Ruby scooped Cleebo’s lowball and lobbed it back to him. “I call for curveballs and you deliver swan dives! I call for fastballs, you give me high and outside! You got to throw the ball over the plate, or we’ll be here all day!” She punched her glove with her fist and crouched back into position. She wore brand-new shin and kneepads and a catcher’s mask that Cleebo clearly coveted, although he would never admit it.
“You give me a little practice and I’ll be the best pitcher you ever saw!” said Cleebo. He glared in House’s direction. House ignored him. Cleebo had no interest in pitching.
Cleebo threw a ball so far inside Ruby had to scramble to catch it. She missed. “You would’ve hit that batter!” she yelled.
“I’m doin’ the best I can here!” Cleebo hollered back. “It would help if you’d start catching!”
“Don’t heckle your own teammate, Cleebo,” ordered House.
“I ain’t gonna wear no tights,” was all Cleebo had to say to House. He threw another high cheese.
Ruby picked it out of the air and shot it back to him. “Let’s have a batter!” she shouted.
The cornerman, Evan Evans, stepped into the batter’s box. Ruby signaled Cleebo. Cleebo shook Ruby off. Frustrated, Ruby readied herself for anything. Cleebo pitched a nickel curve and Evan got some pine on it and banged a little daisy cutter out toward second base. Cleebo missed it, but Arnold picked it off easily and tossed the ball to Wilkie, who tagged Evan out at first. Players hooted all around. And Wilkie threw the ball back to Arnold at second, who threw it to Lincoln, who was covering third until Evan could take up his position again.
“Three away!” called House. “Good job!” He flexed his left elbow. It hurt. He couldn’t even clap his approval. “Way to work together!” he said, his voice trailing off to wistfulness.
“We’re gonna have trouble tomorrow,” said Ruby to House. She caught the ball from Lincoln and threw it to Cleebo. “All these pageant kids are gonna strike out, and every one of those Redbugs are gonna get hits off Cleebo. Either they’ll hit off him, or he’ll walk ’em. He can’t throw a strike.”
Finesse and Melba were standing at the ready, beside the first-base line. They applauded along with all the pageant kids, including Honey and Eudora Welty. “Time for the Catfish Clog!” Finesse chirped as Melba ushered the dancers onto the stage by first base.
As a result of Dr. Dan’s impassioned speech, the pageant ranks had swelled. Finesse now had almost twenty children to marshal through ten numbers that would be slipped in between baseball innings. For the Catfish Clog, twelve kids in catfish whiskers, fins, and tails trooped onto the stage singing “I’m a Little Fishy” to the tune of “I’m a Little Teapot.” When they were done tipping themselves over and pouring themselves out into a cardboard cast-iron skillet with AURORA COUNTY emblazoned on the handle, the other pageant players, including Honey, clapped wildly. The catfish bowed. And Finesse cleared her throat as if she were dying of emphysema. Kids waited for her to speak or pass out.
“I must make a pronouncement, mes amis!” she gurgled. She patted on her chest as if she was reminding her heart to beat. “As of a few minutes ago in the greenroom, every pageant player who had volunteered for the baseball game has resigned from the game and will work exclusively on pageant numbers!”
“What?” The words steamrolled over House.
Finesse continued. “I know this will leave the All-Stars with only their original team players to play the actual ball game portion of our pageant—but it cannot be helped!”
House bulldozed to the stage. Finesse continued to address the crowd. “This is in no way a negative reflection on your wonderful base-ball game, no! It is rather an enlightened awakening to these thespians’ true nature and their newfound devotion to the theater! To la danse! To movement and life!”
House took the stage steps in one leap. “What are you doing?”
Finesse leaned sideways and whispered, “They’re afraid of being hit by Cleebo’s pitching!”
House put on his sunglasses. “I don’t believe it,” he whispered back. It was unbelievable. A rescue. A real rescue.
“What’s going on?” yelled Cleebo from home plate.
“It’s a renaissance of the ball-playing tradition!” Finesse called out to everyone on the field. To House she whispered, “Go knock yourselves out.” Then she called to Melba, “Bring that clipboard over here, Melba! We’ve got some rearranging to do!”
