Gods of Wood and Stone

by Mark Di Ionno

  The boy shook his head no, frozen in fear.

  “It was this: kids didn’t ask rude questions. They weren’t encouraged by their fathers to be smart-asses. They were taught to be respectful and polite, and if they weren’t, they’d get a smack on their wise ass. Now, does that answer your question?”

  The boy, near tears, nodded his head yes. His father stared at Horace and shook his head in disgust, but silently guided him out.

  * * *

  HORACE COULD SMELL BEER on several of the men during the last afternoon session on Saturday, and their preteen boys greedily attacked the box of bats, elbowing and shoving for position. Joe Grudeck was done for the day, so the tent was now full, with several teams of boys and their fathers, and other guests. The group wearing powder-blue uniforms stampeded toward the bats, overrunning smaller kids and the handful of senior citizens. Two uniformed boys elbowed past a stooped old-timer in khakis and white diabetic shoes. The fathers, dude-dads all, did nothing to stop it, but instead recounted among themselves a shot Grudeck made for birdie on the twelfth.

  “Let’s control your kids, folks,” he said. When he was ignored, he shouted, “Hey! Settle those kids down, goddamnit!”

  That got their attention, all right, but Horace wasn’t done. He moved quickly to the bat display, and got between the kids and souvenirs. The boys shrank back, menaced by his size, appearance, and intent.

  “Get in line! I’ll hand ’em out,” Horace ordered, grabbing a big fistful of bats, “instead of you acting like a bunch of animals.”

  One of the fathers began to object, but Horace took a step toward him and cut him off.

  “This is an old-fashioned museum, and we do old-fashioned things here, like watch our kids and make them behave. Fair enough?”

  “There’s no reason to call them animals,” the man said.

  “There isn’t now,” Horace shot back, as the boys grew quiet, unnerved by the confrontation between the big angry man and the dad. Horace, a head taller, stared hard at the man, who averted his eyes and said, “Okay, boys, line up,” as if it were his idea.

  When the bats had been given out, Horace went back to the front and began his presentation, but was interrupted when one boy tapped the Giant’s penis with his bat.

  “Don’t do that!” Horace said. “This is a historic artifact. Have a little respect.”

  Horace continued, but a minute later the same boy took his bat and stood it up on the Giant’s penis, like a long, skinny red erection. The other boys, and some of the dads, all laughed.

  Without saying a word, Horace pounced toward the boy, grabbed the bat out of his hand, and snapped it in two. Just like that. The tent grew stone silent and Horace thrust it toward the boy’s father, jagged edges first. The man leaned back, hands up.

  “Here! Take it! Here’s his souvenir.”

  The boy began to cry and Horace wheeled on him.

  “What’s wrong, funny boy?”

  One of the other fathers in the group came forward. Horace sized him up as the alpha dad, the chief meathead.

  “You’re out of control,” he said, arms folded across his puffed-out chest over his gut.

  “Control? Control your goddamn kids. Got it, coach?”

  “Where’s your boss? I’m going to your boss.”

  “What? You’re going to tell on me?” Horace said. “You step up like some tough guy, and that’s the best you got? To tell on me?”

  Horace took a step toward the guy. With a hard stare, he held his blacksmith’s hands up to the guy’s face, knuckles out. Horace felt the rage rush to his head and the rush of blood in his ears made everything buzzy and muffled, bass drum thunder. The man held his ground, but his eyes darted back and forth to Horace’s hands.

  “You want to try me?” Horace said, close now and quiet, like he was telling a secret. “I’ve been working hard with these for twenty years, not sitting behind some fat-ass desk.”

  The guy started ushering his group out, and said over his shoulder, “This isn’t the time or place, pal.”

  “Then you name it, Chunky,” Horace said. “I’m not hard to find.”

  * * *

  HORACE DIDN’T WAIT FOR GRUNDLING. He went to get his car and noticed Grundling’s was already gone. Management, Horace thought. But this was good. It would give Horace access to his shop and maintenance barn after the museum closed. He walked to the cow barn, where Natalia was closing up.

  “I might be leaving here, too,” he said.

  “Why, Horace? Are you all right?”

  “Never mind all that now. I might be going to Ohio. Or Rochester. Can I look you up in Rochester?”

