Brittle Innings

by Michael Bishop

  On Sunday, ten minutes before game time, Mister JayMac showed up in our dugout with Charlie Snow’s replacement: a thin, pale, twenty-five- or -six-year-old named Worthy Bebout. Bebout had eyes like a Weimaraner’s, hair about that sickly color, and a hand shake as firm as boiled elbow macaroni. His arms hung too far out of his sleeves, and his pants ended too high on his legs, leaving his stirrup socks and sannies exposed and giving him the look of a fannyless stork.

  “Mr Bebout hails from Wedowee, Alabama,” Mister JayMac told us. “Played semipro ball with Ipenson Textiles out of Phenix City.”

  At Mister JayMac’s urging, Bebout came along the bench to shake hands. (“Ol pasta grip,” Sloan called him later.) He mumbled his hellos, then sat in the dugout’s farthest corner, his knees and shoulders twisted in and his pale face as empty and deadpan as a new-bought skillet.

  “How come he’s not in the m-military?” I asked Henry.

  Henry shrugged, but most of us thought Bebout’d finagled-or, worse, maybe even deserved-an NP, or “neuropsychiatric,” rejection. He gave off the waves of a serious crazy.

  Probably because Mister JayMac was still pulling strings to have him enrolled as a CVL player, Bebout didn’t start our Sunday afternoon game against the Gendarmes. Four innings along, though, Mister JayMac got a go-ahead from the three-man commission that ran the league (just as Mister JayMac, by wile, guile, and noblesse oblige, wanted it to); and he pinch hit Bebout for Trapdoor Evans at the first chance.

  The score stood at two each. Bebout responded by swinging so hard at three straight Dink Dewhurst curveballs he almost wrapped himself around his bat. The crowd booed, but Bebout just unwrapped himself and shuffled back to the dug-out wearing a quirky smile. With nearly every other Hellbender watching, Bebout dipped a pinch of snuff from the tin in his back pocket, sucked it into his mouth, and rubbed his upper gum with the first joint of his pinky.

  The game went on. In the seventh, Bebout made two super catches, a shoestring grab and a last-second leap-and-snatch to prevent a Gendarme extra-baser off the Feen-A-Mint sign. A couple of minutes later, several of us clustered around him in the dugout to congratulate him.

  “S okay,” Bebout said, refreshing his dip from the snuff tin that’d made a raised circle on his hip pocket.

  As Skinny stood in to bat, Junior Heggie sat down next to me. “Ever dip snuff, Danl?”

  I shook my head. I was a smoker.

  “You ever start, don’t bum a pinch from Bebout there.”

  “Why not? He t-tight with it?”

  “Oh no, he’d give you some all right, but the screwball dips dirt,” he said. “That lil tin in his pocket’s brimful of loose Wedowee dirt! Dirt, by damn!”

  Dobbs singled. Quip Parris struck out. I drew a walk. Worthy Bebout came up behind me in Charlie Snow’s old batting slot. The fans cheered him for the catches he’d made, but set themselves for his second CVL at bat with show-me furrows on their brows. No one could forget his debut as a hitter: three torso-twisting swings and no contact.

  On Dewhurst’s first pitch, Bebout rippled again. Twirled, dropped his bat, fell on home plate. A groan went up. This at bat looked so much like his first one it gave us a powerful sense of deja vu. Bebout got up, though, and spanked the next pitch-a rolling curve-into the left-field bleachers, and we went on to defeat the Gendarmes five to two, winning the series and moving within two games of first place. So what if Bebout had celebrated his homer by skipping around the bases?

  In the clubhouse afterwards, Junior asked Bebout why he dipped dirt.

  Bebout took his snuff tin, screwed off the top, and studied its contents-rich black Alabama soil-like he expected to find fishing crickets in it.

  “It’s Wedowee loam. Bacca gives you gum rot. Sides, a fella knows you got dirt in yore snuff tin, he aint keen to borry it. Mazes me.”

  “What does?” I said.

  “Fellas who aint afeared to slide in dirt act like it’s gunpowder when it comes to dippin it.”

  Back at McKissic House, Mister JayMac met in the parlor with Worthy Bebout and all fourteen of his current boarders. He had to find a room for Bebout. Problem was, every room on every floor already had at least two guys in it, overcozylike.

  “Any yall willing to triple up?” Mister JayMac said.

  The parlor scarcely breathed.

