“I’m trying to save you, you foolish boy. Are you so naïve as to still believe in a fair fight? Did you learn anything as my son? They know your name. Your presence has been noted.”

“So let them bring the fight. And when they come, I’ll—”

“You won’t see them come,” his father said. “No one ever does. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You pick a fight with these boys? Jesus, son, you best be prepared to bleed all night.”

He waved his hand in exasperation and left his son on the stoop.

“’Night, Dad.”

Marty came around to open his door and Thomas leaned on it for a moment and looked back up at his son. So strong. So proud. So unaware.

“Tessa.”

“What?” Danny said.

He leaned on the door and stared at his son. “They’ll come after you with Tessa.”

Danny said nothing for a bit.

“Tessa?”

Thomas patted the door. “That’s what I’d do.”

He tipped his hat to his son and climbed into the car with Joe and told Marty to take them straight home.

BABE RUTH and the

SUMMER SWOON

CHAPTER thirty-two

It was a crazy summer. No predicting it. Every time Babe thought he had a grip on it, it slipped free and went running off like a barnyard pig that smelled the ax. The attorney general’s home bombed, strikes and walkouts everywhere you looked, race riots, first in D.C., then in Chicago. The Chicago coloreds actually fought back, turning a race riot into a race war and scaring the ever-loving shit out of the entire country.

Not that it was all bad. No, sir. Who could have predicted what Babe would do with the white ball, for starters? No one, that’s who. He’d had an embarrassing May, trying to swing too big, too often, and still being asked to pitch every fifth game, so his average found the cellar: .180. Good Lord. He hadn’t seen .180 since “A” ball with Baltimore. But then Coach Barrow allowed him to lay off the pitching starts until further notice, and Babe tweaked his timing, forced himself to begin his cuts a little earlier but a little slower, too, not rev up to full power until he was halfway into the swing.

And June was glorious.

But July? July was volcanic.

The month arrived with a curl of fear at its back when word spread that the goddamned subversives and Bolshies had planned another wave of national carnage for Independence Day. Every federal facility in Boston was surrounded by soldiers, and in New York City, the entire police force was sent to guard the public buildings. By the end of the day, though, nothing had happened except for the walkout of the New England Fishermen’s Union, and Babe didn’t give a shit about that anyway because he never ate anything that couldn’t walk on its own.

On the next day, he hit two home runs in one game. Two of the fuckers—sky-high. He’d never done that before. A week later, he ripped his eleventh of the season straight at the Chicago skyline, and even the White Sox fans cheered. Last year he’d led the league with a final tally of eleven. This year, he wasn’t even warm yet, and the fans knew it. Middle of the month, in Cleveland, he hit his second home run of the game in the ninth. An impressive accomplishment on its own, another twofer, but this was a grand slam to win the game. The hometown crowd didn’t boo. Babe couldn’t believe it. He’d just driven the nail straight through the fucking coffin and down into the funeral parlor floor but the folks in the stands rose to their feet as one joyous, addled mass and chanted his name as he rounded the bases. When he crossed home, they were still standing and they were still chopping the air with their fists and still calling his name.