Sam's Legacy (50 page)

I pulled the door open and took one step back, and then I felt as if somebody had struck me in the small of the back with an ice-cold sledgehammer. Johnson's black face moved close to mine and he roared with laughter. He held something massive under one arm and I saw, as he came toward me, that that something was Kelly, who hung forward, unconscious. I smelled the foul odor of liquor and vomit. As Johnson's free hand moved toward my face, I stumbled back against the bed. Johnson was, in the frame of the doorway, a silhouette, and the only light came from his gold teeth and his outstretched hand—the hallway light falling softly on the absurd pink color of his palm. He let Kelly fall to the floor and, swaying from side to side, moved toward me so that he blocked more and more of the light. I could see his face, the cracked skin. Kelly groaned and rolled onto his back. “Sure now, fair ass. I just wanted to see your face.” I heard Kelly choke, then retch. “You're pretty, all right,” Johnson said, his nose almost touching mine. “But I was once faster than you. Nobody'll tell you the truth, being who you are now, but I was faster.” He was no longer laughing. “It don't matter, though. I seen your face at the door, looking out for that other nigger.”

He staggered backward, grabbing the back of a chair in order to keep from falling. “Me and Gunboat here been having a good time, but he don't pace himself neither.” He reached a long arm to the floor and jerked Kelly upward from the waist, dragging him to the door. “It don't matter.” He stopped and shifted, letting Kelly's body slide downward so that he was grasping him under the armpits. His exertions made his chest heave. “Sure now. I saw your face all right, fair ass. I saw your face when you opened that door.” Then he howled wildly and left, Kelly's feet bumping down the hallway.

Later, after I had fallen asleep, I awoke, the pillow wet against my face. I had been sweating heavily, and—curiously—I can remember how good I felt. I had been so deep in sleep that, waking, it was as if my body were not there. My arms, clutching the pillow under me, were numb, my shoulders seemed disconnected. There was nothing to decide. I let him in and returned to bed, watching him undress. “How come ya didn't come to see me?” he asked, as if he were genuinely hurt. “I was waiting for ya.” I said nothing then, and did not, even as we embraced, feel any longer the things I had felt earlier in the evening. When we woke in the morning, I said what I had planned to say: “This was the last time.”

He stood at the sink, naked to the waist. He sloshed water on his face and stared at me. “What for?” he asked.

“No more,” I said, surprised at my calmness.

He dried himself and seemed to be studying my words. I stood at the window, looking down at the street below, where, as the day's business began, men and women crowded together, among wagons and mules and carts. “Are ya sure?” he asked, and then, as I was about to reply to what I believed was the sincere hurt in his tone, I felt a pain in my thigh which made me cry out. “Got ya!” he yelled, delighted, and he snapped the wet towel at me again. I covered myself with my my hands, and the end of the towel flicked forward and burned me just under the knuckles of my right hand. “Come on,” he said, dancing around me, flicking the towel at me. “Ya got to see if you can get me. Come on—”

I backed away, timed things, and then, as he snapped the towel forward I reached out and snatched it, the tip searing my palm. I jerked and the towel came away. He was, I saw, astonished at my quickness—he backed off, somewhat afraid for a second.

“No more,” I said.

He moved toward the sink. “Okay, then. It's your turn—see if ya can hit me.”

“No more,” I said, and I let the towel drop across the foot of the bed.

He spat. “You ain't got enough spirit, you and your fancy words all the time.” He slipped into his undershirt. “Playing the piano like a—” He had found the word, but he seemed puzzled by it. “Sure, like a sissy, no matter what.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “But this was the last time.”

He laughed at me. “That's what you think,” he said. He buttoned his shirt and stepped to me, his nose almost touching mine. “You'll come when I tell ya to come. I know what makes you tick. I know why ya didn't change your name and play with us.” He jabbed me with his forefinger, just below my throat. “You were scared, that's what.”

“I'll beat you today,” I said. “You'll never touch me. I'll beat you today and every day, whenever we play against each other. I'll hit the ball farther than you ever hit it. I'll—”

He was laughing at me. “Now I heard everything,” he said. “You'll come when I tell ya to come. Sure ya will, and you know why?” He waited for me to answer, then saw that I would not. “The Babe may be dumb, but he ain't that dumb. You know why? Because ya like the color of my skin, that's why.” He watched my face for a second, and then waved a hand at me. “I had that figgered out a long time back. Shit. I ain't so dumb as you think, with all your fancy words.” He slipped into his jacket, and then, looking at me from the mirror above the sink, he put his straw hat on and cocked it to one side. “C 'mere,” he said.

