by Tim Green
The minute Ty finished stuffing the last napkin holder, the front door crashed open, ringing the little bell so violently that it choked.
"Not done yet?" Uncle Gus screamed. His pasty face shone red, glazed with sweat. His eyes watered, and his teeth, like his fists, were clenched beneath the bushy mustache. "You two can't do anything without me, can you? You might as well be on the Yankees. Losers, all of you."
"I just finished, Uncle Gus," Ty said. "We can go."
Charlotte tossed her dust rag into a bucket and picked it up along with the vacuum, making for the door without a word. Uncle Gus pushed past her and walked into the kitchen. That's when he roared Ty's name.
"You call this clean?" he shouted.
Ty stepped into the doorway to see Uncle Gus stabbing his finger at the floor where three nickel-sized spots of blood glistened up at them.
Uncle Gus's face burned with rage.
CHAPTER TEN
"MOP THE FLOOR," UNCLE Gus said, growling. "I told you, first thing you do, and you didn't do it. What else didn't you do? AROD misses a grounder, the Yankees lose! You miss the floor, I lose the account! Get it? That's life. Just like you not going with your brother tomorrow night.
"That's life, too."
Ty felt his face fall. He clasped his hands.
"Don't look at me like that," Uncle Gus said. "We had a deal. You didn't live up to your end. I guess you didn't really want to go with him that bad after all."
Ty sat cringing in the middle seat. Uncle Gus cursed and smoked as he raced through traffic, passing people, leaning on his horn, and using his middle finger, on their way to the next job. To emphasize just how bad the Yankees played, he would wave his cigarette in the air, sending worms of ash tumbling about. Twice, the orange ember came close enough to Ty's face for him to feel its warmth.
When they got to Lucy's, Ty jumped out of the truck and headed past the empty kitchen and straight for the men's room. He held his breath as long as he could, mixing some ammonia into the bucket with water from his length of hose. Even through the battered door, Lucy's shouting made him jump. Slowly, he cracked open the door to see the action. Uncle Gus stood in front of the bar owner, wringing a dirty towel with his head hanging low. As much yelling as Uncle Gus could give out was about as much as he was now getting back from Lucy.
Lucy's eyes bulged, and he slapped the crowbar into the palm of his hand.
"Do I look like a bank?" Lucy yelled. "You know what happens to people who don't pay?"
Lucy raised the crowbar and Uncle Gus cringed. As angry as Ty had been in the truck ride over, he now felt terrible for his uncle, cowering like a puppy. Over in the eating area, Charlotte flipped on the vacuum and went to work on the carpet without seeming to pay attention. Ty eased the door shut and went to work. Not until he was finishing up with the toilet did the shouting subside. He heard Lucy go into the office on the other side of the wall and slam the door.
The toilet brush slipped from Ty's hand and clattered down into the corner of the stall. As Ty bent to pick it up, his ear brushed the rusty vent near the floor. That's when he heard the faint echo of a voice. Ty glanced over his shoulder, then touched his ear to the grate to hear Lucy talking on the phone to someone about a delivery of beer. Being able to hear the bar owner without his knowing sent a chill of danger up Ty's spine.
When the bathroom door suddenly swung open, Ty jumped. A shadow fell across him and he peered out from the stall.
"Can I get in there?"
Above him loomed Mike, the cook, all six foot seven, four hundred pounds of him. Ty pushed his glasses up on his nose, swallowed, and nodded, then glanced at the door.
"Don't worry about your uncle," the big man rumbled through his big dark beard. "They do this every couple weeks. Every time your uncle bets big, he loses big. Lucy won't really hurt him. He just talks like that."
Ty squeezed past Mike and reached for the door-knob. As he did, he noticed the backpack slung over the big man's shoulder and he wondered what it contained and why Mike would bring it into the bathroom with him.
"I used to have to go down the street to the Subway to use the bathroom," Mike said, wedging himself into the stall, closing the door, and dumping his backpack before letting his belt buckle clank to the floor with his pants. "Your uncle, he thinks throwing a bucket of ammonia in here and slamming the door is cleaning."
Ty didn't know how to respond. Should he thank the big man? Or tell him he wanted to do more with his life than cleaning toilets? He ended up saying nothing.
