The next morning, Nicky opened his eyes and listened. He heard no rain. He darted to the window. He saw no puddles, no clouds. The weather had changed. For the better.
The sky was summery blue. A feast for the eyes. Nicky pulled on a T-shirt and dungarees, skipped breakfast (who could eat?), and made straight for Lester’s apartment, taking the steps down two at a time.
“Today we will play stickball,” Nicky thought, but then he ceased this hopeful thinking. He knew if you thought about something too hard, expected something too much, it would never happen.
Lester’s mother, wearing a terry-cloth bathrobe, her red hair stored in a tight bun, answered the door to 2-C.
“He’s outside. I think he’s on the playground organizing that ball game,” she said.
“Yeah. Stickball,” Nicky said. “Thanks a lot.”
Nicky turned to go.
“Wait for a minute, Nick,” Lester’s mother said. She stepped into the hallway. “I hope you accept my dinner invitation one of these nights. I’m not that terrible a cook, you know. I make a very nice corned beef.”
“Okay,” Nicky said, confused. What dinner invitations?
“Good, then,” Lester’s mother said. “Enjoy the stick game.”
The sun was bright on the schoolyard. Nicky blinked against the light and focused on what appeared to be a crowd of older boys. A large sampling of the old gang was hobnobbing on the sun-washed concrete. Icky, Fishbone, Freddie, Mumbles, Joe Z., Bob (who somehow never acquired a nickname), Little Sam, Skippy, Cuddles, Duke, and Skipper—all present and accounted for. It was like a reunion. Except for the shaggy hair and sideburns, except for the bell-bottom jeans, the scene was straight out of 1965, an Instamatic print from the good old days.
“Hey, here he is, little Nicky all grown up,” someone said.
The voice belonged to a skinny kid, with bushy brown hair covering his ears. The kid wore gold-rimmed glasses. Nicky tried hard to place this skinny kid, then all at once he understood. This was Paulie the Mick, now taller, now without the crew cut, now without the nerdy black horn-rimmed specs.
Paulie the Mick was here, and that was all the evidence Nicky needed. He was convinced the sweet hand of fate was pushing events along this morning, arranging this, setting up that, making sure nothing went wrong, not this time. Paulie the Mick’s family had moved away three years earlier. And here he was on the playground. The morning shaped up to be something truly mystical and amazing. Like a dream. One for Ripley’s.
Paulie said, “Whaddya hear from Roy?”
“He’s good,” Nicky said. “What are you … Did you move back here?”
“No, I ain’t crazy. I just came down to see this jerk,” Paulie said. He pointed at Little Sam, his old best pal, his shadow from the good old days.
“I’ll jerk ya,” Skipper said. He grinned and swung the stickball bat with gusto.
Paulie the Mick shrugged. “I just got it in my head to drop in on the old neighborhood. Funny thing, I don’t know why. And just the other day, I was telling the guys at the shop about stick-ball. It was like I had a preposition or something.”
Lester appeared at Nicky’s side. He wore a San Francisco Giants cap, pulled a little too far down on his head. The cap made his ears stick out.
“Where did you find all these guys?” Nicky said.
“It was very interesting,” Lester said. “They found me. I came out with my glove and the bat and the ball. I sat on the wall over there. I was waiting for you. Next I knew, they were swarming around me. They were around me like bees on a Popsicle.”
“That’s very poetical,” Skipper said, eavesdropping.
Icky’s voice boomed from the crowd. “All right, let’s cut the crud. Are we gonna get this game going? Let’s pick sides. Mumbles and me are captains.”
Sides were chosen. Nicky was picked second-last, again. Lester was picked dead last, again.
Icky put his hands on his hips and surveyed the playground and Groton Avenue. “Listen up. I don’t think we’re gonna have any trouble with the colored folks today. I don’t see any around.”
The gang of boys swiveled their heads. The tenement stoops were empty. The sidewalks were empty. There were no faces and elbows perched in the tenement windows. It was eerie, as if the residents of Groton Avenue had simply moved away overnight. Nicky thought, “This is fate, destiny.” He thought the moon and the stars were lined up just right, creating this perfect moment, this sweet spot in time to play stickball. Everything was clicking. The sky was clear. The old gang was on hand and somehow, as if by magic, they were filled with little-kid enthusiasm. The black people were out of sight. The universe was snapping into place.
Icky continued, “And if we do have any trouble, there are plenty of us here. We don’t have to worry about nothing. If anybody tries to crash the game, just tell them to take a long walk off a short pier. That simple.”
