That winter Laura took an audacious political step. Instead of just running for junior class president, she entered the campaign for treasurer, the third-highest office in the entire school.
‘Castellano, you’re really nuts. When the word gets out that a sophomore is running for treasurer, you’ll be the laughingstock of Midwood.’
Laura smiled. ‘Fine. They may laugh but at least they’ll be talking and that’s good publicity.’
‘God,’ exclaimed Barney with undisguised admiration, ‘you really play guts ball, don’t you!’
‘Look, Barn, my dad always says, “Si quieres ser dichoso, no estés nunca ocioso.”’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning, “Life is a guts ball game.”’
During an intense practice scrimmage a week before the crucial game against Midwood’s archenemy Madison High, Jay Axelrod tripped and fell, badly spraining his ankle. The doctor said it would be ten days before he could even don his sneakers. The next afternoon as Barney was toweling himself at the end of practice, Doug Nordlinger walked by and remarked casually, ‘You’ll be starting tomorrow night, Livingston.’
Starting! Unbelievable! Too much!
He could not wait to get home.
‘You’ve gotta come, Dad,’ he pleaded over dinner. ‘I mean, it’s a Friday night and you don’t have to teach the next day. And this is probably the biggest honor I’ll ever have in my life.’
‘I doubt that.’ Harold smiled indulgently. ‘But I can understand why you’re so excited.’
‘You’ll come, won’t you, Dad?’ Barney asked again.
‘Of course,’ said Harold, ‘I haven’t seen a basketball game in years.’
That Friday, Barney went through his round of classes like a zombie, thinking only of how many minutes were left till seven o’clock.
After school, he went to the empty gym and tossed foul shots for half an hour, then went to George’s to fortify himself with a ninety-five-cent steak sandwich and a cherry Coke.
By six, when the other players were arriving in the locker room, he was already suited up, sitting on a bench, his arms on his knees, trying vainly to convince himself that he was cool.
‘Hey, Livingston,’ he heard a nasal voice call. ‘I’ve got great news – Axelrod’s leg is all better, so you won’t be starting tonight after all.’
Barney’s head jerked up as if jolted by electricity. It was that oversized moron, Sandy Leavitt, an idiotic grin on his face.
‘Ha, Livingston, got you, didn’t I?’
‘Fuck you, Leavitt,’ Barney snapped nervously.
Madison was first to take the floor to the clamorous cheering of supporters who had trekked two miles up the road for the traditional Battle of Bedford Avenue. A moment later, Jay Axelrod (in uniform, but on crutches) led the Midwood squad on court as the rafters vibrated, the cheerleaders gyrated, and Barney’s heart palpitated.
They quickly began their warm-up routine. As Barney snagged a rebound and dribbled out to try a set shot, he glanced toward the packed stands. His dad had not arrived yet.
The practice continued. It was now almost game time. Barney again sneaked a look at the spectators. Laura was there, with Warren next to her. Thank God. But Dad – where were Mom and Dad?
The buzzer sounded. Both teams returned to their respective benches. Only the starters remained standing as they peeled off their sweats. Barney’s fingers fumbled as he unsnapped his jacket.
As the first-string quintets took their positions on court, the loudspeaker droned out their identities.
‘… and Number Ten, Livingston.’
He took another glance – just Warren and Laura. His folks were still not there.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for “The Star-Spangled Banner” …’
As Barney placed his right hand in patriotic salute upon the left side of his chest, he could feel his heart racing.
‘Play ball!’
The ref’s shrill whistle reawakened the athlete in him. Barney instantly latched onto the Madison guard dribbling cockily toward him. In a split second, he rushed forward, stole the ball, and raced downcourt like a rocket.
He was all alone when he reached their basket. Breathe, Livingston, he reminded himself, stay loose and lay it up carefully. He waited another instant and then … basket!
He felt almost dizzy with ecstasy.
Midwood was leading by three baskets when Madison called for a time-out. As both teams huddled around their coaches, Barney again looked at the stands. Just Laura and Warren, still!
