Bang The Drum Slowly

by Mark Harris

  “Leave it drip,” said Sid.

  “It is a new shirt,” said Harry.

  “Leave it drip all out of me until I am dead. It is my shirt and my blood and you mind your own goddam business to begin with,” and out he went and slammed the door behind, and we sung in the shower, the quartet, the old quartet, the good quartet, me and Coker and Canada and Perry, singing Piney’s song, only not slow, like Piney sings it, but quick and gay.

  We sung it that afternoon and all through the west, and we sung it on TV later in September when all of a sudden everybody in New York that stood around biting their nails all summer started falling all over themself handing you the town on a silver spoon, 200 apiece for a TV spot and more spots than you could of possibly took and kept your mind on baseball at the same time, which made Mr. Burton McC. du Croix quite mad, our TV agent.

  CHAPTER 17

  CLEVELAND MOVED out and Chicago moved in, which everybody was glad to see because if there is one club we always walk all over at home it is Chicago. We beat them both days, Sunday and Monday. Sid went 5 for o Sunday and Dutch benched him, and Canada played first and Harry Glee in center. Dutch’s real problem is getting a hold of one more dependable outfielder, which is nothing against Harry nor Lawyer nor McGonigle, good boys all and good ballplayers, but never the absolute tops. Mike worked with them a lot in September, and they might look better in the spring. Mike said he might as well make himself useful. He was brung in from QC to kind of keep Bruce’s spirit high, though in the end it was Bruce kept Mike’s, for Mike can not stand being so far from his family and ranch in Last Chance, Colorado. He telephoned them every night and spoke to them, one after the other, his wife and 6 of the kids, running up a fairly large bill and moaning about it. I told him call it deductible. “Do you not ask how the cows are?” I said. “Is it not a necessary expense to keep an eye on the cows?” but he said he had a foreman kept an eye on the cows and was already deducted as far as he could go anyhow, 6 kids still home.

  He sat down at the end of the bench, Sid I mean, looking like the end of the world, scowling and blowing out his lips and squinting at everything, testing his eyes. For a couple days he thought he was going blind, and then when he got over thinking he was going blind he was sure he was losing the strength in his hands, and he kept studying his hands, flipping them over one way and then the other and gripping things hard, seeing how his grip was. He was really quite nasty to everybody. He said to me, “I suppose you are quite happy the way your friend Smith been playing first base these days,” calling him “Smith” like he was a stranger.

  “Well, Goldman,” said I, “I am naturally happy to see him doing good down there because our regular first baseman is in a slump.”

  “Yes,” said he. “I read about it in the paper.”

  Chicago moved out and Pittsburgh moved in and we beat them Tuesday night, plenty of power, Sid or no Sid. He kept roaming up and back along the bench and calling people by their first name again. “Maybe I will catch what you boys got,” he said, and we all laughed. We now won 4 in a row and should of beat them again the following day, Wednesday, only we didn’t, my loss. It shouldn’t of been. I shouldn’t of even pitched. I had this Charley horse which Dutch said maybe I rather rest it one more day, but the boys all said, “Go ahead and pitch, Author, and pick up another $1,000, for we will get you 17 runs to work on,” and I give in and worked, like a fool, thinking it would please the boys, and I got slapped around pretty bad for 3 innings before Dutch lifted me, which he should of done the first inning and not waited 3. It was just one of those days nobody got out of bed with any sense to start with. I went back in and listened to it on the radio with Mick, and in the end we lost it, and the cushion was only 2½ instead of 3½ like it should of been, and Mick run and snapped the radio off before the announcer could come through with the final summary, “Losing pitcher, Wiggen,” like they do, though who in hell cares who the losing pitcher is beats me.

  We bounced right back on Thursday. Cleveland moved in for a singleton, and we beat them, and the lead held steady, and we went on up to Boston.

  Me and Bruce and Mike just sat down in the diner on the way up when Sid come in and looked around and seen us and shoved in. He was looking very pale, and he said, “Howdy there, boys,” in this very enthusiastic voice and rubbed his hands and looked down the menu, saying, “Well, what is good? Yes sir, what is good? What is good, Bruce?”

