Dead Ball

by R. D. Rosen

“Moss, it’s not like it ever occurred to me she was doing it for the dignity and self-fulfillment. Look, tomorrow’s a night game, right?” Cooley nodded. “Maybe you, Cherry Ann, and I can get together in the late afternoon before you’re due at the park?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Meanwhile, don’t mention the lawn jockey to her. Don’t say anything about me, either.”

  Cooley nodded reluctantly. “I don’t like this.”

  “Whereas, of course, I’m really looking forward to spending the next couple of weeks wondering when someone’s going to jump out of the bushes and attack the two of us.”

  “You know,” Cooley said, “you’re all right, Bagel Boy.” He clapped him on the shoulder.

  Harvey looked in Cooley’s eyes, inspecting them for any sign of hostility, and decided there wasn’t any. “I may be a Bagel Boy, but at least I don’t get my hair done at Snakes R Us.”

  “C’mon, this hair cost me two bills.”

  This was good. At least they wouldn’t be wasting time skating around on thin, politically correct ice. “Oh, I think you can afford it,” Harvey said.

  “Damn right I can.”

  “I’ve gotta tell you something, Moss.”

  “What?”

  “At least Bagel Boy beats Professor.”

  “Must be ten thousand Professors in baseball.”

  “I know. Nothing more original ever stuck. Bagel Boy,” he mused. “Just don’t wear it out.”

  They walked out of the clubhouse and into the long hallway that led to the players’ parking lot, their footsteps clapping against the concrete floor and bouncing off the walls.

  Mike, the security guard, pushed opened the metal door for them, saying, “Good night, Cool, and congratulations.” The thunderstorm had left the blacktop littered with puddles. There were only a handful of cars left in the lot, none worth less than thirty grand. Cooley fished in his pocket for his keyless remote and pressed one of the buttons. Thirty feet away a Range Rover, beaded with rain, chirped and blinked its headlights at them.

  “We’re not taking your car,” Harvey reminded him.

  He jammed his keys in his pocket. “When you’re black,” he suddenly seethed, “you don’t ever get a day off. Every fucking day, your job is being black.”

  Harvey put a hand on Cooley’s shoulder. “You know, Moss, I think this could be the start of a beautiful relationship.”

  “Over here, Cool,” Marshall Levy called through the window of his Jaguar, which was idling by the gate.

  Harvey closed his eyes. After four years of dawdling in the shallows of motivational speaking, he was back on the high dive, stepping off now, no turning back, the dark current coming up fast to meet him. He had wondered how he would ever re-enter the river of time, and now he knew.

  “Moss,” he said, “is there anything you know about these threats that you didn’t want to say upstairs?”

  “You mean, do I know somebody who wants me dead, but I’m not fucking telling you?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Shit, no. Cool’s everybody’s friend.”

  Harvey handed Moss his hanging clothes. “Not anymore.”

  5

  EVERY AFTERNOON AT FOUR, for as long as most people in Providence can remember, a lunch wagon hitched to a truck cab has pulled into a couple of parking spaces on Fulton Street next to the Second Empire-style City Hall and remained there until dawn. Set on an angle atop the wagon, a small neon sign blinks “HAVEN BROS. DINER.” The diner is like some alien aluminum creature from another world, a fossil of the 1940s that seems to have crawled out of urban America’s unconscious, a film noir artifact spliced nightly into the city’s present. Throughout the night, in the shadow of the floodlit old Industrial National Bank Building on Kennedy Plaza, a trickle of the city’s powerful and powerless, Ivy League-educated and semiliterate, sleepless and snack-deprived, climb the portable steps of the diner for a bowl of red beans or a steamed hot dog.

  Haven Brothers is no culinary mecca. Its specialty is inedible—a serving of romantic desolation—and in that regard it was probably no accident that Mickey Slavin had suggested that they meet there. Their relationship had seen better days, which is true of most relationships that last more than a few months, but Harvey felt keenly that they had lost something that needed to be found again, or else they needed to find something they had never had in the first place.

