POST SIX: SOFTBALL AT THE CHICKEN HOUSE

You might think that we were a perfectly normal bunch of kids on our way to a friendly pick-up softball game on a beautiful July afternoon. Way back when, we walked down Webster Street, across Orleans, past Oscars Cabinet Shop and crossed the tracks.

We ranged in age from around sixteen- to nineteen-year-old except for Fonzo who was to be our umpire and in his mid-forties, totaling seventeen young men, plenty players for the easy-going game ahead.

We were heading for the parking lot behind Minsky’s Chicken House. It was the epicenter in the inner city of East Boston, a stone’s throw from the Maverick Square Subway Station. Our field was cement and it was surrounded on two sides by five story brick storage building. The walls went straight up with no windows facing our game. On the third side stood Minsky’s Chicken House, another tall brick building with wooden transport pens stacked high along the back side. Minsky’s always exuded a strong smell of dead chickens, but we had long ago grown to ignore it. Chicken feathers were everywhere, some floated randomly across our-infield. The fourth side of our field was wide open for a hundred yards of abandoned railroad tracks. That was the backdrop of our home plate. I have never seen a more perfect setting for a softball game.

Most of us came from the Jeffreys Point section of Eastie. If it were a movie scene, we would be the Dead-End Kids. All from working class families, many from single parent homes, left alone most days to stumble our way along the path of delinquency, always pissed-off inside for one unknown reason or another.

This day though we carried baseball gloves, bats, and balls. Fonzo, our umpire, was in his early forties then and in our eyes, still one of us. He worked at the Boston Fish Market as a fish cutter and held a place of the highest respect in our-eyes. His sons Kenny, Anthony, Al and Stevie were blazing fast and would make up the infield of any team, so we would always have to split them up to keep things even. Fonzo carried the worn bases.

We picked sides and the game started. Some of the kids smoked as they took the field, others were very serious and maybe a couple were either a bit high or thinking about it. Kenny Capozzi would do random backward flips at his short stop position for no reason in particular. My cousin Johnny volunteered to be the catcher on both sides, evening out the teams.

I should mention Robert, my younger sister’s boyfriend. Robert just appeared in our neighborhood one day. I think he lived in the housing projects beyond Maverick Square. He was tall for his age of 16 but built with a real natural, athletic physique. He was quiet and good for his word. We took him for a kid that was struggling with a tough home life. He was the pitcher on our side.

To keep this story rolling I will jump right to the heart of it.

Around the 5th inning a motorcycle came from the outfield at the left side of Minsky’s and drove right thru our infield. The driver had a cigarette in his mouth and the passenger was holding on tight, two guys around 30 years old with greased hair, black shiny dress shoes and skintight nylon shirts. We just stopped playing and watched as the bike sputtered past then disappeared along the maintenance road by the side of the railroad tracks. The game restarted without a word and soon we were back into our lovely day, but that joy was to be short lived.

Less than an inning later we heard the bike coming again. It appeared just as it did the last time from the side of the chicken house, loud and roaring at full speed now, much faster than before. I just stood there, thinking “look at these jerks.” The motorcycle came closer and closer aiming as before, right thru the middle of our infield. This was to be their final act of disrespect.

The softball came flying at what looked like the speed of sound. The driver saw the ball coming and ducked clumsily but the ball hit the passenger right square in the chest with unbelievable intensity. It made a sound like a watermelon being dropped to the ground from a second story window. Robert could take no more of the world pouring insults on him. This motorcycle man was going to pay the price that Robert would demand this day. The passenger fell to the left bringing the bike and its driver down with him, scrapping noisily twenty feet along the cement. Without so much as a word the entire pack attacked the bike with wood and aluminum bats as though this motorcycle was the source of all the misery that we lived in. Within thirty seconds the bike was smashed into permanent destruction. The headlight was shattered, knives appeared, and the wheels were flattened, the gas tank was leaking gasoline and smelling to high heaven, the handlebars, frame, fenders, and seat completely crushed or torn up and ruined.

I looked back at the two riders on the ground as they were just lying there in shock. Real fear hit me knowing what was about to happen next but, thank God, in the background was the sound of police sirens coming from everywhere. Past the drama, I could see Fonzo carrying the bases and hurriedly heading towards the tracks, back to our sanctuary. We ran following him across the tracks, past Oscar’s, up Orleans Street and spreading out around the neighborhood we knew so well. We vanished into our streets.

Not all my stories are sweet and nostalgic. Some of them are just the truth of what was. Memories that come back now and then, springing up randomly and mixed in with cares of the day.

Someone wrote “The thing is, every memory is fiction.” I can't quite put my finger on where this memory belongs, but what I do know is that it began as one of the most beautiful days of my life and how, in an instant, it turned on a dime. What I didn’t know then is that it would be a metaphor for many other instances in my life.

These days I move with great caution through my seemingly joyful memories. I give myself clear permission to go rooting in the past and carefully watch my thoughts like a hawk. There are too many questionable synapses hiding right behind all those beautiful days.

I have lost track of Robert, but I hope he has found the peace that he deserves.