lazed under a tree, watching a guy in a sweat shirt lam out flies to four or five guys and a kid. The kid was young Danny O’Neill. For a kid he was a sweet ball player, and it was swell to watch him making cupped catches, spearing drives over his shoulder as if it didn’t take any effort, making one-handed running catches, snapping up line drives at his shoestrings. He was a perfect judge of fly balls, and he never overran the pill. They talked, deciding that Danny was cracked, but he was a damn good player. Andy said he wasn’t so good. They ragged Andy, because O’Neill was one of the few punks in the neighborhood who had beaten Andy up. Kenny halted the knife game while he mimicked Danny walking along Fifty-eighth Street, unconscious, with his goggles stuck in the box scores. They laughed, because Kenny was a scream when he took someone off like that. The knife game ended, with Andy the loser. He squawked when they hammered the burnt match deeply into the ground, and refused to pull the peg. They told him he had to, or get his pants taken off and then dropped in the lagoon at the other end of the park. Andy bent down and dug his teeth in the ground. He gnawed around, paused to squawk, and finally came up with the match and his face smeared with dirt. They kidded Andy because he was of French extraction, and Kenny punned the word French. Andy missed the pun and defended the French, and that was funny. Red Kelly said that Andy wasn’t a frog; he was a kike, and his old man ate kosher, gefilte fish and noodles. Kenny said Andy was playing a joke on them, because his old man was that sheeny fox-in-the-bush they always saw on Fifty-eighth Street. Studs asked Andy when his old man was going to wash his whiskers. Andy said his old man was the best old man in the world. Red said he couldn’t be, because he belonged to a labor union. Red said his old man was a police sergeant, and he was always saying labor unions were a disturbance of the peace, because they destroyed property. “That’s what my old man, and what High Collars always says,” Studs interrupted. Andy repeated that he had the best old man in the world. Davey said Andy meant the best noodle-soup drinker.
Andy said he’d get his big brother after them, and his big brother was tough because he had been in the ring, and fought a draw with Charlie White.
Shadows slowly spread and softened over the park, and the scene was like a grass idyll. They sat there talking. Studs watched Danny turn, run with his back to the ball, face around, and catch a fly simply and easily; it was pretty. Studs said Danny was good and that every Sunday he played with men. O’Brien said yeh, but he had a lot of splinters in his roof.
They sat. Kenny said that if Andy was to be their mascot, he’d have to be initiated.
“No! No, I won’t have no initiation,” Andy protested.
They persuaded him, saying it was an easy initiation. All he had to do was to play letter fly. He said he didn’t know nothing about no letter fly, and didn’t want to play it. They called him yellow, so he said he’d play.
They all stood around in a circle. The object was for every-one to say some word with fly at the end of it. When you couldn’t think of another word, without hesitating, you had to say letter fly. Andy asked what happened then, and Kenny said nothing. The one who said letter fly lost, that was all. But if you didn’t play letter fly, you couldn’t belong to the Fifty-eighth Street bunch.
“Spanish fly!” Kenny started off.
They laughed because Kenny would always think of some-thing like that to say.
“Shoo fly,” said Studs.
“Horse fly,” said Johnny.
“Foul fly,” said Red.
Andy was slow. They said hurry up.
“You gotta be honest. If you’re not and you cheat you can’t come around with us,” Red said.
“Big fly,” said Andy.
The game went around again. By the time it was Andy’s turn, the flies were pretty well exhausted. He stood there, his efforts to think plain on his face. They ragged him, and told him to play fair. They gave him thirty to think of some fly. He couldn’t. He said:
“Letter fly.”
“Come on, guys. Let