OVER THE NEXT FEW days, winter returned, school fell into an even deeper than usual winter funk, and nobody seemed to really be talking to each other more than they needed to. It may have been just my impression, my feeling that because I wasn’t right nobody was, but I don’t think so. Because it is clear enough that when you get hit with a weirdly glorious early spring day everybody is talking more and running more and just stupidly happy more than they are normally stupidly happy. So why shouldn’t it be that when that spring gift gets snatched away again, that good feeling goes right on out with it.
Anyway, I felt it. Maybe it was more, though. I suppose it could have been more.
Napoleon and I were okay, but not all the way. We saw each other a little less, which was fine since everybody needs to do that, to get out of each other’s way some of the time. And he saw more of Beverly. Which was fine. It was fine.
Friday morning was the next time anybody tried to get a schoolyard game of stickball going. That somebody wasn’t me, though. I squatted there on the sidelines, on my haunches, against the saggy ten-foot-high chain-link fence that separated St. Colmcille’s from the mainstream of Boston. Sort of like the Vatican was separated from Rome, Sister Jacqueline once told us, there but not there at the same time. The cold had refrozen a lot of the drippy runoff of the snow, but conditions were not all that bad for a game, considering.
Still I squatted, thinking about getting in, thinking about not. Until Napoleon came along. He never rushed himself through lunch, regardless of the weather or the outside activities. Lunch is finished when it is finished, he’d say.
He came right over and squatted next to me, watching along with me as the other guys carried on without us. A ballgame with both of the Gold Dust Twins sitting out. Didn’t make sense to me, but didn’t seem to trouble anybody else much.
“I don’t think we ever finished that discussion,” Napoleon said out of practically nowhere.
“What discussion?”
“From the last time we were out here playing ball.”
“Oh,” I said, recalling what I had been trying hard not to recall. “I know. I don’t want to talk about it, if it’s all the same to you. I don’t like talking about that stuff. I never have.”
“So you admit, anyway, that there is a problem there.”
“You think I could miss it? I just... would rather leave it alone, okay?”
Napoleon got very quickly and very seriously angry with me then. It took me by surprise.
“No. Richard. No, I don’t believe it is all right to ignore it and pretend if we leave it alone it will go away. It won’t, you know. It will only get worse, and you will have yourself very much to blame.”
I felt like one of those prisoners in an old detective movie, being grilled and grilled in a dark dirty sweaty room until he snaps.
“Fine,” I snapped. “I can’t stand to be struck out. By anybody. Not even you. I hate it, and you struck me out about a million times, in front of a million spectators. But I’ll get over it.”
He was struck dumb. He slowly straightened up, stretched, and stood over me. “You know I’m not talking about that, don’t you? You know I’m talking about what happened later.”
I took a long breath. “Well, I don’t know that, exactly... but I suppose I knew it was a possibility.”
“Why do you have to do that?” he asked, taking his seat beside me again. At least we had made that much progress. “Richard, what good does it do you to avoid the bad things?”
“What good does it do you to go looking for them all the time?”
We sat, shut up, watched the game going on without us. We weren’t done, though.
“So you believe that is all it was, just a regular part of the game.”
“I believe that is what it is, a regular part of the game.”
“Tell me then. When you do it, and someone gets hit, do you enjoy that part of it?”
“’Course not.”
“Now. Did Butch enjoy hitting me?”
Why? Why did he have to do this?
“Napoleon,” I said, shaking my head at the ground. I heard a lot of whooping and taunting that meant somebody had just knocked the ball out of sight. I wasn’t interested. Shame, that.
“Napoleon, why do you want to go thinking about what’s in somebody else’s head? I think that’s dangerous, you know, and it doesn’t really get you anyplace. Not anyplace good, that’s for sure.”
He sighed, stood up again. I was hoping he wasn’t going to put on the pressure for me to answer that question. I really didn’t want to think about that question.
“You’re right,” he said, “we don’t need to answer that question.” And he walked away.
I don’t think we were actually saying the same thing.
