'74 & Sunny (13 page)

“Okay, fine,” I said. “Gino has final say. I'm cool with that.” So, as we were huffing and puffing, I told Gino to make the call. “Was he safe or out, Gino? It's your call. Otherwise we'll be here all night and that was the first play of the game!”

Gino was sweating more than any of us, and all he had done was roll the damned ball. He looked around at all the players before he nervously made his call between a bunch of kids who had histories and rivalries and all sorts of stuff.

“I think the ball hit Perry's head . . . mostly his hair . . . umm . . .
after
he reached home.”

Wait. What?

My cousin had ruled against me? I had rolled him out of the house, told him what to do and how to do it, and acted like his biggest bodyguard, and he ruled against me?

“Yes!” Underhill said, unbuttoning his cutoff dungarees and turning his white ass toward me. “Kiss my ass, Benza.”

And, as disgusting as it sounds, a side bet is a side bet, and they are always to be honored. So I had to walk past Gino while stopping to say, “Ya know, he said, ‘Kiss my ass, Benza,' and both our names are Benza. So this could easily be you kissing this dirtbag's ass.”

“I'm so-sorry,” Gino stammered. “I forgot about the bet.”

“Well, that was
all
I was thinking about,” I said.

With the whole field of guys laughing and catcalling, I mustered up the nerve to approach Underhill. “My father says Greeks and Turks don't wash a lot,” I said. “When was the last time you washed your ass? I mean,
really
washed it? Like, scrubbed it.”

“I don't know, what's today?” Underhill said. “Monday? Probably . . . April.”

“You dick!” I said, before tripping him to the ground and grazing his butt with my lips before I punched his ass cheek as hard as I could.

“Oh, hurts so gooood,” he said. “We're up, one–zip.”

As I walked back to the outfield, Gino looked like he was about to pass out from the high stakes of a simple game of kickball.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I told you I would've stayed home so you could see that pretty girl.”

“Gino . . .” I said, dripping exasperation as much as sweat. “Just roll the ball. How hard can that be?”

It wasn't hard at all. As a matter of fact, after thirty minutes or so my team hadn't even gotten up to kick yet and we were losing 11–0. When Ronnie Micelli finally popped up to David O'Keefe, we had recorded three outs and it was our turn to play offense. But in that half hour, Gino had had multiple chances to catch pop-ups (he didn't catch a one), throw runners out (he missed by a mile), and try to stop grounders up the middle (they knocked
him
over).

By the time he was rolling the ball to
my
team, he was gassed. I didn't think any ten-year-old kid, let alone a kid who'd rather be watching
Hodgepodge Lodge
, could last that long. So when Pete, the O'Keefe brothers, and I kept belting loooong home runs and tied the score at 11–11 in the first inning, it was time to stop the game, walk back to my house, and pick a new sport.

“This sucks,” Tischler said. “Four-on-four doesn't work. Let's play Rumbles.”

“I'm thirsty,” Gino told me. “I'm gonna go inside and grab a Shasta.”

“Okay,” I said. “See you in a few minutes.”

It was then when I got barraged with questions and the interrogation began.

“Dude . . .” Tischler said, sympathetically. “What's with this kid? He can't catch, he can't throw, he can't field a grounder if his life depended on it.”

“Yeah, he had a tough game,” I said. “I don't think they play kickball in Jersey or something.”

“Nah, we're talking basic sports skills,” Pete said. “He doesn't have them. I think we all knew how to throw a ball at five years old.”

This got the guys laughing, and their bully train was leaving the station.

“Don't forget,” I said. “The kid is ten. He doesn't play in any Little League sports or nothing. He's behind a little.”

“
Dude
,” Tischler chimed in. “He runs with his hands over his head. That's the way chicks run. It's like I'm watching my little sister, Regina, out there.”

“We should set up a race between Gino and Regina to see who wins. . . .” Underhill laughed.

“Come on, come on,” I said. “We're picking on him a little too much here. He doesn't know anyone, he's missing home, suddenly he's in a different house. He'll come around. The next game we play, I bet he'll be fine.”

“I don't want him on my team,
whatever
the sport,” Tischler said.

“Yeah, I gotta admit,” Pete said. “I can't see him hitting a baseball. Can you imagine that? Or a tackle-football game?
The first time I send him out on a down-and-in, the ball's gonna hit his face before he can put his hands up.”

“All right,” I said. “I know what you mean, but I gotta work him in with us and you guys gotta help me. Whattya say?”

