Edenville Owls (2 page)

IT
was cold and raining on a Saturday morning, the first week of October, so the Owls took the bus to Eastfield for a practice game against the high school JV team. Russell had arranged the game. He was kind of bossy, and did all the arranging.

It was about a five-mile ride to Eastfield High School. We sat in the back of the bus. Edenville didn’t have a high school, so we’d be going to Eastfield ourselves in a couple of years.

“Listen to this,” Russell said. “You know how the state tourney decided to include JV teams?”

Nick said, “So there’ll be the regular high school tournament and a JV one?”

Russell nodded.

“Well, there’s a slot from each region for an independent team.”

“In the JV tournament?” Billy said.

“Yeah. I guess they didn’t have enough JV teams.”

“And,” I said, “the high school coaches like to have kids playing before they get to high school.”

“Development program,” Manny said.

He was a very quiet guy. Probably had to do with being a colored guy with mostly white guys. Maybe it was just how he was. But when he did say something, it was usually not a dumb thing.

“So I signed us up,” Russell said.

“For the state tourney?”

“Sure,” Russell said. “We win our region and we go to Boston Garden.”

“Boston Garden?”

“You think we can make it to Boston Garden?” Billy said.

“You got me at center,” Russell said.

“Oh boy,” Billy said.

“Hey,” Russell said, “you’ve seen my pivot shot.”

Russell stood and demonstrated in the back of the bus. The bus driver saw him in the rearview mirror.

“Sit down, kid,” the bus driver said.

“I guess he doesn’t want to see your pivot shot either,” Nick said.

Russell grinned and made a little head fake and sat down holding the basketball on his lap.

“Everybody will see it at the Garden,” he said.

Russell was six foot one in the eighth grade, but he wasn’t too well coordinated, and he didn’t have very good hands. Still, he was taller than most kids our age. It helped him get rebounds and he scored a lot on put-backs.

The high school JVs were already doing a layup drill when we came out of the locker room. The gym smelled like floor wax and disinfectant. It had a big echo-y quality. There were stands all around the gym. No one was in the stands, but they were impressive anyway. What would it be like in Boston Garden? The Owls began to shoot around a little. We couldn’t really do a layup drill with two lines even if we knew how. There weren’t enough of us. There were eleven guys on the high school JVs, and they had a coach. And the high school coach himself was there too. The nervous feeling was in my stomach. The varsity captain was there with the varsity coach, and he agreed to referee. We lined up for the tip the way we always did. Russell at center. Nick and Manny at the forwards, Billy and me at guard. Billy had a pretty good set shot. And I usually brought the ball up.

The JV center got the tip even though Russell was taller. He sent it to a forward, who passed to the other forward, who passed it back for a layup. It wasn’t a good start and it didn’t get better. It wasn’t that they were so much better players. But they knew what to do with the ball, and what to do on defense. Our plan was mostly to have me bring the ball up, see if someone was open, or try to get the ball in to Russell so he could turn around with his famous pivot shot and shoot over the guy guarding him. Except every time I did get it in to him, one of the other guys on the JVs dropped back and they double-teamed him and he lost the ball a lot.

Russell got six points. Billy got a couple of set shots. Nick drove by his man a couple times for layups. And Manny got a rebound and put it in. I got four foul shots and missed three of them. We lost forty-eight to seventeen.

The high school coach came into the locker room while we were getting dressed.

“You guys got a coach?” he said.

“No,” Russell said.

“You need one,” he said.

“We can’t get nobody to do it,” Russell said.

The coach shrugged.

“Too bad,” he said. “You sure do need coaching.”

It was still raining and cold while we waited for the bus across the street from the high school. The salty smell of the harbor was pretty strong. It was stronger than it was on nice days. I wondered why that was.

“We’re awful,” Manny said.

“Yeah,” Nick said. “He’s right. We need a coach.”

“I asked everybody,” Russell said. “Nobody’s got time to coach us, that knows anything.”

“We’ll think of something,” I said.

“Yeah?” Billy said. “Like what?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll figure it out.”

