by Jan Karon
He put on the hat and glasses as he went down the stairs, thinking he’d check himself out in the kitchen mirror.
“Lord God!” shrieked Puny, standing frozen at the foot of the stairs. “You like to scared me to death!”
Hearing their mother’s alarm, both babies set up an earsplitting wail in the kitchen.
He tried bouncing their car seats, squeaking a rubber duck, making a face, and barking like a dog, but they were inconsolable, and he was out of there.
“This Cessna 152 don’t make as much noise as m’ little ragwing,” shouted Omer.
The rector was holding up pretty well, all things considered. He had skipped lunch, knowing he’d be airborne, had driven twenty-five miles to the airstrip, and here he was, skimming above the treetops with the mayor’s brother-in-law in a borrowed plane, wearing a decrepit garden hat and shades.
Father Roland, who occasionally wrote from the wilds of Canada, was totally wrong to think he was having all the fun, celebrating the Eucharist in crude forest huts and being chased by a bull moose. Mitford had its grand adventures, too. You just had to go looking for—
“Holy smoke, Omer!”
Omer flashed his piano-key grin at the rector, who was only momentarily hanging upside down.
“That’s what you call a one-G maneuver.”
“No more, thanks!” His face had been green twice in only a few weeks.
“OK, I’ll fly steady,” yelled his pilot. “How low d’you think you’ll want to go?”
“Low enough to see what’s going on.”
“I can take you down to two hundred feet, how’s that?”
He swallowed hard. “Fine.”
“You sure don’t look like yourself in that getup,” Omer shouted.
“Good!” he shouted back.
They saw the ridge looming ahead, the ridge from which Clear Day could see forever, but could not be seen.
“Here she comes!” Omer said. Father Tim pulled the brim of the hat farther down and adjusted the glasses.
What could have been a small landing strip emerged from the trees. It was the shake roof that covered the much-talked-about eight thousand square feet of living space, with its vast expanse of driveway and parking area to the left.
Bingo.
A blue pickup truck was parked next to a black car. And there, on the uncovered terrace, standing by the striped umbrellas, were two people.
“Circle back!” he shouted to his pilot.
He wanted to be dead sure.
Omer circled back and buzzed the house. The man and woman on the terrace looked up angrily as he looked down.
Then the blue Cessna roared over the quaking treetops and across the gorge.
Omer glanced at him and winked.
Edith Mallory was not touring Spain or France or Malaysia or any of her other haunts, and neither was she living in her sprawling home in Florida.
She was living in Mitford, at Clear Day, and masterminding the political career of Mack Stroupe.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Play Ball
On the morning of the game at Baxter Field, Velma Mosely had a change of heart and started chopping onions.
This, she told herself, would absolutely, positively be her last pot of homemade chili.
“Listen up!”
Buck Leeper looked ten feet tall as he stood in the dugout before the Mitford Reds.
“We’re not here to fool around,” said the team manager, “we’re here to win. Got it?”
“Got it!” said his players, who were wearing red-dyed T-shirts and ball caps advertising The Local.
It was twenty minutes before game time, and the rector felt his adrenaline pumping like oil through a Texas derrick.
“Father, you’re th’ team captain, and I’m lookin’ to you to be th’ coach on th’ field. Keep ’em pepped up and give ’em advice when they need it—your job is to call the shots.” Buck looked him in the eye. “I know you can do it.”
Could he do it? He had prayed about this softball game as if it were life or death, instead of good, clean fun on a Saturday afternoon. Surely the three practice games, which had gone pretty well, would count for something.
Buck took a Lucky Strike out of his shirt pocket and paced in front of them. “Dooley, you’re my first batter. I’ve watched you get ready for today’s game, and you’re always hustlin’, always quick on your feet. I want you to wait on the pitch that’s yours, got it?”
“Got it,” said Dooley.
“We want you on that base.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Adele, you’re plenty quick and sure-handed, you’ll play first base. I’m hittin’ you in th’ second slot. When Dooley gets on, advance th’ runner at any cost. We’ve got to get somebody in scoring position.”
