Rick and the clay fantasies

A bunch of Catholics owned homes in the neighborhood I grew up in, my parents among them. Good Catholics all, they pumped out kids like nobody's business.There were five kids in my family, and between our neighbors, the Schofields and the Cases, there were nine or ten more just on our small block. On a bigger block across the street, the Gelhausen family had five kids. The Blazeks, four or five more. The Frisches and Neufeldes (shirkers) had just two or three kids in each family. Finally, the Virginia-Street Bretls — my aunt and uncle — shared top reproductive honors with the Bradleys; each Catholic union producing a whopping eight kids.

The back yards of the homes across the street all met in the center of the block. No yards were fenced and this made the block center like a park in which kids could play together, contained, safe from the streets, and under the watchful eye of any number of parents. We kids had to straighten up and fly right or get called out by this mom or that dad. A scolding from Mr. Gelhausen or Mr. Blazek, for example, carried as much weight for me as a scolding from my own father.

Maybe, in a it-takes-a-village sort of way, experiences on my block were similar to Brooklyn kids of the time: The city kids were contained by brownstones while I and my small-town buddies were contained in our parent's back yards. The city kids played stick ball while we played kickball. Perhaps the city kids crossed paths with gangsters while we were surrounded by shoe and insurance salesmen, still, there were similarities. We all had lots of homies to hang out with. We formed our little crews. We developed a certain style about us, and we existed under the supervision of neighborhood elders — be they Italian or German.

Rick Igl's family was Catholic too. He, and I, and all of the neighborhood kids went to St. John's church and parochial school. Rick, however wasn't from the neighborhood. His family were new arrivals, and the odd renters in a small apartment, amongst the families that owned big homes. His parents had been farmers, probably dairy or potatoes, as was common in the area.

I have no idea why the Igls moved to town, I only knew that Rick hadn't had a chance to develop our style—colorful short-shorts with piping, striped tube sox pulled up to just under the knee, Chuck Taylor tennis shoes (I wear them still). I was most shocked to learn that Rick didn't have a bicycle. All of the rest of us did, and many of us rode the coveted Schwinn Stingray with the banana seat and high-rise handle bars. A bicycle, to kids in my neighborhood, was as essential as a horse to a cowboy.

I'd soon find out that Rick could barely ride a bike. Maybe he couldn't ride, busy as he was bailing hay, milking cows, or harvesting potatoes. Who would he ride with anyway? Unlike my kid-chocked neighborhood, life on a farm meant be surrounded by great expanses of loneliness. So it was that Rick became the first person I knew that represented a life experience different from my own. Rick made me understand how homogeneous my experiences had been and it was through Rick that I first saw vulnerability as an endearing trait.

Quickly, Mr. and Mrs. Igl got Rick a bike. It was no Stingray, but Rick could join the bike brigades that were central to social life in the neighborhood. I think he upped his style game a bit as well, but probably wore knock-off Chukka Boots instead of Chuck Taylors. I am sure that none of the neighborhood kids ever teased Rick. They wouldn't dare with the likes of Mr. Gelhausen and Mr. Blazek keeping an eye on us.

I believe, however, that Rick was aware of his outsiderness. Maybe it was more likely that my friends and I could blend with Brooklynites than it was that Rick could adapt to my neighborhood.

One rainy Saturday, early in our friendship, I visited Rick at his apartment. I brought with me modeling clay, something I playing with alone, not something I shared with my bike riding buddies. Rick and I sat at his kitchen table and I revealed to him my love for creating little fantasy worlds with the clay. I'd roll small bits of clay into balls; these were my boulders that I'd pile together to assemble walls. The walls formed enclosures for my fantasy zoo and pathways wound through the enclosures that filled the Igl's table. Then, Rick and I created fantastical creatures to place in the zoo. It was wonderful. Rick had never done this, I had never shared this and Mrs. Igl enthusiastically encouraged us as we sat near a window with the rain beating down outside.

Rick's lack of bicycle skills were no longer a hinderance. His inward looking mind was perfectly suited to the fantasy worlds we created, and we spent many hours on many days with clay at his kitchen table.

Eventually we graduated eighth grade and left the insular world of our Catholic school for the much-larger public high school. It was then that Rick and I drifted into different social circles. Rick wound up amongst a tougher crowd; the crowd that smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol and took drugs too early in life. As high school progressed, Rick and I did hang out a few times. I remember drinking beer and rolling around in the loud-as-hell beat-up car he'd gotten. He remained the same outsider with a tender heart that he'd been when we bonded with clay in his kitchen. But we were no longer tight. I still clung to white-bread sentiments of my early St. Johns years. Rick had moved on and become more rebellious.

When high school ended, I left my home town in a bolt and that's the last I saw of Rick. Life experiences piled up and changed me. I was reinventing myself and I rejected the idea of returning to my home town for anything but visits with my family. Unlike some members of my old crew, I didn't drink at the hometown watering holes on visits home. I didn't make much — no, I didn't make any — effort to keep in touch with the old friends. I never attended a high school reunion.

Decades passed and then the internet changed the world. As a result of my self-reinvention, I'd grown accustomed to privacy — maybe secrecy. I rejected social media just as I'd rejected high school reunions. Occasionally, an old friend would find me and send an email. I almost never responded.

Once, maybe twentyfive years after leaving my home town, I received an email at my workplace. It was from Rick and he asked tentatively if I was his old friend from back in the day. He sent a link to his social media presence on Myspace or early Facebook.

I clicked and teared up when I saw that his posts included photos of his hobby: creating fantastical creatures, in imaginary zoos, made from modling clay.

Memories of my times with Rick came flooding back. He still found solace with modeling clay! I was tempted like I'd not been before to respond to Rick, but I didn't. I cowardly deleted his email. So Rick will likely never know that I received his message. He'll likely never know how much I savor the memory of our first rainy day at his family's kitchen table, and all the rainy days that kept us off our bikes and immersed in creating our clay fantasies.

• • •

Sister Georgia has fact checked this story
The Schofield and Case families were not Catholic.
Still, they procreated like Catholics, so I'm leaving them in the story.