The book was entitled The Man Who Struck Out Willie Mays. Maniac hopped over the Buffalo pen’s fence and gave baby buffalo a present “For you.” he said, it was a scarf or rather three scarves tied together, he wrapped them around Baby’s neck “Next year i'll get you stockings for your horns.” Maniac gave Grayson a pair of gloves and a woolen cap and a book. Maniac whispered “Merry Christmas.” They visited the animals in the zoo wishing them a happy holiday. The old man laid a pine branch at the doorway. Somewhere under there, they knew, there was a den of muskrats. As if by design they both stopped at the same spot above the half-submerged rooty clump of a fallen tree. I t was still dark when Maniac woke up on Christmas morning. They got a second tree and went home, trimmed it and this time the ornaments were nature’s beautiful colors, pine cones, red clusters of sumac berries, milkweed and delicate thumb-size goblets of Queen Anne’s lace. They crossed the creek and wandered the woods until they were good again. They went outside because the room was to small to hold their spirit. By the time the two of them were done trimming it, hardly a needle was seen under it. When he was done, a wooden reindeer stood in the room, big enough for Maniac to ride. One day Grayson dragged a pair of tree limbs inside and started sawing at it. Strings of popcorn,the trees filled the room with their smell. The inside would make Santa’s elves feel at home. They nailed a wreath on the door and there was one small window with a still for a candle, so spray on snow would work. Grayson moved out of the Y completely and into 101 Band Shell Boulevard with the help of his long friendship with the locker room attendant, he and Maniac had the privilege to continue using Y’s showers at pleasure. If Thanksgiving is wonderful, Christmas is paradise. Beale scrubbing the house someone had written in chalk, “FISHBELLY GO HOME.” One morning, Amanda, Hester, and Lester try to distract him, and keep him from going home. Maniac can’t sleep and starts getting up even earlier for his morning runs. The old man yells at everyone, “Black is black! White is white!” and says everyone should stick to their own kind. It’s how you wanted it,” and tells him to go to the West side. Maniac tells him that he is home, and gives him the Beale’s address, but the man says “You got your own kind. Maniac is having so much fun, that it takes him a while to hear a voice calling him “Whitey.” The voice is coming from an old man, a bit disheveled in appearance, who tells him to go home. The whole neighborhood is there, and it’s like a big block party. At the vacant lot, at the corner of Chestnut and Green, on the East side, Maniac is playing in the water of a fire hydrant with all of the other kids.
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