by Lois Ruby
Your friend,
MARTY
If only things were that terrific two seasons later. Last week I heard Mickey say on the radio, “I’ll play baseball for the Army or fight for it, whatever they want me to do.”
Well, they’re turning Mantle down flat because of that bum knee. Here’s the kicker, though. The army took the Giants’ star rookie from that ’51 season—Willie Mays, who popped the fly that ended up tearing Mantle’s knee ligaments. Guess Mays got what was coming to him.
Boy, am I ever in a crummy brussels-sprouts-and-beets mood.
There’s a loud knock on my door, followed by an even louder, higher one.
“Yeah, what?” I mutter.
Mom and Dad burst into my room full of smiles. Seems the Rocky Marciano and Jersey Joe Walcott of Oxbow Road have called a truce in honor of my birthday.
Mom yanks me off my bed and smothers me with wet kisses. “Did you think we’d forget about your thirteenth birthday, Marty? Not a chance in the world.” Dad reaches across her to pat my back and says, “I’ve made a dinner reservation at the Peach Tree in Newton for the four of us.”
Four? Including Amy Lynn?
Mom pinches my arm, but not hard. “Get dressed. Connor will be here in fifteen minutes.”
Connor. Aw, man.
Chapter 9
Tuesday, April 21
On the way to my birthday dinner, Connor and I are in the backseat, hunched against the doors. Any farther apart, and one of us would be in the gutter. We’re gazing out our windows, not talking. My parents are in the front seat, concentrating on not fighting during this one-night ceasefire. This should be one merry ole birthday celebration. I might have to drown myself in the pool of butter that defines the Peach Tree’s famous mashed spuds and softball-sized biscuits.
At the table we try to be party creatures, wisecracking, laughing too loud, and making fun of the family next to us with twin brats in highchairs tossing soda crackers at each other. The two highchairs remind me of twin electric chairs. I don’t mention this. I don’t want to spoil the fake fun.
Mom teases, “We thought of inviting Mr. Sokolov to the birthday celebration.”
He’s my bar mitzvah tutor, about as much fun as a paper cut. But we don’t have a rabbi in town, and Wichita’s two hours away, so Mr. Sokolov slogs the few Jews in Palmetto through the bar mitzvah year, mostly by phone.
I call everybody into a huddle. “You have to promise no waiters will sing ‘Happy Birthday’ like they did last year. Swear it?”
Mom flashes a smile. “I don’t take loyalty oaths, remember?”
“No waiters will sing,” Dad promises, which is scary, because what isn’t he telling me?
Soon enough, I find out. When the last pieces of chicken are reduced to a graveyard of clean bones, a troop marches out of the kitchen, led by a guy in one of those floppy chef hats, carrying a strawberry shortcake with sizzling Fourth of July sparklers stuck in it.
The waiters don’t sing; they just clap in rhythm, and everybody else in the restaurant sings. If I slide under the table maybe they’ll think it’s Connor’s birthday. But now Mom is piling presents and cards around my plate.
After dinner, Dad says, “I’m sure you boys would like some time to celebrate without us old folks around. How about we drop you off by the College and you can go adventuring from there?”
Panic strikes. Connor looks as terrified as I am when Dad leaves the two of us on campus.
“What’ll we do now, Con? Wanna just walk home?”
“We’re here. Might as well make the most of it.” Like saying We’re out on the highway—we might as well let a semi roll over us. “Hey, I know the coolest place on campus.”
“Yeah, where?”
“The clock tower. Wouldn’t it be really cool to climb up to the top of Whittier Tower?”
Wherever you are on campus, you can’t miss Whittier Tower poking up at the sky. It says Hawthorne College loud and clear. “Sure, but it’s locked.”
“Wanna bet?” Connor pulls a key out of his back pocket. “What’s the use of my dad being in charge of buildings and grounds if I can’t smuggle a key out of his locker? I made you a copy yesterday when I was in Newton getting my braces tightened. Happy birthday, buddy.”
We sprint across campus like wolves are lapping at our butts. I unlock the creaky door. Start running up the steep, winding steps. Connor huffs and puffs behind me. At about fifty I slow down. Heavy breathing surprises me. I thought I was in better shape than this.