Adele socked her right fist into her glove.
Buck laughed his water-boiling-in-a-kettle laugh. “We want those turkeys to play with their backs to the wall. Right?”
“Right!” said his team.
“Avis, you’re my first power hitter. I want you to slam it clear to Wesley. Father, you’re my cleanup batter—stay strong and quick, and remember to keep your shoulders straight.”
Buck might have been commandeering a crew of backhoe operators in a thirty-foot excavation.
“Mrs. Kavanagh—”
“Cynthia,” she said.
“Cynthia, you’re battin’ in my number five spot. I want you to dig in and crush that ball. As the catcher, I want you to call our pitches—look at how they’re standin’, check out their feet. Bottom line, be alert at all times.”
“You got it, Coach.”
Buck completed the lineup with Hal Owen as second baseman and Mule Skinner, Jena Ivey, Pauline Barlowe, and Lew Boyd in the outfield.
“I’ve been watchin’ th’ other team,” said Buck, “and we’re better than they are. We can do the job. I want you to give it a hundred percent, understand? Not eighty-five, not ninety-five—a hundred.”
He looked at every earnest face, rolling the unlit cigarette between his fingers. “Father, you want to pray?”
“He wants to!” said Dooley.
After the prayer, they scrambled to their feet and trooped past the concession stand. At that moment, the rector was certain he experienced a brief out-of-body reverie. He saw their team charging out on the field, and there he was in the middle of the fray, wearing, for Pete’s sake, his green Pentecost vestments.
“Man!” exclaimed Dooley.
The stands were full, people were sitting on the grass, and the smell of hotdogs and chili wafted through the humid summer air.
Tommy’s dad, who was the plate umpire, looked at the coin he’d just flipped. The Mitford Reds were the home team.
The rector scanned the crowd, just as he always did at Lord’s Chapel.
The residents of Hope House were lined up in wheelchairs and seated on the front bleachers, looking expectant.
There was Mack Stroupe, standing with one foot on a bleacher and a cigarette in his mouth, and over to the right, Harley and Lace. He spotted Fancy Skinner and Uncle Billy and Miss Rose and Coot and Omer, and about midway up, Tommy, who had hurt his leg and couldn’t play. He noted that quite a few sported a strawberry sucker stuck in their jaw, evidence that the mayor had doled out her customary campaign favors.
From the front row, where she sat with Russell Jacks and Betty Craig, Jessie waved to the field with both hands.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” announced town councilman, Linder Hayes, “it is my immense privilege to introduce Esther Cunningham, our beloved mayor, who for sixteen years and eight great terms in office has diligently helped Mitford take care of its own! Your Honor, you are hereby officially invited to . . . throw out the first ball.”
“Burn it in, Esther!” somebody yelled.
The other umpire ran a ball to the mayor, who stood proudly in the dignitaries section, cheek by jowl with the county sheriff.
At this, the Muse editor bounded from the
concession stand to the bleachers and skidded to a stop about a yard from the mayor. He dropped to his knees and pointed the Nikon upward.
“Dadgum it,” hissed the mayor, “don’t shoot from down there, it gives me three double chins!”
“And behind the plate,” boomed Linder Hayes, “our esteemed police chief and vigilant overseer of law and order, Mr. Rodney Underwood!”
Applause. Hoots. Whistles. Rodney adjusted his holster belt and waved to the crowd with a gloved hand.
“Hey, Esther, smoke it in there!”
The mayor threw back her head, circled her arm like a prop on a P-51, and let the ball fly.
“Stee-rike one!” said the umpire.
“Oh, please,” said Cynthia, who was perspiring from infield practice.
“What is it?” whispered the rector.
“I have to use the port-a-john.”
“It’s your nerves,” declared her husband, who appeared to know.
“Take the field!” yelled Buck.
The players sprinted to their positions. Then, the home-plate ump took a deep breath, pointed at the pitcher, and shouted what they’d all been waiting to hear.
“Play ball!”
