The Nightcrawler

by Mick Ridgewell

  The game started just before six. Beth had run down to the dugout before Roger took the field and kissed him, making sure Dan was watching. Roger figured she had dumped him some time between last year’s game and this year’s rodeo. Not that he cared. If she wanted to use him to make Dan jealous that was fine by him. Dan appeared to be an ass anyway and kissing Beth was definitely a bonus. He watched the gentle sway of Beth’s butt as she made her way to the seats behind the dugout, when his gaze was broken by Jack’s accusatory voice, “Get your head in the game Ronald.”

  “Whatever you say, Jake.” Roger didn’t look to see what Jack’s reply would be. The umpire, if that’s what you could call him, had called the teams to the field. He was wearing a black Harley Davidson ball cap and a black Coors T-shirt with a cigarette pack rolled up in his left sleeve. He had untidy gray hair that matched the stubble on his face.

  “Okay, you punks. Most of y’all know me but for those of you who don’t, my name’s Joe Purdy and I’ll be officiatin’ this shindig today. Dan, Billy, git yer asses over here and let’s git this coin toss done.”

  The team captains stepped up and Joe Purdy flipped the coin in the air to what seemed to be a dozen feet and Dan yelled tails. It was tails and he opted to take the field first. While the Double-D’s ambled to their positions Billy set the batting order. Roger would be batting last. Billy apologized but he would have to work with these guys after Roger had hit the road. Roger sat on the bench and watched his team take some awkward swings. The first guy, Mikey, was all arms and no body rotation, but managed to connect and beat out a weak throw from third. The next guy, Todd, was hitting with all his weight on the front foot and dribbled a soft grounder to first moving Mikey to second on a fielder’s choice. CAT batted third and sent one to the gap. It would have been a triple at least for Mikey, but CAT got into second just in time. Mikey was safely home to start the scoring. Billy batted cleanup and was the cream of this crop as far as Roger could tell. He had a smooth swing and ripped a line shot to left center that was brought down by a lanky guy they called Slinky. Slinky had surprised CAT by catching that one and CAT was doubled up before he could get back to tag up.

  Slinky had the leadoff spot for the Double-D’s and sent Roger back to the track making a snow-cone grab over his shoulder. He then returned the ball to the infield on a bounce to Billy who had come out from short to cut off the throw. By the end of the first they had answered the one and tallied two more for good measure.

  Roger had cranked out the first round tripper of the game with two out and two on in the second and they took the field three batters later with a two run lead.

  The score had see-sawed all night and there was never more than a three run difference. Roger wasn’t accustomed to slow pitch and had never been in a game since t-ball that had this high a score. What made things worse was watching both teams record more errors than runs. By the time they got to the bottom of the ninth the Three-B’s were up by one. This was the first time they ever led in the last inning, and they all looked nervous. Jack sat shifting in his seat with Beth and Bobbi sitting to his right, Nora on his left. Between the heat and the nerve-wracking ninth inning lead he was sweating like a plow horse. The girls seem to be enjoying the fact that their dad, the strongest most self-confident man they new, was currently as nervous as all their dates seemed to be around him. He had been keeping a close watch on Tom Dinkle who also had free flowing sweat on his face.

  In the stands there were about a hundred people, friends and family of the players and employees from both ranches. Coolers of every color sat perched between them, and cold beer cans on the seats sparkled in the sun, which by the ninth was getting low in the sky but still shone bright and hot. Jack and Tom were the only people present who didn’t seem to be enjoying the game. These men had no money riding on this game. Bragging rights for the next year were the only thing at stake and the score had been much too close all game for either to relax. It started out years before as a friendly game between neighboring ranches, but as the Double-D’s winning streak extended year after year, the friendliness was replaced with animosity. This was bigger than the World Series to these two men and it was game seven.

  Roger had been quite bored playing left most of night. The Double-D’s had sent a parade of lefties up who were all pull hitters. Since Slinky’s liner in the first he had fielded a few routine flies and a couple of ground balls that got through the infield but mostly he watched in frustration, as a bunch of hayseeds on both sides of the field booted one easy play after another resulting in a 19 - 18 score to this point. He did enjoy the batting. In addition to the homer in the second, he had two doubles, a triple and an RBI sac fly and he scored three times. All totaled he had contributed to seven of the nineteen runs.

