Eggplant Alley (9781593731410)

by Cataneo, D.

  The First Day of Spring 40

  Nicky was awakened by the sound of singing in the courtyard. One of the old love songs. The voice belonged to Mr. Misener, the grouchy superintendent. The morning was so sunny, so warm, so fragrant and dreamy, even the meanest man in Eggplant Alley burst into song. Nicky listened and a feeling washed over him, starting at his toes and finishing at his scalp.

  Life was going to change today. For the better.

  Mom and Dad sat at the kitchen table. Mom shuffled coupons. Dad stirred his coffee, spoon clanging. The stirring was odd, because Dad took his coffee with no cream, no sugar. There was nothing to stir. But Nicky expected this sort of thing from Dad on this day.

  Nicky settled down at the table and noticed the calendar was gone from the refrigerator.

  “Sal, did you remember about the cake?” Mom said.

  Dad said, “Yeah, I gotta go down there today anyhow. I’ll stop by Orzo’s.”

  Nicky sipped Tang and stared out the kitchen window at the PS 19 schoolyard. The schoolyard was streaked with sunshine and shadows, but it was empty. Nicky stared until his eyeballs hurt. All he got was achy eyeballs. The schoolyard was empty. He did not see old things.

  “Know what?” Nicky said. “Today I’m going to start up a stick-ball game.”

  Mom sorted through coupons and said, “Nobody plays stick-ball around here anymore.”

  Nicky said. “Well, I’m going …”

  Dad said sharply, “Jesus H. CHRIST, Nicky. Not today.”

  The kitchen was quiet except for the boink-boink-boink of the leaky faucet.

  “Especially today,” Nicky said. “Don’t you know? Today’s the first day of spring.”

  Mom rushed out the door for her Saturday shift at Gimbels. Dad grabbed his keys and mumbled about Orzo’s. Nicky imagined a trip to Cherry Street would do Dad some good. For Dad, going to Cherry Street was like going to the roof.

  Nicky fetched his B-4000 mitt, Roy’s old mitt, and the yellow stickball bat from the bedroom closet and placed them on the coffee table in the living room. He parted the curtains. He scanned the PS 19 playground. Not a soul in sight. Not even a pigeon.

  Nicky wandered the apartment. He stared at the living room sofa until his eyeballs ached. He did not see old things. The sofa remained empty. He stared at Roy’s bed until his eyeballs ached. He did not see old things. The bed stayed empty.

  He stared out the bedroom window. Tender lime-green grass was sprouting in the courtyard. Nicky stared at the courtyard until his eyeballs ached. And he saw a young man in an army uniform. The young man climbed the steps from Summit Avenue, into the shadow of the archway, out of the shadow, into the courtyard of Eggplant Alley.

  Nicky yanked back his head like a frightened turtle. Was that person in an army uniform, that man about the size and shape of Roy—was that an old thing?

  Nicky’s heart raced. He sweated. He did not look out the window. He listened closely. He clearly heard army shoes clonk on the courtyard walkway.

  Nicky held his breath. He heard the door to Building B creak open five stories below.

  Nicky tiptoed to the apartment door. He tiptoed because he did not want to disturb whatever was happening. It was like a great dream. He didn’t want to chance waking up.

  Nicky stood at the door and clenched shut his eyes and listened. The elevator thumped on the fifth floor. The elevator door crunched and rumbled open.

  Army shoes clonked on the hallway tile. The steps faltered. The steps stopped.

  The footsteps in the hallway moved briskly and surely and softened on the welcome mat, on the other side of the apartment door. Nicky saw a shadow under the door. He heard familiar breathing. And his head swooned at the odor of Old Spice after shave. It was a miracle.

  Nicky threw open the door.

  “Well, hey-lo,” the young man in the army uniform said. “I’m Manuel Rivers.”

  Nicky’s bottom lip stuck out.

  The man said, “You must be Nicky.”

  Nicky didn’t say anything.

  “I know your brother, Roy.”

  Manuel Rivers sat on the sofa, on the plastic slipcover, and spoke of Roy.

  He told Nicky that Roy was a great guy, a hard worker, and a fabulous stickball player. He said Roy often talked of Eggplant Alley and his family.

  “He said this was the finest place in the world,” Manuel Rivers said. “He told me all sorts of tales about you guys. That reminds me, how’s the dog?”

  Nicky shrugged.

  Manuel Rivers said he had no idea what Roy was doing in the observation plane on the day he went missing. He said Roy might have been helping out the pilot, who sometimes had trouble finding observers when he was ordered on routine, mostly unnecessary scouting missions. He also said Roy might have been merely taking a joyride.

  “The only ones who know are Roy and the pilot,” Manuel Rivers said. He paused and looked at the rug. “The pilot didn’t make it.”

  Manuel Rivers said a search party found the wreckage of the plane three days later. He said the pilot’s body was found in the wreckage. He said there was no trace of Roy.

  “They went down in Vietcong territory,” Manuel Rivers said. “That’s good news and bad news.”

  “Bad news?”

  “The VC don’t report who they have taken prisoner. So anything could be possible.”

  “Good news?”

  “The VC don’t report who they have taken prisoner. So anything could be possible.”

  Nicky nodded. “So there’s hope?”

  Manuel Rivers said, “Oh, there’s hope. Don’t ever forget that.”

  Nicky didn’t say anything.

  Manuel Rivers said, “You’d be a real numbskull to give up hope.”

  “Roy always said I was a numbskull.”

  “Yeah,” Manuel Rivers said, grinning for the first time. “He told me.”

  Manuel Rivers shifted his feet. He looked at the ceiling. He studied his fingers. He was a man out of things to say. His eyes fell upon the baseball mitts and stickball bat on the coffee table.

