Chapter XX: Super Freak
Winter night blended into winter afternoon. Vance postponed our departure because of, “Financial woes and other crap.” Each bleak day began with Bonigan scratching at my door.
Today might be the day, Oggy. Maybe Gedman will catch it this time. Maybe Schiraldi will throw the junk curve ball in the dirt to Knight. Why not get up and find out?
On the afternoons I wasn't out biking around
The Sox lost again and again. Admittedly, Gedman was closer to catching
“Gedman isn't getting closer. That is how close he was in '86. Why do you think you can control the past,
Here we go again, I thought. More judgement. More invalidation.
“This isn't the past, Dad. This is happening each time I watch it. Why do you think this is the past when I am watching it right here on the television? This is the present. Watch.”
“But you are watching a recording,
I tugged some hair out of my scalp and showed them to my father.
“Do I remember? Are you crazy? I've been trying to forget for five years. Do I look like someone who has forgotten anything? What I'm saying is that I'm watching the game right now and I can control it right now. See? Here comes the pitch. Concentrate.”
My dad shook his head like he was watching a pendulum cut closer and closer to the ground.
“I don't know what to tell you,
The ball deflected off of Gedman's glove again but missed Dale Ford's leg. That was undeniable progress. He was so close to catching it. Even the Wraith in the corner was surprised.
“Right there! You can't tell me that you missed that. He almost caught it that time. Pretty soon it will just be a ball and the Sox will still be one run ahead and Mookie will have to actually get a base hit to score Mitchell. See? They're still winning right now. They're ahead 5-4! If you would just look then you would see the progress I'm making. Watch again.”
I rewound the tape and adjusted the marks on the screen. It all had to be perfect, just the way I wanted. My dad tried to turn the television off but I was able to fend him back by lashing him with my cotton bathrobe belt.
“Stop!” he said. “This little act of yours was kind of cute four years ago. Now it is just sad. You don't have friends. You don't see anyone except that Vance character. Are you eating anything? You look so thin. You walk like a seventy-year-old man. You've got bread crumbs in your beard.”
I quickly picked out the bread crumbs and ate them. You have to act quick in my house.
“Your hair is falling out. You haven't done anything since you got back from
I was afraid he'd ask too.
“Maybe if you shaved your beard, or even trimmed it, you could get a job. Isn't there something you want to do?”
Was he blind?
“I want the Red Sox to win the World Series. That is what I want. That is all I want. Can't you accept that? Can't you accept that this is all I have?”
“No. I'm sorry. I won't accept this. I'd almost prefer you to do drugs. This is just crazy,
I laughed a good one.
“Tell me something I don't know, Dad. Of course I need therapy. But not until the Red Sox win Game Six. They need to win Game Six. They are destined to win Game Six. Dewey promised.”
I shook my hat at my father. Tons of dandruff and hair floated to the ground. As I tried to gather the hair and put it back in the hat where it belonged I said, “They deserve to win Game Six. Spike Owen had the game of his life. Of his life!”
“They got what they deserve,” he responded. “The best team won.”
I pointed to the door and pressed play.
“Get out! Get out of my living room! You just stand there and jinx the Sox like you did in '86. You didn't believe they could win. You knew they would lose even with two outs and two strikes. 'It's not over yet,' you said. Not over yet? What? You jinxed them. Curse you and your curses! Now I have to watch this tape over and over to fix your mess. You did this to me. Get out so I can complete my mission.”
My father put his hands in his pockets and tilted his head at me like he always did when I had exposed myself in some critical way.
“This is my house,” he said, “This is my living room. I just got home and I'm not going anywhere. You are the one who is going to leave,
Bullwhip chuckled from the couch. I flashed a sharp look in his direction and then watched in horror as months of hard labor directed toward Gedman's glove vanished. The ball flew by almost a foot from being caught,
Too bad, Oggy. You really were making progress. So close. Maybe next time. What about
I looked up at my father as
“See what you just did? You jinxed them again! Don't you see that you're killing me?”
“You need help. You need years of therapy. Are you coming to
A ground ball bounced up the first base line. Wilson and Stanley raced for the bag while Buckner squared himself to the ball, a ball that every coach in
“Please field it, Buckner! Get your glove down. Please!”
“
That which happened, happened again.
“No!”
I rode my bike through the snow plowed streets to the cemetery, where I searched, by feel alone, for Mack Wynter's grave. A wraith hovered nearby, respecting my mission in the lonely cemetery, pointing out his friends. All I found were granite headstones for war veterans and old people. No “Wynter” plot, no carved baseball bats or familiar dates. I was lost in a forest of the dead.
Then I coasted through the plowed streets, down Miller Avenue to Middle Street, past Kurt's father's apartment, past the fire station, past the Unitarian Church, circling around the water front, where I imagined a car suddenly crashing off the bridge and plunging into the river. Darcy was climbing out of the broken window, calling for help, waving her arms as the car was swept away. I would dive in and save her and as water dripped from her nose and chin she would look dreamily into my brown eyes.
“Is it you?”
“I've always been there for you. I'll always look out for you. I'm here to protect you forever.”
She was overcome with emotion.
“I never knew. I want to make love to you.”
“It can wait. Let's get you warm, darling. That was close. We almost lost each other.”
“No, I want to do it now. I've never loved someone so much.”
“Well, we should take our wet clothes off. Wait...!”
Darcy would tug at my clothes, kissing my neck, running her hair through my beard.
