Sam's Legacy (16 page)

“I got the picture,” Sam said, and walked out. He felt Tidewater's eyes on his back, and it bothered him, not the way the guy looked at him, but that, there was no reason to deny it, he felt something for the guy now. To have been an ace, to have had it all in your hands, and then to have had it taken away: Sam could understand that that was something in life that could hurt. He walked along Linden Boulevard, his head down, against the cold.

That was why, when he thought about it, he himself had never gone after the big kill. If you did, the way Sam saw things work out in this life, you always lost. Sam had never had any dreams, night or day. He figured that dreams were the things that wore people down. Sometimes he wondered, as he did now, where dreams came from in the people who had them. Maybe, he thought, if you had a bundle of talent, you could consider yourself chosen, the way Tidewater had—you could make yourself think you'd had some kind of calling—but the only time Sam figured he would believe he'd been called was when he was holding three of a kind, or more.

At the corner of Linden and Rogers Avenue, he stopped in the grocery store. The cold air, all the words in his head—they were making his stomach talk to him. A black man and his wife owned the store now and there were crates on the floor: beans and vegetables. Behind the counter, in the glass case, were strange-looking meats. Sam picked up a package of Drake's Devil's Food Cakes, and thought of the white cream center, then sucked away the small pool of saliva from under his tongue. A black girl, in pigtails, was ahead of him: “My mother wants two quarts of milk, a loaf of Silvercup white bread, a pound of rice, and fifty cents on number three eighty-eight.”

Sam watched the grocer write something down. What he could do, he thought, was to give Ben back some of his own—the word fitted—medicine: tell him he didn't want the money back, just what he would have lost during the five years from inflation. The grocer handed the girl her food, then took Sam's dollar bill. “And how are you today?” he asked, with enthusiasm. He spoke very clearly, very politely. His smile revealed a set of perfectly even teeth.

“Fine,” Sam said.

“Yes,” the man said. “It's been a lovely fall season this year.”

“Sure,” Sam said, pocketing his change.

“Thank you, and come back again, young man.”

The guy was too much, Sam thought; he preferred, in his memory, old Mr. Bender—a bastard if ever there was one, always on the lookout to make sure you weren't tucking away candy bars under your jacket.

When he got to Garfield's, his payoff man was waiting for him at a table in the back. Sam took a large glass of milk and two cinnamon buns, then joined the man at the table, under the stairwell which led to the toilets. The guy was called Willie the Lump and Sam didn't have the foggiest idea why, since he was, like the grocer, the kind of black man who, in Ivy League clothes, could have walked down Madison Avenue without making you look at him twice. But when you had looked closely, you saw that Willie the Lump had one eye that never moved, made of glass, Sam imagined, and when he spoke at all, he lisped. Sam looked at him, drank some milk, measured his words.

“I guess,” he offered, “you don't have an envelope for me this week.”

Willie the Lump nodded. He lifted his coffee cup, his small finger sticking out. He had rings on six of his ten fingers. Willie the Lump moved mechanically, following prescribed procedures: he pushed a copy of the
Daily News
across the table, for Sam to use for his envelope. “Did you see this item in today's paper?” he asked, the “th” reminding Sam—he cursed the connection—of Tidewater's precise manner of pronunciation.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Well, look, Willie—I've been good to you, right? I mean, I always treat you good when I'm on, right?”

Willie nodded. “Did you see this item in today's paper?” he asked again. His brown finger pointed to a photo of Lew Alcindor stuffing an opponent's shot, Alcindor's huge hand appearing to be larger than the ball.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Well, you tell Mr. Sabatini that I'd like to speak to him, he should put this on my account.”

Willie the Lump drank from his coffee cup, focused on Sam's face with his good eye. “This is the third time,” Willie said.

“Yeah, well I got something in the works—I'll speak to Sabatini about it. Say
shalom
to him for me, okay?” Sam paused, saw that Willie was going to leave. “I wish I could give you your usual—tell me: did I ever stiff you when I was going good? Tell me that, Willie. Didn't I always give you your cut? So how come”—Sam tried to surprise the guy with his question—“how come nobody will touch the Knicks? What's up, Willie? Come on—”

“You always treated me fine, Mr. Benjamin,” Willie the Lump said. He reached across and—for the first time in Sam's memory—shook Sam's hand. “I hope you have better luck, Mr. Benjamin. I truly do. You always treated me fine.”

