Gangs With Greek Names: Episode 7: Billy Gets Ambushed

De: Steve Potter

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Excerpt:

Sammy and I walked toward the lobby together after Sociology. He told me about Black Elk Speaks, the book he's reading now. Actually, it's more like we slogged slowly toward the lobby among all the other kids crammed into the hallway. I don't know if I'll ever get used to how crowded it is here at Seaview High. It reminds me of being in a New York City subway train during Christmas Season, that's how crowded it gets.

Sid stood near the door of the classroom he raged out of the day he slammed little Ricky face-first into the lockers. Two of his new Sig brothers, Clint and Wayne, the hoods who slammed into me and nailed my books and kicked them down the hall the day after my Hell Night induction back in September, stood with him. Sid sneered as Sammy and I approached. He drilled his gaze directly into my eyes then glanced down at my collar and smiled. He nudged Wayne and leaned in to whisper something to him. You know how sometimes you notice something but don't recognize the significance of it until later? Like, you see a collection of puzzle pieces but don't realize that's what they are and later, when the whole picture is presented to you, you're like, oh, of course, why didn't I see it? Sammy slowed his stride, narrowed his eyes, and looked back at them as we continued on down the hall.

“See ya later, Billy,” he said. He smiled what I guess you could call a mischievous, knowing smile. We shook the AKB handshake and he hurried off snaking his way through the crowded hall.

***

After school, as I strolled beneath the branches of the mostly bare trees along the diagonal trail through the tall weeds and scrub brush of the lot with the two vacant, dilapidated old houses in it, Sid and Dino stepped out from behind a tree in front of me. I turned to run but Aldo, Vin, Clint, Wayne, and Aldo's younger brother jumped out from behind bushes and trees and rushed me. I glanced around for the best way to run and charged into the weeds but they subdued me before I got anywhere. They surrounded me in a tight circle and shoved me back and forth. Sid grabbed my shoulders from behind and spun me around to face him. Aldo's brother grabbed the top of my forest green book bag and yanked it down. The shoulder straps slid down off my arms. He tossed it into the weeds and wrapped an arm tightly around my neck.

Synopsis:
Billy Esposito, the son of two college professor poets, has been living a quiet, nerdy life in an upstate New York college town. In the summer of '79, his life is turned upside down when, due to family circumstances, he and his mother move to the south shore of Long Island a few miles east of Queens. When the school year starts in September, Billy is thrust into a new world and must learn to navigate his way in huge, overcrowded Seaview High School. By rushing to the aid of a classmate who is being attacked, he falls into the strange, often violent subculture of high school fraternities or, as many of the teachers, administrators, cops, and other local adults call them, "gangs with Greek names." HIs situation improves when he discovers that Jillian, the gorgeous, smart, rock 'n' roll obsessed girl he is crazy about likes him too... but some things aren't meant to last.