A Symphony of Crickets

This story has a companion chapter over at Lit Up.

The locker room hadn’t changed a bit. Those gray walls and low ceiling made it look like a dungeon, much smaller than I remembered. It still stank something fierce though, as if someone had buried a sweaty body under the floor. I felt sure Jay could smell it too. He sat there, as usual, chewin’ gum and rocking back and forth like he about to puke. Every single time, just before we’d huddle together to pray, he’d add another trophy beneath that nasty old bench for Good Game Gil.

And yet, I couldn’t say I was uncomfortable. Being there was a kind of second home for me, a place of peace and meditation. Here we once lived like family. Out there was a battlefield where we took no prisoners. It’s strange to admit but it felt kinda good to be back. I couldn’t tell you the last time I landed in STL. I still got some family floating around these parts, plus a few broke ass cousins that always be asking for money.

I could hear the crowd out there stomping and clapping like we were about to go put on a show. That sound of thunder is a special thing. Unforgettable. I’ve been in stadiums all over the world and none of ’em have that same sensation. They’re too big and impersonal, with too much noise coming from the PA. It’s true, you a star under those flashing lights, but don’t feel as much love when you play.

No one wants to be a scapegoat for when things go bad. Oh sure, I had my fair share of obstacles along the way. I confess I’ve never been perfect, but who is? It turned out good for me. I got what I deserved in the end. My wife Tanya asked if I wanted her and the kids to go and I said no. This was something I knew I had to do for me. That way I could return to goddamn Glenhurst, Illinois with my head held high, step out onto that podium, and let them welcome home a winner.

I’d been waiting for my personally engraved championship ring. My last team had planned a ceremony to open the season, but then management called and said I’d be receiving mine in the mail. But it was all good. That shit didn’t bother me none. A ring is a ring, no matter how it’s won.

Since I went out on top, I could finally do what I wanted. People came out of the woodwork with invitations, asking me to do this and that, to talk about life in the NBA. Most of them I directed to my agent, Phil, thinking he would know best how to make ’em go away. But this was the first one I decided to accept.

Some folks in my inner circle asked me why and I said it’s simple: this is where it all began. You could ask Jay and he might tell you otherwise, but I prefer to think of myself as a forward thinking man. It’s been like that ever since we were kids.

Dude probably don’t recall no more, but I remember the first time we met. My folks had just moved to the neighborhood. Getting out of the ghetto was a high priority back in those days, before it became fashionable to move back in. It must have been a few weeks before the start of school. They were having a yard sale.

Ma and I pulled up in our ’79 Cutlass. I’d never been to no yard sale before. I gravitated right to the toys. I couldn’t believe my own two eyes. It was like seeing the pages of the Sears Catalog come alive. But my ma wasn’t having none of that, no matter how much I begged. She was looking over all the kid’s clothes. That’s how it was in those days, unless you had hand-me-downs. Lucky me, I was the oldest.

Missus Washburn was sitting behind a fold-out table like they break in wrestling. There on top was a tin lock box with enough cash inside to buy a house. At least I thought so at the time. Ma came carrying over the bundle of clothes and they got to chattin’. That’s when I saw Jay appear behind the screen door. He was fat back then and chugging from a liter of RC Cola.

“Jason!” his mom yelled. “Don’t drink from the bottle! Where are your manners?”

He belched the word “Buick,” then shrugged and disappeared into the blue dark of the house. A minute later he showed up again and came out onto the porch. He wore these ugly ass safari shorts that didn’t match anything. His hair looked like some weird science experiment gone wrong.

We didn’t say much to each other. What was there to say? He was a stranger, just another white boy with all the cool toys and games. And my ma was haggling over baby clothes.

“Mom!” he ran over to the table where she was sitting. “I don’t want to sell that!”

“Don’t be silly, Jay. You haven’t used that old thing in years.”

“Still! I don’t want to sell it now.”

“Jay, I had asked you to put everything you didn’t want anymore in a box and — ”

“I wanna take it back.”

It was kind of embarrassing, really, like removing the front of someone’s house to see what goes on inside. His mom smiled at mine, like she was apologizing for his bad attitude. Ma smiled right back and kinda looked over her shoulder at me, as if she understood. I was a good kid, through and through.

Jay grabbed some Ghostbusters toy off one of the tables and brushed past me on his way back in the house. The screen door slammed and our moms got back to chatting and haggling.

I looked across the street at the corn field. The elementary school was just down the street. We’d gone earlier that morning to look at the paper they taped to the entrance listing all the school supplies we’d need to buy for the year. The husks had started to change color and were taller than giants.

This was all new to me. I fashioned myself a city boy, even at the age of six, and had spent my earliest days in a concrete wasteland. Don’t remember much from way back when — just flashes, really, of entire streets of boarded up homes with overgrown lawns and cracked sidewalks. There was a park by a pond that no one ever visited. From a good angle, you could sneak a peek at the Arch on the other side of the river. It shined like a spaceship that had just landed.

At night, ma would sometimes let me stay up late to watch The Tonight Show. I always loved the glitz and glamour of showbiz. Our TV was a big boxy Zenith lined with this coarse beige cloth that almost matched the shag carpet. If the image came in fuzzy, ma told me to be a doll and tap the bunny ear antenna wrapped in foil. Sometimes, I’d hear sounds that sounded like popcorn on the stove, and that’s when ma carried me off to bed and told me stories in the dark until I fell asleep.

I was barely two when ma introduced me to my future stepdad, Vince. He grew up in those parts, but his parents moved to a town near Glenhurst around the time my grandparents came to town. He met ma at the riverboat casino, where she worked as a cocktail waitress. He was a security guard there and one day built up the courage to ask her to breakfast after their shift ended. Not the most romantic of beginnings, but I suppose you gotta start somewhere.

He sometimes would babysit me when ma had to pull a double. He brought board games and Battleship and that was cool. One day, Vince came over as usual and hugged ma from behind. They kissed right in front of me and said I was gonna have a baby sister.

I don’t remember my reaction but ma told me when I was older that I made a face like a lemon and said, “Yucks!” then stormed off to my room. That ain’t fair to Charmaine, who’s beautiful.

Anyway, Vince soon moved into our small apartment and ma’s belly grew bigger. He took me to my first Cardinals game and I knew then and there that I wanted to be a baseball star. Fate’s a funny thing when you think about it. He taught me all the rules and different positions. My favorite player was Ozzie Smith, who was a shortstop. Everyone called him The Wizard. He wasn’t much of a hitter, but I loved the way he played defense. He seemed to glide and fly at the same time. When I watched him, I thought I could see magic.

We moved to the tiny village of Woodhurst about half a year after Charm was born. Ma said it was because our apartment was too small to raise a family, though I heard grumblings from their bedroom that suggested otherwise. But I didn’t know no better back then. Maybe some kids hated the idea of moving. For me, it was cool, like a big new adventure to a foreign land. Only when I got there did I realize how different it was.

Corn fields and the smell of pig shit were among my first impressions. A symphony of crickets replaced the sound of popcorn at night. Our new apartment felt huge to me, and they let me out to play around the neighborhood. I remember staying out until dusk that first night, racing home because I heard ma yell that supper was done.

Thanks for reading! This is a companion piece to Back Again.