"Dominic! Six o'clock!"
"Yeah, Pop," Nick muttered as he curled the legs of the next
Yogi Berra into a tighter ball, pulled the quilt over his head, then burrowed
into the familiar folds of the soft mattress and feather pillow. Four hours
of sleep was not enough on the coldest morning of winter, not when the
inside of the window was covered with ice half an inch thick, and the frigid
wind off Long Island Sound was whistling through cracks in the window sills.
The bedroom door creaked open. Still Nick did not move.
"Hey, bum! Get up! Time to go to work!"
Without uncovering his head, Nick spoke to the door.
"Pop, its too cold!"
"Ha! Too cold? Was it too cold for the whores last night?"
"What the hell you talkin' about?"
"Dominic, what kind of guys come in two o-clock? Only guys out
with tramps. C'mon, get up. There's coffee on the table."
"Damn," Nick thought as the door closed, "some things
never change. If it ain't baseball he's bitchin' about, its broads."
Nick thought about his chance soon to come, minor league spring training
in Selma, Alabama, as he lay under the quilt in the dark and bitter cold
on Thursday, February 2, 1961, Groundhog Day. But thoughts were all that
he had then of baseball. Reality
was his father rousting him from bed, accusing him of getting laid the
night before. Nick regretted he hadn't been that lucky.
Nick finally moved the legs of his compact catcher's body, 180 pounds
on a 5' 10" frame, and rolled out of the bed to stand bare-assed in
front of the mirror on his dresser. Before getting dressed, despite his
chattering teeth and goose bumps all over, he switched on the light and
brushed the blond hair that made him appear to be more Austrian than Italian.
"You good-lookin' bastard, you shoulda got laid last night,"
he thought, more concerned about the pleasure he missed than his father's
crap.
Nick dressed quickly, shivering and swearing. His room was directly
over the coal bin, and the poor fit of the coal chute door let in the wind.
The floor in his room was a pretty good measure of the outside temperature.
This morning the floor felt cold enough under his legs for a pick-up game
of hockey.
Nick's legs took him to the kitchen. He rubbed his hands over the coal
stove his parents brought over when they moved from the flat on Legion
Avenue. Fire was roaring, but when Nick walked away from the heat and sat
down for coffee, he was cold again.
"Pop, when you gonna put in a furnace?"
"Hey, whattya want? Its eight below zero. Your mother and me, 24
years we live with this stove, since before you were born. Are we dead
or frozen? Hah! You got no blood in your veins."
Then Salvador Taleri, chuckling at his shivering son, walked to the
cabinet on his own strong legs, pulled out a pint of
grappa, a strong Italian brandy, poured two jiggers into a small cup
of black coffee, an Italian demitasse, and offered it to Nick.
"Drink this. You come alive."
"Hey, Pop, I gotta drive to work."
"Don't worry, Dominic. Cold day like today you drink a gallon of
grappa and you not get drunk."
Willing to try anything to strike back at the cold, Nick sipped, then
swallowed. His body uncoiled, he could feel the goose bumps on his legs
disappear, and warmth flooded the flesh that Laura Piscitelli loved to
caress and the Cleveland Indians were willing to pay good money for. Nick
decided that his father was right about the grappa.
Nick figured his father was right about most things, except baseball
and broads, baseball because he never played the game, and broads because
his crotch was out of date.
Marie Taleri came to the kitchen wearing a large red flannel robe and
a frown just as big. Some mornings she was a referee between her husband
and her son. Andrea, Nick's older sister, had told Nick that his mother
thought it would have been better for Nick and his father if Nick had been
born her firstborn, if Nick had been fifteen while they sailed across the
Atlantic, which might have helped Nick realize that working at Sargent
was more important than a silly game of summer.
Marie loved her bambino, but he would be gone again soon, running off
to Alabama to chase his dream of baseball, and she would be alone with
stubborn Salvador, and she loved him too, so it was the father's side that
she usually took when her husband argued with her son.
"Good morning, bum," she said. "Where were you until
two in the morning?"
"Over at Laura's, where you think?"
"Until two o'clock? You sure you weren't with some tramp?"
"No, Mom, honest! We were talking and having coffee. That's all.
We lost track of time."
