Rainy Days

Rainy days bring memories of sitting in my apartment on East 14th and waiting for the rain to stop. Growing up we didn’t spend too much time indoors. We would spend our time either playing ball, walking around or simply sitting on a stoop talking.

When it rained, we were stuck at home. The TV had 6 channels and during the days it was mostly soap operas or old TV shows from the 1960s.

Our only respite was on Sundays at 1130a, channel 11 would run an Abbott and Costello movie for an hour and a half. After that, it was up for grabs.

I remember lying in my bed, my face to the wall and daydreaming.

I would read a book, not any that were assigned in school, but others that would be about falling in love, time travel, and baseball.

I would read through the NY Daily News, from the back page through to the front. Boring stuff but it passed the time.

Sometimes, when it would rain, my mom would want to go to Kings Plaza. We would park in the dark lot and try to remember the location. There was the blue section and the red, several floors high so a sample location would be, “4C Blue.”

I remember one time I was finally allowed to separate from my mom, I was 19 years old, kidding. I was around 11 or so.

I would walk around with my 2 dollars in my pocket and I felt like a grown man. There was a store that would sell chocolate chip cookies and other kinds of cookies and serve it to you in a paper cone. The aroma intoxicated me, so I had no choice but to imbibe.

As I would walk around I would walk into some people I knew. One person was Fiona. She was my neighbor and was 2 years older than me.

“Hi, Fi, what are you doing?” “Just walking around really.” She liked me, I could tell. She didn’t like me, there was no way in the world that she would like me.

“Want to walk with us?” she asked. I had no idea what to say. Looking back, “yes” would have been a good response instead… “Nah I have some shopping to do.”

Maybe I was just suffering from a stroke of some sort or I was even more stupid than I thought. Either way I was kicking myself in the balls after she walked away and I found myself alone.

When I first saw Fiona, I was taken in by her Irish appearance. Her eyes were blue, her hair blondish, and she had some freckles sprinkled around her adorable nose.

One time she was walking by the schoolyard where we played softball and a ball was hit right to me. The ball hit a pebble or something and bounced right into my face. I felt something dripping into my mouth. I wiped it and there was blood.

I would bet my face was even redder than the blood on my shirt.

Back to the rainy days. It was on another rainy day that I saw Fiona in the lobby of our building.

“Hey Fi.” “Hey Freddy.” “What’s wrong?” “Nothing, I’m just bored and I hate my family!” “That’s something we have in common.” “Let’s go for a walk in the rain.” “Um, ok what the hell.”

We walked outside and the rain was now a drizzle. “Well now we have each other, whenever it’s a boring day, we can hang out.” “Yeah! That’s a great idea. Let’s go to the roof and check it out.” I was flying. “Okay.”