Coney (35 page)

“Yeah, I got it.”

“And just to make sure you say it right, Vince is going to hang out with you for a while, listen to your instructions.”

Woody nodded.

“Good boy, Woody. You're a lucky dwarf. I'm king of Coney, and you're right there with me. We'll shovel shit down everybody's mouth.”

“Great!” Woody said.

Menter crooked his index finger.

“Now come here and give me some luck.”

Woody lowered his head over Menter's lap. Manicured nails burrowed under his hair. His scalp felt filthy.

“I hope you don't have any cooties,” Menter said.

Woody let his head fall a bit more, enjoying the odor that lingered on Menter's crotch: the smell of where he would soon be, and where Menter was useless.

H
ARRY AND HIS MOTHER WALKED TO THE
N
ORTON'S
P
OINT TROLLEY
stop. He was still unconvinced that they would board the trolley as the first leg of a two-hour journey to Yankee Stadium to see the Yankees play the Detroit Tigers.

Five years ago she had promised to take him to a baseball game. However, all subsequent requests were ignored. Eventually, he had stopped asking. Then, yesterday, she had stunned him by asking:

“Can we go to a baseball game tomorrow?”

“But it's a Wednesday, you work,” he had reminded her.

“I'll take the day off. I'll call in sick. It's a long time since
I
played hooky.”

The surprising answer was further evidence of a change that recently had come over her, altering previous dogma. She no longer chastised him for leaving his clothes scattered on the floor. In fact, did not even notice a stray garment. She had stopped screwing up a sour face to express disgust with him when he cracked his knuckles or drank milk directly from the bottle.

On several occasions he had looked up from reading to find her staring at him as if he were a stranger, a curiosity. It had been weeks since she had yelled at him for playing his records too loud and once she had come into his room, listened and asked:

“What is that? And what do you find wonderful about it?”

“It's Benny Goodman and his band playing
Sing, Sing, Sing
,” he had answered, “and it makes me feel like
I
can do anything
I
want to, that anything is possible.”

“That's a good feeling,” she had said, “I'm happy for you.”

Now, missing work. Unheard of a month ago!

He would have preferred Ebbets Field and the Dodgers, but they were playing on the road, and he was not about to risk a postponement. But the loss of his beloved Bums would be compensated for by the chance to see Detroit's Hank Greenberg, the first great Jewish baseball player.

“You will explain the game to me during our trip there,” she had said. “Tickets must cost a lot and I want to get my money's worth.”

Seated next to his mother on the trolley, he opened a notebook, drew the diamond and identified the positions.

“You see,” he said, “this is the defending team and where they stand. If the batter hits the ball in the air and they catch it before it hits the ground, he is out. If he hits the ball on the ground and they throw the ball to the first baseman before the batter reaches first, he is out …”

He accompanied his words by sending his index finger in a parabola that culminated at the outfielder catching the fly ball, and jabbing it progressively forward to indicate the ground ball, the batter running, the shortstop throwing the ball to first base.

Her eyes were not on the diagram. They were on him. Her expression was more melancholy than usual. He wondered if she was regretting her impulsive act, especially since the temperature was around ninety degrees.

“Now if the defending team puts out three batters, they become the offense and the opponents the defense. Understand?”

She did not answer. She had not heard. Something in his face seemed to fascinate her, absorb all her attention. Perhaps she was struck by his resemblance to her. He sometimes looked at her and wondered if nature's magic carried with it an obligation of closeness. He closed the notebook.

“Why did you stop, Harry?” she said, still staring at him.

“I didn't think you were listening.”

“Oh, but I was. Maybe not to the words, but the voice. You explain like your father. You get caught up, excited.”

“Is that good?”

“Only if someone is listening.” She laughed and stroked his cheek.

They boarded the express subway to the Bronx. It was twelve-thirty. They were the only passengers in the car.

“This is better than the rush hour I travel in every morning,” she said. “Some people don't wash too often. How do you get to school?”

“I ride my bike.”

“Of course. What do you do, Harry?”

“What do you mean?”

“All the time I don't see you. What's your life like?”

“Oh, I do homework. Ride my bike on the boardwalk. Eat hot dogs at Nathan's with the money you leave and tell me not to.”

She laughed.

“Jokes, like your father.”

“Don't you like jokes?”

She didn't answer. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, as if inviting sleep, then opened them and asked:

“Will you miss me?”

“When? Are you going on a trip?”

“No. I just meant that when I die before you, which is the normal way of things, will you miss me?”

“But I'll be a man by then, probably an old man. I don't know how an old man would feel about that.”

“He would probably feel the same as a young boy.”

“Well, if he would feel the same as a baby, then the answer is that I would miss you.”

He recounted his memory of the realization that she would not always be with him and the infant's wail it had provoked. She nodded her head.

