Dirty Rice (29 page)

Sal was moving from one player to the next, slapping them on the back and shaking hands, and I expected he'd be wanting to say hello to me before long. Soapy wasn't saying nothing to nobody, that fedora on his head, and it was mostly business as usual.

Everybody was feeling good, steam was coming out of the shower room where some folks were still washing up, Dutch Bernson was hoorawing Dynamite Dunn, and I was getting dressed so I could leave and get something to eat.

“Gemar,” Mike Gonzales said to me, “You did some good pitching today. You ain't fixing to go back home to Miz Doucette's house and eat that old cold supper, are you?”

“It's paid for,” I said. “And I want to get my money's worth, I reckon. So yeah, I'll be walking up Serenity Street here in a minute or two.”

“You don't have to settle for that old French cooking tonight. Let me buy you a steak at Venable's. Come on, let's go.”

“How you going to pay for a meal of beefsteak at Venable's? You been saying you ain't got a dime to spare. I thought you was broke.”

“I was broke,” Mike said. “Broke as the Ten Commandments, but I ain't broke no more. Come on go with us. Dynamite's done took me up on the offer.”

“Did you find some money on the sidewalk or rob a bank or something?”

“Uhn-uh. I made me some extra money, and I earned every cent of it.”

“Tell me how you did that,” I said. “Did you get you a job on the side?” Some of the Rice Bird players did work now and then other than playing baseball, especially the ones that had a wife and kids to support. They wasn't supposed to work nowhere else during the season, and the contract all of us signed said that. But some would find ways to make a little money on the side. I reckoned they had to, even though they could get fired. But getting fired depended on how good you was playing baseball, naturally. The weaker you were as a player the more you lived by the rules and the paper you signed. The higher your batting average or the games you won if you pitched, the less you had to worry. That was the way it worked back then.

“Didn't you see me batting today?” Mike said. “Cast your mind back and see can you figure out what I'm talking about.”

“You got one single, didn't you? I don't remember nothing else but outs you made.”

“I ain't talking about singles and grounding out,” Mike said, leaning over to speak close to my ear. “I'm talking about knocking foul balls.”

“You did hit a bunch of them at one at-bat,” I said. “But it didn't do you no good. Porky Sanders kept throwing you strikes until you got put out at first. He never walked you, and you didn't hit him that time up.”

“No, I didn't do no good that way, but I did myself a whole lot of good by hitting all them fouls in a row like that.”

“That don't make sense to me. Not a lick.”

“See if this makes sense,” Mike said, reaching into his pants pocket and drawing out some bills to show me. They wasn't singles. “Is this thirty-five dollars sense enough for you, pitcher?”

Mike stuck the money back in his pocket and walked off laughing to talk to somebody else, and it wasn't until a couple of hours later sitting in Venable's Restaurant on the main street in Rayne that I learned how hitting foul balls made him enough dollars to be able to buy steak dinners and beer and whiskey for the three of us.

“See,” Mike said, taking a swig out of his glass of beer, which wasn't Jax but a premium brand, “Mr. Florio seen me bat in one of them games against Lake Charles. It was Glen Mouton pitching, and y'all know how cute he is when he's throwing them drops and curves and knuckle balls up there at you. He will wear you out waiting for them to get there.”

“Most of them's strikes, too,” Dynamite Dunn said. “And he don't throw a fastball that'll hurt to catch it. He ain't like some cold bastards who don't give a damn about damaging their catcher's hands. Ain't that right, Gemar?”

“Some catchers ain't afraid to catch a well-thrown pitch,” I said. “They just put their heads down and catch what's throwed them, and they don't whine about it.”

“Listen to what I'm saying, y'all,” Mike said. “What Mouton throws is easy to get the bat on, but the damn ball won't go anywhere most of the time you hit it.”

“It won't for a banjo hitter, no,” Dynamite said. “Though I have noticed some batters drive them little piss ant curves and drops to the wall and over it. I have seen them very pitches get the literal hell knocked out of them. Ain't that right, Gemar?” I nodded and Mike kept on talking.

“So I just kept fouling them balls off that Mouton was throwing me, figuring I'd wait him out until he walked me. And I did, but I had to hit eight or nine fouls before I got that fourth ball throwed me so I could go to first free. Later on there in the clubhouse, Sal Florio asked me how many foul balls I could hit in a row, and I said if it was against a control pitcher who didn't have a big fastball, I reckoned I could hit fifteen or twenty before I got too tired and missed.”

“Sal gave you money for hitting foul balls?” I said.

