In the summer of 1980, Rob Curatola and I played on the same team at Tiger Basketball Camp. I was a spaghetti-limbed, prepubescent 12-year-old. Rob, a formidable ten-year old, was still encased in baby fat. We made up the team’s front court, with me leaping incessantly around under the basket, doing my frantic best, and Rob expertly racking up points and rebounds, the calm middle of nearly every successful play. Off the court, we complemented each other as well. Over lunch in the camp cafeteria, I would talk nonstop and Rob would nod and smile, apparently entertained.

During the school year, Rob, the youngest of eight siblings, played for Sacred Heart, and I played for St. Teresa’s. The most feared player from St. Teresa’s was 11-year-old point guard, Joey T, who was also attending camp. Because I could leap up and touch the backboard, something no other St. Teresa’s kid could do, Joey held me in high esteem. But around almost everybody else, especially kids from rival parishes, he was cocky and defiant. Every morning, Joey arrived wearing a jean jacket over his uniform, with Pink Floyd–The Wall cover art painted on the back – a screaming face breaking through a barrier of white brick. Once, along Victory Boulevard, I’d seen him give the finger to a bus. When a kid inside gave it back, Joey threw a rock at the window.

One afternoon between games at Tiger Basketball Camp, Joey and Rob were standing a few yards away from me at the Staten Island Academy gym, just talking. That’s what it looked like anyway, with Joey not peacocking any more than usual, and Rob his normal unruffled self, shrugging occasionally and replying with one or two words. All of a sudden, Joey let rip with a flurry of punches to Rob’s face, getting in a half dozen blows before Rob even had a chance to put up his hands. Finally, Rob took a step back, planted his foot, and unleashed a single overhand right, the only punch he threw. It passed like a bolt through Joey’s flailing fists, snapping Joey’s head back and dropping him limply to the floor. The whole thing was over so fast that the counselors didn’t have time to break it up.

“Reel,” said one of the counselors, “go with Curatola to the locker room. Help him cool off.” Cool off? Rob hadn’t lost his cool. Although he did seem agitated now that it was over.

We walked off the court together. As we sat side by side between the banks of lockers, he stared at the floor, shaking his head, and wiping his face over and over. I described to him everything I’d seen, how Joey’s fists had seemed to fly out of nowhere, unanswered, until Rob dug in and threw the equalizer. Story over. I’d never seen anyone get knocked out before. Rob seemed just as incredulous. As I played the scene back for him, he kept his head down, nodding as though he were grateful for the details, while his hands kept wiping and brushing at his face in a herky-jerky way, like grains of sand were stuck to it.

Twenty-one years later, Rob, by then a New York City firefighter, would die when the second tower of the World Trade Center fell on him. He was last seen dragging an injured man to safety, after which he turned to go back into the building. He was found beneath a fire truck, which I imagine he slid beneath, as the building collapsed, waiting for the debris to stop falling, coolly planning his next move, waiting for his chance.

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John Julius Reel is the author of My Half Orange: A Story of Love and Language in Seville. He lives in Seville, Spain, where he teaches writing to study-abroad students and works at Canal Sur Radio, part of the Andalusian public broadcasting network. He can be found at johnjuliusreel.com