Friday evening, though, it was me and Napoleon, as planned, busing it out to the Westbrook Theater. We had this scheduled for over a week, as soon as I saw the Westbrook was bringing in Bang the Drum Slowly. It was an old-style big theater, with velvet seats and roof leaks so a lot of the time big sections of seats were roped off due to inclement weather. Most people were heading a couple miles up the parkway to the Showcase since they had four films going at once, and always had the newest releases, but I always preferred the Westbrook even if they brought in movies like Bang the Drum Slowly only after they had been around the block—okay, the world—a couple dozen times already. The concession stand was not exactly separated from the auditorium so much as it was just around a bend from it. That was good, because you could smell the popcorn very well and could still listen to the dialogue when you went to get some.
And Bang the Drum Slowly, with Robert DeNiro, playing in the Westbrook and no place else, was a baseball movie. That was all I needed to know about it.
“That is a very funny theater,” Napoleon said as we exited the wide, well-lit lobby.
“Ya,” I said, offering him a sip of my Coke, “I knew you would love it.”
He took the Coke. Sipped silently, even though it was very near the bottom of the cup and the ice should have been making a big noise. “I did not say I loved it.”
I took the Coke back. “Ya, but I can tell. Want some Junior Mints?”
He took some Junior Mints. Offered me some Good & Plenty. I took one, to be sociable, but Good & Plenty are awful, and I thought everybody knew that. In fact I believed that the boxes in the display case were dummies, empty cartons left there for the old-timey look.
“How can you tell, Richard? What I love and what I do not love?”
As agreed, we were walking along the small piece of sidewalk that connected all the mini-mall stores, past Bea’s Dress Shop and Hallmark Cards, over to Friendly’s for an ice cream.
“I don’t know, I just can, that’s all. Some stuff I just figure a guy’s gotta love. Just makes sense.”
“Mmm,” he said. He pushed the door to Friendly’s open, and let me in first. “So, did I love the film?”
“Oh ya,” I said. “Of course.” I pointed toward the back, to a booth, and he shook his head. We sat at counter stools.
“Well, I did not,” he said. “It was all right, but I thought it was a bit boring at times.”
“Boring? Boring? Are you—” Suddenly it occurred to me that, of course he was. “Ah, you’re just trying to get me going.”
“Get you going where? I did not like the film very much.”
“What are you talking about? There was baseball all over the place.” I was raising my voice just a little bit, and waving my arms around, as if to show Napoleon Charlie Ellis the baseball all over the place.
The waitress came over. “Can you please stop shouting?” she said to Napoleon.
“Excuse me?” Napoleon snapped.
“He wasn’t shouting, it was me,” I said. “And I wasn’t shouting.”
“Yes, you were shouting,” Napoleon said, staring deep into his menu as if he was embarrassed to be seen with me. And, of course, angry. “And I naturally get the blame for it.”
“Banana Boat,” I whispered to the waitress. She nodded.
Napoleon curled his lip. “I will have a bowl of strawberry. With strawberry sauce, please.”
We sat for a couple of minutes then, as the waitress went about her work. We stared at her, then at the flavor roster high above the counter. Then we stared at her some more. Then finally stared at each other, in the yellowy mirror across from us.
“It was a great movie,” I said.
“It was not,” he said, “but there were some fine things in it.”
“Like the baseball,” I said.
I was trying Napoleon’s patience. Maybe not completely by accident. “The baseball in that film,” he said firmly, “did not look very good to me. I think you are a better baseball player than anyone we saw tonight.”
I had only been half-listening to what Napoleon was saying, because I was so stirred up at the fact that he was saying it at all. I pointed a finger at his reflection and opened my mouth to snap, when the words finally caught up with my brain.
“Oh,” I said. “Well. I guess... y’know, for such a disagreeable guy, you sure do know how to disagree in a good way.”
He laughed. Our ice creams arrived. We attempted to be quiet again for a minute while we ate. Napoleon was pretty fair at being quiet for spells. That made one of us.
“So what was good in there, do you think?” I asked through a mouthful of banana and marshmallow.
He held up a finger while he quickly swallowed a spoonful of strawberry. I don’t think he was expecting to have to speak again that soon. And if you get one of those big hard frozen berries in there...
“Oh... oh...” Napoleon said, raising his hands to his temples and squinting hard.
“Take a half-spoonful and hold it on the roof of your mouth for five seconds,” I said, giving him the rescue dose out of my dish.
