(The Fahey boys and I considered it unfair actually to throw and iceball at somebody, but it had been known to happen.) I started making an iceball-a perfect iceball, from perfectly white snow, perfectly spherical, and squeezed perfectly translucent so no snow remained all the way through. In the intervals between cars we reverted to the natural solitude of children. We could not have wished for more traffic. I had stepped on some earlier they squeaked. The cars’ tires laid behind them on the snowy street a complex trail of beige chunks like crenellated castle walls. We had all drifted from our houses that morning looking for action, and had found it here on Reynolds Street. My parents approved Mikey and Peter Fahey.Ĭhickie McBride was there, a tough kid, and Billy Paul and Mackie Kean too, from across Reynolds, where the boys grew up dark and furious, grew up skinny, knowing, and skilled. The oldest two Fahey boys were there-Mikey and Peter-polite blond boys who lived near me on Lloyd Street, and who already had four brothers and sisters. I was seven the boys were eight, nine, and ten. The cars traveled Reynolds Street slowly and evenly they were targets all but wrapped in red ribbons, cream puffs. We were standing up to our boot tops in snow on a front yard on trafficked Reynolds Street, waiting for cars. On one weekday morning after Christmas, six inches of new snow had just fallen.
I got in trouble throwing snowballs, and have seldom been happier since. In winter, in the snow, there was neither baseball nor football, so the boys and I threw snowballs at passing cars. Your fate, and your team’s score, depended on your concentration and courage.īoys welcomed me at baseball, too, for I had, through enthusiastic practice, what was weirdly known as a boy’s arm. If you hesitated in fear, you would miss and get hurt: you would take a hard fall while the kid got away, or you would get kicked in the face while the kid got away.īut if you flung yourself wholeheartedly at the back of his knees-if you gathered and joined body and soul and pointed them diving fearlessly-then you likely wouldn’t get hurt, and you’d stop the ball. You went out for a pass, fooling everyone.īest, you got to throw yourself mightily at someone’s running legs.Įither you brought him down or you hit the ground flat out on your chin, with your arms empty before you.
You thought up a new strategy for every play and whispered it to the others.
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