memoir

Eddie Field had ears that stuck out like mug handles from either side of his head and a face that was a constellation of freckles. He wore his hair in a Boy’s Regular barber cut, cropped close to his head, which only served to emphasize both the freckles and the unfortunate angle of his ears. Eddie and I were in the same grade at school, and our parents belonged to the same summer swim club. I saw a lot of him as a result, but he wasn’t a friend, exactly. The club was a sort of working-class version of a Country Club—no tennis courts, no rolling golf green. It did have shuffleboard courts, though, and one or two of the courts were actually playable, if you avoided hitting the weeds forcing through the cracks in the cement. There was a musty-smelling piano in the clubhouse that retained most of its […]