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  “I mean how come Aunt Thelma isn’t sending him out of the room? Why can’t I listen?”

  “Because it’s not your business. Go, Mark. Be a good boy. Go take a bath.”

  “If it’s about the team, it’s my business.”

  “Your Aunt Thelma said ‘in private.’ Now, be a good boy. Go.”

  “I’m going. But under protest,”

  “For you to go is unusual. Under protest is nothing new.”

  Instead of taking a bath, I listened. If I had taken a bath every time Mother had sent me, I’d have been all puckered.

  AUNT THELMA: What do you think that Botts boy was doing in the locker room?

  MOTHER: Thelma, don’t embarrass me. Don’t ask.

  AUNT THELMA: Guess.

  MOTHER: What he does in the locker room is his business.

  AUNT THELMA: Do you know? Do you have any idea of what his business is?

  MOTHER: Locker room business. C’mon, Thelma, I asked that you shouldn’t embarrass me.

  AUNT THELMA: Well, he embarrassed me. His business is selling looks at Playboy. For five cents a look. Sidney Polsky was his customer.

  MOTHER: Playboy? The magazine?

  AUNT THELMA: Yes, that magazine with all the undressed girls.

  MOTHER: Let me see it. (I heard the pages being flipped.) You know, I saw this magazine in my Moshe’s room. Between the mattress and the spring. I thought that it must have something special in it and that was why he was hiding it.

  AUNT THELMA: You mean you didn’t look?

  MOTHER: No, I didn’t look. I figured there was something in it he didn’t want me to see. That’s why he hid it. Spencer, did you know about this magazine?

  SPENCER: Let me see it. (Long pause. Pages being flipped, being flipped, being flipped.) Ah. Ah. I’m familiar with the publication.

  AUNT THELMA: Then why did you have to look at it if you’re already familiar with it?

  MOTHER: Because he likes it, that’s why. Now, getting back to Botts and Polsky. So what? One was buying, and one was selling.

  AUNT THELMA: Bess, you astound me. You know that your son is hiding something from you, and you don’t do anything about it.

  MOTHER: Thelma, every boy needs to have a little something to hide from his mother. I know I raised him right so far; he’s not hiding LSD, and he’s not smoking cigarettes and flushing them down the toilet. I figure if he wants a corner of privacy between the mattress and springs of his bed, that’s fine with me. If it were something dangerous or illegal, I’d interfere, but a magazine? He deserves.

  AUNT THELMA: Aren’t you worried that if he gets away with that, he’ll try something worse next year?

  MOTHER: I’m more worried that if he finds that he can’t have that little corner of privacy at home, he’ll look somewhere else for it. Bumming around with bad kids or staying out all night, or trying to do something really secret and really bad. If it becomes something worse, I’ll step in.

  AUNT THELMA: Why don’t you just buy him the magazine?

  MOTHER: Because it’s not my place to give him permission to be a peeping tom into Playboy. Just because I let him doesn’t mean that I have to approve, does it? I don’t have to approve of everything he does, do I? And I have to save my hard disapproving for the bad things.

  AUNT THELMA: You would never have allowed Spencer to get away with such nonsense.

  MOTHER: Such nonsense he didn’t want. With him it was French postcards he bought in some novelty store on Broadway in New York. And it was under the drawer lining instead of under the mattress.

  SPENCER: You mean you knew I had those?

  MOTHER: Of course. If you were a little bit more tidy, Mother wouldn’t have had to straighten your drawers. I came running with them to your father, and he taught me. He said that you were trying privacy on for size, and if I didn’t let you have a little when you were little, and a little more later, I would be encouraging you to become a sneak. And Dad predicted that you would become very good at it, being a sneak. He convinced me, your father. So I wiped all my fingerprints off the bellies of those ladies and put them back under the drawer lining. (I heard the pages being flipped again.) I must say, though, that Mark seems to have better taste. These girls are better looking than the ones you had on the postcards.

  SPENCER: They didn’t publish that magazine nine years ago. There’s nothing wrong with my taste in women.

  MOTHER: Offended, he is.

  AUNT THELMA: Oh, yes. Offended. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I know someone who is going to be very offended about what happened in the locker room today.

