The Southpaw

by Mark Harris

  (Holly says, “What book was he reading?” She says if you was to keep track of the books a man reads you would know more about that person, what type of a character he was, and so forth and so on. But I don’t know. I never thought to look. Even if I would of looked I wouldn’t of remembered.)

  You never seen anything like the layout up there in her penthouse, 4 tables all pushed together and piled halfway to the ceiling. There was a big chunk of ice with a fish froze inside. There was types of food that I did not even know the name of. Half of them scarcely even looked like food. Yet I ate them, and they was pretty tasty. There was duck and goose and chicken and ham and about 20 types of cold cuts. You just dug in and shoveled it down. I was sorry I had ate any supper, for after awhile I was so stuffed I thought it would do me a week. I ate my head off.

  The whole club was there plus a number of writers plus a number of people from the town, most of them in high society. Krazy Kress of “The Star-Press” was there, 1 of the fattest men I ever laid eyes on. We was standing together, him with a beer and me with a Coke when Patricia Moors come over with a glass in her hand, never looking at me, only at Krazy, and she asked him was he getting his fill, and he said he was, and I said leave us hope so for poor Krazy was probably down perilously close to 350 and what with the hot weather and all might waist away to a mere 325. “This is 1 fresh kid,” said she to him. “If Dutch was not needing a lefthander so bad I would sell him.”

  “Like hell you would,” said Krazy, and he laughed and give me a clap on the shoulder.

  “This kid might make a story,” said she. She took a swig from her glass and shoved it off on a colored waiter passing by and told him bring her another. “He will tell you how he is going to win 20 games this year if Dutch has the sense to keep him. Mike Mulrooney thinks very high of Henry.”

  “Is that so?” said Krazy.

  “I was at Q. C. last year,” I said. “I won 21 games there and left the club with still a month to go.”

  “The trouble with him is he ain’t got enough confidence in himself,” said she. The waiter brought her a new glass.

  Krazy begun to pump me now. We went over and sat on the couch together. Patricia drifted away, and we talked awhile. Krazy was taking it all down in his mind, and I knowed it, for I can read these writers like a book. “Go ahead and write it down,” said I, “for that is what you are itching to do,” and he took some paper and a pencil out of his pocket and took down all we said.

  Soon she come back and sat down beside us. I think she done it to shake off Ugly Jones. Well, Krazy Kress is mostly hips, and he took up a good deal of that couch, leaving me and Patricia not far apart, and her thigh was up against mine. There was an ash tray on a stand out in front of where we was sitting, and when she leaned across to stump out her butt now and then she grazed along my arm with her breast, and the first thing I knowed I was dry in the mouth, and there was a kind of a heart or a pulse drumming in my neck, and on top of all that I begun to feel that if I stood up all at once I would of looked peculiar, and pretty soon I could no more concentrate on what Krazy was saying then knit a pair of stockings.

  After a time he hoisted himself to his feet. That is practically a job in itself for Krazy. He went back and mingled amongst the people. He give me a first-class write-up about 3 days later.

  Me and her just sat there. I moved away about 6 inches or so, and she drunk another glass or 2 and smoked a lot of cigarettes, and pretty soon she begun to babble. She said she wondered how Krazy Kresses wife and him managed, him being so big and heavy and his stomach out so far. She asked me what I thought about that. I said I had never give it a thought. She asked me if Ugly Jones ever spoke about her. I said no, which was a lie. She asked me did I think Sam Yale loved his wife, and she asked me the same of Red, and then every little while she come back to Ugly, asking me did he ever speak of her and did he love his wife.

  This palaver went on for quite some time. I forget all the questions she asked. Some of them she asked over and over the drunker she got, and once or twice I got up and started to leave, for she made me nervous, and every time I done so she grabbed a hold of my wrist and pulled me back down, and then she would not leave go of my wrist for 2 or 3 minutes. She would hold on, and she would dig 1 of them long nails down in the heel of my hand, and the way she done it got me so all-fired excited I thought I would blow the lid right then.

