Corky's Brother

by Jay Neugeboren

  When we got off the bus at Empire Boulevard, where the Botanic Gardens begin, we still had a couple of hours until the game started and I asked Eddie what we were going to do until then.

  He smiled. “Follow me,” he said.

  I followed. I saw a few cops along the street, but none of them bothered us. Some old men were getting their boards ready, with buttons and pennants and souvenirs, and when we got to McKeever and Sullivan Place, where the main entrance was, a few guys were selling programs and yearbooks. We walked along Sullivan Place and Eddie stopped about halfway down the block, where the players’ entrance was.

  A minute later a taxi stopped at the curb and two big guys got out—I recognized them right away as Gil Hodges and Duke Snider. It really surprised me, I remember, to discover that we were as tall as both of them—taller than Snider.

  “Any extra tickets?” Eddie asked.

  “Sorry—not today, Eddie,” the Duke said, and the two of them disappeared into the clubhouse.

  I nearly died. “You mean you actually know them?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Eddie said. “Hell—I’ve been out here like this for three years now.” He scratched at his cheek and tried to act nonchalant, but I could tell how proud he was that a Dodger had called him by name with me there. “I don’t think they’ll have any extras today, though—Milwaukee has a good team this year and there were probably lots of their friends wanting tickets.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, still flabbergasted. “I got a couple of bucks for tickets.”

  “We won’t need ’em, I hope,” he said. “If nobody has extras, we can try waiting in the gas station on Bedford Avenue. There’s always a bunch of kids there, hoping to catch a ball, but they usually hit four or five out in batting practice. If we can get just one, the guy at the gate will let us both in—he knows me.”

  “If not?”

  He shrugged. “The bleachers. It’s only seventy-five cents, and after about the second inning you can sneak into the grandstands.”

  Some more Dodgers came by and they all smiled and said hello to Eddie, but none of them had any extra tickets. It didn’t bother me. After a while I just followed Eddie’s lead and said hello to the players also, saying things like “How’re you doing, Carl? We’re rooting for you!” to Fu-rillo, or “How’re you feeling today, Campy?” and I hardly believed it when some of the players would actually answer me. As I got more confidence I got braver—telling Pee Wee to watch out for guys sliding into second base, telling Karl Spooner that if he pitched he should keep the ball low and outside to Aaron—and after each group of guys would go into the clubhouse I’d slam Eddie on the back and punch him in the arm. “C’mon,” I’d say to him, “pinch me right on the ass, buddy. Then I’ll know it’s true!” Eddie just kept grinning and telling me how stupid I’d been to wait this long to come to a game with him.

  By 11:30, though, we still didn’t have any tickets.

  “We should of waited by the visiting team’s entrance,” Eddie said. “They hardly ever use up their passes—”

  Then, as we started to walk toward Bedford Avenue, we saw this little guy come trotting up the street toward us. Eddie squinted.

  “It’s Amoros,” he said. “Hey, Sandy—any tickets?” he called.

  “Oh, man, I late today,” Amoros said when he got to us, shaking his head back and forth. He reached into his wallet, handed us two tickets, and we wished him luck. Then he continued toward the players’ entrance, running.

  “Whooppee!” I shouted as soon as he was gone. “Amoros for Most Valuable Player!” I threw my arm around Eddie’s shoulder and we ran down the street together, half dragging each other, until we got to the turnstile entrance. Then we stopped and strutted inside together, handing the guard the tickets as if it was something we did every day of the week. As soon as we were inside, Eddie yelled “Let’s go!” and we raced under the arcade, laughing and giggling. The instant we saw the field, though, we stopped. The groundkeepers had just finished hosing down the base paths and the visiting team hadn’t come out yet for batting practice. There was hardly anybody in the stands and the sight of the empty ball park seemed to sober us both up. To this day I don’t think there’s any sight that’s prettier than a ball park before a game’s been played. Watching on television all the time, you forget how green and peaceful the field looks.

