The Wine of Youth

by John Fante

  “This is it, boys.”

  We were so stiff from the cold that he had to lift us out. We stumbled inside the filling station and crowded a small oil heater. An old man in a sheepskin coat operated the station. We told him we were on our way to Phoenix, Arizona.

  “When I was your age, I was very proud,” he said, chewing tobacco and smoking a pipe at the same time. “I never begged for rides. Always traveled first class.”

  “We only got twenty-two bucks,” Burton said.

  “A fortune,” the old man said. “Enough to take you around the world.”

  “But how?”

  “Don’t cost nothing to hop a freight. One pulls outa here tonight for Salt Lake at six o’clock. Takes about eight hours. Then you grab another going south to Arizona. Travel right, that’s what I say.”

  “And freeze to death,” Burton said.

  The old man puffed on his pipe and inspected us. “In them clothes, yes. Get yourself a coupla Army blankets, a few cans of beans and a coupla sacks of Bull Durham, and you’re riding like a king, clear to the baseball country.”

  “No freights,” Burton said. “I’m a first baseman, not a bum.”

  “It’s against our principles,” I said.

  The old man shook his head and spat a sizzler against the oil stove. “You won’t make the Giants. Not you kids. Too soft. No guts.”

  “We didn’t come here to get insulted,” Burton said. “Come on, Jake.”

  Across the street was a cafe. We hadn’t eaten breakfast, and we were very hungry. The old man called to us from the filling station.

  “Be proud, lads. Grab that six-o’clock freight.”

  We ate a big breakfast and bought some candy bars. Now that I was warm and not hungry, I wanted to catch the freight. We left the cafe and walked down the street. It had stopped snowing. The sky was blue, with clouds tumbling over themselves as they dashed south. We stopped before an Army-Navy store and stared at piles of blankets and boots and knapsacks. We kept walking, but we didn’t talk about the freight.

  At the end of the street was the railroad yard. Two engines were pushing boxcars around. We stood watching. We were thinking of what the old man had said, but we didn’t speak of it. About noon we moved back to the middle of town and decided to go to a movie.

  The newsreel did it. There was a whole section showing the New York Giants in spring training at Phoenix. We sat on the edge of our seats and watched big-league ballplayers romping around the Giant training camp. When it was over, we rushed outside like new men.

  “We gotta get out of here,” Burton panted. “We gotta get to Arizona.”

  Across the street was the Army-Navy store. We bought blankets, knapsacks, gloves and woolen caps. We found a grocery store and loaded our knapsacks with cans of pork and beans, tamales, sardines and Bull Durham. It all happened very fast. When we were through, we checked our finances. We were down to $3.50. It didn’t worry Burton.

  “Take us halfway around the world,” he said.

  We walked up and down the street with knapsacks on our backs and blankets under our arms. At four o’clock, it got cold again. The sky turned gray and it felt like more snow.

  “I’d like to see that newsreel once more,” Burton said.

  Inside the theater, the main love picture was half over. Except for us, the place was deserted. We kept our eyes on the clock over one of the exits. The newsreel went on at 5:25. The baseball stuff took exactly two minutes. At 5:28 we were outside again. It was almost dark and snowing hard. But we could still feel the sunshine off the newsreel.

  We walked down to the freight yard. A long train was made up, the panting engine facing southwest. We picked an open boxcar near the end of the train and climbed aboard. It wasn’t our first time in a boxcar, but it was very strange now. We closed the door and went forward in the darkness. The boxcar had a stale, nasty smell. Wrapping ourselves in blankets, we sat down. For some reason, we found ourselves whispering instead of speaking out.

  “I forgot my first baseman’s mitt,” Burton whispered.

  “The Giant management furnishes all equipment,” I told him.

  For a long time we said nothing.

  Then I put it to Burton this way: “Burt, now that we’re on our way, I want to ask you a question. Tell me the truth, the real truth. Do you think we’re good enough to break into the New York Giants’ line-up?”

  “I doubt it,” Burton said. “But we’ll hook up someplace. They’ll farm us out. Probably the Pacific Coast League.”

  “That won’t be so bad.”

