Playing Ball

by Kerry Freeman

  He pulled his fedora down over his eyes and slunk down Fifty-Sixth Street. The Penguin was a little off the beaten path—another reason Walt had chosen it—and tonight, Walt wanted to fade into the background a bit, to observe instead of be observed.

  He spotted a figure walking down the street from Sixth Avenue and knew immediately it was Skip. He walked with a dancer’s grace, something Walt had noticed at the stadium. As he came closer, Walt saw he was wearing a brown suit a couple of seasons out of style and a battered bowler hat that didn’t really go with the suit. These were forgivable offenses, Walt decided, since he did look pretty great out of a baseball uniform.

  “Why, Mr. Littlefield,” Walt said as Skip walked up to him. “You’re a real sheik outside of the ballpark.”

  It was too dark to see if Skip was blushing, but Walt imagined from the way he ducked his head that he was.

  “I’m still not really sure about this,” Skip said.

  “One measly drink won’t do any harm.”

  Walt gestured for Skip to follow him. He knew the password, although the door was being watched by a big six named Anthony, with whom Walt had once had a brief and tawdry affair. Luckily, they were still on good terms.

  “How are ya, Walt?” Anthony greeted him.

  “I’m just ducky. This is my friend John.”

  Skip tilted his head, but then extended a hand to Anthony, who shook it.

  Anthony said, “You boys can go on in. Although, Walt? If you’re looking for something to do later, Carmela’s performing at that little place off Forty-Third tonight.”

  Walt nodded. He loved Carmela’s show, but he was sort of wishing this interview would go long enough for him to miss it. And he certainly knew better than to think Skip would be interested in a show like Carmela’s. “I’ll keep that in mind,” Walt said.

  As Walt led Skip into the speakeasy, Skip said, “Who is Carmela?”

  Walt chuckled. “Would it terrify you if I told you she is a female impersonator?”

  Skip tilted his head again, as if he were taking that in. “Like a man in a dress?”

  Walt nodded. “Carmela is in fact an Italian fella named Carmine who I’ve known for years. He’s… well, he’s something, to be sure. But his brother owns a bunch of the Times Square establishments, plus a few other places downtown, so he has plenty of performance venues.”

  Skip seemed more intrigued by this than put off, which was not the reaction Walt had been expecting. “What does he do in his show?”

  “Dances, tells jokes, that sort of thing. Like a one-man vaudeville act. Why do you ask? Do you want to see it?”

  Skip shrugged. “Just wondering.”

  What an interesting man Skip was turning out to be. The lack of literacy had given Walt pause back at the stadium. Walt’s handwriting wasn’t so abysmal that it couldn’t be deciphered, so Skip’s hesitancy over the words said a lot. But he still had found the place. Asking about school was on Walt’s agenda for this evening. He didn’t know much about Skip except that he was very attractive—he had a round face with a narrow nose and surprisingly plump lips atop that athletic body, and as he removed his hat, he displayed a thick head of wavy blond hair—and he played baseball as well as or better than many of the best ballplayers in the city. He was also, apparently, barely literate and intrigued by the idea of a show like Carmela’s. Walt was fascinated.

  Walt led him over to a table in the corner, a shadowy spot Walt liked because it meant he could see everything without being in the middle of it. Sometimes he chose one of the grander booths closer to the band and held court, but tonight, he wanted to talk to Skip and he didn’t want to share.

  The band struck up a clunky version of “Tea for Two,” a song that didn’t lend itself well to the current conflation of instruments, but Walt was able to mostly tune them out and focus on his subject. Skip, for his part, looked around the room, raking his gaze over the decor, the people, the band. Tonight, Ruthie Dixon, a charming flapper girl whom Walt knew mostly from years of hanging around the clubs in Times Square, was sitting on a table in the corner with her legs crossed at her knees, laughing uproariously with the crowd of men who had gathered around her.

  “Quite a place,” Skip said.

  “This is nothing. Some of the clubs in this town are not to be believed. There was a blow at this place on Fifty-Third the other night, most spectacular thing you’ve ever seen.”