"So where was her mother? Mrs. Piscitelli can't tell time either?"
"She was with us, Mom. Swear to God!"
"Doesn't she know you work the next day? I would have thrown you
out. What is so important you talk until two in the morning?"
Nick laughed.
"Oh, you know, Mom, married life, kids..."
"What is this? Before you talk married, Nicky, you save the money
and you give up playing the ball."
"Mom, we were just talking. We're not planning anything. Like you
said, Mom, we got no money."
"You got no money because all you care about is the ball and the
tramps you chase when you think Laura's not looking."
Nick jumped from his chair as his mother walked by, and grabbed her
for a hug, planting a kiss on her cheek.
"Mom, you don't mean what you said."
"Get out of here, its all true," she said, pushing him away,
but he noticed a smile trying to break through, so he kept at it, moving
in front of her so he could gently grab her shoulders and square off face-to-face.
"Look here, my little five-by-five Italian mama, let me tell you
a few things. First, I'm no bum. Second, Laura loves me 'cause I'm handsome
with your looks. Third, I don't go chasing tramps, they chase me. And last,
a guy can make lots of money playing ball, more than the President even."
"Oh, go away, you ugly beast," she rattled off in Italian.
"Ha! Ugly?"
Nick laughed again, and at the same time sneaked in with another kiss
on his mother's cheek. Both loved the teasing.
"So, you beast, what do you want for breakfast, eggs?"
"Yeah, that sounds good."
"Three or four?"
"Four. I'm hungry."
"God bless your appetite."
"Nick smiled as he walked to the stove and filled his cup with
coffee. Then he got serious as he waited for eggs.
"We talked about something else last night, Mom. If baseball doesn't
work out I think I'll go to college."
Salvador looked up.
"What about work?"
"I could work nights and go to school full time."
"For what you go to college?"
"I think I'd like to coach."
Salvador Taleri shook his head in disgust.
"All your life you play ball and now you say you go to school to
coach, Dominic. Always the games. What about work?"
"I think," Nick's mother said as she brought the frying pan
of eggs to the table, "that you would be a good coach."
"See, Pop, you got a smart wife."
"Eat your breakfast, Dominic."
"Sure, Pop."
They shivered and talked and laughed through the rest of breakfast as
Marie made their lunches, then Nick and his father got up at the same time
to put on their coats. Salvador wore his pea jacket. Nick wore a blue wool
and leather athletic jacket with red-and-white trim, and Sargent in white
letters on the back.
Marie was at the table for her own breakfast then. Nick walked up behind
her and slipped in another kiss on the cheek.
"What is it today with all these kisses? Are you crazy?"
"Mom! I just want to show you that I love you, especially when
you get mad."
"And what else?" she asked suspiciously.
"Nothing, Mom...except...well, we got a basketball game tonight.
Think you could have supper ready a little early?"
"Basketball, baseball, its a wonder you have time for Laura Piscitelli."
"Yeah, I know, Mom, but how about supper? Maybe about 4:30? I'll
be getting off work early."
"Okay, okay. Now go to work. Please!"
Nick laughed again, as his mother shook her head, but she was also laughing
as the men of her family left for work. The sky was clear, but the sun
was not yet high enough to reach their street.
"Dominic. The groundhog see his shadow."
"Yeah, Pop, and freeze his balls."
Wind from the sound whipped through the frame houses and narrow streets
of the neighborhood called the "hill" section of New Haven, between
downtown and the shore, where dock and factory workers lived. The wind
cut through the fabric of their jackets and pants, stinging their necks
and faces.
"Madonna!" Salvador exclaimed as he hunched his shoulders
and adjusted his gray scarf. It was one of the few times Nick had heard
his father, who was sixty-two then, complain about cold weather, but Nick
understood, because his own eyes were watering.
"Whattya say, Pop? Want a ride to work?"
He hesitated, then declined the offer.
"I'll walk. You don't have time."
"Hey, I got plenty of time. Half an hour."
His father shivered.
"Okay," he said. "One time."
Nick was surprised but said nothing. It was the only time he had ever
known his father to not walk the half a mile to work. Even during thunderstorms
he walked. The time he spent walking, he said, loosened up his muscles
and helped him get work done while the other guys were still drinking coffee.