  “Want to know the truth?” Burton asked. “The straight, honest-to-God truth?”

  “Shoot.”

  “There’s a chance we won’t make the grade with the Coast League, either. But one thing is certain: we’ll hook on someplace—the Texas League, or the Southern Association.”

  “Or the Three-Eye League.”

  “Or the Southeastern League.”

  “Or the Arizona State League.”

  “I’ll play for nothing,” Burton said. “Just board and room.”

  We couldn’t roll Bull Durham in the darkness. Burton pulled out a pack of tailor-mades, and we lit up.

  “Once we hit camp, no smoking.”

  “Right.”

  “Let’s shake on it.”

  In the darkness we found one another’s hands.

  A tremendous crash sent us sprawling. The train was moving. We heard the faraway whistle of the engine. The train moved slowly, the engine puffing like crazy, its wheels slipping on the icy tracks. It was a rough ride. We crawled to the door and peeked out at the early darkness and the snow sweeping down.

  “Might as well sleep,” Burton yelled, because it was noisy now, the boxcar chattering and squealing. We stretched out, warm and very tired.

  I don’t know how long we slept. Suddenly there was a crash that nearly tore the blankets from us.

  “Maybe it’s a wreck,” Burton said.

  Everything was quiet and motionless. We sat up. The train began to move again. Back and forth our car moved. Then the whistle sounded, the engine chugged, and our car did not move. We jumped to our feet and listened. Far away in the night, we heard the engine, but our car did not move.

  We slid open the door. The snow came down in heavy silence. Our boxcar stood alone in the white night. We were somewhere in low hills. Our car had been backed into a spur of track and uncoupled beside a cattle ramp.

  We were scared. It was like being the last two people on earth. We went back into the darkness and wrapped ourselves in blankets. Burton offered me a cigarette, but I didn’t feel like smoking.

  “Don’t fall asleep,” Burton said. “You know what happens to people who sleep in blizzards.”

  I knew, but I asked anyway.

  “They don t wake up.”

  I sat there thinking about my life, my wasted life, and all the trouble I’d caused my parents. I remembered all the money I’d stolen from my father’s pants, and my mother’s purse, and my sister’s piggy bank. I remembered the chickens I’d slaughtered at close range with my father’s shotgun. It all came back to me in a rush, the mess I’d made of my life—flunking algebra three years straight, cheating in examinations, listening to dirty stories and telling some of my own.

  Thinking about it, I wanted to live my life over again; I wanted another chance. I wanted to live through that blizzard so I could go back home to Boulder, Colorado, and study to be an engineer.

  Then I heard Burton sobbing. “I’m a rat, Jake,” he said. “A no-good rat.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re okay by me.”

  But he insisted that he was a wrong guy, and he told me some of the things he had done in his life—punched his mother in the stomach, stolen library books, broken street lamps, sold a brand-new pair of his father’s shoes, stripped hubcaps off cars, and so forth. One thing he mentioned that was really bad; and that was burning down his own house. It had happened when he was ten years old, and to that day nob
ody knew he’d done it—nobody but me.

  We tried to keep awake, but we were too tired and slept anyhow, and when we woke up, sunlight poured through the cracks in the boxcar. We opened the door and looked out. It was bright daylight with a blue sky. A hundred yards away, state highway bulldozers were clearing the road of last night’s drifts. Moving slowly behind the bulldozers were a dozen cars. We grabbed one another and jumped for joy.

  “We’re saved!” Burton yelled. “Saved!”

  We left our stuff in the boxcar and waded through the snow to the highway. The first car behind the bulldozers picked us up. The driver was a farmer, and what he said made us silent. We had taken the wrong freight out of Fort Collins. Now we were just a mile out of Thatcher and four miles from home. But I’d had enough. It seemed years since I’d left home. I wanted to be with my folks, with my brothers and sisters.

  “Well,” Burton said. “Here we go again—slow but sure.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Still want to go to Arizona?”

  “Sure, Burt,” I lied. “How about you?”

  “We can’t stop now.”

  “That’s right.”

