Bang The Drum Slowly (23 page)

And writers come, and they said, “Tell us what is up, boys,” and dragged chairs in and sat down and looked around and drunk coffee. “I can not figure it,” said Krazy. “All of you here that I doubt I ever seen in one room before, people that never hung together in their life off the ball field,” which was true when you thought about it, for Red has no use for Patricia, and Patricia none for Ugly, and Mike none for Red, and Goose and Horse no use for anybody but themself. But nobody told the writers what was up, and after awhile they stopped asking, and they left, and the boy kept bringing coffee, and then food, and all of a sudden it was quite a large party for such a small room. Dutch wandered in, the first time in my life Dutch ever come to my room since the morning of Opening Day in 52, page 198 in “The Southpaw,” 202 in the quarter book. “It looks like Pearson and Author are the most popular fellows on this ball club,” said he.

“That is all right,” said Bruce. “Have a chair,” and he got up and give his chair to Dutch and sat on the window, and every so often he turned around and spit down and told what he spit, incurve or outcurve.

“It is too bad a fellow can not pitch spit,” said Dutch.

“I would sure have a lot of breaking stuff all right,” said Bruce, and everybody laughed very hard, too hard in my opinion, and I said to myself, “Lay it on thin, boys.”

“I got the Mrs. off my back and on the train,” said Dutch.

“I guess that is a day’s work,” said Joe.

“I do not mind seeing her too much,” said Dutch. “She keeps me human. Probably many a boy gets the idea I am not human. Did you ever get such an idea, Author?”

“Not personally,” I said. “People sometimes tell me you are not human, but I say you are. It simply never shows.” Everybody got a great laugh out of that.

“Probably you sometimes thought I was not human,” said he to Bruce.

“No sir,” said Bruce.

“Probably I ate you out now and then. But I never ate you out without reason.”

“No sir,” said Bruce. “You ate me out for doing dumb things.”

“I ate you out for the good of the club,” said Dutch, “and for the good of your own pocket, never for anything personal because you know as well as I do that personally I never had only the greatest respect for you as a human being.”

“Yes sir,” said Bruce. “That was how I always felt.”

“I guess I have my human side all right,” said Dutch. “Maybe not in the summer, but certainly in the winter.”

“Yes,” said Mike, “you are no doubt very human in the winter.”

“Or anyhow in the very coldest part,” said Red. “Leave us get over to Brooklyn,” which we done.

Red put on his old number again, and Mike the same, Mike after 10 years in QC, and Dutch locked the clubhouse against the writers. It was a very large crowd for a Wednesday night. Thousands were over from New York for a sight of Red again, plus it was me vs. Scudder, always a great ball game usually. Red warmed me. Me and him come up out of the dugout together, and there was this tremendous ovation, cheering from the Mammoth fans and booing from Brooklyn, for they always hated Red in Brooklyn, and I said, “I will bet you get nothing like this out there in San Francisco, California.”

“No,” said he, “they pray that I do not show for the class, and if I am 10 minutes past the hour they run out laughing for a beer,” and he touched his cap, and Mammoth fans begun singing “Happy Days Are Here Again,” and the Brooklyn band tried drowning them out, playing “California, Back I Come,” and the bulbs popped, and he laughed and yet cried a little. “It is a mad country, Author, and bound to go down.”

“I do not think so,” I said. “I been in 4 countries, Mexico, Cuba, Canada, and Japan, and we got them all beat.”

“Beat at baseball maybe,” he said. “These clucks been educated to read a scorecard. They are like the seals in the zoo, which if you feed them and give them a roof they will jump on a box and bark. Throw me a few easy until I sharp my eye a little.”

I threw a few down easy, and little by little he lowered himself to the crouch. “Now I am down,” he said, “but I am not sure I will ever get back up.” I threw more. What a man he is to throw to! He knows what you are doing before you do it, knows how you feel before you say. “You are tired tonight,” he said.

“Yes,” said I, “a little.”

His ear forgot nothing. He knew what was being hit where by the sound, hearing all the sounds behind him, and seeing all that went on in front, stopping and turning and watching Jonah in the cage, then crouching back down again and thinking about Jonah, telling Jonah take over and warm me awhile, and standing and watching Jonah, studying, studying, like you read in the paper where a fellow knew somebody died far away and sure enough he done so though nobody told him, eyes in the back of his head, eyes in front, eyes to the side of him, all eyes and ears, picking up everything eyes and ears pick up plus a few things eyes and ears miss but some other part of him picks up, his 6 sense. “You are warm,” he said, “go wash your face and run your wrist in cold water and tell Doc give you a green pill and a lemon-color pill.”

