Snow in August

29

On the last Tuesday in June, with the sun high in the Brooklyn sky and a clean breeze blowing from the harbor, they went together to Ebbets Field. They met at the entrance to Prospect Park, the rabbi in his black suit, black hat, and white socks, Michael in gabardine slacks and a windbreaker. The boy made good speed on his crutches. His face was no longer black and swollen, but there were still purple smudges under his eyes and his ribs hurt when he laughed. In the pockets of the windbreaker he carried cheese sandwiches prepared by his mother.

“We should take a taxi,” the rabbi said.

“It costs too much, Rabbi,” Michael said. “Besides, I’m getting pretty good with these things. And I need the exercise.”

As they crossed a transverse road into the Big Meadow, he gazed from a hill upon the long lines of fans coming across the swards of summer green. Kids and grown-ups, grown-ups and kids, in groups of six or seven, but following each other in a steady movement, carrying bags of food and cases of beer and soda. He and the rabbi moved to join the long lines, the rubber tips of Michael’s crutches digging into the grass, slowing him down. Some fans wore Dodgers caps and T-shirts, others wore the clothes of workingmen. Some carried portable radios, and music echoed through the great meadow, bouncing off the hill where the Quaker cemetery had been since before the American Revolution. Michael told the rabbi that George Washington had retreated across this park after losing the Battle of Long Island, and the rabbi looked around alertly, as if remembering other hills and other retreats.

The smaller groups came together at the path that snaked around past the Swan Lake. The voices were abruptly louder in the narrow space, the music clashing and then blending like the sound of a carnival. They went past Devil’s Cave and over a stone bridge, with the zoo to the left, another lake to the right, the trees higher, the earth darker. There were no signs giving directions, but they were not needed; everybody knew the way to Ebbets Field.

“In the legs, you will have big muscles, like a soccer player,” the rabbi said, as they reached another roadway through the park and followed the thickening crowd.

“I never played soccer,” Michael said. “Did you?”

“In secret,” the rabbi confided. “My father worried too much, and then my secret he discovered. He stopped me.”

He sighed and shook his head.

“My father said Jews don’t play soccer, and rabbis never!” he explained. “Maybe he was right. I don’t think so.”

Then other lines of people were joining the throng, men and boys and a few women from other parts of Brooklyn, converging like pilgrims coming to a shrine.

“I love America!” Rabbi Hirsch suddenly exclaimed.

Michael smiled.

“Look at it! All around is America! You see it? Crazy people coming for the baseball, for the bunts and the triples and the rhubarbs! Look: Irish and Jews and Italians and Spanish, every kind of people. Poles too! I hear them talking. Listen: words from every place. From all countries! Coming to Abbot’s Field!”

“Ebbets Field,” Michael said.

“That’s what I said. Abbot’s Field! Look at the fanatics, boychik. Up in the morning with nothing to do except see the baseball? What a country.”

“Well, school is out and—”

“But the men! Look at the men! On a Tuesday! How can they not work? In every country, on a Tuesday, you work!”

“Maybe they work nights. Maybe they’re on vacation.”

“No. No, it’s — they are Americans.”

The rabbi was inhaling deeply as he walked and talked, as if memorizing the odors of the brilliant Tuesday morning. He was free of the closed air of the synagogue basement, and he loved it. He was perspiring heavily in his black suit, wiping away sweat with a finger, stopping to drink from a stone water fountain. But his body seemed oddly lighter, and he walked with a joyous bounce.

And then up ahead, through two stone pillars, the trees vanished and the light was brighter, and they could smell hot dogs frying and hear car horns honking. They were pulled along in the human river, out of the park and into Flatbush Avenue. Now another great human stream was feeding the river, a darker stream, as hundreds of Negroes arrived, many of them with gray hair and paunchy bodies and lined faces. They were walking from Bedford-Stuyvesant. They were coming from the Franklin Avenue stop of the IRT. They were hopping off buses. The older ones had waited decade after decade for a morning like this. They had waited for longer than Michael had been alive.

