Skip to main content

Chapter 7: Heinzy's Father Revisited

 



     "That's our shortstop," bellows Mr. D'stefano to his wife and three little kids over the Yankees broadcast as I skirt the living room of their ramshackle pink house on Longwood Avenue. "Grab a beer from the keg out there!"

"Here you go, Bates," hails Heinzy from the kitchen as he hands me a red plastic cup. "Debbie and April are tending if you catch my drift."



     I barely caught it even though I'd glimpsed Ray and JoAnn making out in the shadow of a hedge on my way in. My only experience had been fumbling around with three successive girlfriends in eighth grade. They had been best friends who remained so even after taking two-week turns with my thirteen-year-old lips. 

     I had even less experience with alcohol. On the previous New Year's Eve, after our mother went to bed, my sister and I were bored watching the drunken crowd at Times Square. We decided to join the revelry we were seeing on television by raiding the ancient whiskey bottle in the family medicine cabinet. As the countdown began and the ball dropped we each took a slug and then sprayed it all over the kitchen floor, laughing all the way into the new year.  

     Now baseball season was over and I was surprised to have been the starting shortstop as a freshmen for a pretty good JV team. Several sophomore teammates had made it up so I was beginning to feel hopeful that my broken elbow had recovered enough for me to have a shot at varsity the next year. Still, there were zero expectations of having any chance with the sophomore girls serving up beers at Heinzy's party.



     "Bottom's up," smiles Debbie filling my cup with mostly foam from a keg sitting in a barrel of ice beside the D'stefano porch.

Slurp I sigh into the steamy dusk as she reaches to refill my cup and I try to keep from looking down at her bulging tube top. 

"That's for Gooby," she laughs offering a better-filled serving and whispering "but April likes you."

Hi there, I am Heinzy's father I hum to myself to the tune of Yankee Doodle as April, long legs stretching below blue jean cutoffs, reaches for my red cup and pulls me in for a taste.




The End

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chapter 5: Under The Bus

        "Everybody out and make it fast!" exhorts Coach Martin with an uncharacteristic squeak in his husky voice. "Come on Gooby," beseeches Jim Budnick. "I think I hear a train!" "Hustle up," goads the coach as we scramble over the tracks and line up behind the bus. "On three push with all you've got!"      It was every coach's nightmare that a school bus under their charge would stall while crossing railroad tracks. That bad dream came true at an elevated industrial crossing on the way home from Budnick's second win at Piscataway.       The Romano's Bus Service driver had dutifully stopped before the railroad line, looking both ways instead of trusting the upright wooden smashboard. Nothing was visibly approaching so he ground the long yellow bus into gear, stalling out on a shift at the crest over the tracks.      "Lean into that bumper," coaches Heinzy as Vennie, Gooby, Joe Flis, and I line up beside him a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chapter 1: Giving A Darn

  Costello: Another guy gets up and hits a long fly ball to Because. Abbott: Yes Costello: Why? I don't know! He's on third and I don't give a darn! Abbott: What'd you say? Costello: I said, I don't give a darn! Abbott: Oh, that's our shortstop! (1)      "Hey, that's my spot!" grumbles Ventura Malave coming back to shortstop from shallow left where he'd fielded a cut-off throw. "Come on, Pitch!" is all I say, leaning into position with knees bent, hands open, and body ready to go any which way on the next hit.      It was the spring of 1973 and we were vying for the starting lineup on the Bound Brook Junior Varsity baseball team. In ninth grade the best players from the fourteen Little League teams of the twin boroughs of Bound Brook and South Bound Brook converge on the high school's JV team.      The largest and toughest of the bunch go out for catcher, a position that requires heavy gear and strength of heart to withstand...
Post a Comment
Read more