  She hardly raised her voice above a whisper, and it was husky and rough, and her lips were wet and her teeth white and her eyes a little glazey, and she begun to call me her boy, saying I would be her boy now, like all the rest, and we was all her boys and we would win the flag for her if for no other reason, and she said she remembered a long time back when Sad Sam Yale first come up, and she was just a kid, and he kissed her smack on the button and said he would win her the flag, and he done so, and after the Series he kissed her again, and she remembered most how his hair was black and thick, for that was years ago, before Sam went bald, and things was different now. Then she put her hand in my hair. I pushed it away.

  Then she upped and started out of there, very wobbly, and I went after. She went out in the hall and down past the elevators and out another door that looked like a window, and I followed, not knowing why but only so heated up I suppose if she jumped off the roof I would of did the same. It was cool out there, for it was a balcony, and she was standing by the ledge and vomiting off the side, down in the hotel swimming pool. “All that good liquor,” she said. “All that good liquor gone down the drain to nowheres, just like me. Did you follow me, Wiggen?”

  “Yes I did,” I said. “You can call me Henry. Or Hank.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I suppose you have now begun following me about. Where is your sense? I guess you boys have got no sense, for your sense is down below your belt,” and she cried, and she asked for my handkerchief, and I give it to her, and she cried some more and blowed her nose in the handkerchief, and finally she sank right down where she was, and she sat there a long while, and I stood over her, feeling foolish and yet not knowing what to do nor how to help. “For having his sense below his belt it cost Ugly 2,000,” she said, and she laughed in a most hysterical way.

  After a long time she felt better. I raised her to her feet, and she stood there a few seconds testing the ground like somebody feeling the ice on a lake before starting out, and then we walked very slow together back towards the door that looked like a window, and she held my hand, and when we got near the door she stopped and turned, and she said if I did not mind stale vomit and strong liquor and salty tears she would kiss me. I said I would take my chances, and she kissed me, except it was not like a kiss a girl would give a fellow on a dark balcony but more like a lady would give a little boy. Yet I liked it well enough, and I thirsted for another, and I dreamed that night that I had got the other, and more, too, dreaming the dream that night and many another night, all that summer, many and many a time, right down to the wire.

  Chapter 20

  PHILADELPHIA landed in Aqua Clara the morning following. About 9 Coker come barging in the room along with Canada and 2 boys that been with Salt Lake the year before in the Four-State Mountain League and now was up with Philly. Philly owns Salt Lake. “You remember these boys,” said Coker.

  “Sure,” I said, and I sat up in bed and stuck out my hand, and they come over and shook it. 1 of them was an outfielder that we always throwed low curves to, and the other was a righthanded pitcher with a motion like Knuckles Johnson but none of Knuckleses stuff. “Have they learned you to hit a low curve?” said I to the outfielder.

  “I been working on it,” he said.

  “You better,” said Canada, “for after 1 time around the circuit they will all be wise to you.” I sent down for some breakfast and an extra pot of coffee and we jawed away an hour or more.

  Philadelphia is the regular springtime opposition for the Mammoths. We always play a number of games with them in and about Aqua Clara just before we break camp, and we me
et them on and off all the way north, winding up with 3 either in Philly or New York, 1 year 1 place and the next year the other, about 14 games in all. We beat them 9 times last spring, and they beat us 5, and the boys get to riding them, saying we was going to write the Commissioner and ask him to please switch Philly over to our league on account of life would be so much happier that way.

  We drubbed them good the first 2 days at Aqua Clara. Dutch pitched Piss Sterling and Knuckles Johnson and Lindon 3 each the first afternoon. We had the usual little meeting in the clubhouse before, going over signs and such. I spoke up and told Dutch about this kid that could not hit the low curve. “What is his name?” said Dutch.

  “I forget it,” I said.

  “You forget it,” said Dutch, very calm. “Very well, Wiggen, will you please do me the favor of bringing me that bat over there in the corner.”

  “Which 1?” said I, for there was about 75.

  “I forget,” said Dutch. A big laugh went up. I seen Sad Sam Yale grinning. Red was talking to George in Spanish, telling him what happened. Then George begun to laugh, too. I looked over at Coker, and he was sitting there looking down at his shoes.

