Mel’s Marble

The bluest, speckled inner you've ever seen

Mel's raspy whoop was contagious as he pumped his knees like he was doing a rain dance. Even the boys on the sidewalk rolled over, bellies fluttering with uncontrollable giggles. Mel earned that win.

The game was everything, and this one was serious – double elimination, best marbles only. We set the lineup with inka-binka, then rock-paper-scissors, just to be doubly-sure who would go first. Each of us chose the best from our collection: maybe an aggie, a cat's eye, a zombie, a galaxy, or a troll. No steelies allowed.

The twins were out before the sun was overhead, divvying up an oriole for the winner. Then, Mel took a beating. He was tending store so we let him play a bit of slop when he had time. We all took turns being referee, whispering if a shot was legal – like a dink or a smidge. Some older boys stepped in our game, maybe tow-head’s hood brother. But Mel ran ‘em off. He was always looking out for us.

We couldn’t imagine a better way to stave off the heat of a July afternoon. Here, under the awning of the Vine Street Market our bottles of cream soda stayed cold as we played for hours. Sitting on the ground, our cuffs and collars would be spoilt. Getting a finger-wag from your mother was worth it.

The tow-head kid who lived next to the big maple was on a streak. He’d look right through you without blinking. We weren’t afraid of him, though. That boy’s shots were wild, spinning and tumbling the wrong way until the very last moment. Then, like a gunslinger he’d hold his arms in front and pretend to pull an imaginary trigger. Grabbing our chests we’d fall to the ground, laughing. Sooner or later, it was just him and Mel.

Mel brought out his best marble: a Milky Way. It had a white outer layer and the bluest, speckled inner you’d ever seen. He usually shot from a crouch, but with shadows growing long, his close-in game was better on the ground. Pretending to block the sun from his patched eye, he squinted like a sniper with the other.

Usually, he'd shoot with his left hand if he was just messing with us. But not now, not with his best marble at stake. His right arm extended out as he curled his fingers, bird meeting thumb. We held our breath as his hand twisted to find the best angle. Too much English, and the shot would spoil; too little, and he’d miss.

His flick was silent and precise, finger barely touching the glass – even the marble was surprised. Skimming over the grit, it wobbled and bounced. We rose on our elbows for a better view. Everyone inhaled the humid air, holding it. The glass galaxy weaved and tapped the edge of another marble. A ricochet! Yowza! Mel’s marble spun back toward the center and knocked the other just over the chalk.

We erupted! Mel hooted and danced around the circle on one leg as if he were our age. Reaching down, he swiped both marbles from the ground and gave ‘em a spit polish with his untucked shirt. I thought the tow-head kid was going to cry. Mel was too kind to keep both, so he handed the other marble back.

Under the awning, we all shared another soda as Mel, pleased as punch, locked up and turned out the store sign. He waved goodbye, winking with his one good eye. We heard his whistling from the next block long after he was out of sight.

* * *

They spend the morning looking at Want Ads at the diner. A shared plate of french fries between them doesn't last long but you can't beat the price of bottomless coffee.

Opposites, like sugar and salt. One, a greasy blonde, leans over the newspaper. The other meaty, a butch cut above a scatter of freckles on either side of his pig nose.

“What do you know about working at a grain elevator?” the blonde boy says. An earnest question, if rhetorical, to the other across the booth.

“‘Bout as much as you know about girls,” the other boy says. His attention is focused on the mostly empty plate, giving no mind to sounds that come from his mouth. Forgettable words might be as good a trait as any he has.

“Can’t be all that hard, right? Just need a strong back. I got that.”

A grunt. Dabbing the last of the fries, meaty fingers slide in a puddle of ketchup.

“My old man’s gonna boot me if I don’t find a job,” the rumpled newspaper twists and folds.

“He’s been saying that for a year.”

“He means it – says all my stuff is gonna be piled in the lawn by sundown.”

The pig licks the plate. He washes the ketchup down with the last of his coffee and looks around for the waitress. He thinks he’ll have another cup.

“I know where easier money is made.”

They drive, the meaty boy behind the wheel – across town, past the park. It is his idea and the Buick is his car. He never lets anyone else behind the wheel. He knows when to double-clutch the shift, when the engine will sputter with too much gas. Most of all, he’s a hot shoe at the getaway.