Lester cleared his throat and said, “Pardon. Excuse me, please. I’d like to mention something.”
“What?” Icky snapped.
“I was only thinking. We should consider this.”
“What?”
“If anybody else wants to join in, I propose we merely let them.” Lester shrugged. “That way, we are guaranteed to avoid trouble.”
“Oh, thanks for the advice—stupid advice. Anything else?”
“Please, if I may, we could use an extra player or two. Imagine playing with full teams? That would be great, don’t you think?”
“What’s with the soft sell?” Paulie the Mick said. “Who is this kid?”
“New kid,” another voice said.
“I already said NO,” Icky said. “No mulignane crashes the game. It’ll only lead to trouble. Okay? If I want any more advice from you, I’ll beat it outta you.”
Paulie the Mick said, “Hey, remember the time Ick tried to play basketball with ’em?”
“Forget that,” Icky said.
Lester refused to let the matter go. He held on, like a terrier to a chew toy.
“Fellows, if I may …”
Nicky glared at his friend. Didn’t he know the planets and the stars were lined up? What more did he want?
Lester looked away from Nicky’s glare and went on, “It’s just an idea. I have an idea. Why don’t we take a vote?”
The boys moaned.
“Sheesh. Enough with the Boy Scout schtick,” Icky said. He shook his head and simmered. His face developed a pinkish glow. “You’re new here, and now you know better than us how to live here? You outsiders crack me up, you really do. Martini, where did you find this nigger-lover anyhow?”
Lester’s head jerked back, as if he had been slapped hard in the face. Mumbles shook his head. Leave it to Icky to cross the line.
“Do we have to go through this crud now?” Mumbles whined. “Let’s just play.”
Paulie the Mick said, with a trace of embarrassment, “Okay, Icky made his point. Let’s just play.”
Icky pulled a battered, folded Yankees cap from his rear pocket and yanked it down onto his head. The tight cap made strands of his long red hair curl over his sideburns. He said, “Okay, let’s play.”
Lester, injury in his eyes, looked at Nicky.
Nicky looked down at the asphalt, as if searching for a dropped coin.
Nicky’s team trotted onto the concrete diamond. The positions were sorted out. Mumbles at pitcher; Freddie, Little Sam, and Skipper in the infield; Paulie the Mick in center field; Cuddles in left field; Nicky in right field.
Right field was the traditional exile for the worst player. Nicky was not insulted by the assignment. He didn’t feel bad about anything. Not even the ugliness between Icky and Lester—he planned to explain to Lester later that Icky was a totally nasty crude jerk. Icky was always talking loud and saying stupid things. Not even Icky could ruin this day.
They were about to play stickball.
“Anything hit to the outfield, I got it,” Paulie the Mick said. He was called the Mick because he played the outfield like Mickey Mantle. Paulie was known as the second-best center fielder in Eggplant Alley. Roy was known as the best.
“Got it,” Nicky said.
Nicky grew happier with each step into right field. The sunshine on his neck soothed him like a warm, tender hand. In the open space of the schoolyard, a delicate breeze rippled Nicky’s T-shirt. Nicky felt as if he were walking into a concrete heaven, a place he had imagined, a place he had looked forward to, and a place he would look back on.
He reached his position and soaked up the scenery. He was moved deeply. His teammates swayed and shuffled as they awaited the first pitch. The boys with gloves flexed the leather, massaging away the awful deathly stiffness of summers without stickball.
Skippy, the first hitter, took practice swings, hitched up his jeans, and arranged himself into a batting stance. Eggplant Alley loomed over the players. The windows of Building B glinted and the red brick glowed in the morning light. The building seemed to smile.
Nicky wanted to pick out his kitchen window. He wanted to find the place where he once sat and mooned down on the stick-ball games, hoping and wishing and dreaming, day after day, summer after summer in the good old days. He wanted to recall the ache, now that the ache was gone.
Nicky counted windows from the bottom floor up.
“… five,” he said to himself, gazing up at the familiar kitchen curtains. He grinned, because he was down here at last, playing the game, finally playing stickball, and while he silently rejoiced, there was the thwock of bat on ball.
Nicky glanced away from Eggplant Alley. His eyes focused on a pink blur cutting through the air. The Spaldeen rocketed straight at him. Car accidents, narrow escapes, split-second sports plays—they actually do unfold in slow motion. Nicky was fascinated by the ball as it grew larger and larger. He meekly raised his arms at the last moment, almost in afterthought.
The ball whacked him in the forehead.
