If I Never Get Back

by Darryl Brock

  It was as though mentioning Brainard would jinx us—or maybe him. In the clubhouse we’d made no reference to his absence. But the next morning he got plenty of mention in the press.

  I read Millar’s Commercial piece with growing surprise. After recounting the Syracuse walkout, he mentioned that a “very self-important member” of the Stockings had been missing. Not content with that, he wrote, “Mr. Brainard, a very clever gentleman, whose opinion of himself has been considerably elevated by the praise of flatterers, was absent, and, as a consequence, his club found it pretty hard to pull through. . . .”

  Whew, I thought, what’s he doing?

  Farther on, Millar wrote, “Allison, who has not yet revived from the large share of flattery lately bestowed upon him, refused to occupy his accustomed place. . . .

  I had an uneasy feeling there was more to this than sportswriter carping. Millar usually mirrored Champion’s views.

  I heard my name and looked up. Waterman was striding toward my table in the Gibson dining room.

  “Gotta talk,” he said. “Private.” His tone was forceful, his expression a degree less bland. For Waterman this was a highly emotional state.

  “Sure.” I finished my coffee.

  Up in my room he said, “It’s about Acey.”

  “I figured. Where’s he been?”

  “That’s only part of it. Also who he’s been there with.”

  “Okay, who?”

  “First, you got to know Acey’s hit the spirits hard lately. It’s always a sign he’s feeling sorry for himself. And booze ain’t all. He likes to have people around who’ll play up to him, make him feel important—and he’s always been one to run with the champagne set.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “He’s in over his head with gamblers.”

  “Partly that.”

  “Partly?”

  “There’s this woman named Maud,” he said. “Acey’s pet blonde, a fast one. He’s been piling fancy clothes and jewelry on her. Got accounts at the big downtown stores. More than he can cover. Then he lost playing the trotters over at Buckeye track a couple days ago. He borrowed to cover that, and now they’re squeezing him.”

  “Who is?”

  “Don’t know exactly, but I can tell Acey’s scared of ’em.”

  I had a sudden suspicion. “Did he skip out on us so somebody could clean up betting long odds?”

  He looked at me shrewdly. “You got a quick mind for larceny, Fowler.”

  “Well, did he?”

  “No, but it’ll look that way. What happened was, after you saw us at Leininger’s I went home, but Acey kept drinking. He came up against the crowd he owes money to, and they wanted to collect. He couldn’t pay ’em, being as how he didn’t have the cash. They laid hands on him, saying they’d break his pitching arm. Acey fought loose and ran and hid at Maud’s, where he filled her ear all night with how bad Harry treats him and how nobody truly appreciates him.”

  “Horseshit.”

  “Well, you and I might think so. But that’s Acey. Anyhow, next thing he knew it was afternoon, past game time, and he was on the floor with the ugliest head of his life. He won’t say it, but I think Maud doped his whiskey.”

  “I think I’m getting it,” I said. “After the Central Citys lose nearly four to one in the first game, she tips somebody that Brainard will miss the second one. So they bet on Syracuse to lose no worse than, say, two to one, and they clean up when it ends thirty-six to twenty-two.”

  He nodded. “A whole lot of cash changed hands last night down on Vine. But I haven’t come to the worst yet.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Nope,” he said glumly. “Acey was in such a miserable state that he took it into his head he was washed up on the Stockings. He went over the bridge to Covington, still some drunk, and tried to sign on with the Live Oaks. First thing they did, naturally, was send word to Champion.”

  “Oh, shit,” I said. “How’s Champion taking it?”

  “He wants to fire Acey.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “No? Last year he sure as hell put Jack Hatfield on public trial, then made sure it got printed in every sporting paper in the country. And poor Jack was only going back to the Mutes, where me ‘n’ him revolved from in the first place; it was the Stockings who made raids on other clubs. Anyhow, Acey’s in a tight spot, and he’s only got one thing working for him.”

  “Harry needs him.”