The last couple dozen steps we’re sweating out, on our hands and knees, but we keep going up, up, up, until we roll onto the top platform. Connor’s ready to beach out on the cool cement, but I warn, “If you don’t get off your keister, I’ll give you a push. I betcha it’s roughly three hundred feet to the ground.” I look over the ledge and chuckle. “Your sadly mangled body will make a giant crater.”
Sure, a million years from now, people will stand around admiring the fossilized remains of Connor Dugan, like we did at the La Brea Tar Pits in California two summers ago, the Mick’s rookie season.
Want to know what’s beautiful? A three-sixty view of Palmetto, where some smart city planner made a law that all roofs had to be red, and God made sure all trees were a dazzling green in the spring. And talk about cool: there aren’t any windows at the top, so we’ve got a terrific fresh breeze whooshing through the clock tower.
And the Hill, yeah, it’s a bump higher than the rest of Palmetto.
We ride the wall of the tower like it’s a pony, one leg flipped over the side, our backs against a post. No talking, but the silence doesn’t feel as freaky as it’s been down there on the ground. I finger the key in my pocket. Man, it’s like the key to my own kingdom. Hey, it’s my birthday. From up here, I’m in charge of the whole world.
Can the emperor of the universe stop an execution fifty-eight days from now?
Chapter 10
Saturday, April 25
The window’s open, but there’s no wind. The only thing blowing in our living room is Connor’s bugle. Turns out my birthday on Whittier Tower didn’t work magic, or at least the magic didn’t last for Connor and me as friends. But we’ve got what my dad calls a Responsibility with a capital R. Ever since Connor’s dad got the building and grounds job for the College, we’d wrangled the honor of blowing our bugles at commencement. Since Hawthorne’s a Quaker school, it does this Silent Reflection thing during graduation. Connor and I aren’t what you’d call natural musicians, so we always have to practice months before, but on the big day, our lungs always pump out those bluesy notes like pros, almost.
Last June, before the FBI, was our best year ever. From the top of Hollyhock Hill, we looked down over the amphitheater in the woods, and what we saw were about three hundred black squares squiggling around, flinging graduation cap tassels. Dean Fennel’s amplified voice boomeranged off Trowbridge Peak to the Hill and back. From a distance, say as far away as Wichita, the two hills look like a pair of giant rabbit ears poking up over the Midwestern flatlands.
I crouched back in the grass and whispered, “Battle stations. As soon as Fennel sits down, we’re on our countdown. Rockets ready for launch?”
Connor licked his lips and polished his brassy horn on his shirt.
Strung as tight as guitar strings, we waited for the big moment. My eyes followed the second-hand creeping slowly around on my watch. Countdown: four minutes, three minutes, two. I wet my whistle with a swig of water from my Captain Marvel thermos, and stretched my lips with a finger hooked into my cheek. “On your mark . . . get set . . . blow!”
Two majestic, perfectly synchronized trills of our bugles blasted the end of Silent Reflection.
This year it’s going to be a lot harder since, you could say, Connor and I aren’t exactly synchronized. We nervously toot our horns and stare at the television instead of looking at each other.
Connor’s ghoulish in the dark room with the flickering black-and-white images bouncin
g off his moon face. The TV cuts to a commercial for Kraft Deluxe cheese slices, and we blot it out with a really sour, uncoordinated ditty on our bugles.
From the kitchen Mom yells, “Stop slaughtering cats in there.”
By the next commercial (Ipana Toothpaste keeps your whole mouth cleaner, sweet, sparkling!) you can at least tell that we’re trying to play “Reveille.”
Connor wipes spit off his horn. “Okay, we’re ready for the big show. Let’s go over and tell Luke.”
Makes my gut flip-flop. Crossing the street over to the Everlys’, Connor gives the FBI guys a stage bow. Dimple Chin ducks his head down, probably talking into the two-way radio to tell bossman J. Edgar, “Start a record on this kid, Connor Dugan.”
