26.

Burke drove Robinson to the Polo Grounds. He liked to go up the West Side, along the Hudson River, and then east to the top of Manhattan, where the ballpark stood, under Coogan’s Bluff, across the Harlem River from Yankee Stadium.

“He called you boy,” Burke said.

Robinson nodded.

“And you took it,” Burke said.

“Got to take it,” Robinson said.

“I know.”

Across the Hudson River, the Palisades rose implacably.

“Is it worth it?” Burke said.

“What’s ‘it’?”

“Name calling,” Burke said. “Death threats, getting thrown at, getting spiked, me?”

“You’re all right,” Jackie said.

“Thanks.”

“The rest of it? Yeah, it’s bad. But it’s an extension, you know. It’s an extension of Negro life. Same thing go on if I try to live in the wrong neighborhood, or eat in the wrong restaurant, or go to the wrong school, or date the wrong woman.”

“White woman.”

“Yeah. So there’s nothing new going on here. Just getting more attention than it usually does.”

“Hard being colored,” Burke said.

“I got Rachel,” Robinson said.

“Rachel?”

“My wife.”

“I didn’t know you were married,” Burke said.

“You been out to my house,” Jackie said. “You picked me up at my house this morning.”

“I never been in, for all I knew you were living in there with a billy goat.”

“Been married now a year and a half. She’s at every home game.”

“I wasn’t looking for young Negro women,” Burke said.

“No, ’course not.”

“Thing like this must be hard on a marriage,” Burke said.

“Can tear it apart,” Robinson said.

“How you doing?”

“Makes us tighter,” Robinson said. “Her and me. We doing this together.”

“What the hell is it exactly you’re doing?”

“Integrating the great American pastime.”

“Yeah. I know all the stuff I read. But what is it that you are doing, yourself?”

“I’m playing at a level I’m good enough to play at. I’m making a little money. I’m getting famous. I’m proving to the bastards that I can play. I’m making Rachel proud.”

Burke thought about this for a moment.

“And,” Burke said, “you’re integrating baseball.”

“I am.”

“Rachel matters?”

“More than all the rest,” Jackie said.

“Because you love her,” Burke said.

“Because we love each other,” Jackie said.

Burke shook his head.

“You buy it all, don’t you,” he said. “Love, equality, the great American game.”

“Gotta buy something,” Jackie said. “Whadda you buy?”

“Lucky Strikes,” Burke said. “Vat 69.”

“That’s all?”

“Money’s good. I like to get laid.”

They turned east through Harlem.

“You ever been married?” Jackie said.

“Yeah.”

“Now you’re not.”

“Nope.”

“Divorce?”

Burke nodded.

“What about this Lauren?” Jackie said.

“I guarded her before I guarded you.”

“Anything else?”

“There was something else,” Burke said.

“What happened?”

Burke shrugged.

“She one of those women you talking about,” Jackie said. “Got a thing for the wrong men?”

Everyone on the street as Burke drove toward the Polo Grounds was Negro. Colored women sat together on the front stairs of elegant old brownstone houses, watching the street life, interested.

“You in the war,” Jackie said.

“Yeah.”

“Bad?”

“Yeah.”

Jackie nodded.

There were children playing stickball. They moved reluctantly as Burke drove slowly past. He didn’t answer Jackie’s question.

“Bad,” Jackie said. “How’d you feel ’bout this Lauren woman.”

Burke shrugged again. Jackie looked at him for a silent moment.

“You don’t know? Or you don’t want to say?”

“I got no feelings,” Burke said.

“You ever have any?” Jackie said.

“Before the war,” Burke said.

“Was it the war or the wife,” Jackie said, “wiped you out?”

“Both.”

It was warm. The windows were down. Burke could smell the tar and steam heat smell of the city. The dark Negro eyes on the street watched him as he drove past. Stranger in a strange land.

“So she have the hots for you?” Robinson said.

Burke shrugged.

“You turn her down, she hooks up with Boucicault’s son?”

“Something like that.”

“He bad?”

“Sick bad,” Burke said.

“And you don’t care,” Jackie said.

Burke shrugged. He braked for a red light.

“ ’Cause you got no feelings,” Jackie said.

“This is none of your fucking business,” Burke said.

“See,” Jackie said. “You do have feelings.”

“I feel like you’re a fucking asshole,” Burke said.

The two men looked at each other for a moment. Robinson was trying not to smile, and failing. Then Burke smiled with him.

“A fucking dark Sigmund Freud,” Burke said.

They were both laughing when the light changed and they made the turn to the Polo Grounds.

Box Score 6
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