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Coach Nathan of the Hunter College Hawks baseball team used to get a great kick out of his starting second baseman Sticky Nicky. I don’t know where he came up with that nickname. I hated it. It made me sound like I just stepped out of the bathroom with a copy of Penthouse. But to him it was a term of affection. He saw me as a scrappy kid that was also the team’s most physical player. I stirred up the most action even though I was the smallest player on the field. My playing style involved diving for balls, sliding hard into bases, and barreling into catchers that were twice my size. He called me the Puerto Rican Pete Rose.
As a team we weren’t that good, we always lost a few more than we won. But my constant harassment of star players on the better, opposing teams was a constant source of entertainment to our supporters in the bleachers. Even the girlfriends of our more talented players would single me out as their favorite.
My “scrappiness” often drew physical confrontations with our opponents and charged up my teammates along with our followers in the stands. They loved how I never backed down to anyone—even if it was the 6’2”, 220 lb. All-City starting first baseman. Which is why, even with me not being the greatest hitter or fielder, I became the player everyone most enjoyed watching.
When Stefanie came to our game against Bronx Community, she witnessed this first hand and was able to hear some of the girls sitting in the bleachers, giggling about the cutest guy on the team. Apparently it was me. I couldn’t have planned it any better.
Doing my best to impress my tutor, I stole two bases and slammed into Bronx Community’s buffalo-sized catcher while trying to score from first on a single. I was out by a mile and the catcher never even budged. He flinched about as much as he would have if a fly had landed on his shoulder. Still, it was theatrical enough to get a good response from the bleachers.
When I picked myself up and dusted off, the catcher smirked as he threw the ball back to the pitcher. He couldn’t resist stirring the shit. “Go sit down, cucaracha.”
I took the bait.
Ready to rumble, I charged him but was intercepted by our on-deck batter and the umpire before I could take a swing at him. The umpire then continued to fan the flame by throwing me out of the game, which incited from me a rant of ear-melting profanities.
Our bleacher supporters ate it up. Stefanie though, found my behavior a little unnerving—so much for impressing her on the baseball field. Now I was down in two categories, English class fuck-up and poor sportsman.
“Why do you play like that?” she asked later at the Kingsbridge Diner (a nice Italian dinner at an Arthur Avenue restaurant wasn’t exactly in my budget). Besides, in those days a greasy spic from the South Bronx probably wouldn’t have been welcome there.
“Everyone on my team and all the other teams are like four inches and twenty pounds larger than me,” I said. “That leaves me at a disadvantage. So everything I do, whether it’s getting on base or scoring a run, I gotta fight for it.”
Stefanie studied Sticky Nicky as he poured ketchup on his burger and fries. I wasn’t stating my case too convincingly. “It didn’t look like that. It looked like you wanted to start a fight just for the sake of starting a fight.”
“Nah, that’s just the way I play.”
Apparently my aggressive style of play was more interesting than her tuna fish sandwich. “Maybe football is more your sport.”
“Actually, I tried out for football. I just didn’t make the team.”
“Well, from the sounds of the girls in the bleachers it looks like you have a nice little fan section.”
I laughed. “Them? Nah, they’re all dating the good players on the team.”
“You don’t think you’re good?”
“Oh, I’m okay. It’s just that everyone else is better.”
“Oh, stop it. You act like you’re the worst player on the team.”
“Hey, I’m only hitting like two-sixty. That is the worst on the team.”
“It’s not all about offense, you know.”
That stopped me mid-bite. “Oh, so listen to the sports analyst over here.”
Stefanie shifted the conversation back. “So you’re not dating any of them?”
“What?”
“The girls in the rooting section.”
“Oh, nah, don’t have the time, too busy to date. I got school, work, and it’s just me in the apartment so, you know, gotta pay the rent.”
It was a reminder of the previous night’s conversation. There was no mom in my apartment when I got home from school, no dad coming home from work, and no one to talk to about college, plans, or anything else. It was all up to me. No one checked my grades, no one paid my rent and no one from home came to the ball games to root for me. I was one hundred percent my own person.
“You must really miss your family,” said Stefanie, again stopping me mid-bite on my burger. When she realized it wasn’t the best point to bring up, she tried to retract. “Nicky, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“No, no, it’s okay. I just... I just don’t ever really talk about it. I just...”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
We had already done so the night before, the sounds of my mother screaming, cries of my strong, proud father, my sister’s blood spreading on the street in front of the car, the crowd gathering around her lifeless body, the fury of my mother’s fists pounding against my face, my pants soaked in warm urine. “No,” I answered quietly. “Not anymore.”
There was no further talk at all that evening—no baseball, no Chaucer, no college, nothing. When we got back to my car, which was parked under the Jerome Avenue El, I awkwardly bumped into her while reaching for the door on the passenger side.
It felt electric.
Not the door handle, her body.