“You're so strong. And your beard is so handsome and rugged. Oh, my! You are so strong and such a good swimmer and you have such bug muscles. I never knew.”
I would hold her close and whisper in her ear, “I tried to tell you all those years. I sent you roses. I sent you cards. Remember? You gave me your sock. I've still got it. It is my precious treasure.”
“I just thought...oh, I've been so cruel,” Darcy would say. “Here, let me give you a hand job.”
“There is no hurry, my love. We have our whole lives together. Oh...wait...wow.”
I could go on, but then this wouldn't be a family story.
Pedaling back home through
“Help!”
I'd kick the assailant in the chest and he would fall back. I'd recognize him as Brody “Stoney” Stone, my 9th grade bully. The woman would curl up near the wall. Brody would stare at me.
“Oggy! I thought I sent you to the nurse enough. You still want more?”
“I'll take whatever you can dish out, Stoney.”
He would be no match for my Ninjitsu technique and would fall quickly under a rain of bare-knuckle Kumate punches and helicopter kicks. Brody would beg for mercy and I would scar him with a bottle.
“That is so you won't forget me. Never forget what I could do to you. Now apologize to the lady.”
Brody would apologize and flee down the alley. I would start to walk away and the woman would call out.
“Don't I know you? Aren't you Rose's brother's friend?”
“Why, yes. Who are...? Darcy? Is that you?”
It would be her. She would realize then that I was a man who would always be there to protect her. I would never leave her. She would reach for my belt.
That's two in a row. I'm sorry, but that's what
I slowed down On the empty street the cry sounded familiar. Darcy? Mi Amor? I stopped in the street and looked both ways. Then I saw him: a young man in a wheelchair. He was in the shadow of a warehouse. His pale head was tilted in my direction and one arm flailed at his chin.
“I’m stuck here, yeah?” he said
I'd heard this cry, or one similar, when Buddy locked the Downs Syndrome kid in a football locker during our senior year. I pedaled over to the kid.
The wheelchair was an electric, one but evidently hadn’t had enough power to get over a curb. Once he had gotten down from a curb he was stuck in the middle of two sidewalks. I parked my bike and went back to the kid. His wool hat, or what I assumed was his wool hat, lay nearby in a puddle of slush. How long had he been there? Was he hypothermic? I picked the hat up and handed it to him.
“Where you trying to get to, friend?
“My name’s Justin,” he said extending a hand that was covered with dried saliva. His chin was too.
I shook his hand. As Kurt would say, it felt like a wet noodle.
“Carlos,” I said. Carlos is my cool anonymous name, in case you're wondering. “So where you need to go, good buddy?”
“You want to go to a bar, Carl? I’ll buy you a beer.
“Carl, Carlos, whatever. Where you want to go?”
He named a bar about 10 feet away that was the kind of place that made me break into a sweat of nervousness and paranoia. The Old “Hey, what's up, how you been, what you doin'?” Crowd was in there with stories of college and exotic jobs. The Youthsongs I sang were quirky and old fashioned to them. No one in there wanted to hear about the fire drills or pep week antics of Buddy and Mullray Border. They would listen, maybe even ask about the old songs, but they wouldn't care.
“I’m not sure you can get in there, Kid.”
I indicated his wheelchair, but his eyes were blocked by mucus so I wasn’t sure he noticed.
“Let’s see anyway, Ok. Carl? Can we see?”
A wraith elbowed me in the ribs.
What are you waiting for? You and your new friend can get laid. Maybe Darcy will be in there. Maybe this is Darcy's brother. She'll be so happy that you were nice to him that she'll kiss you on the mouth.
I pushed the wheelchair onto the curb and walked it to the bar entrance. Sure enough, the door was up three stone steps that were too high for a wheel chair. I’d have to pick this stranger up and carry him in, probably falling in the process, definitely making an ass of myself. But what the hell? What a great entrance it would make. A guy walks into a bar carrying a cripple. He puts him in a booth and goes and gets a wheelchair. He says, “What the fahk are you people looking at? Haven't you ever seen a guy with a mustache before?”
“Ok...” I'd forgotten the boy's name, “Jerry's Kid. Grab my neck,” I said.
Justin threw his spindly arms around me. This was apparently something he had gotten used to, strangers offering to carry him up a flight of stairs. He smelled like a urinal, so I held my breath as I heaved up in an attempt to get my arms under his non-existent ass. He lost his grip just as I felt something give in my lower back. I reached back to hold the torn muscle and allowed Justin to fall back hard into his seat. He tore a clump of hair out of my scalp as he went. Suddenly freed of his weight, I stumbled off the curb and tripped on my own bicycle wheel, falling on my side in the wet street. My ass was instantly soaked in freezing slush. I rubbed the bare patch on my scalp and pressed the tender area on my back. Justin's wool hat was back on the sidewalk behind his wheelchair. My Sox cap was in a puddle. I picked it up and whipped it dry.
“Motherfucker!” I yelled. “I try to keep my shine box out of the slush for five minutes and it goes right back in. I was a ballplayer once! Rose kissed me on the lips! Now I'm nothing! I'm shit!”
Justin ignored my outburst. He adjusted his lifeless legs back into a less tortured position, an awful thing to watch. “That’s OK,” He assured me. “I know another one we can go to.”
