by Darryl Brock
“That’s ten days.” He glanced at Harry, who nodded. “Very well. From the funds you rescued we can surely advance you that much, to be repaid at your earliest convenience.” He gazed at me thoughtfully. “Meanwhile, considering the nature of our forthcoming contests and your proven capacity, there is a task you might handle.”
“Sure, what?”
He handed me the cash box. “Safeguard this.”
I wasn’t wild about it, but under the circumstances my choices were limited.
“I might have something for you also,” Harry said.
“Oh?” What had I let myself in for?
“You mentioned that you’d played baseball.”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Look up Charlie Gould, our first baseman. See if his extra uniform fits you.”
Chapter 4
Gould wasn’t too happy about it. “’Lo, Fowler,” he’d said, his gravelly voice amiable at first. We shook hands. I said I’d heard that he was the only native Cincinnatian on the nine. He beamed. Then Andy told him what Harry wanted—and he nearly crushed my hand. As if the grip weren’t enough, his fingers seemed coated with iron.
“You put something on those things?” I asked, prying myself loose.
“Benzoin.”
“Charlie’s our human bushel basket,” Andy said. “Holds any ball he can reach.”
“I saw him today.”
Gould’s pomaded mustache bristled. “Harry’s lookin’ for a change player?” He sized me up. At six three, I had him by a couple of inches.
“Don’t have a clue,” I said.
Gould’s gray eyes were set a fraction too close, giving him a perpetually worried look. Flaxen ringlets curled over his temples, and below his curved blond mustache was an elongated Vandyke. He stood with military stiffness, frowning. With obvious reluctance he handed over his spare uniform. I’d have empathized with him if my hand weren’t still smarting.
Andy introduced me to the other two players I hadn’t met. Cal McVey, the youngest Stocking at nineteen, glanced up and mumbled, “Hi’dy.” His short-cropped sandy hair complemented long-lashed brown eyes and peach-fuzzed cheeks. His father made pianos in Indianapolis, where young Mac’s baseball skills had first caught Harry’s attention. Andy claimed Mac could coax music out of anything. He seemed a nice, shy kid, but I wouldn’t have wanted to wrestle him: his torso looked powerful; rolled-up sleeves revealed massive forearms. He and Gould—and Sweasy on a smaller scale—formed the club’s muscle contingent.
The final Stocking was Doug Allison, the catcher I had marveled at during the game. Up close he looked like a hayseed, with coarse auburn hair standing up in cowlicks. He had apple cheeks, a lopsided grin, and nearly as many freckles as Andy. I stuck out my hand.
“Cain’t just now,” he said in a high nasal twang, shaking his head mournfully. He held a hand up. The fingers were gnarled, the joints huge and red, the palms swollen purple.
“Don’t you ever wear a mitt?” I said.
“To practice sometimes lately,” he replied, a bit shamefacedly, “Here, could you pass over that arnica?”
Andy handed him a bottle of bitter-smelling yellow oil. I watched in fascination as Allison peeled off his shirt and oozed the stuff over a multicolored mass of welts and bruises covering his chest and arms.
“Ouch,” he said.
Ouch indeed, I thought.
Framed in the windows of our parlor car, the sun was an amber ball plunging behind low, wheat-covered hills as we rolled out of Rochester on the New York Central. I sat playing whist, quite the dandy in my new pleated frock coat and ruffle-front silk shirt with green stripes—the latter a gift from Brainard. A high starched collar squeezed my neck. Knee-cramping stirrups stretched from tapered trouser bottoms under my insteps.
“Deuce of trumps’ll do,” Sweasy chortled, slapping down a card. “You boys don’t win much.”
In two hours’ time and half the distance to Syracuse, I’d lost every bid I attempted. Waterman, my partner, an intense competitor, shuffled the deck with a sharp crackle. “I’d have a thought before studyin’ the tiger with Fowler in some faro joint,” he said sourly.
“Come again?” I said.
Waterman grunted.
“Freddy thinks you’d be advised not to visit a gaming house,” Sweasy translated, grinning maliciously. “Leastways, not with him.”
