Our first VCR was a big deal and weekend mornings were for mom’s tapes. She’d kick me out so I couldn’t interrupt the cop shows she recorded that week over the cop shows she recorded the week before. With no friends and nowhere to go I’d wander over to the vacant lot next door and play Star Wars or something. During spring and summer Mr. Calabrese used the lot to grow vegetables, herbs, and fruit he shared with neighbors, leaving bags of fresh food on doorsteps like an agrarian Santa Claus. Sometimes I’d climb the tree in our yard, sit in a cupped fork that rose above the fence, and spy on Mr. C through the leaves as he worked. If he saw me he’d hobble over, pipe clamped in a notched grin, and pass me a handful of berries. One time I asked why he smoked a pipe. “To keep my nose warm,” he said, tapping the side of the pocked rutabaga in the middle of his face.
In winter I had the lot to myself. One cold day in late February a fresh layer of snow covered last year’s garden rows. A good enough day to battle a Wampa on Hoth. But I didn’t feel like playing Star Wars. After dragging my heels back and forth between rows I pried a board from a stack of pallets Mr. C used for trellising, then kicked through the pile of rocks he tilled up over the years. I selected the roundest one I could find. Hefted its weight. Stepped up to an imaginary plate, and got into a batting stance. I never played baseball before. Didn’t really know the rules. The only thing my dad showed me how to swing was his belt. But I’d seen it portrayed in enough TV shows and movies to have an idea. I imagined the classic scenario: bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, two outs. My team down by three runs.
Sunlight hit the salted cars parked along the curb. Reflected off the cloudy panels of the beater Mr. Calabrese used to deliver crops to neighbors. The block looked deserted. Everyone was at church or nestled inside their warm houses. I was alone. It felt good. I looked out as if I was the center of attention in a packed stadium.
I tossed the rock up, swung. Strike one. Strike two. Strike two and a half. “Fuck.” I stepped back from the plate. Spit. Took a few deep breaths. I tapped my sneakers with the board like I’d seen on TV. Spit again. Twice. Three times in a row for good luck. Stepped back up to the plate. Eyed the pitcher. Tossed the rock. This time I felt it connect. The crack of rock on wood popped my ears and a shockwave ran down the board, through my wrists, up my arms. The crowd came unglued. I dropped the board. Heard the announcer say, “Go-ing . . . Go-ing . . . GONE! HOME RUN!”
I followed my teammates around the bases at an easy jog. Took off my baseball cap and waved. A muted crunch stopped me before reaching home plate. I turned toward the sound with a primal knowing that drew my eyes to the rock resting in a crater of spiderwebbed glass that had once been the windshield of Mr. Calabrese’s truck. The stadium full of cheering fans disintegrated and John Street stood naked and cold. I forgot all about home plate and ran home. Went straight to the bathroom, the only room with a window that looked out over the vacant lot. I could feel my heart beating in my ears. Certainly someone must have seen me or heard the crunch. But no one appeared. The block was silent. Still, I knew it was only a matter of time. All day I waited for that knock on the door. When the waiting was too much I closed myself in the bathroom to watch the scene. Each time I had this absurd hope that I’d look out and see that the windshield was fine. That I’d imagined the whole thing. When I saw it wasn’t fine I played with the idea that some other event had brought the rock down into the windshield before I got there. I simply hadn’t noticed. By my sixth or seventh trip to the bathroom Mom paused her tape and eyed me through the cigarette smoke and told me to stop slamming the door.
Sometime before dark I looked out the bathroom window and felt all the tiny hairs on my body buzz. Mr. Calabrese stood by his truck with a policeman. He was shrugging and gesturing at the broken windshield with his pipe as the cop wrote something on a pad. I couldn’t make out what they were saying over the idling cruiser.
In the following days and weeks I waited for a knock on the door. For a policeman to cuff me and take me away. But no one ever came. No one ever said anything. I’d gotten away with it. I felt like the worst neighbor in town. But that was easy. My conscience I could deal with. What worried me was what my mom would do if she found out what I’d done to Mr. C. I decided right then and there not to tell a soul. And I never will.
Alan ten-Hoeve wrote a book called Notes from a Wood-Paneled Basement (Gob Pile Press). He is a decent neighbor.
Back Patio Press 