Philly The Kid Quotes

Ever see a hot shot hit, kid? I saw the Gimp catch one in Philly. We rigged his room with a one-way whorehouse mirror and charged a sawski to watch it. He never got the needle out of his arm. They don't if the shot is right. That's the way they find them, dropper full of clotted blood hanging out of a blue arm. The look in his eyes when it hit --- Kid, it was tasty.

Since my earliest memory, I imagined I would be a chef one day. When other kids were watching Saturday morning cartoons or music videos on YouTube, I was watching Iron Chef,The Great British Baking Show, and old Anthony Bourdain shows and taking notes. Like, actual notes in the Notes app on my phone. I have long lists of ideas for recipes that I can modify or make my own. This self-appointed class is the only one I've ever studied well for. I started playing around with the staples of the house: rice, beans, plantains, and chicken. But 'Buela let me expand to the different things I saw on TV. Soufflés, shepherd's pie, gizzards. When other kids were saving up their lunch money to buy the latest Jordans, I was saving up mine so I could buy the best ingredients. Fish we'd never heard of that I had to get from a special market down by Penn's Landing. Sausages that I watched Italian abuelitas in South Philly make by hand. I even saved up a whole month's worth of allowance when I was in seventh grade so I could make 'Buela a special birthday dinner of filet mignon.

Subject: Some boat Alex, I know Fox Mulder. My mom watched The X-Files. She says it was because she liked the creepy store lines. I think she liked David Duchovny. She tried Californication, but I don't think her heart was in it. I think she was just sticking it to my grandmother, who has decided it's the work of the devil. She says that about most current music,too, but God help anyone who gets between her and American Idol. The fuzzy whale was very nice, it a little hard to identify. The profile of the guy between you and the whale in the third pic was very familiar, if a little fuzzy. I won't ask. No,no. I have to ask. I won't ask. My mother loves his wife's suits. I Googled. There are sharks off the coast of the Vineyard. Great big white ones. I believe you about the turtle. Did I mention that there are sharks there? I go to Surf City for a week every summer with my cousins. I eat too much ice cream. I play miniature golf-badly. I don't complain about sand in my hot dog buns or sheets. I even spend enough time on the beach to get sand in more uncomfortable places. I do not swim. I mean, I could if I wanted to but I figure that if we were meant to share the water with sharks, we would have a few extra rows of teeth, too. I'll save you some cannoli. -Ella Subject: Shh Fiorella, Yes,Fiorella. I looked it up. It means Flower. Which, when paired with MArino, means Flower of the Sea. What shark would dare to touch you? I won't touch the uncomfortable sand mention, hard as it is to resist. I also will not think of you in a bikini (Note to self: Do not think of Ella in a bikini under any circumstanes. Note from self: Are you f-ing kidding me?). Okay. Two pieces of info for you. One: Our host has an excellent wine cellar and my mother is European. Meaning she doesn't begrudge me the occasional glass. Or four. Two: Our hostess says to thank yur mother very much. Most people say nasty things about her suits. Three: We have a house kinda near Surf City. Maybe I'll be there when your there. You'd better burn this after reading. -Alexai Subect: Happy Thanksgiving Alexei, Consider it burned. Don't worry. I'm not showing your e-mails to anybody. Matter of national security, of course. Well,I got to sit at the adult table. In between my great-great-aunt Jo, who is ninety-three and deaf, and her daughter, JoJo, who had to repeat everyone's conversations across me. Loudly. The food was great,even my uncle Ricky's cranberry lasagna. In fact, it would have been a perfectly good TG if the Eagles han't been playing the Jets.My cousin Joey (other side of the family) lives in Hoboken. His sister married a Philly guy. It started out as a lively across-the-table debate: Jets v. Iggles. It ended up with Joey flinging himself across the table at his brother-in-law and my grandmother saying loud prayers to Saint Bridget. At least I think it was Saint Bridget. Hard to tell. She was speaking Italian. She caught me trying to freeze a half-dozen cannoli. She yelled at me. Apparently, the shells get really soggy when they defrost. I guess you'll have to come have a fresh one when you get back. -F/E