"You like that booger trick with your uncle?" Mike asked, his voice echoing off the tiled walls.
Ty froze. "You didn't do that to me, did you?"
The stall was silent for a moment before Mike sighed and said, "Your uncle's a horse's backside. I saw him giving you crap for having a donut and it ticked me off. A kid can't have a donut without catching grief?"
Ty breathed easier. "I laughed."
"I'll get him again with some earwax on your way out. Watch. Hey, don't stay here on account of me," Mike said. "It's about to get pretty bad."
Ty ducked out and saw his uncle sitting at the bar with his head in his hands. When Ty came out from cleaning the women's room, Uncle Gus was still there, but now Lucy had rejoined him. As if on cue, the two of them swung their heads around to look at him. Uncle Gus signaled for Ty to come over.
Ty hesitated, then set his buckets down and crossed over to the bar. He stopped several feet in front of the two men and looked hard at their feet.
"Hey, kid," Lucy said in a manner so friendly that Ty looked up to see if it had come from someone else. Lucy pointed the crowbar at him. "I got a deal for you."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"GUS TELLS ME YOUR brother wants to spend a little quality time with you," Lucy said. "Take you to the NFL draft?"
Ty glanced at Uncle Gus and nodded.
"So I think that'd be a good idea," Lucy said. "Truth is, I'm a big fan of Tiger's. I'd like to meet him, make him feel welcome to come here any time. I heard them talking on WFAN that he might be the first pick of the Jets. Imagine that? He'd be pretty close by, right? So I'm thinking, hey, why couldn't he be kind of a regular here?"
Lucy slapped Uncle Gus's back and then gripped his neck while he poked his big belly with the curved end of the crowbar. "So I got your uncle here to let you have your little ESPN outing. How's that for the beginning of a friendship between you and me? Pretty nice guy, huh?"
The red spot on Lucy's face glared at Ty, practically demanding to be looked at. Ty forced himself to stare into Lucy's dark, empty eyes.
"Yes," he said in a small squeak.
"That's right," Lucy said. "Just like your fairy godmother or something, sending you to the ball."
Lucy waved the crowbar like a wand. Uncle Gus forced a smile that lasted until Lucy let go of his neck.
Without thinking, Ty said, "I'd have a lot more to talk about with my brother if Uncle Gus thought it was okay for me to play in the spring passing scrimmage tomorrow."
"What's the spring passing scrimmage?" Lucy asked.
"They have spring football at Halpern Middle," Ty said, avoiding his uncle's eyes. "I'm pretty fast."
Lucy held up his empty hand and jabbed a loose fist at Ty. Ty ducked instinctively and circled right back up. Lucy grinned.
"Not bad," he said, patting Ty's shoulder before he turned his attention to Uncle Gus. "Why can't he play tomorrow? I like the idea."
Uncle Gus sputtered for a moment before he said, "No reason at all. I didn't know he wanted to. Sure."
Lucy winked at Ty. "All right. Go on. I'll see you Monday."
On their way out, Mike looked up from the grill, where two hamburger patties sizzled.
"Gus, how about a fresh donut?" Mike asked.
"Running late," Uncle Gus said, waving him off.
"Thanks, Mike. Next time."
Ty shrugged at the big cook and hurried outside.
"Cute, kid. Real cute," Uncle Gus said as he started up his t
ruck. "Fairy godmother, my butt."
Uncle Gus didn't talk about the ESPN draft show all night, but when they finally got home around midnight, he told Charlotte to go inside without them. Ty watched Aunt Virginia come out to greet Charlotte with a kiss as she climbed the stack of cinder blocks. Then the two of them disappeared through the front door. Outside the truck, the crickets chirped. The moon shone down, glimmering off the hood until a cloud swept across it, leaving them alone in the green glow of the dashboard clock.
"You ever see The Godfather?" Uncle Gus asked. A small piece of American cheese clung to one of the bristles above his lip.
Ty shook his head. "That's rated R."
"Probably not The Sopranos either, huh?" Uncle Gus said.
"I know what it's about," Ty said. "Before I moved down here, my friend Noah told me about that show 'cause he said that's where I was going. North Jersey, right?"
