So I did what I was told, and I put on some clean jeans and my light hoodie and took the bus over to the East Side for Willy’s game. Tough Will. Tough Will, who was known to sit down in the middle of his own soccer game, right there on the field, until his coach gave up and called in the sub. Tough Will spent most of his games sitting on the sidelines eating orange slices.
When I got there, both teams were already warming up on either end of the field. I’d played soccer before I was in high school and loved it. For Tough Will, it was another story. It was only the warm-ups and I could see him dragging his feet, not chasing anything or anyone anywhere—just standing around and waiting for someone to pass him the ball.
“Get in there, man!” I shouted. “Will! Will! Get in there, man.”
He looked over at me and waved, totally oblivious to the rest of the players and balls around him. Still, I guess I inspired him, because he turned and chased down a red-and-white ball and dribbled it a bit before taking a shot on net. It went wide left, but at least he ran after the ball.
My phone started blowing up with texts, but Regina Cambi had set up a folding chair beside a cooler, and she was waving me over, so I had to ignore the texts because I sure as hell couldn’t ignore her. She sat with a few other moms, and the dads who’d come to the game stood around in a circle a little ways behind them, under the boughs of the one large oak tree that gave this park its name. I chatted with Mrs. Cambi at first, but then the game began, and I started cheering Willy and his team on, using that as an excuse to pull away as if I wanted to walk down the sidelines and see the action more clearly, because my phone kept buzzing and buzzing in my pocket and I wanted to see what was going on.
Guzzo had texted “wassup” ten times.
SATURDAY 12:53 p.m. to Guzzo
HOWS UR HEAD?
SATURDAY 12:53 p.m. from Guzzo
FCKING AWFUL
SATURDAY 12:54 p.m. to Guzzo
BANANAS & GATORADE, MAN
SATURDAY 12:54 p.m. from Guzzo
IM PUKING WATER IF I DRINK IT
SATURDAY 12:55 p.m. to Guzzo
DAMN. U BUSTED?
SATURDAY 12:55 p.m. from Guzzo
NO
SATURDAY 12:55 p.m. to Guzzo
FCK I AM & IM NOT EVEN HUNGOVER
SATURDAY 12:57 p.m. from Guzzo
ITS A SHITSHOW HERE
SATURDAY 12:57 p.m. to Guzzo
WHA?
SATURDAY 12:58 p.m. from Guzzo
PAULS HOME. ITS A BIG DEAL
SATURDAY 12:58 p.m. to Guzzo
IS IT ABOUT YESTERDAY? AT JERRYS?
SATURDAY 12:59 p.m. from Guzzo
I DONT KNO. UM YEAH.
SATURDAY 1:00 p.m. to Guzzo
DAMN
SATURDAY 1:02 p.m. from Guzzo
I GUESS WE R HAVIN A BBQ 2MRRW
SATURDAY 1:02 p.m. to Guzzo
WHA?
SATURDAY 1:03 p.m. from Guzzo
YUP. C U THEN. TELL UR MOM TO BRING THAT MARSHMALLOW PIE
SATURDAY 1:03 p.m. to Guzzo
SHE HAS 2 WORK I THINK
SATURDAY 1:04 p.m. from Guzzo
NOPE. I ALRDY KNO SHES COMIN
I hesitated, and he wrote again.
SATURDAY 1:06 p.m. from Guzzo
EVRYBDY COMIN. GOTTA BUST. C U 2MRRW
So something had to be up, because the Galluzzo family never had people over. Or rather, they never invited people over. There were so many people coming and going from the house that it always seemed like a party. But they never “officially” organized anything. I tried him a few more times, but he didn’t text back, so I gave up. I’d see him at the BBQ anyway, because of course I’d go. I always went, and wound up wolfing down Paul’s famous burgers—but now I saw that face, Paul’s, burning, a bloodred mask of rage. He’d been so focused on kicking the shit out of that guy. I’d seen him. Had he seen me? What if he had? I’d never felt nervous around Paul, and suddenly, just thinking about him made me sweat.
As I was going through all this, I tried to watch the game, but it was slow as all hell and Will’s team was terrible. Still, Will was playing left back and he was actually running around and chasing the ball. Near the end of the first half, one of the players on the other team got around a couple guys just over midfield and seemed like he had a clean break for a shot, but Will came out of nowhere and nailed a sweet slide tackle. The parents on the other side of the field started screaming like crazy, but Will’s tackle had been legal, at least as I could see it, and that’s what the referees thought too, and so when the first half ended, Will was the momentary hero, keeping the game more respectable because his team was only down one to zero. I found him and slapped him five over the heads of a few teammates in the huddle with his coach, and then I backed off. People always felt bad for me at games because of Dad, and Ma was always working, but I liked being on my own. I liked figuring out what I had to do and doing it. No one seemed to get that, and I didn’t want to crowd Will, either, so I let him be. His coach was thrilled and put him back in for the second half.
Guzzo still didn’t text back, and I went back and forth with Dwyer a few times, but eventually, I put the phone away because it really was more fun to check out the game—and check out Will especially. This might sound dumb to some people, but it’s actually pretty cool having a little brother. I mean, he was a pain in the ass, and that I was here and not practicing over at Gooch pissed me off, but watching him smash into the guys on the other team, watching the way he shook off his own pain, made me realize that I did the same thing—twirl my fist like I was revving myself up. He had the same crooked smile. And once, when there was a pause in the action, and he was close to me on the sidelines, and he was hunched over, with his hands on his knees, he looked over at me and nodded. And I knew he was saying thank you. Not because I’d shown up to watch him, but because I had shown up to watch him he was playing harder—and he was loving it.
And after the game, I didn’t mind taking Tough Will over to Mother’s Pizza. On the bus back to the West Side, he kept asking me about the game and what his team could have done better. “Scored a goal,” I said. “That would have helped.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I know, but how?”
“Your striker. He couldn’t run. That was his problem. And when he had a shot, he hesitated. Can’t hesitate. Like you, man. You were awesome today.” I shook his shoulder and felt bad it was the only game I’d made it to all season. I wanted to be the guy who showed up, not the one who didn’t.
When we got to Mother’s it was slammed like always. Mother’s sits on a corner and the front door faces Spring Street and the to-go window faces Twentieth Street, and while I usually just hit the to-go window, especially when I swung by at night, the line was jammed inside and outside. So I stuck Willy on the end of one of the two picnic tables and went inside to see if it moved any faster. It still took awhile, and while I waited, I had to try to look everywhere else around the room except the one spot where I felt those eyes always watching me. That’s why I preferred the to-go window; I couldn’t see those eyes blazing into me. Those eyes. My eyes. My dad’s eyes—in the photo the pizza guys had up on the wall, two guys in greasy T-shirts with their arms up around my dad’s shoulders. Dad, a pillar of stone, dressed like usual in his Class A blues. The rest of the photos were of people in the pizza shop, but not the one with Dad. He’d gotten the guys to make pizzas for the soup kitchen at St. Mary’s. His photo looked down on me.