Maybe it’s not a coincidence that I’ve always been interested in heroes, starting with my dad, Phil Robertson, and my mom, Miss Kay. My other heroes are my pa and my granny, who taught me how to play cards and dominoes and everything about fishing (which was a lot), and my three older brothers, who teased me, beat me up, and sometimes let me follow them around. Not much has changed in that department. I’ve always loved movies, and when I was about seven or eight years old, I watched Rocky, Sylvester Stallone’s movie about an underdog boxer who used his fists, along with sheer will, determination, and the ability to endure pain, to make a way for himself. He fought hard but played fair and had a soft spot for his friends. I fell in love with Rocky. He was my hero, and I became obsessed. When I decide to do something, I’m all in; so I found a pair of red shorts that looked like Rocky’s boxing trunks and a navy blue bathrobe with two white stripes on the sleeve and no belt. I took off my shirt and ran around bare-chested in my robe and shorts. Most kids I knew went through a superhero phase, but they picked DC Comics guys, like Batman or Superman. Not me. I was Rocky Balboa, the Italian Stallion, and proud of it. Mom let me run around like that for a couple of years, even when we went in to town. Rocky had a girlfriend, Adrian, who was always there, always by his side. When he was beaten and blinded in a bad fight, he called out for her before anybody else. “Yo, Adrian!” he shouted in his Philly-Italian accent. He needed her. Eventually, I grew up, and the red shorts and blue bathrobe didn’t fit anymore, but I always remembered Rocky’s kindness and his courage. And that every Rocky needs an Adrian.

The first letter sounded like the kind of letter a teacher would make a kid write to a guest speaker who’d had a breakdown in front of a bunch of seventh-graders. ‘Mr. Meeink, thank you for talking to our class. You were brave to share your story.’ The second letter was about the same: ‘Mr. Meeink, thank you for visiting us and talking about what happened to you.’ A few letters in, a few of the students wrote, ‘I’m going to try to be nicer from now on,’ and ‘I promise I won’t ever hate anybody.’ I remember thinking it was nice of the teacher to have some of the kids pretend they got my point. Then I hit this letter that changed everything: ‘Mr. Meeink, I bet you had a long, boring ride back to Philly.’ That’s all it said. That was exactly the kind of letter I would’ve chicken-scratched in seventh grade. That was the real deal. And if that was real, so were the others. Some of those kids had actually heard me through all the crying. My words had made a difference.

Roger snapped on the large, battery-powered radio. He rolled the dial around, but all he got was static. Finally, he heard a signal, and he tuned it in. A badly modulated voice droned through the interference. It sounded as if it were a war correspondent sending a signal from very far away. Steve clicked off the TV set so that they would better be able to hear the announcer: “. . . Reports that communications with Detroit have been knocked out along with Atlanta, Boston and certain sections of Philadelphia and New York City . . .” “Philly . . .” Roger said almost to himself. “I know WGON is out by now,” Steve said with animation. “It was a madhouse back there . . . people are crazy . . . if they’d just organize. It’s total confusion. I don’t believe it’s gotten this bad. I don’t believe they can’t handle it.” He looked around the room proudly. “Look at us. Look at what we were able to do today.” A few feet away, still in a slumped position by the pyramid of cartons, Peter’s eyes blinked open. He had been listening to what he wanted to hear, and now this statement by the kid really made him take notice. His eyes moved slightly to the side so that he could watch Stephen. The young man was gesturing wildly with his hands, going on and on about their exploits as a team. The other two didn’t realize Peter was awake. Roger nodded his head, but it didn’t seem as if he were really listening to Steve’s ramblings. “We knocked the shit out of ’em, and they never touched us,” Steve exclaimed. “Not really,” he said in a quieter tone. The rumbling voice erupted from the other side of the room. “They touched us good, Flyboy. We’re lucky to get out with our asses. You don’t forget that!