  We had great seats that day, right over the Dodger dugout. They blasted the Braves, 9-1, with fourteen or fifteen hits, and we cheered and shouted like mad, especially when Amoros came to bat. I remember everything about the ball park that day, and I think I remember the things that happened off the field more than I do the actual game. I remember the Dodger Symphony marching around the stands, and Mabel swinging her cowbell, and Gladys Gooding singing the National Anthem and playing “Follow the Dodgers” on the organ, and the groundkeepers wheeling the batting cage back out to center field, and the people across Bedford Avenue watching from their roofs. I remember being surprised at how many guys our age—and even younger—had come to the game, and I remember how great I felt when I heard somebody calling my name and I turned around and saw Mr. Hager wave to me. I waved back at him and then told Eddie about him. Mr. Hager was a retired fireman who lived on my block. He went to every Dodger game and when they lost he always wore a black armband. When the Giants beat the Dodgers in the playoff in ’51, nobody saw him for weeks afterwards, and then he wore the same black suit day in and day out until they won back the pennant in ’52. Everybody in our neighborhood knew him and it was said that he got into at least two or three fights a week at Hugh Casey’s bar on Flatbush Avenue. There were a lot of Dodger fans like him in those days.

  Most of all, though, I remember how good I felt that day—just sitting with Eddie, eating peanuts and cheering and talking baseball. As it turned out, that was the last time I ever got to see a Dodger game. At the end of the season they announced that they were moving to Los Angeles.

  I went to Camp Wanatoo again that summer and Eddie stayed in the city. His uncle had gotten him a job loading sides of beef into refrigerator cars and this helped build up his chest and shoulders and arms. In the fall everybody was predicting he’d be the next great basketball star at Erasmus—maybe even All-City in his sophomore year.

  When the time came for varsity tryouts, though, he didn’t show up. Nobody could figure it out. Two days later he stopped by my house at night and asked if I wanted to go for a walk. He looked terrible—his face was long and he seemed to have lost a lot of weight. At first I figured it had something to do with his mother, but when I asked him he shook his head.

  “Nah,” he said when we were downstairs. He sighed. “I guess you were wondering why I didn’t try out for the team, huh?”

  “Everybody was—” I said.

  “I know. Mr. Goldstein called my house tonight and I had to tell him—that’s why I came by your house. I wanted you to know before the other guys. Maybe you could tell them, so I don’t have to keep repeating the story.”

  “Sure,” I said. “What is it?”

  “It’s my damn heart,” he said. I looked at him and he was biting the corner of his lower lip. Then he shook his head back and forth and cursed. “I can’t play any more,” he said. “The doctor said so.” He stopped. “Jesus, Howie, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?” he pleaded. I didn’t know what to say. “Shit,” he said. “Just shit!” Then his body seemed to go limp. “C’mon, let’s walk.”

  “How’d you find out?” I asked.

  “Ah, since the summer I’ve had this pain in my chest and when it didn’t go away I went to our family doctor. My mother telephoned him about a week ago and he told her. It’s only a murmur—nothing really dangerous—but it means no varsity.”

  “Can’t you play at all?”

  “Oh, yeah—as long as I take it easy. I just have to get a lot of sleep, and whenever I feel any of this pressure building up in my chest I have to be sure to stop.”

  We walked for a long time that ni
ght—up Bedford Avenue all the way past Ebbets Field to Eastern Parkway, then back home along Flatbush Avenue, and most of the time neither of us said anything. What could you say?

  I made the varsity that year and Eddie came to all the games, home and away. He worked five afternoons a week at his uncle’s butcher shop now, but on Saturdays, when it was closed, he’d come down to the schoolyard and play a few games. He kidded around a lot, telling everybody to take it easy against him because of his heart, but he was still tremendous. I was already about an inch taller than he was, and a pretty good jumper, but he’d go up over me as if I had lead in my sneakers.

  In about the middle of our junior year he quit school and went to work full-time as an assistant to his uncle. He kept coming to all the Friday night games, though, and sometimes when I didn’t have a date, we’d go to Garfield’s afterwards and then walk home together.

