by Dan Gutman
Flip signaled for me that we should go, but Josh Gibson invited us to stay until they had to get back on the road. The seats were all filled, so we stood.
“Hey, I’m sorry about what happened in there,” Flip told them.
“Ain’t your fault,” Josh said, biting into a burger. “Ain’t nobody’s fault.”
In school I had learned a little bit about the prejudice and discrimination that took place in America before the civil rights movement. I had also taken a time travel trip to see Jackie Robinson become the first black major leaguer in sixty years. Seeing bigotry with my own eyes made it more real. It was so unfair. I couldn’t imagine how anybody, black or white, could put up with it.
“Aren’t you mad?” I asked.
“What’s the use?” Gibson said. “Ain’t nothin’ we can do about people who don’t like us. What are we gonna do? Write to our congressmen?”
“Son, we’re just tryin’ to survive,” said Cool Papa Bell. “Put food on the table.”
“I heard the Red Sox are gonna hold tryouts for Negro players,” one of the other players said.
“Oh, that’s just talk,” said Gibson.
“Someday there’ll be black players in the big leagues,” I told them. I didn’t want to tell them I was from the future, but I wanted to give them hope.
“Yeah, well, someday ain’t today,” said Bell.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” somebody else added.
“In a few years—,” I started.
“Son, I’m thirty years old,” interrupted Josh Gibson. “Cool Papa here is thirty-nine. In a few years, it’ll be too late for us.”
“Where are you staying tonight?” Flip asked, changing the subject.
“There’s a hotel an hour or so north of here,” Gibson said. “We hear they take in colored folks. If not, we’ll have to sleep on the bus, like last night.”
What a rotten life. They can’t just walk into any restaurant and sit at a table, like I can. They can’t just pull into a hotel and expect to get a room. They have to sleep and eat and ride all day on a crummy bus.
“Why do you do it?” I asked Josh Gibson.
“I guess we just love playin’ ball,” he said.
Flip motioned again that we should go. We got off the bus and the driver gunned the engine. Before the bus pulled away, Josh Gibson came out and shook Flip’s hand again.
“Thank you kindly for the food,” he said.
“Fuhgetaboutit,” Flip replied. “Hey, you think Satch and the Monarchs will be passing through this way?”
“Sooner or later,” Josh said, “most everybody comes this way.”
He climbed back inside the bus and it pulled away.
Flip and I watched until the bus disappeared down the road.
“I guess we’ve got to get to Pittsburgh,” I said.
“I’ll get my suitcase.”
When we walked back in the diner, Laverne’s father was behind the cash register. He looked at us with disgust and handed something to Flip. It was a bill. All the food we ordered only came to seventeen dollars. Flip patted his pockets until he found his wallet. He opened it up.
Flip’s wallet was empty.
“Uh, Stosh, you got any money on you?”
8
Thumbing a Ride
SEVENTEEN DOLLARS.
It really doesn’t sound like that much money. I guess if you happen to have a thousand dollars in your pocket, seventeen isn’t very much at all. But when you have nothing in your pocket and you’re in a different century and there’s this mean-looking guy holding his hand out and demanding money, it’s another story.
Suddenly, seventeen dollars seemed like a fortune.
“You don’t have any money?” I whispered to Flip.
“I forgot all about bringing money,” Flip said, panic creeping into his voice. “I didn’t think I’d need any.”
“What’s your name, boy?” Laverne’s father suddenly asked.
“Stosh,” I said. “Joe Stoshack.”
“Not you!” he said. “The big guy. What’s your name?”
“Flip Valentini, sir. We’re just, uh…”
“Valentini, eh?” Laverne’s father muttered. “You an Italian?”
He said the word like Eye-talian.
“Yes, sir,” Flip said. He was being especially polite.
Laverne’s father made a face. It didn’t look like he liked Italians any better than blacks. He didn’t look like he liked anybody.