From Walt: The Grapes of Wrath, Les Misérables, To Kill a Mockingbird, Moby-Dick, The Ox-Bow Incident, A Tale of Two Cities, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Three Musketeers, Don Quixote (where your nickname came from), The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, and anything by Anton Chekhov. From Henry: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Cheyenne Autumn, War and Peace, The Things They Carried, Catch-22, The Sun Also Rises, The Blessing Way, Beyond Good and Evil, The Teachings of Don Juan, Heart of Darkness, The Human Comedy, The Art of War. From Vic: Justine, Concrete Charlie: The Story of Philadelphia Football Legend Chuck Bednarik, Medea (you’ll love it; it’s got a great ending), The Kama Sutra, Henry and June, The Onion Field, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Zorba the Greek, Madame Bovary, Richie Ashburn’s Phillies Trivia (fuck you, it’s a great book). From Ruby: The Holy Bible (New Testament), The Pilgrim’s Progress, Inferno, Paradise Lost, My Ántonia, The Scarlet Letter, Walden, Poems of Emily Dickinson, My Friend Flicka, Our Town. From Dorothy: The Gastronomical Me, The French Chef Cookbook (you don’t eat, you don’t read), Last Suppers: Famous Final Meals From Death Row, The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Something Fresh, The Sound and the Fury, The Maltese Falcon, Pride and Prejudice, Brides-head Revisited. From Lucian: Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, Band of Brothers, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Virginian, The Basque History of the World (so you can learn about your heritage you illiterate bastard), Hondo, Sackett, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Bobby Fischer: My 60 Memorable Games, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Quartered Safe Out Here. From Ferg: Riders of the Purple Sage, Kiss Me Deadly, Lonesome Dove, White Fang, A River Runs Through It (I saw the movie, but I heard the book was good, too), Kip Carey’s Official Wyoming Fishing Guide (sorry, kid, I couldn’t come up with ten but this ought to do).

Conversely, he would tell us things like "If you see two black kids riding around on one bike, put your bike in the garage." This wasn't racism; it was experience. Those kids were coming from West Philly to steal bikes. The social factors that caused their behavior were irrelevant to a Depression baby. When you grow up getting an orange for Christmas, you're going to make sure the twenty-five-dollar bike you bought your kid doesn't get ripped off. Norman Lear might want us to take time to understand that those kids went to poorly funded schools and that their parents, while loving and dignified, were unable to supervise their children's behavior because they were both at work doing minimum-wage jobs, but by then our bikes would be gone.

The kid’s ATM card was accessed yesterday at 6:18 P.M.,” Esperanza said. “He took out $180. A First Philadelphia branch on Porter Street in South Philly.” “Thanks.” Information like that was not difficult to obtain. Anybody with an account number could pretty much do it with a phone by pretending they were the account holder. Even without one, any semi-human who had ever worked in law enforcement had the contacts or the access numbers or at least the wherewithal to pay off the right person. It didn’t take much anymore, not with today’s overabundance of user-friendly technology. Technology did more than depersonalize; it ripped your life wide open, gutted you, stripped away any pretense of privacy. A

