Sullivan grinned. "Actually I'm a deacon."
"Whatever." Angie picked up his wineglass and touched it to Sullivan's drink.
When Sullivan left, Connie said, "You embarrassed that priest to death."
"Deacon," Angie said.
"Don't get smart! If I was him I would have left, right when you started in on him. I don't know why he stayed."
Angie tugged at his tie. "He's got guts, that's why. You see the way he stood up to me? For a church guy he's all right. Not that I like him or anything, but he's all right."
He took the tie off without pulling it all the way apart, like a noose. "From now on no tie when he comes. He don't wear one, I don't wear one."
"Don't worry about it. He'll probably never set foot here again."
But he did. Deacon Sullivan visited plenty of homes in the neighborhood, but he probably never got the sort of straight talk Angie provided. Angie even introduced Sullivan to Freddie, and the two of them warmed to each other: the deacon's father, it turned out, had been a bricklayer who'd worked on the construction of a church with Freddie.
It was Connie who grew sick of him. If we were upstairs in the front parlor and saw him coming, she'd shut off the TV and the lights so the house looked empty. The first time she tried this trick in front of Angie he wouldn't let her pull it,
"He's got no family, we have to let him in. Where's he gonna go when he gets old?"
The TV stayed on. The doorbell sounded, and as I went to answer it Angie opened the liquor cabinet and took out the scotch.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The letter was written on widely lined paper, the kind upon which first graders learn script. Choppy, unslanted handwriting reached from the top to the bottom of each line.
Dear Mom and Pop,
We had four games so far but I'm not doing so hot. I only had three hits altogether. But I got robbed four times or I'd be 7 for 16 instead of 3 for 16 which is a big difference. The manager said to use a lighter bat, 32 ounces instead of 34. My fielding is OK, I don't have no errors and that's what they like. I miss everybody, say hi to the kid.
love, Victor P.S. Pop, I'm chokking up on the bat so I can make better contact. It's the manager's idea.
Angie went wild when he read that last line.
"His power's his whole game!" he complained to Freddie. "Jesus, it's what makes him different, a shortstop with power!"
"The manager must know what he's doin'," Freddie said, trying to calm Angie down.
"He'll ruin him," Angie prophesied.
After that letter Angie was restless all the time. Connie wasn't affected by it - any way he held the bat, her baby son still wasn't around. I was just plain pissed off at the way he'd greeted me in the letter. Kid, huh? Fine, I told myself, I won't write to him.
Mel and I started choking up on our stickball bat to see how it affected our hitting. We couldn't detect a difference.
I was starting to notice Mel's looks. She knew she was never going to be beautiful by conventional standards, that her eyes were too close together and her nose was too large. This knowledge wasn't with her constantly but revealed itself from time to time. When it hit, her mood would shift abruptly, and if I happened to be nearby I would get a hard punch to my upper arm.
We remained friends through the spats, but we got tired of facing each other in stickball. We needed a new challenge, and Mel found it by setting up a game against two kids from the other side of Fulton, the shadowy street beneath the elevated tracks that split the neighborhood as effectively as a river.
Teammates, for the first time! Mel demanded that she be the pitcher - as captain, she said, this was her right. As we walked to the Fulton Street "field" - the side of a red brick building fronting a dry cleaner's parking lot - she bounced a new Spaldeen fretfully on the sidewalk.
"These guys any good?" I asked.
Mel shrugged. "I only know one of 'em. Jack's a good hitter." She stopped bouncing the ball. "You got any dough?"
"Quarter. Why? We already got a ball."
"The losers gotta buy lemon ice for the winners, Joey."
I stopped walking. "You never told me that!"
"Well, I'm tellin' ya now," she said, her anger rising.
I continued walking. "You should have told me right away. I don't like to bet."
"Damn it, Joey, this ain't betting! It's for a lousy lemon ice. You afraid we're gonna lose?"
"No."
"Then stop worryin', already."
The Fulton Street boys were waiting for us. Jack Donnelly was a tall, skinny Irish kid with so many freckles around his nose that they seemed to melt into a giant one, like a birthmark on the middle of his face. His quiet teammate was named Phil, and when I heard that I had to shudder. The only other Phil I'd ever known was also a pitcher, the guy who'd beaned me.
