Satch & Me (4 page)

I WAS IN THE KITCHEN HAVING A SNACK THE NEXT DAY
when the doorbell rang. Mom was upstairs, so I went to get it. I heard some strange guy outside, mumbling to himself in a weird voice.

“You dirty rat,” he said, “you killed my brother.”

Maybe I should call the police
, I thought. This guy sounded like a nut. I peeked through the peephole in the front door to get a look at him.

It was Flip.

He was wearing a gray suit and a hat with a brim, so he looked like a gangster. He had one of those old-time hard-shell suitcases in one hand. His other hand kept jabbing the air while he repeated, “You dirty rat…you dirty rat…”

I opened the door.

Flip pointed a finger and poked me in the chest.

“You dirty rat, you killed my brother. It's gonna
be curtains for you, mister. Curtains!”

Except that he said “doity” for “dirty,” and “brudder” for “brother,” and “coytins” for “curtains.”

“Flip, are you losing your mind?” I asked.

“Whatsa matter?” he said. “You don't like my Jimmy Cagney impersonation?”

“Jimmy who?”

“Cagney!” Flip said. “He was a great actor. Ain'tcha never seen
White Heat
or
Angels with Dirty Faces
? Ah, never mind. How do I look, Stosh? Do I look like a heavy?”

“A heavy what?” I asked.

“A heavy. That's what they used to call bad guys in the movies,” Flip said. “Don't mess with me, sonny. I may be packing heat.”

I had no idea what “heat” meant either, but I figured it must be something bad guys used to pack when they went on vacation.

“Nice suit, Flip,” I said. “Did you go to one of those antique clothing stores?”

“Heck no,” he replied, stepping through the doorway. “I went to my closet. I knew this suit would come back in style someday. Just goes to show you should never throw anything away. Still fits perfect, huh?”

Actually, the suit kind of hung off him. Flip must have been a lot more muscular when he was younger. I didn't want to hurt his feelings, though.

“You look great, Flip,” I said. “Do you have the radar gun?”

“Right here.”

Flip tapped his suitcase and put it down on the living-room table. It didn't open with a zipper. Instead, Flip clicked open two metal latches, one on each side.

“I brought some duds for you too.”

He took out some old clothes that looked like a smaller version of what he was wearing. For all I knew, he had saved it since he was my age.

“Oh, man, I can't wear this stuff,” I complained.

“Why not?” Flip said. “When you play ball, you wear a baseball uniform. When you go to church, you wear another uniform. And when you go to 1942, you gotta wear a different uniform. Come on. Put it on, or I'll murder ya.”

Flip said “murder” like “moyda.”

I went to the bathroom and put on the weird clothes. Looking at myself in the mirror, I actually thought I looked pretty cool. Flip said I looked like a young John Dillinger, whoever he was.

“Your mom knows we're doin' this, right, Stosh?” Flip asked.

“Of course.”

“And she's okay with it?”

When I first discovered I had the power to travel through time with baseball cards, my mother wasn't exactly what you'd call supportive. She thought it was dangerous. She thought I might get hurt, or worse. She was right. I almost got killed a few times. But after I took her back to 1863 with me to
meet Abner Doubleday, she was hooked. I didn't have to talk her into letting me go anymore.

“Believe me, Flip, she said it's okay. My mom is totally into this.”

At that, my mother came downstairs. Flip did one of those wolf whistles guys do when they see a pretty girl. I did a double take. Mom was wearing one of those weird old dresses with shoulder pads, and her hair was all pinned up on top of her head. Her lips and fingernails were bright red. And she was singing….

“‘Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me,” she sang, “anyone else but me, anyone else but me….'”

Ugh. I can't believe old people think hip-hop is bad. The music they used to listen to is horrible.

My mom hardly ever sings. But there she was, singing that goofball song and dancing around the living room.

“Come on, Mr. Valentini!” she said, grabbing Flip's hand. “I took a swing dance class at the Y. Let's you and me cut a rug, daddy-o!”

Mom and Flip started dancing around the living room. They were doing the jitterbug or the Charles-ton, or one of those wacky dances people did a zillion years ago. It was totally embarrassing. If anybody from school had been there to see it, I would have had to pretend I didn't know them.

Fortunately, Flip got winded pretty quickly and had to sit down on the couch. My mom kept right on dancing without him.

“So what do you say?” she asked, swirling her dress around. “Can I come to 1942 too? You might need me to sweet talk some of those old baseball players. Or maybe I could drive your getaway car.”

“Not this time, Mom,” I said. “Flip and I have important baseball research to conduct.”

“Oh, pooh on that,” Mom said with a pout. “I was hoping I could meet some handsome dreamboat out-fielder and we'd run off and live happily ever after. Isn't that the way it always happened back in the 1940s, Mr. Valentini?”

