Shoeless Joe & Me (6 page)

WHEN I TOLD THE OPERATOR THAT I WANTED TO SPEAK
with Gladys Kozinsky, I was pretty sure she was going to tell me there was no such person. Or she would tell me she couldn't make the connection or the number was unlisted or something. Or maybe Gladys Kozinsky wouldn't be home. I really doubted that my great-grandmother Gladys was going to pick up the phone.

But the operator
did
have a listing of one Kozinsky in Cincinnati, and I asked her to connect me. After a few seconds of clicks and scratchy noises, a boy's muffled voice came on the line.

“Hello?”

“Uh,” I said, “is Gladys Kozinsky home?”

“Who wants to know?” the boy asked.

“My name is Joe,” I told him. “Joe Stoshack.”

The phone clattered, like it had been dropped on the floor.

“Gladys!” the kid hollered. “There's somebody on the phone for you…and it's a
boy
!” He giggled. I heard footsteps and then a few seconds of arguing. One of them must have put a hand over the mouthpiece, but I thought I heard a girl's voice say, “Shut up, Wilbur,” and his reply, “
You shut up.”

“Hello?” a girl said sweetly.

“Is this Gladys Kozinsky from Cincinnati?” I asked.

“Yes, it is. Who is this?”

I took a deep breath and paused for a moment to appreciate how amazing it was. I was actually
speaking with my great-grandmother, who had died
many years before I was born.

“My name is Joe Stoshack.”

“Joe who?”

“Stoshack.”

“Do you go to my school?”

“No…”

“Then how do you know me?”

I hadn't counted on actually reaching my great-grandmother, so I hadn't given much thought to what I would say if I
did
reach her. I couldn't tell her that I had come from the future or that we were related, of course. But I had to come up with some reason for calling her up.

I looked around the hotel room. Joe Jackson was holding the bat up in his other hand and his wife was brushing her hair.

“You and your brother are twins, right?” I asked Gladys.

“Yes…”

“I need to take a picture of twins.”

“A photograph?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It's…for a school project,” I lied. “Would you mind letting me take a pic—photograph—of you and your brother?”

She didn't say anything for a moment, then replied simply, “I guess so.”

“When can we shoot the picture?” I asked.

“Well, are you going to the game tomorrow?”

“You mean the World Series?”

“Of
course
I mean the World Series!” she said. “What other game could I be talking about?”

“I'll be there.”

“My parents always let us go buy hot dogs after the fourth inning,” she explained. “You can meet us at the hot dog stand on the third-base side. Okay?”

“Okay!”

There was a loud knock at the hotel room door. Somebody said, “Jackson, you in there?”

I was afraid it was one of the gamblers who had locked me in the closet. Joe and Katie looked at each other, then they looked at me. Joe put the bat down and put on a bathrobe. Then he picked up Black Betsy with both hands.

“Get in the bathroom!” Katie whispered to me urgently.

“I gotta go,” I told Gladys. “See you tomorrow.” I hung up the phone and rushed into the bathroom.
After closing the door, I got down on my knees and peeked through the keyhole.

“Hiya, Chick,” I heard Joe say, after letting somebody into the room. I remembered that the gamblers had mentioned that a player named Chick was in on the fix.

Looking through the keyhole, I could see that Chick Gandil was a really big guy, taller than Joe and at least two hundred pounds. He had hollow cheeks and he was puffing a cigar. He took off his hat when he saw Joe's wife. Gandil was dressed neatly in a sports jacket.

“Evenin', Mrs. Jackson,” he said politely. Chick Gandil didn't have a Southern accent like Joe and Katie. “Getting some last-minute batting practice in, Joe?”

“What do you want, Chick?” Joe asked. It didn't look like he liked Gandil.

Chick threw an enormous arm around Joe's shoulder. “Joe, a bunch of us got together and we decided to frame up the Series. Eddie Cicotte told me you weren't interested in helping us.”

“That's right, Chick,” Joe said, breaking away from Gandil's arm. “Ah play to win. That's the way Ah do things.”

