The Legend of Mickey Tussler

by Nappi, Frank;

  SEPTEMBER 9, 1948

  In the early light of dawn, just as the sun hit the dew-laden tips of the vaulting evergreens off in the distance, lighting them up like splintered crystals, thoughts of Mickey, safe and on the mend, filled Molly’s head. She breathed easier, with a tranquillity of spirit washing through her veins.

  But as she tended to her morning chores, looking all around her with a critical eye, she felt again that same ineffable longing—a curious gnawing that reminded her of the illogical hunger she sometimes felt after having eaten heartily. Why had she never done anything about it? Or at least said something. Today, more than usual, it bothered her. Suddenly, she caught herself driven to some decisive action. The torment of years of silent surrender had now rendered her weak and vulnerable—had broken down her resolve, allowing her lofty visions to take full possession of her. Just knowing her boy was okay was no longer enough; she wanted to see him—to touch him. She thought for a second, before she shook the thought from her consciousness, that she felt the same way about Arthur too.

  Her hunger was real. She had grown more than she had previously cared to recognize. Grown, just like the many rows of corn, seemingly tall and heavy overnight. She thought of the times and places and dreams she had cultivated in her mind, never thinking for a second that they would come to startling fruition, towering, insatiable visions that dwarfed even the tallest of those green-and-brown stalks.

  Now she was a paradox, the wife of a small-town farmer saddled with the sensibility and imagination of someone far more cosmopolitan. She was sick with this contradiction. Could not stomach another day of quiet desperation, of doing Clarence’s bidding instead of her own.

  That morning, just as Clarence was setting out for the field with a sack full of chicken feed and a monkey wrench sticking out of the back of his overalls, she stopped him.

  “What’s eatin’ at ya, woman,” he barked, moving impatiently past her touch. “Ya look like somethin’ the cat done drug in.”

  Molly winced a little, her face pale and extinguished. “I need to talk to you, Clarence. Now.”

  “A farm don’t run on no talkin’, little Miss Molly,” he snapped back. “I done told ya plenty of times, woman, that I don’t have no time fer such foolishness.”

  He made a sudden, deft attempt to pass by her, but she slid her feet across the floor ever so slightly, obstructing his path.

  “I mean it this time, Clarence. I will not be silenced like some child.”

  On most occasions, a declarative statement of this sort would have resulted in a full-scale haranguing about honor, duty, and obedience. But for some odd reason, today Clarence was game.

  “Okay now, missy,” he relented. “I suppose I can listen fer a spell. Now what’s got yer unmentionables all in an uproar?”

  She stood uneasily in his shadow, her eyes welling up. “I want to see Mickey,” she blurted, as if any delay would have suffocated the thought forever.

  Clarence laughed. “Not this again, woman. I thought you said it were something important.”

  Frustration propelled more feelings to the surface. “And another thing. Seeing as we are talking and all, I like the clarinet. It’s something that’s mine. For me, Clarence. I want to start playing again. You know, around the house and all.”

  Clarence’s face distorted. The mere mention of anything outside his pedestrian parameters caused it to assume a hideous, menacing presence.

  “Woman, yer plum out of yer gourd, you know that? Where’s all this malarkey comin’ from? Ain’t I done by you right? Don’t I give ya everything ya need?”

  She could not answer. She folded her arms, turned her back to him, and listened as his boots trampled over the floor, scraping toward the door. He was grumbling under his breath. Then, with tears in her eyes, and scarcely a thought of the fallout, she fired her final salvo.

  “I’m going, Clarence, with or without you.”

  She remained still, her back to him, listening to the irregular cadence of his asthmatic breathing. He was now just as engrossed in the topic as she was and, with her peremptory tone, just as affected.

  “You listen here, woman. I just about had enough of yer lip. Now you shut yer mouth and git yer apron on and start acting like a woman, or you just may feel me.”

