Vox Populi
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Tony Gloeggler: Fade Away
In 1964, my father and uncle
loaded the U HAUL and we left
Bed Stuy with all the other white
people and moved to Long Island.
I was 8, ashamed to admit
I cried the last day of school.
We lived on the top floor
of a six story walk up. Mom
wrapped dimes in napkins, dropped
parachutes out the window
whenever The Good Humor Man
rang down our block. Joe Poggi,
the older kid on the fifth floor,
kicked the shit out of anyone
who teased me the year I needed
crutches to walk. August, we opened
Johnny pumps, played kick the can
and dragged mattresses up the stairs
to sleep on the roof. Two flights down,
I crouched on the fire escape, saw
my first real live, half naked girl,
Denise Acquilante, sitting in front
of a brightly lit mirror, brushing
her sixteen year old nipples,
turning this way and that way.
Five years later, when construction
shut down a section of the BQE,
Dad took side streets and drove us
home through our old neighborhood.
The sun and radio filtered through
the elevated tracks as we followed
Myrtle Avenue, turned left toward
Stockholm Street. My father slowed
down, clicked the radio off and told us
to shut the windows, make sure
the doors were all locked as we rode
past the boarded up barber shop.
The luncheonette and Gino’s Pizzeria
were gutted shells. Our building,
79 Stockholm Street, was a lot
covered with rusted metal, piles
of tires and powdered rubble.
My father eased the car
to the curb, I told you Mary,
we got out just in time. I pressed
my face to the window.
On one corner, a bent,
netless rim was nailed
to a telephone pole, and one
black boy about my age
bounced a basketball.
He stopped, cradled the ball
on his hip, looked at our car
for a few seconds, cocked
his head, then started dribbling
again. He backed in closer
to the basket like Earl
The Pearl, peeking over
his left shoulder, twirling
in slow motion and taking
that soft, beautiful fade away.
~~~~~
Copyright 2024 Tony Gloeggler. First published in One Trick Pony.
Tony Gloeggler’s books include What Kind of Man (NYQ Books, 2020). He is a life-long resident of New York City.
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Loved this. poem, it reminded me of my growing up, but in the Bronx, not Brooklyn. So vivid in the childhood memories. My mom also wrapped dimes in tissues and hurled them out of our 5th floor, walk up apartment.
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This poem strikes a chord with the entire generation born in NYC in the 50s.
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Thank you for both of today’s stories/poems
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Thanks for being such a faithful reader, Barbara!
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So much packed into this poem. It’s worth a thorough unpacking of ‘the American way’, of things not talked about, of the Joe Joe Poggis of this world, of the black kid with the basket ball. It’s Dad’s comment to Mum. It’s a novel, condensed into one amazing poem.
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Yes, a novel packed into a poem.
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There are narrative poems, lyrics, meditative poems. There should also be a “documentary poems” category — and so many of Tony’s poems would fit so well in there…
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Perfectly said, Laure-Anne. I agree. Even though I love the lyrical personal narratives which most American poets create now, the genre has much more to offer, as Tony Gloeggler and Joan Bauer demonstrate.
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A memoir-poem? But much social commentary inter-twined, as Vox, you, and Rose Mary Boehm each say. With the sweet fadeaway jump shot at the end for a spot of embodied joy at what remains human. Moving poem for me, along with all the comments of responders on a new genre, or on the sense of the Bed Stuy place
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