  “So far the water is pretty good,” said Bruce, and Sid said, “That is a hot one” and laughed and laughed awhile, about the same kind of a laugh you hear when the Regional Supervisor tells a joke to a bunch of salesmen around the Arcturus Company in Boston, which I listen to but never laugh, even if it is funny, which it usually never is, only standing there with the straight face pretending I am waiting for the kicker, laughing on the inside only. But now I laughed to help Sid out, and Mike laughed, too, because somebody just told Sid the truth. I don’t know who, and it makes no difference. I don’t know who spilled it the first night, either, between the time I ate dinner with Katie and Miss Industrial Progress and the time I got back to the hotel. I asked around, but everybody said they already heard it from so many different boys there was really no way of tracking it down even if you wanted to, and anyhow what difference would it make, for it was out and you could not call it back.

  We took 3 out of 4, last times in Boston, Friday, a doubleheader Saturday, and a singleton Sunday, playing to an empty park. I do not think 10,000 people showed up in the 3 days, though I don’t know why. Boston was a better club than that. But they weren’t winning, and what folks want is a winner, “Never mind good baseball, give us a winner,” not loving the game but only loving winning, all these towns screaming for big-league ball that don’t know good from bad to begin with. All they know is names. They rather sit home and stare at some big-league catcher’s big-name ass on TV and the umpire’s ass behind, thinking this is the same thing as seeing a ball game, which it is not. It all sounded hollow up there in the empty park, all echoes, and you waited for noise on a good play, but all you heard was somebody clapping here and somebody else clapping about 19,000 miles away, and then 2 more people another 19,000. It was hard to keep remembering that these were ball games we needed, hard to keep hustling, hard to keep remembering we were still in the middle of the race with an awful lot of money riding on a day’s work.

  It was gloomy up there. I keep thinking it drizzled or at least was cloudy, but I see by the clips that it was not so. It was only a feeling you got in the quiet park, like everybody in the whole of Boston went out of town for the weekend or else died for all you could tell. All the same, we hustled, maybe even hustled more than usual, or else it only sounded that way because you could hear everybody clearer in the quiet, hear the boys calling to themself, hear the singing, almost hear them thinking, see Perry and Coker talking behind their hand across second, see Vincent looking across from left at his brother and doing what his brother said, see Lawyer Longabucco between, also looking at Pasquale, and Pasquale doing their thinking, waving them now in, now back, now left, now right, hear Red calling to George in Spanish, hear Clint and Joe in the coaching boxes, hear them even hustling in the bullpen, see them all picking up their sign and hitting or taking or running or playing it safe, hustling, hustling, so if you seen a movie of it with the date blacked out you would of said it was sometime in April or May, never guessing September. We went back home Sunday night with the cushion at 3½.

  In the morning he did not feel too good, Monday, Labor Day. “I will call Doc,” I said.

  “No,” he said.

  “Does it feel like the attack?” I said.

  “Yes and no,” he said. “I feel dipsy. Maybe I will feel better opening the window,” and he went and opened it and sat by it and breathed it in and went and put a chew of Days O Work in his mouth and went back and spit down a couple times.

  “Maybe it will rain,” I said.

  “Not soon,” he said. “Maybe by night,” l
eaning out and looking both ways and up. He knew if it would rain or not, which I myself do not know without looking at the paper and even then do not know because I forget to look. In the end I never know if it will rain until it begins. But he knew by the way the clouds blew, and he said he felt better now, and he shut the window and called Katie, saying he felt dipsy today, and he said in the phone, “No, I do not think he did” and clapped his hand over the phone and begun to say something to me, and I said, “No. Tell her no. Tell her I forgot,” and she eat him out, and he said, “But, Katie,” and then again, “But, Katie, but,” until she hung up, and I did not look, and he went on talking, like he was still talking to her, and finally he said, “Well, OK, Katie, and I love you, too” and hung up, all smiles, and we went out to the park and he still did not feel too good, and he told Dutch, and Dutch said, “Well, we can not do without you, but we will try. Will we not try, boys, and make the best of a bad blow?” and the boys all said “Yes siree bob” and “You said it, boss” and “Sure enough” and all, and they hustled out, and me and Bruce laid on the table and listened with Mick.