  MOTHER: Who?

  (The phone rang just then and Mother answered. Oh, hello, Mrs. Polsky.)

  AUNT THELMA: That’s who.

  And I heard the door close as she left. I ran the water for my bath and didn’t hear anything more than the water and the sounds in my head reviewing the conversation that had just finished downstairs and comparing it with what Hersch had told me about Barry’s subscription. My mother may not have pronounced what she said as nicely as Mrs. Jacobs would have, but Mrs. Jacobs would never have said anything that nice. Sometimes I thought that Mrs. Jacobs should be more like my mother.

  Between the games on Tuesday and Friday sat Wednesday’s Hebrew lesson. Everyone was congratulating Barry on his great hit, which won the game for us. You would never have known that Hersch and I had also played in the game.

  “Well, Hersch,” I said as we walked down the corridor to class, “what did you do last Tuesday after supper?”

  “I was catcher in a terrific game of baseball,” he said. “Let me tell you about it. The game went ten innings, and I caught from first inning to last. What did you do?”

  Hersch’s tone told me; I fell into my German accent. “Nossing much. I alzo played in a game of baseball. My game vent ten inninks alzo. I got vun sinkle and drove in vun run. Vhere vas your game?”

  “It was at the Holy Child Playing Field. Where was yours, pray tell?”

  “Alzo at the Holy Chilt Playink Field. Funny, I got ze funny feelink zat ze only person zere vas Barry Jacobs.”

  “That’s strange. I had the same feeling. Do you suppose we could ever play with him?”

  “Velll…” I said as I stroked my chin.

  “Naw,” he answered. “We’re not in his league. We just happen to be on the same team.”

  And then we yukked until the rabbi said, “Gentlemen, if I may interrupt your discussion of Little League with a lesson about a few big leaguers like Moses and a different Aaron.” It was the rabbi who had a supreme gift for sarcasm. Like him calling us gentlemen.

  Hersch actually waited for me when class was over, and we began walking down the hall together.

  “Did your mother pick the tournament players yet?”

  “She vill zend to zem only Barry. Zat is as gut as hafink ze whole team from ze B’nai Bagels.”

  Hersch said, “Seriously, Mark, has she picked her players?”

  Hersch was done playing the sarcastic game, but I didn’t have sense enough to realize it. I felt terrible. Here I was on the verge of winning him back, and I was about to bollix up the whole thing, so I answered him straight. “I don’t know.”

  “C’mon now, if she picked them, you’d know.” He must have thought that I was still kidding around.

  “Honest, Hersch, I don’t know.”

  “I’ll bet you don’t. You just won’t tell.”

  “I’m telling the truth, Hersch. I don’t even know if she picked them or if she didn’t pick them. Let alone know who is and who is not.”

  “You trying to tell me that she didn’t talk it all over with you?”

  “Any time my mother wants to discuss baseball, it’s with my brother, and she sends me out of the room. I’ve been sent out of the room so often lately that I’ve worn a hole in the carpet.”

  “My parents used to send me out of the room a lot, too, but I’m breaking them of the habit. I think the best way to be is
like Barry’s folks. Barry’s parents tell him everything, discuss everything in front of him, and he tells them everything, too. Sometimes he tells me things they say, too. Like he told me that Mrs. Polsky called after last night’s game. She was real upset about Botts’ selling Sidney a look at Playboy.”

  “Yeah, I guess she’s easily upset.”

  “Barry said that Mrs. Polsky had to worm the information out of Sidney. Barry’s mother never has to worm information out of him. He can tell his mother everything without being afraid. I’ll bet you don’t tell your mother everything just because you’re afraid to.”

  “Of course I’m afraid to tell her some things. And some other things are just my own business. Like what happened to me with Botts. I have to keep separate what happens to me as a kid and what happens to me as the guy whose mother manages the team.”

  Hersch buzzed in on Botts. “What happened to you with Botts? Mrs. Polsky sure would be interested in finding out. She wants to get some goods on Botts.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Skip it.”

