Reaching for the Marbles

The winner doesn’t always get the prize and the victor doesn’t always get the spoils but heroes are always known for what they leave behind. At least this was the case with Johnny Kirk. Johnny, a few years my elder, was just one of the neighborhood children that made a lasting impression on me. He was the greatest marble player I have ever seen even to this day and also the best snake catcher. Other kids, like the Wilson boys, made lasting impressions on me, also. They were heroes just for staying alive. Their dad was an ex-fighter and a real loser so he took most of his frustration out on those two boys. Jeannie Jones was the tomboy. She was also a few years my elder and the first girl or person for that matter that I knew that owned a motor scooter. She also cooked the best baked potatoes you will ever eat and she cooked them in a hole dug in the ground with hot coals.

The meanest person I knew was also a girl named Earline and also a tomboy and also the big sister of the Wilson boys. She could out curse a Charleston sailor and whip his you know what while doing it. It was nothing to receive a head slap from her on the back of the head. This usually meant you were still in her good graces and that you had not ticked her off in a while. My sweetheart lived down the street. She was also a few years my elder and extremely beautiful. I hate figs but every summer I would pick those nasty things and take them to her mother in hopes that I could catch a glimpse of her or have her smile at me at the door. Do you know what a bunch of rotten figs feel like when mashed between your toes? I hope not. I prefer not to tell you her name because it was a secret love affair of mine and I still would not want her to know it even though she came to my eight year old birthday party and every body joked about me being in love with her.


The rest of us kids in the neighborhood were just normal. No one seemed to notice us much. We were the team players the tag alongs and the non-trouble makers. We worshipped the others but wouldn’t dare admit it. If we admitted it we would be accepting our normality and that was not going to happen. Though we knew we were the worshippers we never wanted the worshipped to know that they were worshipped. This would destroy most of these relationships and when all you had were these friendships you could not handle the loss of one unless of course someone moved away. This is how we lost Johnny Kirk. In fact this is the way we lost everybody.

Moving away was the escape, the reward, and sometimes the best thing that could happen to a young kid in that neighborhood. No one would really mourn the loss of one of us ordinary kids but the day that Johnny Kirk left was a big day in our ordinary lives. Johnny had not prepared us and we were not ready to say goodbye. The truck just pulled up and they started loading it as if nothing was out of the ordinary but everything was out of the ordinary. Today was suppose to be a regular day when Johnny and I would play some marbles, burn some snakes, or just aggravate the hound out of the Wilson boy’s big sister Earline. Today was to be a day of fun and torture and I had enough money to buy a new bag of marbles to lose to Johnny. Today was not supposed to be the day that I would remember all of my life. It was not suppose to be a life changing experience kind of day. I was angry, sad, and lost all in one moment. How could Johnny leave me here with all these other ordinary kids and the Wilson’s boy’s big sister? She will kill me now. She will be the King of the hill and I’ll be a real nobody. I can’t even beat her in marbles even though I’m as good as she is. She always gets mad when she loses and beats up the one who takes her marbles. I’m smart enough not to beat her and that is the very reason Johnny wouldn’t allow her to play with us. Now my protector, my hero, my teacher, and best friend is moving. I want to die. Well, that will come soon enough. Finally, I find myself in Johnny’s yard watching them load the truck. The entire neighborhood had gathered there or just across the street to watch.


No one had looked up to see Johnny’s big surprise. No one could imagine what Johnny had done. Everyone just sat quietly watching as the man of the hour helped load his families’ furniture on the truck. Johnny’s mother had taken some blue denim cloth from the mill and had sewn together a large bag with a drawstring in the top. This was where Johnny had kept his marbles. There must have been a million marbles in there. I know that I lost a few thousand to him myself including my prize shooter. I, like most of the other kids were not allowed to gamble but playing for keeps as we called it just did not seem like gambling. My mother knew I was losing the marbles she bought me but with a wink she would always buy me more. It was like she understood even though as she gave them to me she would lecture me against gambling with them. I just knew that when I did God would forgive me for playing for keeps because we had to learn somehow. The kids that played for fun were wusses and not real challenging and besides that, it wasn’t fun anyway. The thrill of playing for shooters was the greatest thing except maybe for seeing my sweetheart smile at me. Nothing made your heart race faster than waiting your turn to shoot. You would aim with all the strength you could muster and release that shooter toward those helpless marbles. You would watch them scatter outside the circle drawn into the dirt then pick up your winnings while hoping your shooter would stop before it too came out of the circle. If your shooter stayed in the circle you could shoot again and again till it too came out of the circle. It was the greatest of thrills so I thought at the time.


The curtains were already down and the house was already looking bad. An empty house always begins to look bad after a short time. You really never see the chipped paint or the torn shingles or the rust dripping form the gutters while someone lives there. It is funny how living in a home makes no one notice such things. No matter how much I try not to think about it, Johnny is still moving. Johnny is going to say “adios partner”. Johnny will tip his hat and say “we’ll be seeing ya good buddy”. He will rare up on his horse if Johnny had a horse and say “see you later, Tonto”. Someone yelled out to Johnny asking him where he was moving. Johnny then told us that he was moving just a few streets over on the other side of the railroad tracks. This was devastating to us. A few blocks away would not be so bad but we all knew we would not ever see him again because of the railroad tracks. We were not allowed to cross the railroad tracks. This was not like playing for keeps or burning snakes for that matter. We were not allowed to do that either but if we were caught crossing those tracks it would be a belt burning night at our house and my rear end would be the kindling. No more games of marbles and no more life, as I knew it. How on earth would we cope?


