The Feud: A Novel by Berger Thomas

Author:Berger, Thomas [Berger, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Feud
ISBN: 9781937854768
Publisher: Dzanc Books
Published: 2013-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

Tony knew that Bernice was right in her insistence that action was what the situation called for, but what should he do? Meanwhile, he continued in the state of distraction that had caused him to miss the stop sign, thereby bringing about the episode with the Millville cop.

“Hey, Tony,” someone shouted behind him. “What’s wrong with you?”

He stopped and turned. Joey Wurzel was trotting up the sidewalk.

“Jesus,” Joey said, “I was yelling my block off. You getting hard uh hearing?”

“Hi, Joey.”

Joey said, “Why didn’t you come to practice? Coach was really sore. You know every day counts now.” Joey, undersized and peppy, was manager of the football team. “He made me run over to your home on my bike. You wasn’t there. Nobody was there.” He peered at Tony in accusation.

“Oh, uh, my dad got sick.”

“Oh. Well, you shoulda told us, Tony. We only got the rest of this week to get the new plays down pat. Those Catholics’ll be tough enough as it is, let alone if we ain’t working together like a well-oiled machine.” He referred to the upcoming Friday-night game against Saint Bona-venture High School, whose team was coming from Beewix to play Hornbeck. Like all Catholic teams that included Italians or Polacks, Saint Bonaventure’s was reputed to be made up largely of dirty players, who habitually gouged eyes, kicked groins, and willfully ground faces into the earth, and the coach had devised some new tactics to give them back as good as they dealt out.

“I’ll make it up tomorrow,” said Tony.

“If we can take ‘em,” said Joey, who was wearing his usual porkpie hat with the brim pinned up in front, “and then beat the jigs two weeks later, we got a good chance for the champeenship thisheer.”

Tony nodded. “I’ll be there.” He wanted to get away.

But Joey hung on, talking football. The big disappointment of his life was that he was too small to be a player. He talked more about the games than anybody on the team. Ordinarily Tony enjoyed this, but now he was miserably bored. Sports had been his whole existence, and he saw now that his life had been misspent.

He finally got rid of Joey, but not until he was just around the corner from home.

His mother was sewing under a bridge lamp in the corner of the living room. Upstairs, in his own room, he found Jack. He had forgotten that his brother would be on hand while Bernice stayed in the house. Jack was lying flat on the bed that had been his in the past, the one nearer the window. He was reading some book, which he held with stiff arms overhead.

He lowered it now and said, “I didn’t know where you wanted the stuff I took off the bed, so I just piled it right here. I’ll help you put it away if you want.”

It was Tony’s practice to drop anything he was carrying onto the unused bed. He also was in the habit of hurling his clothes there as he took them off.

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