APRIL 2024 - Gino

I was five years old. The elementary school where I attended kindergarten was 14 blocks away. En route there was a wide, busy street and I worried about getting across it before the light changed so I was always relieved when I got to the other side. One morning, I left my house, closed the door to the apartment where I lived with my parents, and walked down the outside steps to the sidewalk. A boy I’d seen playing stickball with a bunch of kids was standing at the bottom, looking at me. He was eight or nine, big for his age. I stopped. Some of the kids on the block had yelled. “Yid” when they saw me. I asked my father what the word meant. “Some people don’t like Jews so they call them bad names. Ignore them.”

I didn’t know him. I worried that he’d call me “Yid,” but he didn’t look angry like the kids who called me names. He smiled and said, “Hi Nancy, I’m Gino. I think you’re too little to walk such a long way to school all by yourself. I’ll walk with you. Okay?”

“Sure.” I liked the idea of having someone to talk to as I walked to walk to school. He told me not to worry about being too slow. He took my hand, which felt comforting. When we came to the big street he didn’t rush. The light didn’t change until we were safely across. 

Each day he waited for me at the foot of the steps. When I asked him to come in, he shook his head. “My parents wouldn’t understand. It’s okay. I’ll wait for you here.” 

A few days after he’d started walking me to school, when I saw him waiting for me, I noticed he had bruises on his face. His right hand was bandaged. “What happened?” I asked, worried. He didn’t answer. The next day he had worse bruises. I begged him to tell me how he got them, but he said they didn’t matter.

I told my father about Gino’s injuries. He knew a lot about first aid. Maybe he could help Gino. My father sighed. “Some kids on the block don’t want him walking you to school so they think they can stop him by beating him up.”

“Why do they care if he walks me to school?”

“Because he’s Catholic and you’re Jewish.”

“What difference does that make?”

“It makes a difference to them.”

The next time I saw Gino I said, “I don’t want you getting hurt because of me. I can walk to school by myself.”

Gino shook his head. “I’m not about to let a bunch of stupids tell me what to do.” He took my hand, just like always, and we started walking to school.

Have you experienced an unexpected friendship? What was that like? 

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APril 2024 monthly stories