After Elijah had left us that afternoon and we were ready to break up and go home for supper, Louie reminded us about Field Day. Having Elijah for a friend was great, he said, but it wasn’t going to help us come in first.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Izzie said, narrowing his eyes the way he had a few days before when I’d seen the idea begin to stir in his head. We pressed him, but all he would say was, “I got a plan. You leave it to me.”
When Izzie explained his plan to me on Monday, I told him he was nuts, that Elijah would never go along with it, and that even if he did, Mr. Gleicher and the rabbi would have fits. But Izzie said he had it all figured out, and that afternoon he went into action. For the rest of that week, Elijah went for two private walks every afternoon—one with Mr. Gleicher and one with Izzie. The guys bothered Izzie and Elijah a lot, trying to get them to tell us the plan, but Izzie and Elijah just smiled. “We got a secret,” Elijah said. “Sure gonna surprise you Jewboys—”
Mr. Gleicher noticed that the two of them were palling around a lot, but this only made him praise Izzie to the rest of us, telling us that we should follow his example. Mr. Gleicher was a changed man by then, and we were beginning to believe that he probably was the world’s greatest coach. He knew more about running than anyone I’d met, and he kept after us day after day—teaching us how to breathe correctly, to run on our toes, to lean forward and pump our arms the right way. It was as if the things he taught us were secrets that he’d been saving all along for the most strategic moment. By Wednesday afternoon, Louie informed us that we had clipped another four seconds from our relay time—and we were slowly becoming convinced that we might get the Bar Kochba trophy after all.
By this time something else had happened also. We’d run out of money, and Elijah was talking about leaving us and finding new territory. “There’s lots of Jewboys in Brooklyn got money to spend,” he said. We pleaded with him, pointing out how much we’d already bought from him and telling him that in a week or so we’d have saved up again from our allowances. He told us it wasn’t personal, that he liked us real well—we were his good friends—but business was business. “He’s right,” Izzie said, and he and Elijah went off together for one of their mysterious sessions.
You had to hand it to Izzie. When the stakes were down, he always came through in style. The next afternoon—in his own living room this time—he rounded up a bunch of guys from Hebrew school who hadn’t been with us the first time, and he got Elijah to speak in tongue for them. And on Friday Izzie even talked a half dozen girls into coming to watch, getting them to pay fifteen cents apiece, instead of a dime. Elijah went to town for the girls, and by the time he finished and lay stretched out on the floor, they were terrified. A couple of them went hysterical—screaming and crying and shivering—and I was a little worried the neighbors would hear. It took a good three or four full minutes till Elijah sat up this time, and when he did, even he was in a daze.
“Man, that’s more like it,” he said, shaking his head. “I know I done good when I don’t know exactly what happened.” He smiled at the girls. “That’s speaking in tongue,” he said to them. “How you like it?”
We got in an extra practice session at the Parade Grounds the next morning, and in the afternoon we went to the movies, the way we had the Saturday before. Elijah was glad to see us.
“Sure need that money, guys,” he said. “The old man’s putting the pressure on—I got this brother, a year younger, he been bringing in almost as much as me, trying to push me out.” He turned to Izzie. “Our deal still on about tomorrow?”
“Sure,” Izzie said.
“Okay,” Elijah said. “You guys wait by the door. Let’s have your money.”
We had a good time again at the movies, but it was hard to relax completely with the track meet one day away—and afterwards, when Louie and Izzie and I got together at my house, we spent most of the time figuring out the points for the different races, and where we would have to place to have a chance for the trophy. It was pretty discouraging. The way Louie had it figured, giving us the benefit of the doubt on all the individual races—which meant having guys like me and Izzie placing in the top three in dashes and broad jumps—we still didn’t stand a chance unless we won the relay.
My father came into my room once or twice and I guess he noticed how sad-faced we were. When he teased Louie the way he always did, this time by claiming that Phil Rizzuto was a better all-around shortstop than Pee Wee Reese, Louie just shrugged. My father left our room to speak to my mother, and then he came back and asked Louie and Izzie if they’d like to stay for supper. They said okay—Louie went upstairs and got permission and Izzie telephoned home—but sitting around the table eating we only got more depressed.
After supper, for a special treat, my folks took us to Garfield’s cafeteria for dessert, but we weren’t too hungry. I had some rice pudding with raisins, I remember. I looked at my parents now and then, and I felt a little bad for them because they were trying so hard to cheer us up. I wished I could get some conversation going, for their sakes, but I couldn’t think of anything to talk about.
Then Izzie nudged me under the table and motioned with his eyes to a corner of the room. There was Elijah, going from table to table with a stack of newspapers under his arm. The minute he saw us, he smiled and came straight for our table. I wasn’t exactly sure how to act with my parents there, but Elijah shook his head sideways before he got to us—he could see Izzie was going to say his name, I guess—and we played along with him.
“You wanna buy a newspaper, mister?” he said to my father.
“No, thanks,” my father said, without looking at Elijah.
“You sure?” Elijah said. “I got the early morning edition already.”