A few seats ahead, the rookie McVey blew “Camptown Races” on a harmonica. Andy was right, he was pretty good. Next to him, George Wright started to sing, off-key.
“Appears you owe us four thousand dollars,” Brainard said, studying the point totals.
“Add it to our bill,” I said.
Sweasy studied me. “As a card operator you’re a piece of work.”
“Piece of something,” Waterman muttered.
I yawned and smiled. Since my encounter with Le Caron they’d begun to include me in their “sizzling.” A tacit form of acceptance—except from Sweasy, whose barbs verged on outright insults.
George finished warbling and flashed his toothy grin. Earlier I’d heard Millar ask him about his game-ending play. George just shrugged and said, “I could always throw with either arm.”
The younger Wright was something. Supremely self-confident, he was, at age twenty-two, probably the highest-paid player in the nation. Even when his cocksureness bordered on arrogance, it was impossible not to like him. How easily things came to a select few, I reflected. Things maddeningly beyond the reach of the rest of us. There was a time when I’d have given anything to possess half the raw talent of a George Wright. I’d had to work my ass off to be just a notch above average. Some boyhood dreams die hard. Maybe I still wanted to be a baseball hero.
Millar appeared among us. “Asa? Mr. Champion asks you to lead off the singing.”
Brainard rolled his eyes.
“He requests his favorite.”
“I guessed it,” said Brainard. “Sent his messenger boy to whistle me up like a low hound.”
“Woof, woof!” barked Sweasy.
Brainard stood in the aisle beside McVey and sang “The Man on the Flying Trapeze.” I realized his was the tenor voice I’d heard before. The stylish pitcher was a man of several talents.
“That song new?” I asked Sweasy.
He nodded. “Just come out last year. Sheet music’s selling like johnnycakes—in the hundreds of thousands.”
I couldn’t resist. “Climbing to solid platinum?”
Sweasy blinked and scowled. “How’s that?”
“Never mind.” I felt perverse satisfaction.
Most of the Stockings, aside from Brainard and Andy, proved to be wretched vocalists. But that didn’t stop them from harmonizing fiercely on choruses and turning the whole thing into a sort of competition.
Brainard finished and pointed to Gould, who rose with ramrod stiffness and, to my astonishment, affected a Chinese accent and sang a song in pidgin, the chorus of which began, “Oh ching chong opium, taffy on a stick . . .”
“Ever hear the like?” Andy asked from across the aisle.
“Never,” I replied.
Things did not improve. Doug Allison twanged out a racist minstrel piece called “Nancy Fat,” then Sweasy hissed his way through “The Girl That Keeps the Peanut Stand,” distorting maudlin lyrics with suggestive winks and leers. Harry then sang “Captain Jinks” in a pleasant baritone; I finally knew the words to a chorus. Harry then pointed to Andy.
“The Emerald Isle!” called Dick Hurley. “A hundred verses of ‘The Blarney Rose’!”
Andy laughed, shook his head, and sang, Jersey accents giving way to a broad, comical brogue.
“Mike Finnigan, a patriot,
He swore that he would raise
A mighty corps of musketeers,
That all the world would daze.
At the chorus, Mac, Sweasy, and Hurley stood up and they all joined arms.
“To see us march as stiff as starch
And listen to the c
heers.
Fairer boys yez niver saw
Than Finnigans Musketeers.”
I noticed that not all of the Stockings were joining in with equal enthusiasm. “Those guys always stand up like that?” I asked Waterman.
“Micks, the lot,” he said dryly. “Andy was born in County Cavan.”
“That so?” I said, and suppressed a yawn. The day was catching up with me. The kerosene globes hissed faintly overhead, swaying beneath the vaulted enameled ceiling, splashing pools of yellow on walnut-paneled walls and burgundy seats. Rhythmical clacking underlay all sound. Next to my head rattled a steamy window. The darkness outside seemed remote. The voices comforted me. I realized that nobody here had heard a radio or recording. Music came to them directly, only from others. Why didn’t people sing together in my time?
“Sam’s my pick!”