He named another bar that had loud music and was a place classmates of mine from high school went when they bought fake IDs from Evan Squidly. Bonigan, would be there in the flesh and would demand to know where I had been and where I was going. He loved the old songs more than anything. It was like he lived off them. He wanted to know everything about me except where I was. As though my present life wasn’t agony enough, I would have to be reminded of it by singing songs surrounded by cigarette smoke, Celtics games, and sweaty Bruins shirts. I stood up and squeezed some water out of my shorts. I always wore shorts on my bike rides. I like to think the cold sting keeps the Wraiths in the shadows.
“Gosh,” I still hadn't remembered his name, “Wheels, I’m not sure I can join you, kid. I'm sort of cold now. And I’m not much of a barfly anyway. I'm not even old enough to drink yet.”
Justin produced an awful smile. His stained teeth were crooked. If there was a God, He would have given this kid some braces. I mean, Jeez! Justin had teeth like a Werewolf. Nasal drip was running into his mouth. His lips were surrounded by dried and frozen saliva. His head was thin in a mashed sort of way. He had a terrible, first degree dandruff. His skull swiveled around on top of his rubbery neck. He had very little control of his head and hands. His eyes were watering from the cold. God knows what else was wrong with him. If he were a car, you'd bring him to the scrap and salvage yard on
“Neither am I, Carl. They let me in anyway because I just go there to talk to girls.”
He chuckled deviously and spun around, clipping my shins with the chair. He moved back toward the curb.
Girls? Girls in bars? Girls who expected handsome college guys from a fraternity to court them and carry them home for anonymous sex? Justin talked to these girls? Impossible. A river rat wouldn't talk to him if he had a bag full of sausage ends.
The door of the bar opened and crowd noises poured out like vomit on our shoes. A sea of girls came onto the street chattering and shouting, pretending to be more drunk than they were. I turned away but could see their reflection in a window. One minx, was it Chrissy Jenkins, was wearing a short black skirt. They surrounded me for a moment and were gone. I thought I heard one of them say, “Was that Oggy Bleacher? Did you see his eyes? That beard? He looked insane. He always was crazy in school. I heard he went to jail.”
I rushed for my bike. I'd rather try to strike out Mookie Wilson than stand around in my Jams, freezing my nuggets off while watching girls walk by. But Justin was in the exact same position that I first found him in-- trapped in the middle of an alley. The swarm of girls had parted around him and moved up the road at a good rate, giggling. Justin was clutching the air and yelling for help.
“Let them go, Wheels,” I said as I moved up behind him. “Forget them. They aren’t as easy to trap as I am.”
“No! Are you crazy? Follow them, Carl. Push me up! Don’t let them go. I’ve got an apartment they can come to.”
I lifted my head and laughed hard at the cold sky and winter stars. I laughed with my chest despite the small pains in my back.
“Come to an apartment with us? Are you nuts? Justin, I am a called third strike away from being a psychopathic killer who locks up schoolgirls in a little box and feeds them soup through a slot, and you are a god damn hideous monster strapped in a chair. Do you even know how ugly you are? There is no hope for us. None!”
One of the girls had stopped to paint her lips, adjust her breasts and admire herself in the store window.
Justin looked at me sideways.
“We could get laid.”
He said it like a far off dream, like finding lost treasure. Sex was something he aspired to without fully comprehending it, like becoming a Black Belt in Aikido.
I laughed again. I stomped my feet and cried. I slapped my palm on my thigh hoping I looked like I was having fun.
“Laid? You mean sex?”
I had another good laugh. Justin said nothing. Saliva ran down his chin. He waved at it with his crippled hand leaving a web of spit from his chin to his lap. Dandruff flakes as big as grated cheese covered his shoulders.
“Wheels, as my friend Sticky would say, 'We couldn’t get laid in a whorehouse with a fist full of hundreds.' And he would know, since he couldn’t get laid if he owned a whorehouse.”
Apparently Justin had never heard this joke. He laughed so hard spit flew out of his mouth. He bared his teeth like a wolf as he laughed, truly a monstrous individual. He looked like he was in pain, and I found that amusing. That almost everything this boy did would be painful in one way or another to him, was funny to me. His whole life was just one long injury. I bent down to one knee to laugh. I was drooling too. Couples crossed the street to get around us.
“Carl, he cried. Carl!”
“What now? What do you want, you cripple!” I said wiping my eyes. It felt good to say what I thought. The kid had been stepped around too long and I was too close to a breakdown to pretend anymore. He didn't know me. He didn't know Ray Knight. One of us, maybe both of us, was probably a few months from death. It was too late to pretend he was something other than a cripple, and too late to pretend I cared. Why not have one moment of honesty between two losers? Who was keeping track anyway? Justin mumbled something through his clumsy lips. I cupped my ear dramatically.
“If you could pronounce your words better I might be able to understand you, Mr. Mumbles. Maybe wipe some of that spit off your face.”
Justin also found this funny. His head was swinging around like a ball on a string. Maybe he was high on painkillers.
“I pissed myself,” he spurted out.
“No! You didn’t,” I said as I laughed harder.
“I did. I pissed my pants. Look!”
A steaming puddle had formed under his chair. I was amazed. He had managed to become more repugnant.
“Shit! You are truly horrible, Man. You are one of the least desirable people I've ever met. You belong in a carnival, a freak show. How does that make you feel?”
