Curveball, page 25
He would have guessed it cost more. “Does it work?”
“Not as well as you. I want you to forgive me for being so angry. And so afraid. It’s not your fault you got cancer.”
“But if I’d gone to the doctor sooner…”
“It might have made a difference, maybe not.”
She took the vibrator from his hand and touched the power button. The Unbound Bender hummed. Frannie pressed its tip into his palm, and his whole hand vibrated. Creepy. Frannie replaced the Bender in its drawstring sack.
“So, Joe, do you forgive me?”
This is too weird, he thought. “I do.”
Jack boarded the elevator and pressed fourteen, which was Joe and Frannie’s floor. He’d gotten in late, no problem with the flight or thunderbolts from an angry Yahweh for flying on His holiday, but Jack didn’t reach the hotel until 1:00 a.m., so too late to call. He’d tried Two-J’s cell this morning, no answer. He’d tried Joe and Frannie’s room a bunch of times through the hotel operator, but it kept ringing busy, and they weren’t answering their cells either. Worried and a little agitated—he’d come all this way, risked a lightning bolt, and no one was talking to him?—he descended to the lobby and sweet-talked reception into divulging Joey’s room number, which he knew was against policy. He didn’t know where MLB headquarters was located, and though he could have found out, he didn’t fancy showing up by himself because they might not let him in.
The elevator doors opened, and Jack started towards 1408. He was wearing his one good winter-weight suit. It was October, frost on the pumpkin. He rapped three times, hard, on 1408. No footsteps, no voices. What the hell? He raised his fist to rap again, and right then the door opened.
“We’ll be right out,” Joey said, and closed the door.
Ten minutes later, Jack was getting ready to knock again, or give up and catch a cab by himself, when the door opened, and Joe and Frannie came out looking like their best friend had died.
“Good Yom Tov,” Jack said. “Happy New Year.”
“Good Yom Tov,” Frannie answered, but Joey pushed past him, headed for the elevator.
“What’s wrong?” Jack asked.
Joey was moving too fast to answer, while Frannie, from her great and beautiful height, just shook her head. “Not now, Jack.”
Then she took off after Joey, and all Jack could do was hustle after them.
At ten-fifteen, which was fifteen minutes and a year or two later than it should have been, Jess sat down at the small table at the head of the boardroom of MLB headquarters. The spacious room was jam-packed with reporters and camera crews. Jess was flanked by Davey Dean, MLB’s vice president of diversity, on his right and Bill Abbott, the Mets president of baseball operations, on his left. He’d never met Abbott, though he knew Abbott was a friend of Dad’s. A small forest of mic stands was arrayed in front of him. Somewhere in the back of the room, Rah sat with Jack and his parents. Emmy had texted from class to say she could come in for tomorrow’s game if he wanted her there and if he could get her a ticket (smiley face). She sent her love.
Jess wore his Mets number 32 jersey, the traditional white version with pinstripes, blue and orange stitching, and a blue Mets cap with orange letters. He wasn’t wearing his full uniform, that would be ridiculous. He’d selected the blue cap because the blue matched his eyes, and he wanted to look his best because he felt so incredibly nervous. He couldn’t keep his left foot from tapping under the table, same with both hands, which seemed to have minds of their own and wanted to tremble and dance unless he folded them together in front of him. So that’s how he was meeting the press: like a dutiful schoolboy in the first row, baseball cap and melded fingers.
Mr. Dean leaned closer. Hiding his lips behind his hand like a catcher visiting the mound, he whispered, “Ready, Jess?”
Jess nodded. Mr. Dean nodded. The television lights came on.
“On behalf of Major League Baseball, I’d like to introduce Jess Singer, one of our game’s brightest young stars. As most of you know, Jess is starting tomorrow night for the Mets against the Washington Nationals. Bill Abbott, the Mets president of baseball operations, is seated on the other side of Jess. He’ll speak afterwards. Joe’s father, former major league pitcher, Joe Singer, is seated in the back of the room with Jess’s mother and grandfather. Jess will read a short statement, then answer a few questions. His statement is not explicitly about baseball. But at this time of year, when you’re as talented a pitcher as Jess, it’s always about baseball.”