My mother sighed and my father looked at Elijah. “I don’t read the Daily News,” he said.
“What paper you read?” Elijah asked. “I get it for you. You just name it.”
Maybe if my father had known more about Elijah—and about what had been happening with him and our group of guys—he would have acted differently, but I think he was already pretty annoyed and tired from work all week, and he began to get a little angry, raising his voice to tell Elijah that he had already told him he didn’t want a newspaper.
“Maybe you want to get one for your sons here—so they can read the comics—”
“Please go away,” my father said, and his tone of voice made me scared and I tried to get Elijah’s attention. My father was a quiet man, but if he got annoyed he had a mean temper.
“Ah, c’mon, mister, only fifteen cents,” Elijah said. “And I need the money real bad. No kidding. I got to have money—”
“If you don’t stop bothering us, I’ll call the manager and have you thrown out,” my father said. The angrier my father got, the more Elijah persisted. He even put the newspapers down on a chair and took out some pearl necklaces, asking my father if he wanted to buy one for my mother. Izzie, Louie, and I fidgeted in our seats, not knowing what to do. I wanted so much for my father to buy something from Elijah—I remember closing my eyes and trying to concentrate hard and think the idea into my father’s head—but it didn’t help. He wouldn’t buy anything, and Elijah wouldn’t go away.
“Man,” Elijah said finally, picking up his stack of newspapers. “You Jews sure are cheap.”
This got my father. He raised his hand as if he were going to hit Elijah. “C’mon, bigshot,” Elijah said. “Hit me. Get your sons to beat me up too. Why don’t you pick on somebody your own size? Yeah. I like to see you mess with my old man. He lay you out flat—bam!”
“If you don’t leave this instant,” my father said, “I’ll call the police.”
Elijah turned and walked away. I guess you couldn’t really blame my father—him not knowing about Elijah and Elijah saying the things he did—but I felt terrible anyway. My father and mother talked for a while about the incident, with my mother trying to calm my father down—and Izzie and Louie and I whi
spered about Elijah, wondering if he would still keep his deal. My father caught some of our conversation and asked us if we knew Elijah. We said we didn’t, but I guess we denied it too hard, because he was very suspicious, and my mother chipped in with some choice comments on young men being known by the kind of friends they kept.
Izzie and Louie thanked my parents for supper and for treating them to dessert, and they left.
“Go on,” my father said a minute later. “Go catch up to them—but be home within an hour.”
I thanked him and ran out of Garfield’s, past the Flatbush Theater, and down Church Avenue, making a left on Bedford—that was the way we usually went. At Martense Street I could see the two of them, walking together up by Linden Boulevard. I was about to call to them to wait, when Elijah came running up beside me.
“Hey, Howie,” he said. “Hold on. I got to talk to you—”
It was the first time, I think, that he’d ever called me by my name. “Hi, Elijah,” I said. He still had a stack of newspapers under one arm.
“That your old man in the restaurant?” he asked.
“Yeah—”
“He call the police?”
“No,” I said. “He didn’t mean anything, anyway. He’s just got a bad temper.”
“You sure he ain’t called the police?”
“Sure,” I said. We crossed over Linden Boulevard, and Elijah stayed next to me. “I’m real sorry he said what he did to you. He’s not usually like that. Honest—”
“You tell him my name?”
“No.”
Elijah grabbed my arm and pushed me against a hedge. “Tell the truth, man—you tell him about me?”
“Quit shoving,” I said, and pushed his hand away. “I told you the truth—he didn’t call the police and we didn’t tell him who you were. We made out like you were a stranger—”
Elijah looked both ways. “Your old man following us—?”
“No—”
He brushed my arm with his hand. It was wet. “I’m sorry I shove you,” he said. “You want a paper? I give you one for nothing—”
“No, thanks,” I said.
“Man, the police get me, I be in trouble. My father, they don’t like him much, either.” It was dark along Bedford Avenue, and I couldn’t see much of his face. Just his eyes. “The police, they real mean.” He tugged at my arm. “Listen, Howie, you make sure your old man don’t call the police on me, I get you lots of things, you don’t got to pay. Okay?” I told him again that my father wasn’t going to call the police, but it didn’t seem to matter. “I be your best friend, Howie, okay? You give me any orders you want. Just don’t want them making blood out of me. The police, they get paid by the Jews, my old man told me. And the Jews, they run everything in this city, lots of kids disappear when you have Moses’ holiday—”
“You mean Passover?”
“That’s the one,” he said, shaking his head up and down. “They get little kids, there’s blood, man. I heard stories.—Please, Howie, you tell your old man I didn’t mean nothing back there, so long as he don’t report me.” He stopped. “I even go through with my deal for tomorrow. I don’t charge you nothing, either. You tell Shorty and Louie I said so.” He straightened up and grabbed my arm. “Only you call the cops on me, there gonna be blood.” He giggled. “My old man find out what I do, there be blood anyway.” He laughed some more. “I like to see his face, he find out what I gonna do. Oh man, it burn his ass—” He stopped suddenly, and the smile left his face. We walked about a half block toward Rogers Avenue without saying anything. I could see Izzie and Louie standing around the stoop in front of my building. Elijah pulled me over under a tree. “Listen, I got your promise, don’t I?”
