by Mark Harris
I called Pop. “Rise and shine, Grandpa,” I said. “I will round you up some breakfast,” and he come over and we ate, and he looked at me and said, “It gets more like looking in the mirror every day.”
“I doubt that I will ever run as heavy as you,” I said.
“Do not put money on it,” he said. “That is a wonderful kid of yours, bright as she can be like her grandfather.”
“Her hairline, too,” said I. “She also gets that from her grandfather,” and we laughed a good bit back and forth until Pop stopped laughing all of a sudden and said, “Write down Bruce’s old man’s address. I been writing him a letter in my head all summer and might put it down any day. You should of long since shook Washington in my opinion.”
“In my opinion also,” said I.
“Do the boys know?” said he.
“Only Goose and Horse,” I said.
“That seems like a funny combination to tell it to. Piney Woods never showed the stuff. All spring it looked like he might. Well, life is life I guess, burn up the world in the spring and back to AA by summer.” Pop talked and packed it away, both. I always love to watch him eat. It is almost as good as eating yourself. “I sure think a lot about the old man,” he said. “Goddam it, you raise up a kid from 7 pounds to 205 and then some doctor comes along and tells you he has got a fatal disease. Nobody is supposed to die that young in these modern times, but I can not think what to write. Every time I put something down it looks like somebody else wrote it.”
“Say it out loud first,” I said, “and remember it and write it down, and then get up and walk around and say some more, and quick run and write that down, too. Write it like you speak it and then knock out the apostrophes.”
“Why?” said he. “What have you got against apostrophes?”
“Nothing,” said I. “They do it in the paper, so I do it.”
“I guess you ought to know,” he said, “being an Author and all.”
I went to bed but I could not sleep. I started writing in my head, the first time I done any since “The Southpaw” over the winter between 52 and 53, and I could not sleep but got up and fished out the paper and started writing from the beginning, where the telephone call come, “Me and Holly were laying around in bed around 10 A.M. on a Blank morning,” not remembering what morning because over the winter one day is about like the next. The summer you can follow in the paper. I hunted up the old telephone bills and saw when the collect call come from Rochester, Minnesota, and I checked it with my Arcturus calendar, and it was a Wednesday, and I filled it in, and then I wrote some more, and the more I wrote the better I felt, and I stopped and thought, “But if he does not die there is no book in it, and all my work is for nothing,” and then I thought, “That will be good,” and then I thought again, “Still, if he dies or not it might still be a book at that,” and I went on writing until I simply could not keep my eyes open and went to bed and fell asleep pitching. If I give us 10 or 12 runs in the first inning I can make it the dullest game on earth and fall asleep easy.
We seen Holly and Michele in the afternoon, and Pop drove me to the train, and I brung cigars back for the boys and passed them around, and they all said “Congrats” and said they hoped she would not grow up and look like me, and I said I hoped so too.
The west moved in and put the stopper on Washington, and we picked up a game. It was not much, nothing like what we would of liked, but it was something.
Goose caught. The 3 days of rest over the All-Star Game done him a lot of good, and when he tired Jonah took over, for the power was on. Sid slammed Number 30 off Rob McKenna and was the talk of the town the way he was hitting left-handers, and Number 31 Sunday, which was the day I racked up Number 15, worth $1,500. It paid off the baby and a lot of little debts we been carrying on the books for quite some time. Sid was one up on Babe Ruth.
Bruce broke into the lineup on July 19. He caught the whole St. Louis series, the first time he caught 3 games in a row since Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, August 15, 16, and 17, 1951, according to the paper, and he caught the first night against Pittsburgh, and done well, though we lost, my loss, a sloppy ball game, for it rained all day and the ground was soaked and should of never been played to begin with, and then when we got back to the hotel his father called and said his mother died, and Bruce spoke to him and hung up and looked at me and smiled and said, “She died,” glad she died before she knew, and he called Katie, and she begun bawling on the phone and said she would be right down and help him pack, and she come, and we went to the airport with him, Katie crying all the way.
