Sam's Legacy

by Jay Neugeboren

  Ahead of him, a man was sprawled on the sidewalk, his head against a garbage can, his left leg folded impossibly backward, under his rear-end. Sam looked left, checking the doorways to see if it was the old trap. Nobody. He walked to the man, smelled liquor mixed with vomit. The guy was Negro, but with a tiny nose, flattened like an Irishman’s. His stubble was full of white hairs, he had a sky-blue baseball cap on his head, sideways, and there was something dark clotted along his lower lip. There were no cars parked nearby. Sam bent over quickly, his ear to the man’s face—he heard breathing, a low pleasant-sounding gurgle. Sam felt the guy’s hands, checked his wrists—he’d be okay the way he was, sleeping it off.

  A stranger had once saved a man’s life, a diplomat from the United Nations—Sam had seen the story in the Post—because he’d stopped when he’d seen him lying in the gutter; the man had had an engraved silver tag on his wrist, stating that he was a diabetic and who to telephone.

  Sam moved away, across Martense Street. What if—the thought made him swallow, clench his fists—it had been Dave Stallworth lying there? The cleaning store at the corner, where old Mr. Weiss used to sit in the window, sewing, was now some kind of welfare station—guys hanging out in front of it all day long. This had been the best block for punchball and stickball, and he knew the local kids still used it: not too many cars, only one or two big trees overhanging, and they were far enough apart so that you had to go some, from the first sewer cover, to loft a ball into the branches. He heard the sound of glass—a bottle—splattering on the sidewalk behind him. He crossed over: all the stores had iron grilles across their doors and windows.

  Sam walked along Church Avenue, past Holy Cross Church, past the schoolyard where he still played three-man ball some afternoons. Two policemen were walking together on the other side of the street, their walkie-talkies strapped to their sides like silver hip flasks. To the left, across Bedford Avenue, he saw one wall of his old high school, Erasmus, and, next to it, on the far side, where their synagogue used to be, there was now a parking lot.

  If religion meant so much to his father, then how come he never even went to synagogue anymore? Answer that, he heard himself saying to Ben—but he knew that Ben would only smile back at him, in the way which drove Sam crazy, and say something clever. Here the man was, though, sixty-seven years old, admitting he didn’t believe in God and winding black straps around himself every morning of his life…and people thought that gamblers were superstitious!

  Sam played the cards, just what was there. If you bluff, it’ll get rough. Sure. It was no skin off his back if somebody wanted to believe something—when it came down to it, he bet his old man would have been shocked to find out what he himself believed. Ben didn’t know everything.

  He passed the post office, the firehouse, and Luigi’s, where he and Dutch still went sometimes to split a pizza pie. The parking lot across the street, next to the Biltmore Caterers, had been Harry Gross’s place of business, and even though he’d been put in the can almost twenty years before, at the time of the basketball fixes, guys in the neighborhood still talked about him. Gross had been the biggest bookie in Brooklyn, a friend of Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen; and he’d always worked completely in the open. Sabatini’s take was probably one-tenth of what they said Gross had controlled; the man had to be careful, sure, but Sam didn’t like it, never seeing his face, only hearing his voice on the phone.

  He couldn’t complain, though. If the guy wanted to act as if he was king of Las Vegas, that was his right. He’d always dealt straight with Sam, for the six years Sam had been using him. Maybe he felt he had to impress the muscle men on his payroll, acting like some kind of Howard Hughes, the guy who owned the state of Nevada and walked around his penthouse with his feet in Kleenex boxes to keep germs off. Sabatini could keep himself locked in an iron mask, for all Sam cared; so long as Sam got his money at the end of the week, when it was coming to him.

  At the corner of Church and Flatbush, Sam could see that the morning papers had not yet come in—the stacks were all too low—so he went into Garfield’s Cafeteria, pushed through the turnstile, took his blank check from the machine, picked up a tray, some paper napkins, silverware. He got his cup of coffee and a cheese Danish, then sat down by the Flatbush Avenue window. The kids from Erasmus had probably been rioting again, he figured: there was tape going across the window in a jagged line. A lot of old people were sitting around, talking. With triple locks on their doors and round-the-clock doormen, the old people hung on, but their kids were all moving out, the way all his old buddies had done: to Westchester and Long Island and New Jersey, to California and Florida.