BILLY
and I didn’t do our math homework. So we had to stay after school and do it and hand it in to the office before we could leave. I was finished with mine, but Billy was still working on his and I was looking out the second-floor window waiting for him. I saw Miss Delaney come out of the side door and walk across the school yard. A tall man came around the corner of the school and walked up to her. They stopped and faced each other. He had on a trench coat and a dark snap-brimmed hat, like businessmen wore.

My God, did she have a boyfriend? I never thought about teachers having boyfriends. I mean, Miss Delaney was good-looking and all, but…it was embarrassing to think about.

I watched them talk. He was nodding his head and she was shaking hers. He put his hand on her shoulder. She pushed it away. He put his hand on her shoulder again. He must have had a hard hold on her the second time. She tried to twist away and couldn’t. He leaned in toward her and she slapped him and he took hold of both her shoulders.

I pushed open the window.

“Hey,” I yelled, “let her alone.”

“What?” Billy said.

He jumped up and ran to the window.

The tall man let go of Miss Delaney and turned and stared up at us. Miss Delaney went back inside the school and shut the door. I couldn’t see the guy very well because his hat was down over his eyes. And I was pretty sure he couldn’t really see us from that angle. He looked down at the door where Miss Delaney had gone in, and back at the open window, and then he turned fast and went around the corner of the school.

“Holy hell,” Billy said.

We ran from the study hall and down the second-floor corridor toward the auditorium, where we could look out the window in front. We almost ran into Miss McCallum, the math teacher.

“Just what do you boys think you’re doing?” she said.

“We thought we saw something going on out front,” I said. “We wanted to double-check.”

“You can turn right around and go back to the classroom and finish your homework, or you’ll be double-checking in the principal’s office,” Miss McCallum said.

Billy looked scared. I didn’t think I should tell Old Lady McCallum anything. I wasn’t sure why exactly, but I knew Miss Delaney wouldn’t want me to.

“March,” Miss McCallum said.

We went back to the classroom, and Old Lady McCallum sat at the front and watched us while Billy finished his math homework. I had to pretend I was doing my homework, or she’d have made me leave. And I didn’t want to hang outside in the cold waiting for Billy. You weren’t allowed to wait around inside the school without supervision. So I sat in the big silence and pretended to be calculating stuff while Billy struggled through the rest of his assignment.

“When you leave here,” Miss McCallum said, “I want you to go straight down the stairs and out of the building. And no running in the corridors.”

Billy said, “Yes, ma’am.”

I nodded. We went out of the classroom and down the front stairs and out the front door. There was some wind. The flag was snapping on the flagpole in front of the school. On the other side of the wide front lawn, there was a robin’ s-egg blue Plymouth Coupe parked on the street. As we walked past it, Miss Delaney got out. She had on a plaid topcoat and a black beret.

“Bobby,” she said to me, “could I talk to you and Billy for a moment?”

“TELL
me what you saw,” Miss Delaney said.

“I didn’t see nothing,” Billy said.

“Bobby?” Miss Delaney said to me.

“You had an argument with a guy,” I said.

“Was it you who yelled?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” Miss Delaney said.

I nodded.

“Did you tell anybody what you saw?” Miss Delaney said.

Billy shook his head.

“We won’t tell nobody,” Billy said.

“Bobby?” Miss Delaney said.

“Mum’s the word,” I said.

“Good. It’s nothing, but it would be kind of embarrassing, I guess, if this got talked about.”

I felt uneasy. It was very strange to talk this way with Miss Delaney.

“Do you need any help?” I said.

“No, Bobby. That’s very sweet. But it’s just someone I used to know and we had a little argument.”

I didn’t like it. I wanted to know more. But I didn’t know how to ask.

“And you’re gonna be okay?” I said.

“Yes. As long as we keep it a secret,” Miss Delaney said, “I’ll be fine.”

We were all quiet for a moment, and then Miss Delaney leaned over and kissed Billy on the cheek and then me.

“Our secret,” she said, and got in her car and drove away down Church Street.