Luke’s sitting on a lawn chair outside his garage, wearing dungarees and a white T-shirt. From my house across the street it looked like maybe he was fixing a radio on his lap, but as we get closer, we see that he’s only holding it at arm’s length on his knees, staring up to the sky.
He drags his dead eyes down like they weigh fifty pounds each.
Connor and I stand around like idiots, flashing looks back and forth.
Dead air. Suddenly Luke’s eyes snap into focus. “Don’t . . . blow . . . those bugles.”
“Yeah, we’re pretty bad,” I agree. “We’ll never make it to The Ted Mack Amateur Hour.”
“No . . . bugles.” He turns up to the sky again. I look up. No clouds, no spectacular sunset, not even a crow flying by. What does he find so hypnotizing up there? I look over at Connor, who shrugs me a what’s with HIM? He mumbles something about “Sundown, time to roll in Old Glory,” and we slink away to our own houses.
Here’s the weird thing that makes no sense. Luke was over in Korea fighting communism, but look where it got him. Nowhere. He’s locked up in a prison just like the Rosenbergs are, only his prison walls are his own messed-up mind. No fifty-four days to doomsday, because there’s no end in sight. That’s gotta be way worse.
Chapter 11
Sunday, April 26
Maybe Luke needs to take up the bugle himself for a few kicks, or play checkers, or go to see a show at the Rialto. Not War of the Worlds. Maybe a Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis movie like The Caddy. They say it’s full of merry mix-ups and fix-ups.
Instead, he sits outside in that lawn chair from sunrise to sunset every day, even in the rain. Just scrapes his chair across the cement a few inches north or south, to keep out of the sun. Sometimes he gets up and limps around the maple tree in his front yard, or picks a few weeds, or scratches Bix, their cocker, but mostly he just sits. When Wendy comes home, she has to jump out of the car, open the garage door right behind him, slide back in the driver’s seat, and weave her way around him to wedge the car into the garage.
If Carrie manages to knee her way half into his lap, he’ll help her up the rest of the way. Then the two of them sit for a while until Carrie finds something better to do. He never does.
Amy Lynn still babysits Carrie after school and on Saturdays, when Wendy’s working at the College library. She tells Mom and me, “All I have to do for Luke is take him a baloney sandwich and a Pepsi. Then, when I put Carrie down for a nap, I sit on the grass and read him The Grapes of Wrath. I don’t know why I bother. He never says anything.”
“Yes, but Steinbeck does,” Mom says. She twists her thick braid. “My heart goes out to that poor shell-shocked man. Believe me, Marty, if they try to draft you, I’m going down to the army office and dragging you home by the ankles.”
Nothing embarrassing about my mom.
Mowing Luke’s lawn is tricky, because he sits right on the north edge, and I have to cut a half-circle around him. I call out, real cheerful, “Top o’ the mornin’, Luke,” like he used to say to me before Korea. He barely raises an eyebrow, though he does lift his feet so I can get the lawn mower under them. Guess he doesn’t want to risk losing any body parts.
Heading south on his lawn, I mentally test great opening lines:
Nice dog you got there. That only works if Bix is sniffing around, and usually the mutt watches the action and barks like a coward from the living room window.
So, what’s new? What could be new? The man just sits there counting clouds.
I notice you’re building up a serious tan, there, Luke. That’ll only draw attention to his pocked face that still has shrapnel stuck in it.
Man, any safe topics? Heading north with the lawn mower, I settle on one. What guy can resist baseball?
“Think the Yankees’ll take the pennant? Fifth straight. Nobody’s ever done it.” I wait a few seconds, swiping my T-shirt across my sweaty forehead. Might as well be talking to a dime-store dummy. So I turn south again—and hear at my back, real slow:
“If . . . Mantle doesn’t . . . get . . . hurt again.”
I spin around. “Didn’t know you were a Mantle fan, Luke.”
He shakes his head and drawls flatly, “Phil Riz . . . zu . . . to. All . . . the way.”
“Rizzuto? Come on! He’s still limping from the gashes he got when that Browns’ catcher spiked him at Second.” Oops. I’m not supposed to talk about limping or gashes.