He paused for a second then burst out laughing again. His teeth were sharp like fangs. Fresh saliva flowed out of his mouth onto his spittle covered chin. He made no attempt to stop it. More liquid dripped off his chair into the puddle below him. He was a deformed, ugly person, pissing himself in public, but I couldn't turn away. Even the bible freaks out at the Willowville Health Clinic would have agreed that this was one fetus who should have been vacuumed out at two months. He could only be a burden to anyone he came into contact with. He was the type of person you shake your head at and think, “Good God. Poor, poor boy.” But when you talk to him you force a smile and say, “Good to see you. How do you feel.”
What crap.
I laughed hard at all of this, laughed until I was sore. I laughed at myself for having none of this boy's troubles yet I ran from girls, while he was totally out of control and hideous but he chased them like a playboy. He even had an apartment of his own while I lived on my father's couch. Another pack of girls walked by. There was horror in their eyes and I laughed at that. I could hear them at the bar telling someone what they saw.
“God, like, I didn’t know
Justin was covered with saliva. His pants were visibly wet. His arms waved around as he made sounds like an injured bird. Oh, what a map this kid had.
“Hell, Wheels,” I said. “You’d better be careful. Girls are gonna be knocking down your door, you handsome dog.”
He said something that was too garbled to understand, then pointed to the curb. How could he go on living?
“Where do you live, Wheels? I mean, you’ll freeze out here. Not that that would be any great loss to society. But you've made it this far. Might as well see how bad it can get. Right?”
“Corner of Fleet and Market,” said the son of Frankenstein
Fleet Street was only two blocks away, so I pushed his chair onto the curb, careful not to step in the puddle of urine. He started swerving down the sidewalk and I caught up to him with my bike as he started to mumble again.
“You know, I already have a girl friend, were just not getting along right now. I though I’d play the field.”
“Sure you do,” I said sarcastically. “Wise move. Does she think you’re just gonna sit around waiting for her to make up her mind.”
“Life’s too short.”
“Amen, brother!”
I limped along with my bike through
“Hey, Carl. Ask two of 'em to come to my apartment.”
Did Justin think I would ask one out, now, when she could do nothing but laugh at my damp shorts and snotty mustache? Did he think I wanted to be humiliated? He winked at me, or so I thought since his eyes were half closed already.
“Those girls will never ever come up to your apartment with us, Wheels. In fact...My legs are cold and you’ve pissed your pants. Maybe I should go. Fun is fun.”
“No. You have to come up. I’ll show you something on my computer.”
We haggled for a moment in front of the bus stop. He was desperate and I'm a sucker for the pitiful. I agreed to a few minutes in his lair. We walked...well, I walked and Justin pushed a lever that moved his wheel chair through
To me,
We passed the
I was no longer paying attention to Justin's mumbles as we continued past a building that used to be JJ Newberrys. Newberrys was a place I once bought a zipper to sew on a sweater and a ham sandwich at the coffee bar and a Nerf football. There was a pet store in the back that sold fish and hamsters and the odd parakeet or parrot. Newberrys was a regular stop during the delicious Christmas vacation in 1983 and 1984, when stockings had been plundered and pockets were filled with Grandparents' war-saved pennies. You see, the bus to the brand new Greenfields Mall stopped right outside of JJ Newberrys. It was perfect! To play arcade games and buy pizza slices and checkered cargo pants at Chess King, Kurt, Evan, Cristo and I merely had to play football in the J.J. Newberrys aisles for twenty minutes.
Note: Store football was challenging because of the narrow aisles. The quarterback couldn’t see the other players and naturally had to guess where to throw the ball. Of course, the adults who tried to stop us made interesting permanent defenders. It was joyous mayhem especially when Cristo ran into a display of glassware.
When the mall craze, the need for parking, the convenience of an enclosed market, hit Porstmouth, the Greenfields Mall gave birth to a neighbor The Fox Run Mall. Two malls in a single square mile!
The Newberrys building was leased by a national chain clothing store offering clothes tailored for greyhound bodies and conformist personalities. In December 1991, the poster sized ad for their clothes hanging inside the big store window (where I used to see a $0.75 tuna melt sandwich poster) presented two white boys, either pre-pubescent or else shaved with a surgical laser, escorting a Mulatto girl over some sand dunes. Their pants were rolled up over shapely calves. Their denim jackets were brand new and yet had a 'worn in' look I found dishonest. Was I supposed to believe this unlikely trio, punks who wouldn't make it two blocks in
There were once two entrances to Newberrys. The rear entrance was on Fleet Street near the Gillies lunch cart. It was to this rear entrance that we all fled from our game of store football as the echoes of glass shattering on the tile spread through the store followed by the eager commotion as we ran past the pet corner and out the back door. On the west side of the building, high up near the roof, is the only remaining proof, beside my own song, that Newberrys existed. From the Gillies parking lot you can still see the faded yellow and white block letters over what was the rear entrance. J.J. Newberrys. The sign only lacked the finality of two granite dates.
“Are you coming? Carl? Hey.”
Justin was hung up between a bag of garbage and a patch of ice. His wheels spun slowly.
“Sure, Wheels. You know there used to be a J.J. Newberrys store there where The Gap is. We played football there and ate grilled cheese sandwiches before the Mall drove it out of business. The sandwiches weren't as good as Gillies, but they weren't bad. Me and this kid Wynn once went in there when we were waiting for the bus to the Greenfields Mall. We ate a bag of corn chips and left without paying for them. Wynn's dead now. The only thing they didn't have were arcade games, but you could go up to Laverdier's Drug Store to play. I had the high score on
“I remember Newberrys,” said Justin as I pushed him off the ice. “I couldn't get in there either.”