“You're a fine man, Joe,” Gandil continued, “but the men we're working with want you in this thing pretty badly. They told me they would pay you twenty thousand dollars if necessary. Four payments of five thousand each.”

Katie gasped loudly enough so I could hear it through the bathroom door, even though I couldn't see her through the keyhole.

“The answer is
no
, Chick,” Joe said firmly. “Ah get money to win games, not lose 'em.”

Gandil didn't turn and leave, as I expected him to. He turned toward Katie.

“Mrs. Jackson,” he said, “maybe you can talk some sense into your husband. Maybe Joe doesn't quite understand how much money we're talking about here. You can buy a lot of pretty things for yourself with twenty grand.”

“Joe knows exactly how much money you're talking about,” Katie snapped. “Joe makes up his own mind.”

“Get out of here, Chick,” Joe said, gripping Black Betsy.

“Look,” Gandil persisted, “the fix is on, Joe. It's gonna happen with you or without you. Even if you hit four homers tomorrow, Eddie Cicotte is gonna lose the game. You might as well cash in like the rest of us.”

“That don't matter to me.”

Joe had Black Betsy on his shoulder and took a step toward Chick.

“We'll lose no matter how good you play, Joe,” Chick said, taking a step backward.

“Then Ah'll have to play better,” Joe said, taking another step toward the big man.

“Joe, I shouldn't be telling you this, but we
already told the gamblers you're in on it so they wouldn't back out of the deal. You might as well—”

“Ah said
no
!”

Joe took a swing at Chick with Black Betsy. Gandil bailed out like it was a high, inside fastball. The bat missed his head by less than an inch.

“Fine!” Chick said, backing out the door. “You play your game and I'll play mine!”

Joe slammed the door. I came out of the bathroom. Katie began to sob and Joe went over and hugged her.

“Ah'm sorry, honey,” he said, stroking her hair. “Ah know that money would be nice, but—”

“It's not that,” Katie whimpered. “You've been working hard all season. All the fellas have. You're the best team in baseball. I know how much you wanted to win the Series.”

“Ah'll win it anyways,” Joe said. “Ah don't care how many of 'em lay down.”

Suddenly, the hotel room door opened again. Chick Gandil was back.

“Who's the kid?” he asked, startled to see me suddenly standing there.

“My nephew,” Joe said, “from Louisville. What do you want now?”

Chick reached into his jacket pocket. For a second I thought he might be reaching for a gun. Instead, he pulled out a thick envelope.

“They told me to give you this no matter what,”
he said, flipping the envelope onto the bed. “You can do what you want with it.”

Gandil backed out the door and shut it behind him.

“They told me to give you this no matter what,” he said, flipping the envelope onto the bed. “You can do what you want with it.”

WHEN CHICK GANDIL THREW THE ENVELOPE ON THE
bed, the flap opened up a little, and some bills slid out. Twenties. Fifties. Hundred-dollar bills. When Gandil left, Joe and Katie just stared at the envelope, like it had a contagious disease and they didn't want to touch it. Finally, Katie picked up the envelope and counted the money.

“Five…thousand…dollars,” she said, whistling in wonder and flapping the bills in the air. “I've never seen so much money in one place at one time.”

Joe locked the hotel room door. He didn't want any more uninvited guests. He didn't seem interested in holding the money in his hand.

“Ah don't play ball for money,” he said softly. “Ah play ball to win. Ah would play ball for free. That money is filthy.”

“What should we do with it, Joe?” Katie asked.

“Beats me.”

“You've got to report it to the commissioner of baseball!” I exclaimed. “If you tell him how you got the money, he can't blame you when word gets out that the Sox threw the Series! He won't ban you from the game for the rest of your life!”

Joe and Katie looked at me blankly.

“What's a commissioner?” Katie asked me.

“There's no commissioner of baseball?” I asked weakly.

They both shook their heads. That's when I realized that the first baseball commissioner took office
after
the Black Sox Scandal. In fact, it was the Black Sox Scandal that prompted baseball to appoint a commissioner to keep the game free of gambling.