  Sam sipped his coffee, watched the kids across the street (they sat, in rows, on the steps of the Dutch Reformed Church), and he could see Stallworth moving across half-court, then cutting left through a pack of players, his body toward the basket, and, at the last second, his left hand stretching back and swishing a beautiful hook shot straight through. The guy was right-handed too—an ace. But Sam would lay off the Knicks for the next game—they would be playing on the road, and he wouldn’t press his luck. The two-fifty would last until the end of the month.

  The man at the table in front of his, next to the window, was licking a pencil point with his tongue, marking things down in the margins of The New York Times. The guy wore an old brown jacket over a sweater with holes in it, yet there he was, figuring out the stock page. The man scribbled furiously along the edge of the newsprint, stopped, looked at Sam suspiciously, then, with his left hand, stuck a finger through one of the holes in his sweater and scratched his chest. Sam thought of the other guy, reaching into his jacket for whatever pamphlet it was that he’d been selling.

  Sam kept his eye on the market now and then, but he never played there. Sure, you could make a big killing if somebody gave you a tip, but where, he asked, was the control? The big boys manipulated everything; you could get your ass cleaned out overnight if some mutual fund decided to dump what you had. All you could do was read the figures in the paper, and they weren’t figures Sam could believe in. He’d make his own odds.

  He hadn’t, he knew, been getting as many games of poker as he needed—that was why he’d put two and a half on the Knicks’ first game. He didn’t like it. Sure. Maybe, in the way that pitchers were always ahead of the batters in spring training, so Sam could stay ahead of the bookies in the early going; still, the question was there: where was the control? The truth, he knew (remembering how easy it had been, a few hours before, seeing Stallworth, to let his feelings carry him away), was that you were only a spectator. If he could have given up betting on games, he’d have been just as happy.

  He felt his fingers tighten into fists. Damn though, he thought. With enough poker he wouldn’t have needed anything else. If he could have had one game every night for one year, say—five-card draw, five and ten—he figured he could have retired at the end. But games were harder and harder to come by—he’d had to go out to Newark for the last one, taking the damned tubes—and the game had been only quarter and half-dollar.

  The man had switched seats, showing Sam his back. Sam smiled, watched the man’s elbow jerking, pushing the pencil round and round in circles. With the Dow Jones average dropping every day lately, the bottom nowhere in sight, the guy was probably eating himself up. Or maybe he traded in the other stuff, which Sam never followed at all: what the fuck were pork belly futures anyway? He laughed—it picked him up, thinking of a line like that. He bit into his Danish. That, and the guys who were always talking about taking losses in order to make gains. You couldn’t sell that theory to a man who’d been in Sam’s line of work for over a dozen years. Sam knew the guys who’d bet heavy on low pairs, who’d lose hands on purpose, thinking they were setting him up; they’d never taken his money home.

  What had he made the last time, though? A hundred and twenty—and it had been his only game in six weeks. There was no point in laughing at the others. He sighed, remembering how easy it had been, pla
ying his hands, small and smart, waiting for the others to make their moves. He could have written the script ahead of time, from the way they ran their mouths so much. When they raised the house, he knew he was home free. If he’d wanted to, in his head, he could have replayed every hand he’d had during that four-and-a-half-hour game. But the thought tired him. There’d been no need to follow the betting pattern: when his own cards were there, he’d stayed in, no matter how many they drew or what they bet. Sam felt himself tense. What good was it, being able to see through a bunch of two-bit players when, in the end, he was the one who was back where he started from, having to bet on things he shouldn’t be betting on, having to wonder if he’d get enough games to get by on, having to worry about what he’d tell Ben when his cash reserves were gone, and the bottom dropped away.