  “In Rochester, sure,” she said. “Horace, what is wrong? You seem . . .”

  “Out of sorts? That’s what Grundling just said.”

  “Yes. Out of sorts. Angry. Very angry.”

  “No, I’m fine. I just have some things to do, then I have to leave. If I come to Rochester, can I see you? Can I call you in a few days?”

  She said yes, but even Horace knew, at that moment, she wouldn’t have dared to say no.

  * * *

  HORACE WAITED AS THE EVENING shadows arrived and the lightning bugs started to blink on the fields. He then drove to the barn on the tire-track path at the ass-end of the farm. The Escort bucked and kicked up dirt, but he was alone on the grounds. He drove into an open bay, hidden behind draft horse stables, where the museum’s Econoline vans were parked. He grabbed a heavy-duty chain saw, topped it off with the oil-and-gas mixture, and pulled it to life. The 60cc engine fired right up, and spat out its two-stroke whine. Horace shut it right down, and hustled it into the back of the Escort. He found a fresh can of lamp kerosene and put that in the car, too.

  Are you a homeless man?

  “Not yet, you little fuckhead,” he said to himself.

  At the shop, he loaded his personal tools into the car. A second maul, a two-headed ax, a long-handled sledge, several sizes of ball peens and mallets and tongs. The things he made that decorated the shop, everything from breadbaskets to candlesticks to ox yokes and hoist chains, he left. Time to travel light. He got a coal fire going in the hearth, stoked it with the bellows until the sweat poured out of his body, then sat and watched it, feet up on a second chair, relaxed like a man content, and waited for Michael.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Grudeck decided to drive himself to the bat store. The league had a limo waiting, and Sal offered to go, but Grudeck just wanted some time alone. Sort things out.

  He called Stacy from his room and left a message, and wondered where she was. Maybe she was on her way up to surprise him, he thought. But he’d thought that all week, and still no Stacy. They last spoke on his second day in Cooperstown and she told him, “Just enjoy yourself. Don’t worry about me,” as they said good-bye. He’d rolled that sentence around in his head ever since, and felt pushed away. Hurt. And felt stupid for feeling hurt.

  Then in comes Joanie MacIntosh and Grudeck takes what comes his way. Same old Joe. He felt most guilty about not feeling guilty. Stacy, back home, trusting him. But did she even care?

  All this thinking put Grudeck in a shit mood. All of it, on his nerves: the rounds of golf with the jock-sniffing “corporate partners” of the league, and the obnoxious fans yelling out his name. Both embarrassed him. He couldn’t move around the hotel without someone up his ass, and he couldn’t hide in his room because of his “itinerary.” And people from the league always at his elbow. Both elbows. Sponsor dinners. Meet-and-greets. Drinks. More drinks. Joanie MacIntosh at the door, on her knees, then on top. Always on. The price of celebrity. No one understood the exhaustion. If Stacy had come, he’d have a place to rest.

  After he limped off the golf course on Saturday, he skipped a VIP cocktail hour and instead ordered room service, ate, took four Advil, and stretched out. He dozed off to Stacy’s face as the inflammation in his hips and hands subsided. But in that brief dream state, the girls from Syracuse, black silhouettes in a doorway
filled with light, visited him, and he snapped to, unnerved. The phone rang. “Yes, Commissioner, I’m feeling okay. Yes, I knew there was a cocktail hour.”

  Sal called. “Yes, I know I have a signing downtown. Yes. I’m getting ready.”

  “You sound like you’re lying down,” Sal said. “You sure you don’t want me to go?”

  “I’m okay. Take care of my mom. She’s coming in tonight.”

  Grudeck languished in the shower, blasting hot water that turned his skin meaty and red, and dressed in casual black. He took the fire exit stairs to the parking lot, sunglasses already on, found his car without a valet, and took off.

  The signing was from 6:00 to 7:30, so he had a half hour to kill, by design. He drove north on Lake Street, away from the downtown, and made a left on Glimmerglen Road, into the wooded hilly countryside. He wanted to get lost, to just follow the twisting pavement, mesmerized by the yellow lines, to wherever it took him, however long it took to get there.