  With her back still to him and her head slumped so that her chin rested softly against her chest, she cried quietly. He brought up a wad of phlegm from his throat with alarming force, spitting it into a tin can next to the counter. Then he struck a match on his heel, lit a cigar, and walked away.

  “Going by yourself,” he mocked, placing his hand on the doorknob, his laughter dying away slowly with every step he took until the closing of the door extinguished the sound for good.

  With a little broken sob in her throat, Molly sat for a moment, weak and trembling. The strength that had risen up just minutes before was gone, escaped like air from an open balloon. The cycle of emotion was turning. She had spoken her mind, unburdened her heart, but there she still sat, miserable and alone.

  Murph was home, eating breakfast and listening to the air hum with the sound of water moving through the pipes, when the phone rang. It was her.

  “I didn’t know what else to do,” she sobbed, her words barely audible. “I just needed to talk.”

  “It’s okay, Molly. I told you to call anytime.” Murph felt that at any cost he had to keep her with him, had to allow her to see that she was not in the helpless situation she thought she was. “What happened, Molly? Did he hurt you?”

  “No, he didn’t hurt me. Not really.”

  “You know, you don’t have to stay there. I know how you feel about doing what’s proper, Molly. But for Christ sake, is it proper or good or right for you to suffer like you do?”

  “I’ll be okay, Arthur. I probably shouldn’t have called. I just needed to talk to someone who would listen.”

  He was listening. And thinking. The cutting division between right and wrong, honest and dishonest, and honorable and the opposite had left little room for the unforeseen.

  “You know, Molly, you could come here.”

  “What?”

  “Here. You could come here. Visit Mickey. Stay as long as you like. Maybe some time away would put things in perspective a little.”

  “I can’t, Arthur,” she said, her voice small and fading. “It just wouldn’t be right.”

  “I’m not suggesting anything like that, Molly. I just think that maybe you need a change of scenery. That’s all.”

  For a while, all that was audible was the faint hum in both ends of the phone, until she broke the silence. “How’s my boy?” she asked, diverting the discussion to a far more comfortable topic. “Is he still doing well?”

  “Terrific. He’s terrific. Doing fine. He should be back in the lineup in just a couple more days.”

  “Does he look okay, Arthur? Is he eating?”

  “He’s fine, Molly. Really. He’s doing great. I’m telling you, if you were to come, you’d see that for yourself. And you’d feel a whole lot better.”

  She twirled the phone cord in circles, wrapping it around her fingers in tight coils that matched the ones squeezing her insides.

  “What about you, Arthur? How are you?”

  “Me? I’m okay I guess. Same as usual.”

  “How’s the team doing? Are you still winning?”

  “We’re doing okay. Hanging in there. The guys have really missed Mickey, and you already know about George Rogers being let go. It’s been a rough few weeks. No pitching. It’s tough to win with no pitching. But I think we’re back on course.”

  He said the words with only a hint of conviction, with no real attempt to mask his undeniable uncertainty. His whole life smelled of failure, and of the shame and restlessness that attaches itself to such failure over time. These collapses of promised success seemed to him to be frequent and numerous, and in no way limited to the baseball diamond. He could recall bitterly how difficult it had always been for him to cul
tivate relationships with women. Life as a baseball man was more often than not a barrier, something that did not lend itself to conventional, long-term affairs with the fairer sex. He often lamented over some of his missed opportunities and was even more embittered by the couple of relationships that actually did flower, only to wither beneath the oppressive demands of life as a professional athlete.

  He was remembering clearly three women. One was the daughter of the wealthiest man in town. He was just twenty-one at the time, a young, wide-eyed stallion who had the baseball world on a string. He met her at a dinner party given by his mother. She was wearing a light blue, lacy cocktail dress, way too fancy for a house party. Her skin was perfect, a creamy white that just beckoned to be touched and caressed. He noticed her immediately—the angelic face, flowing hair, round breasts—but she paid him no mind, until her mother mentioned who he was and what everyone was saying about him. He suddenly found himself the object of her undivided attention.

