of stairs. But he has seen his father lift and hoist with much bigger men.
'Which one's in there?'
'Rosie.'
'Washing up a storm.'
'The way she does homework. To the last ounce.'
'Finishes what she starts, that girl.'
It bothers Cotter in some lurking way, to sit here with his father talking about Rosie while they hear her in the shower. Just then the water stops.
'Because I need to take a leak, you see.'
'Super wants to talk to you.'
'He's a yard dog. Pay no mind.'
'How come he knows us if he just got here?'
'Maybe we're famous, you and me. Two hombres that they put out the word these guys be mighty tough.'
Cotter relaxes a little. He thinks maybe this is going to be all right. The man is feeling no pain as they say and there's something he can get from his father that he can't get from his mother.
Manx calls out, 'Rosie baby. Your daddy needs to use the fa-cil-i-tees.'
They hear a smothered word or two and then she goes across the hall barefoot in a towel and Manx stands and hitches his pants and clicks his tongue and walks out of the room.
Cotter thinks without knowing it, without preparing the thought- he sees Bill Waterson on Eighth Avenue with his jacket bunched in his hand. He picks up the baseball and looks at it and puts it down. His father is taking a king leak. You don't usually hear anything but the shower in there and noises from the pipes but his father is taking a leak that is the all-time king. It is quickly becoming funny, the time span and force of the leak, and Cotter wishes his brothers were here so they could all be amazed together.
He comes back in and sits down. He's still wearing his jacket, a corduroy windbreaker that used to belong to Randall, speaking of brothers.
'There now. We feeling better.'
'How'd you like to write a letter for me? I need it for school,' Cotter says.
'Oh yeah? That says what?'
'That says I missed a day due to illness.'
'Dear so-and-so.'
'That's right. Like that.'
'Please excuse my son.'
'That's the way.'
'Due to he was ill.'
'Tell them it was a fever.'
'How feverish'd you get?'
'Say one hundred ought to do it.'
'We don't want to be too modest. If we're gonna do this thing.'
'Okay. As he had a fever of a hundred and two.'
'Of course you look to me like you're in the pink.'
'Recovering nicely, thanks.'
'Except what's that on your sweater?'
'I don't know. Burrs.'
'Burrs. This here's Harlem. What kind of burrs?'
'I don't know. I guess I get around.'
'And where did you get around to that you missed a day of school?'
'I went to the game.'
'The game.'
'At the Polo Grounds. Today.'
'You were at that game?' Manx says. 'That made that fuss in the streets?'
'That's nothing. I was there is nothing. I got the ball he hit.'
'No, you didn't. What ball?'
'The home run that won the pennant,' Cotter says softly, a little reluctantly, because it is such an astounding thing to say and he is awed for the first time, saying it.
'No, you didn't.'
'I chased it down and got it.'
'Lying to my face,' Manx says.
'Not a lie. I got the ball. Right here.'
'Know what you are?' Manx says.
Cotter reaches for the ball.
'You're a stick that makes a noise once in a while.'
Cotter looks at him. He sits in the lower bunk with his back to the wall, looking out at the man on the opposite bed. Then he picks up the baseball, he takes it off the khaki blanket where it is sunk beside his thigh. He holds it out, he spins it on the tips of his fingers. He holds it high in his right hand and uses the other hand to spin it. He doesn't give a damn, He sports it, he shows it off. He feels anger and bluster come into his face.
'Are you being straight-lip with me?'
Cotter does a little razzle, shaking the ball in his hand like it's too magical to hold steady-it's giving him palsy and making his eyes pop. He's doing it nasty and mad, staring down his old man.
'Hey. Are you being straight-up with your dad?'
'Why would I lie?'
'Okay. Why would you? You wouldn't.'
'No reason for it.'
'All right. No reason. I can see that. Who else you tell?'
'Nobody.'
'You didn't tell your mother?'
'She'd tell me give it back.'
Manx laughs. Puts his hands on his knees and peers at Cotter, then rocks back laughing.
'Damn yes. She'd march you up to the ballpark so you could give it back.'
Cotter doesn't want to go too far with this. He knows the worst trap in the world is taking sides with his father against his mother. He has to be careful every which way, saying this and doing that, but the most careful thing of all is stick by his mother. Otherwise he's dead.
'All right. So what do we want to do? Maybe we go up to the ballpark in the morning and show them the ball. We bring your ticket stub so at least they see you were at the game and sitting in the right section. But who do we ask for? Which door we go to? Maybe seventeen people show up saying this one's the ball, no this one's the ball, I got it, I got it, I got it.'
Cotter is listening to this.
'Who pays attention to us? They see two coloreds from nowhere. They gonna believe some colored boy snatch the ball out of them legions in the crowd?' Manx pauses here, maybe waiting to hear an idea develop in his head. 'I believe we need to write a letter. Yeah. We write you a letter for school and then we write us both a letter and send it to the ball club.'
Cotter is listening. He watches his father lapse into private thought, into worries and plots.
'What are we saying in this letter?'
'We send it registered. Yeah, give it the extra touch. We send it with your ticket stub.'
'What are we saying?'
'We offering the ball for sale. What else we possibly be saying?'
Cotter wants to get up and look out the window. He feels closed in and wants to be alone doing nothing but watching the street from the window.
'I don't want to sell it. I want to keep it.'