  “Coker,” said I, “what was that fellow’s name?” Coker shook his head, for he did not remember, nor did Canada nor Perry nor Lindon. Squarehead Flynn said it was on the tip of his tongue, but he could not remember.

  “Oh, that is too bad,” said Dutch. “It is on the tippy tip tip of the tongue of Squarehead Flynn and 5 other goddam rookies that passes themselves off as ballplayers. Well, ain’t this just grand. I suppose it will all come back to you some day.” My face felt like it was on fire. “It may not come back until Christmas,” said Dutch, “but that will be time enough, for you can write it on a Christmas card and give me something to think about over New Year’s.”

  “He bats left,” said Coker, lifting his head. “He has got the name Mother tattood on the back of his hand.”

  “Ain’t that tender,” said Dutch.

  “I will watch for him,” said Red, trying to get us off the pan.

  “No you will not,” said Dutch. “These boys here will watch for him. I want his name and the number on his back before the game starts. Is that clear?” He looked from me to Coker to Perry to Lindon to Canada to Squarehead, and we all shook our head yes. I wished that I never brung the matter up. I would rather get knocked out of the box in 1 inning then get eat out by Dutch.

  The big surprise of the spring was Swanee Wilks. Swanee been around a long time. For about 3 years everybody expected it would be his last. But now he hustled like he was 19. He bought some special-made bats in the winter. He said this was what done it plus having some teeth pulled plus getting a divorce from his wife. He was like a new man, hitting along at about a .400 clip. We felt good for Swanee all spring.

  We went down to St. Pete for 2 days, whipping Detroit on both, 1 day in St. Pete and the next day over in Clearwater, and then we split 2 games with Philadelphia in Tampa, and then we doubled back to Aqua Clara for 2 with Cincinnati. When we got there we found out that Bradley Lord had kindly checked us out of the hotel, saving 4 days in rates for Old Man Moors that of course he needed to save on, him being just about in the poorhouse. Bradley Lord had all our gear moved down to the barrackses, which was where we was supposed to sleep. You can imagine what we thought of that little arrangement.

  Yet we was in good spirits. It come on us all of a sudden that we just won 7 games in 8 days, and of course it did not mean a thing, being only spring games and nothing riding on the outcome, and yet in a way it meant plenty, for it meant that a lot of things we was worried about was not happening, and things we thought might happen never did, meaning mainly that Sam Yale and Hams Carroll and Knuckles Johnson was all looking good, and the younger pitchers was showing up fine, and the hitters hitting, and a fellow like Swanee that figured to spend the summer on the bench was all of a sudden out there plastering the ball like nobody’s business, and everybody was down to his weight or else very close to it. Gene Park had a muscle in his heel that give him trouble from time to time, but this spring it just laid there quiet, and Horse Byrd had a crick in his elbow that usually never thawed out till June, but now it give him not an instant of pain whatever, and that was the way it was, hardly a gripe or a bitch, and I guess some of the boys was already imagining in their mind the pot of gold that laid waiting at the end of the rainbow in October.

  That was the first night me and Coker and Canada and Perry was able to get together on the quartet. We had not sung in a bunch since Q. C. the summer before. If we was rusty it never showed. We was all sticky and tired when we got back from Tampa, and it was late, and some of the boys took another shower, and the 4 of us sat on Perry’s bed all wrapped in a towel, waiting for the others to clear out of the shower. We always give the older fellows first crack. We got in tune, sitting there on the bed and humming “I Love You As I Never Loved Before” real low, and going over the words, and “Carry Me Back To Old Virginny,” and the 1 about the nice girl, the proper girl, where her hair hung down in ringulets. Bing Crosby done it on a record. Then we went in the shower, and we showered, and then we begun to sing. I guess we sung for 30 minutes, and when we was halfway through we could feel how quiet it was out in the main room of the barrackses, I took a peek out once, wondering why, and I seen where most of the boys was just laying on their bed, some of them all naked, some of them fanning theirselves, some of them just sitting wet and letting the breeze come through the window and dry them off, yet all of them looking kind of peaceful, like they was enjoying the music. Gil Willowbrook and Herb Macy was playing double solitaire on an empty bed, and Herb looked up, and he said, “Go on and sing some more.”