  “Even that might not be enough. No, it’s the win streak. The whole damn country is following us. You can be sure Champion doesn’t want that to end.”

  “You think he’ll let Asa stay, then?”

  “I reckon he’ll let him stew a bit, then allow Harry to talk him into giving Acey one more chance.” He took a cigar out and rolled it in his fingers without lighting it. “It’s the other part I’m hoping you’ll help with.”

  “Jesus, Fred, don’t you think I’ve butted in enough with gamblers?”

  “If Acey could just get some cash, there’d be no trouble.”

  “How deep is he in?”

  “Almost a thousand.”

  I thought it over. Maybe the Elmira money was mine only as some sort of trust.

  “This afternoon be okay?”

  “You’ll lend it?” He looked surprised. “Sam, that’s a hell of a thing. Not many’d do it. Acey’ll stand good, sooner or later. You’re the cash article in my book.”

  “A sucker is what I am.”

  “Maybe a little of that, too,” he said wryly. “Acey brings it out in his pals.”

  I expected a harangue from Champion, at least a pep talk from Harry, but instead it was business as usual in the clubhouse that afternoon. Brainard suited up, red-eyed and sheepish. The others were curious, but nobody asked what had transpired.

  “I guess Fred told you this counts a lot with me,” Brainard said as we went out to the field.

  “You were going to cover for me in Troy,” I said.

  “I owe you.”

  “Damn right.”

  The Clevelands, termed by Millar the “second best team in the state,” looked snappy in white knickers and blue stockings patterned after ours. Allison’s younger brother Art played first for them. I was pleased to hear him ask Allison about all the crap he’d been reading. Allison looked chastened. He was back behind the plate today, catching Brainard.

  The Clevelands were wound so tightly that they took themselves out of things in the first inning. Their errors plus our relentless hitting—capped by Gould’s drive over the fence—gave us a 9-0 getaway lead. The rest of the afternoon was a slugfest. Clouting seven more roundtrippers, we trounced them 43-27.

  In the booth Johnny worked to exhaustion again, even though we had added another employee, Helga’s cousin Anna. We’d abandoned Cracker Jack as too much trouble, but now had french fries—Saratoga potatoes—bubbling in a pot of hot oil. We sold everything by the seventh inning, netting 212 dollars. Champion informed me I was an innovative genius.

  That night Cait, Timmy, and I went to a concert in Lincoln Park. I didn’t see O’Donovan when I picked them up, and Timmy made no mention of their trip together. At first subdued, he brightened when I showed him the miniature sloop I’d bought for him in a toy store on Fourth.

  “You’ll spoil him,” said Cait, watching him launch the little craft on the sailing pond.

  “Good.”

  Lincoln Park was a wonder. Although the Union Grounds lay just behind, I’d spent little time in the park itself; usually I bustled through one corner of it after taking the Seventh Street cars to Freeman. This night the trees were lit magically with oriental lanterns. A blaze of lamps framed the central gazebo, where the Zouave band played.

  We rented a rowboat and circled the little island where in daylight children played with squirrels and rabbits, fawns and peacocks. Tim-my fell asleep under a blanket in the bow. I stopped rowing and we drifted silently on the dark water.

  “I’ve been thi
nking,” I said, “about everything you told me of Colm.”

  “Yes?” She faced me on the boat’s other seat, shadows playing over her.

  “Did you ever think that he came back as another kind of bird?”

  “Another?”

  “A redwing blackbird, say, or something larger—an owl or hawk?”

  “No, why?”

  “Just asking.”

  “I didn’t tell you all that Clara Antonia said.”

  The throb I had heard before was in her voice. It was remarkably sexy, I decided. “What else?”

  “She said that no matter how it might seem, death is not final, and that I should never despair. There is more than bare existence and the snuffing of that existence.”

  “Did she say what more there is?”

  “Are you laughing, Samuel? Do you think my mind unbalanced?”

  “No, I think you found what solace you could.”

  “It was more than solace. It was instruction. And in part it involved you.”

  “Me?”

