Bang The Drum Slowly

by Mark Harris

  Bang the Drum Slowly

  Mark Harris

  Copyright

  Bang the Drum Slowly

  Copyright © 1956 by Mark Harris

  Cover art and e-Foreword to the electronic edition copyright © 2000 by RosettaBooks, LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Electronic editions published 2000, 2011 by RosettaBooks LLC,

  New York.

  ISBN e-Pub edition: 9780795311635

  Contents

  eForeword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  For Jo again as usual

  WHILE WRITING THIS BOOK I ALSO KEPT THINKING ABOUT

  RUSSELL REGAN BRACKETT,

  BORN 1925, DEAD 1954. EVERYBODY CALLED HIM ONLY “REGAN.”

  SPECIAL SOUVENIR SCORECARD

  NUMBERS AND POSITIONS OF ALL THE PLAYERS

  (AT BOSTON, OPENING DAY, APRIL 12, 1955)

  NUMBER POSITION

  2 GEORGE GONZALEZ 3RD BASE

  42 PERRY SIMPSON 2ND BASE

  5 PASQUALE CARUCCI RIGHT FIELD

  4 SID GOLDMAN 1ST BASE

  3 “CANADA” SMITH CENTER FIELD

  6 VINCENT CARUCCI LEFT FIELD

  7 “COKER” ROGUSKI SHORTSTOP

  18 JONAH BROOKS CATCHER

  44 “AUTHOR” WIGGEN PITCHER

  1 “UGLY” JONES (CAPT.) SHORTSTOP

  12 WILLIS TYLER INFIELD

  14 “WASH” WASHBURN INFIELD

  15 HARRY GLEE OUTFIELD

  19 “LAWYER” LONGABUGCO OUTFIELD

  20 REED McGONIGLE OUTFIELD

  9 “GOOSE” WILLIAMS CATCHER

  10 BRUCE PEARSON CATCHER

  16 “BLONDIE” BIGGS PITCHER

  17 JAMES VAN GUNDY PITCHER

  21 HORSE” BYRD PITCHER

  22 JACK STERLING PITCHER

  23 GIL WILLOWBROOK PITCHER

  24 HERB MACY PITCHER

  45 LINDON BURKE PITCHER

  46 F. D. R. CASELLI PITCHER

  48 KEITH CRANE PITCHER

  36 CLINT STRAP COACH

  37 JOE JAROS COACH

  38 “EGG” BARNARD COACH

  39 “DUTCH” SCHNELL MGR.

  eForeword

  A simple story of friendship is at the heart of Mark Harris’ Bang the Drum Slowly, perhaps the most affecting of the author’s four novels dealing with the (fictional) baseball career of a decent man and a gifted pitcher named Henry W. Wiggen. Wiggen’s golden-boy ride in the majors detours in his friendship with a stubborn Georgia boy named Bruce Pearson, a so-so catcher who does not have many friends. Wiggen befriends him, only to learn that Pearson is harboring the secret that he is dying of Hodgkins’ disease. In a magnificent display of affection and pride, Wiggen fights to keep Pearson in the game, rallying their teammates and even inspiring the catcher to playing better. Though Wiggen cannot stop the clock for Pearson, the profound friendship they have developed transforms both men.

  Novelist Mark Harris (b.1922) is best known for his Henry Wiggen novels, all written in a disarming vernacular, as if Wiggen himself were dictating the text. In addition to Bang the Drum Slowly (1956) — Harris also wrote the screenplay for the novel’s 1973 film adaptation, starring Michael Moriarty as Wiggen, with Robert DeNiro as Pearson — they include The Southpaw (1952), A Ticket for a Seamstitch (1957) and It Looked Like For Ever (1 970). Harris is also the author of novels about military experience (Trumpet to the World, Something About a Soldier) and life in academia (Wake Up Stupid, The Goy, Killing Everbody, Lying in Bed). In 1980, he wrote a unique biography of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow entitled Saul Bellow, Drumlin Woodchuck. Mark Harris has taught on the university level throughout his writing career and is presently a Professor of English at Arizona State University.