  “I cain’t have a room to mysef?” Bebout said.

  “Think you’re so hotshot you deserve one?” Evans asked him.

  “Nosir. Got habits could conflick with whosoever gits’ put with me.”

  “Like what?” Curriden said. “You eat live roosters?”

  “Nosir. I read my Testaments. I speak to my voices. I talk to my dead brother Woodrow.”

  “Cripes,” Curriden said.

  “Then jes give me a pup tent outside,” Bebout suggested.

  And until he devised his own indoor answer to the problem, the pup-tent solution actually went into effect. He slept on the lawn in a tent from Sunday, August 1, to Thursday, August 12 (minus five days on the road in the homes of some of Mister JayMac’s friends). Then he moved into quarters unlike those of anybody else lodging in McKissic House.

  Before that meeting ended, though, he asked Mister JayMac where we’d stowed his “dip fixings.”

  “Kitchen porch. Nobody here’ll disturb em.”

  Later, fetching a colander for Kizzy, I saw those fixings: a taped cardboard box full of ordinary-looking but fine-grained dirt. On the sides of this box, with a black Crayola, someone had crookedly printed

  WEDOWEE SNUFF.

  50

  Early in August, Lamar Knowles knocked on Henry’s and my door. Henry’d missed breakfast and lay in bed, face down, one arm hanging off the mattress. As soon as Lamar saw Henry, he apologized and tried to retreat. He had that morning’s issue of the Highbridge Herald rolled up in one hand, and he bopped himself in the forehead with it for coming up so early.

  “C-cmon in,” I said. “It’s not early, Henry st-stayed out awful late, that’s all.” I dragged him in and sat him at my desk; I plopped down on my bed. Fan noise had covered Lamar’s entrance. It would’ve taken a cattle prod to goad Henry awake, and I told Lamar so. That news seemed to reassure him. He opened out his newspaper.

  “You try to keep up with our parent club?” he asked.

  “The Phutile Phillies?”

  “Yessir. No other.”

  “Only to n-n-notice they aint doing so great.”

  “Well, on Sunday, their owner-president, Mr Cox, canned Bucky Harris as manager and hired Freddie Fitzsimmons. Take a look.” He passed me the sports page.

  I read the story. The Phillies had dropped to seventh in the National League standings. This lurch towards the cellar had so irked William D. Cox he’d given the press an eight-page statement accusing Bucky Harris of calling his players “those jerks” and writing them off as losers. Harris had learned of the statement on Sunday evening. On Monday he said if anybody in the Phillies organization qualified as a jerk, it was Cox: “ ‘And he’s an all-American jerk. If I had said any of those things,’ ” the Herald quoted Harris, and Lamar read out loud, “ ‘I certainly would be the first to admit them.’ ”

  “Whaddaya think?” Lamar said.

  I shrugged. “B-b-business as usual.”

  Lamar tapped my knee. “Mebbe so, but the way you and Jumbo been playing, it could mean a heckuva break for yall.”

  “Uh-uh,” I said.

  “Sure. Look, the Phils’ first baseman and shortstop aint playing worth used ration stamps. In fact, Harris kept switching out different guys at those spots. It could happen, you and your roomy getting a call-up.”

  “It could n-n-not happen too. Or it could happen to Henry and not to m-me.”

  “Or vice versa. I don’t say this to amp up the pressure, Danny, jes to remind you your play here has two goals, winning us the CVL pennant and training yourself for the bigs. Don’t forget that second one, kid.” When Lamar offered me the paper, I shook my head. �
��Fitzsimmons might ask the Phils to call yall as replacements for Jimmy Wasdell and Gabby Stewart.”

  “Charlie Brewster plays short for the Phillies too,” I said. “So does Babe Dahlgren.”

  “Yeah, but Stewart and Brewster’ll be lucky to hit.220 together. Dahlgren plays more first base, subbing for Wasdell, than shortstop. He could use yall’s help.”

  Going up to the bigs from a Class C club seemed about as likely as Hitler catching the Holy Spirit and joining the Pentecostals.

  “Even if it happened,” Lamar said, “you could end up warming the bench like I do now, or gitting two or three starts in throw-away games towards the end of the season. Still, those games could set yall for starters’ roles next year, specially if this stupid war’s still on.”

  “I hope it aint.”

  “Well, if it happens, yall’ll deserve it.” Lamar blushed. “It’d tickle me silly.” He stood up and laid the Herald sports page on my desk. “Show that to ol Jumbo Hank. Tell him what I said. If he ever wakes up.”