Mr. Dean faced him and smiled.
“Thank you, Mister Dean.” Jess tried to keep his hands and voice from trembling. He couldn’t do anything about his tapping foot. “Thank you, everyone, for coming out today.” He looked down at his printed statement, realizing what he’d just said had made his statement irrelevant. He looked up at the cameras. “Actually, I’m the one coming out today.”
There were whispers around the room, maybe even laughter.
“As some of you know, there have been rumors on social media about my sexuality for the past few weeks, ever since I threw a no hitter and appeared on The Colbert Show with my good friend and catcher, Rah Ramirez. I chose to ignore those rumors and concentrate on the pennant race, thinking that in America, where gay marriage is the law of the land, what did it matter? And whose business was it, anyway, except mine? In the heat of the pennant race, I thought only my on-field performance should matter, and I didn’t want the focus to be on me, instead of my team.
“I was wrong. Some people don’t think athletes should be homosexuals, or maybe they don’t think homosexuals should be athletes. There have been death threats, with the FBI providing protection. I’ve come to understand that by refusing to address the issue of my sexuality, I’ve encouraged the haters and given the impression that I’m ashamed of who I am. That’s not true.
“Worrying about the ‘rumors’ has divided my attention from what is most important to me, not only today and yesterday, but especially tomorrow, when I’ll open the Wild Card series against the Nats. I’ve had two of my worst pitching performances since the no-hitter because I’ve been more worried about the rumors than the opposing hitters, and I’m tired of it. So I’ve decided to say this where everyone can hear it. I’m proud and I’m gay, and I pitch for the New York Mets. That’s who I am. If anyone doesn’t like that”—he looked up, he hoped, straight into the cameras—“that’s too damn bad.”
Jess stopped. There were other things on his written statement, but he’d said enough. He wished he hadn’t said, “Damn,” but he supposed it was all right because Mr. Dean was smiling at him.
“Thank you, Jess,” Mr. Dean said. “I wish I’d had the courage to say the same thing thirty years ago.” Mr. Dean turned towards Bill Abbott, who still looked like the Marine he’d once been, Jess thought, though he was white-haired and old, even older than Dad.
Abbott cleared his throat. “On behalf of the New York Mets, I’d like to express our organization’s admiration and gratitude for Jess Singer’s maturity and courage, both on and off the field. It’s rare for a young player to be both as talented and articulate as Jess, and he has the Mets’ full support.”
After a short silence, Mr. Dean said, “Jess will take a few questions now.”
Reporters raised and waved their hands to be first.
Jack was wedged between Joey and Rah. Frannie sat on Joey’s far side.
Rah, Jack thought, must be a nervous wreck. Now that Two-J’s had dropped the bomb, reporters were buzzing like a hundred million bees, and Rah needed to get the hell out of here. Just yesterday, he’d saved the Mets’ season, and that should have been all she wrote, but sooner or later, and likely sooner, some douchebag was going to quiz Two-J’s about his personal catcher, and unless Two-J’s knew enough to say, No comment, and even if he did, from the ardent look on Rah’s face, Jack feared the kid was going to jump up and say, Yes, Jess, it’s true.
Jack rapped Rah’s knee, leaned close, whisper-shouted, “Get out while the getting’s good.”
Rah shook his head. “No, Grandpa Jack.”
Some reporter up front, whom Jack couldn’t see but could certainly hear, a nasty talk-radio prick from WFAN, whose voice Jack recognized, said, “Those social media rumors you mentioned were started by someone who called himself Flushing Fred.”
“That’s right,” Jess answered.
“Flushing Fred alluded to a relationship between you and your catcher, Rah Ramirez.”
“Also right,” Two-J’s said.
No, no ! Jack could barely see his grandson—there were too many reporters between them—or even hear him clearly. And there was a roar building in the packed room.
The nasty prick asked, “Do you have any comment on that rumor?”
