A Mother's Love

The conversation among the friends had shifted away from the subway discovery to a time when Gaetano and Angie had jumped from the top tier of a crane in the Bethlehem Steel yard into the ocean. They were talking about a pier they use to swim at that they called the Horn. It was right next to the steel yard and they swam the twenty or thirty yards between the piers and found a ladder up from the water. They climbed the steel ladder that ran up the side of the large metal crane to the upmost tier just under the control booth.

They worked their way out to the middle of the beam that made up the top tier and looked down.

Gaetano and Angie both had a different perspective on how far they were up from the water. Gaetano seemed to think they were over a hundred and twenty feet from the water while Angie seem to think it was more like eighty or ninety feet. They went on to say that they bantered back and forth on who should jump first. Gaetano being the wiser of the two finally convinced Angie that he should be the one to go first. Angie was skeptical about going first but showing he was braver than Gaetano was a plus. He stood there with his eyes closed gathering his courage trying not to think of what could possibly go wrong in this scenario.

As he opened his eyes he felt a slight push from behind. Gaetano had maneuvered himself behind Angie and gave him that extra courage he was looking for in the form of a push. The only problem was that the push put Angie in physical stance for more of a dive than a jump. Knowing that if he tried to change his position of entering the water right now would lead to serious injury he simply leaned into a dive; a swan dive to be exact. Why they called it that he didn’t know but he knew from past experience this type of dive kept you from flipping over and landing on his back. He stretched his arms out to the sides and watched as the surface of the water got closer. Just a second before he hit the water he brought his arms straight out in front of him to break the water. This action supposedly decreases the impact on the water to the head, but Angie felt a stinging slap to his forehead. His ascent into the water was deep he saw a sandy bottom approaching. He maneuvered his hands and body to change the downward motion to and upward motion. Looking up he could see the sunlight and started to swim upward towards it. He broke the surface and filled his lungs with much needed fresh air. He had done it and wished never to do it again.

Gaetano was still up on the crane looking down and Angie yelled up to him “You better do it or I’ll come up and not just push you but throw you off.” Gaetano laughed and yelled “Geronimo!!” and leap from the crane. He crossed his arms across his chest and plunged downward in a jumping position to the water. When he hit the water he created a large splash that must have sprayed upward for twenty five feet. Angie waited in the water for his friend to surface but after about two minutes Gaetano never surfaced. Angie dove down into the water in search of Gaetano. He stayed under as long as he could but could not locate his friend. When he started to run out of air in his lungs he headed for the surface with the fear that Gaetano had met a untimely end to his existence. He broke the surface and saw some of his other friends jumping or diving from the pier to assist in the search for Gaetano. After all the others had entered the water and surfaced, they all heard a loud laughter coming from underneath the pier. They all looked in the direction the sound was coming from and there sitting on a cross beam under the pier was Gaetano. He had swam underwater and hide under the pier to make them all think he had perished from the jump. Angie looked at him and held up his right hand with the middle finger extended and said, “Don’t ever do that again, numb nuts. I nearly drowned trying to find you.”

The story went on between them each putting in their own little details. Angie saying he was the braver of the two because he went first. Gaetano argued the point that Angie needed a push while he went of his own free will. Angie argued back that he dove and didn’t jump, and diving was a bit more dangerous from that height. Gaetano replied with the only reason you dove is because he didn’t have a choice. This went on for about five minutes until they both started laughing and said that it was the stupidity of youth that drove them to do it. They both also agreed that if they had to live it over again they’d do it again.

As the day wore on they all shared in the misadventures of Gaetano and Angie. May and Parker were introduced to a different Angie than they had come to know. In his younger days he was quite a character who seemed to have a yearning for dangerous situations and mischief. Angie looked over at Peter and said, “Young man don’t you ever try any of these stunts that we have talked about. They were stupid things to do and yes we did have fun but we could have been hurt.” Gaetano added to the statement by saying “I guess we were just lucky enough not to get ourselves killed or injured. Peter looked at them both and said, “Just you two telling those stories are enough for me to know not to do any of those stunts. Besides that, times have changed. The police would arrest you now a days for doing that stuff, rather than a boot in the butt that you two got.” Everyone in the room let out a hearty laugh.

When it was time to leave Gabrielle prepared some dishes of leftovers for each to take home. They thanked her and Gaetano for a delicious dinner and the conversation. Angie pulled Peter aside he asked if he had gotten the information he needed. Peter replied that he had gotten more than he was looking for and would talk to him about it on the way back to the city. Gabrielle ask Angie if she could get some of his pastry recipes and he replied,” I will mail you some this week.” After all the hugging, thanking, and handshaking May, Parker, Peter and Angie step out into the New England night and got into the Caddy and headed home.