Chapter XVI: Licensed to ILL

Chapter Sixteen: Licensed to ILL

After the Sox lost, after I broke JoJo's wrist, after Darcy gave me her sock, and after I failed Chemistry, I decided to take my father’s car out while he was at friends house. The fact that I was not licensed to drive didn’t bother me as much as the voices I started to hear in my house. These voices kept telling me to watch the tape of Game Six. I argued with them that I wasn't strong enough, but they insisted that if I watched the game then I might be able to change the past. The Sox still had a chance. Really, I thought?

It can't hurt.

Suddenly, I was watching #46, Bob Stanley, throw a wild pitch to allow the tying run to score. Of course it could hurt. It hurt like a pencil in the eye. The voices were completely wrong. I took the tape into the basement and grabbed a hammer.

“Go ahead,” said a figure shifting in the shadows by the heating oil tank, “Give up. What did Dewey ever do for you?”

“Who are you? What do you know about Dewey?”

Ever since October 25^th, I hadn't been feeling like myself. An ache persisted in my throwing shoulder and I was in danger of failing P.E. because I couldn't run without limping. I'd lost my appetite and could barely put away two slices of pizza during lunch period. I had seldom been tardy for home room, but now I was lucky if I made it in time for second period. I hadn't been watching the Game Six recording daily, but I was thinking about nothing else. Ray Knight. Gary Carter. Calvin Schiraldi. Kevin Mitchell. So when I thought I had a chance to relieve the pain by watching the tape, I was happy to try. Now that I found the pain was no less sharp three months after the fact, I was inconsolable. The only option was to destroy the tape. But the voice in my basement stopped me.

“Oggy, I know everything about Dewey. I know how you love him, how you want to grow a mustache like his, how you prop your left foot when you bat, just like Dewey.”

“Everyone knows that,” I said.

“But not everyone knows how the Red Sox can win Game Six. No, not everyone.”

I put the hammer down.

“Yes? Tell me more. Tell me how.”

“You already know how, Oggy. But time is running out. Pretty soon we'll leave here. Your opportunity will be lost. Our songs are fading.”

I was familiar with the songs we sang at the Ordione Point fires, drunk songs, carefree songs of dust and blood and lust. But I hadn't thought that the songs would end, that the fire would die.

The figure stooped to pick up one of my father's old records from a moldy box. He turned it over to look at both sides, then discarded it and picked up another.

“The Kingston Trio? Pat Boone? Bobby Vee? Do you remember them, Oggy? No? Well, our songs won't be sung forever either. Duran Duran will be forgotten along with Stacey Q and the Timex Social Club. Just like Ricky Nelson”

“That isn't true,” I snapped. “Take that back! Stacey Q is the best. I love Stacey Q. She's better than Cindy Lauper and way better than whoever Pat Boone is.”

“Please, Oggy. You know this is true. Our songs are precious only to us. Then they fade. The coals grow cold even now.”

I picked the hammer up again.

“Fine. But that's how it's always been. Always. The fires burn for so long and then go out. No one controls that.”

The figure kicked the box of records back into the darkness.

“Tool! You think we worked all these years to leave behind only ash for others to piss on? You think our fires can only burn for four years? You think that pain you now feel will only last four years. That pain is forever...unless.” The voice trailed off as I put the hammer back down.

“Unless what? Whoever you are, I'll do anything. The Sox have to win that game. Schiraldi has to strike out Ray Knight. I can't live like this anymore. I can't sleep. I can't eat. Darcy's sock is the only thing that gives me relief. Her sock and my hat.”

“Isn't that too bad. So much pain for nothing.”

“I know! I'm good. I can do good things. I played Clutch in Whiffle Ball.”

“That's right. You struck him out with the Ephus pitch. And didn't you get the high score on Star Castle?”

“Yes! I got that high score and it stayed up there until they took the machine away. I was the best, but nobody likes me. They all think I'm a loser. All the girls think I smell. But I can't change this sweatshirt until they Sox win.”