There was a silent gap in the conversation for a good fifteen seconds, almost like we knew the next person to speak up was gonna open a big can of worms. The consensus was hanging in the air, but no one had the nerve to reach up and pull it down and examine it.

“Hey . . .” Tischler said blankly. “You ever think you cousin might be a
fairy
?”

I have to admit that thought banged around my head a little before I had the guts or knowledge to address it. It bothered me only in the sense that it was bothering my friends. And that it was gonna mess up my summer. To me, it had no meaning beyond that. It was more an aggravation and an issue
I'd
have to deal with. I never really thought about what it represented to Gino.

“That would explain a lot, man,” David O'Keefe said.

“I don't know,” I said. “Can't be. His father is wild. I know
he
loves beautiful women and he played ball in high school, and I think he killed a bunch of krauts in World War II. I got the pictures to prove it. You should hear the stories he and my father tell!”

The boys, who were wiping the sweat off their bodies with their T-shirts, kind of let all that information sink in, right there in the thick air on my porch.

“But let's say he
is
a fairy. What's to stop a fairy from playing sports?” I said.

“It isn't about that. Do you know a fairy who
likes
to play sports?” Pete said. “They don't like sports, so they're not good at sports.”

“So, we'll
make
him good at sports. Maybe this summer will change him,” I said.

“I don't know,” David O'Keefe said. “I don't think it can be done. Do you know any Major Leaguers or guys in the NFL who are queer
and
can play? Name one.”

“So now what?” I said. “We don't hang out anymore this summer? I can't bring him around because he's not as good an athlete? That's fucked-up, guys.”

As much as Perry Underhill could be a prick at times, he also possessed an understanding side on account of not having a father around, having kind of a crazy younger sister and an older heroin-addicted sister, Athena. Those were the things that he carried. And we never razzed him about those issues. So it wasn't too much of a surprise when he stepped off the bully pulpit and agreed we needed a plan.

“You know what?” he said. “We don't always have to make this about sports. We do stupid shit all the time. Maybe he'd like to see us blow up frogs with firecrackers? Or maybe do some ring-and-runs ya know, some prank phone calls . . .”

“I swear I'll ring Walter Modell's doorbell tonight,” Tischler said, “and light a bag of dog shit on fire!”

“See, see,” I said. “Now we're talking. This is good.”

“You wanna throw all of Mr. Poland's lawn furniture into his pool tonight when he's sleeping?” O'Keefe said.

“Fuckin A. But let's start him out slow. This is gonna be fun, guys. And you'll be helping me a lot.”

“I still say he's a Mary-ass,” Tischler said. “And I don't think you can change a fairy once you've decided to become a fairy.”

“All right, whatever,” I said. “I'm not here to solve the problem, I just don't want him to feel awkward—being a
fem
or not being a
fem
.”

The guys kind of just shrugged their shoulders and gave the plan a green light.

“You're the guy who's gotta sleep with him every night,” Underhill said. “I'd keep one eye open.”

“Oh, Christ,” I said. “Hit the showers, Pericles. You still smell like last week's baklava.”

And with that, the boys and I split up and went our separate ways. I wanted to dip in the pool, get the sweat off my body, and check in with Gino. I was actually trying to let all this new information settle in my brain. I even thought I could cut my father in on it, get his take on things.

My cousin a fairy? Benza boys didn't go that way, far as I knew. And what did it all actually mean anyhow, when you really think about it. I jumped in the pool and swam four whole laps underwater. I did my best thinking down there, which is to say I gave my brain a break from thinking much of
anything. When I was done and drying off, I went upstairs to change. I passed by the bathroom and couldn't help but hear Gino crying. I stood there motionless by the door, annoying drops of water rolling down my legs, listening for clues as to why he suddenly split to go bawl his eyes out. I also noticed that he had taken the rotary phone into the bathroom with him. After a few minutes of me listening to his sobs, I slid the tip of my fingernail into the doorknob and quietly unlocked it. He was talking to someone on the phone, but I couldn't make out the words, on account that he left the faucet running. But the frustration and embarrassment was bubbling up within me. Busting in on him during such a private moment would have made me a downright prick of a cousin. That act was not what my Uncle Larry could've pictured in his mind as a place for his son to become a stronger boy and reverse the “brain damage.” And it was certainly not what my father would have approved of.

But I did it anyhow.

Gino shrieked and immediately hung up the phone when I crashed into the bathroom. He was sitting on the john, with tears streaming down his face. He couldn't have been in a more prone position. But, instead of being a sweet, understanding, coddling cousin, I let free all the anger, frustration, and mystery that I'd been bottling up inside me.

