If I Never Get Back

by Darryl Brock

  “Whatever is wrong with me, as you put it,” she said a moment later, “you are likely the cause.”

  I felt stung, as if she’d slapped me.

  “Your coming to help truly was a miracle,” she added quickly, “but you must know that it brings pressure.”

  “From O’Donovan, you mean?”

  She looked troubled but said nothing. The silence stretched between us.

  “Is it something else?”

  Her answer was barely audible. “Knowing that you desire me . . . as a woman . . . it’s . . .”

  “It’s what?” I said. “Pressure?”

  She nodded, looking down.

  “You think I might want you”—a blush crept up her face at that—“and so you feel pressure? That’s all?”

  “Samuel, I—”

  “Don’t you have desires of your own?” Anger was rising quickly, dangerously, in me. “Or maybe it’s that yours don’t involve me.”

  “Samuel, please, I cannot—”

  “Just how did Timmy come about?” I demanded, overriding her. “Did Colm force himself on you?”

  I regretted it the instant it left my mouth. Christ, we’d never even alluded to sex and now I say something like that.

  “I gave myself to Colm,” she said, her eyes flashing.

  “Because you loved and wanted him,” I replied. “Was that pressure?”

  “That’s not your concern.”

  “Fine.”

  We sat through another silence.

  “I can’t see you for a few days,” she said finally.

  I kept from asking what difference it made. “Why not?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  I stood up. “It was okay when I was a visiting nurse, but now I guess it’s back to real life: Fenian war games.”

  “Samuel, I didn’t mean to upset you, but you will NOT speak slightingly to me of the society!”

  “I’m going,” I said. “Good-bye.”

  Helga didn’t want to charge me for the room, but I paid two weeks in advance at Gasthaus zur Rose. I took to sleeping there most nights and rising early to stop at the nearby Backerei for sweet rolls and coffee. Then I sauntered along the river—following any breeze that carried its pungent smells away—and through the jumble of narrow streets. I loved the old-world brick houses with clean-swept sidewalks and garden plots and gingerbread windows swelling with flowers. I loved the early-morning bells in tall churches with clock towers. I tested my pidgin German on old women wearing wooden shoes who sat knitting in the sunshine, and on their husbands smoking long pipes nearby, figures out of Brothers Grimm.

  I also kept my room at the Gibson, where I dropped by the aromatic barbershop more to hear the latest sporting talk than to have my beard trimmed. I liked the downtown bustle: cries of bootblacks and vendors; rumbling carriages and drays, their drivers shouting furiously; clanging bells of streetcars and omnibuses; organ-grinders and oom-pah bands in squares and parks; the busy squalor of the riverfront; the cool green hills ringing the city basin. I’d fallen in love with Cincinnati, I realized. Why had that feeling—and everything else, lately—taken on such urgency?

  Afternoons I worked out with the Stockings, mostly because I had little else to do. Johnny and Helga had the concessions running smoothly. I’d doubled their pay as they took complete charge. Johnny had used his earnings to buy a gleaming top-of-the-line velocipede to race in the county finals at the upcoming annual fair. Several mornings I watched him train on the track at the Union Grounds. His spindly legs generated impressive power on the new machine. I hoped he had a real chance to win, suspecting that losing would devastate him.

  Meanwhile, with the western trip looming, there was no reason to work harder or dream up new promotions. My job, already marginal, would soon end. With the passing of baseball season I’d have to confront the issue of purpose in my life. Sports offered a cozy refuge from reality. On the other hand, what was real? Some mind-numbing job to keep me from wondering what to do with myself? I had enough money—over six thousand dollars remained from Elmira—not to worry for a while.

  I tried to stay calm about Cait. But not seeing her made me realize how large a void she and Timmy had filled. Insofar as I could remove them from my thoughts, memories of my old life seeped in. My job at the Chronicle didn’t seem so inconsequential now. Working at one’s craft—wasn’t that essential? And the idea of raising my daughters, even part-time, brought back old aches. Ah, the biological imperatives. Had I deluded myself in thinking I could satisfy them with Cait and Timmy?

