Life on and off the Beat

The candy store, bodega, or whatever it had last been, was no more. It was boarded up. '2120' and '2140' were still occupied, but showed the scars of neglect. From the outside, they appeared just as 'fortress-like' as he remembered them, as did the other apartment buildings up and down Crotona Avenue. But you had to be blind not to see the decay eating away at the neighborhood. The brick and mortar building blocks were intact, but like wrinkles on an old lady’s face, there had been a rush to old age. Faint glows of light, like fading suns, shone through worn, and sometimes torn, curtains. This was a neighborhood waiting to be laid to rest in those same curtains hanging from its windows -- what was left of the light revealing its soul gutted beyond redemption. As Sam stood up and began to walk back to his car, he noticed a worn ball lying in the gutter, not unlike a Spaldeen he used to punch, slap, hit with a stickball bat and bounce off a stoop. For a kid growing up in the forties and fifties, the Spaldeen was the greatest invention since cave men whittled the first wheel. There wasn't a city surface a Spaldeen couldn't be used against -- box ball on the sidewalk, stoop ball against the steps of a brownstone, pitcher-in-the-box against a schoolyard wall, or just playing catch with a friend to kill time. He picked up the ball. A souvenir from the old neighborhood. Hell, I'll add it to the dog's collection. His eyes drifted toward the school on the corner. A wave of nostalgia engulfed him. The red brick building, the fence surrounding the playground, the metal gratings covering the lower windows. Even the barrel shaped facade, like a concrete ribbon lapping the entire lower portion of the school, was still in place. Sam could clearly see graffiti splattered across the concrete facade. It really wasn't too different in his day, except the graffiti would probably have been shaped like home plate and covered with initials of the kids who regularly played out their baseball fantasies near that piece of wall. These images, as clear as the early evening air, seemed to cleanse the scene of grime and neglect. Sam remembered a warm evening in a fading summer sun not unlike the one setting over ‘2135’ behind him. Mario stood fifty feet away, squeezing the Spaldeen till it looked like it was ready to crack. He wound up and let loose with a high hard one that broke ten feet before it reached the plate. You knew exactly what it was going to do, even when it was going to do it, and yet there wasn't anyone for miles around who could hit Mario's 'swish' pitch. The ball didn't really break. It just kind of stopped in mid air, paused and dropped about three feet across the strike zone. At least, that's what you suspected it did. No one ever really knew. Mario's 'swish' pitch disproved all laws of physics. Then Mrs. Teitel's window came literally crashing into his memory. Mario had two strikes going against him, the usual count. Sam had already made up his mind to forget about watching the ball. He would count to two and swing at the low outside part of home plate, hoping for a miracle. He never saw the ball but felt the impact as the broom handle made contact with the Spaldeen. It was probably the hardest ball he ever hit. Sam first saw it as it sailed over the schoolyard fence on a straight upward trajectory. The ball never stopped rising, never gave in to gravity, when it smashed through Mrs. Teitel's third floor window at ‘861’ across the street. At the sound of broken glass, Mario, Gigi, Oscar and even some kids who were playing in another game not far away, scattered. He didn't move a muscle or remove the stickball bat from his shoulder. He stood there like the 'Babe' after hitting one out in right field at Yankee Stadium. He just hit one off Mario. He didn't know how long he stood there. Reality reared its ugly head when Mrs. Teitel grabbed the back of his collar and dragged him home. The window was three dollars. Sam's mother paid it in silence. It wasn't the first window in his illustrious 'pitcher-in-the-box' career. He knew it would take about three months of errands, vacuuming and babysitting for his grandmother to work it off. But he just hit one off Mario. That night, at Louie's, his name became legend. As Sam looked around the neighborhood, he couldn't resist the temptation to walk across the street into the schoolyard. In another ten years it may disappear altogether. People were coming and going, on their way home from work, not paying attention to him or the Porsche. He figured it would be safe for five minutes. He just wanted to look for the box by the wall where he hit the big one off Mario. It was easy finding the wall from where he hit Mario's 'swish' pitch as legend had it. But the box was spray painted into history. Too many layers by too many kids wielding wild gyrations from easy to apply aerosol cans obliterated his moment in history. This part of the schoolyard was an ominous dark gray since it was shielded from most of the natural light. He knew the sun was still bright on the other side of the wall that opened into a massive play area. On any given weekend, two softball games would be going on at the same time. Winners would play winners and losers play losers for a pot that added up to six bucks for each member of the winning team. "Hey mister, what ya doin' around here?" Sam froze; he turned cold. He didn't dare turn around. The familiarity of the old neighborhood suddenly turned into alien territory.