Shoeless Joe & Me

by Dan Gutman

  “So what are they gonna do?” Rothstein asked with a smile. “Call the cops?”

  The three of them scooped the money off the table and into a big cardboard box. In another minute or so, they would be gone and I could sneak out of there without them knowing I’d heard every word they’d said.

  The haze of smoke just about filled the room now, and I could feel it in my nose and throat. I turned my head and swallowed, taking a deep breath. If I could just hold my breath until they were gone, I’d be okay.

  And then I coughed.

  “What was that?” Rothstein asked quickly, turning toward the shelves I was standing behind.

  9

  The Bad Old Days

  THERE WAS NO PLACE TO HIDE. ABE AND BILLY WERE ON me in seconds, grabbing my arms and twisting them behind my back. Rothstein stood in front and looked me over.

  “What’s your name, kid?”

  “J-Joe Stoshack.”

  “Who sent you?” he asked calmly.

  “Nobody sent me,” I replied honestly. “I…sent myself.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I…was just using the bathroom…”

  “What did you hear?”

  “Nothing.”

  “He’s just a stupid little kid, A.R.,” Billy said.

  “But what if he’s a smart little kid?” Rothstein wondered out loud. “Maybe he heard everything we were saying. We can’t have him blabbing.”

  “I won’t blab!” I said, but they ignored me.

  “You want me to search him?” Billy asked, tightening his grip on my arm.

  I swallowed hard. I didn’t care about my medicine, but if these guys found my camera in my pocket, there would be no telling what they might do to me. And if they took my baseball cards, there would be no way for me to ever get back home. I would be stuck in 1919 forever. My nose was dripping, but I couldn’t do anything about it.

  “Nah,” Rothstein replied, and I relaxed a little.

  “I bet if I bust his face up a little he won’t blab,” Abe remarked. I swallowed again.

  “Shut up, Abe,” Rothstein snapped.

  “I didn’t hear anything, sir,” I whined. “I swear I didn’t.”

  Rothstein leaned over and slipped a key into Billy’s hand, whispering something into his ear. Billy nodded his head.

  “These men are not going to hurt you, sonny,” Rothstein said to me, like a kindly uncle. “But I don’t like to take risks, and I can’t take the risk that you can keep your mouth shut for the next twenty-four hours. So if you just do everything these men tell you to do, you’ll be fine. You understand me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Billy and Abe led me up some rickety wooden stairs into the billiard parlor. A bunch of men were shooting pool and smoking. None of them paid any attention to me.

  “I’m gonna loosen my grip on your arm,” Abe whispered in my ear. “But if you get away, Mr. Rothstein will be very mad at me. So if you try to run, I’m gonna have to hurt you. Got that?”

  “Yes.”

  I believed every word he said. These guys looked like the kind of guys whose solution to most problems would be to hurt somebody.

  “Just walk next to me, kid.”

  They marched me through the poolroom and out the front door into the street. It was buzzing with activity. Old-time cars—they looked like Model Ts to me—were chugging all over, spewing exhaust. There were trolleys, too, and horse-drawn buggies.

  People—mostly men—clogged the sidewalks, hurrying to who knew where. All of them were wearing hats. A sign on a little grocery store window said MILK—15 CENTS A QUART.

  For once in my life I was glad I’d taken my mother’s advice. Dressed as I was, I fit right in. The few women I saw were wearing long dresses and hats. In the snippets of conversations I was able to catch, everybody seemed to be talking about the World Series.

  “—Reds are gonna murder the Sox tomorrow!”

  “—They’d better. I put my money on ’em.”

  “—Sox won it all in ’17.”

  “—Reds haven’t been in the Series, ever.”

  Old-time cars—they looked like Model Ts to me—were chugging all over, spewing exhaust. There were trolleys, too, and horse-drawn buggies.

  “—Sox are favored…”

  “—Cicotte is a pretty good hurler…”

  Abe and Billy walked me a block down the street. I tried to pay close attention to everything, in case I would need to retrace my steps later. They led me through a big set of double doors and into a building. Over the door was a sign that read SINTON HOTEL.

