The Great American Novel (41 page)

“I—I want—I want—”

“What is it?” cried Mrs. Ellis, clutching her heart at the sight of the young hero suddenly in tears.

“I—I want to be a Greenback! To play for you! Oh, buy me, Mr. Ellis—and I'll play for nothin'! But I just can't be a Mundy no more!”

Stunned, Ellis said, “For nuttink?”

“Yes! Yes! I play for my allowance of two-fifty a week as it is! Oh, buy me, please! I'll bring in fans by the tens of thousands! I'll be the greatest Greenback since Gil Gamesh!”

“A star like you—you vud play for a Jewish pois'n?”

“Mr. Ellis, I don't care if you was the worst Jew in the world—
I'll do anything! I'll eat scraps! I'll sleep on the clubhouse floor!”
”

“Not in my stadium,” said Mrs. Ellis.

“Sarah,” said Ellis, “get me de Mundy front office. Ve're makink a deal!”

Isaac Ellis stood by, sneering, while his mother called long distance to Port Ruppert. “Hello?” she said. “This is the Ruppert Mundys?… You
sure?
” Shrugging she handed the phone to her husband.

“Vat?” he asked her.

“To me,” she said, “sounds like the
shvartze.
”

“Abe Ellis talkink here.”

“What you want, Abe Ellis dere?”

“To speak vit one of de Mundy boys, if you dun' mind.”

“Day ain' here. Day in South America. What you want?”

“Who is dis talking to me like dis?” demanded Ellis.

“Dis here George. Now what you want befo' I hang up?”

“I vant to talk to de Mundy brut'ers about a trade, if dat's all right vit' you!”

“Who all you wanna trade?”

“Listen, who is dis, may I ask, de colored janitor or somebody?”

“Das right. Dis here is George Washington, de colored janitor. Who all you wanna trade? Don' tell me no dwarf now, 'cause I jus' bought me a li'l dwarf.”

“
You
bought?”

“Das right.”

“And since ven you got de right to buy and sell in de Patriot Leek?”

“Since when do
you,
Jew?” and the Ruppert front office hung up.

“A
shvartze
janitor,” said Ellis, “runnink a big leek team!”

“A what?” asked Agni.

“A colored pois'n!” cried Ellis. “George Vashington no less! He sveeps de floor—and he makes de trades!”

“Then that's him,” said Agni, “who traded Buddy to Kakoola—just like the fellers said!”

“I dun' belief it! Sarah,” said Ellis, “call again—and call
right!
”

“This the Mundys?” she asked, after dialing long distance and waiting to be connected. “Yes?” She handed the phone to her husband. “It's him.”

“Hello?” said Ellis, “Ruppert Mundys?”

“Das right.”

“Look—I vant to buy from you a center-fielder.”

“Well, ain' dat somethin'. De Jew, he wanna buy de bess playuh we done got! And how much you wanna pay, Jew?”

“Vatch de vay you talk to me, sonny boy!”

“How much you wanna pay, Jew? Dis here de league leadin' batter we's talkin' about Dis here a nineteen-year-ol' boy, strong as de ox, quick as de rabbit, smart as de owl, and hungry as de wolf!”

“How much
you
vant?”

“Oh, jus about as much as you ready to part wid, Jew—and den some!”

“Vell, frankly I vas t'inkink more alonk de line of a svop—svoppink players.”

“Oh, I betch you wuz,” chuckled George. “Only we don'
need
no mo' players.”

“De Mundys dun' need
players?
”

“We juss fine in de player department. We wan' yo'
money.
”

“Listen, vat is dis! Vat's goink on! Who gave you de right—I demand to know!”

“Same one gave
you,
” and the phone went dead.

“Can't be!” cried the Greenback owner. “Dis is somebody tryink to drive me crazy! It couldn't be a real
shvartze
—no, it can't be true!”

Sneering, Isaac said, “Why not, Dad? It's the land of opportunity,
Dad.
”

“For everybody,” thought Agni, bursting into tears again, “but me! And
I'm
the All-American star! It ain't fair! It don't make sense no more! I'm the greatest rookie of all time! I'm another Cobb! I'm another Ruth! I'm everybody great rolled up into one—and a Jew and a nigger is bargainin' for my hide!”