  RosettaBooks is the leading publisher dedicated exclusively to electronic editions of great works of fiction and non-fiction that reflect our world. RosettaBooks is a committed e-publisher, maximizing the

  CHAPTER 1

  ME AND Holly were laying around in bed around 10 A.M. on a Wednesday morning when the call come. I was slow answering it, thinking first of a comical thing to say, though I suppose it long since stopped handing anybody a laugh except me. I don’t know. I laugh at a lot of things nobody ever laughs at except her. “Do not be funny,” she said. “Just answer it.” But I seen her kind of listening out of the corner of her eye.

  “Triborough Bridge,” I said.

  “I have a collect call for Mr. Henry Wiggen from Rochester, Minnesota,” said the operator.

  “I do not know a soul there,” said I, “and I do not accept collect calls under any circumstances.” I used to accept a lot of collect calls until I got wise to myself.

  Then behind the operator I heard this voice saying, “Come on, Arthur.”

  Well, there is only one person in this world that calls me “Arthur,” and the first thing I thought when I heard it was I got this picture of him in jail in Rochester, Minnesota. Do not ask me why jail, but that was the picture I got, and I said to Holly, “Bruce is in jail in Minnesota,” and she sat up in bed, and I said to the operator, “Tell him this better be important.”

  “Arthur, Arthur,” said he, “you must speak to me,” and I said I would.

  And then it was like speaking to him always is, where all he can say is this one thing his mind might be on, like he might get up in the morning saying, “I must write a postcard home,” and says it while dressing, and says it at breakfast, and says it maybe 3 or 4 times all morning, or he says, “Arthur, I must have $20,” and says it again all the way to the park and all the time dressing and drilling, and then might say it in the middle of the ball game when you are trying to keep your mind on what you are doing until you finally give him his 20 and he stops saying it and becomes silent, and he said, “You have got to come and see me.”

  “What did you do?” I said. I still thought he was in jail.

  “You have got to come and see me,” he said. “I am in the hospital.”

  “With what?” I said.

  “You have got to come and see me,” he said.

  “I cannot afford it,” I said. “I am up to my ass in tax arrears.” This was the statement of a true rat, and you can imagine how it must of sounded to him. But I knew nothing of the circumstances at the time. If he had of hung up on me then and there he would of had a right to do so. Yet who could he of called besides me? There was a silence, and I personally cannot stand silence on long distance, especially if I am not sure how deductible it will be, and I said, “Say something! Do not just stand there!”

  “You have got to come and see me,” he said.

  “All he says is I have got to go and see him,” I said.

  “What did he do?” she said.

  “He is in the hospital,” I said.

  “Then you have got to go,” she said.

  “I will come,” I said.

  All we threw was one change of clothes in a bag because we naturally had no idea, plus my Arcturus kit, figuring if I done some business along the way we could call the whole trip deductible. “He would not be in Rochester, Minnesota, if it was not serious,” she said. “I do not like the look of it.”

 
“He has got North Pole coverage,” I said. When I am trying to sell a total policy I say, “This policy covers everything except sunstroke at the North Pole.” It is good for a laugh. However, I never wrote such a total policy except the one I sold to Bruce, $50,000, the first I ever sold, and the fastest, selling it to him in 5 minutes flat in the hotel in Boston one night, not even trying to sell it to him but only just tuning my line you might say, the seal not yet even broke on my kit and my license scarcely dry because only that afternoon I polished off this course I took. I took the course bit by bit all that summer, every time we hit Boston. I said, “Leave me point out just a few advantages of protection of this type,” and he said, “Arthur, show me where I sign.” I did not write another policy for a month. I have sold about 70, all to ballplayers except one to Mr. Jacob Epstein, my former English teacher at Perkinsville High. The reason they call it “Arcturus” is because Arcturus is the nearest star, or else the brightest. I forget which. Maybe both. They told me in the course but I forget.

  “Surely his coverage is not all you can think of,” she said.

  “No,” said I, “naturally not,” though it was. First you think about money. I used to pee away money like wine until I got wise to myself.

