War and Watermelon Read online

  “Better sit out until that stops bleeding,” Coach says. “Offense’s ball at the twenty, going the other way.”

  Sarnoski comes back onto the field, so that’ll be the end of it for me. I join Tony and the other subs on the sideline.

  Nobody says anything about my performance, but I’m feeling good about it as we leave the field after practice. They came at me on every play and I held my own. I stuck ’em right back.

  My lip is stinging and I can feel it starting to swell, so I check it in the side mirror of Coach’s Wonder Bread truck as we pass through the parking lot.

  There’s a crust of dried blood and dirt covering about a third of my lower lip. No way I’m wiping that off.

  “Lucky break today,” Tony says. “Getting in there with the first string.”

  I shrug. Lucky or not, I made the most of it.

  “How’s your face feel?”

  “Feels all right,” I say. “Looks good, too.”

  “Looks awesome.”

  We reach the Boulevard and turn right. It’s a twelve-block walk home (two more for Tony), but I don’t mind. I like being seen in my football stuff. Football is big here; we’re one of the few towns in the county with a lighted field for Friday night high school games. Most of the other high school teams play on Saturday afternoons, and the junior football teams play on Sundays. We go Saturday nights for our home games, and the crowds are big. Not like Friday nights, of course, but big enough.

  Tony grabs my wrist as we’re approaching Corpus Christi. “Look over there,” he says, jutting his chin toward the other side of the street. Janet and Patty are sitting on the steps of the church.

  “Let’s cross,” he says.

  “You really want to keep bugging them?” I ask.

  He frowns and gives me a light shove. “Who’s bugging who?” he asks. “You think they don’t know when practice is over? That we walk past here every day at a quarter to six?”

  Maybe he’s onto something. I touch my lip, feeling the crust. I swing my helmet at him and we cross the street.

  “Ladies,” Tony says.

  Janet turns her head as if she’s looking for the ladies he might be referring to. But she looks back and says, “Men.”

  Tony puts his foot on the bottom step, in front of Patty. I glance up at the church, which is huge and mysterious and kind of freaks me out. Seems like everybody I know goes here except us. I mean, there are at least six Protestant churches in town, too, but all together, I think the Catholics way outnumber us Methodists and Lutherans and Presbyterians. The guys I know who go here are scared to death of the priests.

  “Looks like you got beat up,” Janet says to me.

  Tony waves her off. “You should see the other guy. We hammered ’em good today. Blood all over the place.”

  “You got some on your shirt,” Patty says, finally speaking.

  I look down. There’s a small streak of blood above the 3. (My practice number is 43; I don’t know what my game jersey number will be yet.)

  “I’ll survive,” I say. And I don’t know why, but I take a seat next to Patty, not close or anything, but on the same step. I stretch out my legs and look at the traffic.

  “So what are you girls doing here?” Tony asks. “You have catechism class or something?”

  “No,” Janet replies. “Just killing time.”

  “We got school in two weeks,” Tony says. “Less than that, even. Where’d the summer go?”

  Patty yawns. “Two weeks is a long time.”

  “You going to Franklin?” Tony asks.

  Patty shakes her head slowly. “We’ll still be here.” She nods back toward the church.

  Corpus Christi goes from first grade through eighth, but I know a lot of kids who’ve gone back and forth from there to the public schools. They say the nuns are nasty teachers. Who knows if that’s true. I’ve had some nasty teachers at Euclid, too, but mostly not.

  We sit there for about five minutes, talking about nothing. I used to have friends who were girls back when I was little, but things shifted a lot the past couple of years. By fourth grade you got ragged on just for talking to one, but in fifth some couples started pairing up. By sixth grade you either had a girlfriend or you didn’t, and everybody knew who didn’t.

  So this feels different, sitting here, watching cars go by and listening to Tony yammering about music and television shows. Janet definitely seems to like him, laughing at things he says that are really lame. Patty keeps looking out at the street like there’s something interesting going on out there.

  I figure there must be, too. I just don’t know what it is yet.

