“This is Josh,” Braun said. “He was once the finest ballplayer anyone knew in North or South Omaha.” The boys clustered by the door now that Braun moved inside. “Tell them,” Braun said. “They don’t believe me.”
The man, Josh, laughed to himself, then snapped a rag at the boys. “Don’t listen to Emil. He’s a bullshitter. A certified bullshitter.”
Braun crouched to joke with the man. They shook hands so Braun could pass along some coins in charity to Josh, just Josh, who once ruled the Whites-versus-Negroes series they played in Rourke Park on the Fourth of July, a cripple now who used to sweet-talk a screwball and blister Braun’s thumbs when they both still played. Josh was a big deal here in his neighborhood. Everyone on the Northside came to talk to and honor Josh with their respects; to hear how things used to be and argue if they were better off ten, fifteen years ago, than they were now; to learn how Josh gripped a baseball to throw a two-seam sinker or a forkball or his famous screwball. He’d show any boy the grip if the boy said he dreamed of being a great pitcher, though few had hands large enough to palm the ball the way Josh could. Emil Braun came up here to pay his respects too, to talk to a man he considered a friend, even though Braun didn’t exactly belong up here on the Northside.
“I was a Southsider,” Braun told the boys, “a second bagger. You believe that? I was good.”
“No, he was not,” the man laughed. “He was not good.”
“Eh,” Braun said. “Easy for you to say.”
Karel tried to listen, but he couldn’t follow. Instead he crept near a doorway to look in on the woman. She mixed sand-like spices in a bowl, aromatic and strong, spices that burned his nose, which was maybe why the woman wore the kerchief over her mouth. Karel didn’t want to think what might be under the kerchief. A meat cleaver stuck from a wooden block within her reach, blood-heavy around the blade. “What are you doing to the meat?” Karel asked. She didn’t answer.
Braun pulled Karel back. “This one never played baseball. He’s fresh off the boat.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah. Tell him something, Josh. I brought him to meet you. He should meet the best.”
Karel didn’t know what to say as Braun nudged him close to Josh. He’d never seen a black person up close and wasn’t so sure he wanted to, there in the dark of the shack. The smell of shoe polish, the rendering from the stove room. Karel leaned in. He felt he couldn’t help leaning, the others heavy behind him. Josh stared back, his eyes brown and orange.
“You were a ballplayer?”
“Hurler, kid. I was the hurler.”
Josh pulled a baseball from his leather kit, one of a few there, and tossed it in the air to distract himself, higher each time, until it skimmed the ceiling.
Karel glanced to where the man’s legs were missing and wondered how that happened. Was it an accident during a game, like Karel’s chipped tooth? But much, much worse? Was he sucked into some slaughterhouse apparatus? Did he fall from a boxcar? The ends of his pants were damp where the stumps were, spotted with blood and yellow.
“Yes, kid. I was the best there was.”
Josh’s hands clawed over the baseball’s skin. He roughed up the thread. The ball spun and spun, stopping only when he changed grips. Two fingers uncoiled to fork over the red seams, then together in salute along one. His thumb dealt back and forth to spin the bottom. His palm over the whole ball. Massive hands with pink insides and nails where they weren’t blacked with Shinola. “You want to be a ballplayer?” he asked. “Maybe a hurler like I was.”
“Yeah.”
“Take this.” Josh arched the ball across the room, soft, so Karel, sucking his lips to protect his mouth, could trap it against his belly. “You want to be a ballplayer, carry a ball with you. Toss it. Get a feel. Squeeze the thing if you want to. Just know about it.”
Karel took the baseball with both hands to glance it over. The cover browned, a fingerprint here and there in polish. The seams were rough and scuffed his thumb. This was his ball. He’d carry it in his back pocket like Josh told him to.
Braun put his hand on Karel’s shoulder then crouched down to look at the ball. “You want to know about Josh? Should I tell you? Do you want to know where his legs went?”
“Shit,” Josh objected. “Don’t start in, Emil. This has got nothing to do with that. I’m trying to help this boy, like you asked me to.”
“Josh enlisted. He volunteered! Was a buffalo soldier. You know what that means, boys? He left his legs on San Juan Hill, that’s what. Gave both legs for Cuba’s freedom. A fine thing to do, yeah? I won’t quibble with a man who gives up the prime of his own life for others to be free. But what did he get out of the deal? Where did he end up?”
“Don’t insult me. Don’t come here and bring up bad things.”
“I’m not! My friend. It isn’t your fault. It’s Teddy Roosevelt’s fault. A sick game aristocrats play, one designed to destroy good men like you. Woodrow Wilson does it too, now that he’s been reelected. He’s found a new war. Every ruler craves war to destroy the lives of common men.”
“Don’t put me down. Not in front of your boys. Why’d you bring them anyway?”
“I’m not! You don’t understand.”
“Go on, boys. Get on out of here so I can talk to Emil. Okay? Go on.”
Braun put an arm across the doorway. “You boys know I love him, yeah? You can see?”
“Go on,” Josh repeated. He slid around on his backside to wave Braun away. “This is my house.”
Braun stayed to plead his case as Karel and the boys rushed to the main avenue, where a streetcar line ran. The rails and electric wires led the safest route to downtown.
The boys hurried, but not as fast as they might have the days before this one. If someone stopped them, asked what they were doing up here where they didn’t belong, they had an answer. They’d been with a friend, Josh Whatshisname, the greatest Negro ballplayer there ever was. Karel had a baseball to prove it. Josh’s thumbprint right there on the cowhide.
Once they reached Clandish, Karel slipped off to Maria Eigler’s for supper. He wasn’t the only one. All along Clandish front doors opened and slammed, folks headed in for the evening, home from work, home from school, just home, no explanation needed. Smoke curled from chimneys. Light leached from windows to color walkways gold. Even though the sun was nearly set and the wet wind blew hard from Europe, Karel wasn’t cold. The excitement of having friends kept him warm. These weren’t the musicians his father knew, they weren’t his sisters. They were boys. Troublemakers. At supper he wouldn’t tell what he’d been up to all day. That he’d been to the Northside wasn’t something his family needed to know, or that he’d been inside a tenement, or where he got this baseball from. He wouldn’t have to tell these things to stop his sisters from teasing him. They’d see on his face that he’d been running with the boys.
He was capable of trouble too.
He wasn’t far from home when the bully spotted him.
“Hey! You’re friends with the Braun kid, yeah?”