The Reds’ batboy, Poo Barlowe, passed his brother a bat which he had personally inscribed with the name Dools and a zigzag flash of lightning. He had rendered this personal I.D. with a red ballpoint pen, bearing down hard and repeatedly until it appeared etched into the wood.
Dooley took a couple of warm-up swings, then stepped into the batter’s box. He gripped the bat, positioned his feet, and waited for the pitch.
A high, looping pitch barely missed the strike zone.
“Ball one!”
The second pitch came in chest-high, as Dooley tightened his grip, took a hefty swing, and connected. Crack! It was the first ball hitting the bat for the newly formed Mitford Reds; the sound seemed to reverberate into the stands.
“Go, buddy!”
Dooley streaked to first base, his long legs eating the distance, and blew past it to second as the crowd cheered. He slid into second a heartbeat ahead of the ball that socked into Scott Murphy’s glove.
“Ride ’em, cowboy!” warbled Miss Pattie, who believed herself to be at a rodeo.
The game was definitely off to a good start.
“Mama!”
Fancy Skinner waved to her mother, who was shading her eyes and peering into the stands. “I’m up here!”
Fancy was wearing shocking pink tights and a matching tunic, and stood out so vividly from the crowd that her mother recognized her at once and made the climb to the fifth row, carrying a knitting bag with the beginnings of an afghan.
“I declare,” said Fancy, “I hardly knew that was you, don’t you just love bein’ blond, didn’t I tell you it would be more fun? I mean, look at you, out at a softball game instead of sittin’ home watchin’ th’ Wheel or whatever. And oh, my lord, what’re you wearin’, I can’t believe it, a Dale Jarrett T-shirt, aren’t you th’ cat’s pajamas, you look a hundred years younger!
“Next, you might want to lose some weight, if you don’t mind my sayin’ so, around forty pounds seems right to me, it would take a strain off your heart. Lord have mercy, would you look at that, he backed th’ right fielder clean to th’ fence. Hey, ump, open your eyes, I thought only horses went to sleep standin’ up!
“Oh, shoot, I forgot about your hearin’ aid bein’ so sensitive, was that me that made it go off? It sounds like a burglar alarm, I thought th’ old one was better, here, have some gum, it’s sugarless. Look! There he is, there’s Mule, mama, see? Th’ one in the grass over yonder, idn’t he cute, Mule, honey, we’re up here, look up here, sweetie, oh mercy, the ball like to knocked his head off. Pay attention to what you’re doin’, Mule!
“Mama, you want a hotdog? I’ll get us one at th’ end of fifth innin’, Velma made th’ chili. I didn’t say it’s chilly, I said Velma—mama, are you sure that hearin’ aid works right, it seems like th’ old one did better, and look at what you paid for it, an arm and a leg, you want relish? I can’t hardly eat relish, it gives me sour stomach.
“How in th’ world you can knit and watch a ballgame is beyond me, I have to concentrate. See there, that’s th’ preacher Mule hangs out with at the Grill, th’ one I gave a mask to th’ day you got a perm, you remember, I can’t tell whether he tries to hit a ball or club it to death. That’s his wife on third base, I think she bleaches with a cap, I never heard of a preacher’s wife playin’ softball, times sure have changed, our preacher’s wife leads th’ choir and volunteers at th’ hospital.
“Go get ’em, Avis! Hit it outta there! I wonder why Avis idn’t married, I think he likes summer squash better than women, but it’s important to really like your work. Lord, he sent that ball to th’ moon! Look, Mama, right over yonder, see that man eyeballin’ you? So what if he’s younger, that’s th’ goin’ thing these days, I told you blondes have more fun. Whoa, did you see that, he winked at you, well, maybe he got somethin’ in his eye. Hey, ump, pitcher’s off th’ plate, how thick are your glasses?
“That red-headed kid, that’s Dooley, he’s sort of th’ preacher’s boy, he’s a real slugger and he can run, too. Was that a spitball, Mama, did it look like a spitball to you? Spitball! Spitball! Who is that umpire, anyway, he’s blind as a bat and deaf as a tater, oops, I better go down an’ get in line, did you say you want relish?”