  The farmer stopped his car in front of the sheriff’s substation in Thatcher. The town had only one street, a block long. We just stood there. I wanted to call the whole thing off. Burt did too, but it was hard to show weakness.

  Then a sheriff’s patrol drove up. Two officers sat in the front seat.

  “Your name Jake Crane?” one of them asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The officer opened the back door. “Hop in, boys.”

  “We didn’t do anything,” Burt said.

  “Just hop in, boys.”

  The driver made a U-turn and swung down the highway toward Boulder. We sat with folded arms.

  “Arizona!” Burt sneered. “This was your idea.”

  “Anyway, I ain’t yellow,” I said.

  “Who’s yellow?”

  “You were scared from the first. Your feet were cold. You wanted to quit.”

  “I shoulda quit,” he said. “You and your screwball plans. Now look at us. Under arrest.”

  “Are we under arrest, Officer?” I asked.

  “Where do you live?” he said.

  “959 Arapahoe.”

  He glanced back at Burton. “How about you?”

  “529 Walnut.”

  That was all the officers said. Burton made a nasty little laugh. “You and your knuckle ball,” he sneered.

  “It’s good enough to strike you out,” I said, “the way you step in the bucket.”

  “We’re through,” Burton said. “My old man was right. You’re bad company.”

  “I won’t even repeat what my old man says about you.”

  “Pooh! A bricklayer. What does he know?”

  “A lot more than a dumb plasterer like your old man.”

  The car drove up in front of my house. The officer turned and opened the door. I stepped out. Burton sat like an Indian, his arms folded.

  “Burt,” I said. “No hard feelings.”

  For a moment he wouldn’t even look at me.

  Then he grinned. “So long, Jake. Good luck.”

  I turned from the car. There on the porch was my father. I walked slowly toward him, studying his face. There was no anger in his face. He stood with his hands in his pockets, erect and smiling a little.

  “Hi, Pop.”

  “Hello, boy.”

  All at once it crashed down on me—the terrible thing I’d done to my pop, and I stood there crying and choking and not able to say anything. He put his arm around me.

  “Come on, boy. Breakfast’s ready.”

  “Oh, Pop!”

  “Forget it.”

  Together we went into the house.

  One-Play Oscar

  THE NEW KID was sitting on the front porch across the street. I waved. “Hey, come over.” The new kid got up and walked over. He had a long nose and there was a hole in his faded sweat shirt.

  “Hi. What’s your name?”

  “Rabinowitz. Jake Rabinowitz. What’s yours?”

  “Anthony Campiglia,” I said. “Tony for short. Rabinowitz—that’s a screwy name.

  “So’s Campiglia.”

  “Yeah, kinda. You play football, Jake? We got a football team on this side of town.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You wanna try out for the team? Cost you two bits.”

  “Two bits—how come?”

  I told him, to buy balls and stuff.

  “When you guys practice?”

  “After school. Up the street a ways. You wanna try out for the team, Jake?”

  “I’ll see.”

  “Okay. So long.”

  Everybody was late for practice. Then it started getting dark. Me and Blucher practiced laterals. He’s our left half. Al Whitehill was centering. Pretty soon Wang came. Chink kid, swell end. Pretty soon, here comes Joe Nunez, our regular center. He was with Sukalian, our other end. Pretty soon, here comes this new kid, Jake Rabinowitz. He hung around like he wasn’t watching.

  I said, “Hey, you guys. See that new kid? He wants to play on our team. Let’s show him what we got.”

  Blucher threw five passes to Wang, who caught the first four over his shoulder and the last one in his right hand, running sideways. While this was going on, Tasi Morimoto walked out on the field.

  I said, “Tasi, see that new kid? Show him what you got.”

  “I’ll punt some,” he said.

  Tasi got off three spirals. One went for fifty.

  Real loud I said, “Only fair, Tasi. Only fair.”

  The new kid walked over.

  I said, “Hiya, fella.”

  “Hi, Tony. You guys practicing?”

  “Nah. Just cutting up.”

  While he stood there, Smitty and Mike Miecislaus came. Now the whole team was there except Swede Olson and Rube Novikov, our guards. I went over to the guys. “See that new kid? He wants to join the squad. Let’s show him what we got.”