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 21:

  Kind of Poetic

  They had another night swim tonight, but there was no sign of Patty and Janet.

  “They can’t make it too obvious,” Tony says as we’re walking up the hill. “Believe me, they know what they’re doing.”

  The sun is down, but there’s still a bit of light. I’m dragging my butt, worn out from another hard practice. It cooled off about a quarter degree, so the coaches had us running lots of laps and sprints.

  My hair is dripping; we were the last ones out of the pool at nine, and the lifeguards hustled us through the gate in a hurry.

  As we get near my house, we see Ryan and my father in the driveway. My dad is yelling at Ryan, but not loud enough that we can hear him. He yells in a way that doesn’t carry, but it pierces.

  I look at Tony.

  “Guess I’ll see ya tomorrow,” he says.

  “Right.” I hesitate for a few seconds, then head up our sidewalk.

  “Do you have any idea how hot it gets in that car during the day?” Dad is saying. “It’s been in the nineties all week; it’s probably been a hundred and forty in the car.”

  “Mom made us take it.”

  “She didn’t make you leave it in my backseat for the hottest week of the year!”

  I swallow hard. Did those hitchhikers leave pot in the car?

  The back hatch is open. Ryan reaches in and grimaces as he lifts out a dripping chunk of green and brown goop.

  The watermelon.

  “It’s bad enough you put your little brother in jeopardy with that all-night stunt at the hippie circus,” Dad says. “But you stink my car up to high heaven with a rotten corpse.”

  “I haven’t even been in the car since we got back.”

  “Oh, hell’s bells, Ryan. You’re the one who left the stupid melon in there.”

  Ryan keeps pulling bits of the melon out of the back and tossing them over the hedges that line the driveway.

  “You’ll need to scrub that floor clean,” Dad says.

  Ryan frowns and nods. “I will.”

  “Keep the hatch open all day tomorrow so the sun can shine on that spot,” Dad says. “Make sure it doesn’t rain.”

  “No problem.”

  Dad goes in the house. Ryan flicks a bit of rotten melon at me and smiles.

  I duck out of the way. “That’s gross.”

  We take a seat on the curb. Ryan starts laughing. “Dad drove down to the hardware store after dinner. He said he’s driving around wondering what smells so bad. So he rolls up the windows because he figures it must be outside. It got so bad in the car he almost puked.”

  I turn and look at the station wagon. Even from eight feet away I can smell it. “It is pretty bad.”

  “It’s disgusting. But nobody’s even moved the car since we got back.”

  Mom walks to the swim club every day, and she does the food shopping on Friday mornings. Dad got his beer for the week on Saturday afternoon when the melon was still intact. So the thing had the better part of a week to go bad in there without anybody noticing.

  Dad comes out of the house with a bucket of soapy water and a brush. He’s also got two cans of Rheingold and one of Shop-Rite lemon soda cradled against his chest. He puts the bucket next to the car and hands me the soda. He nods to Ryan and sets a beer on the hood of the car, then pops open h
is own and takes a long swig.

  Ryan starts scrubbing. Dad sits on the curb next to me with a giant grin. He holds up his beer and says, “Cheers, LaZekiel.”

  “You got an opener?” I ask. The beers have pop-tops, but the soda doesn’t.

  He nods and reaches into the pocket of his shorts for the opener. “Put some elbow grease into that,” he says to Ryan, but his voice is way different now, like he’s joking around.

  “Nothing like the smell of rotten melon on a summer evening,” Ryan says. “It’s kind of poetic, you know? The moon, the crickets, the unbelievably nauseating aroma.”

  “It’s one of the true natural wonders,” Dad says, going along with the new direction of the conversation. He stands and steps over to the car, inspecting Ryan’s work.

  “Dump that in the gutter,” Dad says, pointing to the bucket. “Sit down and take a load off.”

  Ryan dumps the suds, and the water rushes down the hill. “That one mine?” he asks, pointing to the beer on the hood.

  “If you want it.”

  “I do.”

  So we sit on the curb, our legs stretched out into the street, and look up at the stars. Dad points out constellations.

