NOVEMBER 2005

The whole family joined, like a knot in the stomach, that morning: the morning of Thanksgiving, as Johnny's father watched his eldest grandson intently ready to capture a throwing arm in mid-air or to use a mighty stare to paralyze the six year old boy's movements. Johnny's mother stayed in the kitchen as the large fist of people jabbed their way into the parlor as she put her two hands to her head while looking up to the ceiling. Al, Tina's husband, tried again to extend a timid handshake to her father but once again it was ignored. Johnny reminded everyone of the high school football game.

"Yeah, that's right Al," Tommy Tom Tom said to Johnny.

"Gees, we almost forgot about that," Gus the Kamikaze Shooter Downer said.

Johnny's words angered Tina of the Troy and she said: "Hey, don't you have to do something for Mama? Why don't you quit haunting us?"

Johnny was about to leave the parlor but his sister Alice, who was ten years older than he, squeezed his arm to stay. If it hadn't been for Alice who had protected him from their siblings who believed the last born had stolen their father's love from them, Johnny might never have survived to see kindergarten. Gus reached for Alice's hand and then abruptly took it off Johnny's arm as he gave the very same look he gave her the day he said: "Why does that damn kid keep coming upstairs to our room?"

"He's my kid-brother. What's wrong with that?" she answered; sensing the impotent rage beneath his words.

"Lock him out of the room tomorrow. Hear me?" he said shaking his fist at her as he wondered to himself if the fetus inside her wasn't ten year old Johnny's creation.

The very next morning after his parents and Gus left for work, Johnny went upstairs. The door was locked but having seen it done in a movie about a man who limped who was trying to take the Lincoln Brigade banner from John Garfield who as a kid was sent up to The Bronx by caring relatives to get him off their gang-filled streets and going to Alice's school where the principal Mister Petrie had taken the tough kid under his wing - the only kid Miss Wolf would not hit afraid the sneering young man would hit her back - and did take up the principal's suggestion he go into the school's theater group where he would eventually lose his stammer and become a significant actor, Johnny pushed the key out with a pencil and then pulled it out as it lay on the rug and within a few seconds he was lying beside safe Alice to sleep for about an hour before he had to go off to school. Every time Gus would find them alone he would probe both of them with questions as to what they were doing. It was times like these that Johnny wondered if Gus, who often told everyone he had single-handily beaten the Japanese navy shooting down about a million himself, was really in any navy ....

"What time is the game, Guxy?" Tom asked his kid-brother Johnny.

"Game starts at ten," Johnny told them all.

Leny One N, Johnny's oldest brother, asked him to rub his back but Johnny suddenly remembered he had something to do for their mother.

"I'll give you half a buck, Tom," Leny said to Johnny.

Tina yelled for her son Larry to come and do his uncle's back and took the half dollar, that once belonged to someone else, from Leny's fist and told everyone it was going into the kid's piggy bank and Al's wink made those who saw the gesture laugh knowing Tina shared nothing with no one.

In the kitchen, Johnny was asked by his mother to go to the store for her and when he returned in ten minutes the house was very quiet.

"Where is everybody?" he asked.

"You see them?" she said peering into the stove at the big turkey.

"They left for the game?"

"I think so," she said relieved they were all gone.

"Why didn't they wait for me?"

"I guess they forgot. I thought you were with them," she said looking for something she couldn't remember.

"Where's Papa?"

"He said he was going to his brother's for a short visit."

Johnny walked into the parlor and put the radio on as he fought back tears. He sat before the tall radio and listened to the announcer saying how the ballplayers had to change to sneakers as the ice was making their metal cleats become like ice skates. Johnny listened to all the monotone words that described the intense action between the two rivals and when the game ended, he left to go outside. He slipped on patches of ice as he caught every imaginary pass he threw to himself. Once he fell and lay in the cold for many minutes. After getting up he threw himself a high long pass which he circled under for several seconds before bringing it into his arms. After catching all the passes and scoring all the touchdowns for his team, he began walking back to the place where the sumptuous meal his mother had labored for hours would be waiting. Everyone was all ready sitting. Johnny went by them; washed up and then took the empty chair his father had waiting for him. He would just eat and then go and catch more make believe footballs.   END   10-18-05