Had they maybe been in an accident? No, Dad didn’t drive. Besides, Warren was there. During the halftime break, they retired to the dressing room and sucked sliced oranges. Barney, his uniform heavy with sweat, slumped on the floor against a locker. Forty minutes later, when the game ended with Midwood a six-point victor – Barney had scored thirteen. Instead of following the rest of the guys to the lockers, he walked slowly over to Laura and Warren.
Laura spoke first. ‘Papa wouldn’t let him come.’
‘Huh?’
‘Right after dinner Dad felt some sort of pain in his chest,’ Warren explained, ‘and Dr Castellano came and examined him.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Papa thinks it was probably just something he ate,’ Laura quickly added. ‘But he made him go to bed to be on the safe side.’ And then she tried to change the subject. ‘You were fantastic out there, Barn. I bet you get your picture in the Argus.’
And Warren added, ‘I’ll remember every single terrific thing you did for the rest of my life.’
‘Yeah, good,’ said Barney absently, and started toward the showers.
The next morning Luis drove a reluctant Harold Livingston to King’s County for an electrocardiogram. His neighbor had agreed to go only on condition that Estelle not accompany them. (‘You’re already upset over nothing, honey.’)
Later, as he smoked nervously, Harold could overhear Luis discussing the results with the cardiologist, mumbling about P-waves and Q-waves.
Finally, Luis came over and helped Harold to the car.
‘Well,’ Harold asked, trying to mask his anxiety, ‘wasn’t it just indigestion? I seem to be prone to that after all those years on Army food.’
Luis did not reply for a moment. Then he remarked, ‘Harold, the test showed you had some cardiac arrhythmia. That means—’
‘I know Greek, Luis. Some sort of irregularity of tempo. Is it anything serious?’
‘Well, yes and no. It can be an isolated physiological event that means nothing. Or it can be a warning signal of some underlying pathological process.’
‘That’s just a grandiloquent way of saying you don’t know.’
‘Okay, Harold, I don’t know. But since you don’t know either, I suggest you start taking better care of yourself and having regular checkups. You can begin by cutting down on the cigarettes.’
‘They relax me.’
‘You only think they do, my friend. Nicotine is a truly poisonous alkaloid and it is actually a stimulant. I can assure you that it would do you no harm to smoke less.’
As the car approached Lincoln Place, Harold asked, ‘What are you going to say to Estelle?’
‘Don’t you think I should tell her the truth?’
‘You’ve already admitted you don’t know for sure.’
‘May I at least tell her that?’
‘Feel free, Luis,’ Harold answered good-humoredly, ‘broadcast the inadequacies of your profession all over Brooklyn.’
But the moment Luis parked his car, Harold turned to him and said firmly, ‘But there’s no reason to trouble the children about this.’
‘I agree, Harold. They should not be given additional burdens when they are busy enough just trying to grow up. But I want you to worry and remember what I told you.’
Barney tried to broach the subject casually.
As they were riding the trolley on Monday morning, he looked up from his Chem book and asked matte
r-of-factly (in a casual tone he had much rehearsed), ‘Are you “going all the way” with Jay Axelrod?’
‘None of your business,’ Laura retorted.
‘That means you are.’
‘No, it just means it’s none of your business. How come you’re asking, anyway?’
‘Well,’ he replied sheepishly, ‘some of the guys on the team—’
‘The basketball team? The closest those horny nerds have gotten to a naked woman is the statues in the Brooklyn Museum, which I’m sure they’d like to feel up.’
‘Yeah.’ Barney laughed. ‘They do exaggerate, sometimes, don’t they?’
‘Not just “they,” Livingston. I hear you’ve been going around school claiming you’ve scored with three cheerleaders. Is that true?’
‘Absolutely, Castellano, absolutely true.’
‘You mean you’ve actually done it?’
‘No, but I admit I’ve boasted about it.’
In truth, Barney had been making steady progress in his quest for ultimate sexual fulfillment. On his second date with Mandy Sherman she had permitted a goodnight kiss. On the third, as they were necking in the back row of the Savoy Theater, she had sanctioned a hand under her sweater.