“But the Knicks?” Sam asked, as Willie started to move away. “What's up, Willie?” Sam let his cinnamon bun drop to his plate, and held onto Willie's jacket, but lightly. Willie stopped. “What's up?”

Willie shrugged, lowered his good eye to the floor. “He was the one said to tell you this is the third time if you didn't. It weren't my idea.”

Then he walked away, leaving Sam alone. You too, Sam Berman Junior, he thought: put your money where your mouth is. Words were for the birds. Sure. Sam the Lamb, that's who he was. He left his second cinnamon bun on his plate, uneaten, and walked to the cashier's desk: an elderly white woman in platinum-colored hair, red lipstick that was caking off, took his check, punched his change into the tin cup. There were a lot of high school kids in Garfield's at this hour, but Sam didn't look them over. Even if he saw a girl, where could he take her? That would be one good thing when Ben was gone—he could get something going for himself again; according to the old saying, his luck should be running at an all-time high in that department, although, with his brain, he'd probably wind up with jailbait.

“H-how's things, Sam?” Milt asked.

“Slow, Milt. Slow,” Sam answered.

“Did you say hello to your f-father for me?”

“Oh sure,” Sam said. “He said he'd try to come by to say good-bye to you. He's going to California, to live in an old people's home….” Sam tried to see Milt's eyes behind the thick lenses.

“Is he s-sick?”

“No, no,” Sam said. He sighed. “Not a home really—a kind of retirement city. A resort-retirement community is what it is.”

Milt nodded. “I see,” he said. “Well, you tell him I wish him well and the b-best of success in his new v-venture.”

“Sure,” Sam said. “I'll do that. You got this week's line from Jimmy the Greek?”

“T-tomorrow,” Milt said. “I sincerely hope your luck changes, Sam, but you're young and healthy, and that's the important thing. I believe that. Tell your father that he should be well and that Milt said so.” Milt looked around, then whispered:
“Zei gezunt
, if you know what I mean.”

Sam had never heard such a long speech from the man. “Yeah,” he said. “I'll tell him.”

He crossed the street, went into the phone booth, watched the kids sitting on the steps of the Dutch Reformed Church, pigeons around their feet. He knew what some of them were smoking: they said it wasn't habit-forming, that it relaxed you—but Sam wasn't fooled: they'd start you there, and before you knew it, feeling relaxed all the time, you wouldn't care about keeping in shape. He dropped a dime in the slot. Still, he knew that they said that Namath and most of the boys on the New York Jets were on stuff even more powerful—even when they'd been out there slogging it in the Super Bowl. It didn't figure, from what he knew, but maybe when you were in their class, things changed.

“Yes?”

“It's Mr. Benjamin here.”

“This is Mr. Sabatini, Mr. Benjamin, what can I do for you today?”

“Look,” Sam said, rejecting the apologies that he had heard himself giving. “Can you trust me for another week or so?”

“Trust you?” Mr. Sabatini said, and Sam thought he could see the man smiling at him with a mouthful of yellow teeth. “We
love
you, sweetheart.”

“Sure,” Sam said. “I got something in the works.”

“Of course,” Mr. Sabatini said. “All things can be arranged.”

“But one thing else,” Sam said. “If you happen to hear of anybody looking for a game—poker—you keep me in mind, okay?”

Sam listened to the silence. Then: “I don't usually let myself get involved in something like that, of course….”

“I just thought—if you heard, that's all. It's not serious.”

“But for a good customer like you—a nice Jewish boy—!” Mr. Sabatini howled with laughter at that, and Sam jerked the receiver away from his ear. “I'll see what I can arrange, all right? No promises, sweetheart, but the
Kinesset
will be thinking of you.” His voice descended again. “Still, there's a terrible credit squeeze on, you know—everybody's feeling the pinch. Don't feel—if you understand me—isolated.”

“Yeah. Well, thanks.”

Sam heard the click at Mr. Sabatini's end. He pulled the doors toward him, stepped out. A black guy, about Sam's height, carrying a pile of schoolbooks under one arm, moved into Sam's path. “How about a smoke, chief?”

“Don't smoke,” Sam said.

The guy's eyes were glazed, he looked away, his body swayed. “How ‘bout some bread, then, okay? I'll pay you back—I seen you around.”