“All-Stars!” House jumped off the stage and trotted to the pitcher’s mound. “Team meeting!”
The catfish cloggers waddled off to the Methodist church with Melba Jane and the other pageant players. “This is so disorganized!” Melba was fraying around the edges. “Where are my Moon Pies?”
Seven hands shot in the air. “And I’m creamed corn from the garden, too, don’t forget,” said Mary Ruth Hicks.
Finesse watched them walk off. She stood alone on the stage. She stretched out her long brown arms, raised her face toward the wispy white clouds above her, and whispered, “Carry on! Next inning!”
The team that gathered around the pitcher’s mound was the original Aurora County All-Stars plus one new member: Ruby Lavender.
“We got us a real game!” said Boon.
“Don’t I know it!” said Ned.
“We’re gonna beat them Redbugs!” shouted Lincoln, Wilkie, Evan, and Arnold.
“Beat ’em bad!” they all shouted out of habit, even though they all knew better. Without a pitcher, they were doomed.
House stared into the faces of his teammates as reality hit him in the gut. Here it was, the game he had waited for all year, and now he couldn’t play in it. Cleebo stared back at House, then looked at Ruby and Wilkie. He straightened his shoulders and stood tall.
“I’m playing where I don’t belong,” he said. “We can’t beat those Redbugs with me pitching. I’m a catcher.”
Ruby looked at House, who looked at Cleebo, who looked at the rest of the team.
“We need a pitcher,” said Cleebo. “And I’m not it. House here—he’s our man.”
“His arm’s gone,” said Wilkie in a voice that sounded like a soap-opera doctor delivering bad news.
“No, it ain’t,” said Cleebo. “No, it ain’t.”
“Stop it, Cleebo,” said House. But the words were sweet. And House knew where Cleebo was going with them.
“What are you talking about?” asked Ned.
“I’m talking about Sandy Koufax,” said Cleebo. “Koufax pitched when his whole arm was black with bubonic plague.”
“Gangrene,” said House. “And it was his finger. His elbow was black with . . . something else.”
“See? What did I tell you? Koufax never gave up. And all he had was a little camphor oil and an old Ace bandage and some aspirin to help him along.”
“He had more than that,” said House.
“But not much,” said Cleebo, “not much. You’re always talking about how Koufax did it, House, about how great he was, and how he pitched through the pain.”
“He ruined his arm,” said House. “He stopped playing when he was thirty!”
“You’re twelve!” said Cleebo. “And we got a game to win tomorrow. You in or out?”
House hesitated.
“Come on, House,” said Ned.
“We can’t win without you, House,” said Boon.
Ruby took off her mitt, tucked it under her arm, and watched.
“Think you can do it, House?” asked Arnold with such hope in his voice that House approached another problem.
“I can’t play with you guys lookin’ at me like—”
“Get off it, House,” interrupted Cleebo. “We don’t care if you read to dead guys. You can read to all the dead guys you want, as soon as the game is over.”
“Yeah!” said Evan Evans.
“You’re sick, Cleebo,” said House.
“I am,” Cleebo said, “I admit it. I’ll admit somethin’ else, too, if you want me to.”
Not a soul spoke.
The image of Cleebo crying like a baby inside Mr. Norwood Boyd’s house melted into the image of Pip in Mr. Norwood Boyd’s uniform, and House shook his head. “No.” He had waited so long for this day. To play a real game of baseball! He wanted it. He spoke to them all: seven boys, one girl, and himself.
“Ruby earned her place as catcher. Agree?”
Cleebo grimaced. Boys nodded. Ruby’s face turned the color of her hair, but she stood tall. “Agree,” they all said.
“Cleebo, can you play shortstop?” asked House.
“You know I can. But I’m a better first baseman.”
“Wilkie, can you play shortstop?”
“No!” everyone shouted, including Wilkie.
“You’re at shortstop, Cleebo,” said House. “Boon, can you move back to left field?”
“With pleasure.” Boon shoved a piece of gum in his mouth.
“So?” asked Cleebo for all of them.
The Aurora County All-Stars looked at House.
House looked at his team.
He held out his aching arm. “Tape me up.”
