Original Love

by J. J. Murray

  Maybe I’ve repressed a few things, but this is what I remember: the Captain sipping his coffee while I opened my gifts, eating limp bacon and watery eggs in the kitchen, going out on the Argo for our traditional Christmas Day cruise of Huntington Bay, and watching TV that night. Neither one of us spoke of Mom, and life continued pretty much as before the following day. Henry will have trouble accepting it, but Henry didn’t grow up with the Captain.

  The phone rings. Speak of the devil.

  “Hello, Henry.”

  “How did you know it would be me?”

  “A little birdie told me.”

  “Okay, well, I got your message, Pete. Everything okay? How’s the novel coming?”

  Which one? And I’m not “Pete” to anyone anymore. “Everything’s fine. I owe you some Earl Grey.” And your apartment is still far too white even with all the curtains open. I feel the need to spill something and leave a stain.

  “Don’t worry about it. Will you have three chapters for me by Friday?”

  “How about a preface and two chapters?”

  “I’d rather have three chapters, Pete.”

  Damn. There goes my afternoon. “Sure thing. You want me to e-mail them to you?”

  “No, I’ll be coming down for the weekend. I’ll read them when I get there.”

  But there’s only one bed, Henry. Oh, and the couch. “I’ll tidy up before you get here.”

  “Having a wild party without me, Pete?”

  My name is Peter. “Yeah.” Just me and some wild memories.

  “Really? Who all is there?”

  “I’ve only seen Carlton, Henry. I’m having a party of one.”

  “Too bad. How’s the Poet looking?”

  “I don’t know. Tan. Is he a Jets fan?”

  Henry laughs. “Is he ever! Carlton hasn’t missed a home game since sixty-nine. I’ll bet he’s been wearing green.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He looks good in green. So how do you like the apartment?”

  I still don’t have the advance money, so I lie. “You have the nicest place, Henry. It’s très chic.”

  “Thank you. You don’t think the White Album is a bit much?”

  “Oh, no. In fact, I think you should hang a picture of Barry White, too.”

  “Funny. So I’ll see you this Friday?”

  “I’ll still be here.”

  “And if you want some scrumptious scallops and a place to forget your troubles for a few hours, go to Le Lethe. It’s just around the corner from you.”

  “Henry, I can barely afford the rental car sitting across the bay.” The Nova is costing me fifty bucks a day just to get encrusted with salt.

  “Tell the boys at Le Lethe that you’re a good friend of mine, and they’ll put it on my tab.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Take care, Pete.”

  “I will.” Hen.

  I hang up and check my e-mail. Nothing from Destiny. More Viagra mail. An offer to “Work at Home and Make $2000 a Week with Your COMPUTER!!!” An invitation to check out Mars Computer’s new laptop. I read the e-mail and chuckle over the company slogan: “Proving that High Price Doesn’t Mean Quality!” Another e-mail begs me to “UPGRADE YOUR LIFE for just $89.99!” Now that’s a bargain and a half. The last, from some dyslexic company playing on the fears and paranoia of a computer virus-plagued society, claims to be the only safe way to survive in the twenty-first century, because “If you stink your safe, your probly not.”

  I delete them all and check the outline for my book:

  Chapter 3: January 1976

  *street hockey

  *description of friends Mark Brand

  Eric Hite

  Mickey Mather

  Eddie Tucci

  *meeting Ebony for first time

  *home; conversation with the Captain

  *perpetual tans

  “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 d
own 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 was dark, but she moved onto that cul-de-sac just like the poet said: “in beauty like the night.” Peter was smitten with Ebony Mills from the second he saw her. She wore an oversized New York Knicks jersey that hung down to her knees, straight-legged Levi’s rolled up at the bottoms, and Adidas sneakers, and her hair was in tight braids wrapped in a circle around her head.

  And instead of being shy and waiting to be spoken to, Ebony marched right up and said, “Y’all need another player?”

  I sit back from the computer and relive that moment. Mark looked at Mickey. Eddie looked at Mickey. Eric looked at Mickey. The Bruins looked at Mickey. I looked at Ebony. What must have been going through their minds! I only saw a shapely girl with a dynamite smile and more guts than I’d ever have. And that Mickey—damn, I wonder what he’s doing now. I need to thank him for what he said and did next:

  “Sure. Eric, take a break.”

  “I ain’t givin’ her my stick!” Eric shouted.

  Mickey snatched Eric’s stick in a flash and held it out to Ebony. “You good on defense?”

  Ebony rolled her neck, her chin making a constant circle in the air in front of her. “What, you think cuz I’m a girl that I can’t score?”

  Mickey’s eyes got big. “Okay, you play forward. Eddie, you drop back.”

  “Nah, nah,” Eddie said, puffing out his chest. “I ain’t gonna.”

  Ebony stared him down. “Boy, you so fat that pigs be followin’ you home lookin’ for a date.”

  And though Eddie was his teammate, Peter laughed out loud. This girl wasn’t afraid of anything or anybody. And her accent—somewhere between deep South and Brooklyn or maybe even South Brooklyn—was cool and beat the snot out of the dull “Lawn GUY-land” accents in Peter’s neighborhood.