And he gazed at them, more Negroes than he had ever seen before, some of them coal-colored and some chocolate-colored and others with skin the color of tea with milk. There were flat-faced Negroes and hawk-nosed Negroes, men with wide eyes and squinty eyes, fat men and skinny no-assed men, men who looked like prizefighters and men who looked like professors. All greeting each other with jokes and smiles and handshakes.

“America!” the rabbi said. “What a place.”

And then before them, rising above the low houses, above the umbrellas of the hot dog carts and the whorls of cotton candy, right there in front of them was Ebbets Field. Up there was the magnet pulling all of them through the summer morning. Up there was Jackie Robinson.

Michael felt unreal as he moved with the rabbi through the crowd. The scene was like Coney Island and the circus and the day the war ended, all in one. And Michael was in it, part of it, feeding it. Music blared from the concession stands. Men with aprons and change machines hawked programs and pictures of the Dodgers, pennants and posters. A grouchy woman stood beside a cloth-covered board that was jammed with buttons. All were selling for 25 cents.

“Pick one!” the rabbi said.

Michael chose a button that said I’M FOR JACKIE.

“Two!” said the rabbi.

They moved on, their buttons pinned above their hearts. They eased along Sullivan Street, staring up at the weather-stained facade of the great ballpark. It was more beautiful and immense than anything Michael had ever seen. Bigger than any building in the parish. Bigger than any church. He paused, balanced on the crutches, to allow the sight to fill him. So did the rabbi. They stared up at the structure, seeing people walking up ramps, and behind them, thick slashing bars of black girders and patches of blue sky through the bars. As they stood there, like pilgrims, the crowd eddied around them, and Michael felt a tingle that was like that moment in a solemn high mass when the priests would sing a Gregorian chant and the altar seemed to glow with mystery.

Then they turned another corner, into Montgomery Street, and found one more entrance, their entrance, and a guy bellowing, “Program, getcha program here!” The rabbi pushed his glasses up on his brow and squinted at their tickets.

“This is the hard part,” he said. “To find the chairs.”

“Seats, Rabbi.”

“Here, you look.”

Michael examined the tickets and led the way to the gate. A gray little man with a mashed nose like a prizefighter’s was guarding the turnstile. Rabbi Hirsch handed him the tickets and he tore them in half and gave back the stubs.

“Enjoy da game, Rabbi,” the ticket taker said brusquely.

The rabbi looked startled.

“Enjoy da game,” he said to himself, passing through the turnstile after Michael, shaking his head in wonder. America.

Inside, Michael stood under the stands, not moving for a long moment. Savoring it. Inhaling the cool smell of unseen earth and grass. Feeling holy.

I am here, he thought, in Ebbets Field. At last.

Then they climbed and climbed on the ramps, the crutch pads digging into Michael’s armpits, the dank, shadowed air smelling now of concrete and old iron, ushers directing them ever onward, climbing until the street seemed far below them and Michael could see the church steeples scattered across the endless distances of Brooklyn. The crowds thinned. Then they passed through a final darkness. And Michael could feel his stomach move up and then down and his heart stood still.

For there it was. Below them and around them. Greener than any place he had ever seen. There was the tan diamond of his imagination. There were the white foul lines as if cut with a razor through a painting. There were the dugouts. And the stands. And most beautiful of all, there below him, the green grass of Ebbets Field.

Ballplayers were lolling in the grass, tossing balls back and forth, breaking into sudden sprints. They were directly beneath him and the rabbi. The Pirates. The rabbi gripped a railing for a moment, as if afraid of losing his balance and tumbling down the steps and out onto the field.

“Is very high,” he said, his face dubious.