  “You come to the speakeasies often?”

  Walt shrugged. “Often enough. You ever been to one?”

  “My roommates brought me to one when I first moved here. But I ain’t even been in New York that long. Only since April.”

  Walt could concede that three months in New York wasn’t really enough time to see much. “You like what you’ve seen so far?”

  “I guess. It’s… it’s not like Ohio.”

  Walt laughed. “I’ve never been to Ohio, but I can imagine.”

  When Matthew came over to the table, Walt was embarrassed to have recognized yet another person in the establishment and wondered what Skip must think of him now. Matthew just winked and said, “Can I get you fellas something to drink?”

  “What have you got?” Walt asked.

  “I’d stick with the rum. It’s the real McCoy. There’s whiskey, too, but I think it’s the hooey from that barrelhouse downtown. Tastes like formaldehyde.”

  “Rum it is, then. Two of whatever’s good.”

  Matthew nodded and walked off.

  Skip laughed and shook his head. “Every bar in my hometown closed when Prohibition started. Every one. You can still get cider from some of the farms just outside town, and wine at church, but otherwise, there’s nothing.”

  “But in New York….”

  “Yes. First night I was here, my roommate Joe pulled out a bottle of something. I’d only been drunk once before, when I was seventeen and some friends and I got into my daddy’s supply. He tanned my hide for that.” Skip laughed lightly and shook his head.

  “I rarely get blotto. I just like a drink now and then.”

  “Sure.”

  Matthew came back and slid two highball glasses onto the table. Walt paid for the drinks.

  “You don’t have to,” Skip said.

  “My pleasure. Besides, I invited you out.”

  They spent the next half hour discussing Skip’s origins—life in Upper Arlington, Ohio, and his failed career as a mechanic, mostly—and Skip put away two cocktails before his lips really started loosening up and he confessed, quietly, “Baseball is the only thing I’ve ever been good at.”

  “That can’t be true.”

  “I was no good at school. Some kids take to reading like it’s the most natural thing, but I see a bunch of letters on the page and I can’t always make sense of them. I mean, sometimes I can, but sometimes all the letters just look upside down and backwards.” He shook his head.

  “What is it about baseball that you like?” Walt asked, interested in this phenomenon with the letters but not wanting to pursue it just yet. It seemed a sore subject.

  “I don’t know. It’s easy. All you gotta do is hit a ball with a bat and catch. It helps if you can run pretty fast, which I guess I can. If the Giants want to pay me to do that, I’m not going to argue with them.”

  “You have to know that it’s not really that easy. There are other men who get paid to play baseball who can barely hit a ball. I know you’ve only played in a half-dozen games now, but your batting average is higher than Ruth’s.”

  Skip frowned. “That can’t be true.”

  “It is true. Ruth’s average is currently about .350. Yours is closer to .400.”

  Skip waved his hand. “Oh, I don’t much abide by the numbers. What do numbers tell you?”

  Walt was surprised by how dismissive he was. “The numbers tell you everything. The numbers show you that Ruth, Gehrig, and Combs could probably win a game all on their own, but then you throw Koenig, Meusel, and Lazzeri into the mix and that team is uns
toppable. The numbers show you there has never been a team like that. The numbers also tell me that you, Skip Littlefield, hit just as well as any of those guys, but nobody knows it because the Giants are not the story this year. The Yankees, the Babe, goddamn Murderers’ Row—that’s the story this year.”

  Skip put a hand over his mouth and shook his head. He dropped the hand slowly. “I don’t want to be a story.”

  “But you are! Can’t you see that?”

  Skip rolled his eyes. “Mr. Selby, you can’t possibly—”

  “Call me Walt.”

  Skip sighed. “All right, Walt. Look, I appreciate this, I really do, but I’m happy with the Yankees stealing all the headlines. I don’t want people to pay attention to me. I just want to play baseball.”

  Walt took a sip of his drink, let it sit on his tongue, and tried to decide how to respond. It was rum mixed with some kind of juice, which was a shame because the rum really was very good, from what Walt could taste of it. “Why is that? It’s rare to find a talented person in New York who doesn’t want to become famous. It’s hard to find anyone in New York who doesn’t want to become famous.”