  When Harvey pulled his Honda up to the curb at the Biltmore, a hundred feet from City Hall, he could see Mickey’s Jetta parked in front, and Mickey herself sitting on the second step of the building’s splayed granite staircase, sipping from a cardboard cup of coffee. She wore her television clothes—an expensive navy blue blazer over a silk scoop-neck blouse. Her bare legs, which Harvey was always delighted to see, had a light, even midsummer tan. She was wearing high-heeled sandals of such subtle construction that Harvey could barely figure out how they stayed on. She seemed to be looking into her coffee cup, her shaggy auburn bob obscuring most of her face.

  Unseen, Harvey watched her for a moment from behind the wheel. Love has a hard time surviving its own complexity, and he relished this stolen glimpse of her, with its illusion of innocence. For a moment she was once again the willowy twenty-five-year-old daughter of New York civil rights lawyer Arnold Slavin who had converted a Princeton education, a solid knowledge of American sports, and a traffic-stopping face into a job as Providence’s first female television sportscaster. In the whole world he knew no one better, nor was he by anyone better known. The downside of that, of course, was that each had a metal detector’s unerring knowledge of the other’s concealed vulnerabilities. And lately, they were getting too good at setting off each other’s alarms.

  People met, fell in love with only the slightest notion why, and then spent years obligated to each other. They made as much sense as they could of the investment. Still, it was a strange streak indeed, their never marrying. Was it their perfectly balanced ambivalence about each other, or about marriage itself? Was there a tacit agreement between them, now perhaps too late to amend, that marriage was somehow not good enough for them, that their bond was too fragile, or too important, for the degradations of matrimony? After all this time they shared most of the great indignities of marriage, anyway—from the exasperating familiarity with each other’s quirks to long bouts of sexual apathy to aging parents. All they lacked, really, was children. No small thing, they knew—the topic still came up—but Mickey’s biological back was against the wall.

  “Haven Brothers is about the only thing that hasn’t changed in this town,” she said when he sat down next to her. “The city’s got sushi bars now and parking lots where it costs five dollars for the first half-hour. They took the Providence River and turned it into a canal with gondolas and started calling the town Renaissance City. They’ve got hit TV shows that take place here. They’ve got bars with secondhand sofas in them, for chrissakes, just like Manhattan.”

  When Harvey played ball here, it was still being referred to in college guidebooks as “the armpit of the East.” It was his suspicion that people were sentenced to live in Providence for unspecified Kafkaesque crimes, or else were paying down some horrible karmic debt. But now it was a city where people actually chose to live, and with good reason. From its ashes had risen a jewel of a city. Harvey hardly recognized it. It was like a child of a previous marriage who’d grown up in his absence. He loved it, but at a painful, befuddled distance.

  “Now they’ve even got a ball club you could care about,” she said. “No offense, Bliss.”

  “None taken.”

  Mickey pointed over to the left, toward the old Amtrak station. “See that over there. They even put in an outdoor skating rink, just like New York, but cheesier.”

  “What do you expect from a state whose mascot is Mr. Potato Head?” The papers had reported this strange development in the last few months. “What other state’s got a mascot that’s a children’s toy?”

  “It wa
s invented here,” Mickey said. “Hasbro invented it.”

  “I know Hasbro invented it. So what? Is the mascot of Massachusetts Tickle Me Elmo?”

  “Tickle Me Elmo wasn’t invented in Massachusetts.”

  “I know it wasn’t invented in Massachusetts. It was just an example.” Lately, there were these ridiculous, literal-minded misunderstandings, as if their relationship hadn’t been founded on finely tuned irony. “I was only trying to point out that Providence is still Providence.” How could two people who knew each other so well suddenly understand each other so little? They had gone to couples counseling a few years ago, but the effect had worn off. They again appeared to prefer a murky discontent, as if what sustained them were grievances they were too lazy to even name.

  A Camaro skidded to a stop in front of Haven Brothers. Two toughs got out and started play-fighting, air-punching as they called each other “mothafuckas,” before disappearing into the lunch wagon.

