Return to Shepherd Avenue

by Charlie Carillo

  “Would you believe I don’t have her number? We’ve never spoken on the phone. Not once.”

  I was realizing it as I was saying this incredible thing. Nat sighed, grumbled and pulled his baseball cap down low to shield his eyes from the sun. This conversation was making him cranky.

  “What do you expect from the woman? She’s got a lot on her mind, what with her boy and everything.”

  I was stunned by that remark. “Justin? What’s wrong with Justin?”

  Nat laughed out loud. “Nothing’s wrong. What, you don’t read the papers? They called him up, that team he’s with, that Seattle team.”

  I literally gulped. “Justin’s been called up to the Major Leagues?”

  “Yeah. So maybe she’s in Seattle.” He chuckled, a rumbly sound. “You, you’re so busy walkin’ around feelin’ sorry for yourself, you’re missin’ the big picture.”

  * * *

  It was true. Justin Wilson had been called up to play for the Seattle Mariners when the team roster expanded from twenty-five to forty players on September 1. Triple-A baseball had proven as easy to him as all the other professional levels of the game. He was hitting. 478 for the Tacoma Rainiers when “the Show” came calling.

  And just as I was reading all about it online I looked out the window and saw a local TV news crew pull up in front of Rose’s house. Moments later a reporter was banging on the door, as a cameraman and a soundman waited on the sidewalk.

  They waited and waited. Rose was probably at the Laundromat, and if she wasn’t, she was hiding in the house. Or maybe she was in Seattle. Wherever she was, she was laying low.

  After half an hour the TV crew went away. I was thinking about disregarding Nat’s advice and dropping in on the Laundromat, and then I remembered with a jolt that I was due at the shrink’s and had to rush to get there on time.

  The last thing I needed now was a parole violation.

  I was ten minutes late and Dr. Rosensohn wasn’t happy about that.

  “You’ve got to take these meetings seriously, or you’re wasting both our times.”

  “I’m really sorry. I’ve been upset lately because I think it’s over between me and Rose.”

  I told him about our trip to the beach, and how she’d been avoiding me since. I told him about Justin being called up to the Mariners, and how Vic had come to see me, and how I’d tracked down Jenny Sutherland. He seemed preoccupied or uninterested in anything I was saying, until I told him I was trying to write a Sammy Suitcase book.

  “That’s encouraging news,” he said. “What prompted this?”

  “Actually, it was Rose’s idea. She read my last three books and said I couldn’t just end it where I did, with Sammy and his father hitting the road again. Sammy has to settle down somewhere, so I’ll do one more book and be done with him.”

  Dr. Rosensohn’s eyebrows knotted. “What do you mean, one more book?”

  “Just what I said. This’ll be my last book. Sammy Suitcase Settles Down. The title’s about as far as I’ve gotten, to tell you the truth.”

  “This is a bit disturbing to me, Mr. Ambrosio.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, do you intend to write books in some other genre when you finish this one?”

  “I doubt it. I’ve pretty much told all the stories I want to tell.”

  “So you’re putting a ribbon on this part of your life, and proclaiming it finished.”

  “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. What the hell are you getting at?”

  He spread his hands. “Any time a man says he’s doing something for the last time . . .”

  “Oh, Jesus, do you still think I’m going to kill myself?”

  “I just want to make sure you’re not heading down that path. You seem especially vulnerable now because of your situation with Rose.”

  I stood up. “Doc, I’m spending all my time fixing up my house. Would I do that if I was going to ace myself? Plus, I’ve got a yard full of chickens who depend on me. Do you think I’d do anything to endanger their welfare?”

  “As I say, I just want to be sure you’re not heading for a dark area.”

  “Are you kidding? Life’s just starting to get interesting. By the way, am I allowed to give you a present?”

  He seemed stunned. “It’s viewed as unprofessional.”

  I had to laugh. This from a guy who took two hundred bucks from me every time we had a conversation.

  “Let’s not call it a present, then,” I said. “Let’s call it a good luck charm.”