  “C’mon, Moshe. You can tell me. What did that Botts do? Was it about the magazine? Mrs. Polsky told Mrs. Jacobs that if she ever found that magazine around the Little League field again, she’d confiscate it as evidence.”

  “Evidence for what?”

  “I sure don’t know. Barry didn’t tell me that. He said that his mother talked to Mrs. Polsky a long time.”

  Hersch paused a minute and added, “That Botts sure is an operator. What did he ever do to you? Was it about the magazine?”

  “Only indirectly.”

  “C’mon, Moshe. Tell me. Please?”

  And like a dope, I told him. I just fell back into feeling buddies with Hersch again. It was the kind of talking we were doing. We used to do a lot of talking like that. That’s one of my big weaknesses: instant trust. That’s me: dehydrated friendship. Just add the proper amount of soothing waters, and I swell into the jolly green giant. Ho. Ho. Ho.

  Hersch said immediately, “You better tell your mother. Prejudiced guys like that shouldn’t be allowed on the team.”

  “I don’t want to tell my mother.”

  “You’re just chicken. You’re afraid.”

  “I am not afraid to tell. I just don’t want to. After all, you can’t kick a guy off the team for something he did in his own yard. I was telling you that it’s hard to keep separate what happens to me as a guy and what happens to me as a guy whose mother manages his team. It’s the overlaps that are hard.”

  “Overlaps? What do you mean?”

  “Overlaps,” I repeated. And then I heard the echo. Overlaps. I knew now what Spencer meant. Only his problem was keeping brother and coach separate, and mine was keeping son and player and brother and player separate. Come to think of it, I had twice what he did.

  “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Hersch offered. “I’ll tell Barry; he’s sure to tell his mother. His mother is sure to tell your mother. See? That way your mother finds out, and you haven’t squealed at all.”

  “You better not tell anyone. I mean anyone, Hersch.”

  “I sure am going to watch that Botts carefully from now on. One false move, or the first anti-Semitic word from him, and he’s out. I’m going to tell Barry to watch out, too. I won’t tell him what happened. I’ll just tell him to watch Botts.”

  I saw red. I saw purple. I got so mad, I saw red and purple tiger zigzags. “Don’t let Barry know anything. Don’t you dare! Don’t you even hint!”

  “What are you so excited about? Why are you covering up for a louse like Botts?”

  “I am not covering up. Gosh, Hersch, don’t you understand anything anymore? I told you about my awkward position. My telling would be worse than someone else’s telling. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “And I guess it’s right for a guy like that to be on the team and get all its benefits.”

  “It’s more like fair and unfair than right and wrong. I said that I wouldn’t tell my mother, and I won’t. Botts likes my mother. I’ll bet half the time he forgets she’s Jewish. Half the time is a start for him, don’t you think?”

  “You sure you’re not telling just because you’re afraid?”

  “Of course I’m not sure. I just can’t handle the overlaps. Promise that you won’t tell, Hersch. Not Barry. Not his mother. Not your mother. Not anyone.”

  Hersch raised his hand and said, “I do solemnly swear not to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about Franklin P. Botts.” He smiled, and it was the smile that he used to answer the door with at his old house. I knew he wouldn’t tell.

  So it happened that going into the last game of our season, we were tied with the Elks. By a miracle they had lost their last game. It wasn’t exactly a miracle; it was the virus. Two of their three great left handers had gotten it. Our last game would determine the league championship. It seems to me the reason last games that break a tie for championship happen so often in stories is that they happen so often in real life.

  By Friday the virus had left town. Everyone was better. Including Spencer. Including Simon. And including the two star left handers from the Elks. Mother was so nervous that she burnt the goulash.

  “What happened?” Spencer asked; he shouldn’t have.

  “Listen, Mr. Betty Crocker,” Mother said, “from Ford Frick you wouldn’t expect a perfect goulash.”

  “All I did was to ask what happened.”

  “It’s a confederacy,” Mother said.

  “You mean conspiracy,” Spencer corrected.

  “I said confederacy and I mean confederacy. There are two governments operating in this house. And that’s a confederacy.”

  Everyone was excited. It was open season on nerves, and we were suddenly a family of sopranos. Everyone’s voice was so high pitched that when I asked Spencer to pass the salt, he asked me why I was screaming, and I thought he was screaming as he asked me why I was screaming.