  “Give him some razzle-dazzle,” Smitty said.

  That was okay with me, the quarterback. We got into a huddle. I called the Rattlesnake Twist, No. 23. We broke huddle and the backs lined up in a T. I called some numbers, and on 23 Nunez centered the ball. I pivoted, slipped it to Smitty, our right half, and he shoveled it to Blucher, our left half. Blucher faked through guard, pivoted, and shoved it into Tasi’s belly as he came up from tailback. Tasi stopped dead, backed up three yards, and faked to pass. I came around, took it off Tasi’s fingers on the Statue-of-Liberty setup, and shoveled it to Wang, our left end. Wang pivoted, lateraled to Tasi, and Tasi shoveled to Blucher. Then Blucher hit guard. It was a terrific play. The new kid was plenty impressed. He came over with his hands in his pockets and the hole in his sweat shirt.

  I said, “You wanna try out, kid? Got two bits?”

  He dug a quarter out of his pocket and Smitty took it, because he was treasurer. All at once we could see this new kid was no football player. He had a fat butt and little hands.

  I said, “Okay, Jake. Go out for a pass. Tasi’ll throw you one.”

  Tasi dropped back ten yards. Jake was behind him, looking at the ground, drawing figures with his toe. Tasi cocked his arm. Jake just stood there.

  I yelled, “Run, Jake! Go out ten and cut!”

  Jake started running, but he was all butt, and we thought he was going to fall down. After ten yards he kept right on running. I yelled, “Hey, cut!” He threw himself on the ground, like he was blocking somebody out. Tasi passed anyway. The ball hit Jake in the chest and bounded into the street. Everybody turned away, disgusted.

  “We don’t want that punk,” Wang said. “He stinks.”

  I said maybe we could make a guard out of him.

  Rube and Swede, our guards, just laughed.

  Nunez said, “Hey, Jakie, or Julie, or Jennie! Where’d you learn to play football?”

  “I guess I’m not so hot,” Jake said.

&nbs
p; “Give the lad his money back,” Nunez said.

  But Jake wouldn’t take the money.

  “Maybe you guys can use a good manager.”

  “You don’t know enough football to manage an outfit like this,” Nunez said.

  “Is that so?” Jake said. “Maybe I can’t play, but I know more football than any of you guys.”

  “Okay, Brains,” Nunez said. “Who’s quarterback for Army?”

  “Arnold Galiffa,” Jake said.

  “Who’s right guard for Pitt?” Smitty said.

  “Bernie Barkouskie.”

  Tasi said, “Who’s left end for North Carolina?”

  “That’s easy,” Jake said. “Art Weiner.”

  “I got one for this punk,” Rube Novikov said. “Where was Leon Hart born?”

  “Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania. He is twenty years old, stands six feet four, and weighs 245. Anything else?”

  Everybody tried, but we couldn’t catch him.

  “Now I got one,” he said. “Who’s second-string quarter for the South New Mexico Mining Tech?”

  It stopped us cold.

  Jake smiled. “No such guy. No such school either.”

  “Okay,” Nunez said. “Let him be manager.”

  Jake was there the next day. He took down our names and weights. He brought a whistle and refereed the scrimmage. He knew plenty. Saturday we had a long practice. About four o’clock we knocked off for pop. While we were lying around under the palm tree Jake went away. In a half hour he was back with a newspaper, the San Pedro Progress.

  “Here it is, boys.”

  He spread the sports page on the ground. It said:

  POWERFUL ALL-AMERICANS MEET HOOLIGANS

  The powerful San Pedro All-Americans, undefeated in 15 successive games, will meet the Wilmington Hooligans Sunday afternoon at two o’clock at Cabrillo Playgrounds. The Pedro lads possess speed, power and deception unlike anything seen in the South Bay area in years. Tasi Morimoto, hard-driving fullback, and Joe Nunez, slashing center, have pulverized all opposition to face them. From end to end, the All-Americans boast an impregnable line—

  “Oh, boy!” Nunez said. “Slashing center. Wow!”