Alberto drifted up, hands in pockets. He quickly sussed the situation, then set himself behind Arthur to gather what dribbled or zinged through, just wanting to put his hands on the ball. Next came Lonnie, then a couple of young Spanish kids whose names nobody could stop forgetting. Mingus waved them into place, the infield turned into a mob. He kept throwing.
Marilla and La-La arrived, elbow-perched themselves on Henry’s stoop, trying not to look like they cared.
Henry himself had gone off to Aviation High School in Queens, was never around. Just a ball-game ghost, the name given a particular stoop.
In theory five catches got a kid up to bat, in practice today who knew? Mingus was writing the rules. Arthur and the little kids, they didn’t know any better. Alberto was deferential, easy. Dylan, Mingus’s conspirator, was camped in the outfield, not saying. He knew Mingus’s druggy adamancy, had seen him go into a zone, tagging, or just making some point aloud, talking in circles. He’d stay at the stoop until he threw a home run.
Arthur Lomb shot Dylan paranoid eye-bolts from within the crowd of kids jostling in the street for up-the-middle position.
Dylan if he bothered to notice was one of the older kids around Dean Street now.
He was more aware of his feet leaving the ground as he reached for another line shot, robbed another long bomb out of 213’s yard. Perfect catch numero tres.
Marilla sang, high falsetto, I used to go out to parti-i-ies, and stand around -
He’d hung in the air just as long as it took, matched the flight of the spaldeen exactly. Then came down soft, unjarred.
White boy was some kind of catching machine today.
You were flying.
’Cuz I was too nerv-uh-us, to really get down -
Arthur Lomb kicked a grounder down the street sideways and they all stood head-lolled watching him corral it.
“Yo, Mingus,” said Lonnie, falsely breezy. “I seen all of the Funk Mob visited your pops the other day.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mingus deadpanned.
“You must of seen it, Mingus, man. They had a big white limo all in the street. They looked like superheroes, man.”
“What drug you on, Lon?”
“Don’t say you don’t know what he’s talkin’ about,” said Marilla.
Dylan had heard Earl and a couple of kids mention it the day before-the limousine, the wild-costumed musicians that had poured out of it.
“I saw nothing,” said Mingus, increasingly pleased with himself, thriving on the absurdity of denying it.
“That boy’s lying,” said La-La, shaking her head.
Mingus reared, the spaldeen shot into the sky. A dark smudge wobbled to describe the pink ball’s torque against the background of sun-stained leaves.
“Take that!” taunted Mingus.
Dylan flew and found it in his hand again.
The ring and the ball in some kind of partnership of magical objects.
You between them: the beneficiary, airborne.
“Dang! My man can jump!”
Dylan flipped the ball back past gapes of astonishment in the street.
“Watch your boy D-Lone, King Arthur man. Learn a thing.”
“I’m taking notes,” said Arthur Lomb sourly.
Marilla flopped her head and rolled her eyes, resumed singing, syllables stretched in petulance, But my bod-dee-ee, yearned to be-freee -
By the time Robert Woolfolk arrived Dylan had robbed nine of Mingus’s sure home runs, was perhaps assembling a legend, some kind of miraculous stand patrolling the far sidewalk, the air above. The game had become nominal, just an elaborate contest of wills between the stoned Mingus, the flying Dylan. The others were stranded, monkeys-in-the-middle, feeding off scraps.
Marilla and La-La chose not to note Robert Woolfolk’s saunter past their place on the stoop, his bid for their eyes. Robert couldn’t bring Dean Street crumbling to attention just rounding the corner anymore, that’s what their taunting voices claimed. I got up on the flo-oo-or board, somebody can-choose-me -
Inspired, street-flippant, Dylan decided not to fear Robert Woolfolk today, not on his own block, not wearing Aaron Doily’s ring. Besides, Arthur Lomb was here, official weakest link. You could practically feel Robert measuring Arthur’s neck for a yoke, like Wile E. Coyote replacing the Roadrunner with a roast chicken in his mind’s eye.