“And they say
Ah'mdumb,” Joe muttered.

“You could tell Commy,” Katie suggested. I remembered that Commy was Charles Comiskey, the owner of the White Sox.

“Commy's a crook,” chirped the bird. “Cheap Commy.”

“Commy ain't gonna do nothin',” Joe said, hanging his head.

“You have to
try
, Joe!” Katie urged. She stuffed the money back into the envelope and stuffed the envelope into Joe's hand. Then she opened the door and gave him a shove. “Go! Tell him where you got this money!”

“Can I come?” I asked.

“Take the boy with you,” Katie told Joe. “I need to go to sleep.”

Reluctantly, Joe took the envelope and put it in the pocket of his bathrobe. He tightened the robe around himself and we left the room.

The Sinton Hotel must have been pretty big, because Joe led me up four flights of stairs and down a hallway that must have had at least twenty rooms. The hallways were empty except for us. A few dim lightbulbs lit the way. It occurred to me that fluorescent bulbs probably didn't exist yet.

“What room is your ma and pa stayin' in, Stosh?” Joe asked me.

“My ma and pa aren't here.”

“Well, where are they?”

“In Louisville.”

“You mean to say you came all the way from Louisville by
yourself
to see the Series?”

“Yup.”

“You got any money?”

“My mom gave me twenty dollars.”

“That oughta hold you for a spell. Where were you plannin' on sleepin' tonight, Stosh?”

“I guess I didn't think about it,” I admitted.

“Stosh, you are
dumb
. Every hotel in Cincinnati is full 'cause of the Series. People are sleepin' in the parks.”

“So I'll sleep in a park.”

“Nothin' doin',” Joe said. “The park ain't safe for
a kid your age. You'll stay in the room with Katie and me.”

“Okay, if you say so.”

Finally, Joe stopped at Room 703 and knocked lightly at the door. There was no answer.

“Ah guess Commy ain't in,” he said, turning to leave.

“Maybe he's asleep,” I advised. “I think you have to knock harder.”

Joe gave the door a good rap and stood there awkwardly. After a few seconds we heard some rustling inside, and the door opened. An older, gray-haired man blinked his eyes in the light of the hallway. He was wearing flannel pajamas, and he had a big nose.

“Mr. Comiskey, sir—”

“Jackson, what are you doing up this late?” Comiskey snapped, like a teacher scolding a kid he caught playing hookey. “You should be getting your rest for tomorrow. I'm counting on your bat to beat the Reds. And who's this kid?”

“My nephew, sir. There's somethin' you oughta know, Mr. Comiskey,” Joe tried to explain. “The Series ain't on the square. Some of the boys sold out.”

“That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!” Comiskey thundered. “My boys would never sell me out. You woke me up to tell me
this
nonsense?”

“But, sir, Chick gave me this envelope. Look, it's stuffed with money.”

“I don't care if it's stuffed with macaroni! Go to bed, Jackson. And send that kid home.”

“What should Ah do with the money, sir?”

“Buy yourself some brains!”

Then he slammed the door in Joe's face.

WHEN JOE AND I GOT BACK TO HIS HOTEL ROOM
,
KATIE
was already asleep. The room was dark, and I couldn't see a thing. Joe pulled some matches out of his bathrobe pocket and lit a candle. He placed it on the dresser. Then he pulled a chair over so it was about four feet from the candle. He sat on the chair and stared at the flickering flame in silence.

I wasn't sure what to do. Joe was sort of an unusual guy. Maybe this was some kind of religious ceremony to him. For all I knew, maybe he slept sitting in a chair. Maybe he had trouble sleeping, and staring at a candle helped him nod off. I was feeling pretty tired myself, but I didn't think that crawling into the bed next to Joe's wife would be the right thing to do.

“What are you doing, Joe?” I finally whispered when my curiosity got the better of me.

“What's it look like?” he replied. “Ah'm lookin' at this candle. Sheesh, are you dumb about some stuff!”

“I mean
why
are you looking at the candle?”