  Eddie and I lost touch with each other during my first two years of college—I don’t think I saw him even once—but when I was home for spring vacation during my junior year my mother told me he’d bought a half interest in Mr. Klein’s kosher butcher shop on Rogers Avenue. I went over to see him the next morning and there he was, behind the counter. I stood outside for a while, watching him wait on customers, and then when the store was empty I went inside.

  “Hey, Campy—I” I called. He was at the far end of the counter, cutting up some meat.

  He turned around. “Jesus, Howie!” He wiped his hands on his apron and then we shook hands and pounded each other on the back. “Boy, it’s good to see you. How’ve you been?”

  “Pretty good,” I said. “When did all this happen?” I asked, motioning around the store.

  “C’mon next door to the candy store,” he said, taking off his apron. “I’ll get you a Coke—boy, it’s been a long time!”

  He got Mr. Klein out of the big walk-in freezer in the back and then we went next door and Eddie told me about how he’d saved up money while he was working for his uncle—with that and some insurance money his mother had put away after his father’s death, he was able to buy a half interest from Mr. Klein, who was getting old and wanted to retire soon. By then Eddie could buy out the other half and the store would be his.

  “How about you?” he asked. “How do you like college?”

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “What’re you studying?”

  “Liberal arts.”

  “Oh, yeah?—What subjects?”

  I laughed. “You don’t have to sound interested,” I said.

  He shrugged, embarrassed. “Anyway, I follow your team in the papers all the time—the Times always prints box scores of your games. You did real well this year—second high scorer on your team, weren’t you?” When I didn’t answer, he punched me in the arm. “Ah, don’t be modest—you’re a good ballplayer, Howie. Bet you got all those pretty girls running after you, too—”

  “We’ll be playing in the Garden against N.Y.U. next year,” I said. “I’ll get you some tickets—you can bring a girl and maybe we’ll double after or something—”

  “Sure,” he said. “I’m going with a girl now—real nice, you’d like her.” He shrugged, then grinned. “I’ll probably be a married man by this time next year—”

  When we played in the Garden the next year I sent him two passes, but I had to leave right after the game to get the bus that was taking us back to school that night. I got an invitation to his wedding right after that. It was scheduled for Christmas week, but I couldn’t go because of a holiday tournament our team was playing in at Evansville, Indiana. I called him when I came in for spring vacation and told him how sorry I was that I hadn’t been there.

  “Jesus, Howie,” he said. “Forget it. How could you have been? You were in that tournament in Indiana. I followed the whole thing.” He laughed. “My wife nearly slammed me because on the first day of our honeymoon I rushed out in the morning to get the papers to see how many points you’d scored.”

  We talked some more and then he asked me over to dinner. I accepted the invitation, but I felt funny about it. I suppose I was afraid we wouldn’t have anything to talk about—or, what seemed worse, that we’d spend the entire evening reminiscing about things we’d done when we were thirteen or fourteen.

  I was partially right—we did spend a lot of time reminiscing, but I didn’t mind. Eddie and I filled each other in on what had happened to guys we’d grown up with—who was getting married, who had finished college, who had moved out of the neighborhood—and I had a good time. Susie was, as Eddie promised, a great cook. She’d graduated from high school and was in her last year of nurse’s training—just right for Eddie, I thought. After supper, while she did the dishes, Eddie and I sat in the living room and talked. I told him how much I liked her and he smiled.

  “She’s good for me,” he said, nodding. “I’ll tell you something—because of her I’m even thinking of going back to high school evenings to finish up.”

  “Does she want you to?”

  “She’d never say so, even if she did—she lets me make up my own mind. But I think she’d like it.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” I offered.

  “Yeah—but when do I have time? Running the store by myself now, there’s a lot of work—books—I have to bring home, and then I’m so tired after being on my feet all day, about all I can do in the evening is turn on the TV and watch the Yanks or the Mets.” He sighed. “But we’ll see. I’d like to finish up.”

  “How’s your health been?” I asked.

  “Fine,” he said, shrugging. Then his eyes opened wide. “Jesus!” he exclaimed. “You don’t know, do you?” “Know what?”

