Bang The Drum Slowly

by Mark Harris

  The river was like the old mill for him, stirring up 10,000 remembrances. Many an hour he was not fishing a-tall but only watching the river wash by, the Flint River they call it, dangling his shoes in it, sometimes kicking at the water with his toe, or spitting in it and watching it travel on, or flipping little stones in it and watching the circles get bigger, and maybe 3 or 4 times in an afternoon, more times than he could possibly of had to, he laid his line down beside him and stood and urinated in the river, and watched that, too, watched it all mix in with the water, and disappear.

  Also, we played Tegwar. Mrs. Pearson would not hear of card playing on the porch, so we moved back in the kitchen, which we should of done long ago. It was air condition, and no flies, and his father dragged over a chair and watched, and then he said, “Deal me in, boys,” and I dealed him in, 17 cards apiece plus one in the middle. “You have not been putting one in the middle,” his father said.

  “It is the fish-fly card,” I said, and me and Bruce took all the tricks the first 2 deals until his father dealed and threw the fish-fly card in the middle, a 9 or something, and I swooped them up, saying, “That will be 6¢ to me and a nickel to Bruce.”

  “You lose your deal when the fish-fly card is a 9,” said Bruce.

  “How come 5 to you and 6 to Arthur?” his father said.

  “Rules,” said Bruce.

  “You see,” said I, “it was not a double-birdie. Probably you been playing Southeastern Tegwar all your life, but the boys all play Western Canadian style, which for my money is much faster and leaves you free for a butchered hog most any time.”

  “It keeps you from dropping dead on the board,” said Bruce.

  The old man looked up quick, and I knew. Or at least I think I knew. The Reverend Robinson told him. I would of suspected anyhow because he went on playing Tegwar 3 nights, shoving his money across at us, never knowing the rules and never caring, but seeing how much it pleased Bruce for once in his life to be in on a gag that somebody else was still out on. Nothing give Bruce as much of a kick all summer as Tegwar.

  * * *

  One night in the middle of Tegwar Holly rolled in. She simply could not stand it up home without me. The snow and the ice got her down, for she loves sun and heat, and so do I. She was nervous, not knowing what to expect nor what to say nor who been told what. Bruce’s father practically fell over backwards getting out of his chair in a hurry. They are extremely polite to white women. She shook hands all around and was one of the family in no time.

  Another chair was dragged on the porch, another swatter looped on the nail, and Gem brung 5 glasses instead of 4 now. Also, there was a fan for her, covered with designs of roses like the one his mother used, because it begun getting warm down there, and everything you said it took twice as long getting an answer out of anybody because there was now not only swatting and sipping but also fanning. You kept busy.

  I seen the first sign of 600 Dollars now, nothing much, only a little rise in her belly that you would of never noticed except sideways in a slip or less. She was tip-top and felt fine, her weight right, the 2 of us parading in the bathroom the last thing every night and stepping on the scale, Holly where she ought to been, me maybe a shade over. I consider 200 right but do not worry if I hit 203 or 4 in February.

  I briefed her, telling her only me and Bruce and the Reverend Robinson knew, probably the old man but not his mother, and that was all. She herself told nobody in the beginning, only Pop, but finally busted down and told the Epsteins. She could not keep it in.

  It was 66 Street all over again. When we lived on 66 Street Bruce was always there and we were never alone, coming mornings until time to go to the park, coming after the ball game, or staying all day when it rained, wandering in because he knew nobody else, and because nobody else he knew would of stood him, settling down wherever we were, or following us around the house, never speaking much but only listening, or at least looking like he was. He met Katie on the stairs one day and fell in love with her and wished to marry her, and I told him go ahead and marry her, anything to get him out of the house, but she would not. What did she want with $7,000? She must of paid half that much in taxes, for I know she paid her tax man $300 just to file, and him not nearly the expert Holly is. I seen her hold a $100 bill in her hand fishing in her purse for keys and throw it back in like any girl might throw a single back.

