Like most young boys in the 1950s, Roy often wondered what it would have been like to have lived in the Old West. Movies and television shows mostly glorified those days, despite frontier lawlessness and having to fight hostile Indians. The reality that not many people lived into let alone past their thirties did not enter into Roy’s thinking; to a seven or eight year old, thirty or more years might as well be two hundred. Neither did the idea of men killing one another without remorse deter Roy and his playmates in the least. Growing up in Chicago, they were used to hearing and reading about gangsters strangling and shooting their adversaries; also, most of the boys were sons of men who had fought in World War II, some of whom had been wounded or had brothers who died in battle. Violent death was a not unfamiliar circumstance, nor was it devoid of meaning; but this did not preclude their pantomiming violence in their fantasy scenarios.
Rube Danko, a ten year old cousin of Roy’s friend Billy Katz, had, thanks to Billy, the reputation of being an exceptionally fast draw. Danko lived in a rough neighborhood, and Billy bragged about how tough his cousin was. When Billy brought him around one day, Roy was surprised that even though Rube was a couple of years older, he was short and pudgy. Danko didn’t look tough and had a seemingly permanent grin on his puffy-cheeked face. He did not say much, and agreed to participate in whatever games his cousin and the other boys were playing. Danko wore a shiny silver and black gunbelt and badly scuffed brown and white cowboy boots, a black cowboy hat, blue jeans and a green T-shirt with the words Logan Square Boys Club written on it in white lettering.
Jimmy Boyle, Tommy Cunningham and Roy were the good guys; Katz, Danko and Murphy were the bad guys. Following a big shootout, only two boys were left standing: Roy and Rube Danko. The final showdown was between them, a quick-draw gunfight. Whoever pulled their gun and fired first won; the losers would then have to buy cokes for everyone.
Roy and Danko faced off ten feet apart. Katz’s cousin was grinning, fingering the butt of his gun. Roy drew, pointed his revolver at Rube and shouted, “Bang!” Danko did not draw, just stood there smiling. Finally, he pulled his pistol and fired it twice into the air.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “they’re blanks, and I’ll buy the Cokes.”
Later that day, after Rube had left, Jimmy Boyle said to Billy Katz, “Your cousin is weird. What if those bullets weren’t really blanks?”
“His father works for the government,” said Billy. “The FBI, maybe. I’m not sure. The gun must belong to him.”
“Did you know it was real?” Roy asked.
Katz shook his head.
“The kid’s crazy,” said Tommy. “Why’s he always smiling?”
Johnny Murphy pushed Billy in his chest and said, “Don’t bring him around to play with us any more.”
A couple of years later, Billy told Roy that his cousin Rube had gotten killed playing Russian Roulette.
“He was probably smiling when he pulled the trigger,” Roy said.