John's public speaking schedulePublished Interviews with John
by John H. Ritter
By the time Louie and I'd reached the corner of 96th and Columbus, he was ready to turn back around and start joking with me. That's how he liked to make peace. He made jokes.
And I welcomed it, though I never said so.
"Yo, I was just wondering," he asked, thumb-tapping the side of his gear bag. "What were you gonna do if Coach hadn't pulled you off that guy? Were you gonna jump on his back and ride him like a surf board?"
"Yeah, right, Goofy Foot." I gave Louie a quick kick in the back country as he dodged away. "That's about all you New York City guys know about California. You think the whole state's full of surfers and beach babes."
"Yeah, well, that," said Louie, "and orange-colored airheads."
"Shut up," I said, whipping off my cap, fluffing my curly mop, and feeling a bit better now that we were teasing each other.
And my hair actually was a pretty good target. It was naturally curly, which was goofy enough, but last month I dyed it stop-sign red. Then the principal at my church school got all hissy and said it was disruptive. But when I tried to bleach it back to blond, it came out orange. So I left it. I mean, big deal, these days.
Anyway, as soon as the Good Shepherd Lutheran School let out in late May, I packed my glove, my cleats, and my camera and hopped on a jet plane east to stay with my dad's sister, Aunt Chrissy, and Uncle Phil, and my two cousins, Breena and Louie. They went to a private school, too, though it was ten times bigger and more ritzy than mine.
But this year we timed it so that after I finished up the first half of my baseball season back home, I got here just a few weeks before the second half of the Uptown Riverside Baseball League. That was important. To be able to play in both leagues. Because, you see, I had a plan.
Once I got my height--soon, Mom thought, now that I'd turned thirteen--I planned to bulk up and shoot for the big leagues. That's why I did a hundred push-ups a day. And that's why I didn't mind leaving my little town out east of San Diego and flying way back here to play on these bombed-out, bad-hop ballfields in Central Park. I mean, me and baseball--hey, we belonged together like peanut butter and jelly or beans and tortillas.
Besides, the way I saw it, if I could make a name for myself in Manhattan and get a good reputation going for me as a high school freshman next year in San Diego County, that would double my chances of being noticed.
Which is what I was shooting for. Making a baseball scout's report.
And Mom liked me coming here. She worked as a physical therapist for a sports doctor, and someone in her office told her it'd be a good idea if I got away for a while. That way, she and Dad could have some time alone to "try to work through some things."
Well, good luck, I figured. Dad go to counseling? I mean, he seemed so wrapped up in himself, I doubted he'd ever see anybody else's side of things.
He sure never saw mine.
Without baseball, we'd have nothing in common. At least he liked to watch the games. Especially the big games, like the playoffs and World Series. That's what was so cool about the '98 season. When our team, the San Diego Padres, went to the playoffs and beat the Astros and the Braves, and then faced the New York Yankees in the World Series, I'd never seen my dad look so alive.
Even after the Padres lost--got swept in four games--the sparkle stayed for a while. Stayed in his eyes the way all those San Diego fans stayed in the stadium and gave the Padres a twenty-minute standing ovation just for having a great season.
That's what you do in a town that loves baseball.
And that's what you see in a guy who loves the game, too.
So that was another reason, I guess, why I tried so hard in baseball. Crazy as it sounds, after I saw the effect those games had on Dad, I figured maybe if I did good in baseball, if I could really shine in some big, important games, then maybe I could put that spark back into his eyes again.
Even for twenty minutes.
"Hey, Louie," called Ali, outside his little market on Broadway. "Tell your mama, tangelos!" The dark-skinned, bald man pointed to four green and white boxes propped up on a plywood tabletop set over two rusty filing cabinets. "Fresh, ripe tangelos all this week." He polished one against his dark green apron until the fruit glistened.
"They gotta be sweet," said Louie, as he secretly nudged my arm. "Not just shiny. I can't send my mother down here for sour fruit."
