Lloyd Court - and Lloyd

The two parts of this title have little to do with one another, other than their being significant artifacts from my career as a Safety Boy. The first is a street, usually written as “Lloyd Ct.,” but henceforth to be pronounced by you, dear reader, as “Lloyd Coit” (I’ll explain why later on). The second is a pseudonym for a boy who deserves to not have his real name associated with the sad story I intend to tell.

To begin, let’s talk about Safety Boys and their counterparts, the Service Squad Girls. I’m not sure either of these still exists in today’s public schools, but throughout the 50s and 60s they were important instruments of school decorum. Service Squad Girls had various duties. First, they sold ice cream, bringing a tray of cups and bars on a stick to each table, making you raise your hand before accepting your nickel. They patrolled the lunchroom watching for misbehavior. Before you could leave your seat you needed to raise your hand, and if the SS Girl determined you had sufficiently cleaned your place, she would formally announce, “You may go.” The Girls also stood guard at the slop counter where the kids who bought a hot lunch would leave their trays. Finally, on rainy days when there was no lunchtime recess, there’d be Girl watching over every 1st through 3rd grade class, allowing their teachers to eat their lunches in peace.

But Safety Boys got the glory jobs; patrolling the playground, school buses, and street corners, and every winter morning they’d get hot chocolate. And while the Girls got to wear modest little armbands, the Boys were issued amazingly cool looking white belts with an even cooler looking shoulder strap. It was a combination that struck fear into most kids, at least the younger, more innocent ones. Plus – and this was big – Safety Boys got to “report” kids; that is, sort of like “arrest” them and get them in trouble with whichever 6th grade teacher was heading up the Safety Patrol that year. SS girls could report you, of course, but I don’t remember it ever happening.

Once as a 2nd grader, I got reported for fighting on the playground (I don’t even remember who I was fighting with). We were taken to Mr. Gabriel, the scariest teacher at Oxford School. He held us against the lockers with his huge arms. Despite his height, he managed to get about two inches away from our faces. Then softly, slowly, but oh so sternly he warned us, “No more fighting. And I don’t ever want to see either of you like this again.” I nearly wet my pants.

Three years later, a bunch of us 5th grade boys were chosen for I guess what you’d call limited duty or “auxiliary” Safety Boys. Boys without belts. We’d get to patrol a nearby street corner at lunch. And this is how I ended up on Lloyd Court, “the dangerous corner.” Though not a very long street, Lloyd Ct. connected Coburn Avenue with U.S. 24, Telegraph Road, a multilane divided highway running from Detroit all the way to Kansas City. A quarter mile to the north, Telegraph intersected with U.S. 12, Michigan Avenue, which ran from Detroit all the way to the Pacific Ocean! The intersection was a marvelous concrete cloverleaf; the only spot in the country where two even numbered U.S. highways, one being double the other, crossed each other. Each day, thousands of cars and trucks passed in four directions, on their way to who knows where.

How disappointing it was for me, then, to discover that seldom if ever did any cars travel down Lloyd Ct. It became known as “the dangerous corner” only because of Jeff Biggers’ sharp sense of sarcastic irony. He even came up with this little song about it, which I will gladly sing for you on request.

“Lloyd Coit, the dangerous corner!
Lloyd Coit, the dangerous corner!”

The day would come, however, when “Lloyd Coit” indeed became a very dangerous corner; albeit in an approximate, vaguely indirect sort of way.

It was a sunny spring day. I had nearly finished crossing all the kids heading home to lunch; which is to say I had crossed the one little girl and one little boy who walked home that way. Having accomplished another busy day’s work, I headed back toward the school. But for some reason, a moment or two later, I turned looked back over my shoulder at the deceptively quiet intersection and saw something so strange, so troubling, that I would barely be able to eat my second helping of meatloaf before later reporting it to the Safety Patrol teacher supervisor, Mr. Kotyk.

(Editor’s note: Roger doesn’t exactly remember whether or not he ate his lunch before reporting what you’re about to read. But he did think it was funny to imagine that he had.)

The boy who every day crossed Lloyd Ct. and headed left for home had been picked up by a black car. Or dark green maybe. Anyway, he’d gotten into a car and I’d never seen him do this before. So I told Mrs. Berry, who sent me to tell Mr. Kotyk, who apparently called the police. An hour or so later, Mr. Kodyk came to Mrs. Berry’s classroom, called me out to the hall, and gave me the news I dreaded to hear.

“It was his father. His father picked him up to take him to lunch.”

“Oh…good,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment.

“But it was good that you reported it,” Mr. Kodyk said in a somber respectful voice, and I headed back to class. Of course I had told all my pals about what I’d seen, including Jeff Biggers and Johnny Kotlarczyk, who as soon as they had a chance began singing, “Lloyd Coit, the dangerous corner!”

And that’s the story of Lloyd Court. Looks like there’s not enough time tonight to tell the other story, the story of Lloyd, a boy who all you who were there at the time know was not really named “Lloyd,” but whose name I must change because it’s simply the decent thing to do.

Next time: The Further Adventures of Roger of the Safety Patrol: The Lloyd Story.