Bang The Drum Slowly (18 page)

“Neither am I,” said Coker.

“Why not?” said I.

“It is nobody’s business but my own,” said he.

“Then Canada must tell him,” I said.

“Not me,” said he.

“We will match coins,” said I.

“Go ahead and match them,” said Canada, and I done so, and he lost, but he refused all the same, saying Perry give him a pain in the ass and he stopped speaking to him, coins or not.

“It is all very sad,” said I. “The 4 of us used to be as thick as flies not many years back. I remember the good old days on the Cowboys. The whole club gives me the creeps. I am libel to wake up some morning not speaking to myself.”

“Everybody is nervous,” said Coker.

“Why not cut Perry out and call it The Mammoth Trio?” said Canada.

“That is a good idea,” I said, “but I got a better one yet. Why not cut Perry out and Bruce in?”

“He could not follow the music,” said Coker.

“3 of us following the music is plenty,” I said. But we got nowheres, and they said, “Leave us sleep on it,” and I left and went down to Perry’s myself and knocked on the door, and Jonah opened it an inch and peeked around and said, “Oh, hello, Author,” and he left me in quick and shut the door. They were playing cards, the 4 of them, which Dutch said not to, and they said, “Pull up a chair, Author,” fairly friendly, all but Perry, and I played a couple hands though my mind was not on it.

“Well,” said Perry, “when is the big wedding?” They all laughed.

“Pretty soon,” said I.

“No doubt he will invite us,” said Perry. I said he would. “I just bet he will,” said Perry, and they all laughed again.

“If you boys would give him a chance you would find out he is not such a bad fellow,” said I. “In fact you would do me a great favor not ragging him.”

“He deserves it,” said Keith.

“Why?” said I.

He only shucked his shoulders and looked at Perry. They are good boys, never purposely nasty except they get kicked around a good deal where a white fellow might not. I knew that if they knew what I already knew and carried it around until everybody I met I felt like spilling it they would of buddied up to Bruce, or if not buddied up at least laid off, good ballplayers all of them, though Keith can not go the distance and will not learn from his betters, very effective for 3 innings at the most and then blows. Yet I did not spill it. Telling Goose was already too much. I kept expecting him or Horse to give it away any day, and I only said, “Why rag him about the wedding? It makes him feel good thinking about it. It keeps up his spirit.”

“It keeps up our spirit ragging him,” said Wash.

“What is wrong with your spirit?” said I. “You are a young fellow. What do you need your spirit kept up for so early in life?”

“Never mind the lecture, Author,” said Perry.

“I will leave,” said I.

“Nobody said leave,” said Jonah.

“Leave him leave,” said Perry. “He probably rather hang with his own anyway.”

“With my own what?” said I. “I never expected I would hear such a remark from you.”

“With Pearson,” he said, “and Horse and Goose, the lowest type scum of the earth.”

“You are wrong,” said I. “Pearson has not got a nasty bone in his body, which if you ever give him a chance he would show you.”

“He shown me plenty already. I seen going on 4 years of him, and enough is enough. I am not blind. Pearson would not give me the time of day if I was dying.”

“He does not know it himself half the time,” I said. “When he cuts you dead it is only because he got nothing to say, not because he does not like you. I hung down home with him over the winter, and more than once I seen him give a big hello to folks along the main drag, colored folks as well as white, the same big hello.”

“And they probably said pardon me for living, Mr. Pearson, please allow me to kiss your wonderful white ass. Do not tell me what Georgia is like, Author, for I been there once too often and seen for myself.”

“Can he help being from Georgia?” said I. “You was born there yourself.”

“And I had the brains to pick up and leave,” said he.

“Must he pick up and leave?” I said. “His folks and his home are there, and he hopes to die there when he dies.”

“I hope he gets his wish,” said Perry. “Somebody deal.”

“Probably the sooner the better,” said Wash.

“You are a fresh punk,” said I. “What do you know about anything?”

“Anything I love is a nice friendly game of cards,” said Jonah.

“Deal me out,” said I. “I can not stand fresh punks talking about something they know nothing about. Do you think you are going to live forever? Is life so long you rather rag somebody than be nice to them?”

“Listen to me now,” said Perry. “I said play cards or go somewheres else and preach. Nobody invited you in, so as long as you are here join in the fun or else disappear.”

“I will disappear,” I said, and I went back and called Croix, saying what everybody said was we needed new blood in The Mammoth Quartet. “How about dropping Simpson for Pearson?” I said.

