by Wingshooters
After thirty minutes or so of fielding, I would take up my bat and Charlie would go out to the pitcher’s mound. At first he’d just throw the ball straight across the plate until I could hit it consistently. Sometimes he’d yell out instructions—move up in the batter’s box, don’t let your shoulders fly open, take your step toward the pitch a bit sooner. Batting is about muscle memory and repetitive motion, and you have to get to the point where you’re moving perfectly and acting without thought. If you think too much about any part of the swing—the position of your hands on the bat, the timing of your step, the relative movement of your hips and shoulders—you can break the rhythm and throw everything off. When players, even professionals, get into a hitting slump, it’s often because they’re thinking too much, breaking down the various parts of their swing until it becomes a series of separate, fallible mechanical actions instead of a unified expression of grace. At nine years old, I already knew this. Sometimes I could hit beautifully, as if the ball sought out my bat. And other times I couldn’t hit a thing.
But that day I was able to connect. After my grandfather was sure I was swinging smoothly and consistently, he started mixing up his pitches a bit, moving them inside and outside, higher and lower, offering curveballs and change-ups to test my eyes and my timing, even throwing the occasional splitter. He’d been a pitcher as well as a third baseman, so he could make all those pitches, and sometimes, on my more futile batting days, I’d believe he was trying a little too hard to get them past me. I wasn’t as good with these more difficult pitches, swinging way out in front of the change-ups and on top of the splitters that looked like strikes but then dropped precipitously just before they reached the plate. But when I did connect, when the ball hit the center of the barrel of the bat and flew out into the field, I felt a sense of joy and freedom as powerful and true as anything I’ve ever experienced. If you have never felt the resistance and connection of a bat hitting a baseball; if you have not heard the crack of the bat split an autumn afternoon; if you have not watched that ball sail through the open air and settle into the fresh-cut grass, you have missed one of life’s purest feelings of achievement. Hitting a ball is like catching a piece of the sky and sending it back up to itself. It’s like creating your own crack of thunder. And stopping a ball—especially a grounder you have to reach for, or a line drive that should have flown past your glove—is like catching a bolt of lightning.
We were out on the field practicing hard, both covered in a sheen of sweat. By now, my grandfather had stripped off his short-sleeve shirt and was pitching in his undershirt. (It’s funny how even the simplest things can change with time and context. Those shirts—which then were simply part of the working man’s unglamorous uniform—have now taken on a hip, modern masculinity, as well as the more descriptive name of “wifebeater.” This, even though the men I knew who wore them—my grandfather and Uncle Pete—were as likely to hit their wives as they were to give up beer or hunting.) But for all of our exertion, our efforts didn’t feel a bit like work. For Charlie, there wasn’t a real distinction between work and play, anyway, or at least there shouldn’t have been. In his mind, if something wasn’t enjoyable, it wasn’t worth doing, and this held true even for the things he did to make a living. He’d taken pleasure, he said, in cutting out perfect pieces of leather for shoes; in watching freshly plucked chickens move down the assembly line. And there was no mistaking the pleasure on his face when he played baseball with me, or when he was walking through the woods at dawn with his shotgun in hand. All work should feel like play, he said, and all play should involve hard work. This was a lesson I learned well, and still adhere to. The things I do for fun, I do with effort and dedication, and the things I do for work must always involve some pleasure. I can’t stay focused at my job unless I’m enjoying myself. And as I sit here at my desk I’m wearing a wool Dodgers hat because of something else that Charlie told me, which is that all serious work should be done in a baseball cap.
That day, we were out there for more than two hours before Charlie said we should start to think about going back. Then, just after I’d hit one last ball, we heard the faint but growing sounds of approaching birds. I looked up over the woods, and there they were—a large flock of birds, a hundred or so, flying in a jagged V formation. They were well up in the sky, but not so far that we couldn’t hear their chorus of honking, the deep-throated calls they made to each other and announced to the rest of the world. Their V was uneven, left flank longer than the right, and when they were almost directly overhead, a few birds from the longer line broke out sharply to the left, shifting because of instinct or wind patterns or the sun into a more southerly direction. They gradually became the head of an entirely new V, the birds on either side of them assuming positions downwind. Then slowly the rest of the flock fell into line, the ones that had headed the previous pattern forming the new right flank; the ones who’d made up the rear flying double time now to catch up and form the flank to the left. In a minute or two the entire flock had completely rearranged itself. And as they flew off further away from us we could still hear the honking, their arguments and debates, their calls of life.
We simply stood and watched them go. There was something about them that made me want to take off my cap, and when I looked at Charlie, I saw that he had done exactly that. He gazed up at them not with the hungry look of a hunter, but more like a man admiring a landscape or a beautiful woman. Even Brett sat and watched them, ears erect but body still, tongue hanging out in a happy pant. Somehow, we all knew it was the end of our day. My grandfather came over then and rubbed my head.
“Those were Canada Geese,” he said, “heading down south for the winter.”
“Where do they go?” I asked.
