As the new, friendless, American kid at JFK, I became accustomed to sitting up against the exterior wall of Ms. Estelle’s classroom during recess and eating my bagged lunch alone.  While I munched on my potato chips and pb & j sandwich, I often looked out at the playground and watched my classmates and the other students playing tag and soccer, having competitive chicken fights on the monkey bars, and socializing amongst each other.  When I was done eating, I would aimlessly wander around campus hoping to find something to do.  For the most part, I would end up on the blacktop to watch the girls practice their double dutch jump roping or to the soccer field to try and get picked up for a game.  Because I did not speak Spanish, however, the prospect of me being able to talk my way into playing was grim.  All I longed for was someone to talk to—someone to play with—someone that would make my time at school a little more bearable.  With lunch and recess being combined into one large, unmonitored hour of freedom and, in my case, loneliness, I grew increasingly less patient in my waiting for a fellow student to approach and befriend me.  I came to realize that I needed to change my passive approach if I wanted to make friends. 

My first attempt at making friends took place on the soccer field during recess.  Having been a talented soccer player back in the U.S, I hoped that my athleticism would get me noticed out on the schoolyard and maybe result in some sort of camaraderie through sports.  With this plan, I made my way to the outdoor sports area of JFK and found a group of students lined up in front of the goal practicing their penalty kicks.  Without saying a word, I jogged up to the back of the line and waited my turn to take a shot.  As I deduced from the situation, if you made your penalty kick, you were then allowed to play in the soccer game that was to follow; if you missed, however, you weren’t allowed to start and could either stand on the sideline and watch, wait for one of the starters to temporarily substitute themselves out of the game, or leave.  As time passed and the line grew shorter, I became increasingly more nervous with such stakes on the line.  If I made it, I could play and perhaps make some friends; if I missed, I was back at square one—rock bottom—Loserville.  I wasn’t interested in waiting to be subbed in either because with the amount of people who would be on the sideline with me, my chances of getting the nod were slim.  Most likely, a friend would sub in for a friend, or at least for someone they knew.  There was everything to gain from this opportunity, but not much to lose except for a bit of pride; it wasn’t as if I had a reputation to uphold as I knew nobody, and nobody knew me.

Finally, as the kid in front of me took and made his penalty kick, it was my turn.  Without a word, the black and white Adidas soccer ball was slowly kicked to my feet at the 18-yard line and I awkwardly, at a half jog half walk pace, dribbled it to the penalty kick line 12 yards from the goal.  As I had found from past experience, a successful shot begins with the proper positioning of the ball, and having taken many penalty kicks in my life, I made sure that the ball was positioned just right for a perfect strike—right on top of the grass’ highest point—so that the ball would be propped up as if it were sitting on a tee.  As I took my three steps backwards into position, I looked ahead towards my target to see both where the goalie was standing as well as where I wanted to place the ball.  As I watched the goalie athletically hop around on the balls of his feet, ready to pounce, I chose the bottom left corner of the goal as my target.  Not only was that my go-to location, it was also opportunistically the farthest distance away from the goalie.  To throw him off, however, I then stared at the right side of the goal to make it look like I was focusing on a target; the right side would be the last place he’d see me looking and maybe that would make him think to dive leftward when I shot.  Hopefully, if all went well, he would make a dive to my right while I was kicking to the left.  With my sights set and my legs shaking with adrenaline, I took a final, calming breath and went for it.

With a picture of the goal, the goalie’s relative position, and where I wanted the ball to go in my mind, I took my first step forward towards the propped up, soon-to-be projectile.  My left leg lead the charge, followed by my right.  It was after my third step that I then, with my eyes on the ball, planted my left foot and let it rip.  I kicked the ball as hard as I could, knowing that if I aimed correctly and hit it just right, there would be no chance of my shot being stopped by the goalie—especially if my mini mind game with him worked as planned.  In my head, during that split second, I imagined the ball rocketing towards the bottom left corner as planned, hitting the side netting of the inside of the goal as the goalie dived the other way, hearing clapping from the other boys, and assuming my rightful position on the soccer team.  As the ball left my foot, however, it didn’t feel right—the strike wasn’t clean.  At a great rate of speed, the ball streaked towards the left as I had intended, but was hit too hard to have been accurate.  Milliseconds felt like hours, but as I optimistically looked on, the ball continued on its missile-like path past the goal and pounded into the chain link fence that surrounded the field.  The shot was off so much so that the goalie did not even leave his feet, let alone dive left.  Disappointed in myself, and my most recent failure to socially expand, I walked back towards Ms. Estelle’s classroom to the tune of laughs and taunts from my could-have-been teammates and friends. 