“Who the hell were you talking to, and why are you crying?” I said as I slammed the door behind me.

“A.J., please just leave me alone. . . .”

“No. This is pissing me off,” I said. “You didn't go inside for a Shasta. You went inside the house because you didn't want to play sports anymore with me and the guys.”

He sat there on the bowl, quietly sobbing and wiping his tears with toilet paper.

“Can't I
just
be alone,” he said.

“No. Gino, . . . I wanna know who you were talking to and what's making you cry. Jesus, the game ended in a tie!”

“But you know I'm not good at sports,” he said. “And I was really bad at kickball today. Maybe you should just play with your friends without me.”

At this point, I'd had it with his maudlin attitude, and I was determined to get him to change his ways, get stronger, and be more like me and the guys.

“Who were you talking to?” I said. “I'm not opening the door until you tell me.”

“It was my mother, okay?” he said. “I just miss her and I wanted to see how she was doing. And she told me I don't have to do anything I don't want to do.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Gino started crying in his hands. “It means I don't enjoy the same stuff as you and your friends. And I don't have to play games I'm not good at. Kickball or diving or whatever . . .”

I don't know what came across me in the seconds after he finished his sentence. But I pounced on him, pulling him off the toilet bowl and wrestling him until his back was pinned to the cold, hard tile. “Just fuckin' do what I say, do what me and
my friends do, and you'll be fine. You won't be calling home and crying to Mommy.”

My mother yelled from the kitchen. “What the hell is going on up there?”

“Listen to me,” I whispered. “Wash your face; make it look like you weren't crying for God's sake. You think this is easy on me?”

“What do you mean?” he said, somewhat composing himself.

“You know what I mean. Just fix yourself up and go watch TV,” I said. “We're not playing any more sports today. All the guys went home, so don't worry about it.”

“Well, don't be mad at me,” he said as I opened the bathroom door.

“I ain't mad,” I said. “I'm just . . . I don't know . . . ­confused. I don't get what you're crying over.” I lingered in front of the mirror a few seconds. “Listen, I'm sorry I went apeshit there for a few seconds. I'm going back in the pool to think.”

“Do you want to watch
The Electric Company
or
Zoom
or something?” he said.

“Yeah, but not right now,” I said. “Lemme jump back in the pool. I'll see you in a little while.”

“Okay . . . I'm sorry,” he said.

“Gino, don't
apologize
,” I said. “You didn't do anything wrong. Just cool your jets. We'll figure it out.”

9

RIGHT PLACE, WRONG TIME

D
on't think for a second I didn't swim my laps and flip around the deep end of my pool so that Debbie Rossitto couldn't see. I made it a point to make noise, hoping that she'd either appear at her bedroom window, or even better, come to the fence in her one-piece mesh bathing suit.

She had a wonderful mother but a
really
strict father, who wasn't home a lot, but when he was, that house of five girls and one boy became as quiet as a church. But when Daddy was gone, Debbie did her best to rouse me. After a fifteen-minute swim, I looked up from beneath the diving board to see her standing by the chain-link fence that separated our houses.

“What's up,
Rosey Toes
?”

“The Coogan brothers are in front of your house, you know that, right?” she said. “All three of them. Are you supposed to be doing something with them?”

Debbie was like the neighborhood's mayor.

“The Coogans?” I said. “Nah. I didn't call for them today. Danny's cool. His brothers are numb nuts though.”

“Well, they're just standing there on the sidewalk, doing nothing,” she said. “But I never trust that family.”

I waved her over. She was wearing that mesh swimsuit I liked. “Forget about those guys.”

“Whatcha doing?” she said.

“Just hanging out for a while,” I said, making sure my hair was just right.

“I'm coming over. You wanna hang out in the raft for a while?”

“Yeah,” I said. “The raft, it's right here. Come on in. The water is eighty degrees.”

When she stepped down into the pool, I knew her prophecy would come true. But we were still a year away, which made the tension as tight as a snare drum.

Debbie was developed enough that the drop in the pool temperature was enough to give her chicken skin and, more important, to awake both nipples to stand out and completely knock out my peripheral vision.

She climbed in and snuggled next to me in the raft, both of us giggling about the probability of falling over.

When the water stopped churning and we regained our
balance, all I cared about was that she smelled of Bazooka bubble gum and Coppertone. And that made me forget about every problem I might have to face. Except for one.

“Hey,” I whispered. “I gotta ask you a question, and I don't want you to lie to me, okay?”

