Swimming Across the Hudson by Joshua Henkin Page B

father had once had a subnormal fever; he placed the thermometer on top of the radiator so that it would look as though histemperature had risen and he could go to school. Colds went away, he reminded us. Mind over matter.
    In Riverside Park he played baseball with us, and explained the physics of a swing and how a pitcher could achieve maximum velocity.
    â€œStep into the ball,” he said. “Think about physics.”
    But I wasn’t interested in physics. I was interested in playing for the New York Mets. In the park, as the sun began to set and the pigeons fluttered above us while my father hit us grounders, I could smell beer and peanuts. I pretended I was Tommie Agee and my father, in left field, was Cleon Jones. My mother waved to us from the balcony of our apartment. She looked like a fan in the bleachers. I pictured the whole neighborhood out on the balconies, everyone’s mother rooting me on.
    Over dinner, sweaty and spent, my father taught us how to chant from the Torah. That was our deal. He played baseball with us, and in return we agreed to learn the notes. My father’s brother Marvin, who lived in Chicago, was the best Torah chanter my father had ever heard. He was the champion Torah chanter of the Windy City.
    â€œThere are no champion Torah chanters,” Jonathan said.
    â€œHe’s my champion,” said my father.
    We had potential, he said. We had good voices and good minds; with a little practice we’d chant as well as Uncle Marvin.
    â€œWho cares?” said Jonathan.
    â€œI do,” I said. Now I felt bad, because Jonathan and I were supposed to be in this together. But I did care. I wanted to be like Tommie Agee. I’d be the first Jewish center fielder the Mets had ever had, the only player who could chant from the Torah. I’d be older but the same, gazing up at the planes as they dipped toward La Guardia, and at the stands where my parents would be cheering.
    I thought of my father growing up on the Lower East Side, where he’d played stickball on the streets. His family had come from White Russia, eleven consecutive generations of Eastern Europeanrabbis. As a child, he’d walked from kosher butcher to kosher butcher along Essex Street, past shops that sold mezuzahs and tefillin. At home he spoke Yiddish, on the streets English. On Passover, he said, you couldn’t find bread—not a crumb in any store. He had a fantasy in which the president of the United States was Jewish and all the hot dogs at Yankee Stadium were strictly kosher.
    This was my fantasy: I’d be the starting center fielder on the New York Mets, and at the peak of my career I’d boycott Shea Stadium. I’d boycott every stadium in major-league baseball until they all sold kosher hot dogs.
    Then I thought of Roberto Clemente, who had died in a plane crash on a charity mission. What was the point of keeping kosher if God could let that happen? Was this the moment that I started to doubt God?
    In ninth grade, Jonathan and I discovered girls. We each had a girlfriend, and sometimes the four of us went bowling together or stopped at Carvel to eat ice cream and play pinball, breaking up into teams.
    â€œWe could play couple against couple,” Jonathan said.
    â€œOr brothers against nonbrothers,” I suggested.
    Sometimes after school I went to the movies with my girlfriend. As the images flashed across the screen I dropped Raisinets into her open mouth and let her lick my fingers. I took her to The Deer Hunter , and when the scary scenes came on I rested my hand against her thigh until, gently but firmly, she removed it.
    One time Jonathan met me when the movie was over. He had spent the afternoon at his girlfriend’s apartment listening to Bruce Springsteen. Jonathan liked the line from “Born to Run”—“Strap your hands across my engines”—but he and his girlfriend had to leave the door open whenever they were in her bedroom