War and Watermelon (10 page)

F
ive laps today, which is at least a mile. Me and Tony race to the front and get way ahead of everybody—they're all either tired from scrimmaging or slow. But we cut the pace after one lap, running comfortably enough to talk but also fast enough so the coaches won't yell at us.

“You been working on your moves?” Tony asks.

“What moves?” I haven't touched the ball since that fumble.

“For Thursday night.”

“Oh.” I make a hard turn and cut through the end zone. “I know how to dance; I don't have to practice.” That isn't true at all, but I don't plan to do any dancing anyway.

“Not dance moves,” he says. “You know, after, when we're walking them home.”

I hadn't thought about that. Nobody said anything about walking them home. We don't even know if they'll show up. Or if any of us will get into the dance.

We finish the second lap. A few of the linemen are just a short distance ahead of us, finishing their first.

“You might as well try,” Tony says. “See if you can get anywhere with her. At least kiss her for a few seconds.”

I'm not sure which one he means by “her.” Or where this great make-out scene might take place.

“If nothing else, you gotta split her off from Patty for me,” he says. “Get me some alone time.”

“So you'll be with Patty, huh?”

“Whataya think? I'm the one who set this thing up, so I get the . . . so I get Patty.”

And I get Janet. Nothing wrong with her, but I'm seeing it differently. No way Patty likes Tony. I don't know what she thinks of me, but all I see when she has to look at Tony is disgust.

I start running a little faster now. He keeps up, but I can tell that he's starting to breathe harder.

“What I'm hoping to do is take them over to the Little League fields,” he says. The fields are adjacent to the swim club.

“You planning to play baseball?” I intend it as a joke, but he just sneers.

“Dugouts are nice and secluded, especially at night.” He holds up his right hand and makes some squeezing motions.

I go faster and move five yards ahead of him. I'm not in the mood for his daydreaming.

“Who you racing?” he says.

I glance over my shoulder. “Come on.” And I turn the heat up even more.

I can hear him panting now, trying to catch me. But I'm pulling away from him. After four laps he's thirty yards behind, and I run the last one at full speed, lapping almost everybody else on the team.

Nobody seems to notice, as usual.

Tony doesn't say anything after he joins me on the sideline, where I'm waiting for everybody else to finish. He's got his hands on his knees and he coughs a couple of times. I could run five more laps.

Coach yells at some of the linemen as they finish and try to sit down. “Walk it off!” he says. “We got too many people close to the limit. I don't want any surprises on Saturday.”

The weight limit for our division is 140 pounds, and I'd say at least three guys are pushing that. Anybody questionable gets weighed in front of the referees and coaches from both teams a half hour before the kickoff. If you're over, you don't play.

“So we'll be running all week,” Coach says as we huddle up. “East Rutherford is big, they're fast, they're tough, and they're our rivals. Without total concentration, we'll get our butts kicked.”

Me and Tony walk off with Colaneri and Delcalzo. “We beat East Rutherford by three touchdowns last year,” Colaneri says when we're out of earshot of the coaches. “He's just trying to psych us up.”

“Hope it's at least that much this year,” Tony says to me. “Otherwise we get no playing time.”

“We get kickoffs,” I say.

“Yeah, but that ain't the same as running the ball.”

I still have my helmet on, so I undo the chin strap and lift it off my head. I'm not so sure I want to be running the ball after that fumble last weekend. Imagine doing that in front of a Saturday night crowd at home.

The steps at Corpus Christi are empty this time. We stop across the street and Tony looks up and down the Boulevard. Then he does it again.

“We should wait,” he says.

“What for?”

He looks at me in disbelief. “We must be early. They'll show.”

“We're actually later than usual,” I say. “All those laps.”

“Then I guess we missed 'em.”

“It's not like they sit there waiting for us every day.”

“Often enough,” he says.

“Once. And that was probably a coincidence.”

“No, it wasn't. You don't understand anything.”

“No. You don't.” I start walking home. He stays where he is.

“Give it five minutes,” he says.

“I'm hungry.”

“So am I. But some things are bigger than that.”

I stop walking and face him, fifteen feet away. “They aren't here.”

“They will be.”

I sweep my hand toward the church steps. “So go ahead and wait. I'm leaving.” And I walk another ten feet.

I look back and he's still standing there with his mouth hanging open. I turn and start walking again. After two blocks I hear him running up behind me.

“They didn't show,” he says, as if that's news.

“No kidding.”

“Must have got delayed somewhere,” he says. “I thought they'd be there.”

“Why would you think that?”

“They wait there for us every day.”

“Once,” I say again. “And who says they were waiting for us?”

He shakes his head. “Man, you don't understand anything. . . . You just don't get it at all.”

T
he Mets are on television tonight. Mom's out at a library board meeting, so me and Dad and Ryan camp out in the family room to watch.

We've got a low table in front of the couch, and Dad sets a box of saltines and a jar of green olives there. We munch our way through them by the end of the first inning. Koosman gives up a solo homer in the bottom of the inning, so the Padres take a rare lead.

Dad comes back with Ritz crackers and a slab of cheddar cheese for the second inning, slicing it with a big knife with a black handle. I eat a few crackers, but I don't like cheese, so I get the jar of peanut butter after the Mets go down, and spread that on 'em.

Koosman gets the Mets' first hit in the top of the third (the Mets have the best-hitting pitchers in the league), then Agee walks. Cleon Jones doubles them both home, and the Mets take the lead.

“Looking good,” Dad says. “Been a lot of years since there was a New York baseball team to get excited about.”

Ryan goes to the cellar for drinks. “Brody!” he yells from downstairs. “What kind you want?”

