Free 42 by Aaron Rosenberg Page B

here?”
    Rickey nodded. “Yes, yes.” But as Jackie started lowering the pen to the page, the Dodgers general manager suddenly shouted, “Stop!”
    Jackie froze.
    â€œHistory,” Rickey announced out of nowhere. “And I’m blabbing, blabbing through history, rushing it along. What am I thinking?” He stuck his head out the door. “Jane Ann, come in here,” he called, then twisted to holler farther down the hall. “Harold!” Parrott stuck his head out from an office down the hall. “Gather some of our employees and get them up here!”
    A few minutes later, Jackie was finally allowed to sign the contract. As he set the pen down, Rickey started clapping. So did Parrott, Jane Ann, and a janitor — the only employee Parrott had been able to find in the building this early.
    â€œExcellent!” Rickey clapped Jackie on the shoulder. “Harold, telegram the press. Say this: ‘The Brooklyn Dodgers today purchased the contract of Jackie Robinson from the Montreal Royals. He will report immediately.’ ”
    Parrott hurried off, Jane Ann returned to her desk, and the janitor went back to mopping floors. And Jackie sat there, still trying to take it all in.

    The sun was just rising in Pasadena when the phone rang at the Isum house. Rachel answered it, already awake but still in her nightgown. “Hello?”
    â€œRae,” Jackie said over the phone, “I’m in Brooklyn.” The glee in his voice was clear.
    Brooklyn! Rachel let out a whoop, then quieted, guiltily glancing down the hall to where Jackie Junior had just settled back to sleep. She waited a second but didn’t hear any crying. She hadn’t woken him again. Whew! She kept her voice quiet as she turned her attention back to her husband. Which was fine, since all she had to say was, “What did I tell you?”
    Jackie’s laugh was music to her ears.

C ough syrup, tissues, cotton balls . . .” Jackie walked slowly down the aisle of Singer’s Drug Store, scanning the products on each side. At last he spotted the small pink bottle he’d been looking for. “Ah, there you are!” He claimed some Pepto-Bismol off the shelf just as someone in the next aisle over took a bottle from that side, and Jackie glanced up — to find himself staring into the face of Pee Wee Reese.
    â€œOpening-day nerves,” Reese commented as they left the store together, hefting the bottle in his hand. “Doing my stomach something awful.”
    Jackie nodded. He was having the same problem, which was why he’d come here. The first game of the season — his first game in the major leagues — was starting soon, and his stomach was tied completely in knots.
    As they stood there, neither one saying anything, a garbage truck rumbled past, its odor wafting along ahead of it and lingering behind.
    Reese chuckled. “There goes another one,” he said, gesturing toward the truck. “Every time I see a garbage truck go by, I still can’t figure why the guy driving isn’t me.”
    Jackie smiled at that. He didn’t know the Dodgers shortstop well, but so far he liked the man. “We’d both better get on base.”
    Reese nodded, and they started walking toward the stadium together. “Know when I first heard of you?” he said after a minute.
    Jackie shook his head.
    â€œOn a troop transport, coming back from Guam,” Reese told him. “A sailor heard it on the radio, told me the Dodgers had signed a Negro player. I said that was fine by me. Then he said the guy was a shortstop. Least you were then. That got me thinking. Thinking gets me scared.”
    Jackie smiled and lifted his bottle of Pepto in mock salute. “Black, white — we’re both pink today, huh?”
    Reese nodded.
    They walked a few more blocks before Jackie broke the silence by asking the question he couldn’t get out of his mind: “You