Nicky’s forehead tingled. He was vaguely aware of jeers and yelps. He thought he had better look for the ball. Where was it? Down at his feet? In his glove? Where was it? He was moving, staggering, as if in a dream. A crummy dream.
Behind him were footfalls and a rummaging sound and a chain-link clatter. Paulie the Mick swore and kicked through the newspapers, wrappers, cans, and bottles accumulated like beach flotsam near the fence. Paulie fished out the ball, heaved it. The throw was far too late. Skippy was dancing across home plate, laughing.
Mumbles glared at Nicky.
Paulie the Mick barked, “Get your head out of your butt.” He trotted back to center field, muttering.
“I wasn’t ready …,” Nicky said.
From the other team, someone taunted. “Butterfingers in right field! Hit it to right!”
Nicky thought, “Butterfingers. They mean ME.”
He wished Roy were there. He needed a friendly set of eyes. He picked out Lester, who toed at something on the asphalt, eyes down, arms folded.
“Look alive!” Mumbles shouted, and he squared his shoulders for the next batter.
Nicky’s forehead was numb. His ears and face burned with embarrassment. He prayed the inning would pass without another ball coming his way. He did not want the ball hit to him.
“Not to me,” he thought. “Please, not to me.”
It was a desperate sensation, the worst feeling in the world for anyone wearing a baseball mitt, on a baseball diamond anywhere. Don’t hit the ball to me—it was a plea of surrender and cowardice.
Fishbone popped out to Mumbles. Nicky exhaled with relief.
Joe Z. walked.
“Whew,” Nicky said.
Bob struck out.
Nicky thought, “Good.”
Icky walked. The bases were loaded.
“Not to me, not to me, not to me,” Nicky chanted to himself.
Lester was up. Lester stepped uncertainly to bat. He adjusted his cap, further splaying out his ears. He pushed his glasses to the bridge of his nose and rested the stick on his shoulder. Nicky thought his friend looked terrified.
Now Nicky relaxed. Poor Lester. Easy out. No batter. He was more likely to fly to the moon than to get a hit.
Strike one. A pink blur smack in the middle of the painted square.
Strike two. A weak, feeble wave. Lester swung like Mrs. Furbish. Nicky thought Lester probably had his eyes closed.
Nicky turned his head to his right and stared at Paulie the Mick. Nicky stared until his eyeballs ached and then he saw Roy, from the old days, cap perfectly cocked, tall and graceful in center field. Roy walked and scratched and spit masterfully, exactly like the big leaguers on television. Roy pounded his fist into his glove and crouched, ready to sprint after a fly ball, the way he did all those days while Nicky watched from the fifth-floor kitchen window.
Thwock.
Lester had connected, proving that even a blind rat finds steak now and then. The ball skipped into right field. It bounded straight toward Nicky like a sprinting alley cat. The ball seemed to pick up speed along the concrete. Nicky put his glove down.
The ball scooted between his ankles.
Nicky looked into his empty glove and between his legs. He got a glimpse of the ball as it rolled all the way to the fence.
Two runners scored.
Lester, smiling big, was perched at second.
“Butterfingers!”
“You play like you’re in another world,” said Paulie the Mick.
A sandpapery voice shrilled out from Eggplant Alley, “Boy, oh, boy, criminy. That one stinks. Send him packing.” Nicky’s eyes swept Building B, mortified to be heckled. On the second floor, framed in the open window like a portrait, was Mrs. Furbish’s ancient face. She scowled down on him in disgust.
“I am being razzed by a hundred-year-old woman,” Nicky thought.
Skippy stepped to bat.
“Not to me, not to me,” Nicky pleaded.
Skippy grounded out to Mumbles.
Inning over.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Nicky thought as he ran off the field as fast as he could—fleeing. He felt as if the school bell had rung before the teacher could call on him again.
Icky’s team trotted onto the field. Lester ran awkwardly to right. “Let’s see how HE does out there,” Nicky thought bitterly.
“Listen up. We’re down, three–zip,” Mumbles said. “Let’s do some cutting and slashing, boys. Some cutting and slashing.”
Mumbles stepped to bat. Icky had his drop pitch working, just like in the good old days, and Mumbles struck out.
Paulie the Mick could hit the drop pitch, just like in the good old days. He singled.
Freddie, as patient as he was in the good old days, walked.
Little Sam whacked a lucky ground ball up the middle for a hit. He always was lucky.
Icky pounded his mitt and swore.
Cuddles stepped to bat. The bases were loaded. Nicky was glad no one could read his mind, because he was heartily rooting for Cuddles, his own teammate, to make an out. Nicky prayed to come to bat with the bases loaded, with a golden chance to be the big hero. He didn’t want Cuddles to take his chance away.