  Bundles of newspapers flew out of the back of a truck, and two black boys raced each other to get to them. Milt, the old newsdealer, made angry motions at them, but when the kids had dumped the bundles in front of the newsstand, Sam saw Milt give them each some money. The rumble of conversation in the cafeteria relaxed Sam. He remembered when Garfield’s had first opened; he remembered the Flatbush Theater, which had been in the spot before—still showing vaudeville long after it had disappeared everywhere else in the city; he remembered—he stopped: heads were lifting, all staring in the same direction, and Sam saw why—the kids on the steps of the church had gone to the corner. A pair of lavender-colored El Dorados, like twins, were parked one behind the other. The roofs, Sam could tell, were made of alligator skin. The roof of the first car began rising, moving backward, and Sam saw the driver, a young black man in a mink-colored fur jacket—and next to him, a girl with a pile of silver-pink hair swirling a foot over her head. They showed you something—he had to admit it. Sure. If he had a wife and kids and a lot of junk in the house, he might want out also—he could understand that—but his old buddies, living out on the Island in their private homes, they missed the chance to see something like this: how often did any of them get to the Garden, as much as they all loved basketball? Sure. When their sons were at a certain age, they’d probably make a day of it once or twice a year—but it wasn’t the same thing.

  He finished his coffee. The El Dorados turned left and cruised by in front of the window. Along the chrome stripping there were things sparkling like sequins. Sam stood and made his way to the cashier. A girl, sitting near the trays and silverware, had her eye on him. She sat very straight, an empty coffee cup in front of her, and Sam saw, most of all, the ring of black and purple she’d painted around her eyes. He’d seen her here before, waiting, and he was pretty sure he remembered her from high school: he hadn’t known her, but he’d seen her, hanging around the Bedford Avenue arch at lunchtime and after school. It would be a treat for her, he guessed, taking him home instead of the old men and the blacks. Sure. Things were rough all over, he said to himself, recalling an old line—even the chorus girls were kicking. He paid, stuck a mint-flavored toothpick in the side of his mouth, and left.

  “How’s t-tricks, Sam?” Milt asked, stuttering slightly, as he always did.

  “Can’t complain, Milt.”

  Milt reached to the side of the newsstand. “Morning Telegraph?” Sam nodded. “You want one of Powell’s Sheets—he’s been h-hot lately.”

  “Sure,” Sam said. Milt’s lips were blubbery, his eyes miniscule behind thick, round glasses. He’d been there ever since Sam could remember, a bit of drool trickling out the left side of his mouth, wearing the same green-check lumberjacket, the same baggy brown pants.

  “The Times isn’t in yet,” Milt said. “Another f-fifteen minutes maybe.”

  “What do I owe you?” Sam asked. Milt seemed to concentrate, as if, Sam thought, he’d asked him about the state of the world. “That’s one dollar and forty cents—P-Powell is half a dollar.”

  Sam gave him the money. “I had the Knicks tonight,” Sam said suddenly, and felt a warm wave flood across his face.

  “I’m happy for you,” Milt said. “You’re a good boy. How is your f-father feeling?”

  “Fine,” Sam said, stepping back, indicating he wanted to get away. “He gives you his best. He told me to say that.”

  Milt seemed to smile, but Sam couldn’t be certain: the guy’s face was so pasty. “He’s a fine man.” The words came out evenly, as if, Sam thought, Milt were reading them. “You’re a good boy…he’s a fine man…. You’re…”

  Sam had the papers folded under his arm. He walked away, waved, half-turned, “See you around—”

  At Rogers Avenue, in the London Hut, there were a few guys sitting at the counter, half-asleep. Ahead of him, people were coming out of the Granada Theater. Some of them, going in the opposite direction, passed him: they weren’t afraid, he figured, when there were so many of them. But when they split off, heading in different directions, their numbers thinning until they were alone for the last block or half-block…

  Sam turned left at Nostrand Avenue, around the subway entrance, the corner cigar store. He crossed over, onto his own block, came to his building, and glanced through the window of the rummage shop. The racks of coats and dresses, and the tables of clothes and odds-and-ends, were pushed to the sides—it had been the night, he knew, for one of their parties, when all the cripples would be wheeled into the store to listen to music and fill their stomachs with soda and food, parents feeding the ones who had lost the use of their hands. There were a few older ones who could still walk in—their legs stiff, their bodies tilted backward as if they were imitating Frankenstein—and when Sam imagined them trying to dance with one another, he cringed.

