Jim & Me (6 page)

WHEN I OPENED MY EYES
,
THE FIRST THING I SAW WAS A
ballpark. But I wasn't
in
the ballpark. I was up on a big, rocky hill overlooking it. Part of the field was visible, but most of it was blocked by the stands.

I didn't recognize the place. It was in the shape of a big horseshoe. There were apartment buildings all around. It was in the middle of a big city, that was for sure.

New York? Maybe. There were wooden water towers on the roofs of buildings around the park. But it wasn't Yankee Stadium. I had been there. It couldn't be Shea Stadium either. That wasn't built until the 1960s.

There was a chill in the air. It felt like early spring, maybe March or April. The beginning of baseball season. The sun was high in the sky. It
must be around noon, I figured.

Suddenly I remembered Bobby Fuller was with me. I wheeled around and there he was, lying on the grass. He was asleep, snoring. Jet lag, I guess. Going back a century in time must have knocked the wind out of him. Me, I'm used to it.

Bobby's backpack was on the ground, and the zipper was open a couple of inches. He seemed so protective about his stuff. What did he have in there anyway? I wasn't sure if it would be an invasion of Bobby's privacy to peek inside. But as long as he was taking a snooze, there was no harm in poking around a little. I opened the zipper a few more inches and looked inside.

His iPod was on top, with the earbuds wrapped around it. Underneath were two small medicine bottles. They didn't have labels on them, but I could see there was liquid inside.

Hmm, that was odd. I always thought kids with ADD took their medicine in the form of pills.

I dug a little deeper, and that's when I found something that blew my mind—a syringe. A hypodermic needle. One of those things doctors use to give you a shot.

Why would a kid have a syringe? Couldn't Bobby just take his medicine with a spoon? I know lots of kids with ADD and none of them have to inject themselves.

There was only one logical explanation. I hated to think it was true, but it was obvious.

Bobby Fuller was a junkie!

I had heard that some kids my age were addicted to drugs, but I'd never met anyone who used them. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I just didn't
know
they were using drugs.

This was
horrible
. I looked at the bottles again. In school one time they showed us a movie about drugs, and they said junkies inject heroin into themselves with needles.

Suddenly, I felt a little differently about Bobby Fuller. All these years I'd hated him for the mean things he had done to me. Maybe I should have pitied him. Maybe being addicted to heroin was what messed him up so much. Maybe he couldn't control himself. This explained a lot.

I looked at Bobby's arms to see if there were any needle marks on them. He didn't have any, but I know that junkies can be very clever. They know how to shoot themselves up in different parts of their body without leaving marks. That was in the movie too.

My first impulse was to throw the syringe and bottles away so Bobby couldn't use them. But no, that would be wrong. If he's addicted to the stuff, who knows what might happen if he couldn't get it? I decided to play it cool and not say a word. Pretend I didn't know Bobby was a drug addict. When we got back home, I'd ask my mom what I could do to get Bobby some help. She's a nurse and knows about treatment programs for people who have
substance-abuse problems.

“Uuuuuuuh!”
Bobby mumbled, stretching out his arms.

Quickly, I jammed the stuff into his backpack and zipped it closed.

“Are you okay, man?” I asked Bobby. “Do you need to be by yourself for a while?”

“Where are we?” Bobby asked.

“I'm not sure,” I said, “but something tells me Jim Thorpe is around here somewhere.”

 

The hill we were standing on looked like it would be a good place to watch a ball game without paying admission. You couldn't see the whole field, but you could see leftfield, centerfield, and the area around second base. In fact, there were a few people with picnic baskets spreading out blankets and setting up lawn chairs. They were dressed a lot like us in their old-fashioned clothes.

Bobby and I walked over to an older couple, who were fanning themselves and eating.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Where are we?”

“Whaddaya mean, where are we?” the man snapped. “You dumb or somethin'?”

“Perhaps they're from out of town, dear,” the lady said.

“Yes,” I explained, “we're from Louisville, Kentucky.”

“Welcome to New York,” the lady said, shaking our hands. “This is Coogan's Bluff.”

I'd never heard of Coogan's Bluff. Neither had Bobby, by the look on his face.

“Told you they were dumb,” her husband remarked.

“It's right outside the Polo Grounds.” The lady pointed to the field. “You know, where the Giants play.”

“Is there a game today?” I asked.

“Oh, yes!” the lady replied.

“The Giants?” Bobby said. “The Giants play in San Francisco. And you say
we're
dumb!”

“Who ya callin' dumb?” the man said, jumping to his feet and putting up his dukes.

I pulled Bobby aside and whispered that the Giants
used
to play in New York. They moved to San Francisco in the late 1950s, the same time the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles.