  I reached into my shirt pocket, carefully removed the egg I’d been carrying there and gave it to him.

  “From one of my birds, laid this morning. Freshest egg you’ll ever taste, you have my word.”

  I left him staring in open-mouthed wonder at the egg in the palm of his pudgy hand.

  * * *

  I didn’t go straight home. I went to a bar a few blocks from Dr. Rosensohn’s and had a beer to calm myself down. It was a sports bar, with a giant TV screen tuned to one of those shows where a panel of loudmouth sportswriters and gone-to-fat retired ballplayers sit and scream conflicting opinions at each other.

  Suddenly a photo of Justin Wilson’s face filled the screen, serious beneath a Seattle Mariners baseball cap.

  “The kid from Brooklyn makes it to the big leagues!” one of the commentators shouted. “Just three months ago Justin Wilson was a baseball star at Franklin K. Lane High School. Since then he’s roared through the minor leagues like a house on fire, and now the question is: At age nineteen, can he make it in the big leagues?”

  Nineteen? Justin must have had a birthday since he left home. A year older, a few million richer . . .

  “It’s the Cinderella story of the baseball season!” another commentator chimed in. “The soft-spoken shortstop is certainly making it look easy. In his first two Major League games Wilson is four for seven with a home run!”

  Holy shit. There he was on the TV screen, smashing the ball into the stands and casually trotting around the bases.

  “And he’ll be coming home this Saturday,” the almost-hysterical commentator continued, “when the Yankees host the Mariners at the stadium!”

  I pointed at the screen. “See this guy?” I asked the bartender. “I know him! He lives across the street from me!”

  “Yeah? Good for you, pal.”

  “I’m serious!”

  “I’m sure you are.”

  I finished my beer and ordered another. Then another. Then a shot of whiskey to break things up a little, and another beer to wash the whiskey down, and another whiskey to wash that beer down, and after that the bartender expressed a reluctance to serve me any more.

  Rather than argue with him I staggered outside and headed home. I hadn’t gotten blind drunk in a long time and I actually had to ask directions to the subway. Then I fell asleep on the train and overshot my stop, and by the time I reached the Cleveland Street station the moon was shining bright and I knew from the sounds of sirens and radios booming from passing cars that another wild night in East New York was well under way.

  My poor chickens! I’d neglected them all day! I hurried home, tore a loaf of bread to pieces and scattered it all over the backyard.

  “Sorry I’m late, girls, Daddy was stuck in town.”

  I watched them tear into the bread, realizing that I hadn’t eaten all day, either. But I wasn’t hungry. The emptiness I felt wasn’t going to be filled by food.

  I was soul-hollow, and I went to bed that way, dizzy and confused and lost. I passed out when my head hit the pillow and wondered if I was dreaming when a familiar pounding on my front door roused me.

  But it was no dream.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  I opened the door and she practically jumped inside, as if she was being chased.

  “Thank God you’re here, Jo-Jo!”

  “I’m always here. You’re the one who disappears.”

  “Don’t start with me, not tonight. Just hold me.”
<
br />   She fell into my arms and clung to me tighter than she’d ever held me before. It was out of desperation, but I didn’t mind.

  “Everything’s happenin’ so fast!“

  “You mean with Justin?”

  “What the hell you think I’m talkin’ about?”

  I pulled away from her. “Hey. Do you realize I don’t even have your phone number?”

  “Why you wanna phone me when I’m standin’ right here?”

  “Rose, I got drunk today, and I’m not feeling great, and I can’t even tell you how much I’ve missed you.”

  “Why’d you get drunk?”

  “Because, like I said, I miss you.”

  “I miss you too, Jo-Jo.” She buried her face in my chest. “I hadda hide in my own house all day, ‘cause o’ those damn reporters.”

  “What do you expect? Your son’s in the Major Leagues now. He’s a phenom. They want to know all about the woman who brought him up.”

  She sighed. “Opened my door this morning, some asshole from the Today Show is standin’ there sayin’ they’ll send a limo to pick me up, and I can stay at the Plaza if I want.”

