Empty buckets knocked around in the back. The inside of the truck was quiet. Dad tried to roll up his window, then remembered that he didn’t have one. Field hands were back at work. A group of college kids with clipboards in hand were standing in the middle of the field, talking to them. Mister Goolsbee was hauling a stone slab and shovel up Cordele Road in his wheelbarrow. Dad tapped the horn on our way past, then slapped my thigh tenderly and told me not to worry. Mister Goolsbee would be okay. He was a survivor. Dad said that life was funny. Because as miserable as the summer had been, there was still something depressing about it coming to an end.
• • •
DAD PULLED OVER in front of the Rexall. I didn’t feel like being alone, so I went in with him. Mister Wimple greeted us with a smile and warned us that he’d plum sold out of all his wide-ruled composition notebooks.
It’s for his mother.
I looked up, surprised.
She lost her Bible the other day. Got away from her somehow in the scuffle. I think one of those protesters nicked it.
Mister Wimple pulled one down from atop the display case behind him, dusted it off, and handed it over. He was eager to tell us that it was annotated in red. Dad set it down beside the register and signed the receipt. Outside, the on-again, off-again weather had turned chilly. A few newly fallen leaves tumbled down the sidewalk. Dad buttoned up his coat and looked over the receipt. He seemed happy. Mom’s Bible was of great importance to her, and he didn’t like the idea of having to see her go without one. He held up the paper bag it was in and said that at least it was better than her old one. I had to remind him that her old one had belonged to Grampa Hicks. Dad tucked the receipt into his wallet and asked me to put on my coat. I couldn’t be bothered trying to get the cast in and just hung the coat over my shoulder. Dad asked how my arm was doing. I still couldn’t wiggle my pinky, but I said it was fine.
Dad said that he’d hardly recognize me once they cut the cast off.
We moseyed down the sidewalk and stopped half a block up. Mister Brines had changed the window display and we stood in front of it, admiring all the new stuff for football and basketball season he’d put in the window. Theo’s dive mask was sitting off in the corner all by itself. It was marked down to half price. Dad asked if I was ready for a new one yet—said it looked like one of those fancy models, like the kind frogmen wear. He said that the split rubber strap was an awfully good feature and that it had to be good to at least five thousand feet.
I said no. I just didn’t see the point. The river was already too cold to be fun, and anyone could see that the weather was going to turn soon. Besides, my old one had had a removable faceplate, too. I remembered all the times that Toby had paused from his work and strolled over to the shed, where he’d plop it down on the workbench and remove the faceplate and peel off the leaky gasket, scrape off the cracked bits of old, dried rubber, and, replacing it with anything he’d find lying around, stretch here and snip there until he was able to tuck it over the top where the metal band clamped around it, then put the faceplate back on and screw the clamp tight, then hook a finger around the strap and hold it up with a grin and say, Good as new.
Besides, it was going to be bad enough listening to Mom chew Dad out about the money he’d just dropped on that Bible.
Several shop windows had plywood boards nailed over them. There was not a trace of anyone up or down the street. The battered bus and the patrol car were gone. The protesters were gone from the sidewalk, and all the broken bottles and glass had been cleaned up. One of Missus Bleecker’s leaflets tumbled past, got kicked up in the wind, and swirled around in the brisk air before shooting off down the street.
A cold gust of wind hit my face. Dad stooped down to help me with my coat and said the weatherman had warned of a cold front coming down from the Northeast. He’d been following it closely, said it was the sort of thing that only happens once every hundred years. Of course, we’d be okay because we’d be harvesting over the next few days, but he was concerned for Mister Harrison. He had at least three weeks till harvest, and the prospect of an early cold snap would stunt his crop so bad it wouldn’t even be worth his trouble to pull it from the ground. Son, if it’s not one thing, it’s another.
The gusts of wind were cold and blustery and felt harsh on my face. I turned my back to it and flipped up my collar to keep the cold off my neck. Dad put his hand around my shoulder and said he didn’t care what Missus Mayapple said.