  The lobby was jammed with people, again mostly men. Many of them were shouting, and some of them were even standing on chairs waving money in the air. As we walked through, I saw a guy with a fistful of money.

  “A thousand bucks says the Sox win by at least three runs tomorrow!”

  “I’ll take that bet!” replied another guy.

  “Who will give me even money on the Reds?”

  “The odds are seven to five!”

  “Suckers.” Abe snickered as he pushed me through the crowd. He and Billy led me through a door that opened onto a stairway. They led me upstairs.

  “Who is Mr. Rothstein?” I asked, comfortable enough now to feel like they were not about to kill me.

  “None of your business,” Billy said. “You’re lucky Mr. R. didn’t tell us to hurt you. He ain’t the type of man who likes to hurt things. Let’s just say that Mr. R. is a man who likes to fix things.”

  “Yeah,” added Abe. “Things that ain’t broke.”

  “Shut up, Abe.”

  It seemed pretty obvious that this Rothstein guy was the boss of Billy and Abe, and Billy was the boss of Abe, and Abe was the boss of me. We reached the third floor of the hotel, and they took me down the hall. They stopped at Room 313. Billy pulled out the key that Rothstein had given him and opened the door.

  The hotel room was empty. I mean, there was a bed in there and all, but no suitcases or anything. Nobody was staying there. It looked pretty nice. If I had to stay there for twenty-four hours with one of them guarding me, it wouldn’t be the worst thing that had ever happened to me.

  “Whose room is this?” Abe asked Billy.

  “Heinie Groh,” Billy replied, “but he ain’t usin’ it.”

  Heinie Groh! I never should have taken that Heinie Groh baseball card, I thought to myself. Billy opened the door to a closet.

  “Get in,” he ordered.

  “I have to stay in the closet?” I asked.

  “Whaddaya complainin’ about?” Abe remarked, giving me a shove. “This is the best hotel in town.”

  The closet was completely empty except for a few wire hangers on a rod. I stepped inside. It was pretty small, about the size of a phone booth. I had to duck my head so I wouldn’t bump into the rod.

  “We’ll come get you out after the game tomorrow,” Billy said, as he reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a Hershey bar and flipped it into the closet. “This oughta hold you till then.”

  Then he closed the closet door. I heard a lock click, and a few seconds later the hotel room door clicked shut, too.

  I put my ear to the door. Silence. They were gone.

  I was in total darkness. I felt around the door for the doorknob. Maybe I could break the lock or pick it or something. But there was no doorknob. The closet door was locked from the other side, probably with a bolt or latch. I leaned against the door and tried bumping my shoulder into it. The door was solid. It wasn’t going anywhere. I was stuck.

  I sank down to the closet floor and sat there. Why did this always have to happen to me? I had come to 1919 to try and do something good. All I wanted to do was warn Shoeless Joe Jackson about ruining his life. I hadn’t even found Shoeless Joe, and it didn’t look like I was going to, sitting in a locked closet.

  Why is it that every time I decide to take a trip back to “the good old days,” something goes wrong and I run into trouble?


  My nose was running, my eyes were watering, my throat felt tight, and it took me a few seconds even to realize that it wasn’t because I had the flu. It was because I was crying.

  Hungry. I was hungry, too, I realized. My stomach was rumbling. If only I had listened to my mother and brought along the lunch she had packed for me. Oh, it wouldn’t have mattered. Those guys Billy and Abe probably would have taken it away from me anyway.

  I felt around the floor of the closet until my hands found the Hershey bar. Tearing off the wrapper, I took a little nibble. If I ate a little bit every hour, I figured, maybe it would last me the whole day and night.

  Oh, forget about that. I scarfed the whole thing down in two bites. It tasted great but didn’t make me feel any better about the situation I was in.

  My eyes were starting to adjust to the dark, and I could see a narrow slit of light under the door. I couldn’t do anything about it, but that sliver of light was comforting in a way. At least it told me it wasn’t nighttime yet. There was nothing to do but think.