  “Hey, nice mitt,” he said. “Is that the B-4000? Very cool. Gotta game today?”

  Nicky said, “Yeah, I do.”

  Nicky and Manuel Rivers walked downstairs together. As they passed the second floor, Nicky glanced as always at 2-C.

  The Band-Aid was gone from the door.

  “Very interesting,” Nicky thought.

  Nicky and Manuel Rivers walked out the back door of Building B, along the walkway in the cool shadows, and into the warm sunshine of the PS 19 playground. The beautiful spring day had finally drawn people outside. Fishbone, Icky, Skipper, and Bob smoked cigarettes on the short wall. Residents of the tenements on Groton Avenue were spread along the stoops. A tinny radio was playing somewhere.

  Nicky glanced up at Building B as he walked. He counted the windows—six over from the left, two up from the ground floor. He picked out Lester’s kitchen. The window was closed. The lights were out. The lace curtain was drawn.

  Nicky and Manuel Rivers approached Icky and the old gang. Nicky made introductions.

  “Any sign of Roy?” Icky said.

  “Not yet,” Manuel Rivers said.

  Nicky held up the stickball bat and the gloves and said, “Anybody interested?”

  Icky scowled.

  Manuel Rivers said. “I hear you guys have some pretty smoking stickball in this neighborhood.” He nodded at Icky. “And you—I heard you got a pretty nasty drop pitch.”

  Icky shrugged, clearly pleased.

  “So bring it on, man,” Manuel Rivers said. “I mean, look at this day.” He turned his face up to the sun. “Perfect for stickball.”

  Icky said, “Nobody plays stickball around here anymore.”

  But Fishbone and Skipper and Bob looked at one another and shrugged. Fishbone shrugged again and said, “I’ll play, if anybody wants to. Who’s got a ball?”

  Nicky did not have a ball. He had planned to go to Popop’s for a ne
w Spaldeen. Then he got busy looking for old things, and the morning flew by.

  “I ain’t got a ball,” Nicky said quietly, sadly, and he looked down, feeling like a numbskull. His eyes were drawn to the dirty bottles and rusty cans and yellowed newspapers gathered at the base of the low wall. He spied something round. It looked like a rotten tangerine. Nicky toed his sneaker at the object. It was Roy’s old Spaldeen, mottled green by the months since the stickball game in the snow with Lester.

  “Mud-dun, we can’t play with that cruddy thing,” Icky scowled.

  Manuel Rivers said, “Gimme that.”

  He squeezed the ball like a lemon. The green outer membrane of filth fell away in chunks. He squeezed some more and flakes fell away and the Spaldeen turned freshly pink, good as new.

  “Batter up,” Manuel Rivers said.

  The gang walked onto the schoolyard, out of the long shadows, into the sunshine, onto the concrete diamond. Icky lagged behind, hands in his pockets, head down.

  Manuel Rivers counted out loud. “Only six,” he said. “Roy went on and on about how you guys played with full teams. Where is everybody?”

  “That was the good old days,” Fishbone said.

  Manuel Rivers said, “There’s gotta be more guys than this around.”

  Icky shook his head. “I was just over on Summit. I didn’t see nobody on the steps.”

  “How about them?” Manuel Rivers said. He nodded toward four black boys reclining on a front stoop across the street. The boys were listening to music from the tinny radio.

  “I don’t think so,” Fishbone said, smirking.

  “Why not? Let’s ask them,” Manuel Rivers said.

  Icky said to Nicky, “Tell this guy the way it is around here.”

  Nicky turned his back on Icky and said to Manuel Rivers, “All right, let’s ask them.”

  Icky stepped back and said, “Flub this. I don’t need the aggravation.” He thrust his hands into his pockets and strolled, muttering, off the PS 19 playground and into the shadows of Eggplant Alley.

  Fishbone tucked his hands into his back pockets and shrugged. “I don’t care in one case or the other. But you gotta do the asking, not me.”

  Nicky and Manuel Rivers walked to the fence on Groton Avenue. They carried the gloves and the bat and the ball, clear signals of peaceful intentions. The groan of a window sliding made Nicky look up at Building B. Lester’s kitchen window was open. Nicky was sure he saw nerd glasses behind the rippling lace curtain.

  Nicky and Manuel Rivers hooked their elbows on the top of the fence. Manuel Rivers called to the four black boys on the stoop, “Yo. You guys wanna play?”

  A short stocky boy, draped lazily on the steps, leaning way back on his elbows, snorted loudly and made a P-U face. He said, “Not interested, GI Joe.”

  A boy with a magnificent Afro, his long legs stretched out on the stoop, turned his face toward his companions and then back at Manuel Rivers. The boy shrugged. He was thinking about it.

  Nicky held his breath. He thought of dominoes. He thought of talking Mom and Dad into a puppy. He thought of the lacy kitchen curtains parting, two stories up. He thought of taking in a Yankee game with Dad and Lester and Mr. Allnuts. He thought of pushing the doorbell at the Only House With Trees, stone lions smiling at him, good news written all over his face. He thought of a lanky figure in an olive uniform strolling through the courtyard in a cloud of Old Spice, duffel bag bouncing on his shoulder, face turned up to the sun, under a sky perfect for stickball, the face calling out, “Hey-lo, Eggplant Alley.”

  “Come on, play,” Nicky whispered, exhaling softly.

  The boy with the Afro stood. He stretched his arms over his head. The boy turned his face to the sun and said, “It’s a great day for stickball, sports fans.”

  The boy extended his hand. Nicky gently gave him Roy’s old glove. Nicky had never seen a happy ending, but he still believed in them.