  Later, I showed Henry the paper and told him what Lamar’d told me, that the Phillies’ new manager, Freddie Fitzsimmons, might try to call us up. Henry read the story. His licorice-whip lips curled into a smile. He slapped his craggy knees.

  “Wouldn’t that be delicious?”

  If I’d ever wondered about Henry’s desire to hop from the CVL to the neon glare of the majors, his behavior now made me see how deeply he’d planted the roots of his hopes. Maybe Lamar’d known Henry better than I had.

  On Wednesday night, we played the Gendarmes the opener of a two-game series in the Prefecture. Strock started Sundog Billy Wallace, the ace of his staff, and Sundog Billy, on better than four days’ rest, hurled a flawed masterpiece.

  I say flawed because the umping team, with Happy Polidori over at first, blew call after call in the Gendarmes’ favor. If a break could go to the homies, Polidori and his crew made sure it did. During the middle-fifth changeover, a bunch of us discussed the situation.

  “These officials will home-cook the flesh from our bones,” Henry said. “We will disintegrate in their pressure cooker.”

  “Hit one out to dead center, Jumbo,” Muscles said. “No way they can overrule that kind of shot.”

  “Don’t bet on it,” Hoey said. “Plate ump’s likely to say he stepped out of the batter’s box.”

  “Knock off the alibiing,” Mister JayMac said from the dugout’s edge, “especially before these guys’ve beaten you.”

  “These guys?” Hoey said. “You talking about the Gendarmes or the umps?”

  “Hush, Mr Hoey. We’ll win or lose this one based on what we do on the field, not on the umpires’ whims.”

  “Trout tripe,” Hoey said. “Mr Sayigh’s promised Polidori and his pal a pipe-job from his lovely A-rab daughters if they gyp us a time or twelve this evening.”

  Mister JayMac jabbed a finger at Hoey. “Knock it off. You impugn a friend, slander his kids, defame the character of CVL officials, and degrade yourself. Enough.”

  “Yessir,” Hoey said sarcastically.

  Creighton Nutter’s pitching kept us in it until the seventh. In the top of that inning, I came up with Skinny Dobbs on first-he’d drawn Sundog Billy’s only walk of the evening-and one out. I laid down a bunt, dropping it off my Red Stix bat as pretty as a biscuit and about as frisky. Ed Bantling scrambled out from behind the plate, Wallace off the mound, and Binkie Lister in from third. Although Lister made the play, his throw to first baseman Harvey Coombs got there a full second too late to turn my infield hit into just another well-placed sacrifice.

  Polidori blew the call. Trumpeted it. Tuba’d it. Thumbed me out. Claimed I’d jumped over the bag. Shoot, I’d banged my ankle hitting it.

  Hoey, coaching first, exploded. Tore into Polidori like a terrier into a rat’s nest. Jigged before him like a runamok Osterizer. It was like he’d forgotten, now I had my voice back, I could gripe for myself. Then Hoey flat-handed Polidori in the chest and staggered him.

  “YOU’RE OUTTA HERE!” Polidori shouted, a hand on his heart.

  Hoey wouldn’t leave. He’d gone flaming bonkers. He cursed and snarled, edging around like a cougar on uppers. Nobody-I mean, nobody-could slow his het-up prowl. The crowd leapt to its feet. When they booed, their boos fell like ton upon ton of flapping canvas. It scared me pissless.

  Fans started hurling sample jars of Burma-Shave onto the field, heaving the bulk of these samples towards first base. Just before the game, a pair of fast-talking drummers had passed out the samples to every adult male coming in. Now, those jars rained down like porcelain hail. One jar clipped Hoey on the arm. Polidori, Coombs, and I backed deeper into the outfield. Hoey followed after-not to escape the barrage but to keep cursing the hapless Happy Polidori, for the jar that’d hit him had had no more effect than a poppy seed.

  The PA announcer scolded the crowd. The police threatened arrests. In the outfield, Hoey continued to fume and storm. Finally, Mister JayMac sent Muscles, Curriden, Fanning, and Sudikoff out there-at some peril, for the crowd started catcalling at once-to subdue Hoey and drag him, thrashing and frothing, if need be, into the clubhouse. This took several minutes because Hoey tried to elude our press-gang, meanwhile heaping dogshit on Polidon’s pedigree.