“Do you remember that?” he asked, eagerly. “Do you remember what you did?”

“I can't say that I remember that specific time. But if you cried, I picked you up. That was my way.”

“I'm glad.”

“You're a funny kid.”

“Why?”

“Well, I just saw you turn a painful memory into a happy one. A perfect about-face. I wish I could do that.”

The game was scheduled to begin at three-fifteen. They arrived at the stadium at two-fifteen. The crowd was thin. He led her to the bleacher entrance.

“Are these good seats?” she asked.

“They're the cheapest.”

“For my first and probably last baseball game, I want better. I want the best!”

They bought tickets for the lower boxes behind first base, which allowed an unobstructed view into the Yankee dugout. An usher led them to the seats and brushed them off with a cloth.

The Tigers were taking batting practice. Hank Greenberg stood behind the batting cage, waiting his turn. He pointed him out to his mother, who looked at him and said:

“He is more Jew than baseball player.”

“How do you mean?”

“Oh, he is big and strong, maybe the strongest one there, but those eyes, those sad eyes … and that large nose for sniffing danger … that's what he is mostly about.”

Greenberg stepped into the batter's box and sent tremendous drives into the left-field stands. The crowd
oohed
and
ahed
.

“Is he allowed to do that? … hit the ball where no one can get it,” she asked

“He sure can. That's the best you can do. It's a home run.”

“He takes no chances, your Mr. Greenberg. He hits the ball beyond any plot that has been hatched against the Jew.”

She showed little interest in the rest of the Tigers and the Yankees until one Yankee came running in from the outfield to take batting practice.

“Who is that?” she asked, pointing, her voice suddenly animated by excitement.

“Joe DiMaggio.”

“He is a god.”

“A god?”

“Yes, Harry. See how he carries himself as if the air dare not resist him. He glides so lightly. I can imagine him standing on water and not sinking.”

DiMaggio sprayed a few line drives and a home run.

“He shows so little effort, yet the ball travels as far as when hit by the others who grunt and twist their faces. Oh, he is certainly a god.”

DiMaggio left the batting cage and walked to the Yankee dugout. He took off his pin-striped cap and smoothed his hair.

‘He is a funny-looking god,” his mother said. “His head has not yet caught up with the rest of him. But it will. It will.”

“Have you seen many gods?” Harry asked.

“A few.”

“Is Pop a god? Is Aba?”

“No, Harry, They chase God. They try to catch him and open him up so they can see what makes him tick and copy him. It doesn't work.”

In the top of the first inning, Greenberg hit a tremendous home run into the left-field pavilion. Two men scored ahead of him. But his mother had eyes only for DiMaggio.

“Your Jew,” she said, “played it safe, but the god was not fooled. He never moved. He knew the ball would be out of reach. He'll get even.”

She was prophetic. During the game DiMaggio roamed the outfield like a restless spirit, denying fly balls to the left and right fielders as though the entire outfield was his domain. He had ten putouts—one short of the major league record—and at least four remarkable catches that brought the crowd to its feet. After each ovation his mother said:

“See Harry, they recognize a god.”

At the seventh-inning stretch, his mother craned her neck to peer into the Yankee dugout. She laughed.

“What's funny.” Harry asked.

“The god is hiding and smoking a cigarette. Is it against the law for baseball players to smoke?”

“I don't think so.”

“Then he hides his nervousness. He is wrestling with being a god.”

On the subway ride home, his mother asked:

“Are you happy, Harry?”

“Not so much these days with Aba and Bama gone and probably in danger.”

“Sadness is what I know about. I'm an expert. Did I make you sad?”

“Sometimes.”

“Did I ever make you happy?”

“I guess.”

“Do you forgive me, Harry?”

“Oh, Mom, for what?”

“For
I guess.”

When they descended from the Norton's Point trolley and began their walk home, Harry said:

“Thanks for taking me to the game.”

She did not answer immediately, but took his hand in hers, squeezed it and then said:

“It was the least I could do.”

4:15 AM:
W
OODY OPENED HIS EYES TO YELLOWING PLASTER DANGLING
from the ceiling. He felt limp, as though he had not slept at all, yet wisps of dreams played hide-and-seek around the edges of his mind. Dreams tired him. He was exhausted.

He dressed. In the bike shop, the warm air thickened the smell of grease. He ran his palm along a few bikes.
A
hammer and perhaps a crowbar had been the tools of repair. Soldier believed in the resurrection of all bikes. He would smile and say:
Got to get them doing like they was meant to.
Then he would pound them into brotherhood with
W
.
C
. Fields's bent cue stick.

If the bike did not perform, Soldier was not discouraged.
Fixed things ain't the same as new
, was his anthem. Soldier might have been talking about himself, although Woody doubted that anyone ever had tried to fix
him
, despite the gold medals and red and blue ribbons in his drawer.