“Who in hell is Pearson?” he said. “No, I would not drop Simpson if I was you. He is half the laugh. How about Goldman?”

“No,” said I, “how about me and Pearson and Goose Williams and Horse Byrd? Byrd weighs 240 pounds and would be good for quite a laugh.”

“Leave me sleep on it,” he said, “and call you back in the morning,” and then he never called me but called Perry instead, and Wednesday night The Mammoth Quartet all of a sudden found their name changed to The Four Brown Mammoths, Perry and Jonah and Wash and Keith. They sung “Davy Crockett” and “Come Josephine In My Flying Machine,” and they stunk.

If Washington wasn’t always such a soft touch for the Mammoths they would of swept past us right there in that little stretch of 2 weeks between the time we got home from the west and the day of the All-Star Game. They kept smearing Boston and Brooklyn something awful up and down the east, slimming our cushion down to one game by the Fourth of July, which was my 24th birthday, 25% of the way along for me, for I believe I can live to 96 if I keep in shape and don’t come down with a fatal disease and if the son of a bitches don’t blow up the place with their cockeyed bomb. But we blew it back up to 3 on the Fourth, whipping them twice down there before a record crowd that grew quieter and quieter as the afternoon wore on and finally filed out the park without a peep.

Sid took fire once we hit home, and we played steady ball all week except we lost ground, Washington taking 4 straight from Brooklyn and 2 out of 3 from Boston. Sid hit Number 24 and 5 off Boston Thursday and 26 and 7 off Richie Erno Friday night, which gives you some idea how hot he was. It was the first time he hit 2 home runs in one ball game off a left-hander since hitting 2 off Lowell Shrodes on Friday, April 24, 1953, according to the paper. He was even-up with Babe Ruth, which brung out a record crowd Saturday, Ladies Day, the whole park screaming their head off when he so much as spit. The only thing nobody noticed was we did not win on Friday, but lost, which chipped the lead to 1½. Beating paper records is fine and nice, but the game goes down in history as lost unless you keep the other fellow from scoring more runs, and the boys all said the same, and Sid as well, saying he rather break both legs and cop the flag than beat Babe Ruth and wind up second, and I believed him when he said it, for he is a friend of mine, though many of the boys did not. They never said anything to Sid himself, but they made these dirty remarks concerning Babe Ruth, saying they were tired hearing about him and tired seeing his name in the paper and tired following his record of 28 years ago when any day we were libel to go under if we did not start putting pitching and hitting together. “So what if Sid beats Babe Ruth?” said some of the boys. “Does it pay my bills? I will not be up here forever and must make cash while the sun shines.”

“Right,” said some of the boys.

“Right,” said I. “Then why not pull together like a club? What is the sense blaming anything on Sid? He is doing exactly what he is supposed to be getting paid for. Why not everybody cut out the horseshit?”

“Author is right,” they said, and for a couple minutes they all stood around saying, “Yes sir, Author is right,” “Yes sir, Author hit it on the head,” and then they no sooner said this than they started deciding just who was to blame in the first place and who was more horseshit than the next fellow until you were back where you begun.

Saturday we lost. Sid slammed one with George and Pasquale on in the first inning, and the crowd went mad, 5 home runs in 3 days, probably some sort of a record except I did not even look at the Sunday paper, and we jumped to a 3–0 lead but could not hold it. The power went off, dead, and we dropped it, 4–3. Goose tired, and Bruce caught the last 4 innings and cracked 2 doubles in 2 times at bat, the first time he hit for extra bases in 2 consecutive trips to the plate since September of 49, and we all dragged ourself back in the clubhouse with 2 new records racked up but one more game lost. We sat around listening to the last couple innings of Washington vs. Boston, which Boston finally won, and when it was over Lindon got up and switched it off, and Ugly said, “Lindon, you set a record switching off the radio.”

Lindon looked at the radio. “I done what?” he said.

“You set a record,” said Ugly. “Up to yesterday you probably only switched the radio off 15,738 times. Now you switched it off 15,739.”

“Officially or unofficially?” said I.

“Every day you live you live one more day,” said Lawyer Longabucco. “You beat your own record.”

“Officially or unofficially?” said Blondie Biggs.

“I talked 3,112 official words today,” said Jonah. “That puts me 3,112 official words up on yesterday.”

“Today is the first time I ever officially hung this jock on this particular nail at 4:02
P.M
. in the afternoon of July 9, 1955,” said Perry.