“Them phoney pills?” I said.

“Wash down the green pill with a coke and the lemon-color pill with black coffee. They will wake you up.”

“They are phoney pills,” I said.

“OK,” said he, “fall asleep on your feet then.” We stood in the dugout a minute. He watched Bruce hit with one eye and Scudder warming with the other, and then we went back in and I told Doc give me a green pill and a lemon-color pill, and I washed them down with coke and black coffee, and I woke up on the spot. Mick give Red a rub and the boys come drifting in.

There was no lecture that night. Dutch stood on the scale, and I thought there would be, but there was not. He only said, “Piney Woods, where is your gun?”

“In my belt,” said Piney.

“Hand it here,” said Dutch, and Piney fished it off the shelf and handed it to him, the barrel end first, and Dutch turned it around quick and held it facing the floor. “I am not in the mood to see somebody laid up with a bullet wound.”

“I am very careful,” said Piney.

“That is what everybody says,” said Dutch, “yet the hospitals are full of babies. McGonigle, did you shoot a gun in the war?”

“No sir,” he said. “I played baseball.”

“Great fucking war,” said Dutch. “Goose, you was in the war. Take and empty this gun.”

“Where?” said Goose.

“At Bill Scudder,” said Sid, and everybody laughed, and Goose took the bullets out of the gun and give the works to Dutch, and Dutch put the bullets in his pocket and threw the gun back at Piney. George spoke in Spanish to Red, and Red said, “George says you should go fire it at Bill Scudder.”

But George opened the ball game with a single, and Sid right away hit Number 41 with 2 gone, the first home run he hit off Scudder in 2 years, and we picked up another in the second, Bruce leading off with a single, Dutch batting him in the 6 spot now, and going to third on another by Vincent Carucci, and coming home on a long fly by Coker, Coker still not out of the slump but Dutch using him against left-handers all the same. I remember Bruce scoring from third that time, standing on third with his back to the plate, waiting for the catch and then pushing off backwards from the bag and spinning and charging down the line towards home, the lights on his face, not running hard or anyhow not looking like he was running hard, though he was, no feeling in his eyes of hurry nor strain, looking at me for his sign, and I signed “Stand up,” for the throw was cut off in the infield, and he crossed home and run right on past me but circled a little and come back and stood in front of me. “What?” I said. He said nothing, only stood there a minute like he ought to said something, not go flying past a fellow without talking. “What?” I said. “Nothing,” he said, and he went on in.

I was glad whenever Sid hit one, then and after. Every time he connected the paper left off nosing around for the truth and rushed through a new article called WILL SEPTEMBER BE SID GOLDMAN’S MONTH OF DESTINY? or SUPERHUMAN TASK FACES GOLDMAN. Dutch moved him up to the 3 spot towards the very end to give him extra swipes.

After a couple innings Red said to Bruce, “After every pitch I wish you to lay the ball in your glove and stand up straight with your meat hand down at your side. Then bring it up slow and take careful aim and fire it back at Author’s chin,” and Bruce done so. I do not know why I never thought of it. It slowed things up, and it rested me, for it kept me from reaching now down and now up, now left and now right, which Bruce makes you do, thinking all he need do is fling the ball back at his pitcher, never mind how. After every inning he sat by Red, and Red talked to him, and whatever Red told him he done, and it helped. “That is right, Red,” he said. “Tell me what you see, for I know I got faults and always did.”

“Yes,” said Red, “as long as I am in town anyway I will pass along what I see.”

“What else do you see?” said Bruce. “Tell me more.”

“Well,” said Red, “squat even on both legs. Do not lean towards the curve. You are helping the enemy read your pitcher.”

“Squat even on both legs,” said Bruce. “What else?”

“That is enough for one night,” said Red.

I blanked them for 6 innings. They picked up one in the seventh, and they threatened in the eighth, and Horse come in and pitched out of it and went on and saved my game. He was the greatest reliefer in baseball down the stretch, fat old Horse, a rock of strength all September. Red said he must of give up beer and found the Fountain of Youth instead.