  After awhile you got used to him, and if he didn’t show up you begun to worry and look at the clock, and then when you heard him on the steps you said, “Damn it all anyhow. Here he is again.” But once he stepped in the door you could not heave him out. He was so happy to see you, and he might of brung flowers or a slab of meat or a basket of fruit or a box of candy, always something, never nothing, something for you and something for Katie that he took upstairs and handed to her between customers and kissed her on the cheek like she was 16 and not yet been to her first dance. So we were never alone down there, for there was always Bruce, slouching, like in the barnyards or in church, listening without listening, looking from me to her and back again like the world never seen 2 people so smart and so good. Any other man you would of said, “Take your eye off my wife like that,” but not Bruce.

  He never left until we said, “Well, sack time,” and she popped open a button or zipped a zipper. He took off fast then, afraid he might see some part of Holly he believed he should not see. It even embarrassed him if she wore a low neckline, which she sometimes does, having a good neckline and wishing to show it off. Why not? And then when he was gone, and we could of talked, there was nothing to say, and what we done we laid there and heard him paddering around in his room, or maybe heard him open his door very quiet and go on tip-toe down the stairs and out, and then a long time later back, though where he went I never knew and never asked. Sometimes he drove, but mostly he walked, and in the morning he was up before anybody, fresh, like he slept his full 8.

  The last night he stood up until morning. He packed his suitcases and loaded them in my car, and his gear, and he drove his own car out back and parked it there, the one they give him when he signed and the one we drove down from Minnesota in, a 47 Moors with Cushion-Gear, probably the greatest flop in the history of the business. In his car he loaded his golf clubs and his remembrances from the war, his fishing poles and his guns. Then he burned some papers. We seen him from the window dropping papers one by one on the fire and raking the fire together to keep it burning, now and then reaching down and plucking a paper out and reading it, even while it burned in his hand, and then leaving it flutter down until all was burned. That is my best picture of him, standing there all black against the light of the fire and leaning on the rake, and Holly’s, too, and then we went to bed but could not sleep, and in the morning we shoved off for Aqua Clara.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE TALK of the camp last spring was a kid name of Piney Woods, a wild and crazy catcher out of a place called Good Hope, Georgia, that the writers all called “Dutch’s good hope from Good Hope” until it become obvious that he could not last. Back he went to QC in April, and we went into the year with the same 3 catchers we finished 54 with, Goose and Bruce and Jonah Brooks. Jonah come up from QC when Red split his finger in St. Paul, Minnesota, that time, a fine boy, just fine, always singing. 13 runs behind and he will still be singing, calling “Wing her through, Author, wing her through,” and then after a good pitch singing, “Author wung her through, he wung her through,” except when now and then he thought the call was wrong, and then sung, “Oh-o-o-o Lord my big black ass,” his jaw always going and his mind always working, his eye everywhere, a natural catcher if ever I seen one, except he could not hit.

  For a time it looked like Piney Woods might be the answer. He can hit. But he is no natural. He is too wild and crazy. He drives in motorcycle races in the winter. Dutch was looking for a combination of a natural catcher like Jonah and a hitter like Piney, and still is. I guess there is only one Red Traphagen in a lifetime.

  * * *

&nbs
p; The first few days me and Lucky Judkins sat in the stands watching the drill and lying about money, telling each other how much we were holding out for. I don’t know why you lie about money. I guess you figure people figure you are lying, so you might as well. One morning Ugly Jones dumb up from the field and said, “Author, leave me give you one piece of advice. Do not hang in the park because your eye gleams and your hand itches. You are becoming anxious to play ball, and this will cost you money,” which was true. I mean it was true I was becoming gleamy, I guess. Ugly is a wise old hand, veteran of many a holdout, and I went back to the house, and we swum and laid on the beach and played badminton and waited for the telephone to ring, and every time it rung I said, “This is Old Man Moors meeting my price,” but it never was, and to myself I thought, “This is Bruce. The attack come.” But it was never Bruce neither. It was writers, or one of the boys, or Joe Jaros wishing to play Tegwar. The boys phoned a lot, or dropped by, and I kept in touch. My weight kept going up something awful.

  The real bomb-burst was Lucky getting swapped to Cincinnati for F. D. R. Caselli, a right-hand pitcher and a good boy, a cousin by marriage of Gussie Petronio, the Mammoth catcher before Red, leaving me the last and only holdout. I might of went out of my mind a little if there been any left-hand pitching in camp, but there was none, 90 boys that threw with their left hand maybe, but none that threw very hard or very smart, and I sat tight. The boys were all with me, down to the last penny.