  We met the visiting Rochester Alerts two days after my fight with Cait. I sat at the scorer’s table in street clothes for the first time, feeling decidedly less glamorous. Harry had already hired Oak Taylor, the star of the juniors; he would make the western trip. I toyed with the thought of disabling him.

  My own status cleared up a bit when Champion assured me that sufficient space existed and that he had no objection to my going. That was how Mr. Warmth put it. But I’d have to pay my own way. Did I want to do that? I told him I’d let him know before final ticket arrangements had to be made. Did I want to go? God, yes, I wanted to go—in some inexplicable way I had to. And yet was unaccountably afraid of it. I didn’t know what I wanted.

  Seeing the Alerts in their crisp white jerseys took me back to the first game I had witnessed, on that distant rainy day—was it really only three months ago?—when I’d awakened in Rochester. They were a good-looking club, second only to the Rockford Forest Citys among all-amateur clubs we’d faced. But in the fourth, sparked by Mac’s gargantuan homer and Andy’s steal of home, we broke things open.

  The Alerts matched us afterward but couldn’t gain, and it ended 32-19.

  Images of San Francisco haunted me. At night, my sleep torn by exhausting dreams, the city beckoned me like a lover, calling me to come back, whispering that my destiny waited there. But the city in my dreams was the one I had known. Not whatever existed there now.

  After vacillating for nearly a week I went to Champion and asked if the club would consider paying half my train fare if I covered all food and lodging. No, he said. How about a fourth? I’d help with security, run errands, and provide Harry a second substitute. I reminded him of the Troy game, when two regulars were injured, and said I’d hate to see the perfect season ruined for the sake of saving a few dollars. My salesmanship was never better. With some reluctance he agreed.

  Next I visited the Enquirer and Gazette and made each an identical offer: pick up half my travel costs, and I’d wire them exclusive reports. I pointed out that if only Millar went, readers would buy the Commercial to follow their beloved Stockings through the exciting West. The Gazette was lukewarm, but not so the Enquirer. Tired of being scooped by their Republican competitor, they hired me on the spot and handed me an advance check.

  Having taken care of half my living and 3/4 my transportation costs, I told Champion to book me on. I felt relieved. That night the dreams stopped.

  I found the note in my box at the Gibson:

  Samuel,

  We miss you. Will you visit tonight?

  Caitlin

  My heart nearly catapulted from my chest. I let out a yell that lifted the feet of lobby dwellers from the gleaming parquet floor.

  I arrived with a 150-piece Noah’s Ark set fashioned in Bavaria that I’d found in Over the Rhine. We covered the floor with intricately carved animals and birds. Timmy fell asleep with the lions in his hand.

  “This is for you,” I said, handing Cait a small box.

  She smiled. While I played with Timmy she’d watched quietly. She wore her green dress, the one that made her eyes even more jewellike and at once concealed and suggested the contours of her body. I could scarcely look at her. Or keep from it. She was too beautiful.

  “Samuel,” she breathed, holding the heart-shaped silver locket by its chain. It gleamed in the lamplight.

  “Like it?”

  She cradled it in her hand and gazed at it. �
�When I was a girl,” she said, “I hoped . . .”

  She didn’t finish. “I missed you, Cait.”

  “I couldn’t follow the Circle leaders’ talk,” she said, smiling, “even when they spoke of the most serious military matters.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Thinking of you.”

  I moved toward her. “Are you marching off to war?”

  “Not just now, for a certainty.”

  I took her in my arms, pressed her to me as our mouths met. She held me so tightly that I could feel the trembling of her body.

  “I do want you,” I breathed into her hair.

  She kissed me again, then leaned back and looked into my eyes. She fastened the chain around her neck and lifted my hand to cover hers holding the locket. Around its edges I felt the soft swell of her breasts. “Can you be patient, Samuel?” she said softly. “I care for you, very much.”

  Although attention was focused on the trip, the local baseball scene was not entirely quiet. A letter appeared in the Gazette arguing that the game was fast becoming, like boxing and horse racing, “a sport for gamblers and blacklegs to make money on.” It should not be played for pay, but solely “for the exciting and health-giving exercise it affords,” and employers should give their “best young men” time off to form amateur teams.