“Uh, not in my case, no,” Flip said.

“Well, I packed you some lunch anyway,” she said, skipping into the kitchen to get two paper bags from the refrigerator. “And here are some Band-Aids, just in case anything happens.”

She is
so
overprotective. Flip put the bags in the suitcase.

“Do you have your baseball cards?” she asked.

That's right! I almost forgot. Besides the Satchel Paige postcard, I needed to bring a
new
baseball card with me too. Just like the 1942 card would take us to 1942, the new card would bring Flip and me back to the present day.

I ran upstairs and grabbed a pack of new cards from my desk drawer. I stuck it in my pants pocket and ran back downstairs to sit on the couch next to Flip. He had the suitcase on his lap now, and the Satchel Paige card was on top of it.

It was time.

“Let's do it,” I said.

I took Flip's hand in mine. It was sweaty.

“You nervous?” I asked.

“A little.”

“It's gonna be great, Flip. Trust me. I'm getting good at this.”

“I hope we don't have to do any runnin',” Flip said. “I don't get around too good anymore. The legs are shot.”

“You won't have to run. I promise.”

Flip handed me the Satchel Paige card. I closed my eyes and concentrated. “You boys be careful, now,” Mom said. “I don't want anything to happen.”

“I'm always careful, Mom,” I said. “Don't worry. Nothing's going to happen.”

“Joey, you take care of Mr. Valentini and do everything he says.”

“I will, Mom.”

“And Mr. Valentini, you take care of Joey, and don't do
anything
he says.”

“Yes, Mrs. Stoshack.”

“Please fasten your seat belts and put your tray tables in the upright and locked position,” my mother said.

“Mom, I can't concentrate,” I said. “Would you mind, uh…”

“Okay, okay. I'm leaving!” Mom said. She kissed me on the forehead. “You are such a big boy!”

I heard her footsteps tramp up the stairs. It was quiet. I concentrated on the card in my hand.

“What if something goes wrong?” Flip whispered. “Does anything ever go wrong?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sometimes. Time travel isn't an exact science. You never know where we're gonna wind up or what's gonna happen. Whatever it is, we'll deal with it.”

I didn't mention to Flip that something
always
seems to go wrong. In my previous trips through time, I had a nasty habit of attracting gunfire in my direction.

I thought I felt a slight tingle in my fingertips. It might have been a false alarm.

“What if we never come back?” Flip asked.

“Shhh. Just relax,” I said.

I could definitely feel that tingling sensation in my fingers that were holding the card.

“But what if we don't?” Flip asked. “You know, 1942 was such a long time ago.”

“How old were you back then?” I asked, keeping my eyes closed and focusing on the feeling.

“Lemme see,” Flip said. “I was born in 1934. So in 1942 I was…eight.”

My right arm was tingling now. I could feel the sensation starting to move across my body.

“Do you remember what it felt like to be young?” I asked. Both my arms were tingling now. It was such a pleasant feeling.

“Man, those were the days,” Flip said. “It's true what they say, Stosh. Youth is wasted on the young. I sure wish I was young again. Like, say, eighteen.
That was a good age. Boy, if I knew then what I know now, I woulda done things different. I woulda done a lotta things different.”

The tingling sensation was sweeping up and down me now, like a wave. My body was almost vibrating. I had reached the point of no return. I wanted to see what it looked like, but I didn't dare open my eyes.

“What would you have done differently?” I asked.

I never heard Flip's response.

I felt myself fading away.

“
NEED SOME KETCHUP AT TABLE THREE
!”

“Gimme one Adam and Eve on a raft! Make it to go!”

“One blue plate special! And a hockey puck!”

I opened my eyes. I was sitting at a booth in a diner, with waitresses hustling back and forth and the loud buzz of conversation all around. What a relief! At least I hadn't landed in a dark alley, or in some battlefield with bullets whizzing by my face.

Flip was nowhere to be seen. A teenage kid was sitting on the other side of the table, and he was staring at me.

“Who are you?” I asked him.

“What do you mean, who am I?” the kid replied. “Stosh, it's me!”

“Me who?”

“Flip!”

“Get outta here!” I said.

The kid couldn't have been more than nineteen. Twenty, tops.

“You're not Flip,” I said. “Flip is an old man.”

I noticed that Flip's suitcase was next to the kid in the booth. He looked at himself in the shiny metal surface of the napkin holder. His jaw dropped open. He touched his face and pulled at his skin as if he didn't think it was real. The kid took off his hat. He had short blond hair.

“Hey, I look
good
!” he said.

The kid was wearing the same clothes as Flip too. And they fit him!

“Where's Flip?” I demanded. “What did you do to him?”

“Stosh, I swear, I
am
Flip.”

“Prove it,” I said. “Who won the World Series in 1955?”