  We made a fast stop at the bank, and then she drove me to the depot. “Take care of 600 Dollars,” I said, which was what we kept calling him before she was born. She was 3 months pregnant at the time. She said she would, and I kissed her and said I would be back in a couple days. I was not back for 6 months.

  I flew through a snowstorm from Albany to Chicago, the stewardess going up and down the isle smiling with her big white teeth and singing, “Tra-la, this is nothing but a snowstorm.” She said we were over it, but it looked to me like we were in it. It got very dark inside the plane, and I started getting these flash pictures of the whole goddam machine coming to a dead stop 30,000 feet over Indiana or somewhere, and the stewardess said to me, “Are you the Henry Wiggen?”

  I said I was. It made me feel pretty good, for it been some time since anybody asked me that in just that way, not selling me anything, only asking. In the summer of 52 I was the toast of New York, but 2 years later I couldn’t of got a traffic ticket squashed. She said, “I bought a copy of your book at the American airport in Cairo, Egypt.” She had very big white teeth and quite a lovely smile and all, and right away my X-ray eye started seeing through her uniform and down to the girl herself. You know how you do. One minute you are picturing yourself dead in Indiana and the next minute a girl glides in view and gives you a smile and a little thing like a snowstorm at 30,000 feet don’t seem to make much of an impression any more.

  The upshot of it was we wound up over coffee in the airport in Chicago. She told me what a lonely and gloomy city Chicago was on a snowy night. “I will probably just lay on my bed curled up with a magazine,” she said, and now I begun getting pictures of her curled up like a girl does.

  “No doubt you have got a roomie for company,” said I.

  “Oh yes,” said she, “but she is on a flight to Mexico City,” and she yawned, and I started telling myself it was insane to go on in a snowstorm, besides which what could I do when I got there and how much more sense it would make to get there in the morning fresh as a daisy, and on and on. But then I said to myself, “Henry, what a louse you are with a wife 3 months pregnant that you kissed goodby not 7 hours ago!” “I have got to make a couple phone calls,” I said.

  I called Goose Williams. I could not of sold Goose anything, and I knew it, but if I didn’t at least try I wouldn’t of had the nerve to list the trip deductible. He used to hate me. His wife said he went out for a loaf of bread Sunday and was never seen since. “I do not know which is worse,” she said, “having Harold home or having him away.”

  “I wish to speak to him concerning insurance matters,” I said.

  “Harold already cashed in all his insurance,” she said.

  “He should not of done that,” said I.

  “Harold should not of done a lot of things,” she said, “and a lot more things he should of done he never quite tended to. Tell me, Henry,” she said, “is Harold at the end of the trail?”

  I could not get used to her calling him “Harold.” ”Goose?” said I. “At the end of the trail? That is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of.”

  “Tell me the truth,” she said. “He is at the end of the trail. He has not got as much as one full season left in him. He has got only his wife and his debts and his children, and all of them a pain and a burden to him,” and I held the telephone away from my ear and looked out through the glass at the stewardess. She was twisted around on the stool, studying the seams of her stockings. “He will be 35 come August,” she said. The stewardess twisted her body first one way and then the other, and I said to myself, “It is true that you have got a wife back home, but it is also true that you only live once, and furthermore she practically as much as invited you up.” “I wish you was Harold,” she said, “and Harold was you. How old are you, Henry?”

  I do not even think I answered. She begun crying a little, and I easied the phone back on the hook and slid the door open and started out. But right away I got these further pictures of Holly back home worrying about me and probably following me on the clock and no doubt picturing me rushing in one plane and out the other, and I quick closed the door again and called Joe Jaros and spoke to his wife. It was Joe’s wife later left the cat out of the barn. Usually I do not hang with the coaches much, but me and Joe become fairly friendly on account of Tegwar, The Exciting Game Without Any Rules, T-E-G-W-A-R, which nobody on the club can play but me and Joe because nobody can keep a straight face long enough. I will be hilarious on the inside but with a straight face on the outside, and I was smiling while his phone was ringing while poor Goose’s wife was probably still crying in a dead phone at her end which shows you the kind of a thoughtless personality I have. Joe was out baby-sitting his grandchildren. His wife give me his number, but I did not even take it down. “My Lord,” she said, “Joe has got insurance with 3 or 4 different outfits.”

