Sonny, with a Cherry on top

Pacific Garden Mission

Grig stirs a third cream into the coffee with his pinky, overtaking a swoop of bubbles and bending them against the styrofoam rim. Shelter coffee. Burnt bitter rust barely above room temperature. The reverend points at the stack of pamphlets, goes on about needle eyes and mustard seeds.

I’m just here for the donuts.

It’s a big room, warped linoleum, a tin ceiling oxidized green at the seams, transoms sealed shut under uncountable layers of paint. A lunch counter or Chinese laundry, seventy years ago. Early spring drizzle is bleeding gray light through the huge storefront window—all window, folding chairs against the radiator running its length. A few drunks still doze on a shot couch, paperback bibles under their folded hands.

All the donuts you want son. All you want. Have a seat.

Grig knows better. Once you sit down the real pitch starts. It’s warm. It’s dry. The leftover chicken kiev and lasagna would be here in a few hours, after the downtown catering services drop off their lunchtime surplus. Sit. Stay.

Lake George (con’t)

I was at bat, glass-eyed with a millisecond vision of stepping into a deep swing that pulverized Paul Tucker’s mouth in a spray of blood and broken teeth, but all I could do was blink. We knew the psycho stories. We’d seen him wail on so many kids. First he’d hammer-punch you on the chest, making you wheeze and crumble, then he’d kneel on you and alternate swooping slaps to your face, extending each wiry arm like a loon’s wing before it came down. If you tried to shove him off, he’d hook a real punch in your gut, not as hard as he could, which made you more nauseous than it hurt.

He hurled the ball toward the drainage creek at the far side of the field, an impressive throw, where it landed with a faint splash.

“Faggots.”

Paul Tucker wasn’t that much bigger. He wasn’t that much older. But he owned summer.

The next week Paul Tucker was sitting on top of a trash can with his feet on the seat of his bike when we came out from buying soda and candy at the gas station. He went after Pelka because Pelka was fat and cried the easiest, and because he knew we wouldn’t do a thing to stop him. Pelka was useless, with crooked teeth, wearing ink-blue Toughskins even on the hottest days The desperate kid who tried too hard to keep up with the group. Who let us into his house to eat everything and play his Atari. It was actually impressive how much shit he took from us. The put-downs. The dogpiles. The bags of Doritos and cans of soda we’d just take at his house. He’d force himself to laugh and ask when he could have a turn.

He went pale as soon as he saw Paul Tucker. He looked at us with desperate eyes even as we all stepped away.

Paul Tucker jackknifed off the trash can, letting his bike topple, and snatched the paper bag from Pelka’s hands. It ripped open, sending packages of candy flying. When Pelka scrambled to pick it up, Paul Tucker kicked it into the parking lot with a spray of shiny plastic, grabbing some packets and tearing some open to eat and spilling some out on the concrete to stomp into little rounds of pink and green powder.

“Homo.”

Pelka was trying not to cry, stooped over the pavement, two inches of chalk-white asscrack glaring above his Toughskins, snuffing and choking and trying to salvage his candy. The rest of us stayed back, dressed out in a semicircle around the assault, each numb with relief that it wasn’t us. Whenever Paul Tucker was beating up some other kid, you loved him for not beating up on you. It was when the danger passed, when the trouble was over, that we could all hate Paul Tucker again.

Be at courage

It’s a rainy night. It’s rainy.

It’s clear as a bell dumb-ass.

In here! In here. It’s raining in here. And mighty nice it is.

Okay man. Okay.

Soft ferns. Mud. It smells like life. Life!

Sure. Is there any more General Tso’s?

Five minutes.

Five minutes. Every five minutes you say five minutes you gob-eyed motherfucker. Grey eggs. Those shitty mini custards. Steak fries. But how often do you put out General Tso’s? You never put out General Tso’s.

It’s out. Five minutes.

Fuck you.

Yes.

So what happened to you anyway?

What do you mean?

I mean your legs. I mean what happened?

The fuck you think? The fucking war. The war that wasn’t never a war. A radio shack car. Some RDX. We took a corner too tight. Boom and that’s that. It’s fun to set off the metal detectors in airports.

I thought you hated flying.

I do, but I love setting off metal detectors.

Lawrence & Lou

It bugs me I don’t miss Chicago

 

It bugs me I don’t miss Chicago.

I wish I could manufacture homesickness

drum up some longing, but it’d be hollow and she’d know the difference.

Because you can only fake it for a minute or two.
Come on strong, but not too strong.

Don’t get pushy already. Try too hard and I’ll call ya later.
Just relax yourself and do your goddamn job.

So even though homesick I ain’t (so she would have me say)
I love the honest memory.

Grousing about the price of whatnot in ironclad vowels.

The gridwork. The brickdust air.
Humming Old Style signs framed by glass block and strings of Christmas lights. Railroad apartments with gray-scrolled radiators and black-and-white bathroom tiles the size of oyster crackers.

Piss. Fumes. Grilled onions.

Goofy. Clown. Jaggoff.

You’ll get burned in the bleachers but at a double header you’ll need a jacket by the second seventh.

They don’t play much in October, but it’s always been an October city.

It bugs me I don’t miss Chicago.

The Same Boat

 

It’s a swarm of false starts, missed opportunities and unforeseen tragedy, lucky breaks, honest effort and second chances.

Why do we expect so much from others?

Why are we so hard on ourselves?

Marciano and Mingus

As in small, as in time

I’ll be back in a minute.

Don’t say minute.

Don’t say minute?

No, say moment.

Moment.

Because a minute is, you know, a minute.

They’ll think it’s a minute.

But it could be longer than a minute.

A moment is longer? A moment sounds shorter.

What’s a moment?

I don’t know. A moment is . . . I don’t know.

Exactly. Who knows what a moment is. If you say minute, people start counting to sixty. You say moment, and they go back to their crossword puzzle.

How’d you figure this out?

Because I figured it.

You’re a genius.

I’m not a genius. It’s just common sense. Extrapolation.

Extrapolation.

Yeah, taking an idea and extending—

I know what extrapolation means.

Okay, I just figured—

More figuring, huh?

I just figured that maybe you didn’t.

Lake George

Paul Tucker was a bully. A lanky kid who rode around all summer on a rusty BMX bike, shirtless, with scraped elbows and his back covered with mosquito bites. He’d ride to the park where we were playing baseball, and watch, his arms folded across the handlebars, a cigarette behind his ear.

His brother was a remote villain who drove a green and black GTO, blaring Bad Company and Zeppelin. He was the only person who could hit Paul. He would pull the car over, step out, shirtless himself, and knock Paul right off the bike. We’d see Paul scramble onto the sidewalk, his older brother shouting at him. Paul would turn out his pockets and his brother took anything that fell out, then he’d fake a one-two at his head and belly, get back into the car and tear off.

We went back to the game, tried to act like we’d never seen anything, and Paul would peddle over to the diamond and park behind the batting cage. Then he’d start walking around the edge toward the batter’s box, swinging his body along the chain link, raw, fresh scrapes red on his shoulders and chin. A pitch would come and he’d step across and grab the ball out of the air.

“Pussies.”

I had the bat. I just let it fall to the dirt.