  It was a popular argument. The country as a whole seemed obsessed with the subject of youth’s corruptibility. The Stockings weren’t impressed. “They’d grab for the cash fast enough if it came their way,” Waterman said bluntly of critics. “But who’d pay to see raggedy-ass muffins?”

  The Pittsburgh Olympics came in to try their luck against us. Since Johnny now spent all his time training, with the fair about to open, I turned the score book over to Oak Taylor and busied myself feeding the multitudes. When the last of the hot dogs and hamburgers sold, I was more wrung out than after one of Harry’s workouts.

  The game was a blowout. The Stockings took a 10-0 lead in the first and never slackened. In the face of Brainard’s two-hitter, George’s eight hits and six steals, and Andy’s two homers, Pittsburgh fell, 54-2, in only two hours. A most efficient drubbing.

  That night Johnny and I packed our supplies and equipment. The Stockings would not play here again for at least a month, until after California.

  Departure was five days away.

  Next morning I brought Cait and Timmy to the Hamilton & Dayton depot, where Johnny waited with his sparkling three-hundred-dollar Demarest with its gleaming steel rails, ivory handlebars, silver-plated wheels, and hard rubber tires.

  “Take me for a ride!” Timmy pleaded, eyes riveted on the mechanical wonder.

  “I dunno, Tim,” said Johnny.

  “For a certainty not!” Cait said.

  “Tell you what,” I said to Johnny. “You save your legs. I’ll give him a spin around the platform.”

  “You can ride?” said Timmy wonderingly, as if it were a wild bull.“I’m an expert.”

  “Sam, I don’t think . . .” Johnny began nervously.

  “Real slow and easy.” I straddled the bike and lifted Timmy onto the handlebars. “No problem.” We set off over the planks of the platform.

  “Samuel!”

  “Jeez, Sam!”

  I wobbled a bit, giving Timmy several unintended thrills. Then I got the feel of it and we roiled smoothly. At the far end I set him on my shoulders for the return trip.

  “Wheeeeee!” He clutched my hair, his knees pressing the sides of my neck, his elation fusing into me, making me young again.

  “Look, Ma!” I said, lifting my hands from the bars as we coasted back.

  “Samuel!”

  “Where’d you learn?” Johnny said as we dismounted.

  I waved at the bike and started to say it was something you knew as a kid and never forgot—then remembered that few people had mastered the new two-wheelers. “Guess I must be a natural,” I said.

  “Wow, Sam!” said Timmy.

  “Just jump on and ride my Demarest!” Johnny said incredulously.

  “Ain’t Sam a dinger?” Timmy demanded, sounding for all the world like Andy.

  “Samuel’s fond of his surprises,” Cait said, hugging him and looking at me over his shoulder. “For a certainty.”

  I saw the locket hanging at her throat.

  When the train arrived we lifted the velocipede aboard. Johnny was already edgy.

  “You’ll make a fine showing,” Cait told him as we pulled out of the city.

  “Fine ain’t enough,” said Johnny.

  Cait smiled uncertainly, not sure if he was serious. To her it was a marginal pastime. To him it was a new identity, the launching of his future.

  Carthage lay ten miles north. We arrived at noon and shuttled by coach to the fairgrounds. Clouds of dust rose from the road. We passed beneath a banner.

  FIFTEENTH ANNUAL FAIR

  HAMILTON COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY

  At the gate Johnny let it be known that he was a racer and we were his guests. The ticket taker gave him and the velocipede long looks, then let us pass. The prize and concession booths were just opening. A sad-faced clown stood nearby holding balloons.

  “Yo,” he called, “Jughandle John!”

  “Yo, Fish,” said Johnny. “How’s business?”

  “Poor of late,” he said.

  I bought a balloon for Timmy. Johnny had worked with Fish at Robinson’s Circus. When Fish could no longer do the strenuous routines, he’d gone into balloons. Even without his makeup, Johnny said, Fish was a sad case. “Could go like that for me.” He patted the velocipede seat. “If not for my new career.”

