Before My Life Began (68 page)

“Because I decided that I want to go down to the city to Jackie's funeral, and I wondered if you'd be able to stay here with the boys for a day or two.”

“Why don't you take them with you?”

“To a
funeral?”

“Sure. You can tell them more about Jackie.”

“I think I'll be too upset, and—”

“Why
shouldn't
you be upset? Let them see your heart, dear one. Let them know you care.”

“Or I thought that maybe you could have them stay with you and Mark. I'd really like to go, Nicky, and—”

“Did you hear what I said before? Goddamn. Should I shout it?
Why-don't-you-take-your-sons-with-you?
It would be good for them to see where you grew up. That's what I think. It would be good for them to know that part of you, to see where your passion and strength of character come from. From
whence
you came, right? It would be good for them to gather in some clues they could use in beginning to figure their father out, in
beginning
to understand why he cares about things the way he does. You're not eating your breakfast.”

“I'm not hungry.”

She touches his hand again.

“It's only a suggestion, so don't be offended and defensive. We can still say anything at all to one another, can't we?
Can't
we, Aaron? Have we ever held back, in all the years since we met?”

“No.”

“Okay then. It's only a suggestion, but take my word for it, it's a goddamned good one.”

About fifteen miles south of Hartford, Larry, resting in the back seat, wakes up. He leans forward, puts his hand on Aaron's neck, lightly.

“How long did I sleep?”

“An hour.”

Carl is next to Aaron, his head against a pillow, the pillow wedged between the car's seat and the door. Carl's feet—he is fifteen, almost six feet tall, with long legs—almost reach Aaron's thigh. The sun is beginning to rise in the east, lavender streaks spreading gently above low, rolling hills.

“I bet there'll be lots of famous athletes there today.”

“The funeral's tomorrow.”

“Then why did we leave so early today?”

“To see Jackie. His body will be in Harlem for viewing at a funeral chapel there, and that way we can walk by the coffin. In the church tomorrow, we wouldn't get a chance.”

“To see him?”

“To say goodbye.”

“How dangerous will Harlem be? I mean, for white people.”

“Not very.”

“Do you mind if I ask you questions?”

“No. Not really.”

“Did you see Jackie play a lot when you were a boy?”

“Sure.” Aaron smiles. “My friends and I used to have a way of sneaking into Ebbets Field once it got past the second inning.”

“Was it because you were all orphans—I mean, that they felt sorry for you and let you in?”

“No. After school we'd ride the Flatbush Avenue trolley down to Empire Boulevard. My friend Tony had a cousin who worked one of the turnstiles. There'd be eight or ten of us and we'd chip in, give him two or three bucks and he'd let us all in.”

“Sounds great. Sometimes I wish I'd grown up in a big city, the way you did—”

“The big stars will be there. You can look in the newspaper—I left it on the seat next to you—where it tells the names of the pallbearers.”

“Bill Russell will be one, won't he?”

“Yes. Russell will be there. Do you know what he said? He said that even though he never saw Jackie play, he'd go halfway around the world to honor him because he was a
man
—because of what he did for all black athletes.”

“Will Muhammad Ali be there, do you think?”

“Probably. Jackie's old teammates, though—those are the ones I'm hoping to see. Don Newcombe and Jim Gilliam and Ralph Branca and Pee Wee Reese and Joe Black and Carl Erskine. They were my heroes when I was your age, the way Carlton Fisk and Carl Yastrzemski are yours now.”

Larry leans closer. “Was Pee Wee Reese the one you told me about, in the story about how they made the crowd get quiet after they were calling Jackie a nigger?”

“Yes. Pee Wee was from Kentucky, and when he—”

“I remember the story, how I thought Pee Wee got his name from being small, and how you told me about him getting it from shooting marbles—from being a marbles champion in Louisville when he was a kid. But, Dad?”

“Yes?”

“When I was younger—I was afraid to ask—but why did the kids in school used to say that Jews had horns?”

“Horns?”

“Some of the Polish kids used to say we had horns and that they must of cut them off when we were born, when we were circumcised.”

Aaron talks for a while about anti-Semitism, and about what he himself has only recently learned—about how Michelangelo confused the Hebrew word for beams of light with the word for horns. In the rear view mirror he sees that Larry has stopped listening, is looking out the window.

“Then too,” Aaron says, “there are some people who just hate Jews because they like to hate people. The way people hate blacks.”

“Well, fuck them,” Larry says.

Aaron smiles.

“But what made Jackie so special? Really. There are lots of great black ball players. Why was he the best, the way you always say he was?”

“I don't know. One of the sportswriters pointed out that even though he never hit more than nineteen home runs in a single season on a team that had great home run hitters like Gil Hodges and Duke Snider and Roy Campanella, they always let Jackie bat clean-up. Does that answer your question?”

“I suppose. Will Campanella be there?”

“Yes.”

“Carl once did a book report about him. I forget the title.”

“It's Good to Be Alive,”
Aaron says. “He'll be an honorary pallbearer. Fat and chubby and always stood with his foot in-the-bucket. He and Jackie never really got along—Jackie thought he was too much of an Uncle Tom—but he was the greatest catcher I ever saw. After the car accident, when he was paralyzed and forced to live in a wheelchair, his wife divorced him.”

