Shepherd Avenue. Charlie Carillo

mopped his face with a handkerchief and bowed to the silent room, then left. Conversation resumed when the echo of his footsteps faded.

      “A flower in his lapel,” Grace Rothstein said shrilly. “Forty cents every day for a fresh flower!” She slapped her right hand into the crook of her left elbow, kinking it into an obscene right angle. Everyone but one guy laughed, and I knew he had to be her husband, “Uncle Rudy.”

      “Ammiratti’s a rich bastard,” Mel explained. “He owns a lotta houses, plus that empty lot where the hole is. Everybody hates him for that.”

      “How come?”

      “ ’Cause burger joints bring colored people,” she said, irritated by my ignorance. “He screwed us. He sold everybody out even though he has more money than everybody else put together.”

      She bit into a thick cream pastry. I knew she was parroting the words of the adults she lived with.

      “The balls on him,” she continued, through a mouthful of cream. “Walkin’ into a roomful o’ people who hate you and pretendin’ they love you.”

      Johnny Gallo came in, sticking out in that chubby crowd like a foreigner. He had no hips or buttocks, and wore black T-shirts and slacks that made him look even taller and slimmer than he was. His sideburns were shaved high and his black hair was combed straight back. He looked like a walking sperm cell.

      Mel had a mild crush on Johnny, and ditched me to join him. I was marooned in the midst of all those cliques — Vic and Rosemary, Angie and Freddie, Connie and Grace. For the first time in two days I felt a real pang for my father.

      The baby lay asleep in her bassinet. I felt a little jealous of her, wishing I was little enough to climb in there and lie beside her.

      * * *

      “You like it here okay?” Vic asked that night when the two of us were in bed.

      “I guess,” I said.

      “When I get a little more time we’ll play more stickball and stuff. I gotta practice right now, with the playoffs and everything.”

      “I don’t mind.”

      “Hey. I forgot to ask you how you liked my girl Rosemary.”

      “She’s nice,” I lied.

      “Yeah, she’s somethin’,” Vic said. “She got me through school, you know? Helpin’ me with homework and stuff. Never yelled at me, no matter how stupid I was.”

      Before falling asleep I noticed Vic staring at the ceiling, smiling.

      CHAPTER THREE

      WHILE coffee percolated each morning, Connie combed out her hair and braided it. I would watch from the doorway to the basement, without her knowing it.

      Loose, it hung to her breasts. Her expression while she worked the comb was somber, as if the stroking motion stirred up thoughts of her life’s mistakes. She also looked glum because she didn’t put her teeth in until she was through braiding.

      Save for six brown lower teeth, the dentures were a complete set. They didn’t embarrass her. She had given birth to her kids in the days before doctors knew about calcium loss, so she felt the missing teeth weren’t her fault.

      Besides, she took exceptional pride in her moist skin, boasting that she’d never had a pimple in her life. Three “no’s” accounted for that — no restaurant food, no liquor, no makeup.

      Talcum powder and aspirins were the only things in the medicine cabinet. She even made the dresses she wore, simple tentlike things with buttons at the cleavage.

      Only her underwear was elaborate. She referred to her girdle as a “harness,” full of hooks and straps. Hanging on the shower rod to dry, her pink slips looked like sails. They billowed when you opened the bathroom door.

      She wore black nun shoes, and she didn’t walk so much as she tilted from foot to foot. With each step the entire plane of her flat foot came down, thunking decisively.

      Overhead, on the top floor, lived another person, who trod so lightly that I didn’t even know he existed until my third day there. His name was Agosto Palmieri. We knew he was there only when he played his opera records.

      * * *

      With the exception of this peculiar loner, most of the other people I’d met came out to see Vic play baseball.

      Even the meticulous Angie ate supper fast on game nights. On the first one I was there for Vic sat with his cap on backwards and his feet in slippers, cleats at his side. He said the hat made him feel lucky, so Angie waived standard table etiquette.

      His uniform was creamy white, with blue piping down the outside of his legs and “Lane” in slow, lazy script across the chest. When he flexed his arms the piping near his biceps jumped.

      Grace and Freddie arrived at the end of supper to catch a ride to the ballpark with Angie. Even Johnny Gallo stopped by, wiping his hands on a rag before shaking hands with Vic to wish him good luck.

      Rosemary never came over before a game. She and Mel were waiting for us at the Franklin K. Lane bleachers when we all got there.

      Vic was the same height as my father but he looked squatter because of his thickly muscled build. Shirts buttoned all the way up pinched his neck, nearly strangling him.

      But he looked slimmer in a baseball uniform, graceful and confident. It was the end of his season but he was hitting an astonishing. 500. He was the center of attention even during warmups with his teammates, joking and laughing, making lightning throws to first base with easy, almost casual motions.

      Angie intently watched the practice session, as if it were the actual game. Connie sat back, arms folded under her breasts, a stance she maintained throughout the game.

      Mel pointed at Vic. “Now you’ll see a real ballplayer,” she bragged, as if he were her uncle. “I’ll bet he gets us free tickets when he’s with the Yankees, Joey.”

      Rosemary sat with a woolen shawl across her shoulders, knitting needles and ball of yarn in hand. She made it clear that she was in no way a baseball fan but in all ways a dedicated woman, loyal enough to endure nine innings of boredom.

      She turned to me with a smile and said, “What are you reading this summer?”

      “Nothing.”

      The smile vanished. “Nothing? No books?”

      I shrugged. “There’s no school.”

      “That’s no reason to stop reading.”

      I just stared back at her. She shook her head as if I were a terminal case. “You sound just like Mel,” she said sadly. “I have wonderful books to lend, if you’d like them.”

      “Okay,” I said, knowing I’d never take her up on it.

      Lane won, 12 to 3. Angie sat still through his son’s two diving catches on the infield dirt, his two singles, and even his eighth-inning home run, afraid that he’d jinx Vic by cheering.

      That homer was something to see, a white missile soaring into the growing dusk and bouncing on the street beyond. Head bowed, Vic made the slow, heavy trot around the bases to the screams of Freddie Gallo. Mel grabbed my shoulder and couldn’t stop shaking me. Rosemary, who had dozed off, asked crankily, “What happened?”

      Nobody answered. I remember wanting to tell the strangers behind us who the hero was, that I shared a bedroom with him. For the first time in my life I wished I was someone else.

      When the last out was made — a pop-up to Vic, fittingly enough — the team swarmed him, instead of the winning pitcher. Seconds after the catch Vic tore himself away from the guys and trotted to us, scrambled up the bleachers, and dutifully pecked Rosemary on the cheek.

      “Be right back,” he promised, hustling back to the field. His cleats left deep scars on the seats.

      True