When he was in the air she said, “Leave us drink a drink together and drown our sorrow, Author, plus which I must discuss a little matter of business with you.”
“I personally rather put away a good meal after a ball game and anyhow never drink,” said I.
“No doubt such a meal has that extra zip to it when somebody else picks up the tab,” she said.
“Very often such is the case,” said I, and we went back in town to The Green Cow, same place we all ate Memorial Day night.
We ate in a private room, and after the food come she chased the waiters out and pulled the curtain. “Author,” she said, “I have here 2 letters phonier than a rubber bat,” and she shoved 2 or 3 of the Arcturus letters that Holly wrote under my eyes. “You may see but not touch,” she said, “for any day I am libel to run these up to Boston and inform the Arcturus Company that one of their agents is trying to swindle one of their fully paid-up insurees out of the right to change their beneficiary, which will win you the heave from Arcturus and blackmail you out of the insurance racket forever and a day.”
“They will laugh in your face,” said I.
“I doubt it,” she said, “because I doubt that they will like the looks of the signatures on these letters. I doubt that there are any such people working for them by these names because they are the names of very famous writers up in Boston quite some years back.” She put them back in her purse.
“The day you open your yap to the Arcturus Company,” said I, “I will stroll up to the police department on 66 Street and swear out a complaint against a certain whorehouse.”
She laughed. “I am not anxious to go up to Arcturus,” she said, “and I see no reason why me and you must have all this fuss and feathers between us. Who in hell are you protecting? His mother is dead and his father is a farmer. What does a farmer need with $50,000? The price of oats ain’t gone up that much.”
“It is the principle of the thing,” said I. “I hate to see a man get took for a ride.”
“What principle of what thing?” she said. “He been getting took for rides all his life. Everybody that ever laid eyes on him stole something off him. He is not only from the country but he is dumb from the country, and on top of that from the dumbest part of the country there is. He ain’t even from Texas or Wyoming where the Lord knows they are dumb enough to begin with, but from Georgia. If he wound up in the black he would not feel natural, which he will not wind up in anyhow because if we do not take his money from him the doctors and the insurance company and the undertakers will get there before us and swindle the old man dizzy no sooner than the grave is dug.”
“No doubt you are right,” I said.
“There is nothing illegal in it,” she said. “You are only doing what your customer asks you.”
“He is more than only a customer,” I said. “He is my friend.”
“And what does your friend wish? He wishes to marry me. Do you wish to help him have his wish? Then get them goddam Change of Beneficiary forms down here from Boston. I will tell you another thing, Author, which I been saving for the dessert.” The waiter brung the dessert and she told him close the curtain behind him again on the way out and disappear unless she rung, and she leaned forwards a little and she said, “Author, the day those forms are signed and sealed and sitting in the palm of my hand you are the lucky owner of a golden lifetime pass to 66 Street, summer and winter where the gam
e is never called because of rain and where every day is a doubleheader for any young man with red blood. I got a girl 7 feet tall for you, Author, and another only half your size, never the same girl twice, girls just off the boat from Honolulu. Give a glance at a map of the world and tell me where you want a girl from and what language she should speak, girls that kings could not buy out there in them Arabian countries, girls that already turned Hollywood down, girls that will make you think you are being struck by lightning, and girls that will make you say, “Never mind Heaven because it can not match 66 Street,” girls every color of the rainbow, you name it, brown girls, yellow girls, white girls, black girls, red girls, brown hair, black hair, blonde hair, red hair, girls that already forgot more tricks than they know, all ages from 16 to 60, all sizes and shapes, and never the same one twice.”
“I already got a girl,” I said.
“Buy your girl a tinkler for her arm,” she said. “I noticed her arm was bare,” and she went back in her purse again and pulled out a check for $2,500, made out to The Green Cow. “I will ring for the waiter,” she said.
“Put it back,” said I, and she put it back and pulled out another, $5,000, and rung the bell, and the waiter come.