  “She said that a man would come to me through the family somehow. He would want to help. And I would want to love him, but would fight against doing so.”

  “And did she advise on that?”

  “She said I should not fight, were it a true thing, for love is the means of transcendence, the bridge.”

  “To what?”

  “That I’m not sure. It was vague and dreamlike to me. I believed that Fearghus was the man she meant. He was Colm’s closest comrade. He visited our home—coming through the family, you see?—but it was all so soon. I knew he wanted me, but he was so different from Colm. Colm had been lighthearted, flowing with music and laughter. There was never music in Fearghus. And then they hurt him like an animal in a British jail, and he came back burning with a mad anger.”

  She hesitated before going on.

  “The years passed, and I put the prophecy out of mind. It was part of back then, the horrible sadness. When Andy told me of your gift to Mother, I felt my soul being torn open. I struggled against the sad memories, against feeling so badly again.”

  “And then you got a good look at my mug.”

  “I was terrified of you. Of myself, to say it truly.”

  “But you relaxed when you saw I was too big and hairy to be Prince Charming.”

  A trace of a smile appeared. “Sometimes you’re a stranger to yourself, Samuel. You frightened me, but I also saw a man who was exciting and alive. I saw that you loved Andy, and that you were kind. Most of all, I saw how you looked at me.”

  The band was playing a waltz. Cait’s face was a pale oval in the moonlight. I moved close and put my arm around her. She leaned in, her hair brushing my shoulder, her weight precious against me.

  “I’m not sure how to kiss a Victorian lady,” I mumbled.

  “And what might be one of those?”

  “You’re one.”

  “A lady would never be seen here unescorted.” She smiled up at me, her eyes gray with moonglow. “I’m a woman, nothing more.”

  Our lips met, and her arm slowly encircled my neck. My fingers rested on her cinched waist, and I could feel the soft fullness of her breasts against my chest. She tasted of warm mint. The night burst into energy, brilliant, pulsing, intoxicating, glorious. The universe smiled.

  Chapter 18

  On Saturday, August 7, Harry dismissed practice an hour early. I had rushed to pick up Cait and Timmy. By then the city was coming to a standstill. All week the papers had bristled with ads for railway excursions to Louisville, the area’s best vantage point, and for boats to river locations beyond the city’s smoke. The Enquirer ran long-winded installments by James Fenimore Cooper describing the eclipse of 1806. Today’s, billed the “astronomical event of the century,” had brought anticipation to a peak. Those unable to get out of Cincinnati, like us, headed for the cleaner air of the surrounding hills. Now we sat gazing upward, like millions of others.

  As the sky took on a greenish hue, birds vanished to nests and mothers called their children. Cait shivered and pulled Timmy close to her. Through a piece of smoked glass I’d bought for the occasion, we watched the final sliver of sun disappear. Sitting in untimely darkness in our Eden Park meadow, we laughed at how strange it was to picnic during a solar eclipse.

  I eyed Cait suggestively in the gloom and said, “Maybe you should go back to wearing hoopskirts.”

  “That’s wanton and terrible!” she said, half-shocked and half-laughing. We’d seen a woman in one of the huge round things, fashionable a decade ago, step from a curb in front of the post office. Her foot went into in a pothole and she toppled to the pavement. Trapped and unable to rise in the hoopskirt, she kicked petticoated legs in the air and screamed bloody murder.

  “Aw, let’s not talk about that,” said Timmy, bored.

  “What shall we talk about?” said Cait.

  “Baseball! When I grow up, I’ll strike the ball heavy like Sam and run fast like Andy!”

  “Okay,” I said, “so long as you don’t run like me.”

  “Can I try for the juniors, Mother?”

  “We’ll see.” The laughter was gone from her voice.

  “Fearghus says I’m to be a soldier, that’s all he talked of when we went—” He halted abruptly and looked guiltily at me. “A soldier like my dad was,” he went on. “Fearghus got mad when I said I’d rather be a hero at ball like Andy.”

  “Heroes fight for their country,” said Cait.

