Giant, aging buzzards, stooped, carefully tracing angle and speed; they follow the ball’s path from release to resting place. Some tossers whip smoke, contorting bony bodies with a child’s awkward grace, each idiosyncratic style a pinpoint of identity.
A boisterous, compact man nicknamed “Forearms” releases, shouting “EEEEEE!” and rising on one leg during follow-through, a portly ostrich on mating call. “Yankee,” wearing his favorite team’s hat, saunters along the sides of the court, ever-present cigarette daintily pointed outward from between his index and middle finger, a ballet master extending. With a turf of white hair splayed across his forehead, “Fluffy” squats and carefully releases his ball, an environmentalist setting free a wild fox to its natural habitat.
Along benches on both sides sit “The Observers,” watching silently, offering opinions and strategy, pointing, shaking their heads in disgust, sighing. “Tapemeasure” pulls that device off his belt and measures precise distances between balls, which seem dirt-encrusted parents next to the fragile newborn white sphere used to score points.
“I don’ wanna lie,” shouts a man after checking his placement. Truth and honesty hover over every movement here at Braddock Park in North Bergen, where bocci worship is encouraged among the brethren nine months a year, hour after year. Men curse in Italian, syllables of disgust. Statesmen, philosophers, professors, businessmen, theorists, grifters, longshoremen without work, each a sculpture of old-world values. Craggy eyes, spotted scalps, arched brows, sardonic wrinkles, snowy hair under black berets, hawk noses shaded by beaten fedoras and painter’s caps, with tense lips and staggered gaits, these foot soldiers lurch after each release, this ritualistic motion barely keeping them upright. Feisty and tender, they cajole their ball, oblivious to the curious skateboarders, cyclists and joggers. They may as well be deer ticks to these chieftains.
“Shud de ball!” Tapemeasure bellows to a finicky competitor. The man fires a fusillade of Italian right back before releasing the palm-sized sphere, finishing his bowler’s motion with a tipsy jig halfway down the narrow dirt court. Bocci is a cross between bowling and shuffleboard; speed and placement the key to strategy. Two to four players on the side fire an 11cm ball at a 7 cm target ball with each team getting four attempts. One point is awarded for each ball nearer target than an opponent’s ball. The sport originated in Italy and spread to South America.
Other men sit in the shade near the clubhouse playing cards. Laughter from the bocci area occurs in sardonic sarcasm; smiles emerge with difficulty and quickly meld into sneers. Even the languid, graceful players carry a fiery competitive aura. A lone woman dressed in black watches expressionless, weary anthracite mined too long ago to care.
Later that day I purchase my first bocci ball. In darkness, I return to the park and approach the empty bocci area. I move onto the hallowed earth, take a deep breath, step forward and release. Seconds later I hear the familiar clunk, ball against wooden barrier, except it is my clunk. I walk down, pick up the ball and repeat the motion the opposite way. Barely able to follow this mysterious sphere, I experiment with grips and motions, almost choking with the pleasure at the feel of it, weighty, dependable solidarity as it lay in my uncalloused hands. That state of perfection, those unbending rules, the rough-hewn camaraderie – it is not enough that I respect bocci – I must understand it, accept it into my unfocused existence, simply merge my entire being into essence of bocci.
I seek passage. – Joe Del Priore