Cuddles walloped the first pitch. It was a beautiful fly ball, a parabola out of the algebra textbook, to deep right, toward Lester.
Poor Lester turned one way, then another.
He stumbled.
He tripped.
He ran, glove extended limply, toward the chain-link fence. Lester moved like a boy who never saw a fly ball before in his life.
Lester’s hat flew off.
He careened into the fence. The chain-link jangled.
And the ball plopped into Lester’s glove, as if supernatural powers had ruled that this particular fly ball on this particular day was simply going to be caught.
“What a catch!” Icky hollered.
Lester’s team cheered and screamed. There was a clacking sound from Eggplant Alley—Mrs. Furbish slapping her cane on the windowsill.
Nicky thought, “This stinks.”
“Okay, okay. That’s only two out,” Mumbles said roughly. “Who’s up? Who’s up?”
Nicky raised his hand.
“Oh,” Mumbles sighed.
The life went out of Mumbles’s voice.
“Well, go get ’em, Martini. I guess.”
Nicky picked up the dropped bat and stepped to the plate. And this was one of the reasons Nicky loved baseball, in all its forms. The game offered redemption. Nicky had made two boneheaded errors minutes before. But right before him, on a serving platter, was a chance to wash away the shame, clean the slate, make penance. In any other sport, the two stupid plays would have cooked him for good. In football and basketball or hockey, his teammates would never let him near the ball or puck again. He would have been banished, written off, forgotten. But this was stickball. And Nicky stepped up to bat with the bases loaded and two outs. A once-in-a-lifetime chance to be a hero, no matter how much his teammates wished someone else, anybody else, was hitting.
“This is my rendezvous with destiny,” Nicky thought, tightening his jaw while his stomach fluttered crazily. Nicky heard his heart thump loudly. And for an instant he thought everyone else heard it, too, because Mumbles said, “Hey, what is that?”
Mumbles shielded his eyes to see deep right field. The other players looked toward right field, too. What they saw was Lester, by the gate, staring up at a big, muscular black man. The man was trim-waisted and broad-shouldered. The man had his arms folded and he looked down with amusement at Lester. The man’s thick biceps pushed against the sleeves of his orange sport shirt. He wore wraparound shades. At the curb, another black man leaned against a red convertible. He had his arms folded and chomped on a toothpick. These were clearly two tough guys.
“They have Lester surrounded,” Nicky thought.
The big black man reached out a big paw. He wiggled his fingers, as if to say, “Gimme the ball.” Lester handed the ball over. The big man rolled it around, chuckled. He showed the ball to his friend with the toothpick.
“They’re toying with him,” Mumbles said.
The stickball players in the field edged away from Lester and the two big black men. The players took baby steps and put some distance between themselves and the disaster brewing in right field. They moved away, the way you would move away from an automobile engulfed in flames. Move, before the gas tank blows.
Lester threw glances toward his retreating teammates as he jabbered to the big black man. Lester’s eyes were bugged out behind his glasses. Lester looked like a boy who needed rescue.
Nicky thought, “He’s scared out of his skull.”
But none of the players moved. Those two black man looming over little Lester were grown-ups, bad dudes, big and strong and mean. None of the Eggplant Alley boys wanted to mess with them.
Lester was on his own.
“Hey FELLAS …,” Lester sang out.
Lester’s eyes bulged. His face shone with sweat. He pointed to the big man and gestured to the players. His hands flew in wild directions. His lips trembled. He squeaked out a silly giggle.
Lester was unraveling.
Icky snatched the bat from Nicky’s hands. Icky’s face was a maraschino cherry shade of red.
“Where did those guys come from?” Icky growled. He shouted an angry plea across the schoolyard, “JERKS! BUTTHEADS! JUST LEAVE US ALONE!” His words echoed on the walls of PS 19 to Eggplant Alley and back again.
The big black man swiveled his head toward Icky. The man scowled. The players near Icky jumped at the sight of the scowling face, focusing on them. The man jerked a thumb toward Icky. The boys edged away from Icky.
Lester’s mouth was going fast. His head bobbed as he jibbered.
“Hey! Fellas! Hey fellas!” Lester said.
Lester rocked on his feet, stepping away, stepping closer, blabbering and turning in an excited little dance. Lester didn’t know if he was coming or going. He looked like a puppy, waiting for the big black man to throw the ball for him.
Nicky thought, “He’s gonna make a break for it.”