  Now they were on the field for what he hoped was the final out. With two out and Slinky at third, Dan stepped to the first base side of the plate with a look of hard determination on his face. All he needed was a single and this thing would be all tied up. CAT lobbed one in and Dan watched it drop for strike one. Roger felt Dan’s eyes burning through him and he expected Dan would be swinging at the next pitch. Roger hoped the lefty was going to the opposite field. He grinned at this, thinking “you bring it on, hayseed.” The pitcher looped one in lower than the last one and Dan scorched a ground ball dead center between Billy and Jeb, who was playing close to third to prevent one going up the line for extra bases.

  Roger broke at the crack of the bat and was fielding the ball in seconds. Tom Dinkle was hopping up and down talking smack over in Jack’s direction and Dan was hopping up and down and skipping toward first base blowing a kiss in Beth’s direction as he passed. He was only half way to first when he noticed that Roger had the ball in his hand in shallow left and was coming up throwing.

  Nobody in the park but Roger seemed to think this play was possible until they all heard Dan choke out, “Oh shit.”

  Sammy over at first scrambled to the bag and everyone else watched as Roger unleashed a throw from a cannon attached to his right shoulder. Dan had hit his stride with a vengeance but the ball got to Sam’s glove a full step before Dan got to the bag.

  Joe Purdy punched Dan out with exaggerated animation and the Triple-B’s had won for the first time in this game’s history.

  Roger hadn’t really felt like a part of this team all night but within seconds of Joe calling that third out the whole team had jumped on him in celebration. That was when he almost wished he wasn’t part of the team. Being buried under twelve sweaty cattle ranchers was not the way he had planned to spend his summer vacation. They hoisted him up onto their shoulders and carried him back to the infield. He could see Tom Dinkle reluctantly congratulating Jack while Dan was shoved and poked by his team for his base running blunder. Someone had knocked his cap to the ground and another of his fair weather friends had nailed him in the back of the head with his ball mitt.

  Then he saw Beth. He saw Beth standing on the roof of the dugout. Beth looking as beautiful as any woman ever had. Beth pointing at Roger and smiling. That was all it took. He knew that tonight, his efforts to steer clear of an all out summer romance would end. Paige was a memory that happened in another lifetime. Beth was this lifetime and he wanted to live in the present.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Scott Randall always hated hospitals. When he was a boy his grandfather had had a stroke and his mom would visit every day. She couldn’t afford to get a babysitter so Scott had to go too. He had spent the better part of his summer vacation when he was ten being dragged to the hospital to see Gramps.

  He was very close to his grandfather but he didn’t want to see him in there. Before the stroke, Scottie was always the first to the car when it was time to visit Gramps. The hospital however was no place to be for little boys with unlimited energy and very little patience. Little Scottie would be okay for the first ten minutes. The eleventh seemed longer than the first ten combined, and the twelfth longer still. By the time Scottie and his mom had
been in that place for fifteen minutes he began to ask the question, ”Is it time to go yet?” Before another five minutes had passed, his mother would be losing her own patience.

  “Scottie, shush,” she would say. A bit later Mom would announce, “Scottie, we will leave when we leave, now please be quiet.” That would inevitably be followed by, “Scottie, can’t you just sit still for five minutes?”

  He never got his Gramps back. His grandfather recovered enough to go home but he was never Gramps again. He was an old man who never spoke or laughed. Before the stroke, Gramps always told stories and laughed and laughed. In Scott’s mind the hospital with all the shushes had taken the fun from his grandfather. All that, “don’t bother the sick and dying” quiet had taken the fun out of Gramps.