My eyes jerked open. Andy was pointing at me. “No,” I said. “I can’t.” They shouted me down. I stood, my mind a blank.
“Something from the West,” prompted Andy.
I stood dumbly next to McVey and finally blurted out the first song that came to mind:
“From this valley they say you are going;
We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile. . . .”
I beckoned for them to join, but they didn’t. When I reached the chorus they were leaning forward, listening intently.
“Come and sit by my side if you love me,
Do not hasten to bid me adieu,
But remember the Red River Valley
And the boy that has loved you so true.”
There was silence—then ringing applause. “More!” yelled Andy. Others echoed him. They seemed to mean it.
“But that’s all I know.”
They insisted that I sing it again. McVey played softly behind me, and they sang harmony on the chorus.
“That’s quite lovely,” Champion murmured, astonishing me by dabbing at his eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief. “Won’t you give us just one more Western tune?”
I racked my brain. “Okay, but this time one we all know,”
“Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam,
Where the deer and the antelope play . . .”
Again they were silent. In the hush that followed, Andy remarked that it was the noblest song he’d ever heard.
“You warble like a bullfrog in heat,” Brainard said, leaning in close as I sat down. “But those’re prize ballads. We’d make a pile if we printed ’em.”
I looked to see if he was joking. He wasn’t. “But I didn’t write them.”
“Who did?”
“Haven’t the foggiest.”
“How’d you come by ’em?”
“They’ve been around for—” I paused. “Well, they’re not original with me.”
“They are hereabouts.” He examined the gold rings on his fingers. “How you calculate the odds of their bein’ entered with the government?”
“Copyrighted? I suppose if nobody’s heard them, they aren’t . . . yet.”
He looked at me. “There’s our chance.”
He was entirely serious. “I could use some cash,” I said. “But stealing songs isn’t my idea of how to get it.”
“Sure as sin somebody’s gonna cash ’em in. Why not us? Besides, how’s it stealin’ if nobody’s laid claim?”
I didn’t have a ready answer. Viewed from his standpoint, the future glittered like a treasure vault. By tapping my foreknowledge, wouldn’t I merely be nudging things along predestined channels? In this Darwinistic age would a Vanderbilt or Rockefeller or Carnegie hesitate in my shoes? Was the Gilded Age ready for Scott Joplin? Gershwin? The Beatles?
S. C. Fowler, Sheet Music Czar.
It had a certain ring.
But actually, wouldn’t I be changing the past instead of merely retracing it?
Then a more bizarre idea occurred to me: What if I’d passed this way before? What if I’d already created the songs myself—and possessed no recollection of doing it?
Time as overlapping circles, then, not a line.
“You thinking about it?” Brainard demanded.
“I most certainly am.”
“And . . .?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Hell, Sam, it couldn’t be simpler.” He snorted. “You’re thinkin’ too damn hard.”
Maybe he had a point. Things were already complicated enough.
We reached Syracuse after midnight. The air was clear and cold, the dark sky strewn with pale blue stars. Inside our hotel on Clinton Square the feather beds were thick and soft. I sank into mine, drew up the quilt (Andy called it a “bedrug”), and said good night.
“Your first day awake with us was some sockdolager,” Andy said. “You handled them sharps slick as grease. I’ve heard a thing or two about McDermott. He’s a rough customer. Lucky for us you were along.”
I was exhausted but pleased. Some sockdolager indeed. God, what a day. Just before plummeting into sleep I wondered if I would wake up in the twentieth century. I suspected not. Did I want to?
Just then I couldn’t have said.
Saturday, June 5, exploded into my consciousness. A thundering crash sent us bounding from bed. Naked, shivering in the morning chill, we peered from our window at a chaotic scene. A four-horse brewer’s wagon had smashed into a butcher’s cart, overturning both vehicles. Carcasses from the cart lay strewn in grisly lumps. Horses screamed and struggled in their traces as the drivers cursed. Some beer barrels had burst on impact; others rumbled cavernously over the cobblestones.
Andy turned away. “Wisht we hadn’t looked. Seein’ empty barrels on a beer wagon always brings good luck, but this here . . .”