  * * *

  MICHAEL HELD THE TWELVE-FOOT stepladder while June climbed. When her behind, snug in cuffed khaki shorts, was at his face level, she turned around and said, “Don’t be fresh, now.” Michael got red, and she leaned down and gave him a little tap on the shoulder.

  “I’m just bustin’ ya,” she said.

  She handed down boxes of Joe Grudeck stuff she’d ordered specially for the day, and the times their fingers would touch, he would feel the same thrill he felt when she reached up and the raspberry-blue Gone Batty shirt would stretch to outline her breasts. Maybe someday, he thought, when I’m a baseball star. When she climbed down, he held out his hand for her as she neared the last step.

  “Thank you, kind sir,” she said, and smiled. She took his hand and bounced down, almost into his arms, so close, and she looked like one of those Alabama or USC cheerleaders he saw on TV, all blond and smiley and so beautiful, but somewhere else, far away. Still, at that moment Michael thought he could never love a girl more. He wanted to tell her, so badly. Or just go ahead and kiss her. But he knew what would happen; she would say he was sweet, and tell him she was flattered, and that if he was older . . .

  But he wasn’t. He was just a kid, and there was nothing he could do but wish otherwise, and think that maybe, someday . . . when he was a baseball star . . .

  That’s why he told her about the scholarship first, even before his dad, to prove he was more than just a kid with a summer job. He had potential. She was happy for him, and when she said, “Well, we’re going to miss you,” Michael heard, I’m going to miss you, but instead of a kiss or a hug, he got the firm handshake of a store manager.

  Now here it was, his last day before he would leave for Ohio. He had volunteered to work until the signing was over, because he wanted to stay until everyone left, and linger with her as long as he could, and trade cell numbers and become Facebook and Snapchat friends, and promise to stay in touch. He knew he was supposed to meet Horace, but he texted to say he would be late. Horace replied okay, and Michael shut his phone off so he wouldn’t be bothered.

  The store was closed while they arranged tables of Joe Grudeck memorabilia: reprinted baseball cards and frame-ready photos. June put authentic Grudeck jerseys on hangers, and made a display of Red Sox hats. Michael was glad to be alone with her, to help and just watch her be so happy, especially when the line began to form outside as early as noon, six hours before the signing.

  But when she said, “I am so excited for this; I just love Joe Grudeck,” Michael suddenly felt small and envious. And when she went out the back door of the store and returned with a six-pack of Samuel Adams Boston Lager to put in the fridge, he felt tiny and excluded. A few minutes later she opened the store, and the Red Sox fans crashed in. Some shopped, ransacking the clothes June had just folded, and some just stood in line, sweaty and breathing all over one another. Michael resented them for killing his alone time with her. He thought of his dad always complaining about “fat, T-shirt-wearing tourists,” and it made him smile.

  * * *

  GRUDECK TRIED TO TURN ONTO Pioneer street, but was impeded by people with “B” hats and Red Sox shirts. Only then did it register; they were there for him. The line stretched a full block from the bat store and spilled into the street. It was still fifteen minutes till showtime and he wondered how long they’d been waiting. If he tried to walk past them, he’d be swarmed, so he found the side alley that led to the back door and parked there.

  The back room of the store was shabby. An old table, a washtub sink and bathroom no bigger than a closet. Boxes of T-shirts stacked crooked like building blocks, and crates of unfinished wood bats. Through the opening to the main store he saw a cute blond girl in tight tan shorts with her back to him, bent slightly over a banquet table, laying out Sharpies and straightening piles of photos. A tall dark-haired kid stocked a row of bat racks along the main aisle with Grudeck’s replica stick; the thick-barreled Louisville Slugger, the thirty-five-inch, thirty-four-ounce, red-stained white ash. Grudeck stood watching for a while outside the back door, watching her move around the table, setting up two chairs, putting out the cash box, smoothing the Red Sox–blue tablecloth. Sweet thing, Grudeck thought, then tapped on the window. The girl turned, pretty face, orthodontic smile, and bounded back to let him in. But she first shut the door between the store and back room.

  Grudeck was surprised when she held out both hands for his, but obliged. She took his hand not at all firmly, and let it linger, and introduced herself as the manager.