JENNA SMILED WHEN Easy walked into the bedroom, carrying what appeared to be half the refrigerator on a bowing cookie sheet. How much more sweet could he be? He glanced between her and Sara like he was unsure what to do next. Jenna pulled the covers back so the surface would be flat and patted the bed next to her. “Put it anywhere.” Easy set the makeshift tray down and rubbed a hand over his head. “I tried to think of things that would be gentle on your stomach,” he said in a low voice. “But if you want something different—” “No, this looks perfect.” Her gaze settled on a tall glass of . . . She gasped. “You made me a milk shake?” At that, Sara patted her on the knee. “Okay, I’m gonna go. Let me know if you need anything?” “Oh, uh, Shane was making you all something to eat,” Easy said. Sara smiled. “Good timing. This is making me hungry,” she said, gesturing to the tray. Jenna grabbed up the milk shake and hugged the glass against her chest. “Get your own.” Holding up her hands in surrender, Sara smiled. “All yours. Besides, Nick and Jeremy have the world’s biggest sweet tooths. There’s an endless supply of ice cream downstairs. I’m not even joking. So there’s more where that came from.” She squeezed Easy’s arm. “You know where to find me if you need me,” she said. And then they were alone. Jenna was glad. Not because having Easy here warded off her panic and fear but because she just wanted to be with him. She fished a spoon out from between two plates and took a taste of her treat. Freaking heaven. “Oh, my God,” she said, scooping another big bite. “This is so good. I can’t believe you made me a milk shake.” Even when her father had been alive, no one was really taking care of Jenna. So maybe Easy’s thoughtfulness wouldn’t have been so earthshaking to someone else, but to her, it meant everything. She peered up at him, which made her realize he was still standing. Crisscrossing her legs, she pointed at the foot of the bed. “Come sit down. Some of this has to be for you, right?” “Yeah,” Easy said. “You sure this is okay?” “It’s great, really. I can’t even remember the last time I ate, so this is like filet mignon and Maine lobster rolled into one. Seriously.” She exchanged the milk shake for the bowl of soup, and the warm, salty broth tasted every bit as good. They ate in companionable silence for a while, then he asked, “So, what are you studying in school?” “International business,” Jenna said around a spoonful of soup. “I always wanted to travel.” And, to put it more plainly, she’d always wanted to get the hell out of here. “Sounds ambitious,” Easy said. “Did you have to learn languages?” Jenna nodded. “I minored in Spanish, and I’ve taken some French, too. What I’d really like to learn is Chinese since there are so many new markets opening up there. But I’ve heard it’s really hard. Do you speak any other languages?” Wiping his mouth with a napkin, Easy nodded. “Hablo español, árabe, y Dari.” Grinning, Jenna reached for her bagel. She’d thought him hard to resist just being his usual sexy, thoughtful, protective self. If he was going to throw speaking to her in a foreign language into the mix, she’d be a goner. “What is Dari?” “One of the main languages in Afghanistan,” he said. “Oh. Guess that makes sense. Are Arabic and Dari hard to learn?” “Yeah. Where I grew up in Philly, there were a lot of Hispanic kids, so Spanish was like a second language. But coming to languages as an adult about kicked my ass. Cultural training is a big part of Special Forces training, though. We’re not out there just trying to win battles, but hearts and minds, too. . .” He frowned. “Or, we were, anyway.

From the outside, you might see my life as mundane: ‘Jane, you’re just running the Mural Arts Program and you’ve been doing that forever.’ I would say, ‘No, listen, today I went to a maximum security prison. I was in North Philly. I went to church. I was in a boardroom. I met with a deputy commissioner. I met with a city council person. I worked at an artists’ residency program. I saw kids graduating.’ ” Then Jane used a painter’s analogy: “I’m like an artist who looks at the sky every morning and sees a variety of really brilliant colors where other people would just see blue or gray. I’m seeing in the course of a single day this tremendous complexity and nuance. I see something that is ever evolving and rich.

It wasn’t as outside as they wanted. Sisler drove it over the left-field fence. The Whiz Kids were going to the 1950 World Series. They lost. The Yankees of Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, and Phil Rizzuto swept them in four games. The Yanks had their second consecutive World Series title and thirteenth overall; the Phillies were still looking for their first. They had scored all of four runs while getting swept in the last all-Caucasian World Series. (Mays, Monte Irvin, and Hank Thompson would play for the New York Giants in the 1951 Series.) Still, they rode the train home to a heroes’ welcome at Philadelphia’s Broad Street Station. The Whiz Kids were National League champions, the youngest club in the league, with better years in store, they thought.

Conversely, he would tell us things like “If you see two black kids riding around on one bike, put your bike in the garage.” This wasn’t racism; it was experience. Those kids were coming from West Philly to steal bikes. The social factors that caused their behavior were irrelevant to a Depression baby. When you grow up getting an orange for Christmas, you’re going to make sure the twenty-five-dollar bike you bought your kid doesn’t get ripped off. Norman Lear might want us to take time to understand that those kids went to poorly funded schools and that their parents, while loving and dignified, were unable to supervise their children’s behavior because they were both at work doing minimum-wage jobs, but by then our bikes would be gone.