  This time Aunt Thelma met us at the game. She didn’t like walking too much; there was always so much equipment to carry. Even in low heels, she found it difficult. When she was golfing, she always used a golf cart. The crowd at the game was enormous. It was a sellout; that’s what it would have been called in the pros where they actually sell seats instead of passing a hat. Parents of the Elks and friends and parents of the other teams in the league came. Sidney Polsky’s tutor came. For Point Baldwin it was the seventh game of the World Series.

  Mother called the team together in the dugout. We all felt a lot, so she said very little. “The fact is, fellas,” she said, “that I really want to win this game. I’d say that winning this game would be the second nicest thing in the whole world. The first nicest would be to be able to say that we played hard and honest and up until the very last out. And the whole time we didn’t think with our feet.”

  Spencer smiled real big, which is unusual for Spencer. I often wonder if he got out of the habit when he had his braces. “You can do it, fellas,” he said. And then he gave us our batting order. #3, Burser (3b); #10, Botts (2b); #7, Jacobs (1b); #4, Sylvester (ss); #6, Hersch (c); #2, Mark (cf); #8, Sonefield (rf); #12, Polsky (lf); #5, Simon (p).

  Mother and Aunt Thelma had conferred and decided that letting Sidney start in a crucial game would be as beneficial to his development as losing weight had been.

  The game actually got under way five minutes early because everyone was so ready and so excited and the bleachers so full that no one, not even the umpires, could see any reason for not starting. Waiting around is a sure nervous-maker. There was no score at all in the first three innings. And then we went ahead in the fourth. Hersch had struck out. I was next at bat and I got a single, which swelled to a double because their right fielder couldn’t pick the ball up fast enough. To be able to get a hit in a pinch like that makes a guy feel like he invented success. Sonefield struck out, but Sidney got a single. His tutor cheered; his mother did everything but pass out cigars. Simon drove everything home with a high fly ball
, which the Elks would have caught if they had not caught the jitters instead. None of the Bagels minded Burser’s out because we were feeling good and comfortable; a three run lead can give you that good and comfortable feeling.

  Temporarily.

  The Elks chewed our lead down to two runs in the fifth inning. Mother noticed that Simon was tiring, and she went out on the mound to talk to him. The umpire stopped Aunt Thelma halfway there; Aunt Thelma looked deprived.

  With our two run lead and Simon getting tired, Mother wanted to build up our lead in the bottom of the fifth. Botts was lead-off batter and got a double. Barry was up next, and Mother signalled for him to bunt; he took a good swing at the ball. The signal for bunting was for Mother to rub her nose and scratch her ear. Mother rubbed, and Mother scratched. Barry swung at one ball after another. He went out swinging: A, B, C; strike, strike, strike. Sylvester’s hit advanced Botts to third, but both were left stranded because Hersch hit into a double play. So we finished the fifth inning by not improving our lead. It was obvious, though, that we would have had one more run if Barry had bunted because then Sylvester’s hit would have given Botts passage home. Mother spoke to Barry when he came out of the batter’s box. No one could hear what she was saying, but it wasn’t necessary. She was doing great imitations of herself rubbing her nose and scratching her ear. Barry looked over at his mother while my mother was talking to him. Then he smiled, shrugged his shoulders at his mother, and walked to the dugout. I don’t think I’ve ever disliked a guy so bad. Much, much worse than when he called her Old Lady Bagel.

  The leftovers of Simon’s virus must have caught up with him in the sixth inning. He didn’t seem to have the strength to finish his practice pitches. And then. And then he gave up the two runs that the Elks needed to tie up the game.

  The bottom of the sixth and the bottom of our batting order. Me, first, then Sonefield and Polsky. I took the signal from Mother, swung and missed. Then I got three balls right in a row before I began hitting a long series of foul balls, which at least had the virtue of tiring their pitcher; he was beginning to lose stuff. I looked up at Mother for the little bubble of encouragement she usually gave us guys at bat, but she wasn’t there. And then we all heard the noise, and the umpire called time out.