I don’t always carry money with me, but I patted my pocket and breathed a sigh of relief that my wallet was in there. I still had the twenty-dollar bill I would have used if Flip hadn’t outbid me on the eBay auction. I handed it to Laverne’s father.
“Lunch is on me,” I said. I’d always wanted to say, “Lunch is on me.” It made me feel like a big shot.
Laverne’s father took my bill and looked at it.
“This is a fake!” he said. “This ain’t no real twenty! Look at that. Andrew Jackson’s head is too big, and it ain’t in the middle!”
“It’s not fake!” I said, “It’s—”
What was I supposed to say? That the bill was printed in the twenty-first century and I traveled back through time with it?
“It’s a new bill, sir,” Flip said. “Just issued.”
“You two are counterfeiters!” Laverne’s father shouted. Then he took my bill and ripped it in half.
“Hey!” I yelled. “That’s perfectly good money!”
“Tell it to the cops,” Laverne’s father said. He was reaching for the phone on the counter. Flip put his hand over the phone.
“No need to call the police, sir,” Flip said, forcing a laugh. “We were just kiddin’ with that bill. Do you accept American Express cards?”
“American Express?” asked Laverne’s father. “What’s that?”
“Look, I’ll write you a check,” Flip said.
“I ain’t takin’ your damn check!” said Laverne’s father. “You try to pass counterfeit dough and you think I’m gonna take your check? I accept cash, son. Cold, hard cash. If you ain’t got none, I got a lotta dishes in the back that need washin’.”
“You wouldn’t by any chance have an ATM here, would you?” I asked.
“A what?”
Laverne’s dad grabbed Flip by the arm and pulled him into the kitchen. I followed. There was a huge sink back there. It looked more like a bathtub. Dishes and pots were piled up higher than my head.
“Start scrubbin’,” Laverne’s father said. “And they better be squeaky clean, or you’re gonna have to do ’em all over again.”
Laverne’s dad went back to his grill on the other side of the kitchen. That’s when I got a great idea. We didn’t have to wash these stupid dishes. We could just take my new pack of baseball cards and get out of there. Go home. Back to our own century. We didn’t need this aggravation.
But Flip wouldn’t go for it. When I told him about my brainstorm, he said that wouldn’t be right. We had ordered seventeen dollars’ worth of food, and we had to pay for seventeen dollars’ worth of food. If we didn’t have the money, the right thing to do would be to wash the dishes.
“We had the money!” I said. “He ripped up my twenty-dollar bill!”
“I’ll wash,” Flip said. “You dry.”
That’s one thing about Flip that drives me crazy. He always has to do the right thing.
Flip put on a pair of yellow rubber gloves and grabbed a big hunk of steel wool. I picked up a towel. We got to work.
It felt like it took a year, but it was probably only an hour or two. I felt sorry for Flip. The pots were caked with food and grease and crud and who knows what. It was disgusting. I made a mental note to be sure to go to college so I wouldn’t have to grow up and wash dishes for a living.
We were about halfway done when Laverne suddenly poked her head into the sink area. She looked around to make sure her father didn’t see her. Flip tried to fix his hair, but he had soap on his rubbe
r glove and all he accomplished was putting some bubbles on the top of his head. He was pretty funny looking.
“I’m sorry about Daddy,” Laverne said. “Sometimes he’s…”
“It’s okay,” Flip said. “It’s not your fault.”
“Listen,” Laverne said, “I just wanted to tell you boys that was a kind thing you did out there for the colored men on the bus.”
“It was all Flip’s idea,” I said.
“Well, I think you’re very brave,” she said, reaching up and brushing some bubbles off Flip’s hair.
“It was nothin’,” Flip said. His face was all red.
“Are you gonna be in town for a while?” Laverne asked.
“Nah,” Flip said. “We’re heading for Pittsburgh.”
“Pittsburgh!” she said. “Lordy, that’s five hundred miles away! I wish I could see a big city like Pittsburgh.”
“We’re going to see Satchel Paige pitch,” I added.
“Where’s Laverne?” her father suddenly shouted from the dining room. “We got customers waitin’ out here!”
