Pitfall Read Free Page A

light this time of day.
    “In service day,” he explained. “All us kids got off.”
    “I used to love in service days.”
    He watched the spokes of his front wheel as we walked. The cardboard, New York Giants trading card he’d inserted there chattered like a machine gun. “I was wonderin’ when we’re gonna run those new plays you were talkin’ about.”
    “I was thinking about introducing those at practice next week. The city has that open area at Park and B streets reserved for us.”
    He pulled a face. “I wish we could run them at the school field.”
    “The high school team gets first dibs on that, Mark. You know that.”
    He pulled a face. “Yeah, and it sucks.”
    I couldn’t argue with him. Many times they don’t let us use the field even when it’s available, but I don’t tell the kids that. By then we’d reached the front sidewalk. “Remind the guys, Sunday, three o’clock. And be on time.” I lowered my voice to a conspiratorial mutter. “I’ve got a quarterback sneak play up my sleeve we used on my college team. It’ll catch those Highland momma’s boys flatfooted next Saturday.”
    “Yeah!” Excitement filled his blue eyes, and Mark flashed a grin from ear to ear as he climbed on his bike. “Well, see ya, coach!” A moment later he and his machine were fading away fast down the street, his legs pumping like pistons.
    Once inside the building I climbed the stairwell to the second floor, and down the hall to 3-B, my place, to grab a shave. Slipping the key into the lock, I wrestled with it a moment before the tumblers clicked. As I did I heard the most ungodly screeching erupt from inside the room, followed by high-pitched alien sounds of a loud wolf whistle, ending with, “Hey, baby! Hot stuff!”
    Opening the door I found the source of all that noise: Smedley, my eight-year-old, green-tailed, one-eyed parrot. He’s a good pet, relatively clean, even-tempered, and he takes peanuts from my hand without biting. His only fault is his upbringing.
    Being reared by his original owner, a Cincinnati saloon keeper who served a twenty-year hitch in the Navy, may have its good points, but a clean vocabulary isn’t one of them. As a kid I’d always thought it would be a hoot to have a parrot that could curse with the best of them, but Smedley’s incessant filthy mouth and raucous comments had embarrassed me more than once. It wouldn’t be so bad if what he spouts has anything to do with the moment at hand. It doesn’t, of course. They came up with the word “birdbrain” for a reason.
    “Have you been good today?” I asked him. He simply cocked his head in reply, showing me the black cotton eye patch I’ve slapped on him. Don’t snicker. I wasn’t trying for a pirate look (much); it’s just that the injury from another bird that took his eye before I got him was so stinking ugly.
    Smedley’s vet is the one who made the suggestion of keeping the socket covered, for appearances sake if for nothing else. He’d said that after a while he’d leave it alone. He has. The fact he ended up looking like Long John Silver’s boon companion is something we’ve both had to deal with. If I could just get him to sing buccaneer ditties, we’d be golden. I have drawn the line at sawing off his leg, though.
    After lathering my face with Gillette’s best and waiting while warming up the safety razor under hot water, I scrutinized myself objectively in the bathroom mirror. It’s never a good experience. My late wife Megan had always said I was “ruggedly handsome,” with a “boyish charm.” But as the saying goes, love is blind.
    The intense, weathered visage of the blue-eyed gent staring back looked quite a bit worse for wear these days, but that was to be expected. Battle and grief can scar a man in many ways, and life’s taken a heavy toll on me.
    The eyes reflected lasting grief mingled with hardship, eyes that had seen too much, but still somehow managed to retain a sense of humor and