It seemed to Dylan now that Robert Woolfolk’s argument was with Rachel. Who was gone from their lives, even if Robert Woolfolk hadn’t grasped it. That wasn’t Dylan’s problem. There were days he hardly thought of Rachel once.
Today, for one.
“Yo, Gus, man, let me see the ball for a minute,” said Robert. He tilted his head, moved his eyes sideways, checking his back. “I’ll give it back, man, you know I will.” Another kid could ask to join a ball game: Robert Woolfolk had to hustle in. His basic premise was criminal. It wasn’t something he could leave behind when it happened to be unnecessary.
Mingus cocked his head, stared at Robert Woolfolk like Robert was speaking Martian. The younger kids wandered off, half-intimidated, half-bored, never touching the ball. Arthur Lomb frowned at Dylan, his trademark glare-of-despair. He might be calling up an asthma attack any minute now.
“Aight,” said Mingus suddenly, and bounced the spaldeen to Robert Woolfolk, home run forgotten, stakes evaporated. Mingus could do that, flip like a switch. “You can find me in the outfield,” he announced. “Me and my man Dee.”
Dylan shifted to his left and Mingus joined him, two center fielders in rivalry for anything in the air. Robert’s first throw, slung underhand, knuckles nearly grazing pavement, produced a line drive at eye level which banked off the car between infield and outfield, nearly taking Arthur Lomb’s head off coming and going. Robert Woolfolk remained a source of bizarre ricochets, like a busted pinball machine left for years in the arcade and still eating your quarters.
“My mother said I have to go home, Dylan,” said Arthur Lomb glumly. The non sequitur betrayed his discomfort. Who’d said anything about mothers?
“Okay,” said Dylan, uninterested.
“All right then, I’ve got to go.” Arthur seemed to think Dylan ought to walk him home, or at least break off playing to acknowledge the fact of his departure.
“See ya.”
“Hey, King Arthur,” said Mingus, picking up the thread. “Catch you on the rebound.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Give my regards to Pacific Street, man-and your mother.”
Alberto and Robert Woolfolk busted an instantaneous gut. Mingus and Dylan deadpanned, pretended nothing was unusual. It was hilarious in a way you couldn’t pin down, Mingus essentially saying yo mama without saying it.
Mutual assured deniability.
Arthur Lomb just slumped and moved down the block, a crushed pawn.
And Marilla sang No more stand-di-ing beside the wall -
Robert wound and unwound himself again and the ball struck high on the stoop and flew the farthest yet.
Albert leaned on a car, not imagining for a moment this was his to catch. He turned to watch Dylan and Mingus jostle elbows together, preparing to leap.
I done got myself togeth-a, baby -
As he rose, Dylan saw the block complete. He nestled easily in the air, under the branches, above the cars. He was aware of Mingus beside him, rising not quite so high. The pink ball found Dylan’s left hand, his catching hand, ring hand, met palm of its own volition. Dylan simply there to keep the appointment. He had time to glance around, Marilla’s song slowed, to, geth, a, ba, by, from above Dylan saw that Robert Woolfolk had what couldn’t actually be a bald spot, but a bare place, an off-center patch of scuff or mange on the top of his head. The ball compressed in Dylan’s palm as if sighing. At the corner of Dylan’s vision Arthur Lomb sagged home along the slate. The boy can’t catch, ain’t nothin’ you can do about it. Dylan noticed La-La’s nice tits, was amazed he had the term nice tits ready the first time he’d noticed any. In truth he probably owed it to Arthur Lomb, the availability of that concept, not that he’d ever give Arthur the credit. So who needed the Solver girls, anyway? Maybe your life wasn’t bereft, your fortune robbed before it could be spent. Maybe life, sex, everything that mattered, was right here, on Dean, not gone elsewhere. At his side, Dylan felt Mingus Rude nestled slightly below him, their bodies clunking sweetly as Mingus tried to match Dylan’s leap and fell short, minus the advantage of the flying man’s ring. Mingus rising not quite so high as Dylan.