"North Jersey, yeah," Uncle Gus said.
"The mafia."
"Killers, thieves, thugs, drug runners."
Ty kept quiet.
"We don't want those kind of people mad at us, right?" Uncle Gus said.
"No."
"Or mad at your brother," Uncle Gus said. "So all the stuff about Tiger meeting Lucy and maybe hanging out there once in a while? That's secret stuff, get it? You don't talk about it, not with anyone. Especially not Tiger."
"Okay," Ty said.
"You just let it happen. You say something about Lucy being connected to the mafia and Tiger says something, like to a reporter or a cop?" Uncle Gus frowned and shook his head. "You don't know what kind of bad things could happen. But I can count on you, right?"
"Yes."
Uncle Gus put a hand on Ty's leg and Ty pulled away instinctively.
"Okay, then," Uncle Gus said. "Go to bed."
"I can play tomorrow?" Ty asked, opening the truck door and dropping to the ground.
Uncle Gus gripped the steering wheel, narrowed his close-set milky eyes at Ty, and asked, "What makes you think you can just show up and play? You went to one practice. You think you can just show up?"
"Maybe," Ty said. "Coach V likes me."
"Yeah, well, I doubt that's gonna matter," Uncle Gus said, offering up a mean smile. "But I guess we'll see, won't we?"
CHAPTER TWELVE
SATURDAY MORNING DAWNED GRAY and damp, but Ty bounced out of bed and eagerly split half a cord of wood before Aunt Virginia called him inside to eat what was left of the stiffened oatmeal in her saucepan. Afterward, Ty whistled a tune while he helped Uncle Gus change the oil in the pickup truck, even though he had to lie down in the mud and slide in under the truck to catch the dirty oil in an empty milk carton. After a late lunch of Uncle Gus's half-eaten leftover ham sandwich, Ty ran out to use the Porta Potti, then retreated to the laundry room, where he washed his hands and laced his shoes up tight.
When he returned to the kitchen, he was disturbed to see Uncle Gus out in the living room, sitting in his chair, popping open a beer can, and growling at the baseball game.
"Uncle Gus," he said timidly. "The game's at two."
Uncle Gus looked at his watch and scratched the thatch of gray and white hair on his head. "Well, it's in the top of the last inning. You can be a little late."
He sipped at his beer and Ty retreated, walking slowly backward into the kitchen. Aunt Virginia looked up from the sink while her hands continued to scrub a pot.
"What's that look for?" she said. "You crying?"
"No," Ty said with an angry sniff, pushing up his glasses.
"Well, what's wrong?" she asked. "He's letting you go with your brother, I heard."
"I was supposed to play in the spring scrimmage," he said quietly so his uncle couldn't hear him.
"What scrimmage?"
"Football. There's a spring passing scrimmage. Uncle Gus said I could go."
"Uncle Gus said I could go," she said in a whiney imitation of him. "I thought girls were supposed to be the difficult ones. Your cousin never gives us this kind of grief. Where do you think she is right now? In her room reading, that's where. Not making any trouble. Oh, stop looking like that, will you?"
Aunt Virginia removed her hands from the soapy water and picked up a towel, wiping them clean as she walked through the doorway to the living room.
"Gus?" she said. "Gus! Take this boy to his game, would you?"
"I'm watching baseball. I said, when I'm done."
"They ain't gonna hold the game for this skinny chicken. Take him now before I bust an artery looking at him. I can't stand those puppy eyes."
Uncle Gus glanced at the window and said, "It's raining."
"They play football in the rain."
Aunt Virginia marched right into the middle of the room, snapped off the TV, and turned to face Uncle Gus with her hands on her wide hips. Her face was as red as her hands, and a wisp of her frizzy hair had escaped from behind one ear to hang at an angle across one of the big lenses of her owl glasses. Uncle Gus grumbled, but up he got and disappeared into the bedroom. Ty heard the rattle of his key chain, and he dashed into the living room to give Aunt Virginia a quick hug before bursting through the front door and scurrying to the truck.
