Original Love. J.J. Murray

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      Chapter 3: January 1976

      “Henry, you’ll just have to wait,” I say to myself. “I want to have a little fun.” I look at the white coffee cup, the rim stained with two days of tea and instant coffee. The cup looks good with a tan.

      Chapter 3

      Once the Captain fell asleep in his La-Z-Boy “commodore’s chair” one unusually warm Sunday afternoon a few days after Christmas, Peter escaped the house and ran down to the cul-de-sac at the end of Preston Street to watch a street hockey game up close. He used to watch them from his window, but it was like watching a hockey game on TV without the sound.

      And everybody was there: Mark Brand, bony and blond with hands too big for his body; Eric Hite, who had no height, with shaggy hair and no athletic skills; Eddie Tucci, fat and red-faced, with puffy hands and a gigantic nose; and Mickey Mather, the only one of the bunch who had a crew cut and any idea how to play hockey. They each wore T-shirts with “P-Street Rangers” written crudely in black Magic Marker on the front, each with his own gray duct-taped number on the back. They used hockey sticks that had wooden shafts and plastic blades and smacked around a hard orange puck that Eric kept hitting into the sewer. Eddie was the goalie and wore what looked like couch cushions tied to his legs with shoestrings, a catcher’s mask, a goalie stick and a first baseman’s mitt.

      Peter thought they were the coolest foursome on earth.

      “If the sewer was the goal, Eric, we’d never lose,” Mark said as Eric squeezed through the gap between the sidewalk and the grate into the sewer. Then Mark noticed Peter. “What you doin’ out, Peter-eater?”

      It was the rumor at Southdown Elementary, then at Woodhull, where only sixth graders could go, and now at R.L. Simpson Junior High that Peter was a soft mama’s boy, allergic to air and dirt. Peter had to wear a navy blue pea coat to school on every cold day, and a couple times he heard some kids calling him the “Flasher.” And since Peter didn’t play any sports, the others thought that Peter had to be gay.

      “Just came out to watch is all.”

      “Watch us lose is more like it,” Eddie said. “Blackberry Bruins are gonna kill us unless Eric quits fuckin’ around. Mickey, when’s Willie gonna get here?”

      At the mention of Willie Gough’s name, Peter cringed. Willie was the meanest boy at Simpson, always picking fights with kids bigger than him—and Willie was smaller than Eric. But Willie never lost. Never. He’d always still be standing at the end, his knuckles cut to shreds, the other kid bleeding and crying for his mama.

      “Willie ain’t comin’,” Mickey said, passing the puck back and forth as he ran toward the goal, which looked like an overgrown chicken coop. He cracked off a shot that nearly knocked over the goal.

      “We can’t play ’em with only four, Mickey,” Mark said.

      “Petey can play, can’t you, Petey?” Mickey asked Peter.

      Peter had never played a second of hockey before in his life, but he lied and said he could. A few moments later, he was tearing off home to get a white T-shirt. The second he returned, Eddie made Peter a P-Street Ranger, taping the number seven on to Peter’s back.

      Mickey handed Peter an extra stick, one with a chewed-up wooden blade. “It still works,” he said. “Take a shot.”

      Peter lined up the shot and walked around the puck.

      “This ain’t golf, Peter-eater,” Mark said.

      Peter ignored him and slammed the puck into the goal from about thirty feet away.

      A cul-de-sac street hockey legend had just been born.

      But when the Blackberry Bruins showed up, Peter knew he was in trouble. They were all eighth and ninth graders from Simpson, and they had real Bruins jerseys and helmets, knee pads, elbow pads, and shiny new sticks.

      “They ain’t so tough,” Mickey told me. “They just got more money.”

      “First to ten wins?” a tall, skinny boy named Chad said.

      “Gotta win by two,” Mickey said. “And no slashing.”

      “We won’t,” Chad said.

      Chad lied. The Bruins slashed the P-Street Rangers to death with their sticks, hacking at shins until the Rangers spent more time limping than running. The Rangers were down seven to two in less than ten minutes, Eddie flinching and turning sideways every time a Bruin took a shot, Eric whiffing on the puck, Mark fussing and cussing, yelling, “I’m open! I’m open! Pass me the damn puck, you guys!” Peter did the best he could, but he was so much smaller than the Bruin players and often got pushed away from the action.

      Mickey called a time-out. “Okay, Petey, you play goal for a while, give Eddie a break.”

      “Thank you, Peter-eater,” Eddie said, and he took off his pads. “I’m sweating to death.”

      “Eric, you stay back with Petey,” Mickey said. “We’re gonna have to cherry-pick a little to get back in the game, so Mark, you hang out near their goal. Me and Eddie will try to feed you.”

      Eddie tied the pads to Peter, the tops nearly reaching Peter’s chest. The pads definitely smelled like garlic. He handed Peter his goalie stick and first baseman’s mitt and slapped the catcher’s mask on Peter’s head.

      “Don’t lose it for us,” Eddie said. “And whatever you do, don’t be a pussy and flinch.”

      And Peter didn’t. That little orange puck hurt like hell when it hit Peter where the pads weren’t, and he would have to ice down his shoulder afterward, but Peter didn’t duck or turn away at all. They bounced one between his black high-topped Chuck Taylor sneakers, and squeezed one in behind him after he made a nice first save, but that was all.

      Peter held them to nine.

      Meanwhile, Mickey’s plan was working, because Mark was an excellent shot, using his bony elbows to get the bigger boys out of the way. And whatever bounced off the Bruins’ goalie, Mickey slammed home. Eddie simply got in the way of their players, and Eric tried to stay out of sight so Peter could see the shots better.

      Just as Mickey scored the tying goal, Peter noticed a black girl walking toward the action. He had never seen her before, and he knew just about everyone in the neighborhood by sight after months spent perched at his window seat.

      “What the hell’s she doin’ here?” Mark asked Mickey.

      Mickey shrugged. “Free country.”

      “It’s like we’re having an eclipse or something,” Eddie said with a laugh.

      Ebony СКАЧАТЬ