However, I was always creative and knew a good story would come to me by the time I turned around.
I slowly turned and lowered my head slightly, avoiding any eye contact. I waited for the hammer of God to come down upon me; I waited for the yelling to start, or the beginning of the inquisition. However, after a moment of silence I raised my head and looked back at my dad. As I turned my body, I could see his eyes moving slowly over my face. He stared at my cheek and the cuts with concern in his eyes. Just then, as I held my breath waiting for his anger to boil over, I could see a big smile forming on his face.
“What’s so funny?” I thought to myself.
His gaze was now not on my face, but down at the crotch of my pants. There was a huge wet circle on the front of my pants, where the wet bag had leaked through. The bag also left one with the impression that I was much more endowed by the Creator than was rightfully the case.
“The girls are gonna like you when you grow up, but you’ll have to learn not to pee yourself first,” he said laughing. In fact, he laughed so hard at his stupid joke that I thought he might fall down.
“Hey, why don’t you come in here and take a look at your son,” he yelled out to mom in the kitchen.
“What are you yelling about?”
He then walked back towards the kitchen to open the door and invited her in to come see this humorous scene. I knew no good was going to come of this, so I bolted out the front door.
I ran as fast as I could down to the corner until I was out of sight. All I wanted to do was to get rid of the bag and dispose of the evidence. However, this was a tricky proposition, what to do with the bag. I knew it would be a bit embarrassing if anyone saw me pulling a bag out of my underpants. Another block away, I saw the perfect disposal spot. There was an old dilapidated apartment building that was in the process of being demolished. It was being torn down, to make room for a new row of houses, but for some reason they had stopped the demolition halfway through the job.
As I approached the building, I could see a small window that led to the cellar. I leaned over to look in and could see an empty room with a couple of broken chairs stacked in the corner. Even though it was getting dark, I could see that there were broken bottles in the corner and with pieces of glass strewn across the floor. They reflected the light like diamonds.
You could not get into the building through the front door; bricks and rubble blocked it. I thought however, that I might just be able to squeeze my body through the small window and lower myself down to the cellar floor below. It looked like it would be a tight fit, but I was sure I could get my slim torso through. I also thought about how embarrassing it would be if I got half way in and got stuck. All this just to ditch a wet bag and a bloody shirt, it hardly seemed worth it.
Feeling confident about getting inside and excited about what wonderful bounty might wait beyond the walls I got down on my stomach and turned around facing away from the building. I went in legs first, facing backwards until I could feel my waist pushing tightly against all four sides of the window. For a moment, I thought I might be stuck, but as I lowered my legs, gravity seemed to take over. As my waist slipped through the rest of me, fell like a brick and hit the cellar floor with a thud. I was stunned for a minute, but quickly recovered my bearings.
I looked around in wonder at the scene around me. It looked as though all the discarded items from the building ended up in the cellar. Tables, chairs, old silverware, broken candles, and a whole world of odds and ends were scattered everywhere. Even in the dim light, I knew right away that this might be the perfect clubhouse Johnny and I always talked about building someday. The place where we could get away from everybody and everything, a private world full of fun things to do, where Johnny and I could spend time together away from the harsh reality of the world outside. This was going to be the greatest place, and I could not wait to tell Johnny about it and bring him there to show it off.
4
It was too late to go tell Johnny about my wonderful new discovery. It would just have to wait until Sunday morning. I thought Johnny would especially like the idea of a clubhouse since he hated the fact that he never got any privacy in his own house. His family was way too large to be crammed into the tiny row house where they lived. Here we would have a place where we would be safe from all the troubles lurking on the street around us.
Sunday morning was always the time for church. My mom would wake us up at eight and get our breakfast on the table before we knew what was going on. She must have figured if there was food involved, it would get us moving much quicker. She was right; when my dad and I smelled breakfast cooking, it would lure us out of our beds and cut our complaining about getting up so early on a Sunday. Like most Sundays, my mom had cooked eggs with bacon, and had mixed me a glass of chocolate milk.
The walk to church was only about four blocks, but it always seemed to take forever. It was probably the sense of dread I had about having to sit through another church service. It was a beautiful April morning and I noticed the birds flying and chirping all around us as we walked. I would always try to wait until Johnny’s family left for church so that we could walk together. It made the trip seem shorter if Johnny and I talked on the way. As we hit the pavement, I tried to look into Johnny’s house to see if they had left yet. I could not tell if they had gone, since the door was shut. I walked down from their front stoop and looked around the street, but they were nowhere in sight.
When we arrived at church, I could see that the Garrity family had gotten an early start and had already found seats near the front of the congregation.
Even though Johnny and I were never allowed to talk during the service, I liked sitting near him since we could make faces at each other to entertain ourselves as a way of getting through.
I also liked sitting near his family because I had a crush on Johnny’s youngest sister, Annie. Annie was very pretty and helped keep my mind busy while everybody was talking about things I did not understand or care about. She had beautiful golden blonde hair and a sweet smile. She was ten months older than Johnny and I, and even though she was a girl, she would sometimes join us on our adventures. I once made the mistake of telling Johnny that I thought that Annie was pretty; he put me in a headlock and made me promise I would never say that again, so I didn’t, but I thought it to myself all the time. Seeing Annie in her best dress on Sunday mornings at church was the only way, I could trick myself into believing that there was something enjoyable waiting for me at the end of our four-block walk.
I always tried to be the first one in the church so that I could get to pick our seats. I wanted to sit where I could see both Johnny and Annie at the same time. I liked sitting at just the right angle from Annie so I could see a full view of the side of her face. Luckily, my parents never seemed to care where we sat, so I usually was able to find the perfect seat.
My mind wandered as the service proceeded at its normal boring pace. As much as I liked Reverend Casey, the worst part was when he would give his sermon at the end. This week he was lecturing about the “prohibition” that had started in 1917. This was where they stopped making and selling alcohol. It was supposed to cure all of society’s ills and Reverend Casey had lectured on the topic constantly over the last few years.
“If we can eliminate the saloons that would reduce crime and corruption,” Reverend Casey said. “It would improve the health of the parishioners and would make the world a much better place to live.”
“There will be fewer prisons, and wife beating can be eliminated,” he said.
It was funny as I would sneak looks around the church and see all the women nodding their heads in agreement with Reverend Casey. Most of the men, however, were staring down at the floor.
I remember when the “doughboys” came back from the Great War, and found out they could not get a drink. They would complain mightily and say things like, “we risked our lives to save this country and this is how they thank us”. Herbert Hoover had called it a “noble experiment,” b
ut none of the men I knew thought much of it.
Reverend Casey went on for at least half an hour on the evils of whiskey. I spent the time trying to catch a glimpse of Annie, trying not to get caught. I was only thirteen years old, but even I knew where the speakeasies were, where you could get some whiskey and nobody would bother you. If someone had asked me, I could walk them to two or three places within a mile on my home.
“I don’t want you going anywhere near those places,” my mom would say. “They are all run by gangsters and those are not places where decent folks should go.”
“If they are illegal why don’t the police close them down?” I asked.
“The police do close them down when they find them.”
“If I can find them why can’t the police,” I said. “Am I smarter than them?”
“Don’t be asking me any of your smart questions. You just stay away and listen to what I said.”
As my mind wandered, the beauty of the church interior sometimes struck me. There were stunning stained glass windows all around and marble steps leading up to the altar. Marble sculptures and large oil paintings lined the hallway. It was a stark contrast to everything else in the neighborhood around it. Everything inside the church seemed heavenly, filled
Me, Johnny, and The Babe Page 4