“It sharpens my battin' eye,” he said, covering one eye with his hand. “Half an hour every night. Fifteen minutes with one eye and fifteen minutes with the other.”

I couldn't argue with the guy. His lifetime batting average was .356. One year he hit .408. Maybe
all
ballplayers should hold bats up in the air for a half an hour and stare at candles.

“Where do you want me to sleep, Joe?”

“There oughta be some blankets and pillows in the dresser drawer,” he said, without moving his gaze away from the candle. “You can spread 'em out on the floor next to the bed.”

I did as he said, making a little bed for myself. I took off my clothes except for my underwear and hung them carefully on the chair. I would have to wear them the next day. Then I went into the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth.

I hadn't thought to bring my toothbrush with me, so I just squeezed some of Joe and Katie's toothpaste onto my finger and rubbed my teeth the best that I could. Instead of Crest or Colgate, they had some stuff called Dr. Sheffield's Creme Dentifrice. It tasted awful.

When I came out of the bathroom, Joe was still staring at the candle. I slipped into my homemade
bed. Even though I was tired, I didn't want to go to sleep yet. I couldn't get past the fact that I was with the great Shoeless Joe Jackson the night before the first game of the 1919 World Series.

“Is it okay to talk to you while you do that?” I whispered, trying not to wake Katie.

“It don't bother me none.”

“What are you going to do tomorrow night?”

“Ah dunno,” Joe replied. “You wanna go see a movie or somethin'?”

“Isn't the first game of the World Series tomorrow night?”

Joe shook his head, almost losing his gaze on the candle.

“And they say
Ah'm
dumb.” He snorted. “How could we see the ball if we played at night? Don't you know nothin'?”

I smacked my head with my hand. How could I be so stupid? There were no night games in 1919!

“What I meant was, what are you going to do in the game tomorrow?” I corrected myself.

“Only thing Ah can do—try my durndest. Ah'll win it by myself if Ah have to.”

I lay back on my pillow thinking things over. Watching
Eight Men Out
and talking to Flip Valentini had led me to believe Shoeless Joe Jackson had willingly taken the money from the gamblers. Now I knew that was wrong. He didn't ask for any money to throw the World Series, and he turned it down when it was offered to him. When
the money was literally thrown at him, he tried to give it to the owner of the White Sox and tell him what was going on.

Shoeless Joe had done all he could. If the Black Sox Scandal was going to be stopped, I would have to stop it myself the next morning.

“Can I ask you a personal question, Joe?”

“Shoot,” he replied, still staring intently at the candle.

“Why didn't you learn how to read?”

Joe's left hand clenched into a fist.

“There were eight kids in my family,” he said softly. “Six boys and two girls. Ah was the oldest. My daddy didn't have no money. He worked in a cotton mill. He needed my help. Ah was workin' in the mill when Ah was eight years old. There was no time for school. None a my family never had schoolin'.”

“But you could learn
now
,” I suggested.

“Ah play ball,” he stated simply. “It don't take no book learnin' or school stuff to help a fellow play ball. Don't need to read to hit the curve. Don't need to write to throw a guy out at the plate or catch a line drive. Ah make more money playin' ball than a whole lotta folks who can read 'n' write.”

“What about after your baseball career is over?”

Joe quickly turned away from the candle and looked at me. There was a trace of anger in his eyes.

“Look, Ah'm only thirty,” he said. “Ah got ten good years left if Ah stay healthy. Ah got a long way to go.”

I knew something about him that Joe didn't.
Within a year, he would be thrown out of professional baseball for the rest of his life. His career would be over very soon. I knew he didn't want to hear that.

“But if you learned to read and write—”

“You think Ah
like havin' everybody think Ah'm
stupid?” he snapped. “You think Ah don't notice when Chick told Katie that maybe Ah don't know how much money twenty grand is 'cause Ah'm too dumb? You think Ah don't know Commy wouldn't listen to me 'cause he thinks Ah'm dumb? You think Ah don't hear the stuff people shout from the stands? You think Ah like bein' humiliated? Ah
hate it.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I was only trying to help.”