“No comment,” Two-J’s answered, with a smile in his voice.
Two-J’s, Jack thought. What are you doing?
Rah stood, and just for a second, Jack considered throwing his eighty-two-year-old shoulder into Rah’s tree-trunk thighs, then he thought, What the hell? They planned this!
“I do,” Rah said. “I have a comment.”
Jack peered past Rah at Frannie and Joey, who looked as dumbfounded as he felt.
Rah said, “It’s true. All true.”
Two-J’s stood up at the table in the front of the room and shouted over the reporters’ heads, “Te amo, Rah!”
“I love you, Jess!” Rah shouted back.
After that, Jack thought he must be having a heart attack, or some sort of psychic conniption. Or maybe he’d entered an aural hallucination because it soon sounded as if half the room and then everyone in it was clapping. But that couldn’t be, Jack thought. Until it was.
Chapter Thirty-Two
By the time Jess and Rah reached Citi Field, everyone knew. At least Jess assumed they did. The story had been blowing up on Twitter and Instagram, and most players were all over social media. On the ride out, they’d discussed how to handle their teammates. Their friends. Their enemies. Fucking Big Barnes. They entered the clubhouse separately, changed, went out on the field, and stretched. No one said a word. Jess ran sprints with the other pitchers, and Rah joined batting practice, which was already going on. Watching him disappear in the dugout to get a bat and a helmet, Jess wondered how the other Latin players would treat him, and if Rah would tell him if they were terrible to him. Rah was so brave, he thought. It had been his idea to come to the presser and make it their coming out party.
“I’m tired of being afraid, Jess,” he’d said, last night in bed. “And maybe because I hit that home run and save the day”—he grinned—“they won’t give me so much shit.”
Jess started towards the bullpen to do a little light throwing, as he did the day before every start. Halfway to the pen, so lost in thought he could have been on the dark side of Jupiter, he didn’t hear or see Rick Heynen come up beside him, until he was already there.
“Hey, stud muffin.” Rick grinned. “You guys got a special handshake?”
“Nope.”
“And all this time, I thought you and Rah were just discussing balls and strikes.”
“We were.”
“What about that pretty Emmy who’s been hanging around? Sherry sure likes her.”
“So do I.” He looked up into Rick’s frank brown eyes—Rick who was the only pitcher on the squad taller than he was. “Just not that way.”
They were almost to the bullpen gate. Gib was inside waiting and so was Mac. Rick said, “You know Davey Dean is coming to make a presentation to the team tomorrow afternoon. They’re calling it sensitivity training.”
“Oh shit. I won’t be there.”
“I believe you will.” Rick grinned. “A lot of the guys will be a whole lot more sensitive if you pitch lights out tomorrow.”
“What about you?”
“I’m there for you, no matter what.”
“Thanks, Rick.”
“Just put up zeros, little brother. And get your mind right.”
Jess nodded. He’d never had a big brother but had always wanted one. “I’ll try.”
Heynen jogged back towards the infield.
That afternoon, at four o’clock, Jack was returning to the hotel from the Bagel Barn on First and 62nd. He’d had a three-hour nap, then ventured out for sustenance. He felt all stirred up, as if his guts were in a blender. Maybe he shouldn’t have traveled on New Year’s after all. It hadn’t signified that he attended the press conference. Two-J’s barely noticed, and the shit about to hit the fan was going to hit it anyway. Jack had a bad feeling and wished Jess had kept his big mouth shut. Whose business was it anyway who he was screwing? And there was something else. He missed Glad something terrible—who would have guessed?—and wished he was with her in Delray, or had somehow convinced her to fly north.
He was feeling every one of his almost eighty-three years. In his Bagel Barn bag, he carried the unfinished half of his bialy with a schmear, as well as half-price, day-old bagels he planned to throw in the East River. Although he hadn’t attended High Holiday services in almost seventy years, and he had not only walked but run away from most things Jewish, he still remembered accompanying his father, Izzy Singer, a ragpicker from Bialystok by way of East New York, to the Sheepshead Bay piers, on the afternoon of the first day of Rosh Hashanah to throw away his sins.