Omigod, thought Barney, both excited and a little apprehensive, this is gonna be it. I’ve gotta be prepared next time.
But how? He just couldn’t walk into Mr Lownstein’s drugstore on Nostrand Avenue and ask for a ‘Trojan.’ The druggist would probably tell his parents, or worse, make fun of him. No, he would have to do it more discreetly – and in foreign territory.
Thus, one Saturday afternoon when he and Warren had traveled to downtown Brooklyn to catch the movie and stage show at the Fabian Fox, he looked around for a suitably large and impersonal pharmacy. Warren was puzzled as his brother stalked up and down Fulton Street for no apparent reason. But he did not dare question anything his hero did.
Just as they reached a large glass door, Barney stopped.
‘Oh, shit!’
‘What’s the matter, Barn?’
‘What a dope I am, I’m wearing my basketball jacket.’
‘I don’t get it. So what?’
‘So this,’ Barney replied with nervous agitation, pointing to the left side of his chest where his first name was embroidered in blue script on the white satin. ‘It’s a dead giveaway. They’ll know who I am and where I’m from. Maybe you better do it.’
‘Do what, do what?’
Barney led his brother to a place on the sidewalk where they could not be overheard. ‘Listen, Warren, I want you to do something for me, something very, very important.’
He then gave him explicit directions as to what to look for and, if it was not displayed, how to ask for it. He handed him a five-dollar bill, which was slightly moist from being clutched in his fist.
‘But, Barney,’ Warren protested, ‘I’m only twelve. They’d never let me buy a thing like that.’
‘Hey, look, this is downtown. Thousands of people come in and out of that place every day. They’ll probably think you’re a midget. Now just go and do it.’
As his little brother grudgingly entered the pharmacy, Barney paced back and forth nervously, praying that none of his parents’ friends, who often shopped on Saturday afternoons at the nearby A&S Department Store, would catch him in flagrante delicto. After a few minutes, Warren emerged, carrying a small white paper bag.
‘What the hell took so long?’ Barney demanded irritably.
‘Heck, Barn, they asked me all kinds of stuff like if I wanted lubricated or unlubricated. I couldn’t figure out what to do.’
‘So, what finally happened?’
‘Since I didn’t know, I got a pack of each.’
‘Great thinking,’ Barney uttered with a sigh of relief, and put his arm around his younger brother. ‘I’m proud of you, kiddo.’
By now Laura was looked upon as such a paragon that many of the older co-eds would seek her advice on matters ranging from makeup to boyfriends to how to handle difficult parents. But Laura did not enjoy this role. She did not really want to soothe, advise, and console other troubled girls.
For how could she be a parent without ever having known the luxury of being a child?
That summer the Livingstons and the Castellanos again rented at the beach. But only Warren went with them.
Luis had arranged for his daughter to be a nurses’ aide at the hospital – to expose her to the harsh realities of the medical profession.
During the week, she and Luis commuted together from the house on Lincoln Place, and late on Friday afternoons they joined the stream of sweltering cars inching out of the suffocating city toward the resuscitating breezes of the seashore.
The moment they arrived, Laura would change into a bathing suit and dash into the waves in an attempt to cleanse herself of all the pain and suffering she had had to confront during the previous five days.
Meanwhile, Barney was off in the Adirondack Mountains, working as a counselor at Doug Nordlinger’s Camp Hiawatha – the enterprise that provided the real butter for the coach’s pedagogical bread.
It was also a unique opportunity for Doug to keep his best players together. Their pay was a meager $75 for the summer – plus any tips they could charm from the campers’ parents. (‘If one of your kids tells his parents he’s having a good time, his father could easily lay a C-note in your hand.’)
Barney’s cabin consisted of an octet of nine-year-olds, seven of them normal, aggressive boys. The eighth was a painfully introverted kid named Marvin Amsterdam who, because he sometimes wet his bed, was kicked around like a football by his bunkmates.
