Eggplant Alley (9781593731410) (3 page)

“I can really hear them. I can really see them,” Nicky said.

“Oh, THAT nonsense,” Mom said. She shook her head. “You're starting your stupid shenanigans again.”

Mom knew that Nicky was seeing things. Lovely, old things. This was not a recent development. For years, Nicky had conjured scenes out of the past, right before his eyes.

“The last thing we need today is for you to start acting like a nut,” said Mom, clopping a knife on the Formica as she diced.

Nicky was sure he was not a nut. The visions didn't haunt him or scare him. They didn't command him to take a hatchet to his family or to eat cockroaches or bark at the milkman. The visions never came on suddenly. They were strictly voluntary. Nicky tuned in to them the way you tune in to a favorite radio program. He enjoyed seeing things from the past. As far as he was concerned, it was no different from looking at old photographs or listening to an old song. No different from remembering the good old days
that went along with the photos and the songs. Nicky merely took the reminiscing a few steps closer to the slippery edge.

For example, one Sunday afternoon Dad, Roy, Nicky, and Mr. Greenblatt who lived down on the second floor took in a game together at Yankee Stadium. They sat in cheap seats, high in the third deck. The Yankees were in last place, and they were having a very bad day. They let fly balls dribble out of their mitts and they made throws that were too short or too long and they struck out or popped up whenever the moment called for a big hit. The small crowd on hand booed. It was like being at a party that turned bad.

Dad and Mr. Greenblatt were drinking Ballantine beer. They chattered on and on about the mighty Yankees of the good old days. They spoke of the Great DiMaggio, and their faces softened and their eyes got moist. The way they described him, the Great DiMaggio played center field for the Yankees as if he were a prince with angel wings. Mr. Greenblatt belched and said, “Joltin' Joe was regal.” At that moment Nicky peered down at the current Yankee center fielder, who was picking his nose.

So Nicky concentrated and stared until his eyeballs hurt. And out of a fog trotted Joe DiMaggio, in the fluttery flannels from the newsreels. Nicky stared hard around the magnificent stadium and the crowd, no longer booing, was on its feet, cheering with mad delight. Everybody seemed happy. Nicky spelled out this grand vision for Dad, Roy, and Mr. Greenblatt.

“I see Joe D.!” Nicky exclaimed.

Mr. Greenblatt peered into the neck of his Ballantine bottle and said, “Did he get into the beer?”

“Don't mind him. He sees mirages out of the past,” Dad said.

“He's just plain nuts,” Roy said.

Mr. Greenblatt, who had a huge head and a thick Hell's Kitchen accent, clapped Nicky on the back and said, “Awwww, he's all right. The little fellow just has a craving to give the modern world the slip. Who can blame him?” And Nicky thought Mr. Greenblatt was a genius.

Now, as Mom cooked, Nicky looked out the kitchen window at the boys on the playground, and he was grateful for the view. It was a wonderful scene. Roy and his pals looked as innocent as stuffed animals. The old gang wore their old clothes—dungarees, white T-shirts, and canvas sneakers. Roy removed his cap and revealed a crew cut, flat and bristly. Nicky fondly remembered the crew cut. It was Roy's trademark hairdo before he let his hair grow over his forehead, over his eyes, down his neck, the moppish hairstyle that boiled Dad's blood. Nicky was comforted to see Roy's old crew cut, thin layer of Brylcreem glistening in the sunshine.

Nicky watched Roy play stickball. He watched Roy swing the bat for a solid hit. He watched Roy take first base. He watched Roy lean his hands on his knees, just like the big leaguers. He watched Roy move smoothly off the base—his trademark little bounce and hop. Roy dancing in the sunshine. Nicky wondered, “I'm crazy? Who wouldn't want to see this?”

Nicky withdrew his head from the kitchen window and said to Mom, “Guess what?”

“Oww,” Mom said sharply. She had clipped a finger with the knife.

“Know what I'm going to do this summer?”

“Right on the knuckle, as always.”

“I'm gonna play stickball this summer.”

Mom carried her bloody finger to the faucet and said, “Don't be crazy. Nobody plays stickball around here anymore.”

T
his happened two weeks later.

