About the B'nai Bagels (12 page)

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 glancing 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.

“I mean how come Aunt Thelma isn’t sending him out of the room? Why can’t I listen?”

“Because it’s not your business. Go, Mark. Be a good boy. Go take a bath.”

“If it’s about the team, it’s my business.”

“Your Aunt Thelma said ‘in private.’ Now, be a good boy. Go.”

“I’m going. But under protest,”

“For you to go is unusual. Under protest is nothing new.”

Instead of taking a bath, I listened. If I had taken a bath every time Mother had sent me, I’d have been all puckered.

AUNT THELMA
: What do you think that Botts boy was doing in the locker room?

MOTHER
: Thelma, don’t embarrass me. Don’t ask.

AUNT THELMA
: Guess.

MOTHER
: What he does in the locker room is his business.

AUNT THELMA
: Do you know? Do you have any idea of what his business is?

MOTHER
: Locker room business. C’mon, Thelma, I asked that you shouldn’t embarrass me.

AUNT THELMA
: Well, he embarrassed me. His business is selling looks at
Playboy
. For five cents a look. Sidney Polsky was his customer.

MOTHER
:
Playboy
? The magazine?

AUNT THELMA
: Yes, that magazine with all the undressed girls.

MOTHER
: Let me see it. (I heard the pages being flipped.) You know, I saw this magazine in my Moshe’s room. Between the mattress and the spring. I thought that it must have something special in it and that was why he was hiding it.

AUNT THELMA
: You mean you didn’t look?

MOTHER
: No, I didn’t look. I figured there was something in it he didn’t want me to see. That’s why he hid it. Spencer, did you know about this magazine?

SPENCER
: Let me see it. (Long pause. Pages being flipped, being flipped, being flipped.) Ah. Ah. I’m familiar with the publication.

AUNT THELMA
: Then why did you have to look at it if you’re already familiar with it?

MOTHER
: Because he likes it, that’s why. Now, getting back to Botts and Polsky. So what? One was buying, and one was selling.

AUNT THELMA
: Bess, you astound me. You know that your son is hiding something from you, and you don’t do anything about it.

MOTHER
: Thelma, every boy needs to have a little something to hide from his mother. I know I raised him right so far; he’s not hiding LSD, and he’s not smoking cigarettes and flushing them down the toilet. I figure if he wants a corner of privacy between the mattress and springs of his bed, that’s fine with me. If it were something dangerous or illegal, I’d interfere, but a magazine? He deserves.