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baseball cards
by Alex Tavares
Gary used to be my friend my best friend for quite a few years my only friend then. We used to walk down to the seven-eleven or circle-k after school buy some sour candies a slurpee or biggulp soda and baseball cards. Baseball cards. How those little placards could mean so much to us. We spent hours sorting them by team by year by brand into little laminate sleeves that snapped into binders. Christmastime our parents bought us whole Tops and Fielder's Choice sets that we weren't even allowed to open. But we shared everything in trade or gift. On our walks Fred Hutton's place was first on the way to the gas station green algae on his white house front dark curtained windows with maybe the silhouette of a person behind them. His house always made us walk faster. Then there was the beach lady tanned hide either smoking a cigarette near her pool or trying to bury the roots of plants in dry sand. The house with the bassets. The house with the japanese plums. The house with the cement filled pool. The house with always empty and still-rocking chairs. The breeze curled in and out of the palms. Dampness lined our brows half sweat and half humidity year-round. There were the sounds of yappy dogs and childrens' running giggle-gaggle inside of chain-linked lawns. Cars that we had been warned about and never notice passed us down Kings Avenue. We chewed the stale gum from our packages of baseball cards drank from our sugary drinks and passed back and forth players that we had heard of. Players that we thought looked funny. Players that we wanted to be. One day we chased a snake into the street and watched it get stuck to the road by a car. One day we cut through cow pastures and Gary took a shit behind a tree. I didn't have to. One day some older boys called us a word we didn't know yet. They called us 'faggots'. One day we broke a window with a slingshot and a bag of m&m's. Nobody ever knew. One day we lined a
train track with pennies and spray-painted words behind a church. One day we dug
trenches in the new lots and left our Joes behind to be built into houses. One
day we walked the Hutton's English bulldog and we fought over who held the
reins. One day was my birthday and Gary gave me a plane he had built from wood
and painted. One day when it rained we raced leaves down the street drain and I
don't know who won. One day we brought water guns to the k, and demanded all the
candy to be handed over. One day we both got the same mvp rookie I was given all of
the cards he had ever owned. Gary's parents emptied his room of everything he
had liked everything that he enjoyed everything that we ever played with. I was
given the majority of it stowed away in closets and the attic by my parents.
Gary's parents moved up to Kentucky. When I walk alone to the seven-eleven the
circle-k and buy a packet of cards I drop one after another on the sidewalk on
my way home. They lay in the sun losing color, in a crooked line from the store
to my house, like cheese for a mouse. |