Laverne quickly reached into her apron and pulled out a handful of change.
“Here,” she said, pressing the coins into Flip’s hand. “You’ll need money to get to Pittsburgh.”
Laverne scurried away. Flip put the money in his pocket and grabbed the next pot to wash.
“Flip!” I said. “She’s crazy about you! That’s her tip money. You gotta ask her out, man!”
“Stosh, that girl is seventeen years old,” Flip said. “I’m seventy-two!”
“Not here you aren’t!” I insisted. “If you don’t ask her out, I’m going to come back in five years when I’m eighteen and ask her out myself.”
“You do that, Stosh.”
Poor Flip. When it came to women, he just didn’t know what to say or do. He got all shy and nervous. I told him he should just be himself and talk to Laverne. You know, ask her what she likes to do. Make conversation. Flip said he’d think about it. There was just no talking sense to him.
By the time we emptied the sink of pots and pans, Flip and I were exhausted. Laverne’s father came out while I was drying the last pot.
“Okay, you boys can go now,” he said gruffly. “But I don’t want to see you two ’round here no more, y’hear me? I don’t need your business. And I don’t need your colored friends’ business neither.”
“Yes, sir,” Flip said. He grabbed his suitcase and we left the diner. I looked around to say good-bye to Laverne, but she was nowhere in sight.
It was late afternoon by this time. The lunch crowd was gone and there weren’t many cars on the street outside the diner.
“How are we gonna get to Pittsburgh?” I asked Flip.
“Only way we can,” he said. Flip walked over to the side of the road and stuck out his thumb.
My mother once told me that I should never hitchhike. She said that getting into a car with a stranger is really dangerous. You don’t know what kind of lunatic might pick you up. But Flip said that back in the old days, people hitchhiked all the time. It was safer back then. Not as many people owned cars. There was no other way for some people to get around. And maybe there weren’t as many lunatics running around back in the 1940s.
We walked down the road in the same direction the Homestead Grays’ bus had been going. Every so often we’d turn around if we heard a car coming. Then we’d stick out our thumbs. Flip told me to look sad and pathetic so people would feel sorry for us and stop to pick us up. It wasn’t hard to do. We were sad and pathetic.
But nobody even slowed down for us. Ten or twenty cars must have passed by, and all they did was leave us in a cloud of dust. It was depressing. I told Flip we should just forget about this whole silly idea of clocking Satchel Paige. I had a fresh pack of baseball cards in my pocket. We could go back home anytime we wanted.
“Let’s just wait for a few more cars,” Flip said.
And that’s when I saw it.
“Look! A bus!” I shouted.
In the distance, I could see a gray bus coming our way. Maybe it was going to Pittsburgh. We wouldn’t even have to hitchhike. We had the money Laverne had given us. We could use it to pay the bus fare.
The bus got closer and we waved our hands in the air to let the driver know we wanted to get on.
“He’s not slowin’ down,” Flip said.
Flip was right. The bus was going about 50 miles an hour, and it was almost on top of us. I could see some lettering on the side. It read:
KANSAS CITY MONARCHS
“Wait!” I screamed as the bus blew past us. “Stop!”
No use. The bus kept right on going.
“Satchel Paige plays for the Monarchs!” I shouted to Flip. “He’s on that bus!”
The bus was gone. Flip put his suitcase on the ground at the side of the road and sat down on it. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead.
“Well, we tried,” he said wearily. “We gave it our best shot. Let’s go home, Stosh.”
I sat down next to him. We were both depressed. I pulled out my pack of new baseball cards and ripped off the wrapper. I took out one of the cards and put the rest back in my pocket. Flip grabbed my hand.
“Close your eyes,” I said.
We closed our eyes and I concentrated. I imagined us in the twenty-first century again. Back in Louisville. Home. It wasn’t long until I started to feel the slightest tingle in my fingertips.
As we sat there, I heard a car engine in the distance. It got louder, so I knew it was getting closer. I ignored it. Flip and I had resigned ourselves to the fact that we weren’t going to make it to Pittsburgh. We just wanted to get out of there.
