s office. What about Michael? Mr. Blasi asked. No, not Michael, Miss O’Hara replied. Just Archie.
Ferguson found Mr. Jameson sitting behind his desk with a copy of the Cobble Road Crusader in his hands. He had been in charge of the school for the past five years, and every year he seemed to grow a little shorter and rounder and to have a little less hair on his head. Brown hair to begin with, Ferguson remembered, but the thinning strands that were left had now turned gray. The principal didn’t invite Ferguson to sit down, so Ferguson remained on his feet.
You understand that you’re in serious trouble, don’t you? Mr. Jameson said.
Trouble? Ferguson said. I’ve just been punished. How can I still be in trouble?
You and Timmerman were punished for fighting. I’m talking about this.
Mr. Jameson tossed the Crusader onto his desk.
Tell me, Ferguson, the principal continued, are you responsible for every article in this issue?
Yes, sir. Every word of every article.
No one helped you write anything?
No one.
And your mother and father. Did they read it in advance?
My mother did. She helps me with the printing, so she gets to see it before anyone else. My father didn’t read it until yesterday.
And what did they say to you about it?
Nothing much. Nice job, Archie. Keep up the good work. Something like that.
So you’re telling me that the editorial on the front page was your idea.
Fracas in Caracas. Yes, my idea.
Tell the truth, Ferguson. Who’s been poisoning your mind with communist propaganda?
What?
Tell me, or else I’m going to have to suspend you for printing these lies.
I didn’t lie.
You’ve just started the sixth grade. That means you’re eleven years old, right?
Eleven and a half.
And you expect me to believe that a boy your age can come up with a political argument like this one? You’re too young to be a traitor, Ferguson. It just isn’t possible. Some older person must be feeding you this garbage, and I’m guessing it’s your mother or father.