The unheated garage that housed Nick's car did nothing more than keep
ice off the windshield, so his teeth chattered as he started the car and
waited for it to warm up. The heater did not start working well until they
were two blocks down the street.
"Pop, you gotta be crazy to work outside in this kind of weather."
"Not crazy, just tough," his father replied as he tapped his
lunch bottle, "with plenty of grappa."
Nick laughed at the tough old soldier, the man he loved but had always
fought with over baseball, the man who had used his belt to bite Nick's
lower legs when they were gathering coal on railroad tracks and Nick wasted
time throwing rocks at seagulls.
But the morning that his father accepted a ride to work, Nick was also
concerned about the instrument panel in his car. The gas gauge registered
empty, and the station where he usually bought gas was nearly a mile, the
other way, from their house.
After dropping his father off at the tile and terrazzo plant, Nick turned
from the Boulevard onto Congress. Half a block down the street he drove
into a Texaco station. A boy covered with heavy clothes and mittens ran
to the car, waving his arms.
"The pumps are frozen. No gas!"
"Whattya been doin,' waterin' it down?"
"Hey bullshit," the kid said, "its fuckin' cold."
"Yeah, I know its cold," Nick snapped, realizing there was
not another station between there and work. As he pulled out of the drive
he thought, "what a day to be running out of gas."
Nick drove his black Chevy Impala down Congress, through a neighborhood
of taverns, churches, grocery stores and pawn shops. The car was warm,
so he took off his gloves. He wasn't sure it would help to coast to the
stop signs, but he had to try something. He was hoping the cold had just
affected the instruments and he had at least a gallon of gas.
After driving past the student nurse dormitories and the College Street
Plaza, Nick held his breath as he drove up the ramp to the elevated Oak
Street Connector that would split to feed the Connecticut Turnpike. Nick
did not have to go far, just one more mountain to conquer, the bridge over
Water Street and five sets of train tracks. Get over that bridge and he
could roll, if he had to, off to the right and down the curving exit, then
one more turn and a block into the Sargent lot, and then get a ride for
a can of gas during lunch. He was almost out of trouble.
"Just a little more," he thought, but the engine sputtered
then, and coughed, and the car jerked like it was bouncing off a rubber
wall. Nick stomped on the gas pedal, trying to get every trickle of gas.
At the same time he pulled the car off to the shoulder, just where another
ramp joined the connector, less than fifty yards from the crest he needed
to reach.
"Balls!" he swore as he got out of the car and slammed the
door. "So fuckin' close!"
Nick looked around, first at the cars speeding by, then down at the
railroad tracks, and he remembered that Johnny Pacapelli, Bert's uncle,
kept pumps open all night across from the train station.
Nick kicked the tire of his car, picking up a sore toe for the effort,
and vaulted over the guard rail. Immediately his feet flipped out from
under him on the icy grass, and he rolled to the bottom, swearing with
every bounce. He had just picked up his Sargent team jacket at the cleaners
last week..
Stupidly Nick had left his gloves in the car, and his hands were burning,
from trying to stop the rolling fall, and from the bitter cold. He blew
on his hands as he walked, then rubbed them like he was scuffing up a baseball,
then he stuffed his hands under his armpits as he trotted on the legs of
the next Yogi Berra toward the station a block away. He had lost feeling
in his face and ears by the time he ran into the station, which had a wood
stove that he was tempted to hug as if it were Laura Piscitelli.
Nick was rubbing his hands and dancing near the stove when the attendant
came in from the drive. He was an old man in heavy coveralls and fur-lined
cap, and his face and hands were red. He threw money into the cash drawer,
flipped it shut and joined Nick at the stove. Nick was quiet as the old
man stood with eyes closed, tears streaking his face, sucking in warm air
to defrost his lungs. Finally Nick spoke.
"Hey, pops, what's your name?"
"Tony."
"Johnny around?"
Tony grunted. "What's that?"
"I said is Johnny around?"
"Johnny?" he asked, his eyes still closed. "Johnny's
getting coffee. Be back in five minutes so I can get the hell out of here.
You wanta wait?"
Nick didn't want to ask the old-timer, obviously cold and tired from
working all night, to go out on the drive again, so he said, "Yeah,
I'll wait." Nick figured he could stand a few more minutes at the
stove himself But the few minutes stretched into ten, the old man seemed
to be thawed out by then, and Nick was losing patience.