  “You’re baby-sitting Cooley, aren’t you?” she said, taking a studied sip of coffee.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Just like you baby-sat Dave Kasick all those years ago.” Kasick, his old Red Sox roommate, had gone AWOL on the eve of guest-hosting a late-night network comedy show. Harvey had dug him up and gotten him through the ordeal, only to find himself then investigating the death of the show’s executive producer.

  “They want to hire me as a motivational coach.”

  “Pardon me while I gag, Bliss. Right now you couldn’t motivate a rosin bag.”

  “Be that as it may,” Harvey said.

  “How can you not tell me? I’m your best friend.”

  “You’re also a correspondent for ESPN.”

  “So it is something juicy.”

  “See what I mean. You can’t wait to get your hands on it. Except that it’s nothing.”

  “Bull.”

  “Look, Mick, even if it was something you’re not supposed to know, I wouldn’t want to tell you and put you in the bind of holding a scoop you can’t use. I love you too much for that.”

  “Double bull. You know, you like keeping secrets too much. Why’s that?”

  “I can’t divulge that information.”

  “Look, the black man’s creeping up on whitey’s big record. The racist underbelly has found a new focus.”

  “Now you’re talking like the daughter of a left-wing civil rights lawyer that you are.”

  “C’mon, Cooley’s even got a teammate against him.”

  “Who’s that?” The two toughs now emerged from the diner with wieners and zoomed off in the Camaro, disappearing into downtown Providence’s dark web of eighteenth-century streets.

  “Andy Cubberly, who hits in front of him.”

  Harvey tried to appear uninterested.

  “Cubberly almost single-handedly ended his streak on Sunday in Detroit.”

  “Be serious.”

  “Seventh inning. Jewels down by one. Cubberly leads off with a drive to right center. A gapper. Except that Desch does a nice job of cutting it off before it goes through. Cubberly runs right through Croker’s stop sign at first and slides under the tag at second for a double.”

  “So, with first base open, the Detroit pitcher has to intentionally walk Moss Cooley,” Harvey reasoned. “Depriving him of an at-bat.”

  Mickey nodded, raising her perfectly plucked, ready-for-prime-time eyebrows. “That’s right.”

  “Let me guess. Cooley’s hitless so far in the game.”

  “On the schneid. Oh for three.”

  “So you’re saying Cubberly tries to take the bat out of his own teammate’s hands? And succeeds.”

  “In a situation when it makes no sense at all for him to try for an extra base. Cavanaugh chewed him out pretty bad after the game. Cubberly claimed he just wasn’t thinking, didn’t see the sign.”

  “Well, maybe that’s the case.”

  “He did it another time, Bliss.”

  “Really?”

  “You know Scott Sipple, who used to do the Jewels’ games on radio?”

  “I see him on ESPN.”

  “Well, Scott pointed out the other instance to me when I was talking to him about Sunday’s game. We went back and looked it up, and sure enough, last Thursday against Cleveland, sixth inning, Cubberly hits a one-out infield single and promptly steals second base.”

  “So Cooley gets intentionally walked again in a game where he’s gone hitless?”

  “Correct,” Mickey said. “Under normal circumstances, Cubberly’s done a good thing. Tie game. Cubberly’s stealing percentage has been above seventy percent. Get a rally going. Just one thing, Bliss: it’s a very unfriendly thing to do to a man who’s working on a long hitting streak.”

  “Unless Cubberly’s just not a thinking man,” Harvey suggested.

  “No one’s ever confused him with Tielhard de Chardin.” She still liked to show off her comparative religions major from time to time.

  “Well, that’s all very interesting.”

  “Is it?”

  “I’ll keep an eye on Cubberly from my new perch as motivational instructor.”

  “Something’s happening,” Mickey said. “And you’re not telling me about it.”

  “Can we continue this conversation at home? Or rather, not continue it at home? I was hoping I might get lucky tonight.”

  “With anyone I know?”

  “Only barely.” Harvey stood, giving Mickey his hand and pulling her to her feet.

  “It’ll cost you,” she said. “There’s no free lunch.”