But an usher directed them to their section, and they found their seats, on the aisle, eight rows up in left-center field. The rabbi sat in the end seat. The seats beside Michael were empty. Behind them were three men wearing caps adorned with union buttons. International Longshoremen of America. Michael explained to Rabbi Hirsch that the game hadn’t yet begun, that the Pittsburgh players were taking batting practice, getting ready for the game. Together, as they ate Kate Devlin’s cheese sandwiches, Michael and the rabbi, like new arrivals in Heaven, explored the geography of the field. They could see the famous concave wall in right field and the screen towering forty feet above it, with Bedford Avenue beyond. Red Barber had helped put that screen into their imaginations, and there it was before them, as real as breakfast.

“An Old Goldie you could hit over the fence?” the rabbi said.

Michael said Yes, over the fence was an Old Goldie. He showed the rabbi the famous sign in center field where Abe Stark of Pitkin Avenue promised a suit to any player who hit it with a fly ball. “A heart attack the fielder would need to have for a ball to hit this sign,” the rabbi said, and Michael laughed. There were other signs too, for Bullova watches and Van Heusen shirts, for Gem razor blades and Winthrop shoes, but Abe Stark’s sign was the only one anybody ever remembered. Michael explained the distances marked on the walls: 297 feet to right field, 405 feet to center, 343 to left. He explained the scoreboard. He explained the dugouts. He was explaining the pitcher’s mound, and its height, and the meaning of the word mound, when there was a sudden sharp crack and a ball sailed from distant home plate on a high, deep line to the upper deck in left field.

Then another crack, another ball flying into the upper deck while the crowd ooohed.

Then another.

“Jesus, that Kiner kid can hit the baseball, all right,” a man behind them growled.

“No doubt about it, Louis,” his friend said.

“Even if it’s on’y battin’ practice.”

“He does it in games too, this guy.”

Ralph Kiner! A rookie last year, out of the navy. Now the big young star of the Pirates. Driving one ball after another into the stands. At the lowest point, the drive went 343 feet; balls hit into the upper deck would go 450 feet. Michael was afraid for a moment, imagining Kiner doing it in the game to Ralph Branca, the Dodger pitcher. On this day, the Dodgers must win; he did not want to remember forever a Dodger defeat. Then he thought: The man’s right, it’s only batting practice.

Then Kiner was finished and behind him came another batter. There was a medium-sized cheer, and the rabbi asked why in Brooklyn they were cheering for a player from Pittsburgh. The growling man behind them gave the explanation.

“Here’s Greenboig,” he said.

And Michael then told the rabbi about Hank Greenberg, who spent all of his life with the Tigers in Detroit and was one of the greatest of all hitters. One year he hit 58 home runs, only 2 less than Babe Ruth’s 60. Michael didn’t know as much about the American League as he did about the National, but he knew these things from reading the newspapers, and he explained that Greenberg had been in the air corps out in India or someplace and this was his first year in the National League and might be his last.

“Okay, this I understand,” the rabbi said, rising slowly to gaze across the field at the tiny, distant figure of Hank Greenberg. The rabbi stood so proudly that Michael thought he was going to salute. Greenberg lined two balls against the left-field wall. He hit two towering pop-ups. Then, as the rabbi sat down, he hit a long fly ball to center. The Pittsburgh outfielders watched it, tensed, then saw where it was going and stepped aside, doffing their caps and bowing.

The ball bounced off Abe Stark’s sign.

There was a tremendous roar, with shocked pigeons rising off the roof of the ballpark, and everybody was standing and the outfielders were laughing.

“He hits the sign!” the rabbi shouted exultantly. “He wins the suit!”

The guys behind them were also laughing and discussing the sign, as batting practice ended and the Pirates trotted off the field.

“Dey can’t give ‘im da suit from battin’ practice,” one of them said.

“Wait a minnit, Jabbo, wait a minnit. Look at dat sign. Does it say, Hit Sign Win Suit, except in battin’ practice?”