"Hey, Tony, now I'm gonna be late for work. I'm up on the connector,
out of gas. You got a can I can put some gas in to get it started?"
Tony nodded, but said nothing, walked into a back room, came out with
a five-quart oil can and started walking out the door toward the pumps.
"Hey!" Nick shouted. "That's not gonna be enough. I'm
on a hill. Haven't you got anything bigger?"
He stopped.
"You're shit out of luck, sonny, that's all we got."
"C'mon, a big station like this? How about that can over in the
corner? That's just what I need."
"Sorry, kid, that's for station use only. We had two more big cans
that guys took with gas and the bastards never brought 'em back. Johnny
says that can don't go nowhere."
"Hey, Tony, put the can back. I'll wait for Johnny."
The wait was short. A red pickup rolled into the drive. Johnny jumped
out and ran into the station. He put a lunch box and thermos on his desk,
then joined Nick and Tony at the stove.
"Hey, Nick, what's up?"
"I need gas, Johnny, my car's up on the connector."
"No sweat, Nick. Hey Tony, would you fill up that oil can with
gas before you go?"
"I wanted to, but he wants the big one in the bay."
"No way, Nick, that can stays here. Its the only one I got."
Nick no longer needed the stove to get warm.
"Johnny, its me, Nick Taleri, Bert's buddy, not some punk kid off
the street who wants to rob you! I need that can because I'm on a hill
and a gallon might not reach the fuel pump."
Johnny said nothing, but the look on his face told Nick that the can
was going to stay in the garage. Nick took two twenty dollar bills out
of his wallet and threw them at Johnny.
"Here's a deposit, you cheap bastard. You can buy four of those
fuckin' cans with that!"
Nick's point was made. Embarrassed by the money and Nick's anger, Johnny
quietly went to the bay, picked up the can and walked out to the pumps.
It was a heavy rectangular can, the sides reinforced with ribs, like cans
Nick had seen on the backs of jeeps when he was in the Army. Johnny put
three gallons of gas in the can, handed it to Nick and tried to return
the money.
"Keep it, Johnny," Nick said, still as hot as the stove in
the station, "I'll be back in ten fuckin' minutes."
The walk back was quicker because of his anger. He scrambled up the
slippery cold grass, climbed over the guard rail, got his gloves from the
front seat, then walked to the back of his Chevrolet and removed the gas
cap in the center, between the trunk lid and the bumper. Nick lifted the
heavy can, gripping the handle tight. As gasoline gurgled into the tank
he looked up, over his car, then turned his eyes away from the bright sun.
Harold Anderson, who had not cleared all the ice from his windshield
before leaving home, was shielding his eyes with his left hand, and he
steered his car off the Oak Street Connector, to the shoulder, because
he could not see, he would later say, he was blinded by the sun, like an
outfielder under a fly ball. Coming together with a thud that was similar
to a heavy punch and die in a press at Sargent, the two cars crushed, between
their bumpers, the legs of the next Yogi Berra.
Nick's forehead slammed against the Chevrolet "V" on the trunk,
knocking him out. Harold Anderson backed his car away and Nick collapsed,
face down, on cold concrete. He did not hear Harold cry, or the sirens,
or the frantic voices of men who worked over the body that Laura Piscitelli
loved and the Cleveland Indians were willing to pay good money for.
Nick would not remember mumbling Andrea's phone number to one of the
ambulance attendants. He would not hear his sister, who was a nurse, argue
with the doctors at Yale-New Haven Hospital about who would be doing the
surgery. Nick would not feel the hands that tried to put his crushed and
bloody legs back together while also struggling to keep him breathing.
Thursday, Friday and much of Saturday were silent for Nick, as silent
as the heavy snow that fell Friday afternoon and night, covering bloodstains
on the Oak Street Connector, the roof of an empty garage on Wilson Street,
and the baseball diamond at Beaver Pond Park, where those who knew a lot
about baseball often said it was the quick and strong legs of catcher Nicky
Taleri, as much as his good arm and eye and head for the game, that would
take him to the top. Nobody, they said, had legs like Nicky.
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