  There was plenty of scrap left in Washington yet. They did not know they were beat. You probably could of even found a little Washington money in town if you looked hard enough, not much, but some, for the town did not know what the Mammoths knew, not knowing the truth, not knowing Washington was beat on August 26, which I personally knew laying in bed and listening to the boys, and knew for sure when Goose shot the light out, knowing what it done to a fellow when he knew, how it made them cut out the horseshit and stick to the job. Washington hustled, jumping Van Gundy for a run in the second and another in the fourth, and we laid there, not moving, only listening, Mick folding towels but not hurrying like he hurries when he is nervous, only sitting there folding one after the other and setting it on the pile and creasing it out and reaching over slowly for the next, the 3 of us as calm as we could be like we were looking at the front end of a movie we already seen the back end of, and you knew who done it, who killed who, and we thought, “Washington, you are dead and do not know it.”

  George opened our fifth with a single, and they played Perry for the bunt, which he crossed them up and slammed through first and into the opposite field, and it was Pasquale that bunted instead and caught all Washington flat-footed, George scoring and Perry going clear to third and Pasquale winding up at second, for George dumped Eric Bushell in the play at the plate, and they passed Sid to get at Canada, and then they passed Canada, not meaning to, and Bruce said he felt better now, and we went down and warmed.

  We warmed close to the wall. I remember every now and then he stuck out his hand and leaned against it, and I said, “Still feeling dipsy?” and he said, “No, only a little,” and he crouched down again, first sitting on his heels and then flatting out his feet behind him and resting on his knees and looking back over his shoulder to see where Dutch was looking, for Dutch will fine a catcher for catching on his knees. “Maybe it will rain,” I said, and he looked up and said “I hope so.”

  “I am warm,” I said, though I was not, and we sat on the bench in the bullpen.

  “It is a big crowd,” he said. “It is Labor Day, that is what it is,” and he took out a chew and broke it in half and give me half a chunk, saying, “Chew a chew, Arthur,” which he always asked me and I always turned down except I took it then and chewed it and did not like it much, having no use for tobacco nor liquor, and every time I spit it dribbled down my chin. “Keep your teeth tight shut when you spit,” he said.

  It run long, for we begun hitting quite a bit, and he said, “You must be getting cold by now,” and I said no. “It is getting cold,” he said, and he reached around behind him for his jacket except it was not there, and I jiggled the phone, saying, “Send up a jacket for Bruce,” and 3 boys sprung up off the bench and raced down the line, Wash and Piney and Herb Macy, and the crowd all begun yelling and pointing, never seeing such a thing before as 3 men all racing for the bullpen like that, and Krazy Kress sent down a note saying, “Author, what the hell??????” and I looked up at the press-box and give Krazy flat palms, same as saying, “What the hell what?”

  We started fast in the second game. It was raining a little. Sid hit a home run in the first with Pasquale aboard, Number 42, the first home run he hit since August 17, according to the paper, and Bruce shook his hand at the plate, and Sid stopped and told Bruce, “Wipe off your bat,” and Bruce looked at his bat and at Sid, not understanding, not feeling the rain, and Sid took the bat and wiped it off, and Bruce whistled a single in left, the last base hit he ever hit, and made his turn and went back and stood with one foot on the bag and said something to Clint, and Clint yelled for Dutch, and Dutch went out, and they talked. I do not know what about. Dutch only said to me, “Pick up your sign off the bench,” and he sent for Doc, and Doc sat in the alley behind the dugout and waited, and the boys sometimes strolled back and sat beside him, asking him questions, “What does he have?” and such as that. They smoked back there, which Dutch does not like you to, saying, “Smoking ain’t learning. Sitting on the bench and watching is learning,” but he said nothing that day. You knew he wouldn’t.

