HE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY, SMILING AND RAISING A finger to the bill of his baseball cap in greeting to the diners. His first steps forward clatter on the kitchen floor. Goddamnit! his mother says. Don’t come in here in those shoes! You’re going to chew up this linoleum and it ain’t even two months old! The hell, Bill says. You still playing baseball? We’re playing until the snow flies, says Donnie. And come next spring we’ll have a leg up on every other team in the league. You’ll need more than a leg up, Marvin says, if you don’t want your ass kicked. Donnie is not only the best looking of the Weboy brothers, his presence in the room puts a little polish on Marvin and Elton. Now it’s possible to see how close those thick wooly curls are to a head of wavy hair, how near those sullen expressions are to pouting sensuality, to see how easily those low, heavy brows could translate to a brooding charm. It’s even possible, looking from Donnie to his brothers to his uncle Bill, to imagine what the boys’ father must have looked like.
