A Bronx day

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It’s a May Saturday morning. The sun is streaming through the curtains of our bedroom on the fifth floor of 1610 Mahan Avenue in the Bronx. I’m 14 years old and it’s 1952.The guy who maintains the Indian museum cross the street is cutting the grass. Bruckner Boulevard, down at the end of Middletown Road is humming with traffic. I hear voices coming from the foyer. Ma and Grandma are up, and have been for some time. Dad is working a 48 hour tour with the fire department. My brothers are still asleep. I just lay there and think. Baseball and girls dominate my thoughts. Images of both keep criss-crossing in front of our bedroom ceiling, which is what I’m staring at. The guys will be going down to the park soon. I’d better get up. If they choose up a game, I might miss out. Then again, the fields might be taken and we’ll hitting flies out on the grass outside of the fields. I can show up late for that. But, I’d better get moving. My brothers are stirring. We all share a bedroom. I’ve got the big bed. It just worked out that way. Maybe because I’m the oldest. John and Ed sleep in single beds against the wall. I sleep in a bigger bed in the middle of the bedroom.

When the windows are open on a warm spring morning, the air from five stories up flows over us like honey. It’s Saturday. Baseball for me, and who knows what John and Ed have up their sleeve. There’s always something to do. Hang out, go to the movies up at the Pilgrim on Westchester Avenue, go down to the park by the waterfront, there’s plenty to do. Up and at ‘ em.

Ma, miraculously has breakfast ready by the time I come out of the bathroom. How’d she do it? She” senses” things in the apartment. Knows it’s pulse. Can tell exactly when something or the other is about to happen. Is always prepared. And Grandma does as much on another level that is has a deeper rhythm. Grandma is the long range planner. Mom is the tactical officer. Mom operationalizes daily things. Grandma works in the background setting overall strategies. And Dad just works like hell trying to fund the whole magilla. It’s a pretty good team.

I chug breakfast down, and I’m out. Sneakers are on and grab my glove. I can smell the spring smell as I go out into the hallway outside our apartment door. The super opened the hall windows and warm spring air is sweeping through the apartment house. Life is fantastic. Down the stairs. I never use the elevator going down. Two steps at a time and left hand on the banister and use the post on the bottom to swing and pick up angular momentum for the turn that will take me to the next set of stairs. The same thing again. Five flights. Then down the two or three steps to the lobby and out through the two doors to the street.

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The sun hits me as I hit the sidewalk It’s warm out. Perfect for baseball. The guys are probably around the corner, hanging out by Tony’s candy store. About 20 steps or so to the comer and there they are. Paulie, Miller, Charlie, Chick, and Jack are there aready. Paulie and Miller are having a catch. Everybody is in T shirts. A few of the girls are there too. My cousin Mimi is there. She’s PauIie’s steady.
There’s going to be a good crowd. The day is perfect. In about an hour or so a lot of guys show up and we head for the park Pelham Bay Park is only a few blocks away. It’s got two semi-pro fields that are kept in great shape. Once in a while we catch them empty and choose up sides. There’s enough of us today for a game, but the fields are already taken. Big guys. No way we are going to chase them off. They’ll’ kill us. We pass the fields and go to the long stretch of grass by the stadium. A bunch of guys from somewhere else are playing” fast pitching in” against the stadium wall with spaldeens. No problem, where we play we’re not in their way. One of-the guys grabs a bat and the rest of us run out in the field.

Flies are up. Catch a fly and you get a chance to hit the ball out. also, if you pull in a grounder and the batter sets the bat down in front of him, you throw the ball on the ground toward the bat and if it hits the bat and bounces up in the air and the guy doesn’t catch the ball before it hits the ground again, you get up. So, there’s two ways to get up. Getting up is great because you get a chance to show how far you can hit the ball. The whole idea is to hit the ball over everyone’s
head and back them up as much as possible, That way, their throws home are wimpy and they’ll probably miss the bat that you lay down. A few guys can really sock the ball. It’s not always a size thing. It’s a swing thing. Some guys can get a lot more bat to the ball than other guys can. But big arms do help, and some of the guys who are working out are not only are having a good time just wearing T shirts in front of the girls, but are slamming the ball as well. Pays to work out when warm spring mornings come around in the Bronx.

Some of the guys are hanging around talking with the girls who showed up. They play once in a while but take long breaks on the grass with the girls. Others, like me, are confirmed 14 year old bachelors and play constantly. Not that we’d rather split our time like the others, but we have only connected bat-to-ball in this life, and not lips-to-lips. We play till about 1 o’clock in the afternoon and it’s really getting hot. We’re all sweating and getting tired of what we’re doing.
Someone says he’s thirsty, and that’s it. We pack up and head for Tony’s candy store for egg creams or lime rickys. I go upstairs for lunch. Ma does it again. Lunch is ready on cue. A quick sandwich and a glass of milk and I’m out again. I hear the guys downstairs in front of the candy store below our living room window. I stick my head out and yell “Where we going this afternoon?” Someone says,” Up to the “pillbox”. That’s the name we use for the Pilgrim movie theatre up on the avenue. There’s a matinee that everyone wants to see. The “married” guys have their arms around their girls as we walk up Roberts Avenue, the rest of follow up in the rear, making all kinds of noise and talking about the morning.

“Did ya’ see Paulies’ shot?” “Man, that ball was a mile up there. I could hardly see it, Or, “Jack spent the morning talking with the girls again.” “Said he hurt his finger and couldn’t swing” And it went on and on until we reached the movie.

We hit the movie in the middle of the show. This makes no difference to us. We just stay past the end to the part we came in on. That’s how we see movies. The “married” guys make out over by the wall. Most of us though, just sit there and sound (make remarks about) on the movie. Piss off the matron a couple of times and she almost kicks us out.

The walk back is through the lots on Crosby avenue. The movie was a swashbuckler and the lots have old foundation walls that we climb on and jump off with the sticks that we picked up for swords. The movie is reenacted many times with new endings that favor our individual fantasies.

Home in time for supper. Perfect timing. My brothers are home too. Ma has supper on the table. It’s another miracle. The day has been great. Life is perfect. It will always be like this. But there’s that girl thing, and how come hitting the ball felt better than talking with the girls? What’s Jack know that I don’t? Heck of a choice. Baseball is better. Or is it?