Stealing Home

J
oey Sexton tossed a baseball over his head, caught it in his glove, then transferred it to his bare hand. Threw it again, higher this time, caught it. Higher still, in a looping arc, ran to catch it.
Smack.

“And DiMaggio makes another spectacular grab in centerfield!” he said out loud, pitching his voice nasal and tinny like Mel Allen, the Yankees’ announcer. He trotted down the street, tossing the ball back and forth. Stuffing poked out from a side seam of his glove, and the strap on the back, where the stitching had come loose, flapped when he whipped his hand out, but he paid it no mind. No chance of getting a new glove now, not with Mama gone, so he might as well stop wishing.

Barely a breeze stirred the humid air, and Joey’s damp shirt stuck to his back. Throwing and catching, announcing the action in a steady patter, he jogged past
old apartment buildings where dark-skinned ladies sat, fanning themselves with newspapers at the top of tall stoops, and babies, dressed only in diapers, dozed on blankets at their feet.

“DiMaggio fires to first –” Joey stepped into the street, making the throw. A loud, deep horn blasted, and he looked up to see a dump truck bearing down on him.

“Watch where you’re going, kid!”

“Aw, keep your shirt on,” Joey yelled, but he quickly stepped back. Waiting for the light, he went into a batter’s stance, cocking an imaginary bat over his shoulder. A long, slender bat of pure blond ash –
Louisville Slugger
branded on in brown letters. He pulled a tattered baseball card from his back pocket and studied the picture, then replaced the card. Shifting his weight more onto the balls of his feet to match DiMaggio’s stance, he lifted his right elbow an inch higher.

“And here’s Joltin’ Joe himself to lead off the inning,” he announced in the same nasal voice. “DiMaggio steps into the box. Takes a practice cut. Look at that powerful swing. The pitcher winds up. He delivers –” Joey swung his arms around, tight and fast, like DiMaggio, his feet swiveling but not lifting off the ground, channeling all the power of his arms and shoulders and hips. “It’s a line drive! DiMaggio’s safe at first. How about that!”

The light changed. Joey sprinted1 across the intersection, imagining himself sliding into second for a stolen base. True, DiMaggio wasn’t so hot on stolen bases. Not like that new fellow, Jackie Robinson. It was only June, and he already had ten. Fast? Shoot! He was a speed demon. But Robinson was on the Dodgers-the hated Brooklyn Dodgers.

Joey turned the corner and scanned the abandoned field at 157th Street and Courtlandt Avenue, where Harry and some of the other boys sometimes gathered for a game. Nobody there. Shucks. Well, maybe they were at the schoolyard.

Heading down a different street, he threw the ball up as high as he could. “With two outs in the top of the ninth and the Yankees leading the White Sox by a run, Luke Appling hits a high fly to center. DiMaggio’s running back, back … He’s got it to end the inning and win the game! My, what a start the Bronx Bombers have had this year! Coming off a disappointing ’46 season, they’re back on track to win the pennant….”

Joey turned a corner. There loomed the massive red brick P.S. 82 with its double cement staircases leading to the Boys’ and Girls’ wooden entrance doors. Prison during the school year, complete with bars over the windows to guard against errant balls; playground in the summer. Joey
dragged his glove along the chain-link fence that ran around the school.
Thwackeda, thwackeda, thwackeda.
Voices sounded from the back. Somebody had a game going-he hoped it was Harry and those fellows. Squeezing through the gap where the fence was broken, he circled around to the rear of the school.

Shoot. Jerome and his gang. The Negroes. Six or eight of them, a few boys crouching at the ready in the field-if you could call it a field. It was more like a gravel patch, the odd tuft of weeds sprouting through the pebbly dirt. The tall skinny kid, Donny, was at bat, and Jerome, as usual, was on the mound. As Joey watched, Jerome wound up.
Zoom.
Boy, that kid could pitch. He was a head taller than Joey, and twice as strong. Donny swung. Grounder to short. Maurice – a small boy who always tagged along behind Jerome like a skittish shadow – scooped it up. Donny dove for first, sending up a cloud of dust, as Maurice made the throw.

“One out!” Jerome sang.

“Darn!” Donny said, retrieving the bat – a Louisville Slugger.

Maybe this time
, Joey thought. Sooner or later they’d break down. He inched forward.

“Hey, fellas.”

Jerome turned, made a face. “You again. What do you want?”

“Can I play?”

“No.” Jerome turned to face the next batter.

“Aw, come on,” Joey said, approaching third base.

“You heard him,” Donny said.

“You only got seven,” Joey argued. “I’ll even out the sides.”

“Forget it.”

Joey edged closer. “Hey, come on, I can hit.”

“Yeah, but how’re you going to field with that worn-out raggedy thing?” Donny said, pointing to Joey’s glove. The other boys laughed, their teeth white in dark brown faces.

“Stuffin’s fallin’ out.”

“Flap-flappety-flap,” Maurice said, flapping his arms like a chicken.

Joey’s cheeks burned. “So what if my glove’s old? That doesn’t mean –”

Jerome jerked his thumb. “Get lost, whitebread.”

That name again
. “Don’t call me that,” Joey said in a low voice.

“Aw, hurt your feelings?”

“I mean it.”

Jerome grinned at the others. “We don’t want no crackers in our game, do we, boys?”

“Shut up!” It wasn’t the words that infuriated Joey so much as the way they were said. As if there was something
wrong with being half white. Or half black, for that matter. Who cared? But no one was going to rag him about it and get away with it. He dropped his glove and flung himself at the taller boy.