Lester’s voice pitched high, into desperate octaves. “Hey fellas. FELL-ahhhhss! This is … he wants … he wants …”
Icky cleared his throat deeply, spit on the pavement savagely, swore bitterly. He slammed the stickball bat onto the pavement. The bat snapped in two.
Paulie barked, “Why did you do that for?”
Mumbles whined, “That was our only bat.”
“So sue me,” Icky said. He kicked the bat pieces and they spun along the asphalt. “So what? Game’s over. Ruined again by you-know-what. Come on. We better get out of here.”
“What about Lester?” Nicky said.
“That’s your problem,” Icky said. “He was mighty keen about playing with the coloreds. Let him play with that guy.”
Icky and the gang shuffled away from the concrete diamond.
“BUTTHEADS!” Icky shouted, out of a need to make loud noise.
They moved like scraps of paper in the wind, drifting toward the steps to Summit Avenue. They looked over their shoulders as they walked, watching Lester, watching the black men, reluctant to go, but more reluctant to stay around.
Nicky watched his friend. The men were leading Lester away, out of the PS 19 playground, out on the sidewalk, farther from the stickball players and safety, into no-man’s-land. Nicky imagined his friend was about to be slaughtered or, if he was lucky, only kidnapped. The two black men loomed over him and escorted him to the car. The man with the wraparound shades plucked the glove from Lester’s hand, as if to say, “I’ll be taking that now, sonny.”
Nicky heard himself whimper. He was overwhelmed with a desire to help Lester. His heart pounded deeply and his head pulsed with heroic urges, whipped up in him by years of war movies and cop shows and comic books and adventure stories. He knew what he must do.
And he could not do it. Nicky could not make his feet move toward Lester and the two hulking black men on Groton Avenue. He wanted to go there, but he could not. His feet were like battleship anchors. It was like trying to run in a dream. He couldn’t move. It was like trying to convince himself to walk off a cliff. His feet would not respond to the order. He was simply too scared.
Then the black men strolled away from Lester. Lester was left all alone on the sidewalk.
Two car doors slammed. The sporty red convertible backed up, engine screaming, all the way down Groton.
Lester waved as the car zoomed away. The car’s thick tires squealed out into traffic on Lockdale Avenue.
“He waved to them?” Nicky said.
Icky and the gang stopped in their tracks. “Whaddya know, he’s still alive,” Mumbles said.
Lester scooted through the gate and ran, sneakers flapping, across the playground. Nicky noticed Lester still held his glove and the ball. It was a miracle.
Nicky said, “Are you hurt?”
Lester gasped for air and said, “Of course … I’m not hurt. Jeepers creepers … you fellas … Why didn’t you come out there?”
Icky snapped, “Do we look like cops?”
Lester exhaled deeply. “Do you know who that was?”
“Your father?” Icky said.
“No. It was Willie Mays. Himself. Willie Mays. The great Willie Mays. The greatest center fielder in baseball history. And he wanted to play stickball with us. He wanted to play with us, fellas.”
“You lie.”
“I do not.”
“Do too.”
“You’re full of baloney.”
“Look,” Lester said. He held open his glove. It was autographed in blue ballpoint ink: “To Lester, Nice catch! Best wishes, Willie Mays.”
“He said they were making a commercial for coffee or something down on that big street. Broadway. He said he always likes to play stickball in the neighborhoods. When he comes back to New York. With the Giants.”
Mumbles said, “Willie Mays. Holy smokes. Willie Mays wanted to play stickball with us. Icky chased him away.”
“The chance of a lifetime,” Fishbone said.
“Come on. It’s not like it was Mickey Mantle or something. Now, Mickey Mantle, he was something,” Icky said lamely.
“Mickey Mantle don’t even play anymore,” Skipper said.
Icky and the gang shuffled their sneakers and shook their heads. Lester gazed, eyes moist, at the autographed treasure. His face was glowing.
Icky said, “Big deal. Just some writing on a glove. Ruined your glove, too.” He started toward the steps to Summit Avenue. “I’m going to get some smokes.”
“Wait up,” said Fishbone.
Icky and the gang wandered away, toward the steps to Summit Avenue.
“You know, fellows,” Lester piped up. “You know, there is a valuable lesson here for all of us.”
Icky said, “Dink. I got your lesson right here …”
“No, the kid’s right,” Fishbone said. “The lesson is, forget about playing stickball around here.”
Nicky watched as Icky and the gang walked away, taking summer with them. Their heads bobbed as they descended the stairs. Their baseball caps dipped behind the wall, sinking from view like setting moons and shooting stars.