  Skip squirmed in his chair. “I would like to keep my privacy.”

  “Understandable.” Although, there it was. With seven words, Skip had irrevocably hooked Walt, because now Walt wondered what secrets Skip was keeping.

  THE third drink was probably a mistake.

  Skip likened his will when drunk to the way the floorboards in his father’s Model T warped after he left it out in the rain. He felt soft and easy to bend. Walt Selby could probably kick a hole right through him, and Skip would be happy to let him.

  Because for all that Walt was still trying to get Skip’s story, which Skip didn’t like much, he was also really nice to look at. Walt had close-cropped dark hair that seemed to be thinning a little. Sometimes he pulled a little pair of spectacles out of his pocket when he needed to read or see something better, and Skip thought the way they sat on the edge of Walt’s long nose was cute. Everything else about Walt was long, too—his face, his fingers, his whole body, as if he were a normal person stretched out like taffy. Then there was the gray suit he was wearing, the red rose pinned to his lapel, the red tie at his neck in almost the same color. The cut of the suit was a little different from what Skip was used to, everything fitted just so, as if it were sewn just for Walt, which it probably had been. Skip didn’t know what kind of money newspaper reporters made, but if it was enough to keep Walt in hooch all the time, he probably made a decent wage.

  Well. Skip knew better than to gaze too long at Walt. He tried to concentrate on the band playing.

  It sure was hard to focus with all that alcohol swimming through his body.

  The waiter, who seemed to have makeup on his face like a woman, came by the table again and smiled at Walt in a way Skip didn’t like. Then he said, “Another round, fellas?”

  Walt looked at Skip and smiled. “No, I think he’s had enough. Thank you, though, Matthew.”

  Walt’s smile caused warmth to spread through Skip’s body. Or maybe that was the booze.

  Walt escorted Skip out of the speakeasy a few minutes later. Walt shook hands with the muscle at the door, and Skip didn’t like the way that guy looked at Walt, either. Skip stumbled out onto the street and wondered when he’d become so possessive. Walt was definitely not his. Walt would surely be horrified to learn Skip had been sort of thinking about him that way.

  Skip stumbled over something on the sidewalk. Walt caught him and propped him up. Skip definitely liked the feel of Walt’s arms around him, but they were gone too soon.

  “Where do you live, doll?” Walt asked. “Can I escort you home or get you a cab?”

  Panic flooded Skip. This night couldn’t end yet. He wasn’t ready to let Walt go. “You didn’t get your story,” he said as a way to stall.

  Walt smirked and leaned against a lamppost. “I got a story.”

  “What is it?” Skip grunted and crossed his arms. “That I’m some yokel from Ohio who doesn’t know bull about anything except baseball?”

  Walt’s face fell. “What? No, that wasn’t what I thought at all.”

  “You want to know why I don’t want anyone to write about me?” Skip said, feeling a weird swell of anger now. “Because all I am is baseball. There’s nothing else to say. I couldn’t finish school because all I see when I look at a book are words swimming around on the page. I’m stupid. That’s all there is to it. So I thought I could be a mechanic, but I’m no good at that either. I couldn’t make sense of how the parts fit together and I work too slow. I don’t have a wife or a sweetheart or kids or nothing either. But baseball… that’s the one thing I can do. So put that in your goddamn story. Skip Littlefield is a dummy who is only good for hitting a baseball.”

  Walt pushed off the lamppost and stepped forward. “Skip, stop it. That’s not what I think at all.”

  “What else is there to print?”

  “Top of the ninth, two men on base, you go up to the plate. What do you do?”

  That took Skip off guard. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Just pretend. Answer the question. Game’s tied and you’re in the position to hit the game-winning run. How do you handle it?”

  Skip decided to play along, even though he didn’t understand this line of questioning. “Who am I playing?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes.”

  Walt smiled. “Uh. Any team. Let’s say the Robins.”