  “Do they really call you the next Ty Cobb?” she said, batting her lashes while tilting her head ever so slightly to the side.

  “You know baseball?”

  “I know enough.”

  They were together for several weeks. She attended all of his games, and they spent just about every evening with each other, attending various functions for her father and other prominent people who traveled in his circle. It appeared, to everyone who saw them, that they were destined for the altar. They were perfect. The budding superstar and the wealthy debutante. But then McNally ran him down in the outfield one afternoon and everything changed.

  “It’s nothing personal, Artie,” she explained. “I just need someone who’s a little more high profile.”

  Then there was the woman whom he met at the ballpark after one of the last games he played. She was a soft-spoken, petite beauty with a perceptible spark behind her blue eyes.

  “Would you sign this baseball for my younger brother?” she asked, offering her hand to him as he exited from the back gate. He remembered thinking how tiny yet perfect her fingers were. Like angel’s hands. He signed the ball and handed it to her, and she gave him her name and number. It all seemed good. They dated for a while. But that softness, the demure fragility that he found so goddamned appealing, belied some terrible longings she held on to. Over the time they were together, she became needy and demanding, almost despotic in her requests to have him by her side. He explained at every turn the demands of life as a baseball player, and that he was doing his best, but she would not entertain his words. He ended the romance after just two months.

  The third woman, the most haunting of all, perhaps hurt him the worst. Samantha was everything he ever dreamed of. Blond hair, electric smile, hourglass curves, and a baseball fan besides. He was completely smitten. The love he felt for her was unlike any other he had ever experienced—it was intoxicatingly oppressive and uncompromising, way too intense for him. He felt almost paralyzed by her, suspended in her sweet smell and in constant thoughts of holding her so close that he could feel the blood running through her body. He knew it was unhealthy, this obsession, but he couldn’t help himself. He was the moth, she the irresistible flame.

  The only comfort came in his belief that she returned the feeling, until that night at the monthly church dance. He had been on the road with his team for two weeks. It was only his second trip as a manager. He had made every effort to limit his attention to just baseball, but somehow, thoughts of her burrowed into his resolve and he found himself dividing his thoughts between the field and sweet Samantha.

  As they danced that night, he shared with her this feeling of desire that had plagued him for two solid weeks. She nodded and looked away. She was stiff in his arms, and sweating a little, smelling of powder or flowers and soft, young feminine mystique. He tried to engage the girl, but each time he pulled back slightly to look into her eyes, she buried her head in his chest.

  Later that evening, he kissed her, with soft lips and gentle tongue—the way he always did. She accepted the kiss, but did not return the overture—just tolerated the intrusion, her mouth flat and uninvolved. Her aloofness filled him with a vague doom.

  “What’s wrong, Samantha? Is everything okay?”

  She looked at him, finally, with vacant eyes. “Nothing is wrong, Arthur. Really.”

  He never forgot the way she looked at that moment, or the way she looked later that same night, the last time they made love. She told him to go to the bathroom while she got ready. It struck him as odd; he had seen her undress before, many times. He wanted to press her for an explanation. But he humored her instead and waited until she called to him.

  When he came out, minutes later, she was lying on the bed, naked. It startled him. He saw only her beauty—was blinded by it. She had the most beautiful body he had ever seen. It was perfect in its size, curvature, and proportion, like a carefully crafted sculpture. He stood there, tingling with virulent arousal, unable to move or speak, his eyes fixed on her long, smooth legs and her perfectly round breasts, two creamy bags of luscious flesh, adorned with deep pink circles, full and hard. He remained at a distance for some time, drinking in her angelic pose, amazed that God could create such a perfect being, and even more astounded that of all the guys she could have had, she chose him.

