The Measure(77)

One of the boys grabbed the clipboard out of the activist’s hands and greedily scanned the names. “Who the hell even likes this guy?”

A passing mother, noticing the scene, nervously gripped her child’s hand, leading her away from the tense trio of men, while Jack hovered nearby, waiting.

“Please return that,” the canvasser pleaded.

The boy smiled crookedly, then hurled the clipboard onto the sidewalk, the plastic striking the pavement with a single smack. The drummer nearby stopped playing.

Jack could see the agony on the canvasser’s face, trying to calculate the safest move. If he stooped down to pick up the clipboard, he’d be taking his eyes off the boys and, more crucially, the table with the box of donations.

Jack glanced around. The next closest witness was a young pregnant woman hanging farther back, her right hand clenching her phone, fingers presumably poised to dial 911 should the situation escalate. Where was the crowd when you needed it most? Jack thought. He nodded at the woman, and she tipped her head back in response, the instant kinship of mutual concern.

“Aren’t you going to pick that up?” the boy asked the activist, while his friend inched closer to the table.

Aren’t you going to hit him back? Jack could still hear the taunts from the sidelines at school. Too bad your family isn’t here. Too bad your uncle isn’t here. Too bad you’re just not as strong as they are.

Suddenly Jack’s anger burst.

“Why don’t you just leave the man alone, and we can all get back to our evenings?” Jack said firmly, stepping forward and offering the man a brief window to snatch his clipboard from the sidewalk.

“Why don’t you just mind your own business, asshole!”

“I’m not looking for a fight,” said Jack.

“Then back the fuck off.”

“Not until you let this man return to his job in peace,” said Jack.

The boy snickered. “You’re probably one of them. The both of you. Short-stringers,” he said, his words drenched in malice.

When Jack refused to respond or step away, the boy turned his head slightly, as if about to back down, before swiftly pivoting back, fist flying toward Jack’s chin.

Incredibly, Jack blocked the punch.

The boy’s friend then swung at him from the side, but Jack managed to shield himself again.

Stunned and angered, the two boys each tried another maneuver, but still Jack fended them off. What the frustrated boys couldn’t have known was that Jack wasn’t on the streets of New York anymore. He was back in the ring with Javier. Sparring against his best friend, his brother. Subliminally memorizing Javier’s moves, and how to defend against them.

Jack really didn’t want to hit the kids, but he figured it was his only way out, so he landed a jab in each boy’s stomach, nothing too hard, just enough to send the message that the battle was over.

And when the boys both staggered back, and Jack realized what had happened, he smiled to himself. Even when he wasn’t around, Javi always had his six.



After the boys had fled in defeat, a police officer arrived. He was taking the canvasser’s statement when the young pregnant woman, who must have called the cops, walked over to Jack.

“You’re quite the fighter,” she said.

Jack’s body was still trembling with adrenaline, and his wrists were sore, but it was nothing compared to the pain of that brutal fistfight during freshman year, when he had been knocked clean on his ass in front of all his new classmates, and Javi had to steal ice from the kitchen to keep his face from swelling.

“Thanks,” Jack said. “I’m normally not that . . . capable.”

“I’m Lea.” The woman smiled.

“Jack.”

“Well, Jack, I’m on my way to a discussion group tonight. So, thank you for giving me a good story to share.”

Jack noticed, then, that the girl was wearing a gold pin on her sweater, with a design he had never seen before: two curving lines intertwined, like the snakes twisted around Hermes’s caduceus, only these lines were of two different lengths.

Lea spotted his curiosity. “It’s two strings,” she explained. “One long and one short. For solidarity.”

“Did you make that?” Jack asked.

“My brother gave it to me,” she explained. “I think someone just started selling them on Etsy, but apparently they’re catching on pretty fast. Wes Johnson even wore one last week.”

Something his uncle would surely hate, Jack thought.

“Do you think that’s really why they were so cruel?” Lea asked. “Because the man was working for Johnson?”

Jack shrugged.

“I can’t believe the stuff they said about short-stringers.” Lea shuddered.

“Well, hopefully now they’ll think twice before saying something like that again.”

“Thank you,” Lea said solemnly.

The gravity of her tone struck Jack. “It was just two bullies looking for kicks, maybe some cash,” he said. “It was really nothing.”

“You saw something wrong, and you didn’t look away,” said Lea. “That’s not nothing.”

Jack remembered what Javi had said during their argument. That it wasn’t just about Anthony’s ego, not anymore. People’s lives were at stake now. People who had been dealt a hand far worse than Jack’s, no matter how many times he complained about his family, wishing his life were different. Javi tried to tell him that, to pull him out of his self-absorption.