Old Man Moors hit town that night, though I never seen him. He was gone by morning, back to Detroit, and Patricia went back up to Maine or Vermont or wherever. She acts in shows. Red says she owns the theater. He never did like her.

By the time we left for Washington Friday morning everybody was used to seeing Red and Mike around and stopped thinking too much about it. The paper cooled off on it. Everybody in the know was mum and I believed the truth had got about as far as it was going.

But I was wrong. Thursday night Red said to me, “Drop up and bring your book,” and I said I would, and when I got there he was reading and George was looking at the TV, not listening but only looking, for Red can’t stand the noise and George don’t particularly miss it. “How much you wrote by now?” he said.

“I am finished 2 chapters,” I said.

He took it and ruffled it through and laid it on the dresser, and I said, “I believe George can read and wish you would not leave it laying out.”

“He already knows,” said Red, “for I told him. I could not keep it in.” George spoke in Spanish. “George says it is some shit deal Pearson been handed,” said Red.

“Si, senior,” said I.

“I wonder if they made a mistake,” said Red. “These doctors can be as wrong as hell when they try.”

“We are all hoping so,” I said.

“Who all knows?” he said.

“Me and his father and minister and Holly and some people Holly told up home.”

“I mean on the club.”

“Me and the brass and Horse and Goose and Ugly and now George,” I said.

“He does not seem sad,” said Red. “He keeps thinking about what he is doing and trying to improve himself. He is quick to learn, and he is certainly hitting splendid. I must tell him either chew or not chew when he hits. There is a system to his chewing, and the enemy will read him.”

“He stops chewing when he tenses,” I said.

“I believe so,” said Red. “But he is a much better ballplayer than when I last seen him.”

“He is gaining the old confidence,” I said. “He has more friends. He never had any before.” A little breeze blew in the window and begun sliding my pages along the top of the dresser, and I got up and sat a glass on top. “It will all be in the book,” I said.

He took the glass off the pages and started reading, and when he read 6 pages he said, “I read 6 pages and it is not yet so much about him as you. Should it not be all about him and nothing about you?”

“Read more,” I said. “Pretty soon I drop out of the picture,” and I went and sat by George and watched the TV, picture but no noise, a yarn about a girl and 2 men, one of the men with a black mustache pasted on. I looked for the cops to come and haul off the fellow with the mustache because it was 5 minutes before the hour, and they done so, and the girl and the shaved fellow kissed and melted out in the pitch. George never took his eye off it. He reached for a cigarette, but his eye never left the screen, and Red stood with my book. “I will come back,” I said.

“No,” said Red, “stay. I have read enough to see that this book will never be about Pearson but about you and airline stewardesses and Goose’s wife and Aleck Olson of Boston and kosher restaurants and Holly and riding in automobiles through South Cedar Rocks, Iowa, and who the hell knows what all else by the time you are done. But it must be more about Pearson being doomeded, which is what we all are, ain’t we, me and you and George. Ain’t we, George?” he said, and he kicked the TV and spoke in Spanish, saying in Spanish, “We are all doomeded, ain’t we, George?” and George got up and pushed the TV back in the middle of the table and said we were in Spanish, if Red said so. “He says so too,” said Red, “but you are facing terrible odds, for George will never read your book, being trained to read a scorecard only and live like a seal. And even the people that read it will think it is about baseball or some such stupidity as that, for baseball is stupid, Author, and I hope you put it in your book, a game rigged by rich idiots to keep poor idiots from wising up to how poor they are.”

“I would never put any such a thing as that in my book,” I said. “It is not true, besides which it is my bread and butter. It is a game loved by millions in 4 countries, Mexico, Canada, Cuba, and Japan.”

“Stick to Pearson!” he said. “Stick to Pearson, Pearson. You must write about dying, saying “Keep death in your mind”.”

“Who would wish to read such a gloomy book?” I said. “Everybody knows they are dying.”

“They do not act like they know it,” he said. “Stick to death and person.”

“I will try,” I said, and I done so. I wrote Chapter 3 and then again 4 mostly about Bruce, like Red said to, writing right there in the room with Bruce not 8 feet away. He never asked what I was writing, and never cared, and will never read the book itself when it is done, which might be any day now with luck and quiet.