The tingling sensation had moved up my arm when the car skidded to a halt right in front of us. I heard the door open, and then shut. Somebody got out of the car. There were footsteps on the gravel.
I opened my eyes. There was a tall black man sitting on the front bumper of the car. He was lighting a cigarette.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Name’s Leroy,” the man said. “But most folks call me Satch. You fellas need a lift?”
I dropped the card.
This is what I saw when I opened my eyes.
9
Satch
“YOU BOYS LOOK SADDER THAN A POLECAT STUCK UP a tree.”
It was him! The real Satchel Paige! He was right in front of us! In the flesh! I could have reached out and touched him.
We didn’t have to give this guy a quiz to make him prove he was really Satchel Paige. He looked just like he did in photos. He had these droopy eyelids and smooth dark skin. He had a look like a basset hound.
It works, I reminded myself. Every time I travel through time, I land in the year on the card. I may not land right next to the person I’m trying to meet, but one way or another, I’m always able to find my way to the guy. How could I have ever doubted myself?
I looked over at Flip. He was just staring at Satchel Paige with his mouth open.
“We’re not sad,” I said. “We’re just so surprised to see you, Mr. Paige. Surprised and happy.”
He wasn’t wearing a baseball uniform. He was all dressed up in a snazzy suit, wide-brimmed hat, and shiny shoes.
He got up off the bumper and came over to shake hands with us. Satchel Paige was tall, about six foot four. He looked like a big gooney bird, or a scarecrow. His string bean arms and legs seemed to go on forever. He was so skinny you wondered what held his pants up. But his feet were enormous.
He was a sight, I’ll tell you that much. I tried not to stare, but I couldn’t help it.
“Call me Satch,” he said.
When we shook hands, his fingers wrapped around mine like an octopus. I had never seen such long fingers before. Fingers like that could give a baseball a lot of backspin. Put a lot of hop on a fast-ball. Put a lot of break on a curve.
“Joe Stoshack,” I said. “My friends call me Stosh. And this is my friend Flip Valentini.”
Flip still hadn’t said anything. It was like he was in a daze. He kept shaking until Satch pulled his hand away.
“Does your friend talk?” Satch asked. “Or is he one of them deaf-mutes?”
“Nice car,” Flip croaked. “Is that a Packard?”
The car was bright red, and shiny. It was rounded on all the edges, the way cars used to be a long time ago.
“Yup, 1940,” Satch said. “This baby can really scoot. Just about rubbed the paint off, polishin’ her so much. Used to belong to Bette Davis, y’know.”
“Who’s Bette Davis?” I asked, and Satch looked at me strangely.
“She’s a movie star,” Flip told me.
“Say, where are you fellas from?” Satch asked.
“Louisville, Kentucky,” I said. I had the feeling that Satch was sizing us up to see if it was safe to let us in his car.
“And you hitched all the way from Louisville?”
I didn’t know what to say. I’ve never been a very good liar. Luckily, Flip bailed me out.
“We took the bus most of the way,” he said. “We’re down to our last five bucks. We’ve been wash-in’ dishes to pay for food.”
“I been there,” Satch said. “Where are you boys headin’?”
Flip and I looked at each other. The only place we were heading was wherever Satchel Paige was heading.
“Pittsburgh,” we said at the same time.
“Just so happens I’m headin’ to Smoketown myself,” Satch said. “I reckon you boys look like fine upstandin’ citizens. You’re welcome to accompany me, if you don’t mind makin’ a stop or two ’long the way.”
“That’ll be fine!” Flip said.
Satch opened the door and I got in the backseat. Flip grabbed his suitcase, but when he picked it up by the handle, it opened. He must have clicked the latches accidentally when he was sitting on it.
When the suitcase opened, the radar gun fell out and landed in the grass.
“What’s that thing you got there?” Satch asked.
Flip and I looked at each other.
“You’d never believe us,” I said.