  There was no light on in the back of the store, though, which meant that Mason Tidewater—the janitor, one had to call him, he supposed—was downstairs, in the basement. Sam opened the door. The hall light, which had gone out the night before, was back on. Sam brushed the brass mailboxes with his shoulder, took the steps two at a time, fished in his pocket for his key, and opened the door.

  All the lights were out, none coming from under Ben’s door. Sam flicked the wall switch and saw that there was something under his foot. Even before he reached down, he had a feeling—it made him set his teeth, angrily—that he knew what he would find. He stared into the man’s printed face, and cursed. The pamphlet was printed on glossy paper, three inches square, in blue ink, with the photograph in the middle, and Sam could hear the guy’s voice reciting the printed words: It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Hear my story, brother, so you too may be saved.

  Sam took his jacket off, laying the papers and the pamphlet down on the kitchen table. He threw the cushions off the couch, grabbed the leather loop, and jerked: the sofa unfolded, filling his half of the room.

  2

  When Sam opened his eyes, his head thick with sleep, he saw above him the white silk, and above the silk, two weaving lines of black. He blinked. He felt as if there were a layer of black mesh across his own face, through which he was looking up. His father’s head was banded in black, and the Hebrew letters, along the collar of the silk shawl, silver woven on silver, seemed for a moment to be blue. Sam sniffed in, pulled the covers higher, to his chin, rolled his head against the pillow, stretching his neck muscles. A small square of black above his father’s eyes dropped toward him, and Sam rubbed his hand across his own eyes, then applied pressure at the sides, with thumb and middle fingers.

  He had, arriving home the night before, fallen asleep at once—he never suffered from insomnia—and he could remember nothing except the comforting depth of that sleep. Even now, when he had things on his mind, he did not dream much, and he was grateful: he imagined that people who had dreams all night long, one after the other, worked at half-strength during their waking hours. It would be, he thought, like sitting up through an endless series of Late Show movies. It was all a question of will, of control. When he hit the sack, he put everything out of mind. Sure: out of sight, out of mind.

  “What is i
t?” he asked. Ben lifted his head, smiled, stepped away from the bed. Sam saw the black leather box at the top of his father’s forehead, suspended from its straps, the straps circling backward around the crown of his father’s head, under a black yamulka. Ben’s hands were at his sides, his right index finger locked between the pages of an old siddur. His left fist was closed around the end of one strap, holding it in place. Sam had read somewhere about holy men in India who kept their fists clenched until the nails grew through the palms and came out through the backs of their hands. He felt a chill wash over his body, but he showed nothing: he lay between the sheets, waiting.

  “I wanted to be sure to be here when you woke—before you left for the day.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. It was all right to move now, he decided. He lifted his right arm from under the cover and rubbed the tip of his nose with the back of his hand. Then he slid backward, on his elbows, until he was sitting.

  “I’d like to talk with you.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Good. May I finish first?” Ben asked, indicating, by flicking the fringes of his silk talis with his fingers, his prayers.

  Sam shrugged, swung his feet out from under the covers. While Ben prayed, Sam dressed; then he went to the stove and put some water on to boil. The kitchen—a kitchenette actually, with a refrigerator, stove, and sink—was an alcove directly across from his bed. If he wanted to, he could close it off: there were folding doors, with slats in them. In the other half of the room was the square maple table he and Ben used for eating, and behind it, a mahogany breakfront—one of the few pieces Ben had saved from their Linden Boulevard apartment—in which they kept their dishes, glasses, and silverware. The room was, without the kitchenette, about twelve by fifteen feet, and, crowded as it was (in addition to the bed, table, and breakfront, it contained a dresser, desk, coffee table, end-table, and easy chair, a TV set, two stand-up lamps, two small bookcases, a green leather hassock, a newspaper rack, an old costumer for their coats), Sam liked it. He liked it better, in fact, than he’d liked the room—just as big—that he’d had to himself on Linden Boulevard.