Chapter 41979
For most of his young life, Carl had tried to be one of the boys. He’d go hunting or fishing with Dad (both disasters with the result of each being for one time only) or to a local football game. His father gave up quickly on him, though when he couldn’t understand what a T-formation was and took a much livelier interest in the band’s halftime show.
Even with the neighborhood boys, he couldn’t find any joy in playing sandlot baseball or even tossing a Frisbee with his cousins in Aunt Connie’s backyard. And, in the fall, there were quick, casual pickup games of football that most boys seemed to love. The games were always supposed to be ‘touch’ but his cousins Salvy and Sam, along with the other boys living in their East End ‘hood, delighted in roughhousing. A touch wasn’t r