Justin skidded down the sidewalk while I propped by bike against a parking meter and bent over to pick up two handfuls of snow. My gloves were already wet from the tumble into the street, so a little more snow wouldn't make much difference. I made a Smurfy snowball and then looked up the street by the
On the southeast corner of the Fleet Street and
“My girlfriend is ok looking,” he said randomly. “Not fat. But I told her she has to dress nice.”
I had seamlessly adopted an attitude of sarcastic agreement. It seemed to suit the moment and let Justin say what he had to say. I wasn't going to follow him into his hellish life just to insult or contradict him. I'm not my father.
“Sure. Show her who's boss.”
After giving a performance with keys that made me shake my head, Justin let us into his apartment. Thankfully, he didn’t ask me to help him change his clothes.
“Put some soup on, Carl,” he called from his bedroom. “Eat! There's some in the cupboard.”
His kitchen was a mess, but I was pretty hungry. Broken glass and dirty dishes were stacked everywhere. A garbage can with no bag was over flowing onto the stained floor. I could not find a pot or even locate the sink. Even worse, ants marched merrily from a pool of milk to a half eaten slice of delivered pizza. Wolves starving on the tundra would have lost their appetites after encountering his kitchen. Generations of ants could survive on the exposed food. Ant armies descended from every corner of the room. The overall kitchen bouquet was a mixture of spaghetti sauce and rotting eggs.
“I'm not going to do your dishes just so I can have a bowl of soup, Wheels.”
“Suit yourself. Just put some pop tarts in the toaster for me.”
I saw a box of pop tarts on the counter. It looked like the headquarters for the ant colony. It was actually moving under the weight of so many ants. Millions of the black insects swarmed into the box and came out carrying bits of pop tarts in their nasty fangs. The pop tart box was like
“Jesus,” I shouted.
There were too many of them and they were too strong. Their little legs gripped my skin and wouldn't let go. I would need to cut them off. As I looked for a blade in the stack of dishes, I saw the ants on my arm shimmer as though reflected in water. Their movements were too ant-like, too mechanical. I realized they weren't real. I stepped back and closed my eyes. It was just a flashback. There were no ants on my arms. This was simply a flashback. It happened to everyone who drank San Pedro Cactus juice.
“I think you’re out of pop tarts, Wheels.”
“Look in the cupboard,” he cried from the bedroom.
I looked toward the bedroom and saw him half on the floor and half on the wheel chair tugging at a pair of pants with an intense look on his face. A machine near his bed played his messages. An exhausted voice said, “It's mom. Did you remember to thaw out the lasagna? If you don't do it then it takes longer to cook in the oven. Call me.”
In the cupboard I found an unopened box of pop tarts. 50 brilliantly colored butterflies flew out of the toaster oven when I opened the door. The flashbacks again...probably. Then I had doubts: maybe there really was a flock of exotic butterflies in Justin's toaster oven. It was possible. I'd seen it before.
“Do you breed butterflies, Wheels?”
“No. How are those pop tarts doing?”
I sighed with relief. After you drank San Pedro Cactus Juice, you never know when some hallucination is going to cause you to freak out.
“Well, you might have an ant problem here, Wheels.”
“I know. Spray some poison.”
I ignored the can of poison placed dangerously near a tray of melting butter.
“When I say ‘problem’, I mean you might have to start paying extra rent because of them. They probably eat more of your food than you do.”
“What?” Justin rolled out of his room wearing clean pants and a red and white striped Red Sox rugby shirt. The bathroom was on the other side of the apartment so I knew he hadn’t washed his ass or cleaned himself in any way. I imagined piles of filthy underwear in his bedroom covered with roaches and rat shit. It was horrible. I mentioned none of this because I was afraid he would need my help cleaning himself. I just wanted to take a ride on my bike and now I had been dragged into this kid’s life. Why me?
He wheeled over to the kitchen, grabbed the can of poison and, before I could stop him, liberally sprayed the countertop. The ants fled while I coughed and covered my mouth.
“Wait! Shit, Wheels, you can't just spray that shit around like air freshener. That skull and cross bones on the can means something.”
“Oh. Right. I wouldn't want to get sick.”
He would've rolled his eyes if he'd had the muscle control. I was starting to like this kid.
I picked up a Nerf basketball off the counter and bounced it against the wall, a sport I've always liked.
“Hey, Wheels. Catch!”
Justin didn't move his arms so I didn't throw the ball.
“Wait!” he said. “What are you doing?”
Justin seemed genuinely upset. I expected he had some other problems besides being crippled and in a wheelchair for life, but could he also have some sort of bi-polar syndrome that caused him to flip out on unsuspecting visitors and stab them? It was possible that this whole cripple thing was an act and now he was going to stand up and shoot me. Then the ants would eat me. He'd planned it all out.
“I'm just playing catch,
“That's no ball, Carl. That's a fahking orange!”
It was my turn to flip out. After I had disposed of the “orange” and thoroughly washed my hands in Justin's horrible sink, I was calm again.
Justin had wheeled up to a keyboard and monitor and started making clicks and beeps as lights flashed. As a low tech individual, like Thoreau, I didn’t really comprehend any of it. I thought computers were only used for video games, but it appeared they could do other things too. The butterflies were gone, possibly killed by the spray of poison, so I sat down on the couch, crushing an already abused pornography magazine. It wasn't one I owned so I leafed idly through the pages of skin, growing quickly bored of the female form, while Justin slobbered in his seat and punched keys. I don't know what I was expecting to find in the magazine, but I didn't find it, so I tossed it into a pile of crap on the coffee table. Among a million assorted papers, unopened letters and gadgets, lay a harmonica. I inspected it and found it covered with, what else, saliva. Even more disgusting was a “Made in
“I’m learning to play. Listen.”
