Ricky & I
Ricky and I watched them warily and held back at a safe distance eventually going the other direction down the other side of the street so as to be even safer still as the older high school kids toilet papered and egged houses ahead of us as some sort of shit rolls downhill repayment for what we couldn’t possibly understand or imagine might be going on behind closed doors for them at home (I would learn years later, in the news). We just knew that we had a short window now where we hadn’t quite aged out of our trick or treating, something evidenced in the fact that we were already starting to get lazy in our costuming, always just hobo’s now, something that wouldn’t get more creative again until my college years but on those nights the “candy” was usually cheap beer and girls, another thing that couldn’t possibly be understood or imagined or even cared about then, we just still had our sweet teeth and some lazily costumed possible final attempts, this year, maybe next, to satisfy them for free and we didn’t need any of these toilet papering egging assholes seeing us and ruining it.
Ricky and I had become pretty adept at avoiding these guys in our neighborhood after school and on the weekends (thankfully we didn’t have to figure out any extra avoidance techniques during the school day just yet – we still had this one more year before we shared the halls with them, well at least the ones who hadn’t graduated yet, though Ricky and I were afraid that the ones that were supposed to graduate out might be held back and still be around for our first year of High School, a would be hell if they had anything to do with it).
No, it was just after school and the weekends and oh, the school bus that we all rode together though at least that interminable time was relatively short as interminable goes (ok, that was kinda most of the time) but we could always depend on our driver, Missus D, to have our backs and put the fear of Missus D in them if need be, sitting up front and telling her that Mom said Hi with her latest batch of sugar cookies and never forgetting her at Christmas time with cards from each of us and small finely, meticulously wrapped in wax paper offerings were definitely to our advantage.
But on this Halloween night, though we did our best to measure wary fear with still being able to hit up the neighborhood candy houses, our usually successful avoidance attempts weren’t good enough. Seems Tommy Whitmore, who had also taken to calling himself “Jax” around that time, don’t know why, maybe he just needed another name that wasn’t the “Tommy!!!” he heard yelled, screamed, slapped, surrendered to at home, must have seen us behind he and his boy’s mean spirits under the Dowling’s porch light and came down and across the street to wait just outside the light’s reach, that hard circle line of light on one side and dark on the other right before their garage, and, with hands on his hips and a stupid grin Tommy said,
“Hey boys, how ya doin’, and how ya doin’ in those candy bags of yours tonight?”
“We’re good Tommy, just leave us be, we’re not bothering you.”
“Hey, it’s “Jax”, but you are bothering me, bothering us” Tommy said with a hint of malice “just by being you, and you haven’t even offered me anything from your bags of goodies” as he did a grab while his boys hung just outside that light’s ring at the Dowling’s mailbox giggling even more stupidly than Tommy’s stupid grin.
“Hey, those are ours!!’ Ricky yelled, straight backed but for only an instant.
“Oh, he speaks, on his own, the redhaired one” as Ricky’s spine shrunk. “No, these are ours now and we’re also going to take you two on a ride.”
“No Tommy …” and a glare with a raised hand’s intent “No Jax … we have to get home, we’re not getting in any cars with you. We were done anyway, take our bags and just leave us be.”
“Well that just ain’t gonna happen you two …”
Then came a rush of wind sweeping past and around our heads … something usually reserved for family stories at backyard get togethers or at funerals when Ricky’s extended family would arrive, it was fast, a blur, made the ground shake just enough to unsettle your feet, make you feel a little askew. We knew what, who this was, Ricky & I, but Tommy and his boys didn’t.
I told you that Ricky and I had become pretty adept at avoiding these guys and we had, but it was more, sometimes a not just protecting ourselves, but protecting them.
“No Tommy …”
“It’s Jax”
“No Jax, not tonight”
“You gonna defy me, you useless pieces of shit, no that ain’t happenin’. Right boys?”
But the ground shook some more, the air trembled again, whooshed past and around us again, as air shouldn’t tremble like that and I stood my now shaky ground.
“Not now”
“And it’s Jax!!!” he yelled
“I wasn’t talking to you Tommy”
I said to Ricky “Not now” but his shrunk spine grew, not a one of simple stand up defiance, but just grew.
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I met Ricky through a mom’s get togethers in new neighborhood’s get togethers. Let’s introduce ourselves with kids to break the ice but really kids being just an excuse for Moms to drink wine on an early Saturday. I had seen Ricky on the ballfield in my new digs, after having moved from Baltimore to now Pittsburgh, he was a monster. His throws from his shortstop spot practically took the first baseman’s glove off and we weren’t even in high school yet.
“Do you play?” he asked me.
“I pitch”
“We could use one of those on our team. You any good?”
And that was it, I confounded him with my off the table curve that I shouldn’t have been throwing at that age and he tried to take the glove off of anyone who had the misfortune of playing first base. Instant friends.
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Friendships can be curious things. They might start with Moms using you as pawns for a glass of wine, or two, on a Saturday afternoon, they can be responses to what you don’t know yet of the evils of the world behind closed doors and you group, join forces, even if it’s only in a force of two or they can be things that were just supposed to happen, like Ricky with a rifle of an arm that make first basemen regret they play the game and you note, Ricky. He and I became a pair of buds linked through and through until, well, we just weren’t.
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“Not now”
“What not now you little prick?!”
“Ricky is my friend”
“And?”
“You don’t want to do this, he’s not liking you right now”
“What? Little redhead here?”
“Please just let it go Tommy”
“I’s Jax!!” (and there was that raised hand)
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The other curious thing about friendships is that there are those that are just that, cursory things, friendships you recall for just being a friendship, where you might call each other to check in years later, heard you had a kid, how is the better half, what’s her name again but then there was Ricky and his secrets, his family’s secrets.
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His spine grew instead of a backing away shrink, unnaturally so, to four times his height and his red hair fired until it rivaled the sun right on that hard line of light and dark at the Dowling’s garage and he towered Tommy and his voice changed making any Tommy attempt at inspiring fear seem weak and puny “YOU WILL NOT MESS WITH MY FRIEND!” followed by a simple backhand slap.
And that was it, Tommy, not Jax, that new name nonsense ended that night, slunk away from out of the dust bins across the street and amid the scattering idiots he called pals.
“You’re done aren’t you Ricky?
“Yeah, gotta go now”
“Dammit Ricky, I have no one else and I don’t even want anyone else as my friend.”
“I know, me neither, but I gotta go”
“I know”
And then, there was that rush of wind again, picking up leaves and dust and moving things around in a small twister.
“Hey Missus D, thought that might be you”
“You good?”
“Yeah, I’m ok I guess, thank you for keeping an eye but …”
“Don’t worry, you’ll see him again, Ricky’s got a good heart, you know that, but he and my sister need to find another place now, to be safe, try and start again until Ricky learns how to control things. Plus, you’ll see him again ‘cause he always hated that he couldn’t hit your curveball, he’ll be practicing … Sugar cookies tomorrow?”
“Maybe the next day Missus D, gotta give Mom the head’s up”
“Ok, and maybe an offering wrapped finely in wax paper?”
“Of course, as always”
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