This time Ellis himself did the phoning. “You sure,” he asked the operator, “dis is de big leek team? You sure dis ain't a practical joke?”

“This is not A Practical Joke, sir,” the operator informed him. “If you want A Practical Joke you will have to get that number from information. I have the Ruppert Mundy Baseball Organization of the Patriot League on the wire. Go ahead, please.”

“Hello—Mundys?
Ruppert
Mundys?”

“De same.”

“Dis is de
shvartze
again?”

“De same.”

“How much for Roland Agni?”

“A cool qwata of a million.”

“Dollars?”

“De
same,
Jew.”

*   *   *

Agni descended through the dim interior of the right-field scoreboard; halfway down he walked out along a gangway to lift one of the boards and peer through the aperture at the playing field that might have been his home, if only he wasn't so great and didn't cost so much to buy … Far below, the pasture beckoned. He saw the headlines.

AGNI LEAPS FROM SCOREBOARD

Rookie Slugger Suicide; Jews, Niggers, Commies, Cripples, Dwarfs, and Other Freaks Held Responsible; Landis Orders Disreputable Elements Barred from Game Forever; “Clean-up long overdue,” says Mrs. Trust; “Could have been greatest of all time,” Managers agree; Mundy Brothers Jailed; Mazuma Gets Death Penalty; Agni's Father Weeps at Funeral: “I was only trying to teach him humility”—Stoned by Grief-Stricken Fans; “This day shall live in infamy,” says F.D.R.; Nation-wide Mourning Ordered; Pathetically Broken Beautiful Body To Be Cremated in Ceremony at Hall of Fame; Ashes To Be Scattered from Air Force Bomber on Fans at Opening Game of World Series; Number To Be Retired; Shoes To Be Bronzed; Bat and Glove To Be Taken on Round-the-World Tour of G.I.s by Bob Hope; Name To Live Forever; “Lesson to Mankind,” says Pope; Fred Waring's “Ballad of Roland Agni” Number One on Hit Parade; Big Four To Meet

It almost seemed worth it …

Except, thought Agni, that's not what would happen at all—not with my luck! No, even if he leaped to his death in a perfect swan dive, he would get no more than a few grudging lines on page seventy-two, he was sure …

MUNDY DEAD IN FALL, AS IF ANYONE CARES

Tri-City, Sept. 16—One of the Ruppert Mundys, the joke team of organized baseball, in a typical stupid Mundy stunt, fell out of the scoreboard at Greenback Stadium and died. God only knows what he was doing there. His name was Nagi or something like that and he was said to be their best player. The Mundys' best player. Terrific.

“No luck, Agni?”

“What!”

“It's me.”

“Who? It's so dark!”

“Down here. Isaac Ellis. The ungrateful son.”

“Oh…”

“Down here. Keep coming, Roland, keep coming.”

“What—what is all this?”

“My laboratory.”

“Where am I?”

“Under the stadium. You missed the door to the street.”

“What—what are you doing?”

“Oh, this? Splitting the atom.”

“What—what's that mean?”

“Just something to pass the time, Roland, until I get to manage the Greenbacks the way they ought to be managed.”

“But you're only seventeen.”

“And a Jew and a genius, I know.”

“Boy, you must be lonely to sit down here like this, do in' that. Well, I better be going, you know. How do I get out a' here?”

“Not so fast. Sit down. I wanted to talk to you, Roland.”

“But I got to be at Tycoon Park—I gotta game to play.”

“Don't be frightened, Roland. I only want to talk, that's all. You're a great baseball player, Roland. They don't make them like you anymore.”

“I know they don't. They never did, like me. I've got practically everything you could want.”

“Roland, I'd like to manage you some day. Your body, my brains—there'd be nothing like it in the history of the game.”

“But I'm a Mundy, in case you ain't heard.”

“I could buy you from the Mundys, don't worry about that.”

“Oh yeah! And where
you
goin' to get two hundred and fifty thousand dollars from?”

“A seventeen-year-old Jewish genius can always lay his hands on a few bucks, Rollie.”

“Oh sure.”

“My friend, I could make that quarter of a million just between now and the end of the season by betting on the Mundys to win all their remaining games.”

“You could, huh? And how they gonna do that? A miracle from God?”

“See this that I am holding in my hand? You can read by the light of my Bunsen burner.”