  “It is such a pleasure to meet you,” she said.

  She explained the layout and offered him a quick beer. He declined.

  “Well, maybe after,” she said.

  “Maybe after,” he replied.

  She led him out front and introduced him to the tall kid, who was almost Grudeck’s height. Grudeck figured right away the kid was a good athlete, because he had a self-confidence about him. He didn’t hem and haw or smile nervously or flinch in any way, but just looked Grudeck in the eye and said, “Great to meet you, sir.”

  “Mike is quite the baseball player, too,” June said. “He just got a scholarship to Saint—”

  “Archbishop Moeller. In Cincinnati,” Michael said. “Ken Griffey Junior and Barry Larkin went there.”

  “Ah, good,” Grudeck said. The kid was all of what? Fifteen, sixteen?

  “A little young to be leaving home, aren’t you?” Grudeck asked.

  “I’m fourteen,” Michael said.

  “Fourteen! Wow! You grow ’em big out here,” Grudeck said to June as he clapped a hand on Michael’s shoulder.

  “Still,” he said, looking back at Michael, “that’s a big move, when you’re young. I was eighteen . . . ,” he began, and then trailed off, his mind distracted by cinematic snippets of “what ifs.” He saw Stacy’s face in high school, just a girl. What if he’d stayed? What if he’d matured a little before he was let loose on the world as a ballplayer? He thought of the Syracuse girls. He saw his father dying in the hospital, their relationship never reaching the depth of man-to-man, but remaining stuck on the surface of proud-dad-to-star-son. Even Ma. Jesus, did he even know her? What if he’d stayed? Would he have had a family? Joey, Stacy, and the kids at Ma’s kitchen table? A life beyond this, greeting five hundred strangers who want to be your friends, friendless yourself? Here in Cooperstown, where—after Ma was gone—his only permanent home would be a fucking museum.

  The kid was looking at him, wondering where he’d gone. Grudeck tightened his grip on his shoulder.

  “I left early,” he said. “And things worked out. But I missed a lot, too.”

  The kid was quiet for a few moments, as if he understood, then said, “My dad says the same thing.”

  “Then your dad’s a smart man,” Grudeck said.

  * * *

  THE GIRL SAT NEXT TO him, so close he could inhale her clean-air scent, so fresh it was overwhelming. She would take the fan’s money, ask their name and spelling, then repeat it in Grudeck’s e
ar for him to sign. “Larry.” “Billy, Jr.” “Sherri . . . S-H-E-R-R-I . . . I not Y.” Each time she did it, in a low, heavy voice just above a whisper, it sent a tingle down Grudeck’s leg. They touched legs at first, and he reflexively jerked away, but eventually came to rest his on the bare flesh of her thigh. How old is she? Half my age, at most. Stacy at home. She should’ve come.

  The girl was pleasant to all the customers . . . “Of course he’ll take a picture, that’s why we’re here.” . . . “Yes, he can sign it to the McElroy family, how do you spell it?” . . . “No, sir, I’m sorry, the bat is fifty-nine ninety-five unsigned, autographed is eighty-nine ninety-five.”

  And attentive to Grudeck. Water? Coffee? She laid her hand on his bare forearm at one point and asked, “Do you need a break?” with such intimate concern he felt himself get slightly aroused. The second time she asked, he agreed. The girl summoned Michael to the front and announced, “Mr. Grudeck will be right back,” to the fans. She followed him into the back room, offered him a beer.

  “Better not,” he said, and excused himself to use the bathroom to scrub his hands. The fullness he felt when she touched him was gone, and Grudeck spent a moment trying to revive it after he pissed, but gave up. When he came out, she was holding one of his bats, not in her fists, but with her fingers spread longways up the barrel. Was it his imagination, or was she actually caressing it? He thought of Stacy. Goddamn, she should have come.

  “Can you sign this for Mike?” she asked. “He’s leaving tomorrow. I want to give him a little present.”

  Grudeck’s mind raced. Watching her fingers. She was just a kid. No, she was a grown woman, this . . . what was her name again? He took the bat and signed it.

  * * *

  IT WAS AFTER 7:30 and the line was still out the door. June told Michael to tell the people outside they weren’t going to get in.