  He moved toward the bed in glorious anticipation, a noticeable swelling hot against his leg. She was even more breathtaking up close, and he could smell her scent, musky and strong. But then he saw her face, riddled with desperation, a pleading of sorts, as if she were suffering some unknown calamity. It stopped him cold. Her big, dark eyes were fixed on him as she lay there distantly, as if she had just given herself up to sacrifice. Her body was there for the taking, but the look behind her eyes arrested him—his blood ran cold and the swelling in his shorts withered.

  “Samantha, are you sure you want to do this?”

  She never did answer. She just lay there, her thoughts somewhere else.

  Only after they were through did the cold shadow of doubt fall fully on him. They lay next to each other for many minutes, struggling beneath the suffocating weight of the silence, each wanting desperately to say something but unable to form the words. He could feel her warm body next to his. He wanted to reach over to her, with his hand or foot, just to feel some connection to her, but he did not; she was not there, and he knew it. So he lay there quietly, listening to her breathe until finally the words came to her, words that resonated in his ears like mortar shells.

  “Arthur, I think we should talk.”

  He could remember nothing else about that year except the hunger, and the lonely meals in his room that did little to fill him. He was plagued by this emptiness, his inability to satisfy those incessant pangs no matter how hard he tried. He thought he could shortcircuit the longing, cut it at its source by replacing it with something else. Baseball seemed like the logical choice. It’s all he had, and so much went on every day. But it’s hard to wrap your arms around a late-inning loss or the feeling you get after winding up on the short end of a barn burner. He felt that same sort of hunger now as he and Molly continued their telephone conversation.

  “I have some wash to do, Arthur,” Molly said, her voice soft and fading. “I should really go.”

  “Okay, Molly, I understand. Just think about what I said. I’ll be in touch. It would be great for everyone if you would come.”

  He closed his eyes as a tendrilous anxiety squeezed him; it made him feel worse. In the darkness of his mind, everything seemed more menacing. When he opened his eyes again, he tried to focus on something concrete, but everything he stared at was marred by optical imperfections, as if each of the failures in his life had suddenly risen up and taken the form of tiny specks that floated now unmercifully in his field of vision. He blinked nervously, trying to expunge these painful reminders from his sight, but there was no denying them. All he could do was numb the pain.

  He poured a glass of whiskey and gulped at it greedily. Standing by the window, gazi
ng stupidly at the patches of dandelions invading his lawn, he realized how perishable all the moments of his life really were, and how as he aged, this life was now begging him to be lived.

  MID-SEPTEMBER

  The Brewers reeled off consecutive wins against the Colts and the Giants, but gained no ground, remaining two games back with just seven to play, as the Rangers took a pair from the Senators.

  McNally was feeling pretty good about his team’s chances. They were playing well, well enough to possibly run the table and capture the pennant regardless of what the Brewers did. But when a freak accident during practice took out his best pitcher for the rest of the season, McNally went straight to Quinton with a moonstruck idea.

  “You still have that lawyer friend? You know, the one who helped you out a couple of years back?”

  “What’s on your mind, McNally?”

  “Well, do you? Is he still around?”

  “Bradley Winston? Sure. I mean, I still see him now and again. Actually, I just spoke to him last week. Our wives are getting together for some country-club thing. So what?”

  McNally laughed. “What if, by chance, our friend Mr. George Rogers were to post bond—you know, if some munificent soul were to offer some financial assistance. Wouldn’t that free him up for another team, perhaps one in need of some pitching down the stretch?”

  “Rogers can’t play, Chip, if he’s awaiting trial.”

  “But what if he’s not awaiting trial? What if he’s acquitted on a technicality? You know, there were a few things that Rosco and his deputy did that could be construed as a little suspect. Nobody knows that better than us. I was just thinking how a shrewd lawyer could really work that, if he were inclined to do so.”

  Quinton said nothing, but his eyes flashed with the light of sudden possibility. He was stunned by McNally’s suggestion, not because he thought his manager incapable of such chicanery, but because he himself had failed to see it first.