Only Make Believe

The whole family joined, like a knot in the stomach, that morning: the morning of Thanksgiving.

Johnny's father watched his eldest grandson intently ready to capture a throwing arm in mid-air or to use a mighty stare to paralyze the six year old boy's movements. Johnny's mother stayed in the kitchen as the large fist of people jabbed their way into the parlor as she put her two hands to her head while looking up to the ceiling. Al, Tina's husband, tried again to extend a timid handshake to her father but once again it was ignored. Johnny reminded everyone of the high school football game.

"Yeah, that's right Al," Tom said to Johnny.

"Gees, we almost forgot about that," Gus said.

Johnny's words angered Tina and she said: "Hey, don't you have to do something for Mama? Why don't you quit haunting us?"

Johnny was about to leave the parlor but his sister Alice squeezed his arm to stay. If it hadn't been for Alice who had protected him from her siblings who believed the last born had stolen their father's love from them, Johnny might never have survived to see kindergarten. Gus reached for Alice's hand and then abruptly took it off Johnny's arm as he gave the very same look he gave her the day he said: "Why does the damn kid keep coming upstairs to our room?"

"He's my kid-brother. What's wrong with that?" she answered; sensing the impotent rage beneath his words.

"Lock him out of the room tomorrow. Hear me?" he said shaking his fist at her as he wondered to himself if the fetus inside her wasn't ten year old Johnny's creation.

The very next morning after his parents and Gus left for work, Johnny went upstairs. The door was locked but having seen it done in a movie he pushed the key out with a pencil and then pulled it out as it lay on the rug and within a few seconds he was lying beside safe Alice to sleep for about an hour before he had to go off to school. Every time Gus would find them alone he would probe both of them with questions as to what they were doing. It was times like these that Johnny wondered if Gus, who often told everyone he had single-handily beaten the Japanese navy, was really in our navy ....

"What time is the game, Guxy?" Tom asked his kid-brother Johnny.

"Game starts at ten," Johnny told him.

Leny One n, Johnny's oldest brother, asked him to rub his back but Johnny suddenly remembered he had something to do for their mother.

"I'll give you half a buck, Tom," Leny said to Johnny.

Tina yelled for her son Larry to come and do his uncle's back and took the half dollar from Leny's fist and told everyone it was going into the kid's piggy bank and Al's wink made those who saw the gesture laugh knowing Tina shared nothing with no one.

In the kitchen, Johnny was asked by his mother to go to the store for her and when he returned in ten minutes the house was quiet.

"Where is everybody?" he asked.

"You see them?" she said peering into the stove.

"They left for the game?"

"I think so," she said relieved they were all gone.

"Why didn't they wait for me?"

"I guess they forgot. I thought you were with them," she said looking for something she couldn't remember.

"Where's Papa?"

"He said he was going to his brother's for a short visit."

Johnny walked into the parlor and put the radio on as he fought back tears. He sat before the tall radio and listened to the announcers saying how the ballplayers had to change to sneakers as the ice was making their metal cleats become like ice skates. Johnny listened to all their monotone words that described the intense action between the two rivals and when the game ended, he left to go outside. He slipped on patches of ice as he caught every imaginary pass he threw to himself. Once he fell and lay in the cold for many minutes. After getting up he threw himself a high long pass that he circled for several seconds before bringing it into his arms. After catching all the passes and scoring all the touchdowns for his team, he began walking back to the place where the sumptuous meal his mother had labored for hours would be waiting. Everyone was all ready sitting. Johnny went by them; washed up and then took the empty chair his father had waiting for him. He would just eat and then go and catch more make believe footballs.

Jerry Vilhotti graduated from the only college that won the NIT and NCCA basketball tournament in the same year but more importantly than that - a Jonas Salk who helped rid some of the world of polio with his vaccine and who also was given the opportunity to contribute graduated from the same school. Jerry Vilhotti has been fortunate to have had stories published in The Dream International, Hob-Nob, Puck&Pluck, The Literary Review and many other literary magazines. He lives in the Litchfield Hills, in a simpler place in time, with a beautiful wife who treats him well (often he wonders why) and they both helped in bringing three sort of nice kids into this world who have gone off with three partners, as good, he hopes as the one he found long ago and far away - just like the song!

Email: Jerry Vilhotti

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