  “They’re trying to dazzle you.”

  “Yeah, like a Puerto Rican’s never been to a fancy hotel before, ‘cept to clean the damn toilets.”

  “Justin’s a big story, Rose. You can understand that.”

  “Yeah, I understand. Know what else I understand? How much they love that raised-by-a-single-mother bullshit. Look at me real sincere, get me to tell ‘em how tough it was bringin’ up my boy with no father around, in a bad neighborhood . . .”

  She held up a finger, as if to warn me and anyone else who might be listening. “I’m no damn hero. I’m just a mom with a kid who plays baseball.”

  “You’re a lot more than that. They want to hear from you.”

  “Yeah? What I got to say, they don’t want to hear.”

  “What’s that?”

  She lowered her finger, ventured a crooked smile. “How it got easier after his father died. No more fights, no more bullshit. Just me and my boy, lookin’ after each other. We gonna stand here in the hallway all night, Jo-Jo, or are you gonna take me to bed and hold me?”

  We went to the bedroom and I did hold her, without her usual dash to dress after we’d made love, and it was wonderful, wrapping myself around her as if I meant to shield her from shrapnel.

  “He’s comin’ to town tomorrow to play the Yankees.”

  “I know. It’s unbelievable.”

  “He ain’t comin’ to Shepherd Avenue, he’s stayin’ with the team in a hotel. Sent me tickets for the game.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Will you take me?”

  I pulled her even closer. “You sure you want me to go?”

  “I’m scared to go by myself.”

  That wasn’t exactly the answer I wanted, but under the circumstances, I could handle it.

  And the sweet circumstances were these: Rose actually fell asleep in my arms and stayed with me until the dawn’s early light before fleeing, whispering as she dressed that I should meet her on the subway platform at seven that night.

  * * *

  Rose had never been to Yankee Stadium and I hadn’t been there since I was a kid, before the new ballpark was built. The seats were good, ten rows back on the third-base side. I’m not sure the truth of what was happening had actually sunk in until we took our seats—Justin was a Major League baseball player, and if we didn’t believe it . . . well, there he was on the field in his Seattle Mariners road uniform, casually chatting with his teammates around the batting cage.

  Rose sat absolutely still and seemed to be holding her breath. “Don’t wave to him,” she said.

  “I’m not.”

  “I don’t wanna distract him, even though he knows we’re here.”

  “He knows I’m here, too?”

  “Yeah, I told him you were comin’. Oh Jesus, look, it’s his turn to hit.”

  Chuckling over a teammate’s joke, Justin stepped in to take his cuts. Line drive after line drive jumped from his bat, and on the fourth pitch he crashed the ball into the right-field seats, to scattered cheers from the cheap seats.

  Rose sighed and there were tears in her eyes. “I feel like I’m dreamin,’ Jo-Jo.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I mean . . .” She gestured toward Justin, the way a child would point at the moon upon seeing it for the first time. “That’s my boy on that beautiful field. My boy.”

  “It sure is.”

  Justin knocked another ball into the seats, this one even deeper than the last.

  “Don’t use it all up!” Rose said in an urgent whisper. “Gotta save some for the game!”

  When he took his position at shortstop in the first inning Justin looked as if he’d been born on that swatch of dirt between second and third bases, serene as a guru and confident as a cop. With a Yankee runner at first base he made a diving catch of a scorching line drive and almost casually threw the ball to the first baseman, a flawless double play that drew cheers from the crowd.

  In the second inning he came to bat with two men on base. The public-address announcer sounded as solemn as a high priest: “Now batting for the Mariners, number thirty-two, the shortstop, Jussss-tin Willllll-son.”

  The crowd roared. Rose shut her eyes and mumbled a quick prayer while Justin dug in. He disregarded two pitches, the first a ball, the second a called strike, and then he got hold of that third pitch, lashing it down the right-field line for a certain double that he stretched into a triple.

  Two-nothing, Mariners. Justin called for time as he dusted himself off, while the crowd screamed for the local boy who’d made good here in the world’s most famous ballpark.

