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Smoke on the Water

Jeff Rosen

    “Okay,” Johnny continued to Leo, holding up another of the many old multiplication flash cards to which he had taped rock star photos. “Who is this? And no helping him, Posner.”
    “Son of Sam.”
    “Come on Kraft, be serious.”
    “Jim Morrison?”
    “No, you douche, that’s Robert Plant. You aren’t even trying. And this?”
    “That’s easy. Ted Nugent.”
    “And this band?”
    “KISS.”
    “And?”
    “And they suck.”
    “And this is?”
    “Deep Purple?”
    “And they are known for?”
    “’Smoke on the Water’ and ‘Highway Star.’”
    “Nice,” Johnny said. “Okay, next-level shit. The drummers.”
    The drummers were hard, since they all looked alike, with hair bulging to the sides like Brillo pads, exactly how Leo’s hair was coming in, not at all like the long princely locks of lead singers, guitarists and now Karl.
    “And this?”
    “Umm, the guy from Yes?”
    “Nice. Bill Bruford.”
    “Look, man, you kind of have the same hair.”
    “Yeah, kind of.”
    “Now that your dad’s hair trimmer broke,” Karl said, laughing again. When Leo had refused to go for his weekly haircut, his father had purchased the same kind of hair trimmer Mr. Donaldson had once used to buzz his kids’ hair, before they became hippies and stole his car to go to Woodstock. But Karl’s brother, who had once ruined the Posners’ electric hedge trimmer so he could see Lynyrd Skynyrd and Ted Nugent at the Long Island Coliseum, had taken the hair trimmer apart, snipped some wires, put it all back together again and handed it back to Leo, saying, “Problem solved.”
    “By the way,” Johnny said, putting the flash cards away, “I’m having an early graduation party this weekend. My parents want you two to come.”
    “Who else is going?”
    “My whole family. My aunts and uncles love suburbia. To them, Spring Valley is like the Grand Canyon or something.”
    That Saturday they picked up Karl, and Leo’s mother drove them at her usual, maddeningly slow pace over to Dexter Park, where Johnny lived. Unlike Leo’s neighborhood, where there were three different boxy house types, arranged in a pattern over a few blocks, all plopped down close to the street behind a single tree or two, the houses in Dexter Park were all different long-angled rectangles, perched on hills, hidden by trees. When they got to Johnny’s, city cars with unpainted doors and missing bumpers lined the street in front of his house.
    Karl opened the back door and got out, thanking Leo’s mom. As Leo started to leave the car, his mom grabbed his hand. “I thought you said you and Karl were the only kids invited.”
    “And his family.”
    “He must have a lot of family.”
    Knowing there was a chance she wouldn’t let him out of the car, he said, “It’s like it used to be when we went to Uncle Jack’s,” making a reference to a time before Applegate Farms to distract her. He slipped out of the car before she could stop him. “Thanks, Mom!” he yelled after the car as it drove off.
    They walked up the long, steep driveway. The garage had a big floodlight above it, with a large flat area in front, the lawn surrounding that, and then a low, scalable fence a perfect distance away. “Man, this is the perfect wiffle ball field.”
    “I should get my dad to put lights up above our garage.” Karl said.
    “Ugh, lame,” Leo said. “Isn’t that K.C. and the Sunshine Band?” He didn’t need a flashcard to tell him how bad they, and all disco, were.
    “Hey, long time no see,” Johnny said, emerging from behind the house.
    “Leo was just saying you have the perfect wiffle ball field.”
    “I know. I play here with my little brothers all the time.” They followed Johnny into the backyard. “Everyone, my friends are here!” Johnny shouted over the music that came from the biggest tape player Leo had ever seen, which Johnny had once admitted they called Andre the Giant.
    People came over to meet Leo and Karl, and Karl who was good in situations like this kept saying “nice to meet you” to this aunt and that uncle and those cousins. Then, like they were meeting the queen, Johnny wheeled his grandmother over to them. She smiled at them and said, “Tan lindo! Un Pelirrojo.”
    “She likes your hair,” Johnny said.
    “Old ladies always do,” Leo said, and Karl gave him a look. “What? People in wheelchairs freak me out,” he said, thinking of his Nana after the hospital.
    “That’s okay, she can’t understand you,” a burly guy said from behind them. “Doesn’t speak a word of English.” He stuck his stone-strong hand out so they could shake it. He had a tiny little ponytail, the kind a professor would wear, and a goatee. He wore shorts and a Cerveza tank top that showed off his soda-can-sized muscles, which hadn’t gone old-man slack yet. “I’m Hector. Johnny’s uncle.”
    “He’s the one who lives in the garage.”