I did not move.

“C 'mere,” he said again.

I stayed where I was, at the other end of the room, next to the window. “Okay then,” he said, and he came to me. I had never seen him angry in this way. I had, I saw, reached him, though I did not know what it was that I had said, or done, which had allowed me to. He took one of my ears in each hand and he pulled my head to his. I strained, but he was stronger than I was. His lips pressed against my mouth so hard that I felt my teeth cutting into my lips, drawing blood. His eyes were wide open, and his hands dropped to the small of my back, where he locked his right hand on his left wrist and squeezed. I heard myself moan, and then he let go. “Shit on you,” he said. “I know what you want from me. “He was at the door.” Can't even look me in the eye now, like a man. You'll come when I call. “He shook his fist at me. “I ain't that dumb.”

When, a few hours later, I stepped onto the playing field, I saw that he was leaning against the third base dugout while he ate a hot dog. I heard his high-pitched laugh and saw that the fans, crowding against one another, were holding hot dogs in the air toward him, above one another's heads. His teammates were on the field, warming up—shagging flies and playing pepper. His stomach protruded and he rested his left hand on it, proudly, grinning from ear to ear. He looked to me, more than ever, like a tanned pig.

Bingo tossed the ball to me for our warm-ups, and I wasted no time drilling the first pitch into the pocket of his glove. The fans on our side of the field whistled and shouted to me in Spanish, telling me how fast I was. Ruth looked our way and doffed his cap in my direction. “Hey kid,” I heard him call. “Want a hot dog?” He laughed hysterically then, and his fans laughed with him. I kicked and threw again, harder.

“Gonna melt that arm,” Johnson said to me. “Gonna burn yourself out, you go that fast. You want to pace yourself, boy.”

He jogged past me without waiting for a response. His body moved easily, powerfully. He joined Kelly down the right field line and Jack Henry picked up a fungo bat and hit the ball in their direction. “You see the way that mean eats, “Jones exclaimed, looking over my shoulder.” I heard it before but now I believe it. He ate twelve of them hot dogs already—now I believe it!” He watched me throw a ball. “Ooo-eee,” he cried. “Ain't that sweet. We in the money today, honey. You own that man, gonna put him in your pocket.”

“All of them, “I said.

“That's right too, honey. All of them,” Jones said. “I like the sound of that—mean, like old Brick. You gettin' that meanness, by and by. You gettin'it.”

“All of them,” I repeated.

“Easy now,” Bingo called. “Just let it loose. Easy now. Bring it home easy.”

When I took the mound for the start of the first inning, I was aware of nothing except my desire to strike out every man who would face me. Jones and Barton and Massaguen and Dell were talking to me from behind, Bingo was cooing to me from in back of the plate, the fans were cheering for the first man—Joe Dugan, the Yankee third baseman—but all the sounds seemed very distant. I kicked, reared back, and fired the first ball for a strike. Then the second. Dugan tried to get set to bunt, but the third pitch was already by him and Bingo whipped it to third base. It sped around the infield and came back to me. Koenig was in the box, and Ruth waited in the on-deck circle on one knee, smiling at the ovation the fans were giving him. “Bam-bi-no!” they chanted. “Bam-bi-no!”

I was beginning to sweat, and the dampness on my skin, under my uniform, felt good. Bingo showed me a spot high and inside, and I realized that he had probably picked off a bunt sign. I pitched it where he showed me his glove, Koenig squared around and, his hands a foot or so apart, he pushed the bat at the ball, popping it weakly toward me. I caught it and returned to the mound. “Give it here! Give it here!” Jones yelled, and then I realized that I was in such a hurry that I had forgotten to toss it to him.