“The Bums, of course. The Brooklyn Dodgers,” he said. “It was the only year they ever won.”

“Well, everybody knows that,” I said. “That doesn't prove you're Flip.”

“We live in Louisville, Kentucky, Stosh,” the kid said. “I run a baseball card shop there.”

“Oh yeah? Well, why are you called Flip?” I asked.

“When I was a kid, me and my buddies in Brooklyn used to flip baseball cards against the wall. Stosh, you
gotta
believe me. I'm your Little League coach! We came here to see how fast Satchel Paige could throw a ball.”

It really
was
Flip! When I looked at his face closely, I could see a slight resemblance. But he was more than fifty years younger than the Flip I knew.

Then I figured out what must have happened. When I travel through time, I get whatever I wish for. One time I wished I was an adult, and when I opened my eyes in 1909, I was a grown man. This time, Flip wished he could be eighteen years old again. And he was!

While I was figuring it all out, Flip took off his jacket. He rolled up a sleeve and made a muscle.

“Hey, Stosh!” he said, admiring his bulging biceps. “Check this out!”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Flip, will you knock that off? People are staring.”

I looked around the diner. It had those red stools that spin around. There was a jukebox in the corner. There were a bunch of pies in a glass container on the counter. It was just like one of those diners that are made to look like they're from a long time ago. Only this one really
was
from a long time ago.

“Hey, Flip,” I whispered. “Did you see that waitress over there? She's beautiful!”

“Fuhgetabout that, Stosh! What are we doin' here? I thought we were supposed to meet Satchel Paige.”

“Be patient,” I said. “He might walk in the door any minute. Or we might have to go find him. But
believe me, he's around somewhere.”

“Somethin' tells me we ain't gonna see Satchel Paige in
this
joint,” Flip said.

“Why not?”

Flip pointed to a sign above the restroom door. It said
WHITES ONLY
. Everybody in the diner was white, I noticed. It never would have occurred to me if I hadn't seen the sign.

“It's the 1940s,” Flip said. “It's a different world.”

This was a world Flip knew from when he was a kid. He beamed from ear to ear when he saw something he remembered. “Look, Stosh!” he said. “Clicquot Club orange phosphate soda! I used to drink that stuff all the time back in Brooklyn!” He pointed out the old Studebaker and Nash cars through the window.

But mostly, Flip was admiring his new muscles. He was really built, and he kept flexing his arms and posing proudly.

“Will you quit that?” I said, “It's embarrassing, Flip! You're in your seventies.”

“Not here I ain't,” he said pulling the front of his shirt out of his pants. “Hey, get a load of my abs, Stosh! I got a six-pack!”

Suddenly I noticed somebody was standing next to our table. It was that good-looking waitress. Her name tag read
LAVERNE
.

“You wanna put your tummy away, big boy?” she said. “This is a family place.”

“I'm sorry,” said Flip, and his face got all red.

This girl Laverne was
really
cute. She had long dark hair with curled bangs and these piercing green eyes. She was probably the prettiest girl I had ever seen.

“What can I get you fellas?” Laverne asked.

“Oh, we're not hungry,” Flip said.

Laverne put a hand on her hip and stared at him.

“Just like sittin' 'round diners?” she asked.

“We were about to leave,” Flip said.

I kicked him under the table. He looked at me and I mouthed the words, “She's
hot
!” but he just ignored me. When it came to women, Flip was clueless.

“Sure we're hungry,” I said. “What's the specialty of the house?”

“My daddy makes roast chicken and corn bread that will make you think you died and went to heaven,” Laverne said.

Through an opening in the back of the diner, I saw a guy cooking on a smoky stove. He was wearing a white apron and one of those white paper hats.

“Do you have anything that's low carb?” Flip asked.

“Low
what
?” Laverne replied, and I kicked Flip under the table again. I'm not even sure they knew what carbohydrates
were
in 1942. Come to think of it, I don't even know what they are
now
.

“The chicken sounds good,” I said. “How much is it?”

“For you, a buck and a quarter.”

“That's
all
?” I asked.

“You can pay more if you wanna,” Laverne said.

“Can I get a Coke too?”

“Sure thing, toots.”

“I'll have a cup of coffee,” Flip said.

“CUPPA JOE!” Laverne called out toward the kitchen. “How do you like it, handsome?”

“Black,” Flip replied.

“NO COW!” Laverne shouted.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” I said.

“Well, you're a little young to be wantin' my telephone number,” she replied, glancing at Flip.

“No,” I said. “Where
are
we? I mean, what town?”

“Hon, you're right outside the beautiful town of Spartanburg, South Carolina.”

“And it's 1942, right?” I asked.

“Last time I looked,” Laverne said. “Say, you don't get out much, do ya? I'll be right back with your drinks.”