We had avoided making eye contact since we left the diner. It was if we thought it might lead to an impulse we wouldn’t be able to control. Boy, were we right. Just as I opened the door we caught each other’s glance. That was all it took.
We fell into the front seat on the passenger side, hungrily locking our lips together in a forceful embrace. We then paused for a second and looked at each other.
Oh yeah, we were ready.
It wasn’t the ideal place, a parked car on Jerome Avenue with the Woodlawn Express roaring above us, but hey, these things happen when they happen. The mind goes blank and the bodies take over. I don’t even remember how we journeyed our way to the back seat that night, but I do remember us sweating out the delay in her time of the month for about ten days.
I also ended up getting a “D” in English—nothing to brag about, but at least I passed.
#
The cloud was all but lifted. For the first time since I could remember, Los Ruidos had lost some of their grip and were allowing me to breathe a little freer. Tinnitus by definition never goes away but when you’re able to tune it out, life can be a bit more agreeable. And with my mind always being on Stefanie, the presence of Los Ruidos was barely noticeable.
Our study sessions together usually began with all proper intentions at her apartment until her father’s increasingly intrusive eye led us to seek solitude in mine—an obviously bad idea. It resulted in very little studying, a worn out mattress, a stained couch, and even a broken dining room table (we got a little carried away that afternoon).
My newfound high spirits, though, also had an effect on the Hunter College Hawks—and it wasn’t a good one. Their gritty second baseman had mellowed. He had lost his aggressive edge. And since my other attributes were unspectacular at best, it made my spot on the roster virtually worthless. In my senior year I didn’t even make the final cut.
Coach Nathan said it best. “You play like you just don’t give a shit anymore.”
He wasn’t wrong. Being with Stefanie was all that my time allowed for. Nothing else mattered. Even Carmen, the super’s wife, saw the difference in me. And though she was disappointed that I was no longer sneaking into her bedroom for our usual gymnastics while hubby went to Ace Hardware for maintenance supplies, she actually seemed happy for me. We had had our share of fun, but now it was nice to no longer have to look over my shoulder while her legs were wrapped around my ass. Besides, she had other playmates like the postal worker in apartment 3A and the pharmacist that lived on the fifth floor.
#
“There he is!” boomed Artie, barely acknowledging his own daughter.
“I’m here too, Papi,” laughed Stefanie, joining her mother in the kitchen.
“Yes, of course you are, baby. How was the zoo?”
“It was fun,” lied Stefanie.
“That’s what I like about you, my boy. You treat my little girl like a princess,” said Artie, not knowing that for the prior two hours at my apartment, Stefanie and I had been knotted together like pretzels.
We had been dating three months and I was now regularly invited to her family’s apartment for Sunday dinners. Stefanie loved that her father had taken to me. He was one of those big, muscular dark-skinned Boricuas that gave suffocating bear hugs to everyone that he liked. If my disfigured ribs were any indication, he loved me—especially after the string of bums (his words) that had courted Stefanie’s attention before.
Artie was a hard-working guy that always smelled like dough when we came home from his job at a wholesale bakery on Castle Hill Avenue. When he learned about my story, he became such an admirer of mine that he’d regularly steal me away for a good part of the night to have a drink and chat. He had enormous respect for how I took care of things on my own and was working my way through college. And since by that time of the night he’d be working on his third glass of Bacardi and Coke, it would soon become bear-hug city. Artie was one of those I love you, man drunks.
“Dominic,” he called out to his son. “Nicky’s here!”
Dominic yelled back at us from the living room. “Hey, get over here, man. Duffy Dyer just hit another homer!” I couldn’t resist. I had to check it out.
Stefanie introduced me to her older brother shortly after we started dating. Dominic and I immediately bonded over the Mets. He was one of those crazy, trivia-obsessed fans that you’d always hear on sports talk radio. He could tell you what after-shave Jerry Koosman was wearing the day he pitched a three-hit shutout against the Astros in 1968. Shit, he could tell you what time the game ended and how many people were in attendance.
“Sit down, man,” said Dominic as I entered the living room. “Look at the replay.” Artie came in behind me shaking his head at the two Met nuts in his living room. Not that Artie wasn’t a fan, he just thought Dominic and I took it to another level.
“Two weeks ago, he’s a backup catcher,” laughed Artie. “Now, all of the sudden, he’s Babe Ruth.”
Dominic was big like his dad, even bulkier. He moved to the side on the couch to make some room. “Come on, Nick. Sit down.”
It was a new scene for me, family fighting for my attention. But it was one that I was quickly getting used to.
By that time, all of my uncles and aunts had moved back to Puerto Rico. They all had done their best to get me to move in with them after Mami died. It was difficult for them to grasp why I would want to be alone and not seek comfort from his extended family. And while their point of view was not a difficult one to understand, the losses that I suffered were something I had to deal with in my own way, so outside of birthdays and holidays, I stayed to myself and avoided their sorrowful glances.