31
I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds.
—WALT WHITMAN
The next day dawned a blessedly overcast one, although there was a hint of rain on the horizon. House’s father had iced, massaged, and taped House’s arm the night before. Doc MacRee had iced, massaged, and taped it three times by 4:00 P.M. when game time arrived. He had also fashioned a protective sleeve for House’s left arm, from an inner tube that Leonard Jackson had in his shed. “You wear this whenever you’re not pitching,” he said.
And now the people came. picnics were spread all around the edges of the ball field. Umbrellas dotted the picnic area. As if on cue, the sun spilled out from behind a bank of red-rimmed clouds and danced on the tops of the umbrellas. Dr. Dan waded from picnic basket to picnic basket, from Aurora All-Star blanket to Raleigh Redbug blanket, his full plate of good food growing ever higher.
At 4:00 P.M. sharp, Dr. Dan started them off by introducing every ballplayer from both teams and every pageant player as well.
“And now!” he intoned—he didn’t need a microphone; his golden voice carried over the entire field. “And now, we will begin with our country’s song! please welcome Aurora County’s newest tapping sensation, Honey Jackson!”
Honey clicked purposefully onto the stage wearing a beautiful red pair of tap shoes, size two, and a sparkling red-white-and-blue tutu. She carried a basket. While everyone watched her, she arranged her stuffed-animal audience-children at the back of the stage, leaned down, and whispered to them, “Now. Be on your best behavior! Your chicken sisters are at home, just waiting to be born, but your new doggie sister is here, and she’s going to dance with Mama—and you have front row seats!” She turned to face the crowd, and summoned her partner.
“YouDoggie!”
Eudora Welty’s red-white-and-blue painted toenails tapped up the stairs and onto the stage. She wore a matching sparkly tutu. The Harmony Coronet Band—all twelve members—stood alongside the stage and played “The Star-Spangled Banner” while Finesse—dressed entirely in sequined red and holding a wireless microphone in her manicured fingers—stood on the pitcher’s mound and sang.
“She’s good!” said Dot Land, a look of surprise on her face.
“My baby!” said Gladys Schotz, her hands clasped beneath her chin.
Honey tapped her heart out to the national anthem. She leaned her little body forward and waved her arms in big circles. She tapped to the left, she tapped to the right. She tapped to the front, she tapped to the back. She made a ferocious clangor while Eudora sat at perfect attention on the corner of the stage, panting throughout the entire dance. Folks all over the field stood at attention next to their picnics and placed right hands over hearts.
“O’er the laaaaand of the freeeeee!” sang Finesse, her voice breaking just a bit, “and the home . . . of the . . . braaaaaaave!”
To thunderous applause, Finesse bowed and Honey bowed and Eudora barked—barked!—for the first time ever. Honey hugged Eudora fiercely and shouted, “Thank you very much!” to her fans, bowed three more times, collected and kissed her audience-children, and exited the stage, a bright tapping star. She rushed into Leonard Jackson’s waiting arms.
“I did it, Daddy!”
“You sure did!” said her father. Eudora barked again and Leonard Jackson rubbed her back vigorously. “And so did you, Eudora!”
Finesse radiated happiness from her perch on the pitcher’s mound. “Mes amis!” she said in her best French. “I hope—j’espère!—you will love our performance as much as we loved preparing it for you!”
Loved might have been too strong a word. Or maybe it was just the right one.
House approached the mound and Finesse winked at him as she passed him on her way to the Methodist church greenroom. House gave her a confused look and swiveled his head to follow her.
Ruby pulled her catcher’s mask across her face and got down in her crouch behind an empty home plate. “Dish it over, House!”
House ground his heel into the mound and flexed the fingers of his left hand, in and out, in and out. Not too bad. He took the baseball out of his glove, rolled it around in his fist with one hand, and found the stitches he wanted. Ruby wiggled two fingers, signaled a slow curve, and House nodded his agreement. He adjusted his grip, toed the mound, wound up, and delivered. The muscle stretched—he could hear it sing. He reminded himself that Sandy’s elbow was black, his wasn’t. He could take it easy. He could get it over the plate. And Ruby could catch it.