  It all dragged on so long I said to Holly, “Am I a baseball player or only a man living on the beach at Aqua Clara?” and she said, “What difference?” Everything you said to her any more she said, “What difference?” meaning lay in the sun and enjoy life. She was happy. I never seen her so still before. She is usually always running around doing 77 things at once, hanging with the wives, reading books, studying taxes, cleaning the house, gassing on the phone, but now she done nothing only laid on the beach and looked at the waves. Now and then she took a dip and flipped over and left the waves wash her in, and then she laid on the sand again and browned up, and nights she got all dressed for Bruce.

  He come down every night after work. You could see him from far off, walking along and looking at the waves and whistling “Come Josephine In My Flying Machine,” which the boys all sung in honor of Piney and his stupid motorcycle. Piney himself sung it every time you asked him, closing his eyes, not laughing, thinking you loved hearing it for the singing, when the reason you loved it was he took it so serious, singing—

  Come Josephine in my flying machine,

  Going up she goes, up she goes.

  Balance yourself like a bird on the beam,

  In the air she goes, there she goes.

  Up, up, a little bit higher,

  Oh my, the moon is on fire.

  Come Josephine in my flying machine,

  Going up, goodby, all on, goodby.

  He always dragged a stick in the sand behind him. He parked it by the door and come in and ate, salads for me mostly, and lean meat and no bread and butter and this disgusting skim milk, my weight at 209 by now and climbing a mile a minute, and when we was done we sat out back, out of the ocean breeze, until along about 10 he went around the house for his stick, and I drove him back to the Silver Palms.

  In the hotel we shoved his bed around near the phone, and I wrote my number on a piece of paper and tacked it on the wall, and he said, “I hope if it happens it will not happen at a bad hour,” and I said, “It might or might not probably never happen. I have no faith in those cockeyed doctors up there. But if it happens do not stop and check the time, just call me,” and he said he would.

  I begun selling policies to kill the time. I drove down to St. Pete every couple days, and Tampa and Clearwater, and over to Lakeland once, never pushing, only chatting with the various boys and leaving it sell itself, which it does once you put the idea in their mind. All spring they see too many old-time ballplayers floating from camp to camp and putting the touch on old friends, maybe giving a pointer to a kid and then saying, “By the way, could you advance me 5 until the first of the month?” which kids often do, probably writing home, “Oh boy, I just had the privilege of loaning 5 to So-and-so,” until after they loaned out enough 5’s it did not seem so much like a privilege any more.

  I drove Lucky down to Tampa the day he was traded. Lucky was the second person I ever sold an annuity to, and he said, “Well, Author, one day we will all be done working. We will just fish and look in the box once a month for the checks, me and you and Bruce and all the rest,” and I almost told him, for it was getting hard to carry it around. But I smothered it back. Once you told somebody everybody would know, and once Dutch knew it would of been “Goodby, Bruce.” “It is hard picturing you in a Cincinnati suit,” I said. In the lobby of The Floridian I got to gassing with Brick Brickell, the manager of Cincinnati. “You are holding out serious,” he said. “For what?”

  “$27,500,” I said.

  “You will never get it,” he said. Then he looked around to see if anybody was listening. “We would pay it,” he said.

  “I doubt that,” I said.

  “Try me,” he said. “Hold out long enough and we will buy you, and I give you my verbal word we will pay you 25,000 at the least. I been trying to buy you already.”

  “What are they asking?” I said.

  “A quarter of a million dollars and players,” he said.

  “What will they take?” I said.

  “150,000 and players,” he said.

  “What will you give?” said I.

  “Now, Author,” he said, “I cannot reveal a thing of that sort. The trouble is that they want Sam Mott. Dutch is worried about his catching.”

  “Does he not worry about his left-hand pitching?” I said.

  “Brooklyn will sell him Scudder,” he said, “but only if you are gone, not wishing to cut their own throat.”

  I drove F. D. R. Caselli back with me, jabbering all the way, him I mean, and all the time he jabbered I kept making up these little conversations where Old Man Moors called me on the phone, pleading with me, “Come on and sign. I will meet your price,” until I was just about ready to call him myself. But then again I told myself, “No! Do not sell yourself short!” F. D. R. had blisters on his hands, and he kept asking me what was good for them, and I told him something or other. I forget what.