Marvin was an only child who, when his parents divorced, endured the humiliation of overhearing that neither wanted to have custody of him. He was packed off to boarding school and only got to visit his mother or father during the long Christmas and Easter breaks. Almost the moment school ended, Marvin was again exiled, this time to Camp Hiawatha, where he increasingly dreamed of becoming invisible so the other kids could not see him.
To make matters worse, he was hopeless in every sport. At camp he was always the last chosen and at school he was simply left out.
Barney talked with Jay Axelrod about Marvin’s problems as they were having beers one evening in the camp HQ.
‘Can’t we do something to help the kid?’ Barney inquired.
‘Hey, look, old pal,’ Jay responded, ‘I’m head counselor, not head doctor. I’d really advise you not to get too involved with that kid, Barn. He’s doomed to be a weenie for the rest of his life.’
Barney walked back toward his bunk through the chirping of crickets and the glittering of fireflies and thought, Jay’s probably right, Marvin needs professional help. But I still wish there was something I could do for him.
Clearly, he told himself, the boy would never be a basketball player, and anyway that was not something he could learn in just a month and a half. But how about tennis? At least that would make him feel less ignored.
Thereafter, in the late afternoon period designated as ‘Free Play’ for the campers (and unofficial practice sessions for the Midwood hoopsters), Barney took young Marvin Amsterdam and began to school him in the art of racket and ball.
At first astonished, then overwhelmed with gratitude, Marvin tried as hard as he could to live up to the attention suddenly being given him by this new heroic figure in his life. After two weeks he was rallying pretty decently. And by the final days of summer, Marvin Amsterdam was actually beating one or two of the guys in his group.
Barney wrote to Laura, ‘The coach is pretty ticked off that I’m cutting practice to work with this kid. But I think helping Marvin gain a little confidence has given me more satisfaction than anything I’ve ever done.’
But Mr Nordlinger was not the only one ticked off at Barney’s disproportionate concentration on a single camper. During Parents’ Weekend, the other bunkmates told their visiting families that their counselor played favorites. As a result, Barney
received a mere forty dollars in tips.
And after he had had a heart-to-heart talk with Marvin’s mother and father (making a unique dual appearance), suggesting diplomatically that their son was in genuine need of professional counseling, for the first time in years, the two agreed on something; namely, that Barney had a lot of nerve telling them how to raise their child.
It had not been the most glorious of summers. In fact, Barney could only console himself that he had found enough time to read Freud’s Interpretation of dreams. As he wrote to Laura, it had evoked in him a feeling he could only liken to ‘opening a door hidden behind a Dali painting and finding a new world: The Unconscious.’
Otherwise, the only moderately bright spot for Barney had been Laura’s weekly letters. And even mail call was a bit disappointing, since there was always a letter on the same stationery for Jay Axelrod.
Barney was not unhappy when the last day came and he stepped out of the Greyhound bus outside Grand Central Station. Most of his charges rushed to the welcoming arms of their parents.
But there was only a temporary nanny to meet Marvin Amsterdam – who was in no hurry to go off with her. The little boy thought desperately of things to discuss with Barney to avoid the wrench of separation. Barney was patient.
‘Now don’t lose my address, old buddy. I promise I’ll answer every letter.’
They were shaking hands and Marvin would not let go.
Finally the impatient nanny pried her young charge away. And Barney watched sadly as the boy went off in a chauffeured limousine.
Screw the forty dollars, he thought to himself. It was worth it just to feel that kid’s hand.
Relieved that he at last had parted company with Camp Hiawatha, Barney was disheartened to find Jay Axelrod sitting on the porch with Laura when he arrived.
‘I guess you two must really be getting serious,’ Barney remarked the day after Jay left for Freshman Week at Cornell.
‘Yeah, maybe. He sort of wanted to get pinned.’ She somewhat sheepishly showed him her beau’s fraternity pin, which she had been clutching in her hand.
‘Wow – congratulations – “engaged to be engaged.” You two must be in love huh?’