Nicky sipped Kool-Aid, sunshine on his face, and kept watch out the kitchen window. On the kitchen table were Roy's old baseball mitt, Roy's old Spaldeen, and Roy's old yellow stick-ball bat. In a previous life, the bat was a mop handle. Nicky surveyed the PS 19 schoolyard, looking for something old, hoping for something new. He stared at the PS 19 playground until his eyeballs ached. All he got for his trouble was a pain in the eyeballs. Down on the asphalt, a pigeon waddled, a paper cup tumbled end-over-end. There was nothing from the old days. No Roy. No stickball. The sweet visions hadn't returned since the morning Roy shipped out.

“I've lost my powers,” Nicky moaned. “Another change, for the worse.”

Mr. Misener, the grouchy superintendent of Eggplant Alley, dragged a garbage can down the back stairs of Building B. He sang one of the old love songs, warbling over the racket of the banging metal can. It was the kind of beautiful, soft spring day that made crabby men sing. The kind of day that shrieked for stickball.

Nicky stared harder. He wrinkled his brow, adjusting his forehead the way Dad adjusted the rabbit-ears antenna on the television.

Nothing old.

Nothing new.

In the late afternoon, the sun put a yellow glow into the tenement windows. Cool shadows crept across the stoops. Nicky watched the bricks change from red to orange to purple in the fading light. But he didn't see the beauty of the sun and light. Instead of enjoying what was there, Nicky pined for what was missing.

In the far corner of the PS 19 schoolyard, a basketball thunked and a metal backboard twanged. Two black kids from the Groton Avenue tenements were shooting hoops. Nicky's stomach grumbled. He thought, “If they can play their game, why can't we play ours?”

Nicky let his eyes sweep the schoolyard, one last time. Mom would come around the kitchen soon and begin to build sandwiches for supper, a Martini family tradition on Sunday nights. Then Nicky wouldn't be allowed to leave the apartment, no matter if the Yankees themselves showed up at the playground, shouting at Nicky to grab a glove and come down.

And out of the long shadows of Building B appeared the redheaded Icky Rossilli. One of Roy's old gang.

Icky walked briskly toward the short wall on the schoolyard's edge. He walked as if the wall were a train that might pull out of the station. He couldn't wait to get to that wall. Icky hurried and tossed glances over his shoulder, keeping watch on the black boys playing basketball. Icky slumped onto the wall, sighed deeply, fired up a cigarette. He examined the concrete between
his sneakers. His head swiveled to check on the black boys on the basketball court. Nicky remembered that Icky was a pitcher.

Nicky squeezed the Spaldeen ball as the elevator rattled toward the lobby. He had found the ball stuck in Roy's mitt in the back of their closet. The ball must have plopped into the mitt during that last stickball game. The ball sat in the mitt in the closet for four years. Nicky looked at the ball, once pink, now darkened to the color of rotten meat. He thought about the ball hiding in the dark closet for the past four years. “Sounds good to me,” Nicky thought.

Icky's head snapped up when he heard Nicky's footsteps. Icky was on guard out here. “Hey. What do you know, little Nicky Martini,” Icky said without enthusiasm.

Icky wasn't Nicky's first choice to find on the PS 19 schoolyard this afternoon. Icky was a hard case. Nicky thought Icky was not the type to get enthusiastic about playing stickball, even for old times' sake.

Icky was not a boy to get enthusiastic about anything, except maybe a six-pack and a girlie magazine. He was the first of Roy's friends to swear, the first to smoke, the first to get a girlfriend, the first to dump his girlfriend, the first to get a job, the first to get fired from a job. Icky was barrel-chested and tough, and he tried to act tougher. Icky talked a lot about joining the marines and killing commies, but he never got around to it. Icky also said he would cheerfully go to Vietnam if drafted. He made the boast after he was sure he would never get the call. Icky was among the luckiest in Nixon's new draft lottery. The Ping-Pong balls had tumbled his way. His birthday had come up 351st—no chance
of getting drafted. In this same lottery, Roy's birthday came up number one—guaranteed to be drafted. “The only lottery a Martini ever won,” Dad joked.

“Hear anything from Roy?” Icky said, yawning.

Nicky told Icky about the postcard from Roy. The card was passed out to the troops upon arrival in Vietnam. The card was pre-printed with the message that
BLANK
—and Roy wrote in his name here—had arrived in the Republic of Vietnam and was awaiting assignment. Mom taped this postcard to the refrigerator.

“Good,” said Icky. “If you write him, tell him I want a souvenir. Like a silk smoking jacket or one of them necklaces made out of gook ears.”