Laverne left and I kicked Flip again.

“Did you see the way she was looking at you?” I asked. “She likes you, Flip. She's flirting!”

“Don't be silly. Waitresses just smile like that to get good tips.”

“Yeah, but after we track down Satchel Paige, you should ask her out on a date.”

“Stosh, I don't even know her!”

“Well, that's how you'll
get
to know her,” I insisted.

I heard a noise outside, so I looked out the window.
A bus had pulled up. The words “Homestead Grays” were painted on the side.

It wasn't long before Laverne came back with our drinks.

“My friend Flip here says you're the prettiest girl he's ever seen,” I told her.

“I did not!” Flip exclaimed.

Laverne smiled. “You're pretty cute yourself, Flip.” She giggled. “How old are you?”

“Seventy-two,” Flip replied.

“Hahahaha! He's joking!” I said. “Flip's eighteen. What a kidder!”

“Well, it just so happens that I'm gonna be eighteen in a couple of days myself,” Laverne said. “What do you do, honey?”

“Flip's a baseball player,” I said. “He's thinking of trying out for the Dodgers.”

“Stosh!” Flip yelled.

“Oh, too bad,” Laverne said. “Daddy won't let me go with a ballplayer. He says they're low class.”

“Low class?” I said. “Baseball players make millions of dollars a year.”

“What planet are
you
from?” Laverne asked.

I glanced up at Laverne's father in the kitchen. He was shooting dirty looks in our direction. Laverne winked at Flip and said she had to take care of another table.

Flip and I were sipping our drinks when I noticed that the diner had suddenly grown quiet. Nobody was talking. Silverware stopped clicking
against plates. Nobody was eating. Everybody was looking toward the front door.

An African American kid had just walked in. He looked like he was about my age.

I peeked out the window at the bus parked at the curb. Inside the bus windows, I could see a bunch of black guys. It looked like they were wearing baseball caps.

The kid walked up to the lady at the cash register.

“I'd like to order twenty hamburgers, please,” he said.

Laverne's father rushed out of the kitchen.

“I'm sorry, sonny,” he said, “but we can't help you. Ain't nothin' personal, you understand. You can use the bathrooms out back if you need 'em.”

The kid lowered his head for a moment. It looked like he might cry. He was probably hungry. He just turned around without a word and walked back to the front door.

I got out of my seat and caught up with him before he could leave.

“Hey,” I said. “Where's your mother?”

“Ain't got no mother,” he told me. “My momma died the day I was born. Daddy takes care of me.”

He pointed toward the bus, which was still outside. Then he opened the door and left the diner. When I went back, Flip was standing at the cash register.

“I'd like to order twenty hamburgers,” Flip said to Laverne's father. “To go.”

Everybody in the diner was staring at Flip.

Laverne's father looked at him. “What are you, a wise guy?” he asked.

“No, I'm a hungry guy,” Flip said, “and I'd like twenty burgers. Are you refusing to serve me?”

Laverne's father looked disgusted. He went back to the kitchen and told somebody to put twenty burgers on the grill.

Flip and I sat down again. People were looking at us and whispering. Soon our chicken was done and Laverne came over with the platters. Outside, the engine of the bus started up again.

“Stosh!” Flip said. “Quick, go tell the driver to hold that bus a minute!”

I ran outside. The bus was starting to pull away. I banged on the door. The driver hit the brakes. The door opened.

“Wait!” I yelled.

Flip was jogging out of the diner with the two platters of chicken and the paper bag lunches my mom had packed for us. He climbed up the steps of the bus. I followed. All the guys on the bus were wearing baseball uniforms that said “Grays” across the front.

“Gentlemen,” Flip said. “Anybody want some roast chicken and cornbread? Believe me, this stuff is so good, you'll feel like you died and went to heaven. And if you can wait a few minutes, I ordered those burgers you wanted.”

For a moment, the ballplayers on the bus just
stared at Flip, like they didn't trust him. But I guess their hunger overwhelmed any suspicions they had, because they all started grabbing the food and shouting. “Yeah! I want some! Gimme a drumstick! What's in the bag? I'll take a hunk of that cornbread….” They dove into the food like they hadn't had a good meal in a long time.

The kid who had come into the diner was sitting in the seat right behind the driver. His eyes were moist with tears.

“What's your name, son?” Flip asked, giving him one of my mom's sandwiches.

“Joshua,” the kid said. “Josh Gibson.”

I thought Flip was going to fall over. He staggered back a step and his eyes bugged out. He looked like he was about to pass out.

“Josh Gibson…the ballplayer?” he asked.

At that, a huge man stepped forward and stuck out his hand for Flip to shake.

“I'm Josh Gibson, the ballplayer,” he said. “This is my son, Josh Junior.”