“No, but Ralph, da outfield went in da dumpeh! Dey let da ball go pas’ dem! Dey di’n’t even try.”

“I say Greenboig gets da suit, whatta ya bet?” said the one named Louis.

The debate was erased by another roar, as the Dodgers took the field and everyone in Ebbets Field stood to cheer. Two Negro men arrived at their aisle, carrying programs. One was very dark and wore a Dodger cap. The other was pale-skinned and wore a Hawaiian shirt and had field glasses hanging from his neck.

“Scuse me, pardon us,” said the man in the Dodger cap. They were in the third and fourth seats. The one with the field glasses sat beside Michael. He glanced at the I’M FOR JACKIE button and smiled.

“Great day for baseball,” he said.

“Sure is,” Michael said.

“Enjoy da game,” Rabbi Hirsch said.

A group of young men came up the aisle, laughing, posing, about six of them, and took seats across the aisle on the right, a few rows higher than Michael and the rabbi. They wore T-shirts with the sleeves rolled up over their shoulders and tight pegged pants. None of them wore a hat, and their Vaselined hair glistened in the light. They were all smoking cigarettes, and one held a pint bottle in a paper bag. They reminded Michael of the Falcons.

For a moment he felt a coil of fear in his stomach. But he turned away and gazed down at the field. This was Ebbets Field in broad daylight, not a dark street beside the factory. The Dodgers ambled to their positions. And Holy God, there was Pete Reiser! Going out to left field! Back from the dead. Furillo was in center and Gene Hermanski in right. But Pistol Pete Reiser was with them, down there on the grass. Michael pointed him out to Rabbi Hirsch.

“He looks okay, boychik,” the rabbi said. “Maybe some prayers helped. And maybe some hits he’ll get.”

The outfielders were right below them, casually tossing a ball while the cheers faded and the organ played “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Branca was throwing warm-ups to catcher Bruce Edwards. And the infielders were firing the ball, from Eddie Stanky to Spider Jorgensen at third, from Jorgensen to Pee Wee Reese at short, and from Reese to Robinson.

“He looks cool,” said the man beside Michael, peering through the field glasses, talking to his friend. “Real relaxed. Like he been playin’ the damned position all his life.”

Everybody stood for the national anthem. The Negroes put their hands over their hearts. The men behind Michael took off their union caps, and Michael whispered to the rabbi to take off his hat. The anthem ended and there were shouts of “play ball” and the game started. Branca retired the first two Pirates on ground balls.

“He’s got good stuff, dis kid,” the union guy named Jabbo said. “Pray for your paisan, Ralphie.”

“Let’s see what he does wit’ Kiner.”

Kiner hit the first pitch into the upper deck. Foul by a foot. The whole park groaned at the crack of the bat. Michael explained foul balls to the rabbi, and then Branca struck out Kiner and everybody applauded.

“Scared da crap outta me wit’ dat foul ball,” the one called Louis said. “I thought it would land in Prospeck Park.”

“In Prospeck Park, it’d still be foul, Louis.”

Reese led off for the Dodgers and grounded out. That brought up Robinson. There was an immense roar. The two Negro men stood up and applauded proudly.

“Here we go,” said the one with the field glasses.

Robinson dug in, his bat held high, facing the pitcher. And he was hit with the first pitch, twisting to take it on the back. The crowd booed.

“They ain’t wastin’ no time today,” the man with the field glasses said. “Gah-damn!”

A voice came bellowing from the right. One of the young toughs. Wearing a black T-shirt.

“Don’t hit him in the head: you’ll break the ball!”

His friends laughed. The Negro with the baseball cap glanced at them and then returned his attention to the field.

“Forget it, Sam,” the one with the field glasses said. “Don’t you be gettin’ riled, now, hear me?”

