Summer of ‘78, I was playing catch in the front yard with my new stepbrother. My dad remarried earlier that year and I suddenly had three stepbrothers and a stepmother.
My recently acquired sibling was a couple years younger than me. We were playing catch with a league even though he pleaded to play with a rubber ball.
It was just before dinner and my father appeared from around the corner. He was walking home from the Lake Street CTA. A cigarette was hanging from his mouth. The papers tucked under the arm of his blue sport coat, wrinkled from a long day at work.
I started showing off as he walked closer to the house. Throwing fastballs at my stepbrother who wasn’t very good at baseball. My dad was standing near his new wife’s son. The Oldman knew right away the kid was struggling and told me to take it easy with him.
That’s when I became Nolan Ryan and threw the baseball as hard as I could. It all happened for me in slow motion. The ball left my left hand and whizzed through the warm July air. Passed my new stepbrothers' baseball glove and hit him square in the face.
Blood and tears everywhere.
I was satisfied with taking down some kid that I suddenly had to share my father with. My brand new stepmomster came running out of the house, down the stoop and across the front yard.
She threw her arms around her bleeding son and called me a bully.
She was right, I was a bully. I was a twelve-year-old kid that was moving out of state that summer. Leaving my dad with his new wife and her three sons.
I had a shit ton of aggression to get out of my system before the move to Indianapolis.
My chest was pumped with pride as I replied that I was wasting my time teaching her crybaby son how to catch a baseball.
That triggered my Oldman. His briefcase hit the sidewalk. He flung his half smoked cigarette onto the street and his folded up Tribune flew up in the air. Coming apart and littering the parkway of our neighbor’s yard.
The Oldman clenched his fist and walloped me in the face. Now I had blood running down my face, but I didn’t have tears.
I tucked my mitt under my arm and walked towards the Ridgeland el stop. The same CTA stop my Oldman just came from after a long day in the Loop.
I had about seven bucks in my pocket and a few CTA tokens that I kept in my wallet. It was one of those new fancy wallets that was made with nylon and closed with velcro. I just got it for my birthday, from my dad’s new wife.
I jumped on the first el that arrived at the station. This would have been an even more adventurous story if that train was heading into Chicago, but this one was a westbound heading to the end of the Lake Street line at Harlem Avenue.
I went west towards downtown Oak Park. It was dinner time, so I walked to the diner across from the bank.
I sat down and ordered a cheeseburger and fries. The waitress noticed the blood on my shirt and secretly called Oak Park’s finest. My supper never arrived, but the police sure did.
Instead of enjoying dinner by myself, I was escorted to the back of a police car. I was back at 220 South Lombard about forty-five minutes after I walked away.
Sitting on the front porch was my dad. Smoking a cigarette and reading the tribune that blew down the street during the aftermath of my fastball incident.
“Good evening officer….”
“Good evening Mr. Shepley, he was sitting in the diner on Marion Street ordering dinner.”
“Thanks for getting him, you might need to call a mortician and Father Harris.”
The police officer laughed as he headed back to his car. You could say shit like that back in 1978. Today, my Oldman would have been placed in the back of that squad car.
I never apologized to that kid or his mother. A few days later I joined my mom in our new home that was one hundred and seventy-six miles away from that front stoop at 220 South Lombard.
I drive by the house often and the first thing I think about every time is the Oldman defending his stepson.
I’m still bitter to this day. Maybe I should have gone to a shrink, but back then we bowed our neck, lowered our shoulders and barreled through.
Almost fifty years later and this Chalkboard is my therapy.
This story is today’s flashback because yesterday, George and I had a lifetime moment that might just be George’s bad memory.
I didn’t punch him, but I threw a water bottle at him in the middle of Lincoln Avenue. Instead of the CTA, George walked over to the Metra. Riverside police snagged him up for me before the train came.
That’s all I’m going to say about that.
The point is….
…all families are dysfunctional and have bad days. You gotta have the bad days to cherish the good days. Now you know the story and I hope it helps a Chalkhead find some settlement in a moment that hurt their past.
Time is getting shorter and all we have is each other.
Today is opening day at Sox Park. I’ll be watching the ballgame on television this year.
Don’t be ashamed of things that happened in the past. Unless your team lost 121 games last year. That is something that can never be healed.
