The New York Read Online Free Page B

and sell tofu to the movie stars buying up New Mexico.
    I thought my way through a half-can of beer and I saw the truth of things. I didn’t want to let go. Not yet. Just let me hang on one more time. Go out on the mound in the seventh and hear the crowd and see the sharp faces on those shiny young batters. Be part of the parade. Let me feel it again. Hell, George, I’d pay you, and you know it, you son of a bitch. You know it.

3
    Miss Viola Foster is a middle-aged lady of grace and style who was really too good for a crude turd like George Bremenhaven. She gave me a nice smile when I opened the door to the suite and said it was nice to see me, as though she meant it. She took me into the inner sanctum and asked me if I wanted coffee, and I said no. I said it automatically because I was staring at Sam, the clubhouse manager.
    Sam was inherited by George from the previous owners of the Yankees. Sam is in charge of equipment, packing, shipping, seeing we get our supplies of uniforms, bats, and balls, and all the other necessary little jobs that let ball players concentrate on important things, like their hangnails and navels.
    I bet Sam had never been in George’s midtown office before.
    The office is on the thirtieth floor of the sandy-colored building just below Grand Central Station on Park Avenue. It was a nice morning for it, whatever “it” was going to be. The men loped along the sidewalks playing their briefcases against their knees like tambourines and the ladies had that crisp autumn look that takes over the city in October and hangs on smartly until it snows.
    â€œHey, Sam,” I said. He nodded at me and said nothing. Sam never wastes a word when a silence is better.
    George came around his fat rosewood desk like a maitre d’ and grabbed my hand. I expected to be shown a table, but instead he led me to a stuffed leather chair opposite Sam and indicated I should sit. I sat and the leather squeaked as I settled in.
    â€œFirst, I trust you, Ryan “
    I waited for the next shoe.
    â€œSecond, I been talking to Sam here about assuming extra duties next season. We’re all going to have to pull our oars together to get this thing done.”
    â€œPull our oars,” I repeated.
    â€œShoulder to the wheel,” George said.
    â€œOne or the other,” I said.
    George said, “Sam, talk to him.”
    Sam looked at George with a miserable expression. Anyone in the clubhouse knew that Sam hated George Bremenhaven almost more than the players. This was an instinctive class thing on Sam’s part. His name is Sam Ortiz and when he was twelve he was picking strawberries in California and he and his migrant folks were living in ten-by-ten unheated shacks on the edges of the big helds. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sam was a Communist, except Mexicans tend not to be, in my experience.
    â€œGo ahead,” George said with that grim little look on his puffy fat face. His lips get so tight they almost disappear.
    So the next thing, Sam turns to me and says in Spanish:
    â€” This cocksucking son of a whore wants me to test you on your Spanish. He calls me in the middle of the night and he says to me I have to talk Spanish to you to see if you can speak Spanish to me. What in the name of God is this about?
    â€” I don’t know, Sam (I replied in Spanish). Four days ago, he says he wants to keep me around for another year because I speak Spanish and now he wants to test me. Why don’t we ask him?
    â€” Good idea.
    â€œGeorge,” I said in English. “What the hell is this about?”
    â€œWhat did you say to each other?”
    â€œI asked him if he still fucks chickens and he said I had a venereal disease, he could see it in my eyes,” I said.
    â€œIs that what you said? What kind of a thing is that to say?”
    â€œWhat do you want us to do, George? Dance the Mexican hat dance? Sing La Cucaracha?”
    â€œI wanna know you know how to speak