Rabbi Hirsch was staring intently at the field. Hank Greenberg was playing first base for the Pirates, and Robinson seemed to be talking to him. “I wish I could hear them,” Rabbi Hirsch said. “I wish I could know what Henry Greenberg says to Jackie Robinson. A letter I should write him.” Then Robinson took a lead off first, hands hanging loose, legs wide, focused on the pitcher. The pitcher glanced over his left shoulder at first, went into his windup, and before the ball reached the catcher’s mitt, Robinson stole second. The place exploded. Michael’s heart pounded. This was Robinson, doing what he had to do. They hit him with a pitch? Okay: steal second, and up yours, schmuck.

“Dat’s da way,” the union guy named Louis shouted. “Good as a double!”

“Hold on to your hat, Sam,” the Negro with the field glasses said, smiling broadly.

Robinson was jittering off second base now, the number 42 on his back, taking short pigeon-toed steps, wary, alert, drawing a stare from the pitcher, waiting, now drawing the throw, and abruptly stepping back on the bag. The batter was Furillo. As Robinson did his dance, Furillo took a ball, then another ball.

“Jackie’s got him crazy,” the man with the field glasses said. “He’s losin’ control.”

Once more, the pitcher glared over his shoulder at Robinson. The park was hushed. The pitcher pitched. Furillo sliced it down the left-field line and Robinson was racing around third, his cap flying off, and fading into a hook slide as he crossed the plate in a cloud of dust.

Ebbets Field erupted into cheers and flying balloons and some brassy tuba music from a band near first base. The two black men were laughing and applauding. The union guys, Louis, Jabbo, and Ralph, shouted: Way ta go and Dat’s all we need and Call a doctor, da pitcha’s bleedin’. Michael felt like he was part of a movie. And Rabbi Hirsch was jigging, clenching his fist, waving his hat, dancing.

“What a beauty is this!” he shouted to Michael. “What a beauty, what a beauty!”

The man with the field glasses turned to Michael, glancing at the Jackie button.

“You ever see him before?”

“No. This is my first time in Ebbets Field.”

“Take a look.”

He handed Michael the field glasses.

“You got to adjust them,” he said. “But don’t try to read the writin’ on them. I took them off a dead German.”

After adjusting the lenses, Michael could see all the way to first base, where Furillo was taking a lead; all the way to the dugout, where Burt Shotton was sitting in a civilian suit and Robinson was standing alone, with one foot on the top step. He could even see the dirt on Robinson’s uniform.

“Thanks,” Michael said, handing the glasses back.

“You got to see a great play, boy,” the man said, adjusting the lenses again for himself.

“I sure did,” Michael said.

The man said his name was Floyd, and he shook Michael’s hand and then introduced his friend, Sam—“We were in the army together”—and then Rabbi Hirsch reached across Michael to shake hands with the two men. “My first time in Abbot’s Field too,” he said. “Like Michael.” There was a great sigh as Hermanski grounded into a double play to end the inning.

In the top of the second, Hank Greenberg came to bat. A few people stood to applaud. So did Rabbi Hirsch.

Then they heard the voice:

“Siddown, Rabbi, don’t hurt your hands clappin’.” It was the youth in the black T-shirt. “This sheenie can’t hit no more.”

Rabbi Hirsch turned toward the voice and slowly sat down.

“This word?” he said to Michael. “What is it?”

“What word?”

“Sheenie.”

“Ah, it’s one of them dumb words.”

“A word for Jew?”

“Yeah.”

The rabbi turned again to glare at the young men. His face trembled. But then he turned back to Greenberg’s at bat.

The voice again, shouting at the Dodger pitcher: “Give dis Hebe a little chin music, Branca. He’ll quit right in front a ya.”

Rabbi Hirsch turned again to Michael; his early joy seemed to be seeping out of him.

“What means chin music?”

“It means, like, throw the ball close to his chin.”

“So they think, throw near Hank Greenberg’s head, he will quit? Because he’s a Jew?”

“That’s what that guy thinks.”

Greenberg took a ball, low and away.