This one wore black shorts and black shoes pulled up high on his thick legs, and black dress shoes. He looked like a miniature old Italian.
"Got the bat?" Mel demanded. This was her greeting. Jack handed her a taped broomstick. Mel tapped its tip on the sidewalk.
"Feels funny," she said. "You sure this bat ain't cracked?"
"It ain't cracked," Jack said in a high, nasal voice. "And what if it was? You guys ain't gonna hit nothin' anyway."
"Ha-ha. Real funny, Donnelly." Mel handed me the bat.
"This feel okay to you, Joey?"
I took it, shut one eye, and looked down the length of it. Then I tapped it the way Mel had. I had no idea of what I was testing it for. I passed it back to Jack without a word.
Jack cocked his head at me. "This the kid whose old man ditched him?"
A wave of hot fury washed over my body, as if the sun had suddenly plummeted to my shoulder.
"His father's away for the summer, asshole," Mel said. "He's just here for a visit, see?"
"That ain't what I heard," Jack said, sing-songedly.
"We don't care what you heard, we're here to play ball." Mel took out a coin to flip to decide first at bats.
"Forget it," Jack said. "This is our home field. We get last licks. You guys bat first."
Mel examined the strike zone. "It looks high to me," she said, launching a new argument with Jack. Phil and I eyed each other.
"You got no Dad?" Phil asked suddenly. The deep baritone of his voice startled me but it was sympathetic.
"Sure I do. Like she said, he's away for the summer."
Phil eyed me solemnly. "My old man's an undertaker."
"What's that?"
"He takes care o' dead people. Puts clothes on 'em and combs their hair and shit. Makes 'em look good for the family."
My curiosity was aroused. My mother's casket had been closed. "What for? What's the difference if you're dead?"
Phil's eyes darkened. "Fuck you, man," He stalked away before I could apologize.
Phil took his warmup pitches from the sewer lid that served as a mound. Mel rubbed my shoulders as if I were a fighter about to enter the ring.
"Strike zone's a little high," she cautioned. "That son of a bitch drew it high because he's so tall, so swing even if the pitch looks high."
I nodded. "Phil's mad at me."
"Forget about him. Are you mad?"
"At who?"
"Jack. Don't be mad at him, otherwise you won't hit nothin'."
"I'm not mad," I lied, jerking out of her grasp. "Don't worry, I'll hit."
Phil had an awkward pitching style, a set of choppy arm and leg motions that somehow worked to deliver deceptively fast pitches. He was also a pro, through and through - I thought for sure he'd try to bean me but he didn't.
Mel and I hit nothing through the first three innings, and they were having just as much trouble trying to hit her.
Nobody spoke as we crossed one another between innings. Jack and I had nothing to do in the outfield. The game was scheduled for nine innings, and after six, the four of us agreed to break for a drink of water from a leaking hydrant a block away. Mel had a single and J
ack had a double but there was still no score.
We let our opponents walk ahead of us. I felt sleepy from so much inactivity in the outfield and yawned openly. Mel saw me do it.
"Hey, wake up. Phil's gettin' tired, we're gonna start hitting him soon."
"I'm awake. Get off my back, Mel."
Wet-cheeked, Jack and Phil walked past us on the way back to the battleground. "Won't be long now," Jack said. "Man, I can just taste that sweet lemon ice."
"The game ain't over yet," Mel said. I noticed that Phil's shoe was scraped raw on the side, where he dragged it with each pitch. I caught his elbow.
"I didn't mean nothing when I said that about your father," I said, deliberately botching my grammar. "I don't know anything about the undertaker business."
Phil nodded. "Don't worry about it."
"Come on, Phil," Jack called, annoyed at this fraternization with the enemy. Phil trotted away heavily to join Jack, who put his arm across his shoulder and whispered into his ear.
"Hey. What was that all about?" Mel wanted to know, wiping water from her mouth with the back of her wrist. She'd soaked her shirt. The small bumps of her chest showed through it.
"I just had to tell Phil something."
"He strikes you out nine times and you're talking to him? That's real smart, Joey, real smart."
