“Where are they going?” That was Jimmy Lee who had finally caught up to us.
“California,” I said.
“How did you know?” Jimmy Lee asked me.
“Because Vinnie just told me.”
“Why they going?” Jimmy Lee asked.
“Cause they don’t like Brooklyn no more,” said Vinnie. “That’s what my fadder said.”
“What’s wrong with Brooklyn?” asked Jimmy Lee. He was trying to get his footing in the boxes but kept slipping and now was below me sort of lying twisted like a pretzel around the boxes so I didn’t feel so bad about myself.
“I don’t know,” said Vinnie. “But my fadder said we could go to Ebbets Field before they go and maybe see Jackie Robinson and that would be the most famous thing we could do in our lives.”
We stopped talking. See Jackie Robinson? On the tv in the bar he was a speck. In the newspapers he was a picture. But see him? For real?
“My fadder said he’s getting old and he won’t be around forever.”
See Jackie Robinson? For real, in front of us?
“They’re playing at home tomorrow and Friday,” said Vinnie. “We could skip school and see him.”
We could see number forty-two? With our own eyes we could see him and then we could say we saw him and we could tell others we saw him and there would be nothing else in life that we would want. Nothing, except maybe Dorothy, who now had the same bumps as Vanessa.
I did not think Dorothy would go to the game because she would not miss school for anything, but I also worried about how I was going to skip out again. They said I would be held back if I played hooky any more. But it was the Dodgers and it was Jackie Robinson so there must be a way.
We got out of the boxes faster than ever. We went out through the opening where they threw the boxes in and all the boxes that we knocked out while we were getting out we threw back in so the Greeks wouldn’t get mad.
“You going?” Joey asked me.
The word had spread faster than we had heard it. In fact, Jimmy Lee and me were the last to know about the trip.
“We couldn’t find you,” said Joey. “Why’d you go swimming without telling us?”
“Why are you going to see the Dodgers without telling us?”
“We did tell you,” said Vinnie. “Right now.”
Jimmy Lee was steaming. “If you didn’t find us, would you have gone without us?”
“But we’re not going until tomorrow or Friday,” said Tommy, “and why’d you go swimming without us?”
Then he pushed Jimmy Lee. I was not going to let him get away with that, so I pushed Tommy back. Then he pushed me and I hit him, and he hit me.
Jimmy Lee pushed Vinnie. You really should not push Vinnie. All that pasta made him squishy yet hard, like a rock made of spaghetti. Vinnie did not move when Jimmy Lee pushed him, but he did hit Jimmy Lee who had never been hit by Vinnie before.
“What are you doing lying on the ground?” I asked Jimmy Lee when I looked down after I was hit by Tommy.
“Vinnie hit me. Do you know how hard Vinnie hits?”
“Well, are you coming to see the Dodgers?” Joey asked. He was leaning against a car not doing any pushing or hitting.
“Of course,” I said.
“What’d you think we don’t care about Jackie Robinson?” asked Jimmy Lee.
The Dodgers were playing Boston on Thursday. That was tomorrow. It was a 2 p.m. game. We could go to school in the morning and then just slip away at lunch. They would only miss us for half a day and we would only get in half the trouble, except I knew I would be in deep trouble because of my earlier attempt at homeschooling.
Before I went to bed, I told my mother that I might be home late because of a game after school.
“That’s not lying, is it Joey?” I asked.
We got on the train heading to Manhattan and all of us paid a dime, except we didn’t really all pay. We could squeeze two of us through the turnstile together so it only cost a nickel each, except for Vinnie, since he was too big to share the space.
“Why do I have to pay a dime when you guys only spend a nickel?”
“Because you eat too much pasta,” said Joey.
That was that. No arguing. We got on the train, which went through Brooklyn on the way to the city.
“We gotta change trains at the East New York station,” said Joey.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“I asked my father.”
“Didn’t he know why you wanted to know?”
Joey smiled. “He asked, I told him and he said ‘go ahead, but don’t let your mother know I told you.’”
“Gee, you’re lucky,” I said.
Joey nodded. “My father said everyone should see Jackie Robinson.”
The stations went by and I lost count and I was lost but I did not say anything. No one was going to know I did not know where we were, but the truth is I had not taken a subway ride since my mother sneaked away from my father.
I walked to the department store to go shopping when my mother asked, and I walked to my aunt and uncle’s house, and I walked to school. There was nowhere else I wanted to go. Our street was all I needed or wanted or cared about and all the geography I had to know, our street and the ice cream factory around the corner.
But now we were riding and then riding some more. It took over an hour.
“Are we there yet?” I asked Joey.
“I don’t know. My father said we had to change at East New York. That sounds dangerous.”
I did not ask why. We changed trains and rode more and the train went underground and that was exciting. We walked through the cars and then we took turns riding between the cars with one foot on the platform of each car. Light bulbs went flashing by along the walls of the tunnel and there was wind and noise. This was wonderful. We all wanted to ride the trains forever.
Then it was there, the station signs flashing in front of us as we pulled in. Flatbush Ave. This was like the first time jumping into the boxes. We climbed the stairs and we were in Brooklyn across from Ebbets Field.