He did, and I could see relief come to his face. Success.
“Good work,” he said. “Thank you.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t know that one, man. I’ve frozen my head a thousand times and it always works. Jeez, there is still so much you haven’t learned.”
He turned to the real me, not the mirror me. “I have a history of taking reasonable bites, and of swallowing my food completely before speaking.”
“Ah,” I said, mouth once more full, “I’ll help you get over that too.”
I guess that was funny, because Napoleon laughed. And he continued looking at me. It was a strange picture now, with me eating, Napoleon staring at the side of my head, while I looked at him looking at me in the mirror. It was a picture I had not had before, watching him watching me. I did not know Napoleon Charlie Ellis as an overly smiley guy, as an easygoing guy, or even, you could say, as a warm guy. But there he was, once removed, almost as if he couldn’t tell I was watching. And so he was different. I could see him, guard down, enjoying himself. Smiling at Richard Riley Moncreif. Being easy with him. Liking him.
I turned quickly to face the real Napoleon, not the mirror one. Just as quickly he turned back toward his dish. Easier that way. For us both.
“Friends,” he said.
I stopped eating, but looked again at him in the mirror.
“In that movie. The friends, that pitcher and catcher. They were great and unusual friends. That was something fine to watch for one and a half hours. That was indeed very fine.”
Somewhere in there, I liked this. Though it was just a movie, after all. And at the same time it made me a little bit squirmy. Though it was just a movie, after all.
“Um-hmm,” I said. “Too bad he had to die. And that he was a half-wit.”
“Yes. And there was one thing, one big thing, that I think they got quite wrong. When that catcher asks if everyone has begun being kind to him simply because they know he is dying.”
“Right,” I said, taking a wild swing. “Like it would really matter.”
“No,” Napoleon answered. “I believe it matters very much. But I don’t think the pitcher’s answer was an honest one. He said, ‘Everybody knows everybody’s dying, and that’s why people are as good as they are.’”
I dropped my spoon into my empty bowl. “Ya, I remember that now. I thought that was really great. I loved that part. What was wrong with that?”
Sometimes, I could get the quick shock of a feeling that what I said could make Napoleon Charlie Ellis very sad and disappointed, and I did not know why or how to stop doing it. This was one of those times.
“I have moved three times in my life already, Richard Riley Moncreif, and the more new people I meet the less anyone seems to know about anyone else. And when you meet someone who is different, den dat is a remarkable ting.”
It was the first time. The first time I had heard it all peeled away, and heard Napoleon sound anything like his father. And he was breathing heavily, directly into my ear, as if this was an effort for him, and at the same time some kind of challenge, a dare, to me.
One that I did not understand.
“I’m sorry. That you had to move so much,” I said. “Maybe if you stayed in the same place you’d get to know people better. And they would be better. Maybe this is your stop. Maybe it’ll happen here.”
“Boston?” he said, raising one eyebrow high. “That’s not what the papers say.”
“Well, first thing is, stop looking at the papers.”
“All right. So when are we getting together then, you and I and our fathers?”
Sigh. I was so pleased to see Napoleon sort of warming up. But at the same time...
It wouldn’t do either of us any good to be pretending.
“Okay, second thing is, maybe you should stop asking for that. It wouldn’t... be a good mix.”
He nodded, like he had an equation just now worked out. Only he didn’t look satisfied or relieved, like a regular guy would.
“Richard, are you saying that reading about Boston or meeting your people won’t be helpful in straightening me out? Is that what you’re saying?”
I was approaching overload. No, Napoleon, just cut it out... all the time with this stuff. Always, always, he had to make it harder when it didn’t have to be.
I started humming. To the movie tune. So bang the drum slowly... and play the fife lowly...
“Richard?”
“No. What I’m saying is, can’t you just know a guy for the guy, and not think about where he comes from or who he lives with or whatever?”
He let the words float in the air. So we could both hear them. I think we both did.
“Good question,” he said.
He may have been waiting for me to give the answer. If I knew what it was I would have given it. But he wasn’t solving it either, so I was more than ready to move on to questions we could deal with.
“You gonna finish that?” I asked, pointing to his melting strawberry with puddled strawberry sauce.
He slid me the plate, shaking his head.