By Ed Staskus
It was hot and humid all up and down the east coast. It was hotter and more humid in Hell’s Kitchen. It was in the 90s and sluggish as an old bayou. The heat was trapping humidity in the air. It didn’t matter to Dottie Riddman. She was playing stickball in the street. That was all that mattered.
The street wasn’t West 56th, which was her street. Her father had told her to never play stickball on their own street. The fronts of buildings were ruled home runs in the game of stickball. Stan Riddman didn’t want any broken windows near where they lived. Dottie and her friends always played on West 55th or West 57th. She wasn’t about to break into a sweat about it.
A boy bigger than her teased her about it the beginning of summer, knocking her over and pushing her to the ground. “You always do everything your old man tells you to do, boobie?” he said, straddling her with his legs. From where she lay he looked like Godzilla. “You going to wear that trainer of yours the rest of your life?” he asked, looking at her boobies.
Dottie had her broom stick in her hands. She had moxie in her eyes. Looking up from the gutter she whacked him as hard as she could between his legs. When the boy’s father showed up at their apartment that night to complain that his son might never grow up to be a father, her father threw the man out, dragging him down the stairs by the collar, threatening him and his son with bodily harm if they ever laid hands on his daughter again.
“You think I’m fooling, look up my police record,” he yelled, red in the face, inches from the ashy face of the sputtering father when they were on the sidewalk. “Go back to where you came from.” He calmed down in an instant the instant he was back in the house. He jogged upstairs and sat his daughter down.
“You did the right thing Dottie,” Stan said. “If somebody says something rotten to you, be a lady about it. Be the bigger man. But if somebody pushes you, or grabs you, or hits you, you hit them back as hard as you can. You always do that. That’s so they won’t push you again.”
“OK, dad,” she said.
It was a good day for stickball. Ten kids showed up, some her age, some younger. They picked their teams. Willy, her friend from Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic School, brought a new pinky ball. It wasn’t a Pensy, either. It was the cream of the crop. It was a Spalding Hi-Bounce.
“Spaldeen!”
They drew a rectangle in chalk on the brick wall at the back of an empty lot on West 55th to represent the strike zone. The buildings on both sides were the foul lines. They chalked first base and third base onto the building walls and second base was a manhole on the sidewalk. If a batted ball hit any of the buildings across the street, it was a home run. If it hit a roof it was a home run-and-a-half. If it hit a window they ran like jackrabbits.
“There ain’t no runs-and-a-half,” a kid from Chelsea, who was visiting his cousins, sneered, shooting his mouth off.
“If you’re going to play stickball on West 55th, you better learn Hell’s Kitchen rules,” gibed Willy.
Dottie was batter up. She smacked a hot grounder, but it was caught on the first bounce, and she was out. Willy got as far as third base, but three strikes and you’re out finished their inning. By the time they came back up in the second inning they were behind by five runs. It wasn’t looking good for the home team.
“All right, all right, let’s pick it up, let’s get some roofies,” Willy yelled clapping his hands, urging his team on. “But chips on the ball. I mean it.” He meant that if his new Spaldeen was roofed, and couldn’t be found, everybody would chip in to pay for a new ball.
Hal came up to the plate, wagging his broom handle menacingly, and planted his high-top rubber soled Keds firmly in the hot squishy asphalt. They were new and felt like Saturday shoes. His batted ball hit the side wall at third base where the wall met the ground and bounced back to home plate in a high slow arc.
“It’s a Hindoo,” he shouted.
“No, that ain’t a do-over, it’s a foul ball, so it’s a strike,” shouted back Dave Carter, who everyone called Rusty because his hair was red.
“What do you know?”
“I know what I gotta know.”
“Go see where you gotta go,” Hal retorted.
“No, you stop wasting my time,” Rusty said. “It was a foul ball.”
“Ah, go play your stoopball,” Hal said, peeved.
Stoopball was throwing a pinky against the steps of a stoop, and then catching it, either on the fly or on a bounce. Catching the ball was worth 10 points. Catching a pointer on the fly was worth 100 points. A pointer was when the ball hit the edge of a step and flew back like a line drive, threatening to take your eye out. When you played stoopball, you played against yourself.
“You got a lotta skeeve wichoo,” Rusty yelled back at Hal.
“All right, already, strike one,” said Willy, exasperated.
He knew Rusty would never give in. He was a weisenheimer. He was somebody you had to keep your eyes on, too, or your Spaldeen might grow legs. It wasn’t that Rusty was a thief. He just kept his nickels in his pocket, and everything else, too. Willy had heard he was such a tightwad he still had his communion money from two years ago. Rusty had been born in Philadelphia. That was his problem. Willy sympathized, not too much, but slightly.
Hal hit a cheap on the next pitch, a slow roller, but when Rusty let his guard down, reaching down leisurely for the Spaldeen, it went between his legs, and the next instant Hal was standing at first base, smirking.
“Comeback stickball,” he shouted at Rusty. “Our game.” Eleven batters later Dottie’s team was on the plus side of the scoreboard. Rusty was beside himself. He wasn’t going to complain, but he could have spit.
The woman sitting on the stoop across the street, watching her windows, watched Dottie and her friends walk down the sidewalk when the game was over, one of them bouncing his pinky, all of them talking happily.
“We killed them, just killed them,” Willy said.
“We sure did,” Hal said.
“What a game!” Dottie said.
“Yeah, we were down, then you put some Chinese on that ball between Rusty’s legs, they got rattled, and then we score a boatload just like that, and it’s all over.”
“Did you see him, the putz, pulling that long face?” Hal asked.
“Oh, he’ll be back, no biggie, he loves playing on the street,” Dottie said.
Dottie was beyond glad her team had fought hard and won. They scrapped for every run. It was worth it. She didn’t mind losing once in a while, but she liked winning better. She stripped off her sweaty clothes, rubbed down with a cool sponge, and put on a fresh pair of shorts and a t-shirt.
She put her broom stick away in a corner beside her bedroom window. In the summer she loved her friends, no matter what team they were on, and loved playing stickball with them more than anything in the world. When it was wet and cold, and the wind was windy, the pinky and chalk and sticks all stashed away, and they were clambaking the grapevine, the talk always made its way back to playing ball. It was the way of their world.
Excerpted from the crime novel “Cross Walk.”
Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Atlantic Canada http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com.
A New Thriller by Ed Staskus
“Cross Walk“
“A once upon a crime whodunit.” Barron Cannon, Adventure Books
“Captures the vibe of mid-century NYC.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Fiction
Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CRPSFPKP
Late summer and early autumn. New York City. A Hell’s Kitchen private eye. The 1956 World Series. President Eisenhower at the opening game. A killer in the dugout.
147 Stanley Street 