He blew into it and made sounds I recognized only as noise. The instrument was a piece of crap. The greatest harmonica player in the world couldn’t play a song on it. It had been manufactured out of tune and could not be fixed. Justin smiled and handed it back glazed with fresh saliva.
“You try.”
I quickly put it on the table with the car magazines and junk mail.
He shrugged. “I’m just learning. Do you play?”
You've played all your life, Oggy. Tell the story about the time you played blues harmonica in front of the whole school. Sing that song. Didn't Rose kiss you on the lips because of that? What other filthy secrets do you have?
I was given my first harmonica ten years earlier. It was a far better version than the one Justin owned. I quickly learned to play it and carried it with me everywhere in a belt case. People identified me as “That kid who loves the Red Sox, the one who plays harmonica at the fires.” Near the end of my Senior year at BHHS, I blew the reeds with a blues band during a talent contest. After the concert, I wished Darcy would jump in my arms, finally overcome with love for my rogue artist's soul, but she had already graduated. Instead, Rose tugged my ears and told me I sounded radical. Then she kissed me on the mouth.
My harmonica sang on highways from
“No,” I said. “Never have. I'm not from a musical family.”
“You should learn.”
I heard the toaster release and went to get the pop tarts. Ants were already dying on the hot metal, their little legs still trying to walk the mouth to the sugar and dough. Other ants used the dead bodies to reach the tarts. Thankfully, there were no butterflies.
“What is it?” Justin asked when he heard me swear.
“It’s these goddamn ants, bro. They're everywhere.”
“Right. How're those pop tarts treatin' you?”
“Well, if I can just get them out of the jaws of this one fat bugger I’ll bring em to you.”
Justin laughed easily at my stupid jokes. He thought I was the funniest person since Richard Pryor. He offered me one of the tarts, but I told him I was afraid the ants would get jealous.
“Seriously, take one. They give me the shits.”
“That's from the ant poison.”
I took a pop tart anyway and instantly burned the roof of my mouth with the hot sugar syrup inside.
“Frigging skaynk!”
Justin patiently licked the sugar coating. It seemed to be his mission in life to cover everything he encountered with saliva.
“Yeah, they can get super hot. Oh! Here we go.”
I turned to the screen and read the words “Candy's Bedroom”
“What screen do you want to go to?”
I picked up a car magazine and put it down. I wasn't really jazzes about a group grope with a crippled kid. Call me crazy.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure I should stay. My mother’s sick in bed. I...”
Justin typed for a moment.
“Why leave? This is when it gets fun.”
“Did I mention my mother is sick in bed?
A metallic female voice from a speaker said, “Justin, I want you.”
Justin’s tongue rolled around his lips.
“I wrote this program. Me and a buddy. You want her to say anything?”
“Yeah. Have her say, 'Justin, get a life.'“
I finished the pop tart and was feeling sick. Could lung cancer start that fast?
I stood up.
“I’d better get going.”
The pop tart or the poison had made me sick. Ants crawled in my esophagus. I wanted to go to the toilet, but the condition of the bathroom was right up there with
Justin quickly reached for a magazine.
“Wait, look at this.”
I expected to see a nude woman, one with features Justin found exciting, or else a forum letter from a nymphette in
“I’m going to buy one and drive across the country,” explained Justin. “I’ll customize it for my wheel chair. I’ve seen it done. Haven’t you ever wanted to drive across the country?”
I considered the chances of him ever buying what looked like a 6-figure automobile, customizing it for a cripple and driving it across the country. I had a better chance of striking out Gary Carter in the tenth inning.
“No, I like it right here in
“They suck,” said Justin as he threw the magazine onto the coffee table. It slid onto the floor. “Can you believe they lost back in '86?”
A lamb walking into a dragon's den could not have looked more innocent than Justin. I tried to contain myself.
“Could we not talk about that, Wheels? They haven't lost yet. Dewey promised.”
Justin ignored me and spit out, “I can't believe they blew it with one strike left. I mean, what a bunch of losers. How long has it been since they won a wold series?”
“Seventy three years,” I said slowly. “OK? I'd prefer you not call the Red Sox losers. Dewey wouldn't like it.”
I pulled out the 1986 team photo and pointed to Dewey's face.
“It jinxes him. So shut up.”
“Ha! They don't need my help getting jinxed. They were one strike away from the World Championship and they blew it. Why do you even keep that piece of trash?”
Despite the pain in my back, I stood up quickly, hitting my shin on the table. Justin was startled and dropped his pop tart onto his lap. I pointed to the magazine on the floor.
“Fine! Take your fahking customized Mustang and drive it across the country. Do whatever the you want, Wheels. Don't listen to me. Stop breaking my shine box and go! The Red Sox don't need fans like you. You don't know me. You don't know Ray Knight.”
“The third baseman for the Mets? Sure I know Ray Knight. He got the RBI single in the...”
I threw my arms up and tripped over a Whiffle Ball bat lying in the middle of the living room floor.
“Shut up! Just shut your crippled mouth. I don't care what you think. You're a cripple! You don't know anything! The Sox are the best! They're going to win Game Six. I'll show you! Dewey promised!”