Ali must've seen the nudge. "They plenty sweet," he said, then tapped his fingertips into the palm of his hand. "Sweet as the money it takes to buy them." He waved us off. "No free samples."
"Okay, okay," said Louie, as we rambled by. "I'll give her the big news." He rapped his knuckles on the make-shift fruit stand.
Two steps later we heard Ali yell, "Hey, you boys!"
We turned just in time to snag two bright orange tangelos floating our way and to catch a glimpse of Ali's smooth, bald head as he disappeared into his shop.
And stuff like that was just one reason why--contrary to what you might guess--I liked it here in the Big Apple Sauce.
See, I was from a small town. And New York City's got a real small town feel to it--I mean, if you don't look up.
They've got a corner grocery, corner drugstore, donut shop, whatever, on practically every block. You pass people on the street who get to know you, people who remember your face. There's local gossip going on, all of that.
And pretty soon you realize that people in New York really don't think that anything very important ever happens anywhere else, which is, of course, real small-town thinking.
But I liked the people, even though at first they seemed to have this automatic hatred of anyone from anyplace else. Especially California. Then I realized, it wasn't hatred. They just liked to make fun of other people. For laughs. Part of their culture. After I learned that, it didn't seem so bad.
There were people who were rude to newcomers in our little town, too. Which only proved what Uncle Phil--who's a native New Yorker--always said. "New York is just your basic small town piled higher and deeper."
But, of course, there were some big differences. Like having this hard sidewalk under my shoes all the time, instead of a powdery, dirt path.
And the noise. Screech-clanging trash trucks at the break of dawn. Jackhammers all day, music blaring all night. Not to mention the horn-honking street traffic screeching and roaring anytime at all.
And people, people, people. Everywhere you go. You're never alone. Swarms of people, all in dark, bulky clothes, looking slightly worried and very important as they scamp and scramble the streets like cattle.
On the other hand, there's tons of good stuff, too. Something's always happening. And I mean always. Sometimes Aunt Chrissy would take us out for ice cream at midnight, and you'd think it was the middle of the day. People cruising the sidewalks, having dinner, shooting hoops, playing tunes.
Streets are safe, too. I mean, if you don't do something stupid. Cops are everywhere. Walking in pairs or groups. Or in cars. Or on bikes. Which bugs us because they hassle bike riders for, like, nothing. One day I almost got a summons--that's a ticket--for riding on the sidewalk. Ten minutes later, I got one for riding on the grass! They got rules here against every little thing.
But one of the biggest differences for me was Sunday. At home, I'd just finished my Lutheran confirmation classes and I was an acolyte, which meant I had to show up early for church, put on a silky, white robe, light the candles, and set out the wine chalice and wafers if it was Communion.
Here, we didn't even go to church. It was like, once my plane touched down, my whole routine went on vacation. And I was free in ways I'd never been free before.
Most of all, I was free to play baseball and try to squeeze my scrawny self onto the Uptown Riverside All-Star team.
"So what do you wanna do tonight?" Louie asked, as we kicked plastic water bottles down Broadway, past ancient, narrow store fronts slapped one upside the other, sitting under three or four layers of dog-dreary apartments. Some days we rode our bikes to the games, sometimes we walked. Today, we'd had lots of time, so we hoofed it. "Wanna rent some videos?"
I jumped up on a blue mailbox bolted to the sidewalk, leapt off the top of it, and slapped the droopy wings of a red canopy covering the entrance to a Pakistani restaurant.
"Whatever's clever," I said, after I landed and noticed two girls staring at me. Then I added, "Tony Gwynn's supposed to have a new video out. On hitting. We oughtta get that."
"Yo," said Louie, "I was thinking more like 'Playboy Bunnies on Parade.' You know, something educational."
I spoke a little louder for the benefit of the girls. "Yeah, well, learning how to hit four hundred in the majors is educational enough for me." Then, as we crossed the street, I added, "You know, maybe we could get 'em both."