“Of course you can't.”

“Dewey promised me they'd win.”

“I know. He gave you his hat. That's worth a championship.”

“Exactly! I can't wash my hat. There is something about it, something sacred, like...”

“Like you are the protector?”

I was giddy with relief. All my secrets were being shared but I wasn't embarrassed. The figure, the wraith, knew everything about me and still liked me. I was important. He understood that I knew secrets, that I was good.

“Yes! I'm protecting something. Something that is unique and can't be cleansed ever. No one understands.”

“Why would they? What do they know about Ray Knight? Do they know who Mookie Wilson is?”

“Exactly! That is exactly what I told them. They don't understand. They think I'm crazy, but I'm not. I just believe.”

“What do you believe, Oggy? Tell me.”

“That...that the Sox can still win. I know it sounds crazy, but I think something went wrong in the world and if I can figure out what it was then I can fix it and the Sox will win. Then Dewey can celebrate like he wanted. That's all he wanted to do. I believe he still can.”

“Of course you do. And I believe our fires can burn as long as we want them to. See? I believe we need never enter the land of Nostalgia. Our songs, Stacey Q, Duran Duran, The Beastie Boys, don't have to fade. Maybe we can each help the other?”

“But how? How can the Red Sox win? How can Schiraldi strike Knight out?”

“The question is how much time do you need to find out you already know how?”

This was a puzzling response. How much time did I need to find out I already knew? I didn't know already. That was obvious. I spent every minute in my bed either molesting Darcy's sock or puzzling myself about Game Six. How much time did I need?

“I don't know. A day? A week?”

“You can have as long as you want, Oggy. You can have all the time you need as long as you do what I ask. It is but a small request, a nearly meaningless gesture on your part. Simply stretch the old songs a little. They are so very lyrical, I think. It is a shame, I've always thought, to end them so soon.”

My tales of Halloween and Star Castle and Whiffle Ball were Tribe favorites. I'd always felt they were a little short, but the idea of stretching them out never occurred to me.

“Those songs are that length for a reason. There is no more to them. They end when they end. You can't just make a night last longer than it did. I can't score any higher on Galaga then I did. You can't...wait. You want me to...no I can't do that.”

I realized what he was asking, but failed to see how it connected to the Red Sox.

“Why not, Oggy? You can do what you want. They are your songs. Those are your high scores.”

“But not mine alone,” I yelled. “They're the history of the whole tribe! They belong to Sticky and to Huggy and to Erin. Skip has a part in these songs. Rose and Darcy and all the girls own the songs. Even the Downs Syndrome kid we picked on has a part. Our songs are all we have to remember the old times. I can't change them without changing our history.”

“The old times? What old times? Remember Pat Boone? Remember Buddy Holly? Do you think anyone will remember the old times when were gone? Do you think we have made such an impact on this town.”

The only thing I knew about Pat Boone and Buddy Holly was that my father listened to them. That meant they were synonymous with old fashioned.

“I thought the songs were for us,” I said.

“You know better, Oggy. I see you at the fires, scanning the crowd for new faces to impress. You want the Freshman girls to admire you, to remember you, to recognize you in the hall.”

The figure came closer. I was starting to recognize him, but couldn't place his name. He knew me too well. I did enjoy watching the tribe respond to my songs at Ordione's Point. My tale of playing Whiffle Ball in JJ Newberrys was guaranteed to bring out broad smiles. I was good at something, I played Whiffle Ball and got the high score on Star Castle. Why couldn't the girls see that?

“They don't know any better,” I said. “They need a role model.”

“Sure, and you can be that role model. But not if the fire dies, Oggy. Not if our songs remain fixed.”

The figure slammed his fist into his palm.