Johnny was ready to pull out with the last load. As he pulled away he was laughing and waiving good bye and pointing to the tree that stood beside his house and with that he was gone. Some of us watched till he was out of sight and others stood there in amazement at what Johnny had been pointing to in the tree. You have to understand that this tree was huge. It was a water oak tree that never lost all of its leaves. It was the very tree that made playing marbles in Johnny’s yard possible because the shade from the huge tree would never allow enough light to filter through to grow grass. This left the dirt for us to draw our circles in which we played marbles. I had ruined many pairs of jeans by kneeling in the dirt to play marbles. Most of my playing outside jeans had two or three patches on them. This tree was our refuge in the summer from the rays of the sun. We played in the streets till way after dark because of the canopy that it made. A streetlight was lower than it limbs and would direct enough light on the street to make even stick ball possible. This was the tree of trees and hanging in that tree high on a limb was Johnny’s bag of marbles. They were impossible to get. No one had ever climbed that tree. The fire department wouldn’t be able to get them down. I assume Johnny was saying goodbye the best way he knew how by leaving his greatest prize behind. Maybe this was his way of moving out of boyhood into adolescence. Maybe this was his way of leaving the challenge to the next leader to be. Whoever obtained that bag of marbles would be the new hero and the new leader and the new King of the hill.


We all stood in silence looking at that bag of marbles in that tree. Then without a warning we all scattered to find the right tool needed to knock that bag down. Many days passed and thousands of attempts were made but no one prevailed. The Wilson boy’s sister tried harder than the rest of us. Johnny was long gone but he was still the hero and still the leader and still the King of the hill. No one could take his place until that bag of marbles came down and I was sure that only a tornado would be able to do that and we were nowhere near tornado season. The day finally came when we were all so focused on bringing down that bag of marbles that we had dedicated the whole day to making it happen. We made spears out of bamboo and bows and arrows out of tree limbs and we loaded our arsenal with BBs to use with our slingshots because not one of us had a BB gun. We had been at it most of the day when a young boy from another neighborhood past by. We were not allowed to pass through other neighborhoods unless we were walking to school but because our neighborhood was near both stores we seem to always have traffic from others. Of course, this young boy wanted to know what all the fuss was about. We started to tell him about Johnny Kirk and the hero he was as well as all the nice things he had done and finally we showed him the bag of marbles that hang on the tree branch entirely out of our reach. The young barefooted boy said that he would get the bag and started climbing up the tree. He used his fingers and toes like a monkey and using only the bark of the tree began to climb. Finally I was going to get my prize shooter back and some of the many marbles I had lost to Johnny Kirk. I knew this because the bag of marbles was too large for the young boy to carry down the tree if he was successful in reaching the marbles. I knew that he would have to drop them to be able to climb down. I knew that even though I was not the biggest person there I was not the smallest either and that no one person would be able to carry off this bag of marbles. All of this hinged on whether this outside intruder to our neighborhood would make it all the way out on that limb and untie the bag and drop it to us. We all gasped for air as he slipped but did not fall. He was very strong to be able to hold onto the branches as he did. I am glad that no adult had seen him in the tree as I’m sure they would have called the police or fire department. to come to his rescue. Finally he made it to the bag and while balancing his body on the tree limb he was able to untie the string that held the bag to the limb. We all rejoiced and danced in the street and calling out to the boy as to what we felt he should do with this bag of marbles. Drop it we said, let it down so we can help you, we said. Sweat had started to bead on the boys lips by now and we knew at any moment we were going to have our prize. We didn’t seem to worry about the boy anymore but only the bag of marbles. With the bag in his teeth he began a very slow and methodical crawl backwards to the tree trunk. Backwards he continued down the trunk of the tree until he dropped safely to the ground never letting go of the marbles. Sweaty, dirty and exhausted and with a big smile on his face the young boy began walking away with our marbles. We outnumbered him and we could have overpowered him to take away those marbles but we did not. We all stood in amazement at what we had witnessed. Even the Tomboy Jeanie Jones did nothing to stop him. After that there was very little talk of the bag of marbles or Johnnie Kirk or the boy who miraculously climbed that tree. We moved on as if nothing had happened but our lives had really changed. The Wilson family moved away and the tomboy Jeannie Jones was sent to reform school and my girlfriend never did find out that I was in love with her. The tree finally got too old and was cut down and I guess I also moved on myself. No one ever stepped forth as the leader or the hero or the protector. Life became difficult and more complex as we grew older. Families were started and babies came and jobs grew depressing and we all kept reaching for the marbles. God gives us many chances and many opportunities to learn from our adventures. I think that I brought away from this one an amazement for the different type of people that God made and the different talents that they possess. I think I better understand the limits that I have as a person but at the same time the possibilities that I have as a person. Maybe I did not get my marbles back and maybe I did not get the girl or was not the hero but I was there and I experienced it.