    “I leave my stuff in the garage. But they let me live in the house. Which one of you is the world’s greatest wiffle ball player?” Johnny and Karl both pointed at Leo. “Let me get my bat.”
    “Let the boys eat first,” Johnny’s grandmother said. She stood up and took a few shaky steps towards Karl, who put out his arm to steady her. “Such manners. Let’s fix you both a plate.”
    Hector tapped Leo on the shoulder. “I get white people to say the dumbest shit around my mother.” Leo didn’t know what to say. “Get your revenge on the wiffle ball field.”
    After filling their plates, Johnny, Karl and Leo sat on lawn chairs around a little table.
    “You just got a cheeseburger?” Karl asked. His own plate had all these strange foods on it.
    “And potato salad. I think.”
    Two little boys, who looked like nesting doll versions of Johnny, shook up a can of RC Cola. “Uncle Hector!” the bigger one called out. “Would you like a Coke?”
    “Thank you,” he said. “But I’m not very good at opening cans. Can either of you open it for me?” Both boys shook their heads. “Okay, let me find your Poppy. He’s really good at it.” Before he could take a step, the bigger boy snatched the can from Hector and took off. “Yeah, try me!” Hector called out after him.
    Willy returned with a wiffle ball bat and three brand-new wiffle balls in a box. “The boys got me those for graduation,” Johnny said. “With their own money.”
    “Look, it shows you how to make it curve, right on the box,” Willy said.
    “It does,” Leo said. “It’s a good way to get started.”
    Hector came up behind Willy and gently took the bat from him. “Game on,” he said, as Karl scooped up the plates to throw them in the big trash can.
    Johnny took one of the wiffle balls out of the box and showed his little brothers how to throw a curve. Leo knew that big brothers generally didn’t treat their little brothers well. Karl’s brother, who had taught him to throw a wiffle ball, never called them anything other than dipshits, jerkwads or little turds.
    As they made their way out of the yard, Johnny tossed Leo a ball and Hector stepped up to the plate. Leo felt best with a new wiffle ball in his hand. An old, scuffed ball might dance even more, but it was less predictable. Hector stepped up, right-handed, crouching casually, maybe a 2^nd baseman’s stance. Everyone else came out of the yard to watch, Johnny’s cousin wheeling out their grandmother. “Okay, Pelirrojo!” she yelled.
    The cement slab between a two-car garage was the perfect width for a strike zone. “You want to mark it?” Leo yelled out.
    “Anything in the concrete is a strike,” Hector said. “Unless it’s not.”
    Leo started Hector with the big curve, the one described on the box, but with his special touch so that it broke late and dropped down. Hector ducked out of the way and it hit the middle of the strike zone with the resounding thwack of fresh plastic on smooth concrete. “OOOh!” yelled Johnny’s family, as the ball rolled back to Leo. Hector modified his capable looking stance, shifting back in preparation for another curve, so Leo went sinker and the ball came in near Hector’s eyes and then dropped as if rolling off a table as Hector swung late, over it by four feet. Johnny’s family exploded. “Two strikes,” Leo said, getting that revenge.
    Hector wagged his bat at Leo. He seemed like the rare person who could be truly annoyed and competitive, yet appreciative of being beat at the same time, even with his family watching. He was set up for the screwball now; and with a fresh, responsive ball in hand, Leo snapped off a beauty, starting outside by five feet, then arcing like a swooping seagull, back into the outer half of the plate where Hector couldn’t have reached it even if he had swung. Hector tossed his bat aside, bowed and made his way towards his jeering family. They applauded as if they had just witnessed a street magician’s finale.
    “Poppy?” Johnny said, offering the bat to his father. Johnny’s father stepped up, wearing brown loafers, long pants and a Hawaiian shirt. He ran his hand through his detailed haircut.
    Leo wasn’t as eager to strike out Johnny’s father as he had been Hector, because he looked so serious and he had heard how strict he was. But still he went to the side-armed riser, his least hittable pitch, and Johnny’s father saw it coming up out of the ground, but it rose like smoke and he had no idea when it would stop rising, swinging well below it and nearly falling over. “He is the devil!” Johnny’s grandmother shouted. Johnny’s brothers fell down laughing.
    Mr. Rodriguez placed the bat down on the ground and walked away. The family applauded, and then as if movie credits had begun to roll, they headed back to the backyard. Leo heard the Jackson 5 coming out of Andre.
    “I’m on his team,” Willy yelled, walking over to Leo.

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