MIKE AMATO
We used to play baseball in the street between
our houses: two or three-man teams. They never
picked me first,
of course, my brother’s team included.
The road was unpaved, dirt for those of you
curious enough to want to know. This made
for a rather narrow but deep playing field. There were
wide public rights of way
on either side of the road, weed-clogged
on our side, neatly mowed and trimmed
on the neighbor’s, so we placed first
and third bases there, giving everyone
a little further to run to make a base hit
or a triple, to make such a small playing area a
little more competitive. I wasn’t a good player,
so whatever team ended up getting me did not
get me by choice necessarily. But believe it or
not, I enjoyed playing. Maybe because my
brother was so good at it, and I hoped some of
his glory, then and later, would shine on me. He
won
Most Valuable Player in 8th grade,
I think. The trophy held a most favored place on
my mother’s highboy. Some years later, she
draped a small set of blue glass worry beads —
if Catholics had such things, and if they did, if
that’s what they called them, more like a
one-decade rosary —
with a postage stamp sized medal
of the Infant of Prague at the head of it.
I always thought that designation literally meant
“infant,” because the Christ Child depicted
looked to be maybe four for five years old,
wearing a red, ermine-lined cape
and a crown that rivaled the earthly queen of
England’s. Much later I discovered,
thanks to Velásquez and some other
Spanish painters, that the word “infanta” —
rendered into English sometimes as “infant” —
roughly translated into English
as “princess,” or “prince,” depending
on the gender of the noun in Spanish.
On the other hand, I could have misremembered
all this, or just imagined it all, perhaps invented
a few facts because that’s what the poem needs
at this juncture.
*
But let’s face it: I wasn’t a ball player.
I couldn’t field worth a damn: I was always
afraid the ball would miss my mitt
and smash into my face. I was inclined
to turn away because I didn’t want to see what
was coming. I didn’t get how to throw the ball
from base to base to get runners
out. It all seemed very confusing. I did get
a hit once in a while, and ran the bases
okay, but Maris and Mantle I wasn’t.
The other guys humored me, probably because
of my brother. It was that connection that later,
in high school,
sort of shielded me from the worst of it. Coach
Tom King I think made allowances, to a degree,
for my utter ineptitude in gym class, because of
it. However, I still ended up with a pity-induced
“D” in his class.
He was as generous as he could be. I guess.
(Later, he quit teaching and became
a franchisee for a diaper service company.) So I
thought, who the hell cares? I might be
exaggerating my clumsiness somewhat,
but I don’t think so, and never quite improved
enough not to be taken for a sissy when it came
to sports. Scaredy-cat would have been more
accurate. Regardless, fear
of failure, even at something that didn’t mean a
thing to me, always seemed to follow me like a
hungry dog. Of course, you could never let on to
being bothered
by the hoots and jeers of the crowd, just express
a supercilious disdain for anyone who did care
about the things you didn’t. Sometimes you did
things you should have known better than to do
because of it. There were some things that you
couldn’t improve, that no one could have
improved, or get over. There were things that no
one on this earth could have helped you with,
like cooking breakfast. I didn’t know how
to fry two eggs at the same time in the same pan
when I started doing my own cooking,
age eleven or twelve. So I cooked one,
put it on a plate, and then cooked
the other one. The neighbor kid watched me one
time, and sort of made fun of my ineptitude in
the kitchen as well.
That was one thing that did improve as time
went by. That, and making toast.
I did know how I liked my toast.
Mike Amato is an Indianapolis-based poet and visual artist. Previous publications include University of Windsor Review, Kentucky Poetry Review, Wisconsin Review, Chiron Review, Paterson (NJ) Literary Review. He is the author of the chapbook, Love Was Made for Movie Screens. During the 1980’s, he editedand published the poetry journal, No Exit. His visual art has been exhibited in South Bend (IN), Indianapolis, New York City, and Portland, Oregon, amongothers. “I Like Staying with My Uncle Dave”is part of a longer manuscript, consisting of twenty-eight pieces, which number references a brief section inLeaves of Grass in which Whitman reflects on “twenty-eight young men.”
Author Index: Mike Amato
Twisted River Review ~ Issue 1: Winter 26/27