"Hey! This isn't a war, it's a game!"
She pointed toward Shepherd Avenue. "If that's gonna be your attitude, Joey, maybe you oughta go home. Go on, I think your grandma's callin'. I'll beat these assholes by myself."
She knew just where to stick the needle. I pushed her away from the hydrant.
"Get out of my way, I'm thirsty." I squatted to drink my fill of the icy water. As I swallowed I felt her fingers through my hair. She might have been petting a shaggy dog, and I knew that she was, in her awkward way, saying she was sorry.
Bloated with water, we returned to the battlefield - another two innings, and still nobody scored! Mel and Phil were grunting now as they threw pitches, and all four of us groaned when we swung.
Nothing but foul tips and strikeouts. The four of us let out bulletlike curses upon third strikes: "Shit! Fuck! Damn!" I was the only one not using the "f" word.
The ninth inning. The side of Phil's left shoe was scuffed so badly by his dragging that the leather looked gray. I struck out to lead off the inning. Mel struck out and handed me the broomstick, wiping sweat from her forehead.
"Try and hit something," she said, in a tone that meant "for once in your life." The heat had made her cranky. The sun was setting low in the sky, hovering just above the top of the dry cleaner's - the angle of its rays in my eyes was murderous. I called for time out and rubbed my eyes while Phil was in the middle of his pitching motion.
"Quit stallin'!" Jack roared. I set myself in the batter's box. Phil wound up and threw. I swung blindly, aiming at the sun, as if it were a giant light bulb I wanted to shatter.
But instead I caught the Spaldeen solidly and glimpsed it taking off in an arc like a bee from a flower.
"Holy shit," Mel said.
"Fuck!" Phil shouted as he turned to watch the ball's flight, and then Jack was turning to chase the pink missile.
A useless chase. The ball struck the side of a building on the fly, an automatic home run. I walked straight for Mel and handed her the stick.
"Was that all right?" I deadpanned. "Now shut up."
She was too happy about our 1-0 lead to get mad at me. She struck out almost gleefully to end the inning.
"Nice rip," Phil said as he passed me on my way to the outfield. Jack heard him and poked him hard in the back.
"Don't talk to that lucky Wop," he said, even though Phil was also Italian. Phil looked hurt but did nothing. He reached to his calves and pulled his sinking socks up high. I grabbed Jack's bony shoulder and spun him around.
"I don't like that word," I said. In one of our nightly talks Vic had told me what it meant.
Jack knocked my hand aside. "Ah, go to the outfield, for Christ's sakes."
"You apologize first."
"I ain't gonna apologize." He was so close I could feel his hot breath in my face. He folded his thin arms across his chest. The giant freckle seemed to glow red.
A hand on my shoulder: Mel's. "Settle it later, Joey. Lemme strike out the side first."
"Fuck the game," I said, using the "f" word for the first time ever. "We'll play after he apologizes."
The surge of energy I'd felt from my home run blast still lingered in my bloodstream like a slow-moving drug. Though Jack had all those inches on me I felt no fear.
"I ain't gonna apologize," Jack repeated. His face broke into a grin. "Why should I apologize to a Wop with no Pop?"
My fist shot into his face, catching Jack in the middle of a laugh. The sound actually turned into a cry with no break in noise. I felt the cartilage in his pug nose bend against my knuckles, and then Jack's hands flew into his face and his foot kicked toward my groin almost reflexively, as if a doctor had thumped his knee with a rubber mallet.
I dodged the kick and went after him with both fists, punching at any part of him over his belt - chest, stomach, the sharp points of his elbows.
"Wop! Wop!" he yelled nasally, his hands still over his face. I couldn't call him a Mick because I was Irish, too. The frustration of the situation made me fight even harder.
My hands got sore but I didn't stop punching. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mel and Phil seated against the strike zone, where it was shady. They might have been watching a movie.
Suddenly Jack jumped back and tore his hands away from his face. I gasped at the sight of it. I don't think I drew much blood, but the little I had drawn was smeared all over his face, mixed with snot and tears. He looked at his palms and shrieked.