  I couldn’t escape. I could sit there and wait it out until those creeps came to get me again. And who knew what they were going to do with me then? They knew I’d overheard them planning the World Series fix. They would have to keep me quiet for the entire Series so they could make their money betting against the White Sox without me “blabbing.” Maybe they would decide it would be easier to just kill me so they wouldn’t have to worry about me anymore.

  And if they killed me, who would know? My mother wouldn’t even be born until the 1960s.

  Suddenly, another thought occurred to me. I didn’t have to sit there and do nothing. I had the pack of baseball cards in my pocket. I could get out of the closet whenever I wanted to. I could use my new cards and travel back to my own time. I didn’t have to alert Shoeless Joe Jackson. I could go home to my own house, my own bed, my own mom. I could be safe.

  Obviously, that was the smart solution. I tore open the pack of new cards, holding one of them in my hand and slipping the others back inside my pocket. I closed my eyes and thought about going home.

  Just as the first tingling sensation tickled my fingertips, there was a voice.

  “Cheap Commy.”

  The voice was coming from the back of the closet, the opposite side away from the door. It must be coming from the room next to the room I was locked in. Somebody was in there.

  “Yer out, busher.”

  There it was again. A mysterious voice.

  I let the card slip from my fingers. The tingling sensation stopped.

  10

  Room with a View

  I COULDN’T TELL IF THE VOICE COMING FROM THE NEXT room was male or female, but it didn’t matter. Somebody was there and that somebody could get me out of the closet I had been locked in. “Hey!” I shouted, putting my mouth against the back wall of the closet. “Can you hear me?”

  No response.

  “Help!” I screamed, pounding the wall. “I’m locked in the closet of the room next door! Get me out, will you?”

  Nothing.

  “What are you, deaf?” I hollered.

  Then it occurred to me that maybe there was a deaf person in the room next door. Why else wouldn’t somebody respond?

  As I leaned on the back wall of the closet, my finger brushed against something sharp. I ran my fingers all over the wall until I found the spot again. It was a screw. The back panel of the closet was held on by screws!

  Excitedly, I felt around until I found the screw in each corner of the wall. If I could loosen the screws, maybe I could remove the panel and get out of there.

  I didn’t have a screwdriver or anything, but I felt in my pockets to see if anything could serve the same purpose. All I had was my camera, a twenty-dollar bill, my baseball cards, and the container of medicine.

  I felt around on the floor. I couldn’t see anything, so I slid my hands all over, trying to cover every inch. After a few minutes, my hand felt something. It was a coin. I could tell it was a dime because the edges were ridged. Perfect.

  The dime fit into the head of the screw. Righty tighty, lefty loosey, I remembered. The screw didn’t turn easily, but it did turn. I was able to slowly remove the top left screw from the wall. Three more to go.

  “Cheap Commy.”

  There it was again! The voice. What did “cheap Commy” mean? I pounded the wall.

  “Who’s Commy?” I yelled. “Push the wall out!”

  No response. Whoever it was in the next room was starting to get on my nerves. I decided to forget about the voice and just get all four screws out. It didn’t matter who was on the other side. All that mattered was that I would get out of there.

  It took about ten minutes to get the second screw out of the wall. Dimes are not made to be used as screwdrivers, and my fingers were tired. I didn’t look forward to spending twenty minutes to remove the bottom two screws.

  I pulled on the panel on the off chance that it might come off with two screws still attached. Surprisingly, it pulled away from the wall. I gave it a good pull, and the bottom two screws ripped right out. The board fell off and bumped to the floor.

  I expected there would be light behind the board from the room next door, but it was pitch-black. I stepped through the opening, and my foot landed on a shoe. Feeling around with my other foot, I could feel shoes all over the place. That was when I realized that I had broken out of my closet and was now in the closet of the room next door.

  “Commy’s a crook,” the voice repeated, a little more clearly now.