Huey, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Your daddy being white makes you—
I stopped him midsentence. I know, Pop.
As long as you know that, son. I don’t care what Missus Mayapple says.
I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him tight. The two of us rarely got to hang out, and doing so felt good.
Now whaddya say we get you a grape cola? Will you settle for that?
Dad led the way across the street and into S&W. I paused at the front door with the chrome door handle in hand. Down the street, three colored men and a colored woman had just emerged from the Paramount theater, laughing. I recognized them as field hands. And I found their laughter troubling because the movie wasn’t a comedy. The marquee was behind them, and its big black letters were legible directly above the box-office cashier struggling to light a cigarette. It was some western where a helpless squaw gets it in the end. That’s why Dad hadn’t taken me to see it. He’d said that he didn’t think I’d like it on account of how grown-up and serious it was. I’d had my fair share of tears, and the last thing he was going to do was pay for the privilege of seeing me sad. What I needed was a dose of hearty belly laughter. He promised to make it up to me just as soon as something funny came around.
Which is why I couldn’t for the life of me understand the giddy merrymaking of those four coloreds strolling down the sidewalk arm in arm, headed straight for me, so happy-go-lucky, when they’d just seen a tragic movie like that. They were carrying on like they couldn’t have cared less. No. Even worse—like it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. I wanted to stop them in their tracks and punch them in the face. I mean, what kind of person finds it funny when a helpless squaw gets it in the end? Dad was standing inside the door. He tapped the glass and asked what I was waiting for.
XXX
WHERE WERE ALL THESE METS fans back in March, when the stands were so empty I could sit wherever I wanted? To make matters worse, three chicks in short shorts were sitting in the seats behind home plate that I’d come to think of as mine. I’m not saying that they were only there on account of our ten-game winning streak because, to be fair, they were advertising the shit out of the fact that it was the one-hundredth anniversary of big-league ball, but the two things combined sure have brought everyone out of the woodwork.
Still, the sight of those three blond chicks in face paint and tight-fitting shirts waving their blue-and-orange pom-poms made me wonder if maybe I didn’t like the Mets a little more when they were losing all the time. At least then I could kid myself into believing that they belonged to me, if only because no one else wanted anything to do with them. Jimmy won’t admit to it now, but at the beginning of the season he’d cast them off as a bunch of misfits. Ironic, I know. I think the fact that the Mets came to New York the same year as me is why I was a fan from day one. Not to mention the kinship I felt with a ball club mired in losses, clubhouse drama, player antics, defections, and historic misery.
It didn’t matter to me that Chacón didn’t know a word of English, so that Ashburn had to learn how to call for the ball in Spanish if he didn’t want Chacón crashing into him out in shallow left. I was and would forever be there for the Mets and knew they would always be there for me, too. It was a tremendous feeling. There really was a ball club out there for everyone.
Shortly after the start of my fifth year at Claremont, I found a letter from Dad waiting for me on my pillow. Which, don’t get me wrong, was nice. I always wrote him back immediately. I had so much to tell him about Claremo
nt and my new best friend Zuk, because I knew that he would be proud of me. It was just that no matter how many letters I wrote or received, somehow I never gave up hope that one day he would show up on my doorstep, take me into his arms, and carry me off back home.
I kicked off my shoes, climbed atop the bedsheets, and opened it. In it, he mentioned having married a woman from Blakely. I reread that sentence three times before I moved on to the part about how Grampa Frank had broken his hip, and that as a consequence of no one being around to take care of the orchard, it was up for sale and they were all moving to Florida. I reread the whole thing a second time, just to be sure that I had it all straight. After that I just stared at it. Married a woman from Blakely? No one left to take care of it? What the hell’s going on?
I set the letter down and decided to hell with it. It had been a year since I’d gotten a call from him, and for the last six months I had waited every single day, convinced it would be him each time the phone rang.
