“Why should he? The family can buy its own copy.”
“Well, keeping it out, practically in public like that! Doesn’t his mother clean or anything? How come she didn’t notice?”
“Who said she didn’t notice? Of course she noticed. She bought him the subscription.”
“Subscription?” I yelled. “You mean he gets Playboy every month?”
“Sure. The mailman brings it right to the house. Same as he does Life or The Saturday Evening Post.”
“How come his mother bought him a subscription?”
“He wanted one for his birthday.”
“Which birthday? His forty-second going on Bar Mitzvah?”
“Mrs. Jacobs doesn’t want Barry to hide things from her. She wants to know what he is doing all the time.”
“She’s nosey,” I suggested.
“That’s not it at all. Mrs. Jacobs is very intelligent. She used to be…”
“Be a schoolteacher,” I finished.
“What’s wrong with that? I think she’s right. About hiding things.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with it. It just seems wrong. I don’t want my mother looking at my Playboy.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s mine, that’s why.”
And I put my magazine back between my mattress and my box spring of my bed. Never before was I that glad to have a corner that was all mine. Barry could have a subscription for twenty consecutive years. For fifty consecutive years until he needed bifocals to see the center fold, and I would rather have my one copy that is mine and that I didn’t have to share with anyone unless I invited them.
I asked Hersch if he would like some lunch.
We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on toast. When you have braces, it’s easier to eat peanut butter sandwiches if the bread is toasted. As we ate, Hersch told me some things about his school. There was nothing the country mouse could tell that the Crescent Hill mouse didn’t already know. I didn’t feel too bad when his mother came for him.
Mrs. Miller said, “We’ll have to arrange for Mark to spend an evening at our house.”
Mother answered, “That will be lovely.”
Mrs. Miller always said we’ll have to arrange for Mark to spend an evening at our house, and Mother always said that will be lovely, and it never happened.
You can’t cart friendship from place to place and lend it out like Hertz. Hersch rent-a-friend.
Spencer came down with the flu. Mother was convinced he did it on purpose because he had midterm exams at summer school and he had been complaining about not having enough time to study. When the flu bug hit, we were one game out of first place with two games to go to finish the season. We had to beat the Elks; they had lost three games all season. We had lost four; three of the games we lost, we had lost to them. We would meet them again the last game. To become league champions, then, we had to win our next two games. The Elks were almost certain to win their next. Their opponent was as bad as the B’nai B’rith had been the year before. Our next game would be a tough one. Against the Chicken Delights team. We had lost to them once already.
Mother scolded the kitchen light fixture, “Fever, you had to invent!” She was baking cookies for my Bar Mitzvah party. Baking and freezing. The kitchen was steaming with the odor of chocolate and jelly and nuts. I think my mother bakes because it occupies her hands and not her head; other mothers knit.
Mother yelled as I came in the door, “Don’t touch. It’s for the Bar Mitzvah!”
“Whose Bar Mitzvah?” I asked.
“You whose. That’s whose,” she answered.
“What I want to know is this: if it’s my Bar Mitzvah, why can’t I enjoy it now?”
“Because it’s for the company. You want I shouldn’t have enough and be embarrassed in front of the whole congregation?”
“Enough? You’d have enough if you stopped baking right now, and I ate half of what you already have.”
“Don’t underestimate your mother, Moshe. My cookies are so superb that everyone will help themselves. Three times and four times they’ll take.”
“So make them less good and share them with me now.”
“You want me to offer up something less than the best? You talk like Cain. Now, go. Change your clothes. Mother is thinking.”
I came back downstairs after I had changed my clothes. Mother offered me a plate of edges and broken pieces. I looked down at them, up at her, and said, “You sure don’t hesitate offering me second best.”
“God, you’re not,” she answered. “Now eat. Quietly. Mother is worrying.”
“What are you worrying about?”
“Your brother’s forehead. He’s got fever.”