Surprised, Jerome stumbled back, but quickly recovered. Tossing his glove to the shortstop, he shoved Joey. Joey saw his nostrils flare, his lips press into a brown line. The other boys closed in.

“Shut him up, Jerome!”

Joey flailed with his fist, but only grazed Jerome’s cheek. It was enough to enrage the other boy, however, who responded with a blow to Joey’s shoulder that made him stagger.

“Attaboy, Jerome.”

Regaining his balance, Joey swung upward. His fist plowed into the soft pillow of Jerome’s stomach, and Joey felt keen satisfaction to see him grimace, to hear him grunt. But a moment later, Jerome landed a sharp blow to Joey’s mouth. He felt a sting, tasted blood. He lashed out, but missed. Jerome laughed.

“Show him, Jerome.”

Joey stepped in closer, swung, and connected with Jerome’s jaw. The other boy hit him on the side of the head, knocking him to the ground. Sharp pebbles dug into his bottom, the backs of his legs. Before he could react, Jerome hauled him up by the shirt. Joey heard the
fabric rip. Shoot! Mrs. Webster had already reamed him out for tearing this same shirt the other day. Furious, he jumped on Jerome, swinging wildly.

“You dirty, rotten –”

So intent was he on trying to hit Jerome that he didn’t notice that the others had fallen silent, until he felt a strong grip on his arm. Thinking it was one of the boys, he tried to shake it off. “Let go –”

“What in God’s name you think you’re doing?”

An ebony face, framed by a straw hat with wisps of frizzy gray hair sticking out, was frowning down at him.

“Mrs. Webster!”

“Get out of there.”

“But Mrs. Webster –”

“You scoundrel, I can’t turn my back one minute and you’re in trouble.”

“They started it –”

“Don’t you give me backtalk, boy.”

“Let go of me,” he yelled, trying to wiggle free, but her fingers dug in painfully.
For an old lady, he thought, she sure has a powerful grip
.

“Move –
now!
” she ordered.

At least the other boys were as much in awe of her as he was, and didn’t laugh. Somehow Joey managed to scoop up his ball and glove before he was dragged around the corner into a rundown building, up four flights of
stairs, and deposited in the front hallway of Mrs. Webster’s apartment.

She regarded him, hands on hips. She was panting, and Joey hoped she wasn’t going to have one of her “breathing spells.” That was all he needed – to make Mrs. Webster faint.

Turned out she had breath enough. “What’m I gonna do with you, Joey Sexton? Minute I turn my back, you’re in a fight. And now your shirt is tore again –”

“He started it. Callin’ me names –”

“And if it’s not fightin’, it’s some other grief. Last week of school you got sent to the principal’s office for sassin’ the teacher. And before that the cops brought you home for throwing rocks at windows.” She shook her head. “Now look at you – all tore up, with a bloody lip and a swollen head. I swear, you’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

Joey put his hands on his hips. “Then why don’t you just throw me out?”

“And let you run wild in the street?” She snorted. “Not likely.”

“None of your business anyway,” he grumbled.

“Hush your mouth. I made a promise to your mama, and I mean to keep it!”

She stopped as Joey’s eyes filled with tears. He folded his arms across his chest.

“Aw, come here, boy.” She pulled him to her. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

Joey twisted away. “Don’t need you,” he said, but his voice trembled. He didn’t want to think about how he’d sobbed on her shoulder after Mama died. How he’d shadowed her, afraid to leave her side, for days. Scowling, he dashed away the tears with his sleeve.

The telephone rang, and Mrs. Webster went into the kitchen to answer it. Joey dried his eyes and wiped his nose. Meddling old busybody….

“Oh, hello, Miss MacNeill,” Mrs. Webster said. “How’re you today?”

Joey froze.

Miss MacNeill was the social worker who’d been assigned to his case after his mother died. For the past few months, while Joey stayed with Mrs. Webster in the apartment across the hall from where he and Mama had lived, Miss MacNeill had been trying to track down his father.

Joey had only vague memories of his daddy. In fact, he knew only three things about him: his name was Horace Sexton, he was colored, and he was a trumpet player. Joey’s ears remembered the liquid notes of his daddy’s trumpet, melting in the air. His body remembered being thrown up high and caught by warm, strong hands; being tickled by long brown fingers. He had fuzzy recollections of nights when the room was full of bodies, the smell of
sweat and spicy food, dancing and laughter and loud music. And he remembered crying sometimes when no one paid any attention to him and his diaper chafed and his tummy growled.

Joey didn’t remember when his daddy left, though he recalled voices shouting and people fighting. Mama had told him that his daddy had lived with them off and on for a couple of years, first in Kansas City, where Joey was born, then in Chicago, then in the Bronx. Then his daddy had gone back to Chicago to play a gig and was never heard from again.

But that didn’t mean his daddy wasn’t out there somewhere. Or that he didn’t love him. Or that, when he learned how his son needed him, he wouldn’t come right away. Of course he would. Something had prevented him all these years, Joey was certain. Probably his career. He was a musician, after all. Had to travel the world – London, Paris, Rome…. It was no surprise that he’d lost touch. But now, Joey was just as certain that nothing would keep him away.

He edged toward the kitchen, straining to figure out from Mrs. Webster’s replies what Miss MacNeill was saying.

“Yes, Miss MacNeill, ten o’clock. That’ll be fine,” Mrs. Webster said. “See you then.” She hung up.

Heart pounding, Joey asked with his eyes.

“She has news. Wants us to come in tomorrow.”

Until that moment, when he let out his breath, Joey didn’t realize he’d been holding it. He whooped. “She’s found him! She’s found my daddy!”