  “There’s Orion,” he says. “And the Big Dipper, of course.” He motions toward the horizon with his beer. “That one’s Brody, the horse’s ass. And over there”—he points above the neighbor’s house—“that’s Ryan, the wandering knucklehead.”

  “Anybody know how the Mets did?” Ryan asks.

  “They were losing the last I checked,” Dad replies. “They’ve won six straight, though.”

  “Don’t blink,” I say. “Before you know it they’ll lose six in a row.”

  Dad leans back and winks at Ryan. “How’d your little brother turn into such a pessimist?” he asks.

  “Beats me,” Ryan says. “Come on, Brody. You gotta believe. This is their season. I’m feeling it.”

  A car goes by, way too fast for this street, and we pull our legs in. “Slow down, Henry!” Dad says. He calls every bad driver Henry. I don’t know if that’s out of the Bible or what. Maybe he saves all the biblical names for me.

  Ryan takes a swig of his beer. “I don’t want to kill people,” he says softly, jumping into that conversation they’ve been having all summer. It’s always there, even if a week goes by without any real talking. “I sure as hell don’t want to be forced to kill people.”

  Dad hesitates and looks down the hill. “You have an option,” he says.

  “Yeah,” Ryan says softly, “but that’s being forced on me, too. I’m not ready for college. Cowards avoid conflict. I’m not avoiding anything.”

  Dad shakes his head slowly. “Well, I guess you’re trying to make sense. . . . Not quite succeeding, though.”

  We’re quiet until the cans are empty. The crickets are even louder now. The night feels cooler for a change, but the mosquitoes are swarming anyway.

  “It’d be different if the war was here,” Ryan says. “If they were trying to kill Mom or Brody or Jenny. I’d be first in line then. But I ain’t about to get ambushed over in that swamp . . . get a bayonet stabbed between my ribs. Why the hell are we even over there?”

  Dad scrunches up his face in a frown. “It’s complicated,” he says.

  “It’s bullshit.”

  We sit there for another ten minutes or so until Dad stands up and yawns. He holds out a hand and pulls Ryan to his feet. They look at each other for a few seconds, not glaring this time, just looking.

  I get up on my own and head inside to see if I can catch the end of the Mets game.

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 22:

  Plenty of Grease

  After The Price Is Right, Mom asks if I want to go to the swim club with her.

  “I don’t know,” I say, switching off the television. “I might go down later with Tony.”

  I feel a little sorry for Mom. I was four when the swim club opened, so she and I went every day. She’d sit under a big umbrella with other ladies and watch their kids splash in the kiddie pool, then she’d take me into the big pool and teach me to swim. For the next few summers we were there all the time, but then I started spending more time with Tony. She’s still there every day, but I hardly ever go with her.

  “You sure are having a busy summer,” she says. “Want lunch?”

  “Yeah.”

  I sit on Dad’s high stool at the counter while she fries up some ham for my sandwich. “Big scrimmage tomorrow,” I say, “so I figure I ought to rest up.”

  She gives me a small smile and says, “Mmm-hmm.”

  “But maybe I will go with you. Just lie on a towel and get some sun.”

  “That would be nice,” she says. “I’d like the company.”

  I pick up a saltshaker and turn it around in my hand. It’s a tall, clear one, with a few grains of rice mixed in with the salt. I always wondered about that. “Why is there rice in here?” I ask.

  “It absorbs moisture. Keeps the salt from clumping up.”

  “Oh.” The salt is clumpy anyway.

  I exhale. “What, umm . . . You think Ryan . . .”

  “I think he’d better do something soon,” she says. “That application to Drew has been sitting on his desk all summer. So far he filled out the line that asks for his name. You want toast?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Get it. This is almost ready.”

  I put two slices of bread in the toaster and wait. When it pops up, she grabs it and sticks the ham between the slices.

  I take a big mouthful.

  “This is no game,” she says. “Kids like him are the first ones they send to the front lines. It could be too late already; his birthday’s in two weeks.”