I try to envision what's in there. I know there's lemon (that's all Mom drinks) and I'm pretty sure there's some root beer. “Any grape?”

I hear Ryan moving cans around. “No!”

“Then orange.”

“Okay.”

He comes back with a Rheingold and two Shop-Rite sodas.

“What kind of pretzels we got out there?” Dad calls as Ryan enters the kitchen.

I hear a cabinet swing open. “Mister Salty.”

“Bring 'em on.”

The drinks and the pretzels cover us for a few innings. It occurs to me that the Padres haven't had a base runner since the first.

“Koosman is having an incredible stretch of games,” Dad says. “Seaver, too. And pitching wins championships.”

Art Shamsky doubles in a run for the Mets in the sixth, then scores on Ken Boswell's single.

“Of course, it doesn't hurt to have hitters,” Dad says. He gets up and heads to the bathroom.

Mom comes home from her meeting and sits next to Ryan on the love seat. “Exciting game?” she asks. She never pays any attention to professional sports. She did show up for all of my Little League games and Ryan's basketball games, though.

“Hi, honey,” Dad says. He's in the kitchen, standing in front of the open freezer. He comes back with a dish of coffee ice cream.

Mom yawns. “Guess I'll read in bed,” she says.

Koosman hits the leadoff batter with a pitch in the bottom of the sixth, but the Mets immediately turn a double play.

“No contest,” Dad says. “Man, I wish my father could see this team. He was a huge Yankees fan back in the day. DiMaggio, Yogi, Johnny Mize.” He shakes his head. His father dropped dead shoveling snow.

Ryan picks up the olive jar. “Better put this back,” he says. He goes to the kitchen.

“There might be a beer in there,” Dad says.

Ryan shifts some bottles around in the refrigerator. “Nope. I'll get you one.”

This time he comes up with two of them and pops one open.

Dad eats another pretzel. “What else we got out there?” he asks Ryan.

Ryan shrugs. “I didn't notice.”

“What good are you?”

I smile. “Mom bought another watermelon.”

They both laugh.

“Now that sounds good,” Dad says.

“Yeah!” Ryan adds. “Let's scarf it down.”

So Dad gets three massive slices and a big handful of napkins. “No juice on the upholstery,” he warns.

“I better get us some plates,” I say. So I do.

Koosman hits another single, but they leave him stranded. By the time it's over he's pitched the last eight and a third without yielding a hit. The Mets are looking dominant, but again, this is the Padres we're talking about.

The game ends and we sit there grinning. Dad gets up and switches to channel 11. The intro to
The Honeymooners
is just coming on, Jackie Gleason's face in the moon.

“Awesome,” Ryan says.

“Funniest thing on television,” Dad says. “These shows are fifteen years old, and nobody's come close.”

They both take a swig of their beers. I go to the cellar for another can of soda, and we laugh our heads off for another half hour.

Nothing like summer. Too bad it's almost over.

T
he swim club closes at seven o'clock so they can set things up for the dance. We decided that instead of trying to get by the authorities at the gate, we would slip into the locker room just before closing and hide in a shower stall.

Tony pulls the dark plastic curtain closed. We're in a space about four feet by four.

“Not a word,” he whispers.

I nod. “This is going to be a long hour.”

“It'll be worth it.” He leans against the cinder-block wall with his arms folded. There's no room to sit down. Even if we could, the floor is slimy. So we just stand there waiting.

After about fifteen minutes a lifeguard walks through the locker room and calls, “Everybody out?”

There's no response, so he leaves. Tony raises one fist and gives me a smug smile. Looks like we're safe.

Eventually we can hear the band tuning up—a few twangs on an electric guitar and some drumbeats. Somebody comes in to use a urinal, so we hold our breath and stand like statues.

The plan is to wait until we hear some actual songs, so we're certain the dance has started. Then we'll just walk out real casually and get lost in the crowd. Tony claims that he ran into Janet and Patty this afternoon and said we'd meet them behind the diving boards, but I don't know when he could have done that. We hung out together from late in the morning until two thirty, then went home, changed, and went to football practice. And we walked home together, too, with no sign of them anywhere.

So, unless they're hiding out in the girls' shower stalls, I don't have a ton of confidence that they'll be here.

There are probably a hundred kids standing around the basketball court when we finally dare to come out. Some of them are our age. The band is playing “Midnight Confessions,” but nobody's dancing. There's a steady stream of people coming through the gate.

We see free soda and cookies on a table by the shuffleboard court, so we head over there and get cups of Coke. Then we walk the inner perimeter of the grounds a few times, like we do every day when we come here. A few people are swimming.

Patty and Janet walk in with a bunch of older girls. They're both wearing sleeveless dresses and choker beads.

“Let's go,” Tony says. He sets his empty cup on a bench and starts walking straight toward them.

“Hey,” he says as we reach them.

Janet smiles and flicks up her eyebrows. Patty just stares at us. She's got her hair up some.

“So you got in,” Tony says, lowering his voice. “Any hassle?”

Janet shakes her head. “We just breezed past.”

“Nobody even looked at us,” Patty says, glancing around at the band and the pool and the people. She's rotating her shoulders with the music. “They just took the money.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Us, too.”

Patty finally meets my eyes, then quickly looks away. We start walking toward the band, and we stay there for a while and listen. Maybe ten people have started dancing, most of them girls.

Tony keeps trying to stand next to Patty, but she keeps moving away from him and winds up next to me instead.

“We should dance,” Janet says eventually.

I take a half step back, but Tony follows them onto the blacktop. Janet and Patty start dancing, and Tony watches them. After a minute or so he dances, too, cutting between them.