“Cash,” she said, and he took the check and went and brung back cash, 50 bills, 100 each, and she laid them on my plate, where my pie was but was no more, for I ate it, and I looked down at it, and I rung the bell, and the waiter come again.
“I rather have more pie,” I said, and I handed him the plate, and he looked at me, admiring me, and he give Katie back the cash and went and brung another hunk of pie. She stuffed it in her purse and got up in a hurry. “You will be hearing from me,” she said, and out she went.
CHAPTER 13
TALK ABOUT crazy coincidences, I was writing along in my book, still only the first chapter, and hit the part where I called Joe from the airport in Chicago when right that minute he shoved in opposite, and he said, “Should we not send flowers?”
I said I sent them, me and some of the boys.
“Like who?” he said.
“Me and Goose and Horse,” I said, and I folded up my papers and stuck them in my pocket. “The club also sent some.”
“You writing another book, Author?” said Joe, and he laughed. He hadn’t spoke a nice word to me in weeks.
“No,” I said.
“About you and Pearson?” he said.
“What makes you think so?” said I.
“Nothing,” he said. He looked out the window. “Do not write another book until I read the first one. I can not keep up with you. I ain’t even bought a copy yet. I am a little strapped this year.”
“$3.50 is all it takes,” said I, “or 35¢ in the quarter books. That ain’t very steep, Joe.”
“Who else sent flowers?” he said.
“Nobody else I know of,” said I.
“That ain’t enough,” he said, and up he got and crossed the isle and collared Roberto Diego and told him tell George fork over $3. George give only one. Joe said, “3, George, I said 3,” and he held up 3 fingers, and George dug back in and come up with the other 2, and then he spoke a lot of Spanish to Diego, probably swearing. I do not know more than 6 words in Spanish that I learned playing winter ball in Cuba, but I believe I know swearing when I hear it, and Joe moved on down the isle, and every seat he stopped at he held out his hand, and somebody put a dollar in it, and he looked at the dollar and said, “Is this all you can part with? I pity you. You can no doubt part with 4 for a silk necktie, or drop 5 at poker, or fill up your gas tank and think nothing of it, but ask a fellow for a few dollars for flowers for a fellow’s mother and suddenly their pocket is locked and the key is in the river,” and the boys all went back in their pocket again and brung out more, and Joe went down in the other car and cornered the boys at cards, and after awhile he come back and give me $60 about, and the next time the train stopped I sent the flowers. I did not know what type to send. I do not know too damn much about flowers. The telegraph girl said, “Never mind, I will send the right type. How do you wish to sign the card?” and I signed it “From the boys, with deepest regrets and sympathy,” and I wrote down all their names, and she copied them off, all but “Piss.” She got all red and said we could not send such a word on the wire, and we changed it to “Sterling.”
“It would be easier just saying “From all the boys”,” she said.
“No,” said I, “send it like I wrote it,” and that was how it went.
I kept the list. I have it yet. You start saving everything once you start writing a book, and every little thing brings back memories all their own, like in the song.
I don’t know how Joe knew. I never asked. Goose or Horse must of told him, and I was quite mad at them for a minute, and then it passed. Who told Goose after all but me? And then when he knew he could only carry it around so long until he had to tell somebody else, like carrying heavy bags that you have either got to change them around from hand to hand or stop and sit on them awhile or else finally break down and pay a redskin to help you, or if you don’t tell somebody you might start writing it down and get it off your chest that way, telling paper.
Wednesday they hit Chicago, Bruce and his father between the doubleheader, and they walked in the clubhouse and the boys all stood up, for the old man if not Bruce, and Bruce said “Howdy boys” and started getting dressed.
“Do you feel like playing ball right away?” said Dutch.
“Yes, sir,” said he. “I do.”
“Good,” said Dutch. “Boys, we lost 2—ball games to a club we should fat up on every time if Mr. Pearson will pardon the expression. I do not generally use such an expression except under unusual circumstances.”
