All three stared straight ahead. The headlights lit up the home now bathed in Christmas lights. Jerry’s dad was especially proud of his welcome mat. Step on it and Joy to the World blared in scratchy over-amplification. Jerry was careful not to ever step on it.
“What are you doing tomorrow night?” Rog asked.
“Nothing.”
“Why don’t you come over?”
“Riiiight,” Jerry said with a smirk.
Never, ever had he been invited over to an adult’s home. He was flattered and excited.
“Just come over after dinner,” Barbara said.
***
Jerry hesitated, then pushed the doorbell. Foot thuds crescendoed, the door swung open, and there was Barbara. She wore sweat pants and a thick knitted sweater. Her eyes lit up at the sight of Jerry. She collapsed like a rag doll, dropped her head and snorted several ah-HANGH’s.
“Come in, come in!” She took his forearm and pulled him in. There was a loud “thunk.” He turned toward the sound’s direction and spotted a tarnished red Coke machine in the living room.
“You’ll get used to it,” Barbara said.
She turned to a group of kids. “Hey everybody, this is our neighbor, Jerry!” Several cheerful “Hey, Jerry’s” greeted him. The faces were familiar. He passed by them everyday at school. He just never considered talking with them.
Barbara bounced onto the sofa. “I’m just finishing up grading some papers.”
Jerry found a spot on the floor.
Crosby, Stills & Nash’s Suite: Judy Blue Eyes played on the stereo. Everybody sang along with abandon. Jerry joined in, albeit softly.
He stood up and ambled down the hallway into the kitchen. They both spotted each other at the same moment, both froze, then Adam smiled.
“Cradleman entereth, stage left,” Adam said to the others standing there.
“My liege,” Jerry answered, recovering quickly, and bowed with exaggerated flair.
The others laughed. Jerry rose back up and smiled back at Adam, so relieved. “It is so good to see you,” Jerry said.
“And you, sir. Come join our provocative discourse. We’re discussing the film Women in Love.”
“Haven’t seen it. However, I highly recommend A Boy Named Charlie Brown.”
“That’s funny,” Adam said.
“I’m not kidding,” Jerry said with a straight face.
Adam considered him, then burst out laughing. They still got each other.
“So maybe you can ditch b-ball practice sometime and sneak into the city with me to grab a movie,” Adam said.
“Sure.”
“I mean if you can spare yourself from all those fascinating contributions to society.”
Jerry laughed. “I’m not hanging with them anymore.”
“Ahhh, you saw the light. Cretins aren’t your type?”
“I was kicked off the team.”
“Fuck ‘em. Congratulations.”
Jerry noticed how different this kitchen was from his, more like Adam’s. Dishes teetered in the sink; empty Coke bottles, Kraft mac and cheese boxes and Bumble Bee tuna cans spilled out of the garbage can; and dried ketchup streaked the formica counter.
He headed down into the basement. The stench of mildew hung heavy. Cinder block walls displayed swirls of DayGlo colors a la Peter Max. A cluster of kids hovered around a pinball machine alive with ringing bells. A torn sofa and several tired stuffed chairs finished off the decor. Jerry relaxed into one of the chairs.
He had found a new home, and the door was open.
***
Both Jerry and Rog relaxed on pillows in the living room. It was late, real late, in early spring. All the kids were gone, and Barbara was in bed. Rog leaned up against the wall next to the window. A candle on the coffee table flickered. The red-orange glow of his cigarette intensified as he took a drag. His eyes squinted through the smoke.
“I heard you’re on the baseball team,” said Rog in a lowered voice.
“Yeah. Captain.”
“Captain. Wow.”
“I pitch.”
“I was a catcher.”
“Really?”
“I played in college. Loved it.”
“So do I.”
“So what do you throw?”
“Fastball. Curveball. It’s really more of a slider.”
“Change up?”
“Wild. I once threw a change up over the backstop.”
Rog did a spit-take with his cigarette. Smoke spewed everywhere.
“When’s your next game?”
“Next Tuesday. It’s a home game. 3 o’clock.”
That Tuesday, 3 pm, Jerry spotted Rog’s goldenrod MGB-GT parked under a maple tree beside the field. Jerry felt something he wasn’t used to: a warmth emanated from his mid-section and spread throughout his entire body.
He pitched the best game of his life. A three-hitter which earned him a headline in the local paper.
***
Jerry pressed the doorbell. Barbara answered, ah-HANGHed and invited him in. No one else was there.
They settled onto the living room sofa. Chaucer, the dog, a beagle mix, circled around, then flopped himself onto the floor with a contented groan. Jerry pulled out a letter from his pocket. It was a rejection letter from Oberlin College, the only school he applied to. He hadn’t even bothered with safety schools.
Barbara let out a weary sigh. She slid over, enfolded him into her chest and rocked. Jerry’s eyes tightened, his throat constricted and there was that warmth again coming from his mid-section, only this time it was pushing up, through his throat, into his eyes. A tear forged a trail down his cheek.
Such a bundle of complexity opened with this enfolding, one body around another, opened a chasm out of which poured a yearning so blinding, so all-consuming…and yet, happiness, excitement…reintroducing to Jerry a world of comfort and adventure, one to look forward to each daybreak.
He could not remember ever feeling so safe.
***
Like a thief, Jerry turned the doorknob to his own front door. With his coat, he muffled the snap of the deadbolt, locking the door behind him. Stretching his leg as far as it would go, he pulled himself up by the banister, skipping over four stairs, staying close to the wall where there would be the least amount of give in the wood. The soft glow from the night-light in the hallway bathroom lit the final distance to his bedroom. Just one problem: he had to pass by his parents’ bedroom.
He was just about there when his Dad’s voice shot out, “Do you know what time it is?”
“No.”
“It’s 1:37. You were supposed to be home at 11:30.”
“Sorry.”
“Why didn’t you call?”
“I wasn’t near a phone.”
“We have church in the morning.”
“I’m not going.”
***
May 7, 1971
I push the doorbell.
Did they hear it?
Anybody home?
Do I exist?
Maybe they’re mad.
The door whooshes open
and there’s Barbara.
Her lightning blue eyes
zap mine.
Delighted to see me,
they say.
Anytime at all,
they say.
Laughter, broad grin,
Sparkling teeth, limp body.
She washes over me
like a baptism.
I stand before the gates of heaven
“Come in,” she says.
And I do.
This is my church.
I can’t wait to enter,
am sorry when I leave,
and wonder when I can return.
This is religious conversion,
born again salvation,
once I was dead and now I am found.
This is my real confirmation Sunday.
And I say, “I do.”