“They are really good,” Max stated. “I mean—they are really good. It’s their defense, don’t you think, Sam?”
“Sure,” Sam said. “They’ll go all the way this year.”
“You get to a lot of games, don’t you?” Sid said to Sam, but Sam kept his eyes on the TV set. The camera pulled back for a long view and Sam picked out Stallworth. He ate another cashew nut—he couldn’t stop—and he wondered if, when he got up, the sweat from his back would show against the bedspread. Under his rear-end, on the red silk bedspread, was part of a huge monogram—Herbie and Ruth’s initials, Japanese-style, in black raised lettering. Nate Mandel, who’d been a starter on the Erasmus team when they’d all been seniors there together, sat in front of Sam, not saying anything. Why didn’t they ask Nate questions, if he was the star. Sam had played J. V. one year, and that was all. He didn’t like it—hearing the guys going on and on about how great the Knicks were, seeing Shimmy biting his nails over his six-point spread (the Knicks were up by thirteen now, with less than a minute left), feeling himself rooting for Stallworth—pulling for each of the Knicks individually—with one part of him, yet with another…
“I been to a few—the opening game, and a couple since. It’s rough to get tickets this year,” Sam said.
Shimmy leaned back, assured of a victory now, and lit up a cigar. “That’s what I like to see,” he said. “They are a beautiful team. Simply beautiful!”
Sam remembered when Shimmy—Simon Stein—had run for president of Erasmus. Now, watching the fat man puff on his cigar, Sam was glad Shimmy had been beaten, and mad at himself for thinking this way. Each guy that he looked at he saw at some point fifteen years ago—all these pot-bellied, balding married men—he saw them as they had been when…“But look,” Sam heard Dutch say. “Did you ever think of this—Barnett there, he’s the only guy who’s older than us. Think of that for a second.”
Sam slid backward on the silk bedspread, until his rear-end came to the pillow and he was sitting. Between his legs, above the H and R, he saw no stain on the spread. “So what?” he said, challenging Dutch.
“Turn it off, turn it off,” Herbie said to Sid. “They have it locked up.” The television screen showed a close-up of the clock—the bulbs lighting up the remaining seconds, the shot of the clock superimposed over a long view of the entire arena. Sam saw people moving toward the exits. He watched the top of Stallworth’s head.
“So nothing,” Dutch said. “Christ, you’re touchy tonight, Ace—just that these guys we root for all the time—they’re all younger than us now.” He shrugged. “It makes you think, that’s all.”
“He’s got a point,” Herbie said. “I mean, I can remember when we were all rooting for Harry Gallatin and Sweetwater Clifton and that Knick team—and those guys were twice our age!”
Max stood in front of the TV set. He was an accountant now, and worked for a big firm in midtown Manhattan. He lived on Long Island also—all the guys except for Shimmy, who lived over the Bridge in Teaneck, New Jersey, lived somewhere on the Island. “Remember—like this—how he’d shoot the ball from his goddamned waist!” Max demonstrated and the other guys shook their heads, in admiration. “He had the biggest goddamned hands!”
“That was their last great team,” Nate said. Sam realized he liked Nate best of all, at the moment, simply because, being the best ballplayer, he said the least about basketball. Sure. Words were for the birds. Guys like Shimmy and Dutch and Max had to showboat, but if you really had the goods…
“You’re a hundred per cent right,” Shimmy said. He stood also, took a place next to Max. “Okay—who’s this?” He leaned back, lifted his right knee into the air, as if he were marching, raised his right hand above his shoulder, an invisible basketball in his palm.
“Carl Braun,” Sid said, just as Shimmy lost his balance. Max reached out, caught Shimmy around the waist. Shimmy grabbed his cigar in his fist, pointed to his belly. Then he smiled, looked straight at Sam, and rapped his knuckles against the side of his head. “Brain over brawn,” he said. “Brain over brawn.”
Everybody groaned, and Sam could see Shimmy falling backward into the TV set, the tube splattering into a million pieces. Herbie nudged Sam with his elbow; the other guys were naming names to each other, old ballplayers they remembered from their high school days: pro ballplayers, college stars, high school players—“Easy Ed” McCauley, Johnny Groll, Bobby Wanzer, Ernie Vandeweghe, Chuck Cooper, Mike Parenti, Johnny Lee, Max Zaslofsky…“Hey,” Herbie was saying to him. “You and Dutch, you didn’t get the tour yet—of the house. I mean, we all had so much to say to each other—Jesus, it’s been a long time—and then the game. Come on—I’ll show you around. The other guys have seen it all.”
