The trouble began during my second year in the first grade. I told Tony that I had a little live Lone Ranger who rode a little live white horse named Silver. My father heard about this sin and told me to tell the truth. Didn’t I want to be like the great Knute Rockne? Besides it wasn’t right for a boy of seven to tell such a fib to a boy of six. I agreed to confess, but why should I confess to a lie when I believed in that lie? In those green Depression days I didn’t want usual toys, but toys that could sit down and talk and eat breakfast with me. “When can I see your Lone Ranger?” Tony asked me on the black asphalt playground behind the red-brick parochial school. God and Knute Rockne, disguised as white billowy clouds, looked down and waited. “Soon,” I answered and felt the winds pick up speed. On the big white rectangle at the state Theater oversized cowboys smacked each other with straight-backed chairs. In a later scene Bob Steele told a bandit to reach for the sky. “When can I see your Lone Ranger?” Tony whispered and he offered me some of his popcorn. “Soon,” I said and the sound to the movie went dead. Outside one evening Mother Nature had crayoned the town orange. Inside his house Tony and I inspected tin soldiers and smelled the warm tomato, oregano and garlic smells that escaped from the stove. Mrs. Rossi was cooking the supper. Mary, Rose and Louie sang the song of Italian speech with their mother in the kitchen. Caruso’s voice boomed from the living room Victrola. When I left for home the taste of the delicious meal remained on my tongue and mixed there with my final word to Tony: “Soon.” I ran through black and cold November air and dove behind bushes when cars came near. In bed that night, lights from cars flashed around the busy wall and tried to collide with my bunk. I crawled to the kitchen and sat at the table for a long time. The silverware had been tucked away in a drawer, but I heard a spoon or fork fall slightly against a metal companion. Couldn’t sleep like me, I guessed. On Christmas Eve morning a bus stopped across the road from our house. A short boy in a brown coat emerged and stepped onto the lawn made white by an overnight snowstorm. The robust lad resembled Albert Einstein without the mustache. My own father had invited the young scientist so he could know the truth. Tony was here. My mother and sisters were downtown shopping for Christmas tree ornaments and only father sat at the table in the kitchen. He drank black coffee from a white mug and scanned obituaries, little gravestones nestled one against the other on page two of the morning newspaper. Tony knocked on the front door and father put the paper down. He reached into the hall closet for his overcoat. “I’m going to Poasttown for a few minutes,” he said. “You’re on your own.” He winked and went out the back door. Tony came in the front door and started to ask something with his white crescent smile. “When….?” “In a minute, Tony. Wanna see my museum?” The attic was the place where Antarctica and Uncle Siberia stayed overnight when they came to Ohio. My stocky guest laughed when he saw two wooden Indians standing there peering into each other’s eyes. A black cord that hung from the ceiling held a primitive bulb hostage and forced it to emit yellow light. I swung the cord and shadows moved first one way and then the other. “See the Injuns dance on the wall?” I asked and Tony laughed again. Then I showed him my twelve pale-faced alarm clocks that sat in a row. Every one of them pointed black hands to the very hour and minute of its death. I explained a trick. When you looked fast from clock to clock to clock it seemed that there was one clock whose hands moved like an actor in an old-time movie. “What are they saying?” I wondered out loud. “Telling how they got here,” said Tony. Then he discovered a clan of doorknobs that idled their time away in a cardboard box with the yellow word BANANAS on its side. Tony examined doorknobs of all shapes and sizes when the winds began to pound the attic. I grabbed an iron doorknob and thrust it into his hand. “Keep this,” I drawled in imitation of Bob Steele, my favorite cowboy. “Wanna see my ball team?” Twelve wooden plaques of baseball players posed self-consciously atop my dresser. Each athlete stood a foot tall and consisted of a picture scissored from The Sporting News, glued to an inch-thick board. Father had cut every figure out with a jigsaw so that it stood by itself. Joe DiMaggio frowned and held a yellow bar in the ready position. He stood there in the gray Yankee road uniform with a navy blue NEW YORK across his chest. Next to him Ernie Lombardi smiled and squeezed a brown bat with Superman hands. Ernie wore the white home outfit of the Cincinnati Reds with a huge red C over his heart. “Take your pick,” I said and immediately wondered why I did so. Tony’s eyeballs expanded to twice their normal size. He touched Mel Ott’s blue cap, checked Dizzy Dean’s red legs and picked splinters from Jimmy Foxx’s wooden back. Please don’t take Jimmy Foxx, I prayed, don’t take Lou Gehrig or Babe Ruth or Bill Dickey. Most of all, Anthony, do not take Joe DiMaggio. I closed my eyes and saw a favorite vision: a golden chariot swooped down into green Yankee Stadium and carried the New York centerfielder off to Cooperstown. 