  So here he was all grown up and still hating hospitals and the quiet in them. The white walls and cheap watercolor paintings. The antiseptic smell. The staff in their white uniforms or green scrubs all hustling around importantly not seeming to notice the people they passed in the halls. But what he hated most of all was the quiet. It was that don’t disturb the sick and dying kind of quiet. A silence that appeared to be annoyed by interruptions. Interruptions like an occasional page: ”Dr. Nobody, please report to Radiology” or “Dr. Anonymous to the ER stat”. Christ, what he wanted to hear was ”Scott Randall, please report to the fucking Charger and get the hell out of here.” Now that would be a welcome interruption to the quiet. Whether the “hospital-quiet” thought so or not, Scott Randall would love to hear that.

  That page would not come. Scott paced the floor in the waiting room of the Salina Surgical Hospital wanting to be just about anywhere else. He listened to the “Dr. Nobody Cares, please report to wherever” pages and the sound of soft-soled shoes on the shiny tile floor. To the chimes of the elevator down the hall just before it clanged open casting out its cargo of more clip clopping shoes and whispering voices. Most of all, the quiet, the “do not disturb the sick and dying” quiet.

  Just when Scott considered making a run for the exit Fred Webster came up and tapped him on the shoulder causing him to jump. “Sorry pal,” Fred said in a half whisper. Fred had been the unfortunate owner of the Suburban that took flight back on the highway. As luck would have it he was also a retired doctor. He was a big man, both tall and wide. He had a kind face that was younger looking than the full head of white hair made him appear. He still wore a shirt and tie, more out of habit than anything. His white shirt was damp and soiled but it looked as though it had been neatly pressed when he put it on.

  “Scott, I have never traveled that fast in a car before and I sure hope I never have the pleasure again.” Fred’s expression was a mix of mild amusement and admiration. Scott was in no mood for pleasant chit-chat. He was worried about Ashley. Moreover, he wanted to get out of this hospital as soon as he got word that she would be okay. “Forty-five minutes from there to here has got to be some kind of record. That’s a hell of a car you got there.”

  Scott nodded politely, “It actually belongs to a business associate back in Detroit.” It would have been easier to say a friend but Thomas was a pompous ass and Scott didn’t want to call him a friend even in conversation with a man he would probably never see again. “He’s hoping I can find a buyer for it when I get back to LA. I think his wife is making him sell it, probably to get some SUV the size of Rhode Island.”

  “My truck might have flown to Rhode Island. Did you see it take off? It flew right over your friend’s car like it had wings and that Charger stayed put.” Fred shook his head, an incredulous look on his face. “Not a scratch on it. When the storm passed and the sun hit it, she sat there shining, red like the devil.”

  Fred had come bounding down the embankment to Ashley’s aid with the dexterity of a twenty-five-year-old fire and rescue worker. Scott admired the way Fred took charge. He called over to the old couple who were examining their crippled Winnebago. Fred sent them into their broken home on wheels to get clean towels and a first aid kit. The old doctor dressed Ashley’s wound and fashioned a collar out of a hand towel to secure her neck. The Charger was the only road-worthy vehicle left so they got Ashley in the backseat as carefully as possible, where Fred secured her head with a couple of the old folk’s beach towels, then climbed into the passenger seat barking at Scott to get moving.

  The old couple and a young woman whose minivan the sign had passed through, stood watching the Charger as it disappeared into the haze left behind by the storm. The same storm that would lay waste to the town of Sherwood just minutes later.

  Sherwood, Kansas, a farming community, was about twenty miles west of where Fred’s Suburban landed in a field of corn. Four people had died in Sherwood and Rosie Sanchez; a two-year-old girl had been torn from her mother’s arms and was presumed dead.

  Now Scott stood nodding at Fred’s banter, his mind wandering. His gaze fell on the Charger sitting in the ER parking lot glistening in the sun. Shining red like the devil.

  “Scott. Scott, are you okay?”

  Scott looked back to Fred and nodded with a confused, blank look in his eyes.

  “I’m going to check on Ashley. The attending is an old friend and he’ll be straight with me,” Fred said. Scott nodded once and Fred disappeared behind the sliding doors to the ER.

  A TV mounted on the wall was now showing an on-the-scene report from Sherwood. A pretty young reporter in a stylish yellow rain slicker gave her best effort to appear grief stricken at the devastation surrounding her. The shot started as a close-up and panned out showing a backdrop of ruination. A bleeding woman in a shabby housecoat holding the limp body of what was once her beloved toy poodle wandered aimlessly behind the reporter looking lost and alone.