“He’ll get over it,” I said as I munched. Even the edges and crumbs were good. “He’s strong headed.”
“It’s not fair about viruses living inside men. Do men live inside animals? Tell me.” Mother was ceiling gazing again.
“How about Jonah living in that big fish for three days and three nights?” It was me answering, not the Deity.
“You call that living?” Mother asked.
“You asked, I answered.”
“All right then, answer me this one. Who is going to help me manage our next game? Our next game is very important, I might add.”
“I know, Mom. I know. Remember me? I’m on the team, too.”
“Your brother has been very helpful to me. He knows the opponents better than I do. A memory he’s got. Like an elephant.”
“I’ll bet Dad will give you a hand.”
“He doesn’t know the players. Besides, he’s busy.”
“What about Barry’s mother? Or Sidney’s? They come to all the games anyway.”
Mother stopped scrubbing the cookie sheets, turned around, looked hard at me and didn’t answer.
“Well, what about them?” I asked again.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
I swallowed. “Why don’t you ask them? Mrs. Jacobs or Mrs. Polsky?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mother answered.
“Why not?” I insisted.
Mother turned toward me very quickly, and in that very brief minute I caught a look of worry on her face. Worry and puzzle. It was the same look she used to have when she was discussing Spencer with Dad before we all got involved with baseball. And it was also the same look that she had when she finished a telephone call with Mrs. Polsky or Mrs. Jacobs. “Because,” Mother said, turning back toward the sink and scrubbing at the cookie sheets again, “because I’m not sure they’re on my side.”
Aunt Thelma chose just that minute to walk in. Mother wiped her hands on a paper towel, gave the top of the stove a good rub with it before throwing it in the garbage, looked up at the kitchen ceiling, and said, “So, Casey Stengel she isn’t, but she’ll do.” She sent a kiss to the Deity by closing her eyes and smacking her lips to the air between the light fixture and her upraised face.
“I was just on my way to the shopping center, and I thought I’d stop in to see if you needed anything. I don’t know what made me come so far out of my way.”
Mother looked at me and smiled. “We know, don’t we, Moshe?” With that Mother grabbed her sister around the shoulder and said, “Thelma, about this game that’s coming up.”
The game was Tuesday evening. Aunt Thelma had come for supper. Mother carried a tray up to Spencer. He asked to see Aunt Thelma, too. The two of them sat at the foot of his bed and listened to him as if he were spreading wisdom instead of germs.
“Remember,” he said, “start Burser pitching. If it’s necessary to pull him out, use Simon. We have to keep Sylvester eligible for Friday’s game. If he pitches today, he won’t be eligible for four days. That would be Saturday. And our game against the Elks is Friday, and we need Sylvester then. Really need him then. The Elks’ powerhouse, Stevens, Kunzciski, and Holden, are all left handers. We need our left hander against them. Use Simon if you get in a pinch, but save Sylvester.”
He closed his eyes and collapsed against his pillow. “Save Sylvester,” he repeated.
Mother and Aunt Thelma tiptoed out of the room as if they had just been given a message by Moses, via satellite from Mount Sinai. Spencer played his part. He kept his eyes closed as he lay against the pillow. I half expected a great billow of smoke and a voice from an echo chamber saying, “I have spoken.” Only the fact that he was holding his fork in one fist and his knife in the other spoiled the picture.
For once you could tell that Aunt Thelma was Mother’s sister. She was bouncing with enthusiasm—except Aunt Thelma was so skinny that she sprung more than she bounced. And the whole thing boiled down to them both bossing me around. Get the balls. Get the bats. Get the towels. Get moving.
By the time we got to the ball park I was ready to cheer for the other team, except that this year I never could be anything but a Bagel.
Cookie arrived to give Mother a message. “Simon can’t come today.”
“Why not?” Mother asked.
“Because he can’t leave the house.”
“Why not?”
“Because he keeps throwing up.”
Mother looked up at the sky. “One virus is not enough? A D-Day invasion we had to have?”