  I swallow. The ham sticks in my throat. “Ryan says the war is immoral.”

  “I voted for Nixon because he said he’d get us out, but he just keeps digging in deeper.”

  The phone rings and she goes to the hall to answer it. I can hear her talking about some library board issues.

  When she comes back she asks if I’d like her to fry more ham. “There’s plenty of grease.”

  I think about it. “Sure.” I could stand to gain a few pounds.

  She puts another slice of butter in the pan. “I’ll drive him to Canada if it comes to that,” she says. “They’re not taking my child. Not for this war. Not for some pointless intervention.”

  I lie facedown in the grass near my mother’s umbrella, the sun beating down on my back, and think about football and that dance next week and Ryan’s situation.

  The grass smells grassy. Patches of it are very dry, but here by the kiddie pool, there are a lot of dripping children, so it stays well watered.

  I feel a splash of warm water on my back and look up. It’s Tony, wiping his mouth.

  “I banged on your door for ten minutes,” he says. “You were supposed to wait for me.”

  I push up onto my elbow. “I guess I forgot.”

  “Jerk. . . . Hi, Mrs. Winslow.”

  “Hi, Tony.”

  I stand up and we walk toward the locker room. “They here?” I ask.

  “I don’t think so. They’re not usually around this early.”

  “Right.” I don’t know what we’d do if those girls were here. Walk past and pretend we don’t notice them again?

  Every day’s been like this all summer. Get up way too early with my dad, watch TV all morning after he leaves, have lunch and hit the pool with Tony, go to practice. Maybe school won’t be so bad after all. Lots of possibilities.

  Tomorrow’s scrimmage is an intrasquad, but we’ll be on the big field. They even hired a couple of referees, so it’ll be run like a game, with the clock and the scoreboard and everything. They’re handing out the game jerseys tonight after practice, but I’m on the side that’ll wear the practice grays. With the team split in two, I ought to get a good bit of playing time on both offense and defense.

  We wander around for an hour, shoot some baskets, then go home.

&nb
sp; Yeah, it was boring, but that’s life. Boring isn’t always so bad.

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 23:

  A Scared Rabbit

  The game jersey is dark blue with an orange number 27 and stripes on the sleeves. Looks a little strange. I’ll be wearing the gray practice top for the scrimmage. Our pants are solid white and our helmets are solid blue; we wear the same ones for practices and games.

  What’s weird is the game socks. They’re bright orange like the numbers and the sleeve stripes. Kind of Halloweeny. I was hoping for blue.

  We’re kicking off. Most of the top players are on the other team—Ferrante, Esposito, Magrini—but we have some good people, too. Tony is with my team, at the opposite end of the kickoff squad.

  We’re finally getting the remnants of that hurricane that hit the Gulf—just a strong breeze and some on-and-off rain. The grass—what a concept, playing football on grass after three weeks on dirt—is wet but doesn’t seem too slippery.

  Esposito is down near the goal line, waiting to return the kick. I’m not looking forward to colliding with him at full speed.

  The referee blows his whistle. I take a quick glance at the bleachers. There are maybe a hundred people watching; my parents are up there.

  The cheerleaders are on the cinder track. Guess they have to cheer for both teams.

  The kick is high and kind of short. I watch it for a second before coming to my senses and darting down the field.

  Box-and-in. Box-and-in. Esposito has the ball and is already past the twenty, coming straight up the middle. So I box in at the thirty-five. By luck I time it just right, because he jukes past a tackler and cuts toward me, angling past two others but slowing down as he searches for an opening.

  I dive at his legs and wrap my arms around him. He shakes me loose, but I’ve stopped his progress and two of my teammates take him down.

  Feels great to make that first hit. I jump up. Mitchell is on top of Esposito. He gets up and yells, “Yes!” smacking my hand.

  We trot off the field. Coach Epstein says, “Nice hustle.”

  I walk to the bench and hold a paper cup under the watercooler, then take a drink. The cheerleaders are waving their pom-poms and yelling, “Go, Bulldogs!”