“Ah tried to learn,” Joe said, more quietly. He hung his head a little. “Katie tried to teach me. Ah just couldn't do it. Here, look at this.”

I crawled out of my homemade bed and went to where Joe was sitting. He opened the drawer and took out a fountain pen and some sheets of paper. All of the sheets were blank except for one. The one that wasn't blank looked like this:

My eyes opened wide. It looked
exactly
like the signature Flip Valentini had shown me in his book of famous autographs. Block letters. All capitals. The
A
was the same. The loop in the
J
was the same. I remembered that Flip had told me Joe Jackson's signature was one of the rarest in the world and that it was worth a half million dollars.

I held my breath as Joe picked up the pen awkwardly and began to write on a blank sheet of paper. He copied the letters slowly and carefully, sticking his tongue out as he labored over the paper. I could have written the words in a few seconds, but it took Joe at least ten minutes. He looked like an artist working on a painting.

When he was finished, he held the paper closer to the candle so he could see it better.

“Awful,” he muttered, taking the sheet and sticking the corner of it into the flame.

“Don't burn it up!” I shouted, pushing his hand away from the candle. The tip of the page was charred, but it didn't ignite. Katie rolled over in the bed behind us but didn't wake up.

“Why not?” Joe asked, surprised.

“You'll set off the smoke detectors,” I explained.

“The
what
?”

Oops! I had made another dumb mistake. There were no smoke detectors in 1919. Buildings used to burn down all the time back then.

“You might start a fire,” I explained.

Joe shook his head, as if to say I was nuts. He
dropped the piece of paper into the little trash can next to the desk. As it fluttered into the basket all I could think of was that he had just thrown away a half million dollars. I tried not to react.

“That didn't look so bad,” I said, encouragingly. “Try it again.”

Joe took another sheet of paper and started over. Again, he painstakingly copied the autograph letter by letter. He didn't like that one very much either and tossed it in the trash.

I was counting in my head. That was one million dollars sitting in the garbage. I felt my heart racing in my chest.

“You're doing great,” I said gently. “Why don't you try another one?”

Joe got as far as the word “best.” When he messed up the
T
, he crumpled up the piece of paper in disgust and threw it away.

“Oh, heck, Ah just ain't no good at this stuff, and that's all there is to it. Everything they write about me in the newspapers is lies anyway, so what's the point in learnin' how to read or write?”

Joe blew out the candle and climbed into bed next to his sleeping wife. I slipped into my bed on the floor.

“Good night, Joe.”

“G'night, Stosh.”

I lay there for a long time thinking. Not more than five feet away from me there was a wastebasket with the equivalent of a million dollars in it!

I could buy a lot of stuff with a million dollars. A new house and car for my mom. A motorcycle for my dad. He's always wanted one. And for me, well, I could pretty much clean out a sporting goods store.

Should I take the autographs out of the garbage? I lay there thinking. Those autographs didn't belong to me. They didn't belong to
anybody
. They were garbage. Joe Jackson didn't offer them to me. He threw them away. His
intention
was to burn them. Maybe it would be wrong for me to take them.

Or maybe it would be right. I mean, who would it hurt if I kept a couple of pieces of paper that were in the garbage? Nobody. Technically, I wouldn't be stealing anything. It would be more like scavenging or picking up a penny somebody had dropped in the street. I could always get Joe's permission in the morning. Besides, I told myself, he never told me that I
couldn't
have the signatures.

It seemed so long ago that I had been hired to clean out the attic of Amanda Young, the old lady who used to live next door to me. That was where I found the valuable Honus Wagner card I had used to take my first trip through time. Back then, I thought long and hard about whether the right thing to do was for me to keep the card for myself or give it back to Miss Young. In the end, I decided to give it back to her.

Once again, I had a decision to make. I lay there for a long time trying to decide what was the right thing to do.

Joe's breathing got slower, and in a few minutes he began to snore. Joe and Katie were asleep.

I crept on my hands and knees in the dark until I was able to find the trash can. I picked out the two scraps of paper and put them inside the pocket of my pants.