Cookie looked unhappy. “Yep, the virus.” Some people like to deliver bad news. Cookie didn’t.
Mother didn’t reply; she was either giving You-Know-Who a bawling out, or else she was calculating her strategy.
Cookie explained, “I did my best to get him well, Mother Bagel. But he just keeps throwing up, throwing up, throwing up. And you can’t have him doing that in public. Throwing up, I mean.”
“Wouldn’t look nice at all,” Mother said. She smiled at Cookie.
“All we can hope for now,” Cookie said, “is that the Elks catch it, too.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to wish,” Mother scolded.
“All right, then. I wish Simon gets well and that Sylvester never catches it.”
“That’s better,” Mother said.
Cookie paused a minute and said, “I think I was right the first time; it will be better if the Elks catch it.” And she walked away from Mother.
I waved to Cookie by flapping my hand alongside my leg. She looked puzzled and copied the motion. Botts saw us; some guys can’t keep their eyes to themselves.
Hal Burser’s pitching was not the greatest; his arm usually gave out about the fifth inning, which is generally not too bad, because I noticed that the umpires usually gave out about the same time. Because that’s when they began calling any close one a strike. This umpire was impressed with the importance of the game, and he called them all sincerely. The score was 5–3 in our favor in the fifth inning. Burser had just given up two hits after the Chicken Delights had two outs. His next pitch was wild. Hersch scurried around like a gray mouse in a grain field to get it, but both their runners made it home before it could be retrieved. They tied the score, and Aunt Thelma, who long ago in the season had forgotten all about one of the purposes of Little League being to teach boys to lose gracefully, called a hurried conference with Mother and Hal on the mound. I could tell that Aunt Thelma was ready to pull him out of the game. I could just tell. Mother put her arm around Hal’s shoulder and talked to him quietly, and Hal nodded “yes” a few times. They left the mound, and Hal finished the inning with a strike out and the game tied up at 5–5.
It was the top of the sixth. One, two, three; Botts struck out. Sonefield hit a pop fly, and Mother realized that she would need some great pitching to save the game. She wanted Sylvester to warm up with Botts catching. She called for Botts, but he had disappeared. Aunt Thelma had seen him heading for the locker room, and she started straight for him. I guess she figured she should since she was hired to do Spencer’s job, and Spence always retrieved little boys from the little boys’ room. So she charged in like Papa Bear. She waddled out like Mother Goose, towing Botts with one hand and carrying a rolled-up copy of a magazine with the other. Her face was a special kind of red called furious, and Botts’ was a special kind of pink called embarrassed. Guys who are brassy with kids their own age often are embarrassable with adults. Insincere guys, that is.
Not far behind Aunt Thelma came Sidney Polsky, looking down at the ground and shuffling his feet.
Sidney’s mother began running along the bleacher parallel to the path to our dugout. “What’s the matter, Sidney? What happened, Sidney? Sidney? Sidney, what happened in there? What’s the matter, son?”
“Nothing’s the matter, Mom. I’m fine,” Sidney answered. Finally.
“What’s in your hand, Sidney? Give it to Mother.”
Sidney held up what was in his hand and gave it to his mother. It was a nickel.
“What’s the matter, Sidney? Wasn’t it enough? Do they cost a dime?”
“It’s all right, Mom. Here. Take the nickel. It’s all right.”
“Sidney, here. Take another nickel. Mother will give another nickel. Go back in there, Sidney.”
“I’m all right, Mom. Honest. I don’t have to go back.”
“Sidney, Mother says take the nickel.”
“I don’t need another nickel, Mom. It’s free in there.”
“Then why did you ask for a nickel in the first place?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“Sidney, what was going on in there?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
Sidney escaped by disappearing into our dugout. Mrs. Polsky stood in the bleachers leaning down over the railing like an inverted V.
“Sidney, what is the meaning of all this?”
