“Take a look for yourself.”

He hands me this printout of a page he must have gotten from some old Internet newspaper archive. An old society page from the Daily News. It shows a picture of a baby with the caption: Mr. and Mrs. Charles Crawley III announce the birth of a daughter, Lexis Lynn Crawley.

As Ira and Howie huddled around me to look at the picture, Schwa got shouldered out of the way.

“Lexis?” said Ira. “She’s named after a car?”

“Spelled differently,” I pointed out.

“Well,” says Howie, “it looks like she didn’t have a peg head at birth.”

In fact, it didn’t look like there was anything wrong with baby Lexis at all. “Hey, wait a second,” I said. “Look at the date on that article—she’s not a little kid at all. She’s our age.”

“Hmm,” said Ira. “Whatever’s wrong with her, maybe she wasn’t born with it.”

“Maybe she developed leprosy at puberty,” says Howie. “I hear that happens.”

“Yeah, maybe in Calcutta or something, but not in Brooklyn.”

“Maybe she traveled,” says Howie, “and brought it back with her, like the flu or mad cow.”

“Well,” says Ira, “whatever’s up with her, you’ll find out soon enough.” He and Howie returned to their spot on the floor and picked up their game controllers.

“C’mon, Antsy, you playing or what?”

The Schwa may have been used to being treated like he wasn’t there, but it didn’t mean he had to like it. I could see an anger beginning to rise in him, simmering like beef stew in my mother’s Crock-Pot, which meant indigestion and heartburn were only moments away.

“Hey!” he shouted to Howie and Ira. “The ice cream man’s giving out free Popsicles,” he said. If they heard him, they ignored him. He got louder. “Did you hear Martians invaded Long Island?” No response. His Crock-Pot began to boil. “Tidal wave’s headed for Brooklyn,” the Schwa shouted at them. “We have five minutes to live.”

Howie and Ira just kept on playing.

I could see what was about to happen here. It was what you call “en passant.” It’s a move in chess. One pawn gives an enemy pawn the cold shoulder as it moves two squares ahead. So the ignored pawn has the right to kick the rude pawn’s sorry butt off the board, just because it wants to. It’s the only move I know where you get busted just for ignoring the enemy.

So here I am standing in my own basement, watching Howie and Ira walking straight into an en passant. It was their way of putting our friendship to the test. We’ve had enough of the Schwa, is what they were silently saying. Are you our friend, or are you his?