“Sure, Elijah.”
“My brother, I think he on to what we gonna do. He squeal on me, man, I’m dead.” He shook his head and whistled. “Izzie, though, he got some good points. I go along with him. See you tomorrow, Howie—”
Then he left. The next morning Louie’s father drove Izzie, Stan, Marty, and myself to Wingate Field and we met the other guys by the handball courts. Mr. Gleicher too. It was a beautiful spring day, I remember, and the place was already filled with hundreds of guys, all practicing starts and running around the track. In a little while the stands began to fill and we followed Mr. Gleicher’s advice, just jogging around the track, not trying to impress anyone by how fast we were. A few of the guys’ parents were there and a lot of people from the neighborhood around Wingate Field, and it felt pretty good, running around on an official track—it was a black one, made of cinders—with over a thousand people watching. Some of the other schools had uniforms, but all we had were these little shields the girls had made for us out of oaktage, with the name of our school on it. We pinned them to the front of our T-shirts.
The whole place was in chaos, it seemed to me, with little kids chasing each other, girls practicing their dances, music playing over the loudspeaker, and teachers and mothers walking across the track to talk to kids—but once the man in charge announced that the track meet would begin soon, things got organized. We looked for Mr. Gleicher on the infield of the track, where all the teachers were, and we found him right away. They played “The Star-Spangled Banner” and then the “Hatikvah,” and Mr. Gleicher gave out square pieces of paper with numbers on them, for us to pin on the back of our shirts. He had a list of the events on a sheet of paper and while speeches were going on and girls from different schools were dancing around as if they thought they were on the plains of Israel, he told us which events came when and who would run in which races. There were all kinds of things you could get your school disqualified for—and the thing he tried to impress on us most was to stay in our spot of the field until our individual race was called. Last year, he reminded us, we had lost points because the judges had found one of our guys sitting in the stands, eating lunch.
Just before the first race, they unveiled a table of trophies and medals and you could hear everybody go “Ooh” when they did. And when they announced that the winner of Field Day the previous year—and the current holder of the Bar Kochba Trophy—was Congregation Shaare Torah, we cheered and shouted as hard as we could, and all the guys from the other Hebrew schools looked our way. Izzie got into some good name-calling with a group of kids from Judea Center, which was in our neighborhood, and when they taunted us about having all our older guys graduate, Izzie yelled back that we had a secret weapon.
Elijah hadn’t shown up yet. The announcer called for the guys in the first race, a fifty-yard dash for kids in the first grade of Hebrew school, and Mr. Gleicher got them around him in a circle and reminded them not to look back or stop running when they reached the finish line. The kids listened when he talked, and he was very gentle with them—the way he’d been with Elijah. Mr. Gleicher warned us again to stay in our places, and he went over to the finish line. From where we were you couldn’t see much of the race, but when it was over and we saw one little kid from our school jumping up and down, with all the other kids hugging him, we knew what had happened. Mr. Gleicher came back carrying the kid on his shoulders and we gave him a 2-4-6-8 cheer and told each other that this was it, we were going to do it again, nothing could stop us. Izzie even borrowed Louie’s ballpoint pen and had him write “Bar Kochba’s Raiders” on his T-shirt, and all of us followed his lead.
The track meet progressed pretty much the way Louie had it figured—we did real well in the lower grades and better than we’d expected in the individual races in the upper grades. When the time came for the individual races for seniors, we were in second place, a few points behind the East Midwood Jewish Center. “If we can just pick up a few third places in the senior events,” Louie told us, “we can still do it.”
Stan and Marty had come in second and third in the race for guys in the next-to-last-year, and Mr. Gleicher had Izzie and me scheduled to race in the senior events. Until we got to the starting line next to the other guys, though, I think we’d forgotten how much bigger than
us most of them were. Our race was a hundred-yard dash, and even though we swore to each other that we would give it all we had, I think we knew we didn’t stand a chance. “Gleicher should of raced us with guys our own age,” Izzie said. “Then we could of at least had a first place for sure—”
The starter told the runners to take their mark and my heart pounded. Izzie got down in position and set his jaw. “Relax,” I whispered. “And come up slow—”
“Got you,” he said, without looking my way. An instant later the gun went off and the line of us—fifteen to twenty guys—started out. Izzie and I ran neck and neck and for the first twenty or thirty yards, before you really picked up speed, we stayed with the leaders. In fact, at about the twenty-yard mark, I think Izzie was in first place. Being small helped him get a good start. But then, even though I strained with all my might, a few guys passed me and stayed ahead. The same thing happened to Izzie. One guy in front of us, from East Midwood, must have been about six foot one or two, with the longest legs of a guy our age I’d ever seen, and as we passed the halfway point he opened up a lead of almost ten full yards on the rest of us.
Then Elijah showed up, running along the grass on the inside of the track, waving to me and Izzie. “C’mon, Jewboys,” he called. “Catch me, mothers!”
Corky's Brother Page 17