  So I went back in and we sung some more. Later, when we got to New York, we went up in the Brill Building on Broadway at 49th where all the music people hang, and we went in 1 office and out the other, telling them who we was, and they give us free copies of all the best new songs, stamped all over “Complimentary.” The night before the opener we was on a TV show, and we sang, and after that these music people called up regular at least every other day, just about down on their knees and pleading with us for God sake sing their song on the air.

  I really loved singing in them clubhouse showers. The walls vibrated, and I think it would put everybody in a good frame of mind. If we lost a ball game we might not sing at first. Then someone would say, “Why not sing?” and we would sing 1 that was slow and sad, like “My Old Kentucky Home,” and then we would pick it up and sing faster, maybe “The Camptown Racers” or “Old Susanna,” and after a time we forgot that the game was lost, and we was thinking ahead to tomorrow, and I think that when you add up all the things that made the club what it was you have got to take the singing into consideration, for it done something, just like Dutch’s lectures done something, just like the hard work down in the south done something to make us what we was.

  We split 2 with Cincinnati. Dutch had the pitching rotated pretty good. The fellows that was in the best shape was going 5 innings at a clip by now with Dutch every so often splitting up a game amongst the relief.

  Bub Castetter started the second game against Cincy and set them down fine for 1 inning. But he got in a pack of trouble in the second, though he give up only 1 run. He was sweating like a hot-dog stand when he come to the bench, and breathing harder then he should of been. I felt sorry for him.

  And then I got to thinking. Supposing he snapped back. Supposing he went along like his old self all spring or maybe clear to the Fourth of July. Then what? It was only a matter of time until he would be sent down again, like the year before. It seemed to me the best thing Bub could do was quit while still on his feet.

  In the third somebody drilled 1 back through the box into center. I watched Bub. I seen him give ever so slight a look down at Dutch on the bench. Ugly took the throw in from Lucky, and Ugly and Gene both shifted over towards second, hoping to plug the gap. But you cannot cover up for another. The game has
got to be played 1 certain way, and old friendship cannot matter, even though you might of once roomed with a man and drunk his beer and dealt 10,000 hands of poker, and he told you his troubles and you told him yours. You might of wrote him a letter over the winter.

  But none of it matters. Only the game matters, and that is why I felt sorry for Bub, and sad, and wished him well, and yet, at the same time, I seen him falter and fail and knowed in my heart it might as well be sooner for his own sake and the sake of the club.

  He never got a man out in the third, and Dutch lifted him, and we lost because we could not make back what Bub give away. That was only the second spring game we dropped.

  Chapter 21

  THAT night we broke camp for good and headed up by bus for Jacksonville.

  The boys bitched about riding the bus. Red said every year they rode the bus all night from Aqua Clara to Jacksonville, and every year they bitched, and never a 1 of them thought to fuss about it at contract time. “But we have got to get these games in,” said Red, “for it is a couple mighty good nights for Old Man Moors,” meaning that since we played Queen City there, and then the Jacksonville club, and the whole works including the park owned by the Mammoths every dime got kept in the family except the electric bill, these being the first night games.

  We sung for about 100 miles, me and Coker and Canada and Perry. It was the kind of a night you could sing your best, all clear, and the moon was big and she rode along beside, first in 1 window and then in the next, then disappearing over the top of the bus and coming down the other side, and now and again we would stop and pile out for a hamburg in some little town where they was all asleep except the people that run the diner and a few truck drivers and maybe a cop or 2 and a few old men. They would all be stunned to see us. We give out autographs, and 1 old boy in 1 of these towns grabbed a hold of my arm and he said, “Which is Sad Sam Yale?” and “Which is Ugly Jones?” and “Which is Swanee Wilks?” and “Which is Gene Park?” and there was 1 old colored man in 1 place come up and said he wished he could get the autograph of Lazybones Leo Newton, and the boys all laughed, for Lazybones was 10 years dead. Finally Red said, “Say there Lazybones Leo Dutch Newton, come over here and give this fellow your autograph,” and Dutch caught on quick and come over and give out the autograph, forging it, and a dollar besides.