“That is all right,” said Mr. Pearson. “I heard them once or twice down home.” He took off his coat and sat down on a pile of towels. His suspender kept drooping down over his shoulder.
“I guess you did at that,” said Dutch. “I am suppose to be responsible for the character of these young men and do not wish you to think I ever forget it for a minute. But you come at a bad time, sir, these son of a bitches with their nose up my rear when they should of been shook by June. Leave me introduce you around,” and he introduced Mr. Pearson to the coaches and the boys, and he went up and down the line and shook their hand. Every time he shook it his suspender flopped down again, and he snapped it back up, shake, flop, snap, shake, flop, snap. Him and Dutch moved down towards the colored boys, and I held my breath a little, not knowing if he would shake their hand or not, but he done so, and then he went back and sat on the towels. “I am going to bat right-hand power and see if we can not beat this wind,” said Dutch. “What a place to build a park! You might as well build it uphill. Hanging is too good for the—built this ball park. Longabucco will play in left and hit for Vincent Carucci. Pasquale, you hit 8 and Goldman 7, Smith hit in the 4 spot and Roguski 3. Who does that leave open?”
“That leaves Pearson in the 5 spot if that is the way you wish it,” said Egg. “Probably you made a mistake in your thinking.”
“I guess I know what I wish,” said Dutch.
“He batted in the 5 spot in the Alabama State Amateur Baseball League down there,” said Mr. Pearson, “and also when he was with the Cowboys. He will live up to your faith, for one thing that keeps him sitting on top of the world is your faith in him.”
Clint and Egg shook their head “No.”
“I hope he has got a better grip on the top of the world than we have got on the goddam pennant race,” said Dutch. “I am probably out of my mind batting him 5, but a man must take a desperate gamble when God himself is against you, blowing a wind in like that against your left-hand power. No! I will bat him 6 and move Longabucco up to 5. How does that look?”
Clint and Egg shook their head “No” some more. “Why not shove Goldman in there in the 6 spot?” said Egg.
“And follow Pasquale right after,” said Clint.
“A catcher works hard,” said Joe. “Y
ou should not bat him too high in the order.”
“He is fast,” said Mr. Pearson, “and young, and great in his faith in you.”
“Fast as a dear,” said Dutch, “and that is a fact, and my faith in him is greater than ever. I believe this might be his year at last, but the truth of it is I must trust in the word of my staff, and I will move him back to the 8 spot after all. There is nothing personal in that.”
“That will keep you from having too many right-hand hitters in a row anyhow,” said Joe. “It will prove your faith in him.”
“Yes it will,” said Dutch.
“I guess it will at that,” said Mr. Pearson, though I suppose he might of wondered how. I myself wondered but said nothing, never speaking unless spoke to after pitching a bad ball game, which I just got done doing in the first game, though actually not too bad of a job now that I look back at the clips but one Coker and Perry threw away behind me, messing up a double play at a poor time, plus some better umpiring might of helped, plus also the wind. Perry said if I stopped thinking so damn much about the bonus clause I might of been more effective, which was a lie and I said so, and Goose said if I threw anything stupid a-tall it was Jonah’s fault, and Jonah said one more remark like that out of Goose he would start separating somebody’s head from their shoulder if it wasn’t against the law to murder old men, and there would of been some really nasty things said except it was right about then Mr. Pearson walked in.
Bruce caught the second game, and we won, which I was glad for, his father sitting up behind the dugout watching. He only seen Bruce play for the Mammoths once before, coming north for the 52 Series when Bruce pinch-run for Swanee Wilks in the fourth game, Swanee now managing the Mammoth farm in Appalachia in the IndO-Kent League, Class C, where Bruce broke into the organization. We won with the power off but the right-hand hitting putting singles together, Blondie Biggs going good for 7 innings until needing relief, Horse finishing up, Horse very effective all during that swing which if he hadn’t of been would of meant “Curtains.”