The phone is ringing like crazy. I’m ninety-seven percent sure it’s not Connor calling. I snap the phone up on the sixth bounce.
“This the Rafners?” The man’s voice is familiar, but I can’t place it. It’s kind of muffled, like he’s trying to disguise it, the way they hold a handkerchief over the mouthpiece in the movies. “Feeling good about all the commies in your house?”
“Sir?” I glub down a huge lump in my throat. “Who is this?”
“A friendly word of advice.” He doesn’t sound at all friendly. “Pull down the ladder to the attic, the one right over your head.”
How does he know we’ve got an attic ladder in our front hall? And who is this guy?
“Get down a steamer trunk and start packing.”
My heart’s hammering. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“Sure you are, if you know what’s good for you. Julius and Ethel didn’t skip the country to Mother Russia fast enough before the feds nabbed ’em. So, my advice? Pack up quick and ride that Red Rail right outta town. Because if you don’t, there’s plenty of patriotic Americans with loaded shotguns right here in Palmetto who’ll be more’n happy to speed you along.” Clunk. Dial tone.
“Dad!” I barge into his office, shaking down to my toes.
He’s tilted back in the swivel chair behind the desk. The chair squeaks, which makes my teeth feel scritchy.
“Sorry to bother you, Dad. It’s this creepy phone call I just got.”
“I’ve been getting them, too, here and at my office on campus.”
“Think we should tell the FBI guys across the street?”
“There’s no need to,” Dad says hoarsely. “They listen in on every call in and out of this house. We’re under siege, do you understand?”
Yeah, I understand all right. The anger trickles up my spine and pumps hot loads of understanding into my head. Feels like a noose is tightening around my neck, and the floor’s about to drop out from under me, and I wonder again, is hanging any better than electrocution? Did they give the Rosenbergs a choice? My hands are shaking. I ram them in my pockets and beat a path out of Dad’s office like my heels are on fire.
Standing here at the window makes me look like a complete drip, but there’s Amy Lynn across the street, and she’s got her legs propped up the wall of Luke’s house. She told me she’d be reading Mad Magazine to Luke, to see if she could appeal to his funny bone. If he still has one. Amy Lynn tilts her head back and waves to me over her shoulder. Luke’s as still as a department store dummy.
Gotta pull myself away from the window. The radio’s blaring an obnoxious commercial for Colgate Chlorophyll Toothpaste, which Mom refuses to buy ever since they started putting chlorophyll in dog food to improve doggie breath.
Yankees against the Indians. Cleveland’s third-baseman Al Rosen is the man to watch, if you take your eyes off the Mick for a sec. Man, Rosen is batting .336, which, as Bubbie Sylvia says, “isn’t bad for a nice Jewish boy.”
The thing about radio is that you see and smell and taste every detail of the game—with your ears. Mel Allen pours it all into mine. No game is complete until some pitcher throws a gopher ball to a Yankee slugger, and Mel Allen yells, Going, going, gone!
Now I hear the pre-game roar of the crowd and see thousands of hepped-up fans packed into Yankee Stadium. I suck in the smell of hot peanuts when bags fly past me down the bleacher line. There’s the mighty smack of the ball in my glove, because tonight I am the catcher warming up Eddie Lopat, who’ll be pitching for New York. I’m telling you, I am there, even if I’m invisible to Connor and all the guys on my team. Ex-team.
Mr. Sokolov will be here to listen to me struggle through my lousy Hebrew pronunciation in twenty minutes, so I don’t want to miss a single minute of the game till then. But I can’t help thinking, It’s only a game, only a game, and there will be lots of other ones.
Before I can chicken out, I pull the plug, open the back of the Philco, and jerk out a wire. Screw the radio together, pick it up, still warm, and take it across the street.
I don’t tell Luke anything directly. I just belly-ache to Amy Lynn, “Stupid radio went out on me, at the worst possible time. Man, I missed the opening pitch. I am so ticked, I’m tossing this piece of junk in the trash.”
Amy Lynn rolls over on her stomach as I wrap the cord around the radio with vengeance, choking it to death.
And like magic, Luke says, “Lemme . . . have . . . a . . . look.”
He’s got it fixed in minutes. You can bet there’s gonna be a whopping entry about this in my Luke box scores.
Turns out the Mick went hitless against Cleveland, probably because I wasn’t listening. Can’t win ’em all.