  “About my heart—” I must have looked scared then, because he started laughing at me. “Thank God Kennedy put through that draft exemption for married men,” he said. “Otherwise I’d be carrying a rifle—”

  “I don’t understand. I thought—”

  “It’s a long story,” he said, “but the short of it is there was never anything wrong with my heart.” He stood up and paced around the room. “When I went for my army physical about a year and a half ago, they didn’t find anything wrong with me. That’s how I found out.”

  “But what about—?”

  “Ah, that was just a thing my mother told me that the family doctor went along with,” he said, stopping my question. “He was religious or something, I guess. I don’t know. What’s the difference now? Thinking back, I guess he himself never really told me outright I had a murmur—”

  Susie came back into the room and I could tell she knew what Eddie had been telling me. She put her arms around his waist and hugged him.

  “My God!” I exclaimed. “How could she—?”

  He was about to say something, but then Susie looked at him and he changed his mind. “That’s the way the ball bounces, I guess,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, and I could tell he’d used the same expression before in similar situations. He kissed Susie on the forehead and held her close to him. “Anyway,” he laughed, “if you’re in pro ball you got to be away from your wife and kids half the year.”

  “But Christ, Eddie,” I began. Susie glared at me and I stopped. Eddie sat down and nobody said anything for a while—then suddenly he started talking. “You know something,” he said. “My business is pretty good. I mean, I’m making a good living and at least I’m not working for somebody else—but you know what I’d really like to do?” He leaned forward and rubbed his hands together. He looked at Susie and she smiled. “I’d like to coach kids. No kidding.”

  “He’s terrific with them, Howie,” Susie said. “Really—”

  “I love it—I help out at the center sometimes, and with this team of kids from our block. Guess what they call themselves?—The Zodiacs!” We both laughed. “It’s something how these things get passed down—”

  We began reminiscing again and soon we were both telling Susie about the day we’d played hooky together and gone to Ebbets Field.

 
; “Have you seen it since it’s torn down?” Eddie asked. “They got these big apartment houses—”

  “I’ve been there,” I said.

  “I have a girlfriend who lives in right field,” Susie said. I glanced at her, puzzled. “The people all give their section of the development names according to the way the field used to be laid out,” she explained. Then she laughed, but the laugh was forced and we knew it. Eddie and I tried to get up a conversation about the old ballplayers and what they were doing then—Hodges managing the Senators, the Duke still hanging on as a pinch hitter, poor Campy in a wheelchair since his crash, conducting interviews on TV between Yankee doubleheaders—but our hearts weren’t in it anymore and there were a lot of long silences. After a while I said I had to get up early the next morning for a job interview. It wasn’t even midnight. I thanked them for the dinner and I said I’d be in touch when I got back from school in June. Then, when I was at the door, Eddie put his arm around my shoulder.

  “I been thinking,” he said. “How about you playing some three-man ball with an old married man before you go back to school?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  I met Eddie at the schoolyard on Saturday morning and we played for a couple of hours. He wasn’t as graceful as I’d remembered him, but he could still jump—only now he knew how to throw his weight around and use his elbows and body and shoulders. He was murder under the boards and deadly with his jump shot and rough on defense. We played against some pretty tough high school and college and ex-college ballplayers that day and Eddie was the best of us all. Between games we’d rest next to the fence together and Eddie would talk and joke and kid about the potbelly he was putting on. When we played, though, he didn’t smile and he didn’t talk. He played hard and he played to win.

  The Campaign of Hector Rodriguez

  WE RACE down the stairs, two at a time, loyal friends behind us, spreading the word. “Vote for Birnbaum and Rodriguez! ¡Viva Sam! ¡Viva Hector! ¡Viva Louise!” Carlos is standing in the doorway of his room on the second floor, looking at the girls with the others from his class. “¡Mira! ¡Miral” cries one of his classmates. “Hey, chica—Carlos likes you!” They lean on each other as the crowds go by, drool on their lips, but Carlos says nothing. He’s real little, a stringy guy, but he is my best friend. We come on the boat together from Puerto Rico.