“No, not directly. No. He laid a hundred dollar bet with Bobo Chenier over in Crowley that I could hit ten fouls in a row, and y'all saw me hit twelve off of Porky Sanders. So Sal won the bet and paid me part of the money and added a bonus for me hitting two more than ten. Eat up, gentlemen, and drink your beer and whiskey. Y'all owe it to foul balls.”

“I will declare you the foul ball king, Mr. Gonzales,” Dynamite Dunn said. “But I wouldn't be telling this story around too much.”

“Why not? I didn't hurt nothing by hitting foul balls. What's wrong with that?”

“Some folks would say that sounds a little like gambling, Mike. And they would say a player who gets paid money by Sal Florio for doing something on the baseball field to win a bet is consorting with a known gambler.”

“It ain't against the law to gamble in Louisiana,” Mike said. “Hell, it's slot machines and crap tables everywhere you look.”

“If you judge whether something's against the law in Louisiana by the fact you can witness it being done, my friend,” Dynamite said, “it would be legal to screw a whore on the steps of the capitol building in Baton Rouge.”

“Did you really see that get done?” Mike said. “On them big white steps?”

“See it done, hell, I was the one that did it,” Dynamite said. “But it wasn't my fault, and I'm sorry it happened. I'll never do it again. I swear.”

“I believe you, Dynamite,” I told him. “You're my catcher, and you wouldn't lie.”

“I will give you credit for one thing good you did, Mike,” Dynamite said. “You got Gemar here out of that old lady's house for at least one night. He will hang around there and read the Bible and I don't know what all. Thinks them Indian thoughts. Getting him out on the street is an accomplishment.”

“Another good thing Mike done,” I said. “He broke Bobo Chenier from betting on people hitting foul balls, I do believe.”

“He'll have to find something else to do,” Dynamite said. “And I'll lay a bet with anybody that'll take it. It's this. Bobo Chenier and Sal Florio will be betting on some other things involving the Rayne Rice Birds in what's left of this season. That is a sure bet I ain't going to lose.”

“I sure hope they do,” Mike Gonzales said. “I'm getting to where I'm liking the gambling life.”

Tommy Grenier started showing up after every game the Rice Birds played from then on whether we was home or on the road. What was happening with the Rice Birds was the best copy around, he told us, and finally right before we left for a trip to Monroe to play our last two games of the season with them, Tommy came in hot and excited. He'd been assigned by the
New Orleans Picayune
to write a story for the sports page on what Tommy called the battle for the Evangeline League playoffs. “Chief Batiste,” he said to me, “does it prey on your mind to realize that if the Rice Birds win these next two games with Monroe that it means it's impossible for Alexandria to catch you?”

“No, I hadn't thought about that,” I said. “I don't even know that's a fact.”

“It is that,” he said. “The Rice Birds win those two from the Zephyrs it means it'll be Opelousas and Rayne in the playoffs for the championship. How's that hit you, Chief?”

“That's real good, I reckon,” I said, “to know that. But I don't believe we going to let down in any of the games we got left to play. I expect we'll win them last two, even if we don't need to.”

“Damn, I got to get that quote down,” Tommy Grenier said. “I don't believe I'm going to have to change a thing about the way you said that.”

“Could be only one fly in the ointment,” he went on to say. “If Rayne does end up losing the two games with the Zephyrs, that'll mean y'all will have to play one extra game with Alexandria to see who gets to play Opelousas in the playoffs. That's pressure, right?”

“I reckon it could be.”

“Do you think the Rice Birds will beat the Zephyrs up there in Monroe on their home field, Chief?”

“I always think we'll win,” I said. “I like to let my mind dwell on winning.”

“Another damn fine quote. Got another thing or two to say to me, Chief?”

I couldn't think of anything to say that might interest, so he went off in a little while to find somebody else.

When we left the next day for Monroe, that was going to be the last long road trip we'd be taking that season. Monroe is way up in the north part of Louisiana, and back then it took a long time to get there, roads being what they was in the thirties. Dynamite Dunn had explained to me that Governor or Senator Huey Long was building new highways and bridges all over Louisiana, but I guess he hadn't got the ones finished yet between Acadia Parish and the parish up north where Monroe is. The road was two narrow lanes, naturally, and it was so full of curves once you got out of that flat country in South Louisiana that it slowed every car and truck down.

I could see the country change as we went north, the rice fields at first and water everywhere you looked. As we moved on, the country started changing to stands of scrub pine and little farms. By the time we got two or three hours out of Rayne, what I was seeing put me in mind of East Texas more than it did of what I'd got used to in South Louisiana. Even the mailboxes on the sides of the road was different, and going as slow as the bus was moving, you could read the names painted on them.

After a good