“Even now the fire is fading. We are nearly halfway through high school, Oggy. How much longer do you think the tribe will stay together? How much longer will the '86 Series be within your grasp? A day? A week? You can decide if you have the time.”

I stood next to the work bench. One hand was on the hammer. The other hand unconsciously stroked my Sox hat. Cold chills snaked through the window frame. This figure appeared and spoke like Toddy Bonigan, but he shifted in and out of my field of vision. I was not afraid of him because he understood me. Finally someone understood me. He knew Ray Knight as I knew Ray Knight. I didn't sound like a lunatic with him. I didn't feel like a loser. I belonged. I had power to set things right.

“So I just add something to each song?”

“A phrase or two. It will hardly be noticed except by you and I.”

He was so convincing and I was certain he was on my side. I also looked forward to being recognized at the next Ordione Point Youthfire.

“A phrase? Like if Sticky and I are at Gillies and some guy from White Falls came in like that time last summer.”

“I remember. What a song! But what will history remember?”

“One guy had a gun...” I said in a whisper.

“Did he?”

“He did. And he was just showing it off.” I waved my hand around.

“You don't say? Waving a gun? How dangerous.”

“Yeah! And the gun fired and broke a front window in JJ Newberrys.”

“Really? Was it the window we all thought Huggy broke with that brick?”

I nodded my head. “It was. But really it was this guy with a gun. They ran away and Sticky and I just sat there.”

“They?”

“Yeah, there were like three kids from White Falls. We just sat there like nothing had happened eating our hamburgers. It was crazy. We almost died. The cops came, Bullwhip.”

I was flush. I took off my hat and found the brim damp though it had just been chilly. I had called him Bullwhip without even realizing it. The figure came closer, or grew larger and now stood in the light. It looked like Toddy Bonigan except different. He looked like how I saw him in my mind. Bullwhip's mouth no longer moved though I could hear his words.

That wasn't so hard, was it? That wasn't that bad? Now maybe you'll find that Mr. Rich Gedman is a little bit closer to catching the wild pitch.

I instantly knew he was right. What did my father know about sports? He didn't know me. He didn't know Ray Knight. I was the one with the high score in Star Castle. I was certain beyond all doubt that Gedman would catch the wild pitch. I ran upstairs with the tape, completely forgetting about the shadow figure, the wraith in my basement. I rewound the tape and played it again as Bob Stanley threw the 2-2 pitch to Wilson. I sat inches from the screen and touched the spot where the ball had for months been squeezing through Gedman's glove. I paused the tape and inched it forward, frame by frame. The ball had shifted closer to Gedman's glove. I rewound the tape and tried again, concentrating even harder. This time it was almost a strike. It was almost a strike! Stanley could strike out Wilson before the tying run scored and the Sox would win! The Sox could win! This realization knocked me to my feet and threw me onto the couch. Chills crept over my skin, bugs under my flesh. What had I done?

Nothing you'll regret. I respect what you've done, Oggy. Dewey respects you. How did that window get broken again?

Dewey? How did this wraith know so much about me? I shook my head. What spell had he cast? I left the tape untouched because I was suddenly too afraid turn it off. Gedman was frozen in a torturous position as he reached for the ball. Had it moved again? What was happening?

I ran outside. Maybe I would walk to Cristo's. No, I was still not speaking to him after he told me to accept that Dewey just hadn't gotten the clutch hits. Maybe Erin's house? No, Rose would be home she would paw my ears for an hour while I hid my erection and tried not to stare at her unbridled chest. Kurt was in California, probably getting laid at that very moment. Where could I go? The temperature hovered around ten degrees so I went back inside and got the spare set of keys to my father's car. I considered going upstairs to get Darcy's sock and then taking a bus to Boston. I could panhandle enough money for a plane ticket to Colombia where my mother lived. There was laughter from the living room.

They don't know you. They don't know Ray Knight.