  That was the kind of footage that often made national coverage, but it didn’t. What did reach the National News from Sherwood was Pete, an old trucker with a friendly smile and a little girl named Rosie Sanchez. Pete had just delivered a load of Pringles to Salt Lake City and was now on his way to Toledo with a load of some kind of health food snack he hadn’t heard of. He had just got moving again after waiting out the storm on the shoulder of the road when he saw her. “Damndest thing I ever saw”, he would tell the reporters. “She was walking down the side of the highway a mile and a half from where she had left her mommy. At least that’s what the officer told me,” Pete said. The reporter said she was scared and cold but otherwise unhurt. Pete was being called a hero but he said that all he did was bring a little girl to the police so they could find her mommy. Pete said, “it was little Rosie who was the hero.”

  The people in the waiting room cheered when they saw little Rosie reunited with her mother. The “don’t bother the sick and dying” quiet didn’t seem to be offended by this interruption. It was a respectful, polite cheer that was stifled by another page that nobody in the waiting room heard. The page just made them aware that they were interrupting the quiet. There was a brief buzz in the waiting room as the occupants discussed the news report. The buzz faded to a low hum and then the quiet came again.

  Scott felt cold as an air-conditioned blast from overhead blew down on his wet clothes raising goose bumps over the exposed skin of his arms and neck. He decided to go to the car and get a change of clothes. Stepping out into the sun was liberating. He felt warm and free. He didn’t want to go back in there. He was out. He could just get in the car and leave. Then he remembered, he had put Ashley’s pack in the trunk to make more room for her to lie in the backseat. He couldn’t leave with her pack. He picked it up and looked at it. A name tag on the zipper filled in with pink ink. Ashley Troop. He hadn’t even known her last name until now. All he had to do was leave it with the front desk and he was gone.

  “Nice car, son.”

  Scott turned with a start and saw a state trooper standing beside him.

  “Funny thing about this car, son, I was heading west after the storm went through and I see this red blur streak past me faster than I ever seen a car go on that highway. And I seen plenty of
speeding on that stretch.”

  He wasn’t looking at Scott. He was looking into the trunk, craning his neck to look inside the car. “I figured anyone driving that fast must be in trouble or on drugs. You on drugs, son?”

  Scott was beginning to look a little nervous.

  “As I live and breathe. Wayne Tucker, is that you?” Fred was approaching the car dressed in clean scrubs and sporting an ear to ear grin.

  Scott looked at the two of them. Fred the old doctor and Trooper Wayne Tucker and thought, of course Fred knows him. He probably knows everybody around here.

  “Well shit, Doc. You back in the saddle?”

  Fred looked down at the scrubs and explained the events back on the highway. Then he asked Wayne how his boy was doing. Fred had set his leg after a tree climbing incident some years back. Wayne’s boy was now in his second year at college and his boy this and his boy that. Scott tuned out and was now looking at the name tag. Ashley Troop. Had they got in touch with her parents? Had she regained consciousness? Hell if she hadn’t then they sure as hell hadn’t called her family. Nobody even knew her last name around here until now.

  “Isn’t that right, Scott?” Fred said unaware that Scott hadn’t heard a word.

  “I’m sorry. What was that?”

  “I was just telling Wayne how you and that car there may have saved that girl’s life.”

  “Is she going to be all right?”

  “Her x-rays are clear. She’s awake now. Boy, can that girl talk.” Scott couldn’t help but smile at that. There were a few times in the car when he feigned sleep so she would shut up for a few minutes. “They got in touch with her mother,” Fred continued, “All looks okay for now, should be out of here in a day or two.”

  “That’s great,” Scott said looking at the officer and still feeling uneasy. “I’ll just leave her pack at the nurses’ desk and get going.”

  “She asked about you, asked if you had been hurt. I think it would help if you went in and said goodbye,” Fred said, his eyes less friendly than they had been. “I know you’ve only known her for a couple of days but you’re the closest she has to a friend for a thousand miles.”