Cookie walked over and tapped Mrs. Polsky’s inverted back. “He’ll tell you later,” she said.
Since we hadn’t scored with our big power up at bat in the top of the sixth, Mother had to put Sylvester in to pitch in the bottom half of that inning, even without much warming up. If he could hold their team to five runs, and if we could score in the seventh, the game would be ours and Sylvester would have pitched only two innings, which would still leave him eligible for Friday. Four innings of pitching would make him ineligible until Saturday.
He gave up only one hit in the bottom of the sixth and thanks to our superb defense, the Chicken Delights didn’t score. Unfortunately, neither did we in the next inning. The game was tied at 5–5, and we were in for extra innings.
What’s a mother to do?
Take Sylvester out? There was no one to use in his place. The game was important; a win was necessary, and therefore, so was Sylvester. No runs in the eighth. Nothing in the ninth. We had a couple of hits, but nothing we could score on. Then Barry slammed a home-run in the tenth; he ran around touching all the bases, and he was mobbed as he headed for the dugout. Mother patted him on the back, and all the guys jabbed him on the shoulder or shook his hand or patted him. Even me. Even if it was Barry, it was my Bagels. And Aunt Thelma sure didn’t look dignified springing up and down like that and waving Playboy with the centerfold picture coming unfurled and flapping in the breeze. As soon as she noticed what had happened, she rolled the whole thing up and stashed it under her arm and clapped her hands instead.
As we took the field for the bottom half of the inning that we hoped would finish the game, Barry said to Hersch, “I could have been doing that all season long if I hadn’t been held back.”
“Aw, Barry, you weren’t held back.”
“I was, too. Old Lady Bagel making me bunt and stuff.” He knew he was talking loud enough for me to hear.
“It was her strategy, Barry. Look how it paid off.”
“It would have paid off a lot sooner if she had let me try for homers more often.”
“Last year you tried for homers all the time and look where we stood.”
“Last year we didn’t have the twins or Botts. Old Lady Bagel didn’t make all that much difference.”
“You can’t say that. What’s fair is fair.” You could tell that Hersch was uncomfortable having Barry talk like that. He kept gla
ncing over at me to see if I was listening.
Barry said, “What’s fair may be fair. But what’s a homer is a homer.”
Even if what he said had been right, it couldn’t seem right as long as he called her Old Lady Bagel. It wasn’t even witty.
Sylvester Rivera pitched his big heart out, and Barry’s homer became the run that won us the game.
When we got home, Spencer was waiting in the living room in his bathrobe and bare feet. He looked like a cartoon drawing: gray and lumpy.
Aunt Thelma burst into the house waving the rolled-up Playboy. “We won!” she yelled.
“We won. Spencer, put on your slippers,” Mother said.
“What was the score?” he asked.
“Six to five, our favor; Mark, go get your brother’s slippers.”
“Who pitched?”
“Started Burser, but had to finish with Sylvester. Spencer, put a scarf around your throat.”
“Sylvester? Did he go four innings?”
Mother nodded yes. Then said, “Spencer, don’t walk around with the bathrobe open.”
Spencer howled, “I told you to save Sylvester. My parting words to you were to save Sylvester. Thelma is my witness. What did I say, Thelma? Did I say to save Sylvester? Mark! Did you hear me? Didn’t I say to save Sylvester?”
“I’ll tell you all about it,” Mother reasoned. “But you must not get overheated. Sit down, Spencer darling. Put on some socks, also.”
Aunt Thelma looked at Spencer and said, “Very briefly, I’ll tell you. What your mother did was necessary. Absolutely necessary. But I have something that I must discuss with your mother first. In private.” She moved her eyes in my direction, then back to Mother and tilted her head.
I pretended I didn’t notice. When one relative says “in private” to another relative in front of a child relative, it means that they want the child-type relative to leave the room. I didn’t budge.
“Mark, go get a bath,” Mother requested.
“What about Spencer?”
“He’ll take his bath later,” Mother answered.