Roy was sitting at the kitchen table eating a ham and cheese sandwich when his mother appeared from the front of the house pushing Marty Bell toward the back door.
“I hope you don’t mind going out this way, Marty,” she said. “I thought it would be easier since you’re parked in the alley.”
Marty Bell was one of Roy’s mother’s boyfriends. He wanted to marry her but despite the fact that he made “a good living,” as she said, Roy’s mother would not marry him.
“Too bad he’s so short,” she had told Roy. “He only comes up to my shoulders. How could I be seen with him?”
Roy’s mother allowed Marty Bell to kiss her on the cheek before he went out the back door. Just as she closed it behind him, the front doorbell rang. She hurried through the house to answer it and returned less than a minute later to the kitchen accompanied by Bill Crown, another boyfriend of hers. Bill Crown was considerably taller than Marty Bell. His right arm was wrapped around Roy’s mother’s shoulders, and she was smiling.
“Look, Roy, Bill brought you a present.”
“Here,” said Bill Crown, “you can practice with this.”
With his left hand Bill handed Roy a small polo mallet. He knew that Crown played polo on the weekends, but Roy knew practically nothing about the sport, other than it was played on horseback and the participants rode around trying to hit a small, hard wooden ball into a goal. None of his friends knew anything about polo, either.
“I’d like you and your mother to come out to Oak Brook on Saturday to watch me play. It’ll be a good match.”
Bill took a scuffed white ball out of a pocket of his brown leather coat and set it on the table.
“This is from last week’s match,” he said. “You can knock it around the yard.”
Roy put down his sandwich and held the mallet in both of his hands.
“Put your hand through the strap when you grip the handle. That way you won’t drop the mallet. It’s made of bamboo. It’ll bend but won’t break.”
“Thanks,” Roy said. “I have a baseball game on Saturday.”
“We play on Sundays, too, sometimes. I’ll let you know. You’ll come this Saturday, Kitty, won’t you?”
“I’ll be happy to,” said Roy’s mother.
She and Bill Crown left the kitchen. Roy placed the mallet on the floor and finished eating his sandwich.
The next day, Roy was batting the wooden ball around in front of his house when his friend Johnny Murphy came by.
“What kind of a club is that?” asked Johnny.
“A polo mallet. Bill Crown, a friend of my mother’s, gave it to me. You ride horses and sock this ball with it.”
Roy handed Johnny the mallet.
“The shaft is made from bamboo and the head is hard wood, like the ball.”
“Sounds like hockey.”
“Yeah, only on horseback.”
“I think just rich guys play polo,” Johnny said. “Maybe he’ll give you a horse.”
“Uh huh. We can keep it in our apartment.”
“Is your mother gonna marry him?”
“I don’t know.”
“How many times has she been married?”
“Twice.”
“My mother says it’s rough on kids who come from broken homes. Do you want this guy to be your father?”
“I have a father. I’ve only seen Bill Crown a couple of times. He’s okay.”
Johnny hit the ball and it rolled into the street.
“What does your mother like about him?”
“He’s tall,” Roy said, and went to get the ball.