Feeling discouraged and defeated on the walk back, I began to think that perhaps making friends with complete strangers wasn’t my best bet and that I should instead try to connect with someone whom I was more acquainted with—someone who at least knew who I was.  The next day, in the interest of proximity and convenience, I approached my classmate, Rodrigo, as we exited the classroom for lunch and asked him if he’d like to eat together.  Rodrigo spoke very rough English but his understanding was sufficient enough to hold a generic back-and-forth conversation.  After taking a quick look at his friends, then returning his gaze back to me, he responded gruffly yet obligingly in saying “Of course, Joy, les be frens.”  Trying to play it cool, yet relieved and excited by the opportunity, I walked beside Rodrigo and his posse to a small green picnic table that sat in a shaded area between two annexed classroom buildings.  As I remember, the conversation was very light and had to do with where we both were from, how I liked Mexico and JFK so far, and which girls in class we thought were cute.  I didn’t gain much of a sense of what Rodrigo or his friends were like from our conversation, but I was happy to have broken down the wall of seclusion that I had long been surrounded by.  

By the end of lunch, we both sat at the table, faced with the pile of empty bags, tins, and wrappers that remained from our meal.  Seeing that we both had trash to dispose of, I offered to Rodrigo, as a sort of friendly gesture, to dispose of both his and my trash so that we could perhaps go play on the playground or socialize with some more of his other friends.  Appreciating my offer, Rodrigo thanked me and then turned to his friends to talk while he waited.  In one trip, I managed to carry and dispose of both of our trash, including his glass container of lemon-lime Gatorade and fun-size can of sour cream and onion Pringles.  The green barrel-turned-trashcan that I used to dispose of our garbage, however, had been filled nearly to the top which led to some of the lighter trash being blown out by the breeze.  Realizing what was happening, I then buried the empty Ziploc bags and Chewy granola bar wrappers under the heavy, glass Gatorade bottle and flattened the cylindrical Pringles can in an effort to save space and reduce contact area by the wind.  With one stomp, the cardboard container turned into an accordion-like cardboard spring that stayed in the trashcan without issue.

When I returned from throwing out our trash, Rodrigo and his friends had gotten up and were ready to leave when Rodrigo asked, “Hey, Joy, where my Pringles can go?”  Confused by his question, I thought at first that he was making sure that I hadn’t forgotten to throw it away.  With confidence, I reassured him that it was in the trash and that he didn’t have to worry about it—I had taken care of it.  It was at this point that the mood changed.  Rodrigo went from being kind and mannerly to brash and aggressive.  “I need!” he said with a sort of desperation in his voice.  “What do you mean you need it?” I asked.  “Why do you need an empty Pringles can?”  With this, he stormed to the bee-infested trashcan and scanned its contents for the green, sour cream and onion Pringles container.  He quickly spotted the can on the top of the trash pile as it had just recently been disposed of, then looked at me with a mixed expression of horror and rage.  “You crush my can!” he yelled.  “My mama need this!"  In an effort to remain calm and hopefully neutralize his anger, I composedly told him that I was sorry and didn’t know and that if he wanted, I could bring him a new can of Pringles just like that one to lunch tomorrow.  This apparently was unacceptable to him and without giving the situation an objective reconsideration, Rodrigo roared “KILL THE AMERICAN!!!” and lurched towards me. 

This initial attempt to capture and presumably hurt me failed, but the situation immediately escalated into a real life game of cat and mouse.  With my life seemingly on the line, I ran as fast as I could through the schoolyard, dodging and eluding each attempted grab, punch, trip, kick, and scratch by Rodrigo and his friends-turned-thugs.  As I ran throughout the schoolyard like a frightened gazelle in the African grasslands, I had my head on a swivel looking for any surrounding, potential threats.  After 10-15 minutes of frantic bully evasion, to my relief, the bell rang, signaling an end to recess and the recommencement of class.

More thankful than ever for my unintelligible classes to start, I bolted to Ms. Estelle’s classroom as if my life depended on it.  As I sat down in my assigned seat gasping for air and wiping the sweat from my brow, I watched the door as Rodrigo and his goons entered one by one seemingly unsettled by the fact that they were not able to catch me.  I knew I was safe for the time being, but the prospect of Rodrigo and I being friends was, at this point, wishful thinking at best.  For the rest of the school day, I dodged glare after menacing glare from Rodrigo and his friends and couldn’t help but think what he had in store for me as revenge. A fight after school?  Throwing my next lunch on the ground and stomping on it like I had to his beloved Pringles can?  Whatever the case, I couldn’t help but think how something like this would have never happened at Midland Academy back in Saginaw.  For one, there would be lunch/recess aides to help sort out any kind of scuffle or disagreement.  Moreover, nobody would have put a snack size can of Pringles on such a pedestal the way Rodrigo had.  Whatever the case, Rodrigo had it in for me and I was consistently on the defensive at lunchtime from then on.