I yawned and scratched. “You believe in that stuff?”
He shrugged. “Like the tinker said of the wee folk, you don’t have to believe in ’em to know they’re there.”
Gray skies and cloudbursts had pursued us. Later that morning, between showers, Andy and I boarded a mule-drawn omnibus with Cal McVey, the muscular rookie, and the Wrights. We headed up Salina Street. Bells on the mules’ collars jingled cheerily as we clopped through the gloom toward the city’s northern edge.
George displayed stereopticon cards he’d purchased at the hotel. They pictured several of the mineral springs that lent Syracuse the nickname Salt City. George said he collected the views everywhere he traveled. I realized suddenly that picture postcards didn’t yet exist.
As we rode I noted how different George Wright was from his older brother: cocky and gregarious where Harry was self-effacing, even shy; wisecracking where Harry was sober. There was no strong physical resemblance either. George’s shock of dark curls and large hooked nose contrasted with Harry’s lighter coloring and regular features. Though twelve years younger, George stood nearly an inch taller and weighed ten pounds more. What they shared, I decided, was a quality of alert tolerance in their eyes and unmistakable authority in their manner. Harry was more a leader, but George too had powerful presence. I’d learned from Andy that their father was the resident professional at a posh Staten Island cricket club. He had coached Harry as a boy, who in turn coached George. The brothers were true rarities in America—second-generation pro athletes.
At a commercial spa near Onondaga Lake, we soaked ourselves in hot, salty baths for five cents apiece. I stood shoulder-deep in the steaming water, face dripping, muscles relaxing.
McVey stared at my cheek when I removed the soaked bandage. “That don’t appear to be healing normal.”
“Afraid you’re right, Mac.” I winced at the sting of salt. That morning the gash had shown yellow and purple on its edges, dark pink in the center. The translucent scab that had formed didn’t seem to be thickening. Had exotic nineteenth-century microorganisms infiltrated my system? If so, I was in trouble. Antibiotics were over fifty years away.
The sky was clearing when we returned to the hotel. It looked like the game would be played, though no word had come from our opponents, Syracuse’s
Central City club. Concerned, Harry and Champion went to investigate. I left Andy to his nap and tagged along. So did Millar. We climbed into in a small hackney coach that Champion flagged.
“Where’s the field?” I asked.
“Fairgrounds,” Harry replied.
Arriving, we saw that there’d been a major foul-up. Grass waved knee high in the outfield. Sections of the fence had collapsed. A pigeon shoot was in progress. Nobody knew of a baseball game.
Champion’s face darkened. From Millar I’d learned he was a formidable trial lawyer in Cincinnati. Just then he looked like he wanted to indict the whole city.
“I’ll conduct a practice,” Harry said with forced heartiness. “It’ll sharpen our mettle for Troy.”
“Won’t sharpen our finances,” Champion said.
Harry turned to me. “Dick Hurley’s our single replacement. Should misfortune strike in Troy, Fowler, we may need help.” He smiled grimly. “Against the Haymakers, injuries aren’t exactly rare. We’ll see your goods this afternoon.”
Great, I thought. Cannon fodder. How nice to be wanted. But I felt a flicker of excitement. Rec-league softball had been a tame substitute in recent years. Baseball, the real game, carried a quotient of fear. I’d almost forgotten that.
Hours later, in baggy sweats and calfskin shoes borrowed from Mac, I tramped around the damp practice lot, a long, weed-stubbled expanse sandwiched between a smelly gypsum plant and a fenced-off cow pasture. Dwindling energy had narrowed my fears to a single focus: avoid total humiliation.
“You’re gettin’ it back,” said Andy, standing on first base beside me. A low throw from Waterman had just glanced off my fingers. “It’s easy to tell you’ve played.”
“Right,” I muttered. My hands throbbed. My legs were dead. My throwing arm ached when I raised it. “If I survive.”
In Captain Harry’s workout, each regular played his normal position except when hitting. Hurley and I worked our way around filling vacant spots. At the plate everybody got a dozen swings and ran out the last hit. Harry called situations—“runner on second, no outs”—and we played accordingly.