Tío Juan was the last of the older Negróns to move back to la ísla. And though he tried hard to sway me towards starting a new life in Bayamón among relatives, he just couldn’t make the sale. Not even close. It’s not that they weren’t nice people. Quite the opposite, I loved my tios, titis, and primos. I just couldn’t bear to be around them. Every moment I spent with their families reminded me of who was missing in mine.
With la familia Torres it was different. By the time I met them, Los Ruidos for the most part had been shooed away by their radiant daughter, which made me a much more pleasant person to be around. And just the business and the life that clattered around from room to room in la casa Torres, was a welcome relief from the stillness inside the walls where I resided.
Ramona, Stefanie’s mom, was a traffic stopper. Happily, for me, her daughter looked just like her. Ramona was in her late forties, maybe even fifty. To this day, I don’t think I’ve met a more beautiful woman. She had light brown, shoulder-length hair and a petite, curvy figure that looked like she hadn’t gained a pound since high school. No wonder Artie was so happy.
Dinner was fantastic, arróz amarillo con carne guisada, y aguacate, man, that woman could cook. And though at first I thought they were all on their best behavior because there was a guest in the house, I quickly learned that the warm family atmosphere at their home was real—it was a feeling that for so long had not been a part of my life and was all but forgotten.
“Mami, that was fantastic,” said Dominic reaching for another helping.
“Dominic, you have that police physical agility test tomorrow,” said Stefanie. “Don’t you think you should let up a little bit?” In those days the NYPD Physical Agility Test had a demanding obstacle course that applicants had to complete in less than two-and-a-half minutes to qualify as a candidate.
“What are you nuts, sis? You think me having one more plate is going to make a difference?”
Artie laughed. “You see, Nicky? That’s why I have to work this hard, just to feed this guy.”
I chimed in. “You know, Dominic. She could have a point. Those few extra pounds could make a difference.”
“Oh, excuse me, Mr. Sticky Nicky, but who is the one that is always kicking your ass in one-on-one basketball?”
“Dominic, watch your mouth at the dinner table,” said Ramona.
He was right, though. Even with that additional weight he was carrying, Dominic was a tremendous athlete. All sports, too; baseball, basketball, football, you name it.
I offered a weak defense. “That doesn’t count. I suck at basketball.”
Ramona slapped me on the hand. “Nicky!” This woman took no shit.
Dominic laughed. “Come with me tomorrow. I’ll show you how I handle it.”
“You should go with him,” said Stefanie. “Maybe you can keep him from eating on the way there.”
That brought a big laugh from Artie. The guy was always laughing.
“Alright,” said Dominic, rising from the dinner table. “I’m gonna catch the rest of the game.”
“Not before you take out the garbage,” said Ramona.
“Don’t worry, Mami, I’ll take it out after the game,” replied Dominic.
“No, you will take it out now,” countered his mother.
“Call it a warmup for tomorrow’s fitness exam,” cracked Artie.
After dinner, Ramona rose and started to pick up the dishes. “Okay everyone, you all know what you have to do.” Despite her almost childlike size, it was clear that Ramona was the no-nonsense leader of the family. She managed the household like an efficiently run office. Everyone in the family had individual responsibilities after dinner. Artie cleared the table, Ramona put away the leftovers, and Stefanie did the dishes. Dominic’s part was taking out the garbage and she wasn’t about to let him delay it. Knowing him, he’d probably forget later. I observed this all from the table as an amused guest, but not for long.
“Nicky, did you enjoy your dinner?” asked Ramona.
“Uh yeah, it was great, Señora Ramona,” she liked when I called her that.
“Well good, you can now go help Stefania dry the dishes.”
I didn’t dare not comply.
I quickly took my position at the sink next to her daughter.
As we stood next to one another, Stefanie looked over at me and winked. “Welcome to the family.”
The next day, on the way to the NYPD Physical Agility Test, Dominic stopped at a nearby pizzeria and downed three slices while I stood by cursing the shit out of him. “You’re never gonna pass, you fat fuck!”
“You don’t want some?”
“No!” I refused to join him. “I can’t believe you’re doing this shit! Don’t you want the job?”
“Relax, man. You’re too up tight.”
“You’ve done nothing to prepare for this. You didn’t train, you’ve been eating like a maniac, what the hell is the matter with you?”
“Man, this pizza’s good. There’s no pizza like New York pizza. Am I right?”
Later at the site of the test, when his turn came to run the course, Dominic winked at me and took off, leaving behind a heinous, acidic fart. Barreling through effortlessly, he leapt each barrier, climbed the walls and trotted to the finish line with almost twenty seconds left to go. I still don’t know how he did that.
They were my new family, Artie, Ramona, Dominic and of course, Stefanie. A family that accepted me and loved me as if I had always been a part of their lives.
Almost twenty years later, that same young man they welcomed into their family would die in another woman’s bed.