We turned down 91st to our place near Riverside Drive.
Uncle Phil was some kind of wholesale, international merchandiser or something--a glorified traveling salesman, as far as I could tell--but lately he'd been making huge commissions, cranking the big bank, so he'd moved his family into this deluxe, three-bedroom apartment up on the twelfth floor of some ancient-looking, stone-stacked building with thick shoots of ivy jungling up the wall.
It had everything you could dream of, too. From cable TV and Internet hook-ups in all the rooms to skateboards, blades, and mountain bikes in the front closet. Plus a treetop view of Riverside Park and the Hudson River beyond.
"Not bad for a former Air Force flyboy," Uncle Phil liked to say.
But he was never home, it seemed like. Or even in the country. And Aunt Chrissy was out a lot, too. That is, she was off. Constantly "going off." If she wasn't out fixing herself up, she was out fixing the world, volunteering at the thrift store for Louie and Breena's private school or at some sort of "function" for, say, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
We'd be doing something, watching BET in our room, playing twitch games on the Play Station, whatever, and she'd shoot down the dark, oak-paneled hallway heading for the door.
"I'm off," she'd say. And next time we'd see her would be around 9:00 or 10:00 at night. Which meant, of course, that we ate dinners late and, most of the time, the three of us cousins had total free run of a pretty cool place.
"Hello, Pedro," Louie said, greeting the elevator attendant, as we entered the building. "Mom home yet?"
From the elevator platform, Pedro shook his head. "Not yet. How'd you boys do today?"
"We lost," said Louie, as we jumped inside for the ride.
"We won," I corrected. "Pedro, we got robbed. I hit a home run--well, sort of--on errors. Then I slid home--you should've seen me--" I slapped my hands together. "--head first! But the umpire got blinded by the catcher or something, so he called me out."
Pedro hit the button and the door closed. "Too bad," he said. He shook his head and squinted. The elevator rose.
Pedro tilted his head like he was checking for cobwebs. That was the basic code of elevator men, Louie had explained to me. After the general greeting, it was always, don't ask, don't tell. And don't see, don't smell--in the case of boozers.
On the twelfth floor, the door opened and we stepped out. "Thanks, Pedro," we both said.
"You're welcome, boys."
Louie and I clanked down the hallway, lugging our gear. He pushed open the door and--oh, wow. I mean, I'd already been in town almost a week now, but I still couldn't get over the surprise I kept getting every time we came home.
That is, Sabrina, my other cousin. Or Breena, as everyone called her. But to me, she was Wonder Girl.
She sat lounging in an overstuffed chair, painting her toenails and talking on the phone, looking cool in short blue shorts and a tank top.
See, that was all different to me. Not her clothes. Her. She was always my "little" cousin, a few months younger than me--and a year behind me in school--but now she was almost two inches taller. And full of wonder.
This year, when I showed up, I expected to see the same skin-and-bonesy, metal-mouthed kid I'd left behind last summer. My little buddy, Breena. But, no. I came back and she'd exploded. All over the place.
Made you wonder, was all I could say.
"How was your game?" she asked, lowering the phone.
Louie shrugged. "We lost."
"We won," I said again. "The ump was blind."
Louie trudged through the room, calling over his shoulder from the hall. "Mr. Big Mouth, here, got tossed out for jumping a guy. And I had to rush in and save his life. Save him from being stomped into California duck squat. And for that, he hauls off and slugs me."
"What?" Breena closed her eyes and moaned. "Kelly, can I call you back?" She paused, holding the phone close. "No, no, that doesn't mean she wants breast implants! It could mean lots of things. Okay? Yeah, bye." She beeped the phone off, leaned forward and stared at me. Waiting.
Over the Wall is published by Philomel Books, a division of Penguin Putnam, New York.
© John H. Ritter, 2000 ISBN #0-399-23489-6.
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