“What?” Justin waved a big glob of saliva off his chin. He caught most of it with his crusty limp wrist. “Are you a big time Red Sox fan or something?”
“You catch on real quick, don't you,
How I got the Whiffle Ball bat in my hands, I don't remember, but I was suddenly hitting the refrigerator with it.
“Hey! I was...”
“You were just what? What? You were just jinxing the Red Sox a little more. Your little criticism might cost me two more months. Is that what you want? You like pissing in my milk bowl? You aren't the only one who wants them to win . I know things. I got the high score in Galaga at Laverdiers. I kissed Rose McCorley on the mouth. How about that? What do you know? Huh?”
“I just want to drive to...”
“Well go drive. Go!”
Justin's head rolled around in the padded stabilizer. The computer hummed and clicked. The ants in the kitchen marched in and out of the wall. As if the Timewraiths weren't bad enough, I needed to be taunted by a cripple. I was prepared to knock old Justin out of his wheelchair and put pop tart syrup on him to bait the ants. I figured they would eat him in two or three days. He just needed to say one more slur about the Red Sox. Justin stared at me with his murky eyes, struggling to breathe through his withered lungs.
“I’m going to drive it everywhere. You'll see. I'll be in this magazine. I already wrote them a letter. They wrote back too. I just need to save the money.”
“Great,” said as I gave the refrigerator one last whack. “You and Rocky Dennis can go drive across
He quickly abandoned the car topic to ask me if I played sports.
“You've got a pretty good swing, there. I'll bet you played.”
I'm always amazed at the social flexibility of people I'd expect to be totally ignorant. Here was this kid who might talk to a stranger ten times a year, yet he knew how to keep a conversation going. Is this an instinct only cripples develop? I certainly couldn't do it. I felt a bit unsettled about losing my temper, but decided I could humor him for ten more minutes.
“I’ve played a bit of baseball in my day. I was like Carlton Fisk.”
“You were a catcher?”
“I was going to play for the Red Sox, but I hurt my foot.”
This detail seemed trivial when told to someone whose feet hung like two sacks of quarters on his wheelchair foot rests.
A bit, Oggy? Seven years of dedication to the glove, the bat, and the ball. All those teams and dirty uniforms. Your baseball career is a history of
Maybe it was the poison or the presence of the Whiffle Ball, or the sickness caused by the pop tarts, but I was able to resist the Wraith's call.
“'Cuz l play Whiffle Ball at the Rec center on weekends,” continued Justin, “You know how to play Whiffle Ball?
“I beat Gordy Clutcher once on an Ephus pitch. He missed.”
“I’ve been working on my curve ball. I think I’m losing rotation because I don’t snap my wrists hard enough. So I use my fast ball and get creamed all over the place. I need two more pitches to go with my change up and fast ball. I’m working on my slider.”
He might as well have wanted to play Little Orphan Annie on Broadway. A whiffle ball curves because of speed. All the wrist snapping in the world wouldn’t make it curve if he couldn’t throw it hard enough, and I guessed he could not throw it hard enough. I was surprised he could throw at all.
Justin picked a whiffle ball off the computer desk and maneuvered the wheel chair so he faced a strike zone taped on his door. He concentrated for a moment--or else was having a minor stroke--and then in an erratic motion pushed the ball in the direction of the strike zone. It struck the ground about a foot in front of the wheelchair and rolled across the carpet into a pool of congealed milk in the kitchen.
“Well,” I said encouragingly, “Curveballs aren’t everything. Try working on location with your fastball. Aim high. When the ball is up in the eyes the batter can see it better but he’ll never get a solid hit. It’s tempting to swing at a high ball but hard to hit. See? That was the pitch Schiraldi should have thrown to Knight. Just a high fastball or a crappy pitch in the dirt. Right? It was simple. One more strike. That was all they needed. Just throw a crappy pitch in the dirt or a high fastball. Gedman should have known what to call. He should have known. Boggs should have gone over and talked him. Make a couple of throws to first or second. Just step off the rubber and think about it. But he kept throwing pitches in the strike zone. He didn't even get behind in the count, didn't even come close to walking someone. He was afraid of walking someone so he threw strikes but Knight would have swung at a ball. Dale Ford wanted to call the third strike. Just give them something close. Just one close pitch or a high fastball. Is that too much to ask? Is it? And who thought it was a good idea to pinch hit for the Cy Young Award winner with Greenwell, a first year mutt making sixty grand a year? Who? I'll tell you, the same super freak who leaves Schiraldi in to bat for the first time all season with one out in a one run game in the top of the tenth fahking inning of the World Series instead of pinch hitting Baylor. Does that make any sense?”
I slumped over in my chair with my head in my hands.
Just throw a high fastball to Knight, huh Oggy?. Throw it up around his chin. He'll swing. Then the game is over. One more strike. Dewey promised.
I noticed Justin was staring silently at me. His hand inched closer to the phone.
“Either that or work tight to their body. Jam their hands. No extension.”
Justin nodded as I retrieved the ball, wiped the milk on my shorts, and demonstrated.
“Watch.”
I threw the ball into Justin's bedroom. It curved through the doorway and landed on a pile of clothes. Then I stood there panting. Strike three. The Red Sox win! The Red Sox win!
Said Justin, “Tight to their body or outside. That’s good advice. I met my girlfriend at the games. She’s beautiful but hard to get along with.”
“Well, that’s natural,” I said as though I knew what I was talking about. “Communication is the key. Don’t be afraid to talk.”