  Washington begun stalling like mad in the third, hoping for heavy rain before it become official, claiming it was raining, though the umps ruled it was not. Sy Sibley was umping behind the plate. They stepped out between pitches and wiped off their bat and tied their shoe and blew their nose and gouged around in their eye, saying, “Something is in my eye,” and Sy said, “Sure, your eyeball,” and they stepped back in. As soon as they stepped back in again I pitched.

  He never knew what was coming, curve ball or what. “Just keep your meat hand out of the way,” I said, and he said he would but did not. It did not register. He was catching by habit and memory, only knowing that when the pitcher threw it you were supposed to stop it and throw it back, and if a fellow hit a foul ball you were supposed to whip off your mask and collar it, and if a man was on base you were supposed to keep him from going on to the next one. You play ball all your life until a day comes when you do not know what you are doing, but you do it anyhow, working through a fog, not remembering anything but only knowing who people were by how they moved, this fellow the hitter, this the pitcher, and if you hit the ball you run to the right, and then when you got there you asked Clint Strap were you safe or out because you do not know yourself. There was a fog settling down over him.

  I do not know how he got through it. I do not even know how yours truly got through it. I do not remember much. It was 3–0 after 41½, official now, and now we begun stalling, claiming it was raining, claiming the ball was wet and we were libel to be beaned, which Washington said would make no difference to fellows with heads as hard as us. Eric Bushell said it to me in the fifth when I complained the ball was wet, and I stepped out and started laughing, “Ha ha ha ho ho ho ha ha ha,” doubling over and laughing, and Sy Sibley said, “Quit stalling,” and I said I could not help it if Bushell was going to say such humorous things to me and make me laugh. “Tell him to stop,” I said. “Ha ha ha ho ho ho ha ha ha.”

  “What did he say?” said Sy, and I told him, telling him very slow, telling him who Eric Bushell was and who I was, the crowd thinking it was an argument and booing Sy. “Forget it,” said he. “Get back in and hit.”

  “You mean bat,” said Bushell. “He never hits,” and I begun laughing again, stepping out and saying how could a man bat with this fellow behind me that if the TV people knew how funny he was they would make him an offer.

  “Hit!” said Sy. “Bat! Do not stall.”

  “Who is stalling?” said I, and I stepped back in, the rain coming a little heavier now.

  I threw one pitch in the top of the seventh, a ball, wide, to Billy Linenthal. I guess I remember. Bruce took it backhand and stood up and slowly raised his hand and took the ball out of his mitt and started to toss it back, aiming very careful at my chin, like Red told him to, and then everybody begun running, for the
rain come in for sure now, and he seen everybody running, but he did not run, only stood there. I started off towards the dugout, maybe as far as the baseline, thinking he was following, and then I seen that he was not. I seen him standing looking for somebody to throw to, the last pitch he ever caught, and I went back for him, and Mike and Red were there when I got there, and Mike said, “It is over, son,” and he said “Sure” and trotted on in.

  In the hospital me and Mike and Red waited in the waiting room for word, telling them 1,000 times, “Keep us posted,” which they never done and you had to run down the hall and ask, and then when you asked they never knew anything, and for all you could tell they were never doing anything neither, only looking at his chart, standing outside his door and looking at his chart and maybe whistling or kidding the nurses until I really got quite annoyed.

  He was unconscious. Around midnight he woke up, and they said one of us could see him, the calmest, and I went, and he only said “Howdy,” but very weak, not saying it, really, only his lips moving. He looked at me a long time and worked up his strength and said again, “Howdy, Arthur,” and the doctor said, “He does not know you,” and I said he did, for he always called me “Arthur.” Then he drifted off again.

  They told me take his clothes away, and I took them, his uniform and cap and socks and shoes, and I rolled them up with his belt around them and carried them back out. Red and Mike went pale when they seen me. They went pale every little while all night, every time a phone rung or a doctor passed through. “Relax,” said I. “He is not dying.”