He watched them as they became indistinguishable spots in the sky. “Down to Kentucky, I think. Or Missouri. Those geese come down from Canada along the Mississippi Flyway. They take the same path every year. They mate for life, and when they have babies, the whole family stays together until the young ones are grown. They even make the first few migration trips together so the parents can teach them how to do it. What we were looking at just now was a whole little town of them.”
I stared up at the sky long after I could no longer see them and thought about my grandfather’s words. Those young ones had it good. But I didn’t, even with my parents gone, feel like I had it so bad—not when I lived with my grandparents, who fed and sheltered me; not when my grandfather towered over me and warmed my days like the sun. Besides, my father was closer now, and chances were he’d be there soon. “I haven’t seen you bring one home,” I said.
“They’re not for hunting,” he said, bending over to pat the dog. “I mean, you can hunt them, but I don’t. Never have. There’s something about the idea of breaking up those families.” He smiled. “Plus, they’ll fight you, boy. They’re not helpless little birdies. One time a dog of mine, a German shorthair I had when your pop was just a kid, made the mistake of getting too close to a nest. We didn’t even know it was there. We were out fishing and the dog, Jackson, was sniffing around ’cos he was bored. He practically stepped right on a nest that had five chicks, and then suddenly this big male comes back from his patrol and starts screaming and honking like the dickens. Well, old Jackson just about jumped out of his skin, and then the gander came straight at him. Beat the hell out of that dog with those big strong wings—the poor dog just cowered and covered his head. By the time I chased the bird away, he’d got pushed back fifty feet. He was so embarrassed he couldn’t look me in the eye for a week. Was pretty much ruined for hunting after that.”
I looked over at Brett, who was watching us, ears erect, wondering what was going to happen next. Charlie must have known what I was thinking.
“Now that dog,” he said, nodding at Brett, “that dog wouldn’t have had any trouble. He would’ve thought the gander was playing, and body-checked him right back. Probably would have gone and tried to warm the nest of babies. Probably would’ve cuddle
d right up with the goose and the gander.”
Brett lifted his head and looked at us even more alertly; he knew we were talking about him. I gave him a ball to carry and helped my grandfather load our equipment back into the car. Brett’s eyes were already getting that bloodshot look they got when he was tired, and both of us were fast asleep by the time we hit the town limits. Then I felt Charlie jostle me. “Wake up, Mike, wake up!” He’d pulled into the Kmart parking lot, and I didn’t know why we were stopping until I smelled the bratwurst cooking; someone had set up a grill in front of the store. That woke me up fast and we tumbled out of the car. We each ate two brats smothered with ketchup, mustard, and sauerkraut, and my grandfather had a beer. After we finished he said, “Don’t tell your grandma—she’ll be sore at us for spoiling our appetites.” He gave me a crooked grin, a bit of sauerkraut stuck in his teeth. I felt like the luckiest kid in the world.
My sense of well-being lasted into the following day. I didn’t even mind that we were going to church, which normally would have filled me with dread. Church was the one thing we did for my grandmother; it was clear that our attendance was important to her. She was religious in a deeply felt, personal way that had little to do with conventional displays of belief or the expected social mores of church attendance. No, faith was something my grandmother harbored in private, like secret love. Sometimes I’d catch her reading the Bible when I came home from school, and she’d quickly slip it into a drawer. My grandmother’s feelings for Jesus were intense almost to the point of being romantic; the only times I ever saw passion in her face were when she looked at her carving of Him on the cross.
But she didn’t actually speak much about her beliefs; she just made us go to church, as if simply by putting ourselves in His presence, we’d grow to love Him, too. Charlie’s feelings about the church appeared to be more dutiful than religious, and although I believed in God, I did not believe, as my grandmother did, that He could redeem the sins of man. My grandmother didn’t try to shape my views herself, although she had, one day the previous spring, enlisted the efforts of her grandniece Geri, whose own brand of faith was more exacting, and who’d driven all the way over from Steven’s Point to try and save my soul.
“You have got to give your life up to Jesus, child,” Geri had said in her booming voice. She sat on my grandfather’s sofa, facing me, while he paced back and forth in the dining room. My grandmother had put me in her own recliner, where I felt tiny and enveloped; she had pulled a chair up in front of the television, which was turned on but soundless, and was looking back and forth between Geri and me.
Geri continued. “I’m only telling this to help you, Michelle. Your father ain’t done his job of it.”
I looked at a spot on the floor directly between us. But even out of the corner of my eye I could see her short, stubby body, her baby-blue suit, the plastic feather in her dime-store hat.
“Devote your life to Lord Jesus the Savior, and He will pull you out from the flames of oblivion.”
My grandmother broke in. “Now, Geri, don’t scare her.”
Geri looked at her. “Aunt Helen, I’m only trying to help salvage what’s probably already beyond salvaging.” She turned back and fixed me with a heavy expression. “You’re a half-breed, child, with dirty yellow blood, but Jesus can save you.”
My grandfather came storming into the living room. “Now wait a minute, Geri. You just hold off a minute. You don’t talk like that to my grandchild in my own damned house.”
She looked up at him, eyes flat. “Charlie, you may have no concern over the state of this child’s soul, but I do.” She turned to my grandmother. “He doesn’t have Jesus in him either, Helen.”