“You smell her?” Billy said. “She was wearing some kind of perfume. You smell how she smelled?”

“She smelled good,” I said.

“What’d she kiss us for?” Billy said

A gray Ford Tudor came around the corner from North Street and went down Church Street in the same direction as Miss Delaney. Billy and I watched it go until it was out of sight.

“You think that was him?” Billy said.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You think she was telling us the truth?” Billy said.

“Not all of it,” I said.

“Why do you think it’s a secret?”

“I don’t know.”

“You think he was some kind of old boyfriend?” Billy said.

It was kind of exciting to think about Miss Delaney having a boyfriend. I didn’t exactly like it. But I didn’t not like it either.

“I don’t know, Billy. I don’t know who he was or what was going on except he grabbed her and she slapped him, and I yelled and she got away from him and came in the school.”

“And he didn’t follow her in?”

“No.”

“Was Mr. Welch here?” Billy said.

“He usually is,” I said.

Mr. Welch was the principal. The only man except the janitor in the school. He was a pretty big guy, and once when an older guy we were all scared of, Anthony Pimentel, had come in the school, Mr. Welch had taken him by the back of his collar, bum-rushed him down the stairs, and thrown him out the front door. None of us ever admitted it, but we were impressed as hell.

“You gonna tell anyone?” Billy said.

“We said we wouldn’t.”

“But maybe we should tell Mr. Welch,” Billy said.

“We said we wouldn’t.”

Billy nodded.

“I don’t want to get into trouble,” Billy said.

“You keep your mouth shut,” I said. “You almost never get into trouble.”

“Yeah. Okay,” Billy said. “Loose lips sink ships.”

“I think we should keep an eye on her, though.”

“An eye?” Billy said.

“Yeah, just stay ready, see what happens. Be alert, you know?”

“If we told the other guys, they could keep an eye on her too,” Billy said.

“Not yet,” I said. “We need help, we tell them. For now we just, like, stay alert.”

“So what do you think’s going on?” Billy said.

“I don’t know yet,” I said.

“Yet?”

I was quiet for a moment. Up behind us, the flag was still snapping in the breeze.

“I’ll figure it out,” I said.

I
had a small brown GE radio in my bedroom and listened to it nearly every night. I listened to boxing from Madison Square Garden with Don Dunphy describing the fight. The ring announcer was Harry Ballough…The Fitch Band Wagon, with Dick Powell…“Don’t dispair, use your head, save your hair, use Fitch Shampoo.”…The Manhattan Merry Go Round, where I imagined myself actually going to the impossibly sophisticated clubs in Manhattan…Lux Radio Theater (Lux Presents Hollywood, with your host, Cecil B. DeMille)…And always the commercials: Get Wildwood Cream Oil, Charlie, start using it today…Ipana for the smile of beauty, Sal Hepatica for the smile of health…Serutan spelled backward in Nature’s…more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette…On Boston radio there was a fifteen-minute show at noon that an announcer would introduce every day by saying, “Sit back, relax, and listen to Bing Sing.”…like everybody else, I loved Bing Crosby…On network there was
The Jack Benny Program
with Mary Livingston, Phil Harris, Dennis Day, Rochester, and “yours truly, Don Wilson.” It was originally sponsored by Jell-O ( J-E-L-L-O), and later by Lucky Strikes (LS/MFT). Jack had a pet polar bear named Carmichael, who he kept in the cellar…For adventure the afternoon programs were good—Jack Armstrong, Don Winslow of the Navy, Hop Harrigan…. Afternoons I would listen to ball games, the Red Sox and the Braves…When a team was out of town there would be telegraph re-creations with Jim Britt or Tom Hussy reading the play-by-play off a telegraph setup and simulating a real play-by-play…For more grown-up listeners Big Town was good, Steve Wilson of the illustrated press and his girlfriend Lorelei Kilbourn: “Freedom of the press,” Steve would say at the start of every program, “is a flaming sword, use it wisely, hold it high, guard it well.” And “Mister District Attorney,” “I Love a Mystery” Jack, Doc and Reggie always on some lost plateau somewhere.