“Play ball!” bellowed Dr. Dan. He clicked on his umpire vest. Cheers ran all the way up the flagpole by Halleluia School.
Kids took their positions. The Redbugs were up first. Cleebo swaggered at shortstop. “Just call me Pee Wee!” Wilkie caught well at first base. Melba Jane started off as the first-base foul judge. She held an open parasol with both hands, using it as a shield whenever the ball was hit. Finesse, who had been memorizing baseball lingo as if it were a script, was a star. She reported the play-by-play, barking into her real, working microphone. She wore a red baseball cap during each inning’s play. She liked her role so much, she pulled Melba off the first-base line after the first inning and put her in charge of the pageant.
“The pageant is practically running itself now!” she said. “The order of events is on the clipboard, everyone knows what to do! I have been called to another shore, as an explorer, as a teammate, and you are being summoned to fill the great one’s shoes.”
“The great one?”
“Moi!” said Finesse.
Melba, happy to be away from the ball game, wrinkled her nose at the pages on the clipboard, pages filled with doodles and lines and arrows, and tried to make sense of it all.
In the greenroom, Lurleen pressed, Mary Wilson pinned, and Mamas helped pageant players dress, then dashed back to their picnics to watch the spectacle. The game emanated from within. It was organic, a renaissance of the ball-playing tradition. Between innings the play flourished. House’s father, along with hometown friends, shouted encouragement from the sidelines. A gaggle of girls wearing crepe paper dresses danced the glories of Aurora County, from her pine forests to her white clapboard churches, to her sandy dirt roads and old, kaput sawmill. The Harmony Coronet Band marched across the outfield and played “Waltzing Matilda.” Old Johnny Mercer jumped up in a moment of fervor to play the spoons, which led several couples to spontaneously square-dance.
Buoyed by the crowd and the attention, the All-Stars played better than they’d ever played. House took them to a 6–1 lead. He took his time. He prayed for his arm to hold out. He straightened it and stretched it after every pitch, in just the way that Doc MacRee had showed him. Between innings, he plunged it into a cooler of ice water that sat on the end of the All-Stars bench. Then Doc MacRee wrapped it and massaged it.
At the bottom of the sixth, Doc MacRee looked worried.
“You need a pinch hitter,” he said. “This arm isn’t good.” House had struck out every time he’d come to the plate.
“We don’t have one,” said House. As he pitched the next inning, House’s shoulder throbbed; his elbow screamed. His curve was gone. He threw nothing but fastballs, no matter what Ruby signaled, but they didn’t look like fastballs anymore.
“S’okay, House, just pitch ’em over,” called Ruby. And that’s what he did. He got them over. And the Redbugs hit them.
With two outs in the top of the seventh, Jimmy McBrayer slugged a line drive past Cleebo. “Gaaaaa!” Cleebo reached for it and kissed the ground instead. Ned scooped it up, sent it flying to Lincoln at second base, but Lincoln couldn’t get it to Wilkie before Jimmy raced across the first-base bag. House rolled his shoulder and talked to his arm.
“Come on, pitcher, come on, pitcher!” yelled the All-Star fans.
“Come on, House!” Finesse yelled into the microphone.
T. P. Edwards knocked a double into left field. Boon raced after it and threw it hard to Evan at third, but Jimmy McBrayer was already there.
“A double into left field!” screamed Finesse. “The play’s at home now!”
Evan shot the ball back to House. “We know that!” he shouted to Finesse.
House’s arm wailed at him to stop, but he wouldn’t hear it.
“Easy does it!” called Ruby.
House wound up and threw again, but his pitches were wobbling and Rex Brown got to first base on balls.
Redbug fans were wild—the bases were loaded. The All-Stars chattered like crows in a field. “Hang in, House! Attaboy, House! One more out, one more out!”
But the next five Redbugs each got a hit off House, and the Redbugs brought in a runner on each hit before Jimmy Swan popped out to Evan along the third-base line and the side was retired.
“Thank heavens!” shouted Finesse.
“Seventh inning stretch!” hollered Dr. Dan.
The score was tied, 6–6.
The Aurora County All-Stars Page 13