  “Right.” He laughed. “Sure.” He walked her to her Jetta. “I’ll race you to Cambridge.”

  They walked to their separate cars for the one-hour drive back home. For the first time in months he felt stuffed with purpose, and pleasantly in the present.

  6

  THE NEXT MORNING, WHILE Mickey slept late upstairs, Harvey went to his little study off the living room of the Italianate stucco house in Cambridge they called home. It had been months since he’d sat in his nail-head leather swivel chair to do any work. A manila folder next to his blotter contained copies of his boilerplate motivational speech, and he shoved it into a compartment of the oak rolltop desk. He eyed his black box of Schminke watercolors and his canvas brush caddy in one of the desk’s larger cubbyholes. Spring and summer were usually reserved for bouts of painting, but his initiative had been failing him there too.

  With a sigh he picked up the phone and dialed the number of Debbie Rubino at a real estate firm in Warwick, Rhode Island, that handled the housing arrangements for executive transfers in and out of the state. She had found him the apartment on Benefit Street he rented the year he spent in Providence, and they had dated for a couple of months B.M.—Before Mickey.

  “Harvey Blissberg,” she said. “My God, it’s been a long time. How are you?”

  “I’m just fine, Debbie. You?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “That’s just what I was hoping.”

  “So what’s going on? What’re you doing? And where’re you doing it?”

  “I’m up here in Cambridge, you know, being an ex-athlete. Doing some motivational speaking.”

  “You married?”

  “Well, I’ve been with the same person forever, but—”

  “That sportscaster?”

  “Mickey Slavin.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Fifteen years now. No kids, though.”

  “Wish I could say the same for myself. I’ve got three. At least they’re old enough for me to be back at work part-time. What’s up?”

  “I need a short-term house down there. I’m going to be doing some work in Providence for a month or so, and I can’t stand the damn commute every day.”

  “A month? That’s tough. What’re you looking for?”

  “Something secluded. Country squirish. Big lot. Preferably surrounded by woods, but a big yard in front. Mowed. Two-car garage with remote door opener.”


  “Jeez,” she said with a laugh, “what color walls do you want in the living room? People who want a rental for a month can’t be too choosy. Why don’t you just stay in a hotel?”

  “It’s not that kind of job, Debbie,” Harvey said as he heard Mickey coming down the stairs. He kicked the study door shut with his foot.

  “Okay, for you I’m looking,” she said. “I’ve got a house here in Warwick where I could stuff you. But it’s a development with half-acre lots.”

  “Needs to be secluded.” He heard Mickey open the front door.

  “Boy, this is getting more mysterious by the minute. Here we go. There’s one in Exeter, off Route One-oh-two. It’s a yuppie development. Huge lots. Let’s see. Four bedrooms. Thirty-six hundred square feet. Three-car garage, alarm system, woodsy, but a big yard. It’s a nice shingled colonial. The former tenant just got transferred to San Francisco, and most of their furniture’s still in there until he and his wife get settled.”

  “Perfect. How much?”

  “I’ll let it go for three grand a month, but you’ll have to pay a month’s security.”

  “Fine.”

  “This is unorthodox, Harvey.”

  “I know. I’d like you to handle all the utilities and the phone bill. I’ll reimburse you in cash. Just makes things easier for me.”

  “Okay, okay. When do you want to look at it?”

  “Today.”

  “That’s fast.”

  “Can you show it to me if I’m at your office by eleven?”

  “Harvey, I’ve got to tell you, this doesn’t sound like a motivational speaking job.”

  He called Marshall Levy to let him know about the house and ask about the cars.

  “Two Subarus’ll be at the park by this afternoon.”

  “Excellent. How’s Moss doing?”

  “The perfect houseguest. Made his own bed, too. Hospital corners.”

  “Put him on for a minute.”

  Cooley came to the phone.

  “Did you sleep well?” Harvey asked.

  “Okay.”

  “Did you call Cherry Ann?”

  “She can’t make it today. But she said I could come by her place late tomorrow morning.”