  It was as if Justin had gotten us seats on the third-base side because he knew he’d be hitting a triple. He looked right at Rose, giving her a slight smile and a tip of his helmet. Through flowing tears she lifted her hand to wave to Justin, the timid wave a mother would venture to her grade-school child struggling through his lines in the school play.

  “Look at my boy. Damn, he’s tryin’ to grow a moustache.”

  The next batter hit a fly ball deep to left. Justin tagged up and raced for home, sliding in ahead of the catcher’s tag and then springing up and trotting to the dugout, where his teammates lined up for high fives. Rose sank back in her seat as if relieved to see him in the safety of the dugout.

  “He made it, Jo-Jo.”

  “He sure did. Great slide.”

  “No, not that. I mean, he made it. He’s a real ballplayer.”

  “You didn’t think so before?”

  She shrugged, hugging herself at the elbows. “Guess I had to see it with my own eyes. Now I know.”

  “What do you know?”

  She hesitated, smiling bravely through her tears. “He ain’t never comin’ home.”

  She got to her feet. “Come on, Jo-Jo, we’re leavin’.”

  “Rose. The game just started!”

  “Yeah, but it can’t get no better than this. You comin’? Stay if you want, I’m outta here.”

  We spoke very little on the subway back to Brooklyn, as if we were returning from a funeral. Rose went straight to her house from the Cleveland Street station, while I waited five minutes on the platform to sustain the illusion that we had nothing to do with each other.

  Rose made it clear she had to be alone that night, but one major thing did happen before she said good night. She actually gave me her phone number.

  * * *

  I was up early the next morning to read the Daily News sports pages online. The Mariners won the game and Justin hit another double in the seventh inning, but there was another story in the sports section that grabbed my attention and nearly caused me to spit coffee on my laptop.

  THE BROOKLYN BOY WHO DIDN’T MAKE IT, screamed the headline over two photographs of my Uncle Vic—one from back in the day, swinging a bat for Franklin K. Lane, next to a recent candid shot of h
im unshaven and paunchy, a baseball cap on his head.

  The phenomenal Justin Wilson is walking in the footsteps of another top Brooklyn baseball prospect from half a century ago, the story began. Victor Ambrosio was also a shortstop at Brooklyn’s Franklin K. Lane High School, and he even grew up on the same street as Justin—Shepherd Avenue, in the East New York section.

  Like Wilson, Ambrosio, now 69, signed a professional contract right out of high school. His deal was with the Pittsburgh Pirates organization. Like Wilson, Ambrosio was also tagged “can’t miss” by everyone who ever saw him play.

  But fate had other plans for Ambrosio . . .

  The sportswriter laid it on with a trowel: Vic’s failure to hit in the minors, his return in defeat to the old neighborhood and his thirty-year career as a city bus driver. His only connection to the game he once dominated? Volunteer coaching at the Little League level.

  I caught up with Ambrosio at one of those games, the sportswriter wrote. He refused to discuss his failed baseball career.

  “I wish him luck” was all he had to say about Justin Wilson, the young star with the bright future that didn’t pan out for Victor Ambrosio in the game of baseball.

  I immediately called my uncle.

  “I just saw the story. You okay, Vic?”

  “Oh yeah. I’m a celebrity all over again. Got the kids askin’ all kinds of questions about my career.”

  “Jesus.”

  “What I can’t figure is, how the hell did that writer find out about me?”

  “They have archives at the paper,” I said, and then it hit me—it could have been my fault! The beat reporter who wrote the main story about the ball game also wrote the sidebar about Vic. Justin himself could have told the writer about the ballplayer who used to live across the street! Oh boy . . .

  “Archives,” Vic grumbled. “Yeah, I guess so. But how the hell did he find me out here in Queens? I’m not on that freakin’ Facebook or anything!”

  “Vic, these guys are good. They go through real-estate records, phone books . . . everything’s online these days, whether you like it or not.”

  “Christ, there’s nowhere to hide,” Vic grumbled. “Hey, by the way, I was misquoted.”