“It looks just like it looks in the newspaper,” I said.
We each had $1.25. That was enough for a cheese hero, made with American cheese, a bottle of cream soda and entrance to the bleachers.
“Why’s it called the bleachers?” I asked when I bought my ticket.
“Cause you sit in the sun and bleach,” said the man selling me the ticket.
We sat in the sun. It was hot. We ate and drank even before the game started.
“There he is. Number forty-two.”
He was in a lineup along the first base line. All the players held their caps over their hearts. “The Star-Spangled Banner” played but I didn’t know where the music came from. I only knew I was looking at Jackie Robinson for real, right there, right in front of me.
We did not sing. We just stared. The three men in front of us did not sing either. They kept chewing their cigars and blowing smoke back into our faces, which we tried to duck because it stunk.
Vinnie kept eating his sandwich while the music was playing. I thought that was wrong, but I didn’t tell him because he would have hit me and then we would have had a fight and I did not think you were supposed to fight during the national anthem.
“He’s right in front of us,” said Tommy.
“Shhhh, I know,” I said.
“Right there,” he said again. He could not believe it.
“I see him,” I said.
“But can you see him? He’s right there, for real.”
Jackie Robinson had trotted out to second base and the game began and we sat in awe. Roy Campanella was catching, but we could not see him because of the catcher’s mask and also he was too far away.
Don Newcombe was pitching, and we could see him, but we did not care. He was not Jackie Robinson who was right in front of us.
Duke Snider was even closer, in centre field, but we only said, “Hey, there’s Duke Snider, bu
t can you see Jackie Robinson?”
Ebbets Field: A sacred place to those who loved the Dodgers. It is now a high-rise, low-income apartment complex with no room to play ball.
And there was Pee Wee Reese. He was different. We liked Pee Wee Reese. He was brave and he had a name that made you like him.
“Hey, Pee Wee, got any white friends?”
That was one of the cigar guys in front of us.
“Hey, Pee Wee, you want your sister to marry one?”
We said nothing. We just watched them and tried to make the space between us and them get further away. We did not think you were supposed to yell at baseball players, especially Dodgers, and especially friends of Jackie Robinson.
“Hey, Pee Wee . . . ”
Crack. A ball was hit to shortstop and Pee Wee grabbed it on one bounce and fired it to first. We had never seen a ball thrown that fast or that hard before.
“Hey, Pee Wee, do you drink out of the same cup?”
It took a while for us to figure out what was happening, but then we got really mad. There were many blacks in the stands and most of them were sitting in the bleachers.
There was no way on earth these three guys were going to start insulting Jackie Robinson and go on living.
But Pee Wee had once put his arm around Jackie’s shoulders when players on another team were calling him names. That was a long time ago, when he first started playing. But we had heard about it for years. We knew Pee Wee was a good guy.
“Hey, Pee Wee, does your momma know who’s your friend?”
It went on for three innings. We sat and watched the game but we could not cheer because they took the fun away. They drank more beer and relit their cigars and shouted more insults at Pee Wee.
There was no way we could watch the game. This was not the way baseball was supposed to be. And there was no other place where there were five seats together. There was nothing else we could do.
“Hey, Vinnie, don’t push me,” I said.
“Well, don’t push me.”
“You want to fight?” said Joey.
The men turned around. We were doing nothing but sitting in our seats. Crack. Another ball was hit and Jackie grabbed it and threw out the runner at first. That was the first time we had seen him in action. It was thrilling.
“Atta boy, Jackie,” we shouted.
“Humph,” one of the men said, half turning around. “Lucky catch, he’s getting so old he can’t move.”
He said that to the man next to him but he wanted us to hear it. “If Pee Wee wasn’t there to back him up, he wouldn’t be so good at all.”
“Hey, don’t push me,” I said.
That was Tommy.
“I told you not to bother me.”
That was Vinnie.
The men turned around. We were sitting. They looked like they did not understand.
Jackie was up at bat.
“He’s in a slump,” said one of the men.
“Hey, Pee Wee, you gonna hold your friend’s bat for him.”
Jackie swung, and missed.
“See, he’s no good,” said one of the men and he blew cigar smoke up and it went back to us.
“If you hit me again I’m gonna knock your head off.”
That was Vinnie.
“You just try it.”
Jimmy Lee.
They turned around and we were sitting.
The pitch and Jackie connected to right centre field. We jumped up and cheered.
“Lucky,” said one of the men.
“I’m going to pour my soda over you,” said Tommy.
“Yeah, well I’m going to pour my soda over you!” said Jimmy Lee.
All the men turned around. “Hey, you kids. You better watch it or we’ll get you thrown out of here.”
“We’re not doin’ nothin’,” I said.
“Well, you better not.”
They turned back to the game.
“I told you, I’ll dump my soda over your head.”
Joey.
They turned around again. We were sitting still.
They turned back to the game.
“I’m going to punch your teeth out if you do that again.”
Jimmy Lee.
One of the men stood up and turned around.