“Of course,” Debbie cooed. “Talk to me. What's on your mind?”

“Listen . . . some of the guys—like Richie, Pete, and Perry and them—think that Gino might be a . . . you know . . . a
fairy
. What do you think about that? You've met the kid. How do you see it, Deb?”

“Why?” she said. “Because he wasn't very good at
kickball
?”

“You watched through the window while we played?”

“I watch you every time you play,” she said.

“Oh man,” I said. “Now, I'm gonna be embarrassed every time I play ball across the street.”

She twisted her beautiful body so that she was looking right at me, while the raft was floating uneasily. “I didn't forget about our deal next June second,” she said. “On our birthdays. And I hope you haven't forgotten either. We're doing this, A.J.”

I could barely contain myself in my denim cutoffs. “I can't talk about it. You're gonna make me wanna push up the date.”

We laughed as loud as two kids who had a secret from the world.

“Seriously,” I said. “Before he comes outside, what do you think?”

“Do
you
care?”

I didn't have to think about that too long. “I couldn't give a shit less,” I said. “It's a little aggravating dealing with the guys in the neighborhood, but as long as he's happy . . . I'm happy. I mean, what does it all mean anyway?”

“Then screw it,” Deb said, before planting an openmouthed kiss flat on my mouth that tasted like candy. “You can handle it.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said. “What was that all about?”

“I don't know,” she said, real coy like, while sliding out of the raft and climbing up the steps. And then she finally let her veil down. “Don't look at
me
. I'm just as nervous as you are.” She laughed.

“Hey,” I said. “Seriously,
how
can we wait until
next
summer?”

“I don't know. Lemme think about it,” she said, as she climbed the fence. “But you got your hands full right now. And, by the way, the Coogans are still hanging out at the curb. They're so creepy.” She blew me a kiss with her right hand pressed to her lips. I just let myself sink to the bottom of the pool, and I sat there for a while until my ears hurt from the water pressure and I ran out of breath. When I pushed myself up for air, I saw the unmistakable image of my father, home early from work, with a look on his face that would want to make people change their zip codes.

“Dry off, lover boy. We got a situation,” he said. While Debbie and I were rolling around on the raft, he'd already
come home and changed into cutoff jean shorts and his favorite terry-cloth V-neck shirt. As I hopped out of the pool to dry off, I could tell by the speed and seriousness of things happening in the house—my mother's anguished face and Gino already standing in the foyer ready to go—this seemed like some sort of perilous mission we were needed on.

My parents and I met Gino in the foyer, with my mother wringing her hands and my father breathing hard through his nose.

“What is it, Dad?” I asked, concerned. “Is anyone in trouble?”

“All I can tell you is we aren't the ones in trouble,” he said. “I come home early to enjoy the pool and I gotta see this shit on my sidewalk.”

“What sidewalk? What happened?” I said.

“Come with me; walk out to the front yard. And when you tell me who did this to our house and to our family, I'm gonna fuckin' mop the floor with them.”

Gino and I followed my father to the front white sidewalk outside our lawn, and there they were in blue chalk, the ugly words: GO HOME QUER. The culprits missed a letter, but my father was gonna make sure they didn't miss the lesson. And with his .45 caliber handgun very visibly stuck inside the back of his shorts, he was hell-bent on finding whoever was responsible for pulling this off, in broad daylight no less.

“Al,” my mother pleaded. “A
gun
?”

“Lilly, go inside.” And she turned back into the house.

He knelt down to me on the lawn, “These pricks need to learn a lesson, you understand?” Gino was shaking like a leaf. “I think I have to throw up,” he said. “I really think I have to throw up.”

“Then throw up,” my father said. “Now . . . do you have any idea who might have done this? Before I break somebody's head, I gotta know—without a doubt—who we're dealing with here.”

“Well,” I started, “the Coogan boys were outside the house while I was in the pool. And they can be pricks sometimes, Dad. And they
were
sitting outside our house earlier. It's gotta be them. Yeah. The Coogan boys.”

“Show me their house,” he said, with absolutely no anxiety and, actually, a quiet resolve.

And with that, Gino and I held each one of my father's hands and walked six or seven houses down the street, all the while with my father's .45 in his back waistband and impossible not to see with our peripheral vision. Gino and I looked at each other, and it was a bonding moment. This was something we were all in together. As a family. Gino looked like hell, and I could've used a few Tums, if you want to know the truth.

