Read Online Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger - Free Book Online Page A

Louis who you even left fingerprints on? Paul Derringer only called you a cocksucker. Bierman cut my face with a Coke bottle while Delvecchi held me on the ground and it took three weeks to heal and I had to tell my mother I fell off my rollerskates even though I don’t have any. And all because you wouldn’t hit a home run for me. Who else was I supposed to call, my father? “Nana Bert, this is Joey. Can you ask my Dad to come over and slug Lenny Bierman?” “Joey Who, dear?” Maybe if I had a big brother like Harlan, but why do you think I’ve been writing to you?
    You know what I think you should do? What I think you should do is go to that place in Iowa and take the key to their city only instead of coming home you should lock yourself in and then lose it. And the how come is because you’re no ball player. You’re just some guy who got to dress up like a New York Giant and play in the same place as Mathewson. And Turkey Mike Donlin. And Doyle and Bridwell and McGinnity and McGraw. Almost like you deserved to be there. Well you want to know a secret, Charlie? You’re better than all of them. Only they were guys. You’re an “ass hole”. IT WAS ONLY A FUCKIN HOME RUN. YOU HIT THEM ALL THE TIME.
    Maybe I do need a lot of work. But guess what. You need a lot more. So go to Hell.
    Joey Margolis
    P.S. Don’t ever say you’re my hero. Save that for the phonies who got fooled.
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    Dear Joey,
    If your wondering how come this is over 2-½ weeks late it is because I started to write it six times and wound up crumbling it up and tossing it across the room instead from wanting to drive to Brooklyn again, this time for purposes of seperating your head from your shoulders and then throwing it into Buttermilk Channel. The only reason you are getting the dignity of a reply at all is from being on a smoker to Michigan due to a hunting trip with some of the boys, and at 75 miles an hour I figure you are pretty safe from whatever I might decide to do to you if I start getting sore all over again. Anyway, with Jordy Stuker setting up a farting contest at the other end of the car (in front of nuns), there’s already a couple of people on my list ahead of you.
    You are beginning to make a mess out of my life. I don’t know if it is an accident or if you are really one of Durocher’s boys after all, but I am going to have to ask you to knock it off. Maybe you heard our last game of the season on the radio. The four strikeouts? I have never had four strikeouts in my life. Especially off of a marshmellow like Higbe, who no matter what they say could not find bullshit in a meadow, never mind about finding the plate. Only instead of sending things out into the Harlem River which is what I usually do, I four times landed on my ass. Because of Mathewson. Who in case you haven’t guessed by now was my hero. And until you shot off your mouth I never thought about him and me working out of the same park before. And was he still keeping aneye on things from Up There? Because if he was, was he saying “Boy that Banks is something isn’t he?” or was it more like “What is that potatoe head doing on 155th Street?” Your a pretty cheap kind of sport yourself on account of making me think about such things. I even have a note stuck to my mirror that says “Charlie, do not send this Kid anymore letters.” Except all that reminds me to do is go out and buy stamps.
    Joey, either you and me are going to have to call it quits right here, or else we’re going to have to get a couple of things straight between us. And since it’s probably too late for the first one and it is pretty clear at least to me that neither of us wants that anyway, we better talk business on the second, on account of the way it looks now, I think we are stuck with each other. So here goes. And remember—you started it.
We are always square with one another. If I ever