“It's just a box of Wheaties.”

“Wheaties, the Breakfast of Champions.”

“Well, that's pure baloney, that champion stuff. We get 'em free, by the case. And look at all the good they done us.”

“You get your Wheaties from the General Mills Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota. That is why they don't do what they're advertised to do. These Wheaties are manufactured by a seventeen-year-old Jewish genius.”

“But—it's the same box, ain't it?”

“The same box. The same flavor. The same in every visible way. Only one invisible difference.”

“What?”

“They do the job. If the Ruppert Mundys were to eat these Wheaties made by me in Tri-City, if only a few little flakes were to be sprinkled on top of those Wheaties they already eat made by the Wheaties company in Minneapolis, your team would be unbeatable.”

“Oh yeah? And what makes them so special again?”

“Let's call it extra energy.”

“That's what they all say. Vitamin X, Y, and Z. It's all words.”

“Roland, if only you will slip these Wheaties into their breakfast in the morning, there will be no holding down the Mundys on the field.”

“I suppose they're going to wake up old Wayne Heket while they're at it, too.”

“They'll do more than just wake him up, I can assure you of that.”

“Oh sure, sure.”

“Stupid
goy,
I am splitting the atom! I am fifty years ahead of my time in nuclear physics alone! The Wheaties I could do with a frontal lobotomy! I am telling you the scientific facts—the Mundys will eat my Wheaties, and they will win all of their remaining games! And by betting on them I will win a quarter of a million dollars—and buy you for my father's team—and become the Greenback manager, at long last! And either my old man says yes, or he winds up on the street, begging with a cup!”

“But—but, if I feed the boys these Wheaties—is that what you want me to do?”

“Exactly! Every morning, just a little sprinkle!”

“And we win—?”

“Yes! You win!”

“But—that'd be like throwin' a game.”

“Like
what?
”

“Like throwin' it. I mean, we'd be winnin' when we're supposed to be losin'—and that's wrong. That's illegal!”

“Throwing a game, Roland, is
losing
when you're supposed to be
winning.
Winning instead of losing is what you're
supposed
to do!”

“But not by eatin' Wheaties!”

“
Precisely
by eating Wheaties! That's the whole
idea
of Wheaties!”

“But that's
real
Wheaties! And they don't make you do it anyway!”

“Then how can they be ‘real' Wheaties, if they don't do what they're supposed to do?”

“That's what
makes
them ‘real'!”

“No, that's what makes them
unreal. Their
Wheaties say they're supposed to make you win—and they don't!
My
Wheaties say they're supposed to make you win—and they do! How can that be wrong, Roland, or illegal? That is keeping your promises! That is being true to your word! I am going to make the most hopeless baseball team in history into a team of red-blooded American boys! And you call that ‘throwing a game'? I am talking about
winning,
Roland,
winning
—what made this country what it is today! Who in his right mind can be against
that?
”

*   *   *

Who, indeed. Winning! Oh, you really can't say enough good things about it. There is nothing quite like it. Win hands down, win going away, win by a landslide, win by accident, win by a nose, win without deserving to win—you just can't beat it, however you slice it. Winning is the tops. Winning is the name of the game. Winning is what it's all about. Winning is the be-all and the end-all, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. All the world loves a winner. Show me a good loser, said Leo Durocher, and I'll show you a loser. Name one thing that losing has to recommend it. You can't. Losing is tedious. Losing is exhausting. Losing is uninteresting. Losing is depressing. Losing is boring. Losing is debilitating. Losing is compromising. Losing is shameful. Losing is humiliating. Losing is infuriating. Losing is disappointing. Losing is incomprehensible. Losing makes for headaches, muscle tension, skin eruptions, ulcers, indigestion, and for mental disorders of every kind. Losing is bad for confidence, pride, business, peace of mind, family harmony, love, sexual potency, concentration, and much much more. Losing is bad for people of all ages, races, and religions; it is as bad for infants as for the elderly, for women as for men. Losing makes people cry, howl, scream, hide, lie, smolder, envy, hate, and quit. Losing is probably the single biggest cause of suicide in the world, and of murder. Losing makes the benign malicious, the generous stingy, the brave fearful, the healthy ill, and the kindly bitter. Losing is universally despised, as well it should be. The sooner we get rid of losing, the happier everyone will be.