“You said Hank Greenberg, he was a hero in the war. These young men, they don’t know this?”

Floyd heard him and leaned over.

“They are ignorant, Reverend,” he said. “They are stupid.”

But the loudmouth in the black shirt wasn’t going away. He bellowed: “Hit him in the Hebrew National, Branca. Let’s see how big his salami is.”

A few people in the crowd laughed, but Louis stood up.

“Hey, whyn’t you bums keep y’ traps shut? Yiz are insultin’ people!”

“Ya wanta do somethin’ about it?” the young man shouted. His friends were all laughing now.

“I’ll come over dere and give you a fat lip, buster!”

“You and what army?”

Greenberg swung and lined a ball deep and foul. The whole park groaned in relief.

“His cousin caught it and sold it on da spot!” the young man shouted.

Now Rabbi Hirsch stood up and faced them.

“Please! The mouth, shut it up, please. This is America!”

The tough guys started singing the first lines of “America the Beautiful.” Sarcastically. Out of tune. Full of the courage of superior numbers.

“Please,” the rabbi said. “The big mouth!”

Then Greenberg walked.

“Whad I tell you?” the young man shouted. “Dis old Hebe can’t hit no more!”

“All right, can it, shmuck,” Louis the union man shouted.

“Kiss my ass!” the youth replied.

That was enough. Louis was up, leaping across the aisle. He grabbed the young man by his black shirt and smashed him with his right fist. The young man’s friends rose as one, throwing punches, and the two other union guys piled in, and then everybody in the area was up. Floyd and Sam stood to watch, carefully, warily. Then they looked at each other. Without a word, Sam slipped off his glasses and his wristwatch and tucked them into his pocket. Floyd handed the field glasses to Michael, who thought: If I didn’t have this cast, if I only could swing at them, hurt them.… But now others were diving into the brawl, and the young men were backing up as the union guys went at them. Jabbo knocked down a kid with red hair. Ralph kicked a sunburned kid in the balls. The one called Louis grabbed the loudmouth by the hair and whacked his head into the top of a seat. The young man squealed.

“I’m bleedin’! I’m fuckin’ bleedin’.”

“Wrong,” Louis said. “You’re fuckin’ dyin.”

And banged his head again on the seat. Suddenly Rabbi Hirsch hurried over and tried to get into it, but now it was all fists and feet and curses and he was shoved back. His glasses fell and he was groping for them on the concrete steps when two of the young men started kicking him. Michael grabbed one of his crutches and hobbled toward them, but then Floyd and Sam pushed him down in his seat. “Watch the stuff,” Floyd said. He grabbed one of the young men attacking Rabbi Hirsch, spun him, and presented him to Sam, who knocked him down with a punch. The other one looked up, his eyes wide with fear. Floyd bent him over with a punch to the belly, and then kicked him in the ass, tumbling him down the steps.

Suddenly it was over. The six young toughs were ruined. Bleeding, groaning, whining. Rabbi Hirsch found his glasses and looked around in amazement. Floyd and Sam took their seats. The union guys sat down.

“Can’t even watch a fuckin’ ball game in peace no more,” Louis said.

“Hey, Louis, want a hot dog?” one of his friends said.

And now the cops arrived, ten of them, beefy and pink-faced and Irish, all in blue with their batons at the ready. Rabbi Hirsch was still standing, baffled, his eyes wide. One of the cops looked at the battered youths and then at the rabbi.

“Did you do this?” he said.

“I wish,” the rabbi said.

“They went dattaway,” one of the union guys shouted. Floyd and Sam laughed for the first time.

“Who did it?”

“The Jewish War Veterans, Officer.”

The cops hauled the young men to their feet and led them away. The whole section burst into applause. Louis stood up, faced the fans, lifted his hat, and bowed.

“What a rhubarb!” Rabbi Hirsch said, laughing and making a fist. “What a great big excellent goddamned rhubarb!”