Sam remembered, their second year in high school, when he’d nominated Herbie for vice-president of their home-room class. They hadn’t known one another well before that, but they’d played on the same three-man basketball team in gym one day, and had won seven games in a row, until the bell rang ending the period. Sam thought of his father and Tidewater, playing in the grass together. Herbie, a buyer for Bloomingdale’s now, had been a good ballplayer; he’d played J. V. with Sam—a hustler, a scrapper. If he’d had two or three more inches—he was, at most, five-foot-six, though he’d always claimed to have been five-foot-eight—he would have made the team. “Mousie” had been his nickname—for the way his ears stuck out and his mouth puckered in above his tiny chin—but he’d been sensitive; nobody had ever used the nickname to his face. “Sure,” Sam said, and swung his feet to the floor. The carpeting felt good under his socked feet. “C’mon, Dutch.”
“Hey, Sam,” Dutch asked, “who was the guy who played first base for the Dodgers—just after the war—and played pro basketball too?”
“Schultz,” Sam said.
“Sure,” Dutch said. “I knew you’d know—Howie ‘Steeple’ Schultz.” The other guys nodded, remembering. Dutch leaned over, while Sam laced his shoes up, and put his hand on Sam’s knee. “If I had his memory, guys, I’ll tell you the truth—I wouldn’t have given it up, despite what happened. What I told you before.”
“You know,” Sid said, rubbing his chin, “it’s very interesting—your whole story, Dutch. The connections between things. I had a boy at school recently—he was referred to me for the usual: mischief, hooky…”
Shimmy nodded, looked at Sam. “It’s terrific, Sammy, terrific—the way you remember things.”
“That’s what my father says,” Sam said.
Sid had risen from the bed, taken Shimmy’s chair, straddling it, backward. He faced Dutch. “Let me tell you about this kid. It turned out that…”
“Why you could have been anything,” Shimmy went on, smiling slightly. “Anything at all, with your memory. Even an elephant.”
“A Jewish elephant!” Max cried. “It speaks in Yiddish—tusk, tusk, tusk….”
“Dick Groat,” Herbie said, standing at the door. “And there was Gene Conley and Bob Gibson. Guys who played two pro sports—”
Sam saw Sid bent over, talking intensely to Dutch. Better him than me, Sam thought. Sam remembered an entire afternoon at Sid’s house on Clarkson Avenue, Sid lying on the bed, the telephone to his ear, talking to one guy after the other—the phone never stopped ringing—while Sam sat there, lamenting the fact that they were never going to get to the schoolyard. Sid had been like that—everybody had always gone to him with their problems. He was, everybody had agreed, a sweet guy. And yet—Sam smiled at the thought, at the connection—Sid had never had a steady girl, he’d never seemed much interested. He’d dated, he’d gone to dances—but Sam never remembered hearing Sid talk about the size of a girl’s breasts, or how far he’d gone. Sure. Now Sid was a guidance counselor at some fancy Long Island high school. It figured.
“Don’t forget,” Shimmy was saying. He was next to Sam, whispering so that nobody else could hear. “I want to talk with you—about Brooklyn.”
“I got nothing to say.”
<
br /> Shimmy put his arm around Sam’s shoulder, led him to a corner of the room. Sam fixed his eyes on the Japanese lantern, hanging over the bed. He heard more names: Tony Jackson, Bobby Davies, Heshy Weiss, “Zeke” Zawoluk, “Zeke” Sinicola…“Listen,” Shimmy said. “Don’t be such a shithead your whole life. Things get rough sometimes. Believe me, I know how it is. I’ve had my ups and my downs too. You shouldn’t resist me so much. I’m in the neighborhood now and then—we’ll have lunch, we’ll talk. I could use a man like you in my operation, Sammy boy. Why should I take in a stranger? With your brain—your memory—and the way you know Brooklyn. I could use somebody with your style.”
“Forget it.”
