One of These Days

The building was a tinderbox, especially in the dog days of summer. The oppressive heat, the close quarters, and the strain of trying to make ends meet pushed people to the brink of violence. Was there ever a night when a tenant didn’t wish for thicker walls, when he wasn’t tainted by the bad blood in a neighboring apartment?

Ralph lives and dies with the Dodgers, and he’s spent the better part of the last month dying. Thirteen games in front and it looks like a lock. Then it’s down to eight and it looks like anything but. Durocher and company keep reeling off wins and the Dodgers play like they miss being called bums. The slide takes its toll: Ralph is even more irritable than usual, he’s taking potshots at Alice with greater frequency and greater gusto. After one particularly devastating loss he stops at a luncheonette and picks up his very first pack of cigarettes. His uniform reeks; it takes only two days to burn a small hole in the lapel. If nothing else he figured it would curb his appetite but no such luck: he’s eating like there’s no tomorrow, even if everything tastes vaguely of smoke. After 154 games the Dodgers and Giants end up in a flat-footed tie, meaning that the National League pennant will be decided in a playoff and that Ralph is left dangling on a hook for at least two more days. Brooklyn drops the opener at home, which is even worse than it sounds because the next two are at the Polo Grounds. But with their backs to the wall the Dodgers win game two in a rout. Ralph’s elation is tempered by the thought that they should have saved some of those runs for tomorrow, which he’s seriously thinking of spending in a bar. He’ll call in sick like thousands of others; you don’t need a doctor to predict a citywide epidemic. But he’s torn like always, afraid of the repercussions, afraid of Alice and Mr. Marshall. He rehearses in a voice that betrays varying degrees of infirmity, running the gamut from it’s really nothing to you’d better get a priest. He floats an earache, the flu, food poisoning, pneumonia, and even whooping cough as potential excuses. But no matter how he plays it, he comes down with a bad case of the jitters. At one point he holds an imaginary receiver to his ear and hears himself say that he wouldn’t be coming to fever today because he had the work. The sentence gets stuck in his head and spooks every utterance thereafter, which all but clinches his decision. In the morning he leaves his apartment carrying his lunch pail, a transistor, and a good sized chip on his shoulder. As two o’clock nears, he wishes he were driving up Flatbush Avenue instead of Madison. He’d like to be in his home borough, swaddled in empathy, at the helm of a bus crammed with Dodger fans. The first four innings produce little but anxiety. Ralph finds himself taking his eyes off the road to stare intently at the radio, it gives him a modicum of control that would be relinquished by merely listening. Brooklyn finally pushes across a run in the fifth, but the Giants come back to tie it in the seventh. Ralph blurts out an expletive that offends an elderly woman sitting next to the door.

Watch your language, she says.

Ralph offers a glare instead of an apology.

Are you allowed to play that radio?

His entire life with Alice’s mother passes before him. Up goes the volume.

Would you please turn that down.

Ralph decides to have a little fun.

What?

I said turn that down.

I can’t hear you.

She stands up and pulls hard on the cord, indignant to beat the band.

I want to get off this bus.

Oh, you’re getting off all right.

He pulls over to the curb, opens the doors.

Have a nice day.

The sarcasm...