”Here?” the blonde says as they roll up to the curb, “No way, I live just over there.”

Behind the wheel, the meaty boy ignores the words, and the gesture to the creme house with the tall maple. Save for a patch of grass over the septic, the lawn is still dirt-empty.

From the back seat, the driver pulls a rusty meat tenderizer. It is heavy and oversized, ready-made for a butcher shop. He tests the weight leaving dimples in the heel of his hand with each thud.

“Fella’s always got a drawer full of cash and only one eye. Just get him to turn around.”

* * *

“Got ID?” Mel says, standing behind the counter.

Mel likes to keep the wide counter clear for customers, no need for all those chotchkies. That store on Main has junk everywhere, he thinks. Not his Vine Street Market; Mel keeps it button-neat. Tidy shelves with cereal and soup. His cooler is always stocked with milk and soda, even fresh fruit he gets from the orchard at the edge of town. Heck, even the hooch is well organized behind the counter. He knows his good customers appreciate cleanliness, too.

“You used to trade worms for bubble gum…long time ago,” the blonde boy at the counter says, trying to make small talk. Mel blinks his eye, watching him. Mel knows his face, probably only a few years older than the boys outside. Probably still a teen though, judging by his leftover acne.

Mel nods, he remembers, “Never needed any other kind of bait.”

The open counter lets Mel have a better look at people, like these two. Even with one eye, he can still size people up quickly. He’s seen that old, pre-war Buick around town. Before the war might have been the last time it had a tune-up, too. Mel thinks it a shame to let things go to rust.

The other one, the heavier one, wanders the store. Mel watches him pick up a box of soup and pretend to read. Probably can't read, just looks at the pictures, he thinks. Damn shame we don’t kick these kids back a grade. Or send ‘em somewhere they’d get a real education. They’d be better after some time in a third world with only a rucksack and a pocket translator. No TV, no Saturday matinee cartoons – just your wits and the kindness of a stranger.

At the counter, the blonde leans in, his voice low, commiserating, “–must’ve forgot it. Next time?”

Mel glances at the clock above the door: 11:39. Still morning and a little early for a drink. Mel gives a half-smile that makes his eye patch move, “What kind did you say?”

“Oh – the bottle of, uh, Old Raven,” the boy says, motioning to the shelves behind, shifting his weight forward, elbows on the counter, trying on nonchalance like a paper mustache.

Mel reaches a hand down below the counter, eye staying on the boy. From below he sets a bottle on the counter: Old Raven. Mel watches the boy's expression change, his jaw clenches before his tongue darts to the corner of his mouth, thinking.

“…must have been mistaken,” the blonde says, pointing to the bottles on the shelf behind Mel, “Maybe I need glasses – what’s the red label up there?”

Mel doesn’t turn, he knows his inventory, “That’s the expensive stuff. Maybe you want something else?”

From a back aisle, the meaty boy coughs, insistent. Mel studies the boy in front of him, watching him look at the shelf of liquor, lips inward, thinking, considering. The tow-head kid outside sometimes does that when he shoots marbles. But this’n doesn’t stare you down like the little one – a manner he didn’t pick up from his daddy. No, this is the gentle one he'd hear crying on his way home, hiding up in the limbs of the maple tree. This is the one who got the bruises and a cigarette burn on his temple, which he hides with his hair.

Mel slides the Old Raven below the counter and leans forward, whisper-distance, “Your friend – is he the smart one, or are you?”

The blonde boy at the counter stops fidgeting, looks at Mel’s good eye, listening, “Your daddy never gets the good stuff. But he’s a hard worker. Maybe you are, too?”

The boy’s face shifts, he senses something in Mel’s steady voice. Then, he hears the other boy walking from the back of the store. Mel lowers his eye, focusing on the boy in front of him, looking just past his eyebrows, “Tomorrow. Honest work. Stock room needs help.”

Footsteps approach behind, Mel’s hand drops, his eye doesn’t leave the boy at the counter, “Understand?” The boy nods, his blonde hair falling in his eyes.