  “You do not have insurance,” said I, “unless you have got Arcturus.”

  She laughed. She asked me how long I planned to be in town, and I said I did not know. There were the pictures of Holly and the pictures of the stewardess curled on the bed plus more pictures now of Joe Jaros baby-sitting his grandchildren, all cozy and warm with a snowstorm outside, not tramping the streets like Goose nor with girls in a number of towns, not drinking up all his credit in the saloons until all of a sudden one day the girls and the credit begin to give out at once. I seen it happen. I seen too many old-time ballplayers hanging around clubhouses telling you what a great game you just pitched (though you might of just got the hell shelled out of you) and could you by any chance loan them 5 to tide them over, which I used to loan them, too, before I was in so damn deep I was playing winter ball and hitting the banquet circuit and still getting in deeper with every passing day until Holly took a hold of things. I said, “Henry, look at Joe. He did not flub his life away chasing after every pair of big white teeth he run across,” and I slid open the door again and circled around and went out a side door saying “Positively No Admission” and listing a number of fines and penalties and prison terms you could get for passing through that one door, and out in the snowstorm and back up in the air.

  * * *

  The only time I was ever in Minneapolis before was in June of 53 for an exhibition in St. Paul, the night Red Traphagen split his finger and walked in to the bench with the nail hanging off and said to Dutch, “That is sufficient,” and stepped out of his gear and never even went back east with us but went to San Francisco and taught in the college there.

  I fell asleep in the hotel wondering what I might of missed not following through with the airplane stewardess in Chicago, kicking myself for not having took a stab at it, yet knowing that I would of kicked myself all the harder if I done the opposite, laying there thinking how life wa
s one big problem after the other and feeling sorry for myself and I suppose actually thinking I had any problems, not knowing what a real problem was.

  I hardly knew a soul in town. I called Rosy Ryan in the morning, general manager I think they call him of the Millers, once a right-hand pitcher for the Giants, the first National League pitcher to ever hit a home run in the World Series, which he done in 1924, but he was out. I personally never hit a home run in 4 years up. The TV said, “Today’s high, 15 below zero.” I figured I heard wrong.

  I called up Aleck Olson, the Boston outfielder, and he come rushing down, and we had coffee and gassed and talked about annuities, which he was very interested in and bought one off me later in the summer. I did not wish to sell him one on the spot but told him check around and compare Arcturus with the others, because I knew he would find nothing better, besides which they never do check around anyway, and he went with me to The Dayton Company and I bought a storm coat with a fur collar and earmuffs and gloves, $70, all deductible, business. I would not of needed them if I was not in Minneapolis and would not of been in Minneapolis except on business. Holly says the same. Me and him started floating around town like a couple old buddies, which handed me a laugh. All summer a fellow is just another ballplayer on somebody else’s ball club until if you run across him in the winter it’s a horse of another color, and he laughed, too, not knowing why, like Bruce does, laughs when you laugh without knowing why, which I bawled him out 500 times for but never made a dent.

  Well, you know me, if I get to a place hungry the first thing I do is eat. When I got down to Rochester, Minnesota, I stumbled across this kosher restaurant, being very fond of kosher food, and when I was done I went to the hospital. He was not in the room. Yet I could tell it was his by the smell of this shaving lotion that he uses about a quart and a half of every time he shaves. And for who? For a prostitute on 66 Street name of Katie that he thinks he is in love with and goes around telling everybody he is about to marry. A nurse popped her head in the room and said, “Are you Mr. Wiggen at last?” and I said I was, and she left, and soon I heard the sound of his shoes racing along the hall and finally sliding the last 6 or 8 feet like we used to slide in the hallway in Perkinsville High, and in he come, all dressed, all fit as a fiddle, looking as tip-top as I ever seen him, and I said, “This is sick? This is why I dropped everything back home and risked my life in a snowstorm and went to the expense of a new wardrobe in Minneapolis?”