Mom was in the bathroom, getting ready for bed. I hid behind the doorjamb in the kitchen and crouched low to the floor so she wouldn’t hear. I dialed our old number and cupped the phone. A woman whose voice I didn’t recognize picked up. I froze. She said, Hello? Who’s there? I was about to say, Who the hell’s this? But then she said, Is this you, Johnny? I know it’s you. How’d you get this number? I told you never to call me here. I’m done with you. I’m starting a new life. Now don’t ever call this number again, or I’m calling the police.
I hung up. Mom came into the kitchen with her toothbrush in her mouth.
Who was that?
I looked up dumbly.
I’ve warned you about calling that Suzie girl too many times. Look at what it’s doing to you. It’s making you miserable.
I know that what Mister McGovern wants to hear a kid like me say is that as high as the cost of the Mets’ winning streak has been to me personally, I wouldn’t have it any other way because even if it’s bad for me, it’s good for the team and probably underachievers everywhere. But hell. Here we are in September, and the scalpers crowding around the subway entrance across from the ball park, over on Meridian Road, are asking an arm and a leg for bleacher seats. Christ. What’s a kid gotta do to see his hometown team these days?
It’s not pretty, and I’m not saying it’s for everyone, but I snuck in amid the hustle and bustle of the beer trucks jockeying for position out by the service gates, trying to get their kegs delivered by game time. I slipped in among the trammel of heavy-lifting dollies and chain-smoking beer vendors and spent the next four hours crouched atop the john in a bathroom stall, reading the latest Steinbeck novel, waiting for the damned gates to open to the general public, all the while wondering why on earth Zuk would pass up a golden opportunity to see one of the last home games of the regular season. It just wasn’t like him.
I figured what the hell and invited Mom to come. She laughed. A three-hour ballgame? Are you serious? She thought I was joking. Which is why it hurt a little every time I looked at the bald guy sitting beside me and wished so much that Suzie Hartwell was sitting there instead. Between innings, I’d play that awkward interaction we’d had during the game against the Phillies back in my mind, thinking about what I could have said to change the outcome. Even if I’d wanted to smack her then, I still felt that it would have been so much more fun if she were with me now. Naturally, my mind turned to how I’d dodge that bullet if I had it all to do over again, wondering if there was a way for me to keep my pride and her, too.
I’d been having this recurring dream where I was standing out at center court in our gym, during a pep rally or school assembly or something like that. You know how dreams are. You can’t really tell exactly what the hell’s going on or where you are exactly and have only a vague sense of place. Like it could be ten different places mixed together, quite possibly overlaid on each other, as if that sort of thing were possible. Anyway, the marching band is blaring their horns behind me, and everyone in the stands is going hog wild, having been won over by my game-winning shot at the buzzer, when none other than Suzie Hartwell swoons down from high up in the stands and lovingly tugs at my jersey as I express to all my adoring fans my heartfelt gratitude for the honor of leading us, the Claremont Lions, to yet another Division III championship.
Although there’s really no telling, I figured that it probably just had to do with how much Suzie meant to me and how important it was for me to somehow measure up to her expectations. You know? For me to be good enough for her. Something like that. I dunno. Maybe I just felt a little inadequate or something. But who knows? It could just as well have meant that I had better start practicing with those kids hanging out all the time in the ball courts downstairs if I ever wanted to be anything but the team mascot.
When I told Mom, she chuckled and called it puppy love. I told her it was more than that. The thing is, there was something special about Suzie. I’d tell Mom how I’d never met anyone like her before. I explained that not even Zuk could tell you the batting averages and on-base percentages of the entire Mets starting lineup. It wasn’t just that she knew that Chacón was weak going to his left side or that Bud Harrelson got a surprising amount of walks for a guy who wasn’t hitting that well. Or maybe it was. I dunno. It was hard to tell. All I knew was that she was in a league of her own. Aside from a thoughtless comment here or there, she was dynamite. Besides, who’s perfect? I guess maybe I’d fallen for her despite some of the things that came out of her mouth. I thought that if anyone could understand that, it’d be Mom. I guess that when all was said and done, I was just hoping that Suzie and I would get to go to another ball game together. Truth is, I was eager to give her as many chances as she’d need to show me that she wasn’t really as bigoted as that day had suggested.