  “Oh, hush, sweetie,” a woman’s voice said. “Is that any way to say hello?”

  “Commy’s a crook,” the voice said.

  Now there are two of them! I froze. This could be a sticky situation, it occurred to me. If I pushed open their closet door and they found me in there, they might freak out. They might think I broke into their room. They might call the police or hotel security. They might arrest me for breaking and entering.

  Frantically, I began to think of something I could say that would prepare them for the fact that there was a strange kid in their closet.

  “Excuse me, ma’am, I’m in serious trouble.”

  “Miss, I don’t mean to alarm you but—”

  “Please don’t be afraid. I was locked in the room next door—”

  But I never got the chance to say any of those things. Just before I was going to speak, the closet door opened from the other side.

  A woman, about twenty-five, was standing in front of me.

  She was totally naked.

  “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!” she screamed.

  Right behind her, on the dresser, was a big bird-cage.

  “Commy’s a crook,” the bird squawked. “Cheap Commy.”

  11

  Katie and Joe

  “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!”

  Without thinking, I put my hands over my eyes. My face must have been red as a fire engine. The lady standing in front of me grabbed a bathrobe from the hook on the closet door and quickly wrapped it around herself. I guess I don’t look all that frightening, because she seemed to relax almost immediately. She looked at me curiously. It was as if she was wondering how I could have possibly gotten into her closet. And why.

  The lady was pretty, with pale blue eyes and brown hair that sort of swirled up around her head. Glancing out the window, I could see that it was dark outside. I had been locked in that closet for a long time.

  Suddenly, a guy charged out of the bathroom waving a black wooden baseball bat.

  The lady was pretty, with pale blue eyes and brown hair that sort of swirled up around her head.

  “You okay, Katie?” he shouted. He had a thick Southern accent. When he saw me cowering in the closet, he waved the bat around menacingly. “Ah’ll kill ’im! Just say the word, Katie, and Ah’ll split his head like a melon!”

  I put my arms up in self-defense and took a step backward. The guy’s dark brown eyes were on fire. He was a tall man,
over six feet, with short, coal-black hair that was parted in the middle and flattened down. You might call him handsome if you saw him, except for the fact that his ears stuck out a little too far. He was wearing boxer shorts. He was thin but had very long, thick arms.

  “He’s just a boy, Joe,” the lady named Katie said calmly. “Leave him be.”

  “Commy’s a crook,” the bird said.

  “Shut yer trap!” the guy named Joe yelled at the bird, waving the bat around.

  As the bat hovered a few inches from my face, I noticed some letters carved into it. I squinted so I could read them.

  BETSY

  That’s when I realized that the lunatic waving the bat around was no ordinary Joe. And it was no ordinary bat. That bat must be the famous Black Betsy. And if that was Black Betsy, the lunatic waving it around was just the man I wanted to see.

  “A-are you…Shoeless Joe Jackson?” I asked, holding my hands over my face in case he was still thinking about splitting my head open.

  The guy stiffened, like I’d said the wrong thing.

  “Please don’t call him that,” Katie advised me.

  “Ah hate that name,” Joe said, placing the bat carefully on the bed. He seemed to have calmed down a little, talking slowly in a deep Southern drawl. “Ah ain’t some dumb country bumpkin. See for yourself. Ah got plenty of shoes.”

  The closet I was still standing in was filled with shoes, many of them men’s.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” I apologized.

  “Just call me Joe.”

  “My name is Joe, too,” I said, extending a hand hesitantly and stepping out of the closet. “Joe Stoshack. Most folks call me Stosh.”

  “Pleased to meetcha, Stosh,” Joe said, taking my hand in a muscular grip. “This here’s my wife, Katie.”

  I wasn’t sure if Joe knew I’d seen his wife with no clothes on, and I wasn’t about to tell him. I shook her hand, too, a little embarrassed.

  “What’re ya doin’ hidin’ in my closet for, boy?” Joe asked. “You an autograph seeker? Katie, make this boy Stosh one of my signatures the way you do so nicely, will you please, honey?”