Original Love. J.J. Murray

phone rings. Speak of the devil.

      “Hello, Henry.”

      “How did you know it would be me?”

      “A little birdie told me.”

      “Okay, well, I got your message, Pete. Everything okay? How’s the novel coming?”

      Which one? And I’m not “Pete” to anyone anymore. “Everything’s fine. I owe you some Earl Grey.” And your apartment is still far too white even with all the curtains open. I feel the need to spill something and leave a stain.

      “Don’t worry about it. Will you have three chapters for me by Friday?”

      “How about a preface and two chapters?”

      “I’d rather have three chapters, Pete.”

      Damn. There goes my afternoon. “Sure thing. You want me to e-mail them to you?”

      “No, I’ll be coming down for the weekend. I’ll read them when I get there.”

      But there’s only one bed, Henry. Oh, and the couch. “I’ll tidy up before you get here.”

      “Having a wild party without me, Pete?”

      My name is Peter. “Yeah.” Just me and some wild memories.

      “Really? Who all is there?”

      “I’ve only seen Carlton, Henry. I’m having a party of one.”

      “Too bad. How’s the Poet looking?”

      “I don’t know. Tan. Is he a Jets fan?”

      Henry laughs. “Is he ever! Carlton hasn’t missed a home game since sixty-nine. I’ll bet he’s been wearing green.”

      “Yeah.”

      “He looks good in green. So how do you like the apartment?”

      I still don’t have the advance money, so I lie. “You have the nicest place, Henry. It’s très chic.”

      “Thank you. You don’t think the White Album is a bit much?”

      “Oh, no. In fact, I think you should hang a picture of Barry White, too.”

      “Funny. So I’ll see you this Friday?”

      “I’ll still be here.”

      “And if you want some scrumptious scallops and a place to forget your troubles for a few hours, go to Le Lethe. It’s just around the corner from you.”

      “Henry, I can barely afford the rental car sitting across the bay.” The Nova is costing me fifty bucks a day just to get encrusted with salt.

      “Tell the boys at Le Lethe that you’re a good friend of mine, and they’ll put it on my tab.”

      “I’ll think about it.”

      “Take care, Pete.”

      “I will.” Hen.

      I hang up and check my e-mail. Nothing from Destiny. More Viagra mail. An offer to “Work at Home and Make $2000 a Week with Your COMPUTER!!!” An invitation to check out Mars Computer’s new laptop. I read the e-mail and chuckle over the company slogan: “Proving that High Price Doesn’t Mean Quality!” Another e-mail begs me to “UPGRADE YOUR LIFE for just $89.99!” Now that’s a bargain and a half. The last, from some dyslexic company playing on the fears and paranoia of a computer virus-plagued society, claims to be the only safe way to survive in the twenty-first century, because “If you stink your safe, your probly not.”

      I delete them all and check the outline for my book:

      Chapter 3: January 1976

       *street hockey

       *description of friendsMark BrandEric HiteMickey MatherEddie Tucci

       *meeting Ebony for first time

       *home; conversation with the Captain

       *perpetual tans

      “Henry, you’ll just have to wait,” I say to myself. “I want to have a little fun.” I look at the white coffee cup, the rim stained with two days of tea and instant coffee. The cup looks good with a tan.

      Chapter 3

      Once the Captain fell asleep in his La-Z-Boy “commodore’s chair” one unusually warm Sunday afternoon a few days after Christmas, Peter escaped the house and ran down to the cul-de-sac at the end of Preston Street to watch a street hockey game up close. He used to watch them from his window, but it was like watching a hockey game on TV without the sound.

      And everybody was there: Mark Brand, bony and blond with hands too big for his body; Eric Hite, who had no height, with shaggy hair and no athletic skills; Eddie Tucci, fat and red-faced, with puffy hands and a gigantic nose; and Mickey Mather, the only one of the bunch who had a crew cut and any idea how to play hockey. They each wore T-shirts with “P-Street Rangers” written crudely in black Magic Marker on the front, each with his own gray duct-taped number on the back. They used hockey sticks that had wooden shafts and plastic blades and smacked around a hard orange puck that Eric kept hitting into the sewer. Eddie was the goalie and wore what looked like couch cushions tied to his legs with shoestrings, a catcher’s mask, a goalie stick and a first baseman’s mitt.

      Peter thought they were the coolest foursome on earth.

      “If the sewer was the goal, Eric, we’d never lose,” Mark said as Eric squeezed through the gap between the sidewalk and the grate into the sewer. Then Mark noticed Peter. “What you doin’ out, Peter-eater?”

      It was the rumor at Southdown Elementary, then at Woodhull, where only sixth graders could go, and now at R.L. Simpson Junior High that Peter was a soft mama’s boy, allergic to air and dirt. Peter had to wear a navy blue pea coat to school on every cold day, and a couple times he heard some kids calling him the “Flasher.” And since Peter didn’t play any sports, the others thought that Peter had to be gay.

      “Just came out to watch is all.”

      “Watch us lose is more like it,” Eddie said. “Blackberry Bruins are gonna kill us unless Eric quits fuckin’ around. Mickey, when’s Willie gonna get here?”

      At the mention of Willie Gough’s name, Peter cringed. Willie was the meanest boy at Simpson, always picking fights with kids bigger than him—and Willie was smaller than Eric. But Willie never lost. Never. He’d always still be standing at the end, his knuckles cut to shreds, the other kid bleeding and crying for his mama.

      “Willie ain’t comin’,” Mickey said, passing the puck back and forth as he ran toward the goal, which looked like an overgrown chicken coop. He cracked off a shot that nearly knocked over the goal.

      “We can’t play ’em with only four, Mickey,” Mark said.

      “Petey can play, can’t you, Petey?” Mickey asked Peter.

      Peter had never played a second of hockey before in his life, but he lied and said he could. A few moments later, he was tearing off home to get a white T-shirt. The second he returned, Eddie made Peter a P-Street Ranger, taping the number seven on to Peter’s back.

      Mickey handed Peter an extra stick, one with a chewed-up wooden blade. “It still works,” he said. “Take a shot.”

      Peter lined up the shot and walked around the puck.

      “This ain’t golf, Peter-eater,” Mark said.

      Peter ignored him and slammed the puck into the goal from about thirty feet away.

      A cul-de-sac street hockey legend had just been born.

      But when the Blackberry Bruins showed up, Peter knew he was in trouble. They were all eighth and ninth graders from Simpson, and they had real Bruins jerseys and helmets, knee pads, elbow pads, and shiny new sticks.