“Today is the first day we ever lost to Brooklyn by a score of 4–3 after leading 3–0 in the first inning on Ladies Day I bet,” said Harry Glee.

“Are the ladies official?” said Ugly.

“Some are and some ain’t,” said Harry.

“Today was the first time in my official and unofficial life I ever fouled out in the seventh inning with a count of 2–2 on me against a right-hand pitcher name of Fair-bright,” said Canada.

But nobody laughed. All the time we dressed we kept shouting out new records, how many times we now officially buckled our belt and tied our tie and laced our shoe or shaved or combed our hair, how many official miles the zip on your fly now went, how many times you zipped it with your left hand and how many times with your right, how many official times you looked in the mirror, how many official times you breathed, how many tons of water you showered in and how many times you stood at the clubhouse door and looked back and wondered what you officially forgot, shouting out your record but still not laughing, nobody feeling too much like laughing right about then.

Blondie Biggs started for us Sunday, a blond-hair bonus boy straight out of college with a side-arm delivery that the boys all say they rather see in a Mammoth shirt than on somebody else, though what they never told him in college was do not keep getting too behind your hitter. He improves as time goes on, but he still had a lot to learn that Sunday which Dutch probably figured could wait until some other time except when we were only 1½ games on top. July is no time to start learning, and he got jittery, Dutch did, and he said, “Author, go warm,” and I went down to the bullpen with Diego.

“Mister,” said Diego, “you only rest her up 3 days.”

“You warm me and leave Dutch run the club,” said I, and after I warmed awhile the crowd begun to boo. I looked around, but I could not tell what they were booing at. It was quite crazy. I telephoned back to the dugout and asked what was up, and nobody knew, and I kept on warming, and the crowd kept on booing. There was this one cluck hanging over the fence, and I said, “What you booing at?” and he threw his hands up in front of his face, afraid that I was going to paste him, though I was not. Finally he come out from behind his hands, still screaming, “Boo-oo-oo-oo, boo-oo-oo-oo, you bum, you phony, boo-oo-oo-oo,” his face all red. He was a little bald up front, and the top of his head was also red, and he was mad and shaking his fist, and I said again, “Cluck! You! Cluck there! What you booing at?”

He was quite hoarse. He could hardly speak. “Ain’t everybody?” he said.

“But why?” said I.

“I do not know,” said he. “Boo-oo-oo-oo, bum, boo-oo-oo-oo,” and the telephone rung, Ugly, and he said, “What did the cluck say?” and I said all he said was “Boo” but did not seem to know why, and I went on warming.

Horse and Bruce come down after awhile, and Horse warmed, and the booing started and stopped the whole time, turning to cheering when Sid come up, and silence when he did not hit a home run, and then they actually booed Sid himself in the seventh when he reached across the plate and dumped a single in left instead of waiting for the kind of a pitch he could homer on, the first and last time in my life I ever heard a local crowd boo a local ballplayer for collecting a base hit.

It was 2–2 in the top of the eighth when Blondie got himself in the kind of hot water he was not libel to pitch himself out of, and I went in and faced a left-hand hitter name of Stan Andersen that Brooklyn then lifted and sent up Hal Wilder instead, a right-hander, an old-timer that been on the roster of 6 or 7 clubs including the Mammoths of 42, a grandfather, I think the only grandfather on the active list, and Dutch come out to the hill and said he wondered if Horse might do better than me against Wilder. He stood thinking about it a long time.

“What in hell they booing at?” said I.

“Search me,” said Dutch. “The press-box says they are booing me for working you before the All-Star Game. I can not say that I am the slightest bit interested.”

“They are simply out of their mind as usual,” said Perry.

“Lay halfway deep on this son of
a
bitch,” said Dutch. “He is fast for an old man, but not too deep.”

The boys went back to their spots, and Jonah sung, singing, “Wing her through, Author, wing her through,” and I threw only one pitch that inning, my best pitch, a halfspeed curve that hooks away from a right-hand hitter and also sinks and slides, which some boys call my sinking screwball and others call a hooking slider, though I myself never bothered to give it a name. I threw it at his knees, and he went for it, thinking it was only straight but then seeing it hook. He tried to check his swing but couldn’t, and he beat it down in the dirt towards second, and Perry come up with it and flipped to Coker, and Coker to Sid, and it was now my ball game to win or lose, which we did in the bottom of the ninth, Number 14 for me.