and chase French women.
Although a soft wind had brought a misty rain
a little earlier in the day,
the grass was almost totally dry now.
Everyone’s skin was warm and sticky again on this predictably hot Cincinnati July summer night.
And as usual,
fireworks were in the air.
1.
Escape
10:30 PM, July 3, 1959
Carl handed me another bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer while I rummaged around on the coffee table for a cigarette. “Dream Lover” by Bobby Darin started to play in the background as lights of a passing car skipped past the basement window. Earlier in the evening, we had been talking about the usual things: the Reds, girls, life and the fact that grade school was finally almost over for both of us. Carl’s parents were out for the night, and we had recently just finished listening to the end of the Phillies vs. Reds game, which the Reds won 6-1. It didn’t look like it was going to be a very good year for the 1959 Reds, but the games were always interesting, especially when you had an outfield consisting of Frank Robinson, Jerry Lynch, and Vada Pinson. Even though he was new to the Reds, my favorite player was Leo Cardenas at shortstop. Like him, I had the hands to grab any ground ball close to where I was. Now if both he and I could just learn how to pull the ball at the plate, we both might turn out to be dual-threat players.
Watching Carl walk over to the radio to change the channel, I lit up, and as I blew out the match, I thought about an incident earlier in the day. At eleven years old and too young to buy cigarettes myself, I had to be clever and a little devious. One scheme I used often and had today was to wait outside Frisch’s Restaurant, not far from Western Hills High School, where I would soon go, and ask people as they came out if they could give me a quarter to call my mother. Now, sometimes it became sticky trying to get a quarter when all anyone needed was a dime to make a call, but I had the face and a little bit of that cute blond kid hustle to get the quarter. Then it was a matter of waiting a couple of minutes to let the moment clear, walking into the entryway of the restaurant, between the two sets of doors, nonchalantly putting the quarter into the cigarette vending machine, pushing the right button, picking up the pack of Winston’s and moving easily to my bike around the corner and off.
“Let’s get out of here, I need to get some air,” Carl yelled. He was halfway up the stairs before I got a chance to ask why. The street was quiet. I’m not sure what time it was, but probably most of our neighbors were either watching TV or in bed. We shuffled slowly over to a parked car in front of the Collins’ house. After a minute or two of blowing great smoke rings that seemed to mystically come alive and linger in the night air, staying close as if to wait for something out of the ordinary to happen, I motioned to Carl about lightning in the distance that could be coming our way. Just then he reached into his pocket and brought out four ominous but enticing-looking cherry bombs.
“Cool. Did you hitch to Kentucky again to buy a bunch of fireworks?”
He and his friend had this history, of course without their parents knowing, of thumbing across the river each year and buying a lot of big-time and big-noise-making bombs of different kinds. It was quite an adventure to do that and especially dicey at our age.
“You know, old man Collins really is a dick; he’s been a thorn in my side for I don’t know how long,” Carl spit out as he handed me two of the red, round jewels.
Now, this was not a one-sided story. You really couldn’t tell who the biggest loser might be when Carl moved in across the street from a guy who was a real tyrant about the cleanliness and protection of his yard. He yelled at everyone all the time; you could barely walk on the public sidewalk in front of his house without feeling you were trespassing. You always felt a pair of eyes watching you as if he were waiting to jump out of his house and start yelling. And Carl living so close must have filled him with tension each time he left his house. On the other hand, Carl made sure there was retaliation, especially on days or nights around Halloween or Damage Night each year. He could be quite creatively mischievous.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“What…what do you mean… ready?”
There was no answer; he just motioned my cigarette to each of his hands, to light the fuse on each bomb. “Now light yours, Paul,” he said as the fuses began to sparkle and hiss. It crossed my mind–Now what? It was late; the street was quiet; most people were asleep or getting there; what were we going to do with these things? There were only houses close together as far as the eye could see. Just exactly as I was wondering where these cherry bombs were going to go now that they were lit, Carl yelled, “Throw ‘em now,” and I watched him hurl his two towards the roof of Collins’ house. Who knows why people do the things they do? Who knows why after that fleeting moment of sanity, of thinking, no, that’s probably not a good idea, I lit mine and threw one and then the other as hard as I could towards the same roof? For a moment I was hypnotized, watching the twirling, sparkling bombs flying in an almost coordinated dancing movement as his first thrown hit the house, quickly exploding just above the front door, another hit the roof and bounced a couple of feet before also exploding in a bang louder than the first. My two went farther, the first soaring over the roof and falling down the back of the house, which I’m sure sounded to the inhabitants like they were being bombed from front and back. My second one almost magically stuck for a second on the very pinnacle of the roof, defying gravity until it decided its time had come. That one made the loudest explosion of the four.
I stood there admiring what we’d done like someone admiring a painting he had just finished. Our type of art was mischief of an almost a spiritual quality; it was pure; we couldn’t have done it any better, and it was loud. I’m sure half the neighborhood was thinking what the hell was going on.
Just then Carl grabbed me and pulled me to the street, mouthing, “Quiet, it’s old man Collins!” Not more than a second or two later we were crawling under the car, thinking he’d never see us here, as we were in the dark, and his front porch was a distance away. There was a streetlight nearby, but its light was only hitting the back end of Collins’ Chevy. My heart was racing, but I knew it would calm down in a moment. He wouldn’t be able to see us under the car from that distance.
Funny and scary at the same time, Collins bounded out the front door on to his porch and started yelling, “Marchetti, Carl Marchetti, I know that was you! You are really in trouble now. I’m calling the cops! You are going to jail.” I guess all these years of monkey business had finally caught up with Carl. Funny, I thought, how suddenly his yelling was either getting louder or he was getting closer…closer!
Yes, he was now moving to the front of the car. All we could see was his feet and, man, were we watching his feet. I don’t know about Carl, but my heart was pumping like wildly; I’m sure old man Collins could hear it. As he continued to yell and slowly move around the car, we nudged ourselves quietly to scoot over in the opposite direction.
Just as he had made one revolution around the car and was back on the grass, Carl tugged on my sleeve and whispered, “We gotta make a run for it.”
I didn’t say it, but I thought it, WHAT! Are you crazy? He’s right there. Before my thought was even finished, Carl was out from under the car. What else could I do–with that commotion, Collins’ next move would be to look under the car. If I was going to get caught, I wanted to get caught with someone. I slid out quickly and saw Carl running up the street, into the dark and away from the streetlight. Took one quick