Meaty hands pull the blonde aside, hand raised, holding the tenderizer, “Enough! Give me the cash old ma–”

A pistol, pointed at the meaty boy’s center. Mel’s hand is steady. Without a doubt, not even a one-eyed man would miss at this distance.

The boy’s eyes go wide, meaty hands shoot up, dropping the tenderizer to the floor with a bang.

Mel says a clear, single, button-neat word: “Out!”

The larger boy backs away, his moves cautious until he gets near to the door. Both boys sprint out. Mel can hear the flapping of footsteps, then a shout from the boys outside. Mel listens, ears attuned – one car door, an engine, a second door. Finally, the sound of hammers colliding under the hood of the Buick as it squeals away.

Mel slides the pistol back under the counter before making his way down an aisle. He gently pushes the box of soup neatly back into place. Tidy.

Pausing in the stillness of the shop, Mel rubs his forehead. He scratches his cheek, his throat, his Adam’s apple. He thinks he is due for a shave. Outside he can hear the boys playing, laughing. Someone missed a big shot and they’re taunting each other.

Mel lifts his eye patch touching the glass eye underneath. He gives it a poke from the side as it drops into his hand. A Milky Way – a white outer layer and the bluest, speckled inner you've ever seen.

The bell on the door chimes as he exits into the full July heat. “Is it my turn yet?” he says.

* * *

Music to read by: Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone by The Temptations

---

Backstory

I’d like to think in every town there’s a Mel – a man or woman who sees you, the real you, and gets on your level. They participate in your life, maybe in grand or small ways, without seeking accolades. Maybe you know one?

I did. His name was, in fact, Mel. Unlike the Mel in the story he didn’t own a bodega but was a retired English teacher from the local high school – my mom’s English teacher, to be specific. He befriended every kid in the neighborhood (when that wasn’t a creepy thing) and would organize games, teach us pottery, take us to movies, let us read for hours in his personal library, and often, let us eat every last slice of his Melba toast. The Mel of the story is only a shadow of the real Mel I knew but they share the same heart.

The image of an old man playing marbles with a bunch of kids showed up one day and stuck with me. Something comical, maybe a bit out of place. So I wrote the first piece, a sort-of ode to another time, but it didn’t feel complete.

There were a couple of unconnected lines in an early draft I wondered might be a thread for more:

• “Some older boys stopped to mess with us but we stood shoulder-to-shoulder when they tried to break the game.”

• “The tow-headed kid who lived near the big maple was on a streak. He took to staring everyone down right before they’d shoot.”

• “He held his left hand pretending to block the sun from his patched eye, squinting like a sniper with the other.”

Inventing the older boys felt forced at first until I found some reasoning that the bigger one was just a brute — a meat tenderizer in human form. Haven’t we all known someone like that? Maybe just me.

Finding a theme for the other, and his younger brother, only came after I had written two lines, both appear in the same graph:

The younger: “But this’n doesn’t stare you down – he got that from his daddy.”

The older: “This one got the bruises and a cigarette burn on his temple he hides with his hair.”

Weaving a story of abuse, physical or otherwise, seemed to be a good enough reason why these two acted out in their own way. It’s a pattern that, in my mind if not expressed fully, is enacted by their father and likely to handed down if left unchecked. Fathers play a big role in many of my recent (and future) stories. Our shadow, I’m learning first-hand, have a powerful reverberation through the lives of our kids.

I didn’t play marbles much as a kid but the general idea is this: knock the others out of a pre-defined area. I did some research and it turns out there’s a LOT of people who take playing (and collecting) marbles very seriously. I suppose there’s a Cat Fancy for everyone. The vernacular is real, though, perhaps not used precisely. I wanted it to seem like slang in the IYKYK way: A dink, a smidge, an aggie, etc.

And, finally, though I don’t name the timeframe it’s clearly not present day. Mentions of the Buick being built “before the war” as well as “cuffs and collars” lend it to a doo-wop era, maybe early ‘60’s. In some ways I kept thinking about the world Stephen King created in “The Body” (adapted for film by Rob Reiner/Bruce Evans/Raynold Gideon as “Stand By Me”). They share the same vintage.

Hope you enjoyed!

-j.