Paul's Boutique

Johnny Ryall

There's one on every diamond, it seems.

Our mornings start with a bowl of cereal during another replay of Major League on VHS. The obligatory phone calls start rollin' in.

"You playin' today? We're goin' to Town Park at noon. Maybe Boots'll show up this time...doubt it."

I threw on my Mets-branded gear (the spandex shorts aren't just great for bike riding; they hug up my junk nice so I don't feel bunched like boxers do, and the tank top preserves my ballpark bronze) and prepared to head out. You never really know where you'll end up until someone calls you, assuming you're gonna play. Different neighborhoods have their own parks, but travelling a little ensures good competition...or at least keeps things interesting, plus it beats compromising yourself when tryin' to ball like your heroes in the parking lot of a fire hall.

And those hoods almost come with their own teams...the kids who wanna play every day, but aren't motivated enough to seek out better talent away from their home. I just wanna get away sometimes. I enjoy some variety. The pros travel a lot; why shouldn't I?

As I rolled up the Cheektowaga Town Park regulars were warming up their arms with some sideline catch and their jaws with the obvious trash talk. "Your mama" jokes. Pickin' on the fat kid who crushes the ball but can't run to first without the help of some kind of appropriate fielding miscue. Wondering sarcastically where Boots is, or why during evening games Checkers shows up late..."it's because of that girl, isn't it?"

Teams were picked and we went through a pretty straightforward inning...gettin' the kinks out and adjusting ourselves to the settings. And then it happened.

Johnny showed up.

Everyone knew Johnny. He was a few years ahead of us in school, until he stopped showin' up. Some thought he graduated, but c'mon...kid wasn't that smart. Smart enough to turn on a curveball or a freshman cheerleader, maybe, but he couldn't crack a book the way he cracked a bat and that's for sure. He was a legend...everyone knew Johnny, but none of us knew him.

And he looked like he just woke up after sleepin' on his mitt down off the park's bike path, near the creek. A big-a** wad of chew in his mouth, he spoke with the braggadocio that suggested he'd seen all of us before, and knew we were the s*** neighborhood park rats creepin' on a sunny day in his turf.

"Lookit you kids! Ain't seen rubber like that since...last night!" he laughed, assuming we were supposed to think he got laid. Most of us just chuckled with him to fit in. I have a habit of thinking too much, so I tried to work out his whole backstory in my head while making sure I didn't let a grounder roll up my arm and blacken my eye. I could either make sense, or make plays...as soon as Johnny shoved a kid out of the box, I figured it'd be best if I let my leather do the thinking.

Johnny was all-state at third base back in the day...he hit over .500, and made some schools consider moving their outfield fences out farther just so they wouldn't be liable if one of his bombs broke a satellite parking lot windshield. He was a straight bad-a** like that...but the pros never scouted our town. Maybe every locale has a Johnny, I figure. And maybe theirs doesn't get s***faced every night searching for his own style of American love, taking down the girl-next-door types we'd all be so fortunate to appreciate. F*****' Johnny...all of 'em.

He took his cracks during our warmups, and I'll be d***** if he didn't hit every pitch like they were ropes from the bat to the outfield. He waved us off, stepped back from the box, and called us his "little b******". I shifted over to hug the third base line, in case he took a little somethin' off the ball...but Johnny doesn't miss. Shot after shot came up and went down beyond our wildest 14-year-old imaginations. Clearly men feared him, women adored him, and we were just more playthings. Except me. I wanted to see him for what he was outside the confines of the lines. But as Johnny giveth, so did he decide to take away.

"I'm not playin' with you p******!" he laughed. "I'm outta here!" And before we could even process what had just happened, we went back to our game in progress as Johnny disappeared back into the woods behind the park shelter. On the bench after the game, someone had mentioned that Johnny was "god-like" and "would tear us up" if he stuck around. Yeah, sure...but I couldn't help but wonder why he wasn't.

I went home shortly after that...I was craving some dinner, home-cooked. I stopped at the convenience store for a Gatorade, and I swore I could hear the eyeballs of the guy behind me in line rolling down toward the back of his tongue as he emitted his exasperation in waiting. Sure as s***, it was Johnny...waiting to get the hell out of line and into his girlfriend of the night's pants in the park. He had two 40's and a three-pack of condoms. The JR good-time combo kit, as he called it.

"Ever seen a condom before, Goggles?" he asked me. So I wear glasses...so what? But he didn't stop there. "Saw so many limp arms out there earlier at CTP...you should all wear these on your arms when you play, because that's what you looked like after I came outta that Rapunzel-lookin' girl the other night!" His sexual prowess was nearly palpable, had I had an appetite for it. I opted for a rollerdog off the grill instead, because f*** this guy if I'm tryin' to be a better person and reinventing...myself.

When he was done hootin' and hollerin' at the poor cashier, I excused myself from the mustard pump to get cashed out for a hot dog I wasn't crazy about eating at the time. Thinkin' I was clear, I stepped over to my bike and prayed it wouldn't diminish my taste for a real meal. As much as I don't like surprises, I absolutely disdain deflating my own expectations. But nothing ever seems to works out as intentioned. Johnny snuck up on me from around the store's corner.

"You gonna finish that, Goggles? C'mon now...give your ol' friend Johnny a bite of that!"

Johnny's never been my friend...and definitely not in the food-sharing kind of way. But he's everyone's friend! So I let him have one, and he ganked all of it. Stomped off like he owned hot dogs too, all of 'em. I took a deep breath, and then it occurred to me: I have somewhere to go, and I have no pretenses about it: the food will be fresh and hot, and I won't have to crawl into the woods to get laid (if getting laid was even a thing...I have no idea).

I recomposed myself in a moment of thankfulness, and prepared to set off toward home on the ol' mountain bike. But in the back of my head on the long ride was Johnny...his voice, telling me "Don't you worry about a thing...Johnny's got your back!"

Johnny doesn't have my back. He's barely got his own. I can't be like that...not him. Not when I have me to still contemplate.

Lyrics.  

Word count: 1248.