More to Life

Regardless of the season, the neighbor house on Emerson was the place everyone went.

We called it the “Brick” for obvious reasons, and everyone went there because, to be honest, there weren’t a lot of things to do in Glenview that didn’t involve standing on a corner or risk getting beat up by guys with combed back hair who wore t-shirts and jeans; an activity I seemed to be quite good at: the getting beat up, not the standing.

The Brick had a gym, a basketball court, and a baseball diamond that was converted to skating and hockey rinks in the winter, a kitchen, and a huge room with a lot of different games and crafts and I guess you would call that a multi-purpose room today.

The Brick is where I discovered boxing after Sam, a volunteer coach, convinced me to join the local Golden Gloves chapter when he said, “Don’t matter if you’re small, Artie, that don’t mean nothing; unless maybe you like getting teased and beat up by them hoods, huh?” and I didn’t have a good answer for him.

It turned out Sam was right because after three months I wasn’t scared anymore, and even though I still got beat up, it wasn’t as often, and I was able to give as well as take which was a good feeling.

The Brick also hosted dances on Saturday nights, and it was at one of those dances in mid-November, right about the time the boards were going up in the outfield to get ready for skating and hockey, that I met Eileen Malinsky and that’s when I began to learn that there was more to life than baseball, bullies, boxing and the Brick.

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For Girlie on the Edge‘s Six Sentence Stories for Independence Day 2021.
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