On the hottest day of the summer Roy and his friend Elmo Rubinsky played Fast Ball at the schoolyard. It was a two man game, one pitching, one batting, exchanging places after three outs in an inning. The pitcher threw to a box marked in chalk on a brick wall; this was the strike zone. Lines were drawn in the gravel on the ground behind the pitcher; a ball hit past him on the fly was a single, past the first line was a double, against the fence was a triple, over the fence a home run. Foul lines were drawn on both sides of the field. The pitcher called balls and strikes; often, if the batter protested a call, it didn’t count and the pitcher had to throw it again.
After their game was over, the boys were exhausted and dehydrated, so they staggered over to the Standard gas station two blocks away to buy bottles of cold Nehi soda pop for a nickel apiece from a machine inside the station waiting room. Elmo had won the game that day largely due to his use of what he called his “back up” pitch, which looked to the batter like a fast ball but appeared to slow down—or back up—after the batter had already begun his swing, causing him to pop up the ball or miss it entirely.
Elmo drank half a dozen grape sodas and Roy half a dozen orange. The sports section of that morning’s Tribune was on a table in the waiting room where Roy and Elmo sat on wooden folding chairs draining Nehis from the bottles. Roy examined the box scores from the previous day’s major league baseball games and saw that a rookie on the San Francisco Giants named Willie McCovey had made his debut by going four for four, hitting two triples and two singles. This was the first game of what turned out to be McCovey’s hall of fame career.
Across the street from the gas station was a synagogue and when the boys looked out the window of the waiting room they saw that a crowd was gathering on the sidewalk in front of the steps leading to the entrance. After they had finished the last of their bottles of pop, Roy and Elmo left the station and went across the street to find out what was going on.
“We’re waitin’ for George Burns to arrive,” said a kid. “The rabbi here died and his funeral is today. George Burns was his brother and he’s supposed to be comin’ in from New York or Hollywood for the burial.”
George Burns was a famous comedian. He and his wife, Gracie Allen, had acted in many movies and currently had a popular television show. The crowd had gathered not necessarily out of respect for the deceased rabbi but to see if it was true that George Burns was his brother and that he would show up for the funeral. Most of the people waiting around were not Jewish and had never been inside the synagogue nor did they even know the name of George Burns’s brother. Elmo asked a man what the rabbi’s name was and he said, “Birnbaum. George’s real name is Nathan Birnbaum. He changed it to George Burns because he was in show business, because of anti-Semitism. He didn’t want people to know he was a Jew.”
The crowd surged to the curb as a long, black limousine pulled over and stopped. The driver got out, came around the car and opened the curbside rear passenger door. George Burns got out, holding a big cigar in his right hand. He was a very small man; he smiled and waved. He wore glasses and a bad toupée. People shouted his name over and over and shouted, “Where’s Gracie?” Everyone was genuinely excited to see that it really was the famous comedian.
George Burns and his brother had grown up in New York City. They were from a poor family that lived on the Lower East Side. Nathan had become an entertainer when he was very young, beginning his career in vaudeville, eventually changing his name and moving to Hollywood. Some people in the crowd tried to get his autograph but his chauffeur pushed through the throng clearing a path ahead of the comedian and the two of them went up the steps of the synagogue and disappeared inside. Two police cars drove up and parked behind the limousine. Two uniformed cops got out of each car and waded into the crowd, telling people to move away from the synagogue entrance.
Nobody left; they were determined to wait until George Burns came out so they could see him smile and wave his cigar at them again. A black hearse pulled up and stopped in the middle of the street. Roy and Elmo crossed the street to get away from the people pushing and shoving one another in order to be in better positions to watch the mourners leave for the cemetery. More cars came and parked in a line behind the hearse.
Two mechanics from the gas station came out from the garage and stood on the sidewalk with Roy and Elmo. The name patches on their coveralls were Rip and Don.
“I didn’t know George Burns was a Jew,” said Rip.
“I like his wife on the show,” said Don. “She’s always getting’ things mixed up and he stands around holdin’ a big cigar and explains what she said.”
“I know a guy named Bill Burns,” Rip said. “He’s a Lutheran.”
Roy and Elmo did not wait to see George Burns come back out. They were walking to Elmo’s house when he said, “What if George Burns changed his name back to Birnbaum now? He’s sixty years old or older and famous, not just starting out, so he shouldn’t be worried about anti-Semites preventing him from getting work. Everyone knows who George Burns is, right? Everyone in the entertainment business knows he’s a Jew. So do his fans.”
“Rip, the grease monkey at the Standard station, didn’t know.”
“It would be an important statement against anti-Semitism, I think,” said Elmo.
“You should write him a letter,” Roy said, “and tell him that.”
When the boys got to the house Elmo’s father was in the gangway digging up dirt around his tomato plants. Elmo told him his idea and that Roy had suggested he write to George Burns. Big Sol Rubinsky owned a salvage business on the south side of Chicago and had fought in the Pacific with the Marines during World War II.
“Them guys don’t think like that,” he said. “You’d just be wastin’ a stamp.”
The next day Roy read in the Sun-Times that George Burns had been in town for his brother’s funeral. The article said that due to personal differences the brothers had not talked to or seen each other in many years. When asked the reasons for their estrangement, George Burns was quoted as saying the only difference between them was that his brother did not smoke cigars.