  All spring the wives kept pumping Holly full of miserable stories about babies born with this or that missing, and mothers suffering, which if she ever believed any of it she would of went wild. But she never believes what people say, and all that happened I kept getting as fat as a pig until what we done we bought a badminton set and played badminton all day, deductible, for my weight is a matter of business. By the middle of March I was probably the world’s champion heavyweight left-hand badminton player, and still no call from the boss.

  One day the club said it was definitely closing a deal with Cleveland for Rob McKenna, saying this on a Friday night for the Saturday paper and leaving no chance for anybody to deny it on Sunday, for they have no Sunday paper in Aqua Clara, and putting all the writers a little bit on the spot since they hated calling Cleveland all the way out in Arizona to check on the truth of what they already probably knew was the bunk. This scared me, though, and I went to the phone, and the instant I touched it it rung, and a voice said, “Do not touch that phone!” It was Ugly Jones. “Author,” he said, “you are doing fine.”

  “I am fatter than a pig,” I said.

  “Good,” he said. “That is the way to convince them, for it worries them more than it worries you. It might not even be a bad idea to show yourself around. Leave the brass see how fat you are.”

  What we done we went out the park the following Wednesday and sat in the stands behind first. There was about 6 left-handers warming, a few wearing QC suits that been up the spring before, the rest wearing Mammoth shirts, one kid wearing my number, 44, kids, all kids, and all full of hope.

  Old Man Moors and Patr
icia and some automobile people up from Miami strolled in and sat down, Bradley Lord joining them soon after. Patricia said “Hello” and asked Holly how she was. Her and Holly gassed awhile, and then she went back. Old Man Moors glanced up my way, pretending he was looking over the paint job on the park, and I called for peanuts, which fat you up about a pound for a dime, and I begun munching away.

  The first left-hander set George and Perry down 1–2, and the peanuts went dry in my mouth a little. Pasquale then took 2 strikes and belted one out amongst the palms, and I give a little look down at the Moorses and scarcely had time to look back when Sid hit one that fell not 4 feet from where Pasquale’s went, back-to-back homers from the power factory, always a nice sight, and Canada shot a single into left, and Piney one into right. Dutch shouted, “I seen enough of that one,” waving the left-hander out of there and bringing on a new one, a tall, thin kid with a dizzy habit of wearing his glove with 3 fingers out. He walked Vincent and Ugly and hit Herb Macy on the butt until when he finally found the plate George blasted one back at him that bounced off his knee and blooped out over second base, and the poor kid was lugged off on a stretcher. Another one went out the same way the same day.

  Once Dutch looked up at me, and I waved. He did not wave back. He takes it as a personal insult. Behind your back he tells you, “Sure, sock it to them for every nickel you are worth,” but when you do he does not like it, though he himself was a holdout more than once in his playing days, and anyhow he was quite busy waving one left-hander out and a new one in, about 5 of them before a kid come on in the sixth and struck Sid and Canada out. The Moorses begun shaking their head “Yes” between themself, Bradley Lord shaking his, too, as soon as he seen it was safe, The World’s Only Living Human Spineless Skunk. This newest kid was rather fast, but no curve whatsoever, and I said to Holly, “The boys see that he has no curve by now,” which they did all right. Piney and Vincent singled. Ugly stepped in, looking up my way and giving me a kind of a wink and taking a couple and then lacing a drive down the line in right that the whole park busted out laughing over because it slammed up against the fence and stuck there, this old rat-trap fence made of boards, the drive getting jammed in between 2 boards. The right-fielder went over and tried to wedge it out. But it was in tight, and Ugly trotted around the bases laughing, and even Dutch was laughing, and by then the Moorses and the people from Miami were laughing, and Bradley Lord, too, seeing all the rest, and about one minute later Lindon bounced one off the same fence that knocked the first ball through, and Mr. Left-Hander Number 6 went off to the shower. You really had to laugh. I mean, when a ball slams up against a fence your eye is back out on the field, looking for the rebounce, and then when it don’t you think the whole world has went flooey or something, like when you drop a shoe you hear it clunk, and if no clunk comes you quick dial the madhouse. Every so often I begun to laugh, and Holly, too, and Old Man Moors turned around and give me a look, and me and Holly got up about then and yawned and stretched and bought a couple more peanuts and went home and waited for the phone to ring.