“Sorry,” Sam said, and walked away. The guy held Sam's jacket-sleeve. Sam whirled around. “Chuck off, Farley, you hear?” he said.

The guy blinked, then smiled, his eyes suddenly clear. “Hey, that's good, man. I like that. Chuck off, Farley—ain't heard that one before.”

“He bothering you, mister?” Sam turned. A cop—about Sam's age, perhaps a few years older—was speaking to him. “You don't have to be scared, mister—I know this kid.”

“No,” Sam said. “It was nothing. He just asked for a smoke is all.”

The cop kept his eyes on Sam, but talked to the kid. “Okay. Take off. You're lucky. Know who your friends are from now on.”

“See you, Chief,” the kid said, and winked at Sam—then ran across the street, dodging cars.

“You got to keep your eyes open. They give you the soft talk, see—but they know what they're doing. They're not dumb, I'll tell you that.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Well—I appreciate your interest.”

“Okay, Mr. Benjamin,” the cop said, and turned away, walking off in the direction of the Kenmore Theater.

Sam's brain spun. He clenched his fists. Sure. Watch your ass, he told himself. He crossed the street, in front of Garfield's again, then moved on down Flatbush Avenue—past Martense Street, where the New Yorker Café was (the high-class hookers worked from it). At Linden Boulevard he turned right, passed in front of the library, continued to Bedford Avenue. The apartment houses were set far back from the street here—there was no street, in fact—and, as now, for as long as Sam could remember, there'd been the triangle of free space, where Caton Avenue branched off from Linden Boulevard, marked out by white paint and poles set in concrete. Some kids were playing slapball, but Sam didn't stop to watch. Instead, he turned back, and walked to the library. There was no need to return to the apartment, to have Ben asking him questions, to see Tidewater's eyes. He didn't doubt the guy; still, he figured he'd check a few things out, to be sure. He looked in the card catalogue under Negro Baseball and found—other than the names of stars: Robinson and Paige, Campanella and Gibson and Howard and Mays and the rest—only one book that looked as if it would have what he wanted, the title:
Only the Ball Was White
. He went to the shelf, found the book, sat down at a desk, took his coat off, and began to read.

The facts were all there, about the history of Negro leagues and players going back before 1900, but Sam discovered that, though he tried to concentrate, his mind kept wandering: the trouble was, everytime he read something that wasn't just a fact about where and when some guy had been born, he found himself thinking of something in Tidewater's story. And as soon as he thought of Tidewater's story, he found that the guy's words pushed all other words and pictures out of his head. Sam looked in the index, under Marcelle; that part was true; there had actually been a man by that name who'd been a player in the Negro Leagues and had had his nose bitten off. He wondered if, reading through the entire book, he'd be able to figure out which, if any, of the players had been Tidewater, before the guy had changed his name.

He grew drowsy. The library was cooler than the rummage shop, and the fluorescent lighting, when he glanced up, made him squint—but he felt sleepy nonetheless. He saw no reason to keep reading, and so he closed the book, and put his coat back on. He'd go outside to wake up. He remembered what Tidewater had said about wanting the ball to go so fast it would disappear. That, Sam thought, and found himself smiling, would really be out of sight.

It picked him up, thinking of a line like that. He walked down the steps, remembering what Tidewater had said about being bothered by having to depend on eight other men. Sam could understand that. Sure. He had to give the guy credit for being able to tell a good story—no matter what name Ben gave to it. What he wondered about, however, was why, since it was out of sight, it wasn't out of mind. He didn't press the question, though. If reading Tidewater's life story was the price he had to pay for getting Ben off his back, he figured he was getting away cheap.

6

Sam stood at the living room window, watching the snow fall: everything was white and beautiful now, but by nine o'clock the next morning, he knew, after people had made their way to the subway, to go to work, it would be brown and slushy, slippery underneath. Directly below, he saw Tidewater and Flo helping someone out of a taxi—a girl, in a wheelchair. The girl wore a purple scarf on her head, and Sam saw light glisten from gold threads that were woven into it. He could hear the music—old rock-and-roll records—coming from below. Tidewater pushed the wheelchair forward across the snow while Flo held an umbrella over the girl's head. It was night. There were circles of luminescent green, like rings around the moon, surrounding the lights of the lamp posts along Nostrand Avenue. At the moment there were no cars or buses passing. Sam could see fresh footprints on the sidewalk.