So yes, the Mets were very important to me. Because between Zuk going AWOL and Mom working off her newfound freedom like an indentured servant and Suzie not having called me back since that game back in May and Dad’s having gotten married and moved without having the decency to introduce me to his bride, it was starting to feel like they were all I had left. Which is why I shoved the fat bitch in front of me with the big hair and shoulders like a halfback and told her to scoot the hell over. Can I get some space over here?!
It was bad enough that I was stuck all by myself out in the right-field bleachers, five miles from home plate, so far I needed a radio telescope to see the number on Bud Harrelson’s jersey, hollering my effing brains out, knowing full well that Harrelson couldn’t hear me tell him that the right fielder was playing him shallow. On one side I had the burly bald guy sloshing his beer all over my frickin’ sneakers and on the other was a fuckin’ Cubs fan—of all things—booing Harrelson directly into my right ear, while this fat ass in front of me had her big blue hair piled so high I couldn’t see a damned thing.
XXXI
I TRIED TO ESCAPE WITH Aquaman and the Sea Devils into a cavernous underwater world for several weeks, but the loud voices from the kitchen only followed me all those thousands of leagues beneath the sea. Irma eventually got her money—Mom saw to that. The hurricane shutters came down from over the windows, gradually. First it was my room. Then, a week later, their bedroom and the front room. I was working out in our field with Evan so much I was too tired to do much of anything when I came home. I’d climb into bed with a comic book and stay there for the remainder of the night.
Over the course of those weeks, Mom brought dozens of books home from the library. There had been enough money left over after we made good on a bunch of unpaid bills for her to buy me my own dictionary. She told me I could write in it and everything. So that was nice. Mom liked to write in books. Didn’t matter if it was a mystery novel or a history book; she’d write in the margins like it was her story to change willy-nilly, however she saw fit. In her version of things, it was never the butler who did it. One of the books she brought home was a slave narrative. I looked at it askance. When I asked what the heck she’d picked out that one
for, she just gave me one of her looks. I wasn’t sure what it had to do with me exactly. I was puzzled, but I cracked it open anyway. I flipped through it and saw that it was too difficult for me. I picked out a random word and asked, What the hell does ostracize mean? Jesus Christ. It was a grown-up book, and I didn’t understand half the words. She handed me the dictionary. Turns out she actually expected me to use it. So I had no choice but to read the slave book. In the end, I didn’t write in the dictionary much at all. I preferred it clean and untarnished, the way I’d found it. But I did look up a bunch of words. When I finished the book, I just kind of sat there studying the cover. I wasn’t sure if it was uplifting or depressing.
It took Mom a couple of weeks more before she came home with something on George Washington Carver. She lamented that it was even possible for me, the son of a Georgia peanut farmer, to not know who he was. She had been hinting that there was this man that she wanted me to read about. She’d been looking for something on him for weeks, trying to dig something up for me, but had difficulty finding anything about him in our local library, or even at the branch in Blakely. She finally managed to arrange it through her church to get something delivered on loan, brought down from some fancy library collection in Albany. Imagine—a book traveled all that way just to be in my hands! So of course I read that one. Anyway, I’d never heard of the man. Apparently, he was quite an accomplished scientist. Fascinating stuff, really. Curious choice for me personally, only because when she’d hinted that she was bringing home something on a scientist for me, I expected her to bring something on someone like Ben Franklin or Thomas Edison. I mean, really. Carver was interesting, but compared to those guys he was a nobody. I mean, he wasn’t even the least bit famous.
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