Assignment: To re-write the opening of a published short story from our text's using a different POV. The original story is "A Cap for Steve" by Morley Callahan (if you want to look up the original way it was written), written in third person limited in the dad's eyes. I re-wrote it in the son's eyes using first person. Enjoy!
I have never been sure if my father had a quick temper because we didn't have a lot of money or if we didn't have a lot of money because of my father's quick temper. Either way the result was the same: back then there wasn't any room to buy anything but the necessities. That can be pretty hard on a young boy in the school yard, but I knew better than to complain. Luckily my mom seemed to understand the need for me to have a proper childhood, so instead of being stuck with a youth robbing newspaper route, just to earn a few more pennies for him to pinch, I got to play baseball almost every afternoon with the neighborhood kids.
Baseball was heaven for me: the sun beating it's rays on my back, sweat dripping in my eyes, palms pounding with the force of ball after ball. But every night at dinner I could see that look on my father's face and I wondered how much longer mom could hold him off. I feared that look.
Then I found out about the Phillies coming to town. I wanted more than anything to go to that game. I approached my father about it carefully.
“Dad?” I almost whispered at the supper table that first night, pushing my green beans around my plate with my fork.
“Mmmmm,” was his vague response. He continued to stare down at his paper, shoveling dinner into his mouth without looking up. Taking a deep breath I focused on the grain in the fake wood paneling wall behind him and trudged on.
“Jimmy was telling me that the Phillies are going to be playing an exhibition game here...” I started, then trailed off as I realized he was glaring at me.
“Oh?” he questioned, then in a instigating tone “and I’d bet you’d like to go, would you? Huh? Well I’d like to have socks that haven’t been patched twenty times and a roof that doesn’t leak and -”
“Dave” my mom broke in. “He’s just a boy, don’t trouble him with those things.”
“Those things?” Father snorted. “Those things are our everyday life! You don’t get what you want in this world. The sooner he learns that the better.” Then he went back to his dinner and the paper so I knew the discussion was closed.
Mom comforted me about it when she tucked me in that night. She stroked my hair, trying to straighten that cowlick out, then brushed my tears away.
“I’ll talk to him for you honey,” she said kissing my cheek.. Then clicked the lights out.
She must have convinced him because a few nights later he came into my room before bed. His shadow danced awkwardly in the hall light at he wavered in the doorway.
“You still want to go to that ball game?” He asked. I could tell that uttering those words pained him even though he tried to hide it. Looking back I think that I should have let him off easy, told him that I didn’t need to go. It would have been better for both of us. But I was young and short sighted so instead I nodded enthusiastically.
As I laid my head down on my pillow that night I started to daydream about all the wonderful things that would come out of our game day: we’d get hot dogs and sodas, we’d bond over the excited of loaded bases, maybe we’d even catch a fly ball. I was still naïve that night and thought that maybe, maybe for just one day, we could pretend that we weren’t poor. I should have know my father better than that.
I have never been sure if my father had a quick temper because we didn't have a lot of money or if we didn't have a lot of money because of my father's quick temper. Either way the result was the same: back then there wasn't any room to buy anything but the necessities. That can be pretty hard on a young boy in the school yard, but I knew better than to complain. Luckily my mom seemed to understand the need for me to have a proper childhood, so instead of being stuck with a youth robbing newspaper route, just to earn a few more pennies for him to pinch, I got to play baseball almost every afternoon with the neighborhood kids.
Baseball was heaven for me: the sun beating it's rays on my back, sweat dripping in my eyes, palms pounding with the force of ball after ball. But every night at dinner I could see that look on my father's face and I wondered how much longer mom could hold him off. I feared that look.
Then I found out about the Phillies coming to town. I wanted more than anything to go to that game. I approached my father about it carefully.
“Dad?” I almost whispered at the supper table that first night, pushing my green beans around my plate with my fork.
“Mmmmm,” was his vague response. He continued to stare down at his paper, shoveling dinner into his mouth without looking up. Taking a deep breath I focused on the grain in the fake wood paneling wall behind him and trudged on.
“Jimmy was telling me that the Phillies are going to be playing an exhibition game here...” I started, then trailed off as I realized he was glaring at me.
“Oh?” he questioned, then in a instigating tone “and I’d bet you’d like to go, would you? Huh? Well I’d like to have socks that haven’t been patched twenty times and a roof that doesn’t leak and -”
“Dave” my mom broke in. “He’s just a boy, don’t trouble him with those things.”
“Those things?” Father snorted. “Those things are our everyday life! You don’t get what you want in this world. The sooner he learns that the better.” Then he went back to his dinner and the paper so I knew the discussion was closed.
Mom comforted me about it when she tucked me in that night. She stroked my hair, trying to straighten that cowlick out, then brushed my tears away.
“I’ll talk to him for you honey,” she said kissing my cheek.. Then clicked the lights out.
She must have convinced him because a few nights later he came into my room before bed. His shadow danced awkwardly in the hall light at he wavered in the doorway.
“You still want to go to that ball game?” He asked. I could tell that uttering those words pained him even though he tried to hide it. Looking back I think that I should have let him off easy, told him that I didn’t need to go. It would have been better for both of us. But I was young and short sighted so instead I nodded enthusiastically.
As I laid my head down on my pillow that night I started to daydream about all the wonderful things that would come out of our game day: we’d get hot dogs and sodas, we’d bond over the excited of loaded bases, maybe we’d even catch a fly ball. I was still naïve that night and thought that maybe, maybe for just one day, we could pretend that we weren’t poor. I should have know my father better than that.
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