We Are The Champions; Shit from an old notebook # 236

I went to a Mets game with my friend JF and his father, in their light blue Honda. He lived on Oliver Street, as a bunch of my friends growing up did.I spent a lot of time there playing street hockey and football, causing trouble, throwing stuff off the roof and getting chased by the supers. Then I’d walk home while everyone else cleaned up the mess and dealt with the aftermath of our mischief; the consequences of our good time.

Oh, and Sid was the ice cream guy. He looked like Larry King's younger and more hunchbacked brother. He had giant boxy black glasses, a pocket protector, and an immortal Boca Raton tan. He wore an impeccably starched and pressed short sleeved white shirt tucked into black polyester pants; he had the change dispenser and sold all that Ferrara Pan candy; the candy you could only get from a Good Humor truck really: Lemonheads, Cherryheads, Cherry Sours, Jawbusters, Boston Baked Beans, Red Hots... But everyone hoped for a “Lucky Stick”; it was truly a modern-day Willy Wonka golden ticket.

Sometimes, when you were done licking the chocolate off that splintery Good Humor stick, you’d notice yours wasn’t just any normal popsicle stick but the highly elusive, highly revered, LUCKY STICK; and this meant next time Sid rang his summer bells, you were entitled to a free motherf&cking ice cream!

So where was I, Oh, the light blue Honda, on our way to the Mets game… There used to be this little fish store on 3rd and 74th that sold old school true-to-form fish and chips, authentic and oily, wrapped in white wax paper. J’s dad ordered us three for the road. Didn’t even ask if I liked fish. I didn’t.

I remember sitting in the back of the car with this mound of steaming, throbbing food in my hot young lap and I didn’t know where to start. I felt helpless. I didn’t want this pulsating cod and I didn’t really know what to do. I felt as if a steaming meteor had landed in my lap, and I didn’t know who to tell. A slow panic boiled like a dream's silent scream.

They had WFAN on. I just remember my heart pounding and I was working myself up into a frenzied fever feeling my heart labouring in my chest with this horribly fried smothered mess. The windshield was fogging up from the steam of their piles of fried mess. They were having a great time navigating their piles; suddenly I saw fire and flames in their eyes and they were cackling as I desperately tried to rein in this pile of deep fried like I'd caught a Whale Shark with a lowly twig and some some bakery string.

I think the Mets won and after the game, as we were inching our way out of the labrynthian parking lot, WFAN played most of Queens “News of the World” album.

It must’ve been ‘87 or ‘88 and WFAN was a relatively new station then and didn’t have much original programming, so once the Mets game was over, they’d just play music.

I don’t remember the game or anything else, just the fish and chips and Queen on the way home.