  We ambled past hog pens. The prizewinner, a 935-pound leviathan, inhabited what a sign called “the most spacious apartment in swine-dom.” Farther on was an amphitheater in which young bulls were being shown. Attendants led them by rings in their noses, jerking upward to force their heads high. People in the stands watched attentively. Judges examined each bull in turn, prodding and measuring, feeling the tightness of skin, having the attendant jerk the nose ring or walk the animal once more.

  “I’ll not witness this,” said Cait. “It’s torture for the poor creatures.”

  We bypassed an enclosure where horses were judged and entered, at Cait’s urging, Floral Hall, where we walked among fragrant lantana, heliotrope, begonia, achyranthes, moss fuchsia, myrtle, and countless rose varieties. Johnny and his velocipede drew curious stares. Every five minutes he asked me to pull out my watch. Finally he said he’d go out to the track; he was too nervous.

  “We’ll go too,” I told him. “Here, we brought something for you.”

  Cait squeezed my arm. The gift was my doing. I handed him the package I’d been carrying. He opened it and pulled out a maroon cyclist’s suit and a pair of canvas shoes.

  “It’s silk,” I said. “Remember Mrs. Bertram, does the uniforms? She made it from your measurements. Here’s the cap, underneath. Those are the new light sporting shoes Harry’s ordering for the team.”

  “Hell, Sam,” he said, swallowing as he fingered the silks.

  “Come on, let’s sign you up and find the dressing tent, see how you look.”

  We walked to an oval track behind the exhibit halls where contestants already wheeled around the circuit. We followed Johnny to the judges’ stand.

  “Bruhn,” said Johnny. “Sent in my deposit a month back.”

  The official, a pleasant-looking man with ruddy cheeks and yellow hair that matched his straw hat, ran his finger down a list, found the name, glanced at Johnny, then stared.

  “You funning me?”

  Johnny stood silently, very still.

  “What’s the problem?” I moved forward. “Don’t you have his entrance money?”

  “This isn’t for coloreds.”

  I stood dumbfounded for an instant, then wondered how we’d been so naive not to think of it. Hadn’t Johnny known? I glanced at him. Kinky red hair, flat nose, coffee skin—features suddenly overwhelmingly dominant
. Had he hoped to brazen his way through? I couldn’t read his frozen expression. Christ!

  “Look,” I said placatingly, “if it’s a question of compensation, maybe we can reach some sort of—”

  “Niggers don’t race here,” the man said flatly, pleasantness draining from his face. “Here’s your fee.” He held out two greenbacks.

  Johnny did not move.

  He shrugged and laid the bills on his table. “I’m sorry, I didn’t make the rules.”

  “You can’t turn him away,” I said. “He’s practiced for weeks.”

  “Don’t beg, Sam,” said Johnny quietly. He turned his velocipede and started back the way we had come.

  “What is it?” I heard Timmy say. “Is Johnny a nigger?”

  “Hush,” Cait said.

  With the helpless feeling that something enticingly close was slipping away, I yelled, “Wait!” I caught Johnny and wrapped my arm around his shoulders. “Come on, we’ve got to think of something.”

  “I’ll never get used to it.” There was a faint quaver in his voice. “In the circus it didn’t matter, ’cause in makeup nobody noticed, leastways you could pretend they didn’t.”

  “We’ll work something out,” I told him, without a glimmer of an idea.

  “. . . no dignity in it, Sam.” His voice shook more perceptibly. “All’s I want is the chance to be something on my own.”

  “Makeup!” Cait suddenly said behind us.

  I turned. “What?”

  “If Johnny borrowed clothes from his friend,” she said, “and wore makeup . . . you see?”

  I saw. It was brilliant. Or at least an answer. “Let’s go!” I practically knocked Johnny down trying to turn him around.

  “No, no, NO!” He dug his heels in, anchoring himself. “Miss Cait, I appreciate you trying to help me.” He held the racing suit up; the fabric shimmered. “I want to wear these colors you got me, like a racer’s supposed to.” He turned toward me. “Sam, I don’t want to be no damn clown no more.”