I loved the dark even when I was young, though I hated going to sleep. Until I was thirteen my father would put me to bed, where we would talk before singing the Shema, the prayer before sleep. Sometimes we would share some little anecdote from our day’s adventure, or talk about baseball, in those lean Yankee years of Horace Clarke, Fritz Peterson and Shea Stadium, but most often we would simply drift into the past, each of us secure in the warm embrace of my father’s youth.
These were my favorite times, and I would rest my cheek against him, sometimes in the crook of his neck, so I could feel his Adam’s apple move as he spoke, or else pressed against his own cheek, so worn and rough against my smoothness. He had a rich voice, even in repose, and I would listen for what seemed like hours as he would tell me of his days at Yeshiva High School in Manhattan, or earlier, in day school in the Bronx. During baseball season he would describe his many afternoons in the stadium in the Bronx, watching Henrich and “King Kong” Charlie Keller and of course, DiMaggio, who made it all look so easy.
If I was sharp, I could get him to tell me the story of how he’d cut school one day and seen Allie Reynolds pitch a no-hitter against the Red Sox. I knew it by heart, but loved to hear him tell it, as he’d describe the last out, the high twisting foul off Williams’ bat that Yogi dropped. (“And remember,” he’d say, “Williams was the most dangerous hitter in the game.” “But Abba, I thought DiMaggio was the best hitter?” “No,” he’d reply,” DiMaggio was the best player, he was a winner, but Williams was the best hitter.”) And then the second foul pop, trickier than the first, hanging for an eternity in the shadows and smoke that was a late September afternoon game at the stadium, before nestling softly in Yogi’s glove. Always nestling there, the ball, snug and warm and as safe as I was in the crook of my father’s neck.
Then he’d swallow and say, “Well Moshe, I guess it’s time for us to say Shema, tomorrow’s a school day,” and I’d think, “What if it wasn’t a school day? Would I be able to stay up all night listening to your stories?” But I never said that.
I loved that story, loved them all, for he always told the same ones, retelling them in an endless cycle of repetition. The telling was always different, but the endings always the same. They were as perfect and repetitive as the prayers he sang so beautifully in synagogue, where he was the cantor. On the Sabbath I would sit or stand as he sang, his voice filling the sanctuary, reverberating, echoing endlessly I thought. I knew God must hear them all, how could he not hear so earnest and pleasing a prayer, but I knew they were for me as well as for God, for didn’t my father look at me and smile at me as he sang? Sometimes I would sing along, singing as loud as I could, helping him, outdoing him I hoped, for my voice too seemed loud.
When we would sing the Shema there was no set tune as there was in synagogue. We sang a cappella, our instincts inventing the melody as we went along, each responding to the other, sometimes harmonizing over two octaves, sometimes blending our voices, stretching a single word, letting it hang in the air for eternity until our breath ran out, and it too fell to earth, and was nestled safely in my heart. Once we’d finished we would lie there in the dark, with the notes and words of the prayer shimmering in the air around us, and then he would say, “Good night Moshe,” and kiss me and leave.
The creak of the bed when he got up dispersed any sounds that yet lingered in the darkness, and I was left alone. Then I hurried to sleep, ached for the rich dreams that awaited me, and, if I was lucky, would be set high up among the forsaken pillars of the stadium, where my father and I watched DiMaggio drive me in with a blast to the monuments. I would fly around the bases in the shadows of the stadium, cheering wildly for myself as I scored the winning run and jumped into Yogi’s arms. Only it wasn’t Yogi, it was my father.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Images courtesy of author
A wonderful father for a wonderful son ❤️ Thanks for posting this.