  “You ignorant dago!” Hoey dodged Mister JayMac’s posse. “Your mama bore you purblind on muscatel!”

  “You bigot!” Polidori cried. “You froggy bilge mucker!”

  Muscles tackled Hoey behind second base. The crowd cheered. Curriden, Fanning, and the others picked him up and, with Muscles gripping his belt, littered him back towards our dugout like a battlefield casualty. I scurried along behind them: Polidori had called me out and wouldn’t change his mind-not in front of these fans, not after blotting up so much of Hoey’s abuse.

  Once the cops, the PA announcer, and our rescue squad had restored some order, and the groundskeepers had a wheel-barrow full of Burma-Shave jars, Sundog Billy struck out Heggie to squelch our “rally.” Nutter shut down the ’Darmes after a lead-off single in the bottom half of the inning, and so on and so on, until the bottom of the ninth, with the score locked at two apiece and half the citizenry of LaGrange trying to deafen us with cow bells.

  “To hell wi the Hellbenders! To hell with em all! Tonight they go down! Tonight they do fall!”

  I felt nose high to a tic’s rump. All the vocal scorn had even begun to get to Nutter. Veteran or no, he could sense the rising heat. He threw two wild pitches in a row and walked the Gendarme shortstop Tucker DeShong. Bang! Mister JayMac lifted Nutter for Vito Mariani, who got the next two batters to pop up. One more out and we went into extra innings.

  Cliff Nugent, LaGrange’s center fielder and best clutch hitter, came up. Mariani got two strikes on him and wasted two pitches trying to sucker him into a strikeout. His fifth pitch, a curve, broke on the outer edge of the plate-too close for a man with a couple of strikes to let go by-and Nugent drove it on a dying clothesline into the right-field corner. Foul. Six inches foul. Maybe a foot.

  Happy Polidori watched the ball sail over his head and skid on the divoted turf. He faced second base and chopped his right arm down to signal the drive fair. Nugent sped up again, rounded first, and churned for second. Skinny Dobbs couldn’t believe the call, but he chased down the ball, which’d already caromed off the fence in foul territory, and tried to throw it home to keep DeShong from scoring. The throw reached Dunnagin on three feeble hops, too late, and the stands swayed like racketing freight cars.

  “Mais oui!” chanted the crowd: “But yes!”

  The Gendarmes had beaten us by a run and stretched their lead to three full games. Polidori’d blown the most crucial call in the entire ballgame. Mister JayMac couldn’t protest it because a hundred or more people had jumped the fences to pound their heroes on the backs, and Polidori and his fellow ump had already hurried off the field.

  In the clubhouse, Mister JayMac paced a strip of concrete like a badger.

  “Home coo
king!” Buck Hoey shouted. Because he’d showered after his ejection, he wore civvies, like Mister JayMac. Turkey Sloan’d already given him the partisan Hellbender take on Polidori’s gaffe.

  “They stole this one!” somebody yelled.

  “Bastids ambushed us!”

  “They bought Polidori’s ass, thass what! They bought it!”

  “YALL HUSH!” Mister JayMac cried.

  We hushed. Mister JayMac had his chin on his breast-bone and his hands fisted in the pockets of his pants. He’d stopped pacing, but one leg jiggled, like the leg of a hound agitated by a belly rub.

  “I don’t think Mr Polidori japped us once this evening-till that call on Mr Nugent’s liner to right.”

  “He had it in for us all evenin, sir!” Curriden said.

  “I asked neither your nor anyone else’s opinion.”

  Curriden shut his eyes. All of us wanted to denounce the one-sided calls and the unruly crowd. Hometowning hurt. It’d cost us an important game. But we simply stood in our sweaty smelly funk waiting for the Word.

  “Mr Polidori made beaucoups of mistakes,” Mister JayMac said, “but all but the last one stemmed, I believe, from misapprehension and the bullying of the crowd-which, let me remind you, pays its money to supply that ingredient. Rafe Polidori knows his business. Under ordinary circumstances-”

  “Mister JayMac,” Muscles said. “Sir, I-”

  An upraised hand cut him off. “-he calls em as he sees em, and he usually sees them pretty well. Tonight, gentlemen, what we witnessed in the bottom of the ninth did not signal any blatant Gendarme bribery, but Mr Polidori’s personal response to the shenanigans of Ligonier Hoey two innings earlier.”

  “Sir-”