"Fucking Wop!" he sobbed, but by now the word meant nothing to me. I let my clenched fists drop to my sides, a pair of wrecking balls at rest. Jack fled down the street. Mel and Phil came to me.
"Your knees're skakin'," Mel said. I looked down and saw that it was true, even though I couldn't feel them moving. She put a hand on my shoulder.
"God, you kicked the living shit out of him," she said, awed, as if she had just seen the Easter Bunny kill a lion. I flicked her hand off my shoulder the way a horse's tail gets rid of a fly.
"Don't touch me," I said. I was lucky that my stomach was empty because a momentary wave of nausea hit me as I finally realized what I'd done. In the distance Jack slowed to a walk, climbed a stoop, and disappeared into a house. He never looked back.
Mel turned on Phil. "We win. Your man quit so you gotta forfeit."
"I didn't quit," Phil said firmly. "Ain't my fault these guys started fightin'."
"You better buy us that lemon ice," Mel warned, gesturing at me as if I were her attack dog. Phil's eyes widened into shiny chunks of coal.
"Forget it," I said. "Come on, I'll buy the lemon ice." Mel and I started walking away. Phil stayed behind, happy to escape without a beating.
"You, too, Phil," I said, beckoning with my right hand. There were flecks of Jack Donnelly's dried blood on the knuckles.
Phil swallowed. "You ain’t gonna beat me up, are ya?"
I shook my head. "No, I swear it."
"Whaddya swear it on?"
"Whaddya want me to swear it on?"
"Your balls."
"Hey," Mel said, "what are you, a wise guy?"
"Uh-uh," Phil said, his fear rising. "That's what my father always does. Puts his hand like this and swears on his balls." Phil gripped himself. "That's how my mother knows when he really means somethin'."
I gripped my groin. "I swear on my balls I won't hitcha. Now come on."
His fear vanished and he ran to catch up with us. "That Jack, sometimes he's a real asshole," Phil said, shouldering the stickball bat. We walked in silence toward Willie's. I noticed Mel grinning.
"What's funny?" I snapped.
She hesitated. "Was that your first fight ever?"
"Yeah . . . so what?"
"Nothing."
"How'd I do?" As if I didn't know, but I wanted to hear it from her.
She laughed out loud. "You won, dummy!" She mussed my hair - she couldn't stop touching me! But I let her do it, without protest, enduring it the way a champion racehorse tolerates a groom. I looked at Phil, who was frowning and looking at his feet. He kicked a pebble.
"My shoes," he said. "My fuckin' mother's gonna kill me when she sees these shoes."
I squatted at the leaky fire hydrant to wash the blood from my hand. Flecks of it were embedded in the lines of skin around my knuckles, like a mosaic. I had to scrub hard to get it off. "If she kills you, your father can bury you for free," I said. The three of us laughed, all the way to Willie's. While we licked the ices I noticed Mel frowning.
"Hey," she said to Phil. "If your father swears on his balls, what does your mother swear on?"
He shrugged. "I dunno."
Mel gripped the loose cloth at her groin. "What a fuckin' gyp," she muttered.
We said good-bye to Phil at the el train border. Dusk was approaching, and the shadow of the tracks was angled on the buildings across the street, instead of on the street directly below.
"Let's run," I said, and Mel and I were off like jackrabbits. Everything felt right to me. The soles of my sneakers were worn just enough to feel the warmth of the pavement, my shorts felt loose at my hips, and my T-shirt flapped like a sail.
Mel peeled off at her aunt's driveway and shouted "Good night!" but I just kept going without saying anything, picking up speed. The laws of my body seemed to have reversed themselves — the faster I ran, the drier and less tired I felt. I made a hairpin turn at Angie's driveway and sprinted down that, then took the steps to the basement two at a time. I wasn't even winded.
"Don't slam the screen door!" Connie called out, too late; it boomed behind me. A big bowl of spaghetti sat in the middle of the table.
"Good timing," Angie grunted, not looking up from his newspaper. I slid onto the bench behind my dinner plate.
"Wash your hands," Connie ordered.
"They're clean," I said confidently, having rinsed them at the hydrant.
She eyed them suspiciously. "Hey, your knuckles are red. Where were you all day?"
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