“Please excuse my friend,” I told the couple. “He's, uh…learning disabled.”

“He's
what
?” said the guy. “I should disable his
face
! What's that you got? A fancy purse?”

“It's a backpack,” Bobby said.

“Looks like a purse to me.”

Bobby was itching to fight the guy, but I pulled him away. We crossed the bluff and started walking down a long staircase toward the ballpark, passing two signs marking the intersection of 157th Street and Eighth Avenue. The streets were mostly empty. There were a few cars parked on the block, those old-time cars you see in silent movies.

“Why do they call it the Polo Grounds?” Bobby asked me.

“I don't know,” I replied. “Maybe they used to play polo here.”

There was a garbage can on the corner. I reached into it.

“Stoshack, what are you doing?” Bobby shouted. “Don't be a pig, man! You don't know what's in there. That's disgusting!”

“I'm looking for a newspaper,” I explained, and soon I found one.

Oh, no! It was 1913! I had read on a website that the Colgan's cards were printed from 1909 to 1912. It must have been wrong! I let out a few well-chosen curse words and stamped my foot. That is the
last
time I will ever trust any fact I read on the Internet.

“1913!” Bobby yelled. “Stoshack, we're too late! You screwed up again! What happened? I thought you said that card was from 1912.”

“I thought it
was
,” I said. “The website had it wrong. Maybe it was printed in 1913. I don't know. I told you, time travel isn't an exact science.”

“This sucks, man!” Bobby moaned. “You're hope
less, Stoshack. What are we wasting our time for? Let's get outta here.”

I ignored him. I didn't travel a century back in time just to turn around and go home as if I remembered I had left the water running. I scanned the headlines in the paper until something caught my eye:

Five days after his Olympic medals were taken away, Jim Thorpe signed to play baseball.

“Look at this,” I told Bobby.

The article went on to say that the Giants signed
Jim hoping he would bring them a championship. They had lost the last two World Series. In 1911 they were beaten by the Philadelphia A's and in 1912 the Boston Red Sox beat them. I didn't know how old the newspaper was. It could have been in the trash for a while.

“The Red Sox?” Bobby said, reading over my shoulder. “I thought they were cursed for like 80 years after they sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees.”

“This is
before
they sold Ruth,” I told Bobby. “This is even before they
signed
Ruth. It's 1913. Babe Ruth didn't start playing until 1914.”

“Well, excuse me, Mr. Baseball,” Bobby cracked.

We walked around the perimeter of the ballpark. The place looked like it was deserted. A sign said that game time was at 3:30. Admission was 25 cents for bleacher seats and 50 cents for box seats. Man, stuff was cheap in 1913.

The only problem was, I didn't have
any
money. There was no way for us to get inside.

“Where's that wad of cash you wanted to pay me?” I asked Bobby.

“I left it at home,” he said.

“Lot of good it'll do us there.”

It occurred to me that Bobby's money wouldn't do us any good even if we had it. Money has changed a lot since 1913. If we tried to use bills from the twenty-first century, we'd be arrested for counterfeiting. It almost happened to me before.

“I guess we're gonna have to panhandle or
something,” I said.

“Panhandle?” Bobby said. “Are you kidding me, Stoshack? I'm not begging for money.”

“Then how do
you
suggest we get inside?” I asked. “Rob somebody?”

“Haven't you ever snuck in anywhere without paying?” Bobby asked, as if that was a normal thing to do.

“No,” I told him. I've never cheated on a test or beat anyone up or shoplifted or took drugs either—all things that Bobby probably did regularly.

“You've got a lot to learn, Stoshack,” Bobby said. “Follow me.”

We continued walking around the outside of the Polo Grounds, trying to open every door we passed. They were all locked. Bobby wanted to hop over a brick wall near the outfield fence, but it was too high and there was no place to dig a toe in to climb up.

Finally we came to a window. It was about four feet off the ground and Bobby was able to push it open. He had me give him a boost so he could get his body inside.

“Isn't this breaking and entering?” I asked.

“We didn't break anything,” Bobby assured me. “We're just entering. And I don't see any sign that says you can't.”

Once he was inside, he pulled me through the window too. It was an office, with one of those roll-top desks and an old-time typewriter on it.

“Come on,” Bobby said, “Let's look around.”

He opened the door and led me into a dark tunnel as if he knew where he was going. The tunnel twisted around and it looked like it was heading nowhere until Bobby pushed open a door. Sunlight flooded the hallway, and after we walked through the door we were standing in—the outfield!

I couldn't believe it. We were standing in the outfield of the legendary Polo Grounds! It was one of the most famous ballparks in history. The Giants played there for decades. The Yankees played there when Yankee Stadium was under construction. The Mets played there while they were waiting for Shea Stadium to be finished.