The reporter’s voice shakes as he reads the late-breaking bulletin: “It appears that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg have reached the end of their appeal process in the eleventh hour before their execution, as moments ago the office of President Dwight Eisenhower issued this statement: ‘The President has read the letter of the defendant Ethel Rosenberg. He states that in his conviction it adds nothing to the issues covered in his statement of this afternoon.’ ”
Mom slams the table, sending the napkins flying out of the holder. The giraffe salt shaker falls on his nose. “I’m ashamed for the whole country. It’s a mockery of our judicial system. Shame, shame, shame.” She clicks off the radio. “I don’t want to hear a blow-by-blow when they march them down to the death chamber.”
I still haven’t shaken off the gloom of this afternoon’s silent vigil, mixed with the sad conversation with Amy Lynn. And now that sad feeling morphs again, and I’m pumped full of a rage so wide and deep that I want to tear down the checkered curtains, hurl the toaster out the window, pull up floor boards with my bare hands. I want to race up to school and grab Coach Earlywine by the neck and . . .
I gotta get out of the house and flex some muscles or I’ll explode like a bomb. That’s creepy, since the Rosenberg’s are dying because of A-bomb secrets.
A basketball has rolled down the driveway and is lodged in the wet gutter next to the FBI car. Milgrim and Kluski are listening to the countdown on their car radio. I toe the dripping ball up into my hands. My shots leave the rim shaking violently, hit or miss. This one for the judge who sentenced them. This shot for Truman, who denied clemency last year. One for Ike, who said no twice today. Another one for the Sing Sing guy who’ll be tripping the switch. I’m breathing like I’ve run a mile, panting, gasping for air between shots, then firing that ball like I could kill the goal. Kill it.
I sense someone coming up behind me, but I don’t turn around because I’m planning to blindside whoever it is by ramming that ball at him until his guts spill. I hope it’s Milgrim. Kluski would be my second choice.
But it’s Connor. “You’re missing three out of every four.”
“So? Can you do better?” I jam the ball into his roll of fat. His arms close around it. He stretches, lines up, eyes the rim, positions his feet, toes the line, flexes his shooting arm, rolls his shoulders, dribbles three times, eyeballs the goal again, takes a deep breath, shoots—and falls short of the basket by a foot.
“Out of practice,” Connor mutters.
“Gimme the ball.” Suddenly I’m hot. It doesn’t matter where I stand, how far I am from the goal. I just keep hurling that ball up toward the basket like it’s magnetized, and every shot sinks, whoosh, without even banking off the backboard. That old adrenaline thing, I guess.
I mutter, “You know what’s happening, probably right now?”
“Julius and Ethel, yeah.”
We don’t talk for a while. We dribble and shoot, him missing more than he sinks.
Connor says, “Too bad about the Pirates finishing in last place in the league.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“Okay, this. Where’s my head been since the whole commie thing started? I’m real sorry I’ve been such a jerk.”
Slam against the backboard. Whoosh, practically ripping the net. “Jerk doesn’t cover it. And you know what? You’ve got no arm, so why did Coach play you at short? You’re sure no Phil Rizzuto.”
“Wait. That’s hittin’ below the belt.” Connor intercepts the ball and bounces it, then hugs it to his chest. “It’s just the times, Marty, all that Cold War yak and everybody seeing red, you know?”
“I don’t know. Anyway, we had lots of years before all this stuff started happening.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking. Remember the Kansas City road trip to see Mickey Mantle? You and me and my dad talking baseball two hundred miles each way?”
I tuck the ball under my arm, wiping sweat on the shoulder of my T-shirt. “Get this straight, Connor. I wouldn’t even go to a dog fight with your father.”
“Hey, whaddaya got against my old man?”
I hear the telephone voice in my head again: Pack up quick and ride that Red Rail right out of town . . .
“Nothin,’ Connor. Nothin’ I can prove.”
“What’s that s’posed to mean?” He starts dribbling the ball in a tight circle. “He’s my only dad. What can I do? Your dad’s not such a bargain, either.”
I snatch the ball away from him and kick it from foot to foot, like the Harlem Globetrotters. I want to say, Lay off my father, he’s a real decent guy, but I think about his question and before I know it, the words are out of my mouth. “Here’s what you can do. Turn out different.”
Another impressive whoosh, this one for Michael Rosenberg.
He waits a long time before answering. “I sort of get what you’re saying, Marty.”
Whoosh, one for Robert Rosenberg.
Connor says, “You hear about the Red Sox-Tigers game yesterday? World records, man. Seventh inning, Boston sends up twenty-three batters, and seventeen of ’em score runs. Sammy White gets three himself. Fourteen hits, and that rookie outfielder, Gene Stephens? He ends up the only American League guy to get three hits in the same inning. Red Sox trounce Detroit twenty-three to three.”
“If it’s not the Yankees, and Mantle’s not playing, I’m not interested.” I’m not giving Connor a drop of satisfaction, although I’m pretty snowed by the stats on that game. I hurl the ball into Connor’s belly. “Shoot!” I growl through clenched teeth.
He shoots and misses.
I grab it on the rebound and dribble up and down the driveway like Luke used to do, and bag an amazing shot from this side of Milgrim and Kluski. Sends the rim boing-ing like it’s been knocked out in a fight. Kluski nearly falls out of the car admiring that maneuver.
A few more shots. We’re both bagging them left and right.
Then he goes and breaks the charm. “So, uh, about commencement next year. I’m thinking we oughta blow our bugles together, like we used to. Sounded dumb doing it alone this year.”
“Nope, no more bugle-blowing for me, Connor. Luke and I had a big talk about it.”
He shrugs his shoulders, trying to figure it out, but I’m not giving him any more clues. Too personal, the stuff Luke told me. Man, I still can’t believe he trusted me up on that tower. Was it thinking about his family, about Wendy, and about Carrie growing up without him, that gave Luke the courage to follow me down those zillion steps to face the stuff that’s haunting him? Man, if he could do that, anybody could.
Something catches my eye, something shimmery in the window, backlit behind the checkered curtains. I make out the fireplug form of Bubbie and Mom and Dad flanking her. Bubbie has a handkerchief covering her hair. Her hands are cupped over two flickering candles. She gathers the flame toward her. Her lips and Mom’s move with the prayer.
Nearly sundown here. It’s all over, there.
Robby and Michael. Wonder what it feels like to go to sleep having parents, and wake up as the most famous orphans in America? I don’t ever want to know.
Connor looks at his watch. “It’s done, isn’t it?”
All I can do is nod.
“I guess things change, huh?”
Man, do they ever. I pass the ball to him with more style than vengeance, and when he rushes forward to catch it, his Pirates ball cap flies off and lands in a gutter puddle.
“Aw, man!” he bellows, and I laugh till my stomach aches and I feel a little of the anger hissing out of me.
Afterward, dripping with sweat, we turn on the hose for a drink, and he says, “Buddies?”
“Not so quick.”
“Maybe next week?”
“I’ll let you know.”