“Will seeing Jackie dead upset you a lot?”

“It might.”

“Yeah. Nicky told us. She said it would be good for you to get it out of your system. Only—?”

“Yes?”

“Does it bother you, that you never really had the chance to be a college or pro ballplayer?”

“Not really.”

“Not in baseball maybe, but in basketball, let's say.” Larry hesitates for a split-second, then continues: “Lucius used to say you were as good as any of the pros, that if you'd gone to college and played pro you could've been like some of the great white players, like Jerry West or Bill Bradley or Bob Cousy or Dave DeBusschere.”

“Not true,” Aaron says, and he hears the note of irritation in his voice.

Carl stirs but does not wake.

What Aaron wants to do, he knows, is simply—yet again—to tell the story of Jackie's life to his son. He smiles. Would his father, or his father's brothers, be pleased with him? At Passover, when the children ask the reasons for certain rituals—eating unleavened bread and bitter herbs, dipping greens in salt water, reclining at the table—the father answers by telling the story of the going forth from Egypt.
Because we were slaves to the Pharaoh in Egypt and the Lord our God brought us forth with a strong arm and an outstretched hand….

“Listen,” Aaron says. “When Carl wakes up we'll talk some more, okay? You rest now. It's going to be a long day. We might have to wait in line a while before we can go in to see him.”

“He was a lot like you, wasn't he?”

“Who?”

“Jackie Robinson. I mean, like when you're determined to do something—like going back to school at your age and becoming an artist—nothing ever stands in your way, does it?”

“I suppose.”

“I suppose.” Larry laughs. “You always say that, don't you?”

“I suppose.”

They both laugh.

“And anyway, what I figured out a long time ago—it disappointed me—was that you were too old to be a famous athlete anymore. Players as old as you are usually retired already. So maybe you'll be a famous artist instead, right? A lot of famous artists are pretty old—”

“Not as old as me.”

Larry laughs again, ruffles his father's hair, then sits back, closes his eyes. Aaron drives on, past Middletown, past New Haven, his boys sleeping in the car. The funeral parlor is at Seventh Avenue and 135th Street, and Aaron doubts that any of the famous players and dignitaries and movie stars will be there, in Harlem. Today will be more of a family day, he hopes. He begins to think of which highways to take, of how he will route himself into the city, of what else he might do with the boys while they are there together.

He has promised to take them to his old neighborhood, to show them where the orphanage and Ebbets Field were. They want to see Radio City Music Hall, the Empire State Building, the Museum of Natural History. Aaron imagines seeing Jackie's wife Rachel and her children, David and Sharon, at the church. He imagines seeing Jackie's two brothers, Mack and Edgar. He knows that everyone will be there: Governor Rockefeller and Joe Louis, Mayor Lindsay and Willie Mays. Movie stars and politicians and civil rights leaders. Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph and James Farmer and Roy Wilkins and Ralph Abernathy. Aaron tries to see Jackie out on the desert—the one he had imagined for Malcolm X and Martin Luther King so long ago—but he does not let his mind dwell on the picture for long.

He imagines, instead, the day of the funeral. After services at Riverside Church, they will drive from Manhattan to Brooklyn, past the street where Ebbets Field used to be, past the New Lots and East New York sections, toward Queens, to the Cypress Hills Cemetery. Aaron's father grew up in East New York, is buried in the Machpelah cemetery nearby, on the other side of the Ridgewood reservoir.

Aaron reaches over and touches Carl's hair. Carl sleeps soundly. Carl has his books of magic tricks with him in his backpack. Carl intends to be a professional magician someday and he reads all the books he can, has begun to give shows for his friends, at school, at parties. The night before, while they were packing, Carl said that he was glad Aaron had never become famous, because if he were, the way Susan and Nicky and Lucius said he could have been, as an athlete or a civil rights leader, then he would have to have been away from home a lot while they were growing up.

By the time they reach southern Connecticut and cross over, along the Merritt Parkway, just past Stamford, onto the Hutchinson River
Parkway and into
New York
State
, Aaron
knows what he will do after
they go to the funeral home. This is doubtless what he had planned to do—sensed he would do, from the first—though he did need Nicky to edge him toward the decision. He will drive from Manhattan into Brooklyn. He imagines Gail's parents still living in the same house. He will get out of his car with Carl and Larry and go up to the front door. He will knock. Ellen will open the door. He will say, “Hello, Ellen—it's David Voloshin.” She will start to move toward him, but before her fingertips can read his face, he will tell her that his boys are with him. He will give her their names. Then, as if she is in her garden reaching for flowers, she will put out her hands and, in order to know them, touch the faces of his two sons.

And if she is not there? He smiles. If she is there or if she is not there, he will go back. And if he goes back things will begin to happen that he has yet to imagine. If she is there or if she is not there, he will get in the car with his boys and they will drive along Bedford Avenue and turn right onto Martense Street. He will take his boys to his old neighborhood and show them his street and his house and the courtyards and the alleyways. He can see the four small rooms of his apartment, can see himself walking through them with his boys, room by room. The rooms are clean and white and empty, freshly painted and full of pale morning light—the way they might have been, he thinks, before his life began.