Uncle Gus didn't talk, but he brought his beer can with him, sipping at it from time to time and belching with a wide mouth in Ty's direction. When they pulled up to the back of the school, the football team had already spread out on the field to stretch. Small clusters of parents in lawn chairs had set themselves up along the sideline. Some carried umbrellas. Others sat in the small wooden bleachers under bright-colored rain ponchos. Coach V stood in the center of it all wearing a Rutgers cap and blowing on his whistle.
Ty hopped out into the drizzle as soon as Uncle Gus pulled over to the curb.
"Nobody's wearing any pads," Uncle Gus said.
"It's two-hand touch," Ty said. "Just a scrimmage. Passing only."
Uncle Gus grumbled something about dancing around like a bunch of fairies, then said, "I'll be at the Iron Horse Pub. You can walk over there when you're done. It's in the center of town, next to the hotel."
Ty grinned at him. "Thanks, Uncle Gus."
He slammed the door and sprinted across the grass, dropping down into a hurdler's stretch in the back row, soaking his pants through instantly in the wet grass. Ty followed along with the others. The kids around him stared, but Coach V headed toward Ty and everyone looked away.
Ty stood with the team and reached down for his toes, counting to ten. At seven, he saw Coach V's shoes stop on the grass in front of him.
"Ty," the coach said, "what are you doing?"
Ty looked up and blinked at the tiny drops that spattered his glasses. "Stretching."
"I know that."
"For the passing scrimmage."
Coach V looked off into the gray sky, nodding his head. "You weren't here all week. You said you couldn't play. Now you show up for the scrimmage?"
"I got permission," Ty said, straightening and talking fast. "I worked hard all week. My brother's coming in tonight for the draft. He's taking me into the city with him. I said it would give us something to talk about and my uncle--well, actually, Lucy. My uncle works for him. He's a man. Lucy. He said it was a good idea and so...here I am."
"Here you are," Coach V said, raising his eyebrows above his mirrored glasses. "Okay. You don't know the plays."
"You could just tell me, right?" Ty said. "Or I could just run past the defense every time and go for a touchdown."
"Just run past, huh?"
"I'm fast, right?"
Coach V puckered his mouth. "Well, let's see how it goes. Finish stretching."
Ty paced the sideline behind Coach V, wiping his glasses from time to time on the inside of his shirt. The team had been split into two groups, blue and gold, with one of Coach V's assistants calling plays for the blue team from the opposite side of the field. Players wore pinnies that matched the color of their teams. Calvin West played right cornerback for the blue defense, and Ty
couldn't help but watch him.
Every play, Calvin would walk right up to the receiver on his side of the field and knock him around as soon as the ball was snapped, jamming the receiver in the chest with both hands, disrupting any chance of getting out into the pass pattern on time. As a result, even though they had Michael Poyer as their quarterback, Ty's gold team was behind 41-35 when the whistle blew, signaling the end of the third quarter. They needed a touchdown. Ty's shirt and pants clung to his body, soaked by the light rain.
When the gold team got the ball back, Ty couldn't keep himself from tapping Coach V on the back. The coach spun around, and Ty realized that he still wore his sunglasses, even in the rain.
"What?" the coach said with a growl. "Oh, Lewis. Yeah, go in. Play the Z."
"Should I just run past him?" Ty asked, holding his glasses out to the coach.
"If you can," the coach said. "What am I supposed to do with those?"
"Can you put them in your pocket?" Ty asked, handing over the glasses.
Coach V took them, then turned his attention to Michael Poyer, who was already out on the field. Coach V used a series of hand signals to give Poyer the play and Ty ran for the huddle.
The field had been torn up pretty good by the other players' cleats, and Ty's own sneakers squelched in the mud. He stepped tentatively into the small huddle--six instead of the usual eleven because they played the passing scrimmage without any linemen. He placed his hands on his knees like the rest of his teammates.
"Right Pro Right, 719, boot pass at eight on two," Poyer said.
"Ready," they all said together, "break!"
Ty hustled to the line and stared up at Calvin. Calvin grinned wide when he recognized Ty, and he flexed his fingers up in the air for Ty to see. Ty tucked in his lower lip and clamped down. He breathed hard through his nose, planning the quick move--faking one way, then darting back the other--that he would use to leave Calvin in his tracks.
Poyer snapped the ball.
Ty ducked, then darted. Calvin struck him dead center in his chest with both hands.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