  I found out later that Ebony’s family had been part of the northern migration from Virginia after what Ebony’s mother, Candace, called the “first Emancipation.” They lived in Brooklyn until the “second Emancipation” in the late sixties and early seventies that brought them east to Huntington. Ebony was a mixture of street and country, African and a little Cherokee, and the overall result was honey with a heavy dose of vinegar and salt.

  Eddie, who normally had a comeback for everything since he read those little paperbacks full of mean jokes, backed off to play defense without another word.

  “Let’s play,” Ebony said…and the girl could play. She was almost as good as Mickey, stealing the orange puck away from one of the Bruins and scoring on her very first shot.

  “What’s the score?” she asked.

  “Ten-nine us,” Mickey told her.

  Chad got up in Mickey’s face. “That don’t count. She ain’t on your team. She ain’t from your neighborhood.”

  Ebony stepped over to Chad. “What don’t count?”

  Chad ignored her. “It’s still tied nine to nine, and you gotta put Eric back in.”

  “Excuse me?” Ebony said. “You sayin’ cuz I ain’t from this neighborhood that it don’t count?”

  Chad turned to her. “Yeah. That’s what I’m saying.”

  “Well,” she said, with a dynamite smile, “I am from this neighborhood. I just moved in over on Grace Lane.”

  Which meant she’d be at Simpson once the holiday break was over. Peter hoped that she was in the seventh grade, but her body was definitely eighth or ninth grade, because of her breasts.

  “Grace Lane ain’t Preston Street,” Chad said.

  “And you ain’t shit playin’ hockey, boy,” Ebony said. “All the cool shit you got on, and you can’t play a lick. You just mad a girl scored on you. And you just scared I’m gonna score on y’all again.”

  “I ain’t scared.”

  “Prove it then,” she said.

  We were all in that nowhere land between puberty and manhood, and to let a girl beat you—in anything—was like losing your penis. Chad didn’t know what to do or say that day, and I just had to say something.

  “Why don’t you let her play?” Peter asked, though it came out more as a statement.

  “You shut up,” Chad yelled at Peter.

  Ebony then pushed Chad back. “Who you tellin’ to shut up, boy? You talking to”—she looked back at Peter and smiled—“what’s your name?”

  “Peter.”

  She put a finger on Chad’s chest. “You talkin’ to Peter, and he’s my boy. You don’t tell any of my boys to shut up.” Chad didn’t make a sound. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. “Now are we gonna play or what?”

  “It still doesn’t count,” Chad said. “It’s still tied, nine to nine.”

  “Whatever,” Ebony said. “Let’s play.”

  They played on, but for only a few minutes more. Ebony bulled her way in for a stuff shot to put the P-Street Rangers up by one, and when the Bruins brought up the puck after that, Ebony stole it, fed Mickey through Chad’s legs, and Mickey faked out the Bruins’ goalie, leaving him lying in the street before tapping the puck into the net.

  After the game, Ebony walked up to Peter. “Turn around.”

  Peter turned around. He wasn’t going to argue with her.

  “Number seven. That’s my favorite number, you know that?”

  “Um, what’s your name?”

  She smiled and looked down at the ground, proving to Peter that she had a shy streak as long as his own. That was really when Peter’s heart became Ebony’s, the image of her smiling shyness passing into his soul forever. “Ebony Mills.” She flashed her eyes briefly at him. “But you can call me ‘E’ if you like.”

  “Okay.”

  Then she turned to Mickey. “When am I gonna get a jersey?”

  Ebony got her jersey that very day, talking Mark out of wearing number twelve.

  The others had already fanned out to go home, and that left Ebony and Peter walking back toward his house
.

  “Are you gonna go to Simpson?” Peter asked.

  “Where else am I gonna go?”

  “I dunno. You could go to St. Pat’s like Eddie.”

  “No, thanks. Them Catholic kids is too wild for me. I’m going to Simpson. You go there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What grade you in?”

  “Seventh.”

  “Me, too.”

  A seventh-grade girl with ninth-grade breasts? Peter thought. There is a God!

  They arrived at the driveway of Peter’s house. “This is, uh, this is my house.”

  “You got anything to drink in there?”

  “Um, yeah. I could get you a soda.”

  “You ain’t gonna invite me in?”

  Peter wanted to, but if the Captain were awake…“My father, uh, he hasn’t been feeling too well.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Peter knew that she didn’t believe him. “Actually, um, he’s probably asleep.”

  “Right.”

  Peter knew that she still didn’t believe him. “No, really.”

  Neither said anything for the longest time.

  “You gonna get me a Coke or what?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  Peter sneaked through the back door into the kitchen, heard the Captain’s snores like the gurgling of a clogged bilge pump, and returned to Ebony with a Coke. She wiped off the top of the can with the hem of her Knicks jersey, and Peter caught sight of the most beautiful belly button. She had the tiniest little “inny” no bigger than a licorice gumdrop.

  “What you lookin’ at, Peter?”

  “Uh, nothing.”

  “Uh-huh.” She smiled. “You lookin’ at my stomach, right?”

  Peter nodded.