Shimmy pressed him. “Look, could you use a few hundred? Just tell me—just say the word, Sammy boy, and it’s yours. How about three singles?” He reached into his pocket for his wallet, but Sam didn’t react. He watched Sid’s puckered face, looked beyond, saw Dutch’s blue eyes, shining, Dutch’s hands, moving, explaining. What bothered him most of all was not so much that he thought about Tidewater and his story—he could live with that—but that he caught himself sometimes, as he did now, seeing if he could put himself in the guy’s place. “Why should I lie, tell you business isn’t so good, it isn’t so bad. I’m rolling in the green stuff now and what am I gonna do with it all? Sure, me and Barbara, we go on trips, we have the new house, we put something away for the kids for college, but there’s plenty for a smart guy like you also.” He smiled at Sam, and Sam saw him in “the chapel”—the Erasmus auditorium—on the stage, giving his speech when he ran for president. Sam had, of course, worn one of Shimmy’s tags on his loose-leaf book: STEIN IS FINE FOR YOUR G.O. “Right now, I’ll tell you the truth, there’s too much to keep track of for one man. My brother-in-law, I took him in also—it keeps the peace—but, between you and me, he’s as much use as a fart in a salami factory.”
“Forget it,” Sam said again. “Just tell me one thing: who’s taking your money for the Knicks?”
Shimmy eyed him, then laughed. “That’s good, Sammy boy,” he said. “That’s really good, you asking me a question like that.” He smiled with his mouth closed. “You’re terrific, like I say. Just terrific. That’s what I mean by style, if you get me. That’s just why…” He sighed, closed his eyes. “I have to be down at City Hall so fucking much—I’ll tell you the whole thing when we have lunch together, agreed? Say yes, Sammy you old shithead, for your old schoolyard buddy. Picking up most of the property for back taxes—and there are other ways—believe me, there’s a lot of palms I have to grease, a lot of shtipping to be done. It won’t last forever, either. The government will move in soon with its own kind of renewal, and after that…you see? While I’m taking care of the business end, I need somebody in the field I can rely on.” He paused. “We’re made for each other, Sammy. You—you need the money, you can’t deny it; you know the area like the palm of your hand; and you—you have the style. The shvoogies trust you. I know it.”
“I appreciate your offer, Shimmy, I really do, but I’ll keep playing it my way, okay?” He found himself patting Shimmy on the shoulder, and although he was certain Shimmy didn’t notice, he knew he had a worried expression on his own face when the next sentence slipped out. “No hard feelings, okay?”
“Of course not.” Shimmy walked back toward the bed with Sam. “You think I give up this easily? I’ll be seeing you, anyway.” Shimmy’s voice rose, for the benefit of the others: “We see each other too little, don’t we, guys? We should all get together more often. Sid, Max, Nate, Herbie—you’re near each other out here, but Dutch and Sam, and me in Jersey—we all get into the city, right?”
“We should go to a game together,” Nate offered.
“Great! Great!” Max said. “Look—through my firm—I can get us some tickets. We got a season…”
“C’mon,” Herbie said, taking Sam by the arm. “But there first—you see the way Ruthie did up the bathroom?” He giggled, and Sam looked in, over Dutch’s shoulder, at gold racks and oriental lettering. The floor was carpeted in a deep avocado green. “There—” Herbie said, and pointed to the wastebaskets, carpeted also. “From Fortunoff’s. They have everything you want. Leave it to Ruthie…”
Herbie led them from the bedroom, along a dark corridor. A red and yellow tricycle was parked next to a door. Herbie opened the door quietly, putting his finger to his mouth. Sam glanced behind. Sid was there, smiling at him. He patted Sam on the shoulder, ate from a palmful of peanuts. Herbie motioned to Sam and Dutch. They looked in. “This is Mark’s bedroom—see—he’s got pictures from Sport magazine on all the walls, but we—Ruthie’s idea—we use burlap for wallpaper. It’s terrific. The thumbtacks don’t leave any marks.”
“That’s good,” Dutch said. “No marks from Mark.”
“You’ve seen it all,” Herbie said to Sid. “But come anyway.”
“It’s terrific, what you’ve done here,” Sid said. “Terrific. Susie gets most of her ideas from Ruthie, you know.”
Herbie led them along the corridor. Framed pictures of Walt Disney characters—Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy—hung on the walls. They were originals, Herbie explained, from the Disney studios. He opened another door, showed them Katherine’s room. Sam saw powder blue and pink. The little girl was on her back, her nightgown gathered around her waist, her legs sticking out from rubber pants, a thumb in her mouth. She had deep black curls across her cheek. Sam thought of Muriel.
