MEASURING UP (OR NOT) TO THE CODE by Mel Rosenthal

As a kid, I tended to be socially backward, out of touch with the Code of Boyhood, that amalgam of bravado and inchoate sophistication with which American males aged roughly eight to twelve typically confront the world. I was clearly atypical. For one thing, I performed well in school -- not necessarily a fatal flaw, if it was accompanied by, say, strong athletic skills in the playground. In my case, however, it was definitely not so accompanied, which left me vulnerable to the charge of being a “brain,” or, even less flatteringly, a “grind.”

I don’t wish to exaggerate my social problems. Certainly I had friends I palled around with, whose homes I visited and who visited my home. It was just that I was often made to feel, subtly or not so
subtly, an outsider — that there was a final measure of intimacy and confidence to which I was never admitted.

One basic tenet of the Code, of course, is a willingness to fight, to physically “stand up for yourself” if the occasion requires. But in this respect as well, I failed to measure up, shamefully failed; I was timid and terribly afraid of getting hurt. There was one day I recall in particular when with no provocation at all I was challenged to a fight. The challenger was a tough-looking, wiry, black-haired kid whom I’d only just met, and he was plainly acting not in anger but rather out of principle, fulfilling a solemn obligation under the Code of putting a new acquaintance to the test of a fistfight as a necessary preliminary to friendship, or at least continued acquaintance. I didn’t want to fight, didn’t want to get hurt or to hurt him. But there seemed no viable way of getting out of it, so we did mix it up briefly. He was in fact physically smaller than I, and I could probably have won the contest if it had gone to any sort of conclusion. As it was, although I held my own for as long as it lasted, I broke it off after a couple of minutes. I ended by feeling that I could and should have kept going, and had probably, though he said nothing, failed the test in the other kid’s eyes.