  Skip mentally ran through the Robins’ lineup. “They’re weak in right field and their second baseman is a slow runner. So I’d hit the ball in that direction. If the pitcher throws me a fastball, I might be able to use the speed to get a good grip on the ball and send it into the stands, but if not, the Robins are more likely to miss the catch if I hit it toward right field.”

  Walt gaped at him for a moment. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. Their starting pitcher, the one with the light hair, what’s his name?”

  “Jesse Barnes.”

  “Yeah, Barnes. His career is ending soon. His fastball is pretty slow. Hard to get a home run off of him. The ball doesn’t hit the bat hard enough. Plus, he tends to pitch high. So if I were at the plate, I’d angle the bat up. Bob McGraw hits them right at you, so you have to be prepared for that. And that relief pitcher, um… what’s his name?”

  “Cantrell?”

  “Sure. He’s good, but he can be sloppy. If you catch him on a sloppy day, you can’t hit anything he throws and it’s better to get a walk.”

  Walt gaped at Skip for a moment. “Reverse the situation. Say you’re in the field. Third base. Herman’s at bat.”

  “Herman?”

  “Tall, skinny guy. Long face. First base.”

  “Right, okay. Sorry, I have trouble with the names. He’s a slugger, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  Skip nodded, thinking about it. “He’s a slugger but doesn’t hit a lot of home runs. So you tell the outfield to be ready for him. Then you gotta make a choice. Do I want the ball? Herman gets a lot of RBIs. So I want to get the guy out before he gets to third or home. If he hits it toward me, I take it and toss it to second or first, go for the double play. But he’s unpredictable, so if he hits it toward first, maybe you try to get him out there.”

  The smile on Walt’s face widened. “You want to know what I’d write about you?”

  “What?”

  “That Skip Littlefield is a nice guy who keeps things close to the vest, but he’s a goddamn genius when it comes to baseball.”

  Skip nearly laughed at how absurd that seemed, but he swallowed it. “That’s ridiculous.”

  Walt shrugged. “That’s how I see it.”

  A small crowd of people walked between Skip and Walt. They were speaking excitedly—Skip could have sworn he heard someone mention Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey in the same breath—and then they bustled into the Penguin. When they were gone,
Walt was back leaning against the lamppost.

  “Let me get you a cab,” Walt said.

  That’s how I see it.

  No one had ever called Skip a genius.

  “I don’t want to go home yet,” Skip said.

  “All right. What shall we do instead?”

  “This friend of yours. The man who wears dresses. Is his show good?”

  Walt furrowed his brow. “The act is pretty great, yes. You want to see it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’ll take you, but only if you go to enjoy the show. Carmela doesn’t need anyone gawking at her like she’s a freak. She’s there to sing and dance.”

  “I won’t gawk.”

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  They walked south on Seventh Avenue. Skip followed along and tried not to seem overwhelmed, even though he was. Times Square was so bright and loud and a little dangerous, with cars driving every which way and what seemed like hundreds of people milling around on the sidewalk. As they got closer to Forty-Third Street, Skip saw people pouring out of the Paramount Theater, signaling a show had just ended. He thought about the moving picture he’d seen there not long ago, though he couldn’t remember the plot so much as the experience. They didn’t have theaters like the Paramount in his little town in Ohio. There was a theater in Columbus that showed moving pictures sometimes, but he’d had to travel to get there. He liked movies more than plays or musical revues because it was easier to see everyone and follow what was happening.

  And there went his mind, wandering off again.

  Skip focused on Walt walking ahead of him, and then they stopped at a black door. Walt eyed Skip with an odd expression.

  “You’re sure about this?” Walt asked.

  Skip nodded. He was drunk enough to be sure.

  The abrupt change in lighting as they pushed into the club made Skip light-headed for a moment. He put out his hand, which landed on Walt’s arm. Walt seemed solid enough, so Skip curled his hand around Walt’s bicep and was led to the ticket counter. An Ethel—a fella in a brightly colored flouncy shirt with kohl lining his eyes—stood behind the counter, leering at Walt. Skip gave Walt a little bit of a tug.