“They grow up so quickly!” Sid said.
“This is an extra room,” Herbie explained, opening a door at the end of the corridor. The room was small, there was a bed in it. “For a sleep-in maid if we have one, or another child—we’ll see….”
The four men turned around, looked into the children’s bathroom, then walked back along the corridor. Dutch stayed next to Sam. Sam heard Herbie explaining, to Sid, about the way you could get sleep-in maids from Jamaica, in the West Indies—not from Queens, he joked; Ruth’s parents would handle it. The maids from the West Indies, Sid agreed, were dependable. “What do you think?” Dutch asked Sam, softly. “Would Barbara still put out for me?”
“Come on,” Sam said. “Cut it—”
“She gave me the eye before, when we first came in—Shimmy, with all his hotshot operations now, he’s probably forgotten what she has between her legs.” Dutch rolled his eyes. “She still has the body! I wouldn’t mind….”
Herbie opened a door, next to the bedroom, flicked a light switch. Sid lagged behind, and Sam knew he was waiting to speak with him. Sam remembered, when he was a boy, going around his own apartment on Linden Boulevard with his grandfather—Sam had held a candle, and his grandfather had held a wooden spoon, a rag, and a feather. He remembered it very clearly, his grandfather telling him to come closer, closer—it had been the night before Passover, and his grandfather had placed scraps of bread on window sills, under cushions of couches, in the desk of the breakfront; Sam walked around with him in the darkness, a lit candle in his hand, and watched him sweep the crusts into the cloth with the feather and spoon. Had Ben been with them? Sam couldn’t remember.
“The basement is only three-quarters finished since you saw it, Sid—it’s gonna be a game room for the kids—and a guest room maybe.”
“How’ve things been?” Sid asked, his arm on Sam’s shoulder. They walked down the steps. Sam saw copper pipes running along the walls. He remembered, afterward, following his grandfather down to the basement of their apartment house. It had terrified him—the shadows, the barking of the super’s German police dog—and when his grandfather had opened the iron door of the furnace and Sam had seen the fire—white light leaping on top of the burning coals—he had wanted to cry. Burning the chumitz, it had been called. Sam remembered. His grandfather had pushed him close to the furnace door and Sam could still feel the heat on his face, the weakness in his thighs. The crumbs were in the bowl of the wooden spoon, the feather and candle on top, the rag wrapped around, tied in a knot. “Give
a throw, Samela,” his grandfather had said, and when Sam had thrown it in, and seen the package burst into flame, his grandfather had bent over—slightly, for Sam was almost his height by then—and kissed him on each cheek. His grandfather had, for some reason, been crying, and Sam had been proud of himself—glad that he had held back his own tears. His grandfather had pulled him close—Sam remembered the man’s smell: rancid, like clothes which had been waiting too long to be washed—but he had not moved, he had kept his body rigid. His grandfather had said—had sung—something in Yiddish, and though he had not understood a word of it, he had been sure that his grandfather had been thinking of his wife, and of his two older sons, Ben’s brothers, who had never crossed the sea and come to America.
“I got no kicks,” Sam said, to Sid.
“This is the hot water boiler,” Herbie said, opening a door, revealing two large tanks. “And that’s the furnace.” He spoke to Sid. “We use forced air heat—that way, with the ducts already there, we can have central air conditioning hooked right in some day if we want.”
Sid nodded. The basement ran for the full length of the house—thirty or forty feet—and the walls were covered in a wood-grain material. The ceiling was made of white perforated squares. There was a bench along one side of the wall, an old TV console, shelves filled with games and toys. There were cartons and several old pieces of furniture—a dresser, end tables, chairs, a Formica kitchen table. The floor was made of red and white squares, alternating in a checkerboard pattern. The fluorescent lighting, overhead, was too bright for Sam’s eyes. He had never liked fluorescent lighting. Screw Sid, he thought. He won’t get anything from me. Herbie opened another door, halfway down the length of the room, revealing a bare concrete floor, more pipes, concrete walls. The room, he explained, could be made into either a guest room or an at-home office for himself. If he did the latter, he would get a tax break. Sid nodded. He did some private counseling and testing now, and took off something every year for the room he used at home.
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