Ben Isaac Berman, whose family had brought him to Hope House all the way from Decatur, Illinois, was liking this ball game better than anything he’d done since coming to Mitford in July.
He liked the fresh air, the shouting, the tumult—even the heat was a makhyeh—though he didn’t like the way his hotdog had landed in his lap, requiring two Hope House attendants to clean it up. What he couldn’t figure was how chili had somehow made its way into one of his pants cuffs.
He felt like a shlimazel for not having better control of his limbs. But then, there was Miss Pattie sitting right next to him, who couldn’t control a thought in her head, God forbid it should happen to him.
He also liked the game because it reminded him of his boyhood, which was as vivid in his recall as if he had lived it last week.
Take that boy at second base, that red-haired kid who could run like the wind. That was the kind of kid he’d been, that was the kind of kid he still was, deep down where nobody else had ever seen or ever would, not even his wife, blessed be her memory. Even he forgot about the kid living inside him, until he came out to a game like this and smelled the mountain air and heard the crack of the bat—that was when he began to feel his own legs churning, flying around to the bases and tearing up the dirt as he slid into home . . . .
At the bottom of the seventh inning, the score was 10-10.
“It’s our bat and we’ve got three outs,” said the rector. “We don’t want any extra innings, so let’s finish now and go home winners.”
His shirt was sticking to him. He felt like he’d been rode hard and put up wet, as Tommy Noles used to say.
He watched as Mule Skinner stepped up to bat.
The ball came in high.
“Ball one!”
Mule swung at the next pitch and cracked it over second base into center field. The rector was amazed at Mule’s speed as he sprinted to first. This game would be fodder for the Grill regulars ’til kingdom come.
After Jena Ivey made the first out of the inning, it was Pauline Barlowe’s turn to bat.
She looked confident, he thought. In fact, she’d made a pretty good showing all afternoon, but had a tendency to waffle, to be strong one minute and lose it the next.
She took a couple of pitches, and slammed a hit to second base. Dadgum, a double play! But the second baseman kicked the ball, and all runners were safe.
“Time out!” yelled Buck, striding onto the field.
“OK, Pitch,” he said to Lew Boyd, “you’ve been a defensive star all day, I want you to use that bat and get the big hit. Or give me a fly bal
l to the outfield to advance the runners.”
“I’m gonna give you premium unleaded on this ’un.”
The first pitch came down the middle.
“Strike one!”
Lew hit the next pitch into right field, where the outfielder nailed it and threw it to third. The runners held.
Two outs.
Dooley hurried into the batter’s box and scratched the loose dirt to get a strong foothold.
Buck yelled, “You’ve got to get on base. Can you do it?”
“I can do it!”
Poobaw Barlowe squeezed his eyes shut and prayed, Jesus, God, and ever’body . . .
The rector was holding his breath. Dooley had been on base every time he came to bat today. He saw the determined look on the boy’s face as he waited for the pitch.
Realizing her feet were swelling, Fancy Skinner removed her high heel shoes and put them in her mother’s knitting bag.
Coot Hendrick hoped to the good Lord he would not lose the twenty-five dollars he had bet on the Reds. He had borrowed it out of the sugar bowl, leaving only a few packages of NutraSweet and three dimes. He squirmed with anxiety. His mama might be old, but she could still whip his head.
Crack!
Dooley connected on a line shot into the outfield, which was hit so sharply that Father Tim stopped Mule at third.
“Way to go, buddy, way to do it, great job!” he yelled.
Dooley punched his fist into the air and pumped it, as the crowd hooted and cheered.
With two outs and the bases loaded, it was Adele Hogan’s turn at bat.
“OK, Adele, let’s get ’em, let’s go, you can do it!” For tomorrow’s services, he would sound like a bullfrog with laryngitis.
“Ball one!”
The second ball came in on the outside.
“Ball two!”
She swung at the next pitch.
“Strike one!”
The stands were going crazy. “Hey, ump,” somebody yelled. “Wake up, you’re missin’ a great game!”