I’m so excited, I’ve never done one of these before. I think I have one obscure enough it might stump the band…
I would have read this in the late 1970s, 1980 at the absolute latest. It was a story about a group of kids, all boys I think, who were in their early to mid teens. The story had an urban setting and the boys were underpriveleged, but I don’t remember if they were clearly identified as belonging to any particular racial or ethnic group.
The boys used to hang out at a sort of Boy’s Club in their neighborhood that offered various activities to keep them out of trouble. The club was privately run on a shoestring budget but one of the attractions was that it had an indoor swimming pool. Near the beginning of the story the main character (narrator? I don’t remember if it is written in the first person or not) is swimming in the pool and is bitten by a rat.
I only remember fragments of the rest of the book: They aren’t able to catch the rat so they don’t know if it is rabid. The health authorities threaten to close the club down. Some of the older kids end up patrolling the club at night armed with BB guns or something to try to hunt the rats. Also, I think one of the older kids has a car which he can barely afford. He donates pints of his own blood for money to buy gas for his car, and is always carrying around iron pills so he won’t become anemic and can continue to give blood.
The book ends with a large tentlike enclosure being built over the building so the rats can be fumigated but something goes wrong during the process and there is a fire and/or explosion and the club is destroyed.
That is all I remember. I don’t think I am confusing two or more different stories but maybe I am. Anyone have any ideas?