“Okay, I don’t know what you kids are up to but I’m going to get you thrown out of here.”
He walked away toward one of the ushers that patrolled the stands. We saw him pointing at us. We turned our heads back to the game and sat with our hands folded on our laps.
I sneaked a peek at the usher and saw him shrug. The man came back and said to us that we were going to be thrown out if we did one more thing. When he turned back to the game Johnny said, “That does it, you guys. I’m pouring this soda over all of you.”
All three of them turned around. We were sitting still.
“Let’s get out of here,” said one of them. “These kids are crazy. They shouldn’t be let in.”
They got up and moved out of the aisle and down the stairs and took the only three empty seats that were left, right in front of a row of black fans.
We jumped up and shouted, “Yeah, Jackie. Yeah, Pee Wee.”
Then we sat down and looked at each other in disbelief. We had won. The Dodgers won. We left with the crowd, took the subway home and talked every minute of the way about the game, about how Jackie made the greatest hits and greatest catches we had ever seen and how Pee Wee also made the greatest hits and the greatest catches.
At home, I walked into the kitchen. My mother had already eaten a tv dinner, the latest thing to come into our lives. We did not have a tv but she could buy tv dinners and just put them into the oven and in twenty minutes take out an aluminum tray with aluminum foil on top, peel off the foil and there were three compartments, one with meat, one with peas and carrots and one with mashed potatoes. It would make life so easy.
“Before you get mad I have to tell the truth,” I said, saying it as fast as I could. “I went to see the Dodgers today and they won and we saw Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese and we sat in the bleachers and we saw the game and they won.”
She was about to scream at me when I walked in, but when I finished talking she said, “You saw Jackie Robinson? For real? What was it like?”
“It was neat, Mom. He was at second base and Pee Wee Reese was at shortstop and we saw them, mostly we saw their backs because that’s all you can see in the bleachers, but we saw them.”
She sat down and I had never seen her like this. She went from mad to nice all at once.
“I always wanted to see Jackie Robinson,” she said, “but your father hated him because he was black so we never went to a game. Tell me about it. Tell me everything. I’ll cook you a tv dinner.”
It was one of the best meals I ever had, even though I was still hungry after I finished it.
Changing the World
Jackie was really in a slump now. The men on the corner with their newspapers at night said this might be his last season.
We knew we were lucky to have seen him. We knew when we were old, people would say to us, “You really saw Jackie Robinson play?” And we would say, “Of course, we went to all the games.”
The sun was hot. We had gone for another swim, but you couldn’t come out of the boxes and sit on the roof because the black tar was too hot. Dorothy said if she had a bathing suit she would sit up there on a towel like they do at Coney Island. I could hardly breathe thinking of Dorothy in a bathing suit.
We climbed down the fence and walked up the block to the El. There was shade under the tracks, but it was still hot. Then we walked to the other end of the block and when we got there we said, “What are we going to do now?”
So we walked back to the other end.
“You think when we grow up we’re just going to walk up and down some street?” asked Jimmy Lee.
“This is what they do in the Army, that’s what my fadder told me,” said Buster.
“I thought your fad
der was in jail,” said Vinnie.
“That was after he was in the Army,” said Buster. “First he was in the Army and he was a hero and he got shot a couple of times and then he went to jail.”
“How do you know that?” asked Vinnie. “I mean, about getting shot.”
Buster kept walking and didn’t say anything.
“How do you know?” asked Vinnie again.
Buster shook his head. He didn’t want to answer so Vinnie asked him again. “How do you . . . ”
“Cause I saw a picture of him with his rifle and he probably got shot a lot of times. I saw the picture in my mother’s drawer.”
“What were you doing looking in your mother’s drawer?” asked Dorothy.
Buster looked embarrassed, said nothing and looked away.
“That’s not right,” said Dorothy. “You wouldn’t want her looking in your stuff.”
“She does, that’s why I did. She took my father’s dog tags back from me.”
“Why’d she do that?” asked Dorothy.
“Cause she wants to have everything that was my father’s and I don’t got anything, except his rifleman ribbon so I know he was a good shot.”
We walked for a minute while each of us was thinking about Buster’s father firing a rifle and killing someone. We had lots of thoughts like that when we heard war stories.
“How’d you get the ribbon?” Vinnie asked.
“I stole it from her drawer, but she didn’t notice it, or at least she didn’t find it because I put it in the box that I keep my soldiers in.”
“You still play with soldiers?” asked Vinnie.
“No. I just keep them.”
Then we went on walking, me thinking, and I know Vinnie and all the boys were thinking of the soldiers that we still had, the little plastic ones that were throwing grenades and lying on their stomachs while shooting and one looking back and waving to others to come and attack. But we didn’t say anything.
“I still have my dolls,” said Dorothy.
“That’s different,” said Buster, who was trying to sound tough. “Girls are supposed to have dolls but we only play with soldiers when we’re little.”
We kept walking, this time down the block, stepping up over a big crack and a rise in a concrete slab of the sidewalk that once had a tree root under it.
Cardboard Ocean Page 26