“Yeah, I'd like one of them myself,” Nicky said, feeling stupid, because the last thing he wanted was jewelry, especially jewelry made from body parts.

“Is he still going with that hippie chick? The one with the screwy name?”

“Search me.”

Margalo was the last topic Nicky wanted to talk about. The light was fading on the schoolyard.

Nicky held the Spaldeen to Icky's face.

“Hey, look what I found,” Nicky said, as if the squishy ball had appeared by pure magic.

“Whazzat?” Icky said. He squinted at cigarette smoke curling into his eyes. “Lemme see.”

Nicky handed it over. Icky squeezed the ball. He examined it and turned it, like a chimp regarding a coconut. Icky bounced the ball hard into the cement between his feet. A spongy thud. The
old sweet sound. He smiled with the cigarette in his mouth. Icky's eyes cleared. His face freshened. His red hair brightened.

“We used to have some games,” Icky said. “You never played, right? You was too young.”

“I missed them.”

“We used to have some games.” Icky snapped his wrist with the ball in his hand. “Drop pitch. Nobody could hit mine. Roy couldn't.”

Nicky said, “Lookit. I got a stick.”

“What for? You couldn't hit me.”

Nicky shrugged. He watched Icky's face. He screamed at Icky in his head, “Come on, come on. Let's just play!” Icky's eyes went somewhere far away. He stood. He took the cigarette out of his mouth, dropped it, and stepped on it.

Nicky thought, “The first step.”

Icky made a P-U face and said, “Nah.” He flipped the ball to Nicky. He grimaced. “Nobody plays stickball around here anymore. You can't do nothing around here anymore. Because of them.” Icky cocked his head toward the basketball court, where the black kids were playing. “You should know that better than anybody, right?”

Nicky thought, “Come on, you dope. Forget about them. Let's just play. Come on, come on, come on.” Nicky bounced the ball, hoping the magical spongy thud would hypnotize Icky.

Icky stretched, yawned, belched, and said lazily, “Nobody plays stickball around here no more.”

Icky folded himself onto the wall, shook a Lucky Strike loose from the pack, plucked out the cigarette with his lips, and reached
for his silver lighter. Icky and Nicky sensed movement, and Fishbone Callahan appeared out of the shadows of Eggplant Alley. Another from the old gang. Tall and thin. Nicky remembered Fishbone was an infielder.

Fishbone was about forty feet away. Forty feet was the old stickball distance from the pitcher to the batter. And it's a fact that anyone who has thrown a ball, summer after summer, sometime in his life, can't resist the urge to throw it again, no matter when the opportunity arises.

Icky dropped the lighter and the fresh cigarette, snatched the ball from Nicky, and whipped the ball at Fishbone.

“Think quick!”

The ball reached Fishbone on one bounce.

“You never could throw.”

“You never hit me.”

“In your dreams.”

“You wish.”

Fishbone nodded at Nicky, asked about Roy. Nicky told him about the postcard, but Fishbone wasn't listening.

“I guess you forget the one I hit off that front stoop over there,” Fishbone gloated. He pointed at a tenement on the other side of Groton. “If somebody was sitting there, the impact woulda killed them.”

“Bullshit.”

The swear word made Nicky tense.

Fishbone said, “Really? The kid's got a bat. Wanna try? The squirt can chase the ball after I clobber your little-girl pitches.”

Fishbone continued, “In fact, know what? I saw Mumbles and

Little Sam on the front steps just now. The other day, we were hashing over the old stickball games. Just the other day. Let's go get them.”

Nicky cheered in his head, “Come on, come on, come on.”

“I dunno,” Icky said. But he was standing and moving away from the wall. Icky and Fishbone walked onto the schoolyard, into the sunlight, onto the old stickball field. Nicky followed. A slight breeze swept the playground and touched Nicky's cheek, like the tickle of a clean sheet. Nicky thought the old concrete diamond was pulling at them, the way the tide pulls you at the beach.

“Look. The old baselines,” Fishbone said. He scraped his sneaker along the faded white lines painted onto the cement. “Let's go get the guys. We can get a quick game in before dark.”

Icky shrugged. “I don't care.”

Nicky silently rejoiced.

A loud yelp echoed from the far end of the schoolyard. The sound came from where the black kids played basketball. Icky, Fishbone, and Nicky swiveled their heads. The basketball backboard quivered crazily. Someone had shot and missed badly, and the basketball was bounding away on the concrete, bouncing straight for Icky, Fishbone, and Nicky.