“I try, but, you know. Women.”
He said it like an inside joke all men understand. The real joke was that he couldn’t have picked a more ignorant person on the subject.
“Well, they're people just like us, only more so. They have flaws and act strangely and without reason. Still, they qualify as primates. Be patient. It's mostly hormonal.
I admit that I didn't know what I was talking about, but what would you say to a cripple who wanted advice about women?
“I know, but she thinks it has something to do with my uncle.”
“Oh?”
A frown fell over Justin and I knew he was going to drop a bomb. Enough time with strangers had taught me that everyone has a secret they like to confess.
“Yeah, the one who raped me. You know.”
I told him I didn't know. I didn't really believe him either.
“I’d kill him if I could. I’d kill that bastard.”
“Give me his name, I’ll kill him for you. Better yet, just invite him over here and feed him some Raid laced pop tarts.”
Justin wasn't laughing anymore.
“He's gone. It's just that my girlfriend and I need someone to help us.”
“Help you?”
“Help us do it.”
This was the real bomb. The molester bomb was a decoy. I looked to the kitchen wall where there was no clock and announced, “Time for my pills. I’ll just let myself out.”
“We just need help.”
“Right,” I said, “that’s not really my department. I haven’t had enough experience on my own. Ask me how to screw a leather couch and I'll write you a ten volume series. Questions about beating off? You've come to the right person. But as far as assisting someone with sex, it would be like asking Leona Helmsley with help doing your taxes.”
“I wasn’t asking you to help, Carl.”
I was thrilled.
“I barely know you. I was just saying that’s why we don’t get along.”
“You've been down darker roads than this one. Am I right? I’ve got to run. I’ll see you around town.”
I put my hand in my pocket and by chance picked up the business card Vance had given me.
“Hey, I've got a friend who might be able to help you out. His name is Vance.”
I handed Justin the business card for First Class Escort Service.
“Call 'em. They'll treat you right. Tell 'em Oggy sent you.”
Justin looked at me strangely.
“I thought your name was Carl.”
“Actually, it's
“Ok, Oggy. Come by any time. I’d give you my number, but I won’t have a phone in a week. Come to the Whiffle Ball games this summer. We play at the
I gave him a false look of affirmation that I regretted. The kid deserved better. He rolled back to the computer.
“Shut the door, will you Carl?”
“See you Wheels.”
Slightly unnerved by my encounter with Justin, I biked home through the shiny streets, by the Jr. High School. I eased left onto a footpath between a break in the curb to avoid the jolt to my bones and bike. The path led between the Little League field and Leary Field on my right and the Mill Pond and Gordy Clutcher's basketball courts on my left. As I was about to start to pick up speed to make it up the hill that led to
The thing on the ground was unfortunately just an empty cardboard Blow Pop box, no treasure. But it lay against a green water fountain. I worked the lever for a sip of water, but it didn’t work. The water had probably been turned off for the winter to save the pipes. This green fountain had replaced the one by the fence behind the visitor's dugout, the one that used to stick up from a cement cylinder and shoot water two feet in the air. That fountain had been cut and capped so that kids playing today have as little idea about what was in the cement cylinder as they do about what a J.J. Newberrys sign is doing on The Gap building . All they know is the green water fountain..
The bronze plaque on the fountain read:
“In Memory of Mack “Wynn” Wynter 1971-1984.
Mack exhibited the true spirit of Little League baseball.”
Some brown pine needles lay on the plaque, blown a good distance from a white pine tree near the Junior High School bike racks. I brushed the needles off and had to take my gloves off to pick the last ones from between the bronze letters. I didn't need the Timewraiths to tell me what to do. I'd sung this Youthsong before. Some songs I like to sing.
Who was he, Oggy? Was he a friend? Did you know him? Did you fight him?
I stared at the crowd of Wraiths, searching for Mack's pale face. More Wraiths floated from the empty infield and emerged from the slimy, ice covered mill pond.
“I know Mack Wynter. Did you Bullwhip? Or is this plaque just like the J.J. Newberrys sign? Is this name just one of legend and myth? Do the two dates scare kids who drink here? Some were born in 1984, a coincidence not to be ignored. Do the little seven-year-olds have the imagination to reconstruct this boys life and his fate from the plaque alone? Maybe, but how true would their creation be? Does their imagined life make them pause when they pass this water fountain on their way home from 2nd Grade? Does it make them see their own name in bronze with two dates? Because that is the song I sing. It is, as you will see, the least I can do.”
I performed the Youth Fire ritual. As the Chief Songster, I didn't need the Youthtribe around me or even the flames to fan with my memories. The power to keep Nostalgia away was mine alone. I took my Sox cap off and drank the sweatband Moonshine . The potion was strong.
Visions arose from the fountain: Bone Harbor, the Jones Ave. dump piles, the foot-scuffed dirt beneath the Bone Harbor swings, the cut outfield grass, French fries and ketchup, the bad breath of twelve-year-old boys eating in a cold cafeteria after gym class, stink bombs, blood, oxygen tanks, stolen baseball cards, swirled around me. The Timewraiths glided from their shadows and gathered in solemn circle around me. This was the misery feast they had waited for, their Crying Time. They joined in my Chant.
Feed the Fires
Burn and Bright
Watch the Day
Suck into Night
Sing the Youthsong
With your kin
Here's the Tale
Of young Mack Wynn
posted by Oggy Bleacher | 10:53 PM