  “This is my country!”

  “Tim, that’s enough now!”

  When the sky began to lighten he took his tool chest and worked on dead branches with the saw I’d showed him how to use. It was very possible, I realized, that Timmy was suffering from too many would-be father figures.

  “I don’t mean to cause you problems with him,” I said.

  “It’s not you alone,” she said. “He hears baseball everywhere. I can understand its attraction. I’m swept up in excitement myself at the grounds. But I’ll not have him believe it’s more important than the brotherhood.”

  “The Fenians?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Why are they so important to you?”

  “Isn’t that equal to asking why a free Ireland is important?”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “But why do you feel it so much stronger than Andy does?”

  “He’s too young to remember Father’s head bloodied by Orangemen in the pay of the damned English,” she said. “He thinks Father died only of drink. The truth is he was first beaten down by those bastards. Finally, to save his family, he let them swindle us out of the land. Steal our land!” Her eyes flashed and her voice rose. “Andy’s a pup, pampered from the first by Mother and Brighid and me. Now he’ll play his game and be damned while others die for his country.”

  “He says this is his country,” I said, and realized I had echoed Timmy.

  “He’s wrong, for a certainty.” Her eyes locked with mine. “None of us has a true home here. They call us Micks and Paddys and Bridgets and worse, and deny us decent lodging and work.”

  “But isn’t it getting better?”

  She waved a hand, dismissing the idea.

  “Do you want to return to Ireland?”

  “To a free Ireland,” she said emphatically. “And I shall do that very thing before I’m too much older.”

  I looked at her in silence, thinking how different we were, how problematic it was for me to love her.

  “It was not my intent to carry on so, Samuel.” “I asked,” I said. “To find out how you felt.” “Indeed you did,” she said.

  When I carried Timmy inside around nine, I thought I heard faint thumps below. Cait heard nothing. I was convinced it wasn’t my imagination. Outside I stopped and listened again. Dead silence.

  I slept fitfully. At six I was up and on the first horsecar. I approached Cait’s from the rear, looking for a door to the basement. I found one secured with a heavy padlock and noticed that it was h
inged from the outside—a fact I mentally filed—and that the sod in front was tramped down. Something or someone had been down there.

  Rounding the corner of the house, I stopped abruptly. In the street stood a wagon and three-horse team. Two sweating workers were cinching a tarpaulin over its empty bed. A black-whiskered man I recognized as one of Cait’s boarders stood watching them. He spotted me, said something, and pointed. From the other side of the wagon Fearghus O’Donovan appeared. He too was sweating, and his long overcoat was streaked with dirt and grease. He ran toward me, followed by the others.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” His blue eyes raked me.

  “He’s been around here lately,” Black Whiskers said.

  O’Donovan moved within inches of me. “I asked you a question.”

  I nodded toward the wagon. “What’s the meaning of that?”

  “None of your affair.” His eyes flicked up at Cait’s window and something in his face changed. “Ah, I see.” He wheeled toward Black Whiskers. “Why the devil didn’t you tell me he was sniffing around here?”

  I didn’t appreciate his choice of verb.

  “’Twas an oversight, Captain O’Donovan, with all the work—”

  “Enough!” O’Donovan swung back to me. “So, you’re preying on a poor widow’s weakness, is that it?”

  “I’m not preying on anybody,” I said. “But I’m curious as hell about what’s going on around Cait.”

  “‘Cait,’” he repeated mockingly. “And curious, are you? I’ll soon know what your game is. I’ve begun asking questions.”

  “I’ll try to think up some answers,” I said, “when I’ve got time to waste.”

  The icy eyes narrowed. “Your circumstances are graver than you imagine. I’d advise you to stay away from Mrs. O’Neill.”

  “I appreciate that,” I told him. “It’s splendid advice.” I brushed past him, feeling him go tense. “Keep up the good work,” I told Black Whiskers, jabbing a thumb at the wagon.

  I strode along the sidewalk, feeling their eyes bore into my back.