My grandfather leaned over her, fists clenched. “What the hell makes you think—”
“That’s probably why Stewart got confused,” Geri sniffed, ignoring him. “That poor lost boy. First he goes and marries a Jap, of all things. And then they have a child …”
“Now, Geri, I don’t think …” my grandmother said, rising.
“… and then he just runs off and leaves her.”
My grandmother stared at her, hurt and surprised. “But he’s coming back,” she said. “He’s coming back for her soon.”
Geri gave her a look of infinite patience. “Oh, Helen. Do you really believe that?”
There was a heavy silence for one moment, two. Then my grandfather thrust his finger toward the door. “Get out,” he said evenly. “Get out of my house.”
She glared at him, kissed my grandmother, and left through the front door. Neither of my grandparents moved. I looked past them at the television, where a lumbering, muted Elvis Presley sweated and sang, heaving in his sideburns and his bright white suit. We heard Geri’s car start up, heard it pull away.
“Crazy bitch,” Charlie said when she was gone.
But whatever Charlie thought of Geri or of my grandmother’s faith, he never argued about going to church. The morning after we played baseball, I put on a pair of clean pants and a blouse—I never wore a dress—and met my grandparents in the kitchen.
We drove to church and found that Mass was being held outside, in the park across the street. This made me think the same thing I had thought during the summer—that I liked God better when the weather was warm. I saw a few of my classmates, including Missy Calloway and Brady Grimson; but while they noticed me, they didn’t say hello. Several other people saw me, frowned, and steered their children away.
We found Uncle Pete and Aunt Bertha under a tree about forty feet in front of Father Pace. I was surprised that they had gotten there ahead of us. Uncle Pete was usually late for everything, to the annoyance of the women, but it was impossible to really get angry about it because he was always so cheerful, so happy to tell you about the great half-inning on TV or the fishing hole he’d found or the project in the woodshed that had made him lose track of time. But he was there before us that day, and when we approached, he pinched my cheek, slapped Charlie on the back, and moved over to make room for our chairs.
Church was not my favorite place to spend a Sunday. I don’t know whether my resistance had to do with the Mass itself, or with how the church leadership had responded to my parents and me. My father still believed in God, I knew, but his faith had changed, or maybe his God had, to one who cared about the poor and unfortunate and who welcomed all His children. That was not the God worshipped in Deerhorn. When my parents had tried to come to Mass during one of their visits, a deacon had told them in no uncertain terms that the church did not acknowledge their marriage. And the first time my grandparents had brought me to church the previous year, that same deacon had informed them that I wasn’t welcome. This news wasn’t exactly taken kindly by my grandfather, who’d pressed the deacon on his reasoning, and then, upon hearing that my mother’s non-Christian background made me ineligible to be a Catholic, had responded—right there in church, loud enough for the whole congregation to hear—that the deacon’s pro-nouncement was “bullshit.” The result was that I stayed for the rest of that service and was allowed to come back the next week. My grandparents never spoke to that deacon again, and now rarely even spoke to Father Pace. But they were Catholic, and there was no other Catholic church in town, so they still took out their money when the collection basket came around, and still showed up for ten o’clock Mass.
A few minutes after ten, Father Pace stepped up and adjusted the microphone. He was a tall, thin man, with dark hair that sprouted from the backs of his hands and thick eyebrows that looked like living creatures growing out of his forehead. He didn’t smile much, not even during the meet-and-greet session after the service was over, and he was not—if this is any measure of how people thought of him, or didn’t—the subject of conjecture or gossip. His sermons were usually long and dry, too abstract to hold my attention; I’d look around and be relieved to see the other kids falling asleep or poking the ground for insects.
That afternoon, though, after the usual preliminaries and a short re
ference to the Bible, he looked out at the audience as if trying to make contact with everyone in the park.
“Sons and daughters, brothers and sisters,” he began, “we are living in a time of extraordinary change—a time when the proper roles of men and women are being upended, a time when communism is spreading unchecked, a time when the American way of life is being threatened by enemies both inside and outside of our borders. We are living in a time, my friends, when faith itself is under siege. Sometimes change is difficult, sometimes it is necessary, and sometimes it’s just plain wrong.”
People shifted in their seats, unsure where he was going but mildly interested.
“And the latest travesty is occurring as we speak. Our Irish brethren in Boston have had a storm set loose upon them by the Godless decrees of judges and politicians.”
Now, the shifting and whispers stopped and the entire crowd was paying attention. In the distance, I could hear the sounds of traffic, but nothing—not even the squirrels—was making any noise in the park.
“Every evening on the news,” Father Pace continued, “we see horrific scenes of Catholic children being forcibly bused to schools in the darkest corners of the city. We see white neighborhoods being infiltrated by whole busloads of outside forces.”
I sat up straighter now myself. I knew what he was talking about—I too had watched the images of busing in Boston, the protests, the angry and violent crowds. But what Father Pace was saying was at odds with what I had observed. Is this really how he saw things? Did other people think this, too?
“What’s at stake for these Irish people, these good Catholics,” he went on, “is more than just a question of whether their children can attend their local schools. What’s at stake is their ability to define their own lives.”