Free New Moon by Richard Grossinger

for error. Two of each was ideal but no guarantee against an unlikely streak of one’s own. If I got to within a card of matching, a pin cushion of nerves watched the final spin. If it showed the right face, I felt a jolt of delight as I reached down and scooped up the jackpot, gathering and neatening the cards, fitting them into my handy cube and wrapping it back under its rubber band.
    Flipping was mostly luck, but there must have been skill involved—card angle and height of drop, pressure of hold, jimmy and trajectory of release—because the same kids regularly won. Or perhaps they had mastered Gyro Gearloose’s telekinesis and could send brainwaves to alter spin.
    In another contest, with flicks of the wrist we sailed cards up to and against a wall in rotations of two or more players. Anyone who landed a card on any part of another got his own back plus the one he “covered.” This was a game of finesse like tiddlywinks or pick-up-sticks. As card after card travelled with our distinctive spin rates over a landscape left by prior cards, we stared intently, trying to put mental english on the flight. A perfect shot covered an indisputable portion of a card on the ground. Others were too tantalizing to judge from afar, so we kneeled on the ground in serious adjudication, trying to figure out if certain cards were actually touching or just close.
    In the spring of 1952 Phil debuted punchball at lunchtime in the schoolyard. With his fist he whacked the Spaldeen high off the fence above the wall, scattering pigeons: it was a home run, circle the bases unchallenged. I swung at the pinky and set it skipping along the ground. Phil shoved me so hard toward the wall (first base) Istumbled, but the ball rolled away, and I got all the way to the pile of coats at second, just ahead of the tag. “Way to go, Towers!”
    That Saturday Daddy responded to my tales of the week with a taxi ride downtown. At his advertising account, a store called Miller’s Sporting Goods, he bought Jonny and me gloves, a bat, and hardballs. The next morning, he took us to Central Park where we found an open area. After setting his hat down for home plate, he pivoted my arms with the bat to demonstrate correct form, then lobbed pitches to me.
    Gradually I smacked the ball sharper and farther, as my brother ran after my hits and brought them back. Then Jon took a turn with the bat. After that, Daddy set both of us at a distance and floated the ball in the air, calling out my name. I turned and somehow it landed in my glove. “You’re a natural!” he shouted.
    As soon as Daddy said those words, I had magical abilities. I imagined that I could run down everything, so I did. I grabbed the next ball in the tip of the webbing while tumbling, clutching it high over my head. “A real natural!” he announced with a delighted grin. “You’ve got the coordination of a pro.” It was as if I had been anointed by a baseball jinni. Only three days earlier I had been lunging and missing. Now I was Phil .
    Thereafter I embraced the knitted spheroid and its vectors of flight and ricochet. I played as often as I could—in the schoolyard, at group, on weekends. Nothing before had been as much fun or as real. I loved running at full speed, snaring a hit or toss. When no one was around to play, I lobbed a hardball or Spaldeen as high as I could in the air and caught it where it came back down, or I bounced it off a wall and snared its caroms.
    That year Mommy became pregnant again and stayed in bed all spring. One morning I straggled into the kitchen in my PJs and was startled to find Nanny squeezing half-oranges into a pitcher from the whirling juice-maker. I had been told I would never see her again. I ran up and threw my arms around her.
    Soon after Nanny’s return we moved to a bigger apartment across the hall. Daddy had to hold Mommy up and walk her a step at atime. Now we lived in 6B overlooking 96th Street’s boulevard. Jon and I still shared a room and