I peek at Luke over the lawn mower handle. Should I keep going? Worth a try. “You know what I like about Rizzuto, though? Talk about shortstop, he’s the shortest guy the Yankees ever fielded, five-foot-five.”
Luke spins out, “And that’s . . . with lifts . . . in his . . . cleats.”
Wow, not just words; a joke! We’re on a roll. “Did you hear when Casey Stengel first saw him play, he told Rizzuto he was too small? Said, ‘Get a shoebox.’ I guess Rizzuto showed Stengel. Get a shoebox, hah!”
No response this time. Maybe a little action will help. “Don’t short-change us short guys. We can do amazing stuff.” I start zooming around cutting a figure eight.
Luke’s spaced out again, off in left field. The conversation has sapped all his energy like the air’s been let out of his tires. But it still counts as a conversation on the chart I’m gonna start keeping tonight. Well, why not? I keep baseball records, enough to fill a banana crate. Plus, there are all those Mickey Mantle Memos filed in chronological order, and I’ve got my bowling league records going back to fourth grade, all nice and neat in a ledger book. So, it’s not too weird to keep Luke Everly records, is it? I mean, look at it this way. I can’t do a thing about Yankees’ hits and runs, and I haven’t improved my bowling average in three years.
But maybe I can get Luke off of dead center. Gives me hope that he said, “Rizzuto, all the way.”
Chapter 12
Monday, April 27
So, it’s game time. Because of my sterling performance at the plate, Coach has decided to stop batting me, which means he doesn’t have to field me. Ask me what position I play for the Pirates, and I’d have to answer, center bench.
Still, I’m praying for action, all suited up in a uniform that never picks up a speck of field mud. It’s eleven to three, South Hadley Mustangs, and we’re up, when I feel some weird vibrations coming from the other Pirates. They sprint in from the field, and nobody looks my way, even when I pour on the congrats.
“Great hustle out there, men.” Nothing. I clear my throat and speak up: “Hey, Larrimer, your catch at third was legendary, tagging that guy out like that.”
“Thanks,” Larrimer whispers, without looking at me.
The guys are all kidding around, swinging bats two-at-a-time, swigging orange pop, and acting like I’m a blob of protoplasm oozing on the bench. I pinch myself. Am I here?
Coach is giving one of his horrible pep talks before our first batter goes up. “Listen, men, don’t give me any of that commie crapola like everybody’s equal out there on my field. You wimps are bigger and meaner than that runty pack of mongrels out there. Look at ’em. Disreputable bunch of pantywaists.”
“Nice talking, Coach,” Larry Jukes says. He can get away with smart-mouthing, because he never walks.
Coach always reminds us, “I rather see you
dim bulbs strike out than walk. At least you’re swinging and not letting yourself get spooked by a ball zooming at your noggin. So, get out there and kill ’em!”
The ump roars, “Batter up!”
Shire’s lead-off. Castleman’s on deck, with Connor in the hole. Coach trots out to First to talk to the Mustangs’ coach, and that’s when Bokser comes up to me and spits a wad at my feet. Misses my cleats by a half inch. His spit aim isn’t any better than his pitching.
“What gives?” I ask, easing my foot away. “Connor? Larrimer? Anybody home? What’s going on?”
Connor focuses real hard on the pool of foaming spit in the dust. “Lay low, Marty, you’re cooked.”
Suddenly it seems like my butt is plastered to the bench. I can’t move an inch, not even wiggle my big toe.
After the game, where they cream us—big news there—Coach makes us all file through the South Hadley line-up shaking hands and saying good game, good game. “Sportsmanship, that’s what it’s all about,” he’s always telling us. “Makes men out of you.”
Sportsmanship? Lying about it being a good game? Glad I didn’t have to sign an oath swearing I meant it, because a bunch of uniformed prairie dogs could have given South Hadley more challenge.
Mom thinks Coach Earlywine is the last surviving Neanderthal. Okay, I agree with that, but not with her take on competition. “This wining/losing thing? I don’t get it,” she said after the first and last game she came to. “Wouldn’t both sides be happier and healthier if every game ended in a tie?”