Why not just sit inside the car until the voices went away? Sure. Play a little music until I was ready to go to sleep. I turned the heater on but found I needed to actually start the engine to get hot air. I turned the engine on and took out the 1986 Red Sox team photo I had started carrying with me.

“Dewey? What should I do? I think you still have a chance. I think Stanley can strike out Wilson. What should I do? Should I lie at the Youthfire?”

Yes! Lie! Sing! You have this life to live before your bones sink in the South Street dirt with Wynn! Live while you can.

Then I found myself backing the car out of the driveway. Just a little spin around Lincoln Avenue to keep the engine warm, I thought. Just clear my head, and give whoever was in my house time to leave. Maybe I would visit Darcy. She would be impressed that I had risked so much to see her. Then she would understand.

No one witnessed me back the car onto Elwyn Avenue, take a left turn onto South Street and casually enter Break Island Ave. No one saw me put a Beastie Boys tape in the tape deck and turn up “No Sleep 'till Brooklyn”, singing along as I passed the hermit shack. I would go to Colombia tomorrow, I decided. I would leave Bone Harbor.

One of the two Break Island police officers hidden somewhere between the first bridge and the second bridge definitely witnessed my car speeding over the causeway. I know this because just after the graveyard, just over the first hill, near the primary school, said police office pulled up behind me and turned on his red lights. I turned my own car's lights off (thinking I would become invisible) and hit the gas. Screw the coppers! I was going to Colombia! I hit the first stonewall I passed, less than fifty feet away from the school. The car lights came on and then went off. I slumped over the wheel. I was very sick of life.

After a long wait, the policeman calmly walked to the side of the car. I rolled the window down and prayed he would simply warn me and let me go. He asked for my license and registration instead.

I looked at him and said honestly, “I can give you the registration.”

“And the license?”

I shook my head. It was cold. I was shivering. I wanted to close the window and go to sleep. I was suddenly so tired. I just wanted to go to sleep in Darcy's arms and she could play with my ears or just comb my hair with her fingers. Leaves blew by in the night like empty chip bags. I clutched my Sox hat, pressing it to my face. It seemed to recognize my pain. Faces looked out the bay window directly in front of my head.

The car was seized. I was taken in cuffs to the small Break Island jail under the City Hall and waited while the policeman called someone who could “take responsibility” for me. Oh, the humiliation! I had gone from a free man listening to his generation’s freshest white rap music, on his way to pick his girlfriend up, planning an international journey, to an infant waiting for his aged grandmother to collect him. It was a shift in maturity of some ten years in one thunderous moment like a storm from the North that hits without warning and leaves everyone without power.

This was the sort of challenge I had expected as I stood in the tide of the Sagamore River searching for the severed rope. Remember? It had arrived. Sadly, it arrived in the form of my withered grandmother.

“This wouldn't have happened if your poor mother had stayed with your poor father,” she said after asking the Policeman how much bail was (There was none. As a juvenile I was released with a future court date to be set to further humiliate me.)

“You poor, poor boy. Where were you going? It's so late. Don't you have homework?”

“I just wanted to see my girlfriend.”

My grandmother shook her head.

“It's so late. It's so dangerous on the roads. Couldn't your father drive you? Couldn't...”

Then she understood. She mourned.

“He doesn't know you took his car? He doesn't know? Oh! What will we do?”

It was one of the few times I didn’t make the complete circuit around Break Island since my grandmother drove back over the granite causeway to Bone Harbor. I sat in the back seat like the family dog staring at the vacant eyes of the prison across the dark river.

At the weekly Youthfire, by the imbedded bunkers in Langdonville, I said I hit a police car and took off running through the woods.

“Where did they catch you,” asked Bonigan.

“In the graveyard. They caught me in the Break Island Cemetery under a stone angel. They chased me with dogs.”

“Dogs.” Cried the Tribe. They loved it. They loved me. They asked, “Tell us again how the dogs came for you in the Break Island Cemetery. Sing it again.”

And I did.