70,000 fans stood and applauded as a young freckle-faced lad ran on the field to take Joe’s place. Who would that be? He examined Al Simmons’ bulging biceps (please take Al Simmons!) and Babe Ruth’s mighty shoulders before selecting Joltin Joe DiMaggio! THE YANKEE CLIPPER! A factory whistle blew somewhere, two blackbirds flew past the window and the white December sun decided to hide himself behind the clouds. “Thanks,” said Tony, who took no heed of my reddened face and pounding heart. He checked Joe to see if Mr. DiMaggio could stand on the yellow linoleum floor of my bedroom. He could. Joe passed that test, but still had a frown on his face. He’ll feel better, I thought, when he hears Mrs. Rossi speak Italian. As for Tony, never in the history of childhood did a boy smile and laugh so much over one toy! But I know that within a few ticks of our Grandfather clock he would remember something else, some-thing alive… “Do you like airplanes?” I asked. “I have a whole bunch outside.” In the backyard father’s weathervanes moved with surges of air and creaked and squeaked in a language only they understood. A green woodsman sawed an eternal log and one dozen silver windmills just played with the air. Propellers turned on white planes that would never roam blue skies. The wooden bombers were nailed into a V formation high over the playhouse roof. We shot rocks at the planes with slingshots and sometimes (one out of three tries, I’d say) hit their long bodies. In our minds the stricken aircraft fell-only to be quickly replaced by a relentless enemy that was not Italy. Tony shot down nine planes and I gave him a mint pattie. He couldn’t wait to re-load the slingshot and fire again. But he was only six, you say? True, he was only six. He was also a husky Italian kid who was tough as nails. “Keep it up!” I yelled and walked to the edge of the garden. A rock thudded against wood and I knew that Tony had his tenth kill. A playful breeze brought us “Merrily We Row Along” from a car horn before it raced through the garden and forced tall yellow weedstalks to bend over and touch their toes. The firing of the anti-aircraft gun stopped and I guessed that Tony was looking for more ammunition. I turned around and he wasn’t in the backyard. He and my father stood near our blue Pontiac in the driveway. They petted a black object that crawled on the car’s hood. Then father smiled and Tony grabbed the black object and held it snugly against his coat. Father stopped the Pontiac in front of the Rossi’s white frame house. He stayed behind the wheel and lit a Camel cigarette. Tony and I jumped out and ran to the back porch. The door opened and out rushed rapid Italian speech. That was Mrs. Rossi. Tony supported a black pup in his right hand and pointed to its head with the left hand. “Voglio genere il cano.” He begged. Would she give her permission so he could keep the dog? More Italian words came from the warm kitchen to the cold porch. I didn’t understand this language, but thought that Louie voted yes and Mary and Rose voted no. The kitchen opera continued and I heard Caruso sing his way through an aria in the living room. I’ll tell you right now - that man roomed and boarded at Tony’s place! Now Tony went inside. He smiled and made the pup’s right paw wave to me. Wait a second, Anthony! I handed a sack to him, a sack that contained a wooden Joe DiMaggio and an iron doorknob. One more thing, old buddy. I told him that I don’t have a little live Lone Ranger. Tony nodded his head. I looked up and smiled at God and Knute Rockne who masqueraded that day as two dark clouds. Then snow began to fall and sunbeams repainted the white house a light yellow. All the way back to the car I laughed and waved to invisible crowds of people who cheered and pelted me with snow-like confetti. THE END ~ © Bill (grvnwll@netscape.net (Bill Garvin)) ~ November 9, 2003 If you enjoyed this page, check these out: Sledding A Christmas Carol Love Brings Feelings When Santa Was A Boy Snowballing And.......for many others, click the link for HOME. Home: Writers' Corner Index