“Good riddance,” his father would say, in the Hymie accent that had embarrassed Jack, his old-world father, who never had two dimes to rub together, and called him Yakob till the day he died, another thing Jack hated. Izzy would pitch crusts off the pier into the dark waters and spit, “Good riddance!”
Tashlich, the word had come unbidden while he was ordering in the Bagel Barn. Tashlich, Jack thought, crossing to the east side of York Avenue. I’ll knock on Joey’s door and see if he and Frannie want to come. From the look of things this morning, I bet there’s things they want to throw away.
When Jack invited them to the river, more than anything, Joe felt grateful. He was worried about Jess. It was one thing to tell the truth inside an interview room. It was something else again when you had to face jerks and haters, and there would be plenty of both. He remembered the father who’d sent his little boy to his table before he’d fled New York: Say it ain’t, Joe. Say it ain’t! And the thinly veiled anti-Semitism he’d faced even before and especially after the gambling accusation. Jews and money. Hey, Jew-boy. Even his nickname, Jewish Joe.
Joe hoped Jess would be able to keep all this out of his mind tomorrow when he got up on the bump. Right now, riding the elevator to the lobby, he was having trouble keeping Avi’s final warning out of his mind. Since your cancer came back once, it’s more likely to come back a second time. If it does, it won’t kill you right away. There are new treatments. But if it comes back a second time, there are no cures. Just a battle.
They left the lobby, headed for the East River. Joe wore a Mets cap, Jack his fedora. As a shiksa, Frannie didn’t need to cover her head. When they reached the river walk, they turned north. A cool wind blew, and small waves mottled the surface. Joe remembered Frannie running here last spring when they first met Avi and Stu. He still believed Stu was interested in Frannie, and if something bad happened, Stu could be an option. Frannie said no. Stu was too short. And she refused to consider bad outcomes, as if they’d switched roles, and she was now the positive thinker.
Joe walked farthest from the railing, Frannie between him and his father. He was only an inch or so taller than Frannie, while Jack, who’d been shrinking fast, was a full head shorter. They passed several knots of yarmulke-d Jews holding prayer books, some of them tossing bread on the water. The ceremony, Jack had explained when he knocked on their door, was called Tashlich.
“Don’t ask what it means,” he added. “I don’t sprechen the Hebrew.”
They stopped at a wide place on the river walk. Overhead, cable cars shuttled back and forth to Roosevelt Island. Frannie fished her cell phone out of her purse. Jack had asked her to look up Tashlich, which was weird, Joe thought. His entire childhood and in all the years since, Jack had never gone to shul, never fasted on Yom Kippur, or did any of the other things Jews did. And now, Tashlich? Then it occurred to Joe, This is because of my cancer.
Jack reached into the Bagel Barn sack. “You want the everything, Joey, a salt, or a plain?”
“Everything.”
“Makes sense,” Jack replied. “Cover all the bases. I’ll take the salt, cause I’m the saltiest, which leaves the plain for you, Frannie.”
Jack distributed the bagels, and Joe, Jack, and Frannie tore them into pieces.
Jack said, “This is about casting your bread upon the waters.”
“Throwing away your sins,” Frannie said.
“Hoping the seagulls don’t eat them.”
“And praying that next year.” Joe looked at Frannie. “Is a healthy and happy one.”
“Amen.” Then Jack added, “And that Two-J’s pitches lights out.”
Frannie unlocked her phone. “I found this on the internet about Tashlich. It’s from Micah, Chapter Seven, Verse Nineteen. ‘He will take us back in love; he will cover up our iniquities. You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.’”
“Joey,” Jack began, suddenly serious. “I never said this to you, back when. I’m sorry for introducing you to those goombahs. I know how much it cost you not to give the commissioner my name, even though I told you that you could have.”
Jack hesitated. His lower lip and then his whole chin were trembling. “You done right by me, Joey. But I didn’t do right by you. You’ve been a better son than I’ve been a dad. I want you to know that. And, and, I’m so sorry.”