Our next-door neighbor was Joe D'Ascoli—Pete's dad—and he was a New York City cop. Maybe he spotted the gun or something, but in the middle of watering his lawn, he piped up, “Anything wrong, Al?”

“Nah. Nothing to worry about,” my father said.

Mr. D'Ascoli went back to watering his lawn, and we continued down the street.

A few seconds later, my father stopped us and asked me a very simple but scary question.

With a sinister yet comforting smile creasing his face he said, “Which house? Point.”

We walked down the street for maybe a minute while my father whistled—
he whistled
—until I stopped walking and pointed at the brand-new colonial-style home that the Coogan family had just moved in to.

“This is it?” he said. “With the goddamn statue of the niggah lawn jockey holding a lantern? What an asshole.”

“Yeah, Dad,” I said, startled, embarrassed, and excited at the same time. “This is Danny Coogan's house.”

“Uncle Al,” Gino pled. “This is not a big deal. You don't have to get mad at this family.”

My father lovingly rubbed Gino's cheek with his hands. “Gino, do you understand what those pricks wrote on the sidewalk? Listen to Uncle Al. We have to nip this in the bud. Those words are ignorant and wrong. And it's not gonna happen at my house.”

“But it doesn't matter,” Gino said. “Those boys don't know me.”

My father shrugged his shoulders, and it looked like he was admiring the beautiful weather around us. He was completely calm when he said, “Well then, let's get to know each other.”

I was shaking when we walked up Danny Coogan's driveway and finally reached his front door.

“What the hell are you shaking for?” my father asked me. “Did
you
do anything wrong?”

“No.”

“Then stop shaking,” he said.

Like most of us in the neighborhood, the Coogans had a screen door separating them from the outside world. No one locked their doors in my neighborhood in 1974, so seeing a flimsy screen door was nothing unusual. My father knocked a few times, and I tensed up. Gino was turning gray and was close to shitting his pants.

Mr. Coogan answered the door. “Can I help you?” he said, with a slight smile on his face.

“Hiya,” my father began. “We haven't met. My name is Al Benza. I live a few houses down on Snedecor.”

“Yes, yes,” Mr. Coogan said. “Nice to meet you. Why the visit?”

“Well,” my father said. “It goes like this: there are some terrible words written with chalk on the sidewalk in front of my house, and my son says your boys are the ones who did it.”

Mr. Coogan gave off a quizzical look. “How's that?”

“You heard me,” my father said. “Why don't you get your sons to come to the door and ask them what they did.”

“I have a
great
idea,” Mr. Coogan said. “Why don't you go back home and think about what you're doing here, blaming my boys for something they didn't do.”

“Are you calling my son a liar?” my father said.

“I'm saying it would be a
great
idea if you just walked away, and I'll forget this ever happened.”

Within a second, my father dropped Gino's and my hands and punched Mr. Coogan with his right fist in the face, straight through the screen door. And a second later, he was inside their home, standing over a stunned Mr. Coogan, with a gun to his head.

“You gotta a lot of ‘
great
ideas,' ” my father huffed. “But the best thing you're gonna do now is call your sons downstairs or else I'll pull this trigger and we'll see all your ‘great ideas' on the wall behind you.”

Gino wasn't in Hackensack anymore.

With that, Mr. Coogan—who was understandably out of breath and low on courage—called for his sons to come to the foyer and see him lying there in such a prone position. “
Danny, Marty, Tudor . . .
come downstairs now
,” he said. It sounded like he was moaning and shrieking at the same time.

When the boys arrived, they had no idea what they were walking into.

“Dad,” they screamed. “Are you okay?”

“Never mind that,” Mr. Coogan piped up. “Did you write something on the Benzas' sidewalk? And
don't
lie to me!”

Once the boys sheepishly admitted what they had done, my father let Mr. Coogan up, uncocked his pistol, and stuck it back in his waistband. “Okay,” my father said. “See how easy that was? Now, just have the boys come by and wash that shit
off my sidewalk and we'll have no more problems from here on in.”

The Coogan boys stood there frozen.

“You heard the man,” Mr. Coogan shouted to his sons. “Go clean up your mess, for God's sake. And then I'll deal with you idiots later!”

“I'm sorry it came to this,” my father told him. “I'm not the type to hold a grudge. So this'll all be water under the bridge now that your boys are doing what's right.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mr. Coogan replied, straightening his shirt and plastering his hair back on his sweaty head. “Of course, of course.”

As we walked back home, Mr. D'Ascoli—who'd obviously seen the entire confrontation—stopped watering his lawn. “Everything all right, Al?”