Ruth stepped into the batter's box, on the left side of the plate, and stroked the bat through the air. The crowd was standing, loving him. He tipped his cap, then bent over and picked up some dirt. His legs were extraordinarily skinny, and I wondered for an instant at how I could have loved a man who was so physically grotesque. With Gehrig, who had joined the Yankees in 1925, now a regular, and their leading runs-batted-in hitter (having driven in one hundred and seventy-five during the 1927 season), Ruth, who was faster than Gehrig, was batting third in the order instead of fourth. “He's just posin' for his picture,” Jones called. “Everybody know how you own that man. Everybody know.”

His stomach bulging, Ruth set himself at the plate, the bat cocked behind his left shoulder, the crowd roaring its encouragement. I pumped and reared back, shifted sideways, kicked, and realized suddenly that something was different—he was not smiling. The ball stuck in my hand. I tried to let it go, but I could not lift my fingers; my left foot struck the ground in stride, my arm still suspended stiffly in back of my ear, my body in a hopelessly awkward position—I strained, and felt the ball scrape by my fingers, low and into the dirt, some twenty feet in front of me. It scudded in the grass, and bounced harmlessly past home plate. The Yankee players laughed at me, the crowd hissed, but he merely stood there, unsmiling. “You take your time now,” Bingo said, stepping in front of the plate and rubbing dirt into the ball with his bare hands. “Don't be nervous now. You take your time now, pitch it to me.”

I turned away and faced the outfield. Johnson stood nonchalantly in right field, hands on hips, and I could see him smiling. Rose Kinnard adjusted the visor of his cap. Kelly pounded the pocket of his glove and shouted something I could not hear. Did I want to have him hit me? Was it possible that I was trying to succumb to his power on the playing field, so that…

I toed the mound and looked toward home plate. He was waiting for me, taking practice swings, wanting to hit the ball. He cared. I closed my eyes, to stop the world from moving in circles, and I squeezed the ball as hard as I could. I tried not to look at him. I pumped again, reared back, and I was suddenly home: I felt the dizziness disappear, I saw the black hole in Bingo's glove, I felt my body loosen, and I let the ball go. It flew. He swung late and missed, his body twisting all the way to the left so that he seemed, almost, to be looking backward. I believe that I smiled then, though I cannot be sure. He glowered at me. I took the ball and fired it again, low and away, nicking the outside corner for a called second strike. He stepped out of the batter's box.

Bingo showed me the heart of the plate, waist-high, and I did not aim. My head was clear, his image gone, and only his penguinlike body waited for me at the plate. I heard myself grunt as I released the ball and saw the white line head downward, then crack and rise. I did not have to wait. He started his swing, but the ball was already by him, and I was walking to the dugout. I saw him hurl the bat down, angrily. In the dugout Jack Henry sat next to me, talking about the Yankee weaknesses, about the book he had on them, but I nodded politely and did not let his words come into my head.

“All of them,” Jones said to me, laughing. “You said the word, and I believe that too.”

Jones stepped out of the dugout, swinging two bats. Wilcey Moore, who'd led their league in earned run average, was the pitcher, and he set our men down one-two-three in our half of the first. This pleased me too. It would be a good game, and I relished what was to come. In their half of the second, I set down Gehrig, Meusel, and Lazzeri, and Moore set us down one-two-three also, striking out Johnson and Kinnard. Ruth's eyes, I knew, were on me, and I gave away nothing. I tried to make each pitch go faster than the one before, and I felt my body warming to the day, feeling as whole and strong as it ever had. In the third inning I struck out the bottom of their order on eleven pitches.

I batted second in our half of the third, and the crowd cheered for me. The outfield played me deep and straightaway. I let the first pitch go by for a strike. Moore was fast, but my eyes were doing their work and I was able to follow the ball all the way, from his hand to the plate. The second pitch was inside and chest-high. I stepped into it, my left foot a few inches toward third base, and it was as if, a few feet in front of the plate, suspended over the grass, the ball had stopped: I whipped my arms around, delivering all the power that was in me, and the instant I connected, I knew, and the crowd knew, that the ball was long gone. I followed through and then stood at home plate, watching the ball rise against the background of white and red and yellow that were the shirts of the fans in the left field grandstands. I watched the ball continue to rise, above the level of the grandstand, and I was aware of heads turning upward to watch the ball soar against the blue sky, and disappear across the top of the ballpark. Then they gasped—the crowd did—as if they were one man. I started toward first base, my head swimming, and I saw him in right field, unnoticed by everybody else, kicking at the grass.