Dirty Rice (13 page)

I had a teacher in the Annette school back in Texas whose favorite thing to say to us kids was something about history repeating itself. She might have been right about that in some cases, maybe wars and what she called current events and that kind of thing, but that saying does not apply to pitching a baseball to a man holding a bat in his hand. It's a new day each at-bat, and you can't show a batter the record of what you did before and expect it to impress him enough to cause him to walk off and sit down. He can hurt you, no matter what you did before, and he knows he can, whether he's ever hit you before or not. That was yesterday. Now is now. If you don't know that like the batter does, you ain't a pitcher.

The game went all right for me and the Rice Birds. That's what I'm trying to say, but I don't recall it pitch-by-pitch, and if I could, that would mean that I'd lost it. The Crowley Millers would have made it around the bases safe more times than we had, and I would've been able to tell exactly what I did wrong to let that happen to the Rice Birds and to me. When you ain't pitching, but just throwing, and they're up there knocking the ball back at your bunch so you can't catch it, you can see every one of the mistakes you made come flying back. The reason why is that your mind is not right, and the room in it is being took up by seeing things go wrong rather than telling your body what it's got to do.

There's every way in the world to lose, but only one way to win. When you win, your mind is too occupied with making that happen to allow you to keep a clear account of what took place. Pitchers don't keep scorecards. Them that try to won't win. Your mind has got to be busy all the time you're pitching, but it's got to know what not to study while things're going on.

That third game with the Crowley Millers came out this way, and I know because people told me about the specifics later when it was over. The Millers bunched up two singles in the sixth inning along with an error by the third baseman, and that let them score a run. That was the only one they got, and the Rayne Rice Birds got four in the game. Dynamite Dunn hit a homer with a man on, who was me, in the third inning, and somewhere along the way the other two runs got scored. The Millers got only the two hits, so we took two out of three of them first games of that season in the Evangeline League.

I struck out a bunch of Crowleys, but I didn't keep count of how many. My body was delivering my pitches the way I told it to, and the way I was off the mark in the warm-up time before the game wasn't the way it worked out for the Millers when things counted. My fastball was working, and Dynamite kept wanting me to throw it more than I did. He wasn't doing the pitching, though, so I shook him off whenever my head decided to tell my body to go to a change-up or a curve or a drop. I don't recall throwing a single knuckler, though I promised my arm I'd do that in the next game I pitched. I pitched the whole game, but back then in the Evangeline League that wasn't nothing to talk about. If a pitcher was ahead in the last few innings, it was considered his job to keep it that way. We all had to work a full day in Louisiana.

Dutch Bernson kept Herbert in his cap the whole game and didn't mash him a time, and that toad was contented to ride home on the bus all the way to Rayne sitting on the manager's head underneath that Rice Bird hat. Folks hollered and told jokes and hoorawed each other during the bus trip, and it didn't last near as long as the one after the game we'd lost the night before. Mike Gonzales and I got to sit in the rear of the bus where there was good leg-room in front of the seat there, and nobody had to ride on the bad one over the wheel well.

After we'd unloaded back at Addison Stadium, Dynamite Dunn came up to me and Mike Gonzales just as we started out the door to head up Serenity Street toward Miz Doucette's house. “Come get in G.D.'s car with us,” he said. “We're going to Lafayette for a little recuperation.”

“All right,” Mike said. “Where y'all going in Lafayette?”

“The Bon Soir Club,” Dynamite Dunn said. “Let's go.”

“Will it be open, a club, this time of night?” I said.

“Pitcher, would I steer you wrong? Have I ever? The Bon Soir don't never close until it ain't
soir
no more. We got lots of time to get done what we got to do.”

“I still ain't got no money,” I said. “Friday's going to be my first payday.”

“You keep following my directions and you'll be getting all the money you need, Gemar,” Dynamite said. “Don't try to shake me off on this one now.”

Mike and I crawled into the back seat of G.D. Squires' car, a big old humpbacked sedan that fired right up the first time G.D. hit the ignition. I figured if my little brother Polk'd been there, he could have told me the car's brand and model and the year it was made. I thought about needing to write him a letter, sitting there in the backseat, and I promised myself I'd do that.

“Whipping Crowley is thirsty work,” Dynamite said.

“What work did you do?” G.D. said. “You was sitting down half the time.”

“Sitting down, hell. I was crouched down like a cat on springs, and if this Indian here would've let somebody get on base, I was all coiled up just waiting to get the chance to throw out that runner at second.”

“You couldn't a throwed out my old grandma and her not taking a good lead,” G.D. said. “Where's that bottle of whiskey you been promising?”

They traded insults and brags like that all the way to Lafayette, everybody laughing and Mike Gonzales chiming in whenever he got the chance, and the bottle went around man to man until it was about empty by the time we got to the Bon Soir Club. I didn't take but a sip or two, not just because I wasn't used to drinking, but mainly from being a little afraid of what I knew it might do to me.

One time before, after a game between Diboll and Kountze when I was pitching for the Diboll sawmill bunch, I had let myself get hurt by drinking too much busthead whiskey somebody was passing around. I wasn't but about sixteen then, and that was my first time for alcohol, and after the first few drinks I took from that bottle, I got used to it quick. It didn't exactly burn my mouth and throat at first. I was all wound up from the game, nerves all heated up and making me feel like I needed to do something vigorous to calm me down, so when I took that first slug of whiskey, it felt more to me like I had got some kind of a buzzing insect caught in my throat instead of the slick and easy way a liquid will usually slide on down.

The way it felt made me want to feel it again, so I did that, and I kept on doing it until it got to be too many times altogether. The tops of my thighs felt like they'd loosened up, and the back of my neck got more supple and easier to move around. I wanted more of that feeling, and the fact that I could get it out of that bottle was a great thing I'd found out. I paid for that later on after a couple of hours had passed. I was like a child that had put his hand on a hot stove the first time. It hurt me, and if I'd been able to think right, I would never have touched a finger to a hot thing again. But it called to me somehow, and I found myself wanting to test it again. Would it hurt this time like it did before? If I just got close enough to it to feel the heat but didn't actually put my flesh right on that burning thing, would it be all right?

Thinking like that scared me and kept me away from the whiskey and the deep burn waiting in it. But now I'd been there, and the temptation to try it again wouldn't just die off. It was still inside me, waiting like a bad tooth that had quit aching and was leaving me alone finally. But I knew if I sucked at it one more time, it would flare up and bite me again. The bad part was that I wanted to do it, to feel it roar at me again, to feel all that action going on.

So riding along in that old car with G.D. Squires at the wheel and everybody yelping and laughing and hollering and feeling happy and strong made me want to do more than just let that whiskey touch my lips. I wanted to give it full room and allowance to work, but I was careful and held back from that fire all the way to the Bon Soir Club in Lafayette.

I recognized the sign on the building as soon as we came in sight of it. “I seen this place before,” I said. “When I was riding on top of a freight car on the railroad track, I saw that sign say welcome to the heart of Evangeline country.”

“It's been many a poor fool to accept that invite,” Dynamite Dunn said. “Took that sign at its word, they did. Walked on in to see what's offered, hoping to find the pure heart of Evangeline.”

“Let's join the party, gentlemen,” G.D. said, revving the car's engine and making its wheels slide in the gravel as we pulled into the parking lot. “Somebody remember where we left the car, now. Mike, that's your job assignment.”

When we opened the door of the Bon Soir Club, the music inside the building hit us in the face. That mixed-up sound was people singing, guitars, drums, a fiddle or two, a squeeze box, and a piano being hit hard, and all of it together feeling like a soft but heavy wall you had to push through.

“Makes me want to holler,” Dynamite Dunn said, and he did let out a whoop, pretty loud. We found us a table and started looking around for somebody to bring something to us to drink.

There was a good-sized dance floor off to one side, with people clinched up tight to one another and moving around to the music, and the band was behind that up on a stage taking up a chunk of room. The ones that wasn't dancing were drinking hard out of bottles and glasses, laughing and talking real loud to be heard over the racket. It was a lot darker inside than I'd noticed it being in the parking lot, but you could see well enough. Smoke was hanging everywhere, coils of it rising from every table and ending up in a general cloud that hung over the room.

“Rookies,” G.D. Squires said, “just this one time, drinks're on me. Don't get accustomed to that, though. It ain't going to happen again.”

“Amen and amen,” Dynamite Dunn said. “I can bear witness to what Brother G.D. is testifying.”

A woman brought drinks, and I was studying the glass she'd put in front of me, when somebody spoke to us, calling Dynamite by name. “Mr. Dunn,” the man said, standing by the table and holding out his hand, “I saw that home run you hit today. You put it away.”

The man looked to be about forty something, wearing a light blue suit with white lines in the material, had black hair slicked back from a pompadour in front, and he had rings on both hands. I'd never seen a manicure before, so I was surprised by the way the man's fingernails and hands looked. Even and white with thick black hairs on the back of the hands and tops of the fingers, and when I shook the hand he stuck toward me, it was not like any man's hand I'd shook before. He showed a strong grip, but his flesh was soft.

“Mr. Florio,” Dynamite stood up from where he was sitting. “I appreciate you saying that. I didn't know you got to games in Crowley.”

“You're right,” the man said, smiling until his teeth glowed in the light. “I only get to Millers' games when I got a real reason to. But I didn't want to miss that one. Don't call me Mr. Florio, though, Dynamite, I'll think you're talking about my papa. I'm Sal, like you know.”

“Well, Sal,” Dynamite said, sounding a way I'd never heard him talk before, quiet and careful, “I expect you know G.D. Squires here.”

“I do,” the man named Sal Florio said, “I always like to see you out there in center field, G.D., but mainly I admire the way you swing the bat.”

It appeared to be G.D.'s turn to stand up, and he did that, nodding and smiling but not saying anything right off.

“These boys here,” Dynamite started saying, but Sal Florio cut him off.

“They don't need an introduction,” he said. “Not even this early in the season. But I'm pleased to meet both of you personally. Mike Gonzales, you put on a show today with those two double plays you started. How deep were you when you fielded that grounder on that second one?”

“I didn't notice,” Mike said, and he stood up.

“I guess you didn't,” Sal Florio said and gave a loud laugh. It sounded real enough, but it sounded like a man letting you know something without having to spell it out in words. “I think you were too busy going that far to your right and grabbing that ball to get it to the second baseman to be looking down to see where you might've been standing. Was that right?”

“Yes, sir, I reckon so,” Mike said.

“I'll tell you where you were, then,” Sal Florio said, “when you fielded that ball. You had one foot on the outfield grass. That's where. It was a remarkable play.”

“And then, this'un,” Dynamite said, jerking his head to the side toward where I was sitting, but again before he could finish saying who I was, Sal Florio raised his hand like a third base coach telling a runner to stop right there.

“You don't need to tell me, Dynamite,” Sal Florio said. “Please.” Then he turned back to speak to a man standing behind him, a fellow I hadn't noticed before, a fellow as thick in his body as a pine stump. He was wearing a hat inside the building, pulled down tight and even on his head.

“Come around here, Soapy,” he said. “I want to let Gemar Batiste hear what you said today when he struck out that last Miller in the bottom of the ninth, the one that was supposed to be batting clean-up. Say it again.”

The man called Soapy leaned forward a little bit, put his hand up to his face and appeared to be thinking hard about what to say. When he spoke, his voice was a lot higher than you would've thought it would be. His suit of clothes looked like it was straining to hold together around him, his belt all cinched up tight and the tie around his neck a lot shorter than the one Sal Florio was wearing.

“Night, night, Shit-Ass,” he said. “Time to go to bed.”

Everybody laughed, and I felt Dynamite Dunn's elbow jabbing me in the side. I figured he meant I ought to stand up like the rest of them had done when they shook hands with Sal Florio, so I did.

“Soapy Tonton might not say much very often,” Sal Florio said, “but when he decides to speak up he hits the nail right on the head. Doesn't he, Gemar?”

“He did that time, I reckon,” I said.

“Listen to this pitcher,” Sal Florio said, putting out one hand for me to shake and grabbing Soapy Tonton by the sleeve of his coat with the other one to pull him toward me. “And people'll tell you that an Indian is hard to persuade to talk.”

I shook Soapy Tonton's hand, while everybody at the table looked on laughing. Soapy's hand was nothing like Sal Florio's. He didn't grab my hand in a hard grip like Sal had done. Soapy just laid his hand in mine and took it back quick. It was covered with the same kind of hard calluses as any working man.

“Well, gentlemen,” Sal Florio said, motioning in the air toward one of the women running around carrying trays full of bottles and glasses, “you've sure earned the right to relax and have a good time tonight by what y'all did to the Millers. I'll get out of the way and let you do just that.” By that time the woman he'd waved at was coming to our table, a big grin on her face.

“I know I'll be seeing a lot more of you, Gemar Batiste,” he said to me and looked at Mike Gonzales. “You, too, shortstop,” Sal Florio went on. “The Rice Birds look to be picking up some steam this season.”

“Can I get you something, Mr. Florio?” the waitress asked.

“Sugar,” he said. “No, me and Mr. Tonton have got to be somewhere else way the other side of the parish in a little while. But I want you to bring these boys here whatever they want tonight and put it under my name. And do that all night.”

“I sure will,” she said.

“Who was that?” Mike Gonzales asked Dynamite as we watched the two men make their way toward the door of the Bon Soir Club. “He's sure a nice fellow, ain't he?”

“Sal Florio is a lot of things,” Dynamite Dunn said, knocking back the last bit of whiskey in his glass before the waitress would be back with the next round. “But I don't think the first word that comes to mind is nice. What you believe about that, G.D.?”

“Sal is nice,” said G.D., speaking in a slow voice and looking toward the ceiling, “he is nice like a chow dog is nice when he takes your hand in his mouth and then decides not to bite down on it. You want to thank him for not biting down, but you don't want to hang around long enough for him to change his mind about what he didn't do.”

“What you're saying,” Dynamite said, “about that chow dog who's laid off of you is that you don't want to do a thing to make him have second thoughts.”

“You have hit the jackpot,” G.D. said. “Speaking of a word that Sal Florio never wants to hear mentioned or brought up.”

“Jackpot?” Mike Gonzales said. “He don't want to hear nobody say jackpot?”

“Let's get it right, now, G.D.,” Dynamite said. “Sal wants people to talk about jackpots and dream about hitting them and think about how to spend all that jackpot money, but he just wants a real jackpot to be as scarce as a fat man stealing home plate.”

“I don't know what y'all talking about,” Mike Gonzales said. “What you mean?”

“I mean that Sal Florio runs most of the slot machine concessions in every damn honky-tonk and gin mill and backdoor house in three parishes, that's what I'm talking about,” Dynamite Dunn said. “You can't drop a nickel in a slot nowhere around here that Sal Florio don't get four cents out of it.”

“Who y'all think owns the Rice Birds?” G.D. Squires said, looking from Mike Gonzales to me.

“I thought it was Tony Guidry that owned the Rayne team,” I said. “That‘s what Dutch Bernson's done told me more than once.”

“Tony Guidry might own the Rice Birds,” Dynamite said. “But Sal Florio owns Tony.”

“Don't nobody own Sal Florio then, I guess,” Mike said.

“Oh, yeah, they do,” Dynamite said. “Everybody is owned by somebody else, and that's true all over this country, but it's particularly true in Louisiana. The boys in New Orleans own Sal Florio.”

“Who're these boys in New Orleans?” Mike Gonzales said. “They the ones that make the slot machines?”

“Where are y'all from?” G.D. Squires said, taking a big swig from the new drink in front of him. “I thought both of you was born and raised up somewhere in the real world. I guess I was wrong about that.”

“They're orphans from a convent, it appears to me,” Dynamite said. “Innocent as choir boys raised on skim milk.”

“I expect maybe those boys in New Orleans must answer to the Big Man Eater,” I said without thinking about what I was going to say before opening my mouth to say it. The whiskey I'd drunk, as little as it was, was starting to rise up in me.

“The Big Man Eater?” somebody said. “What or who is that?”

“He ain't the same thing all the time, so you can't tell right off who the Big Man Eater might be,” I said. “He changes the way he looks whenever he wants to, the Big Man Eater does, so you got to be always watching if you want to spot him.”

“Is this one of them Indian stories?” Mike Gonzales said.

“Yeah, it's a story,” I said. “And you can't prove it one way or the other by arguing about it, but it works out most of the time that it's true, what the story tells you.”

“You need you some more whiskey, Gemar,” Dynamite Dunn said. “Look down at that new glass in front of you, take you a sip, and tell us what this Big Man Eater is.”

“The Big Man Eater's not a man, though he can look just like one when he wants to,” I said. “He walks around on two legs. He will fool you, and he will offer you just what you been wanting, and he's got ways to make you believe what he's saying is nothing but the pure truth. He can get little, and he can get big, and he can holler so loud your ears will break, and he can talk so low you think what you're hearing is you talking to yourself.”

“He sounds like a lot of people I've run into,” Dynamite said.

“I reckon you have run into him before,” I said and took me a drink of whiskey from my new glass. “The Big Man Eater makes it his business to meet everybody. He acts like a friend to anybody he runs into, and he runs into everybody there is sooner or later.”

“This kind of talk don't move me the way I want it to,” Mike Gonzales said. “Let's talk about something else. Let's talk about good-looking women.”

“Hell, yeah,” G.D. said, “but not no particular woman. I'm sick of them one by one.”

“He can be a woman, too,” I said. “The Big Man Eater ain't particular about his shape or what he looks like. He can be different colors, dress up in different kind of clothes, be old or young, little or big, whatever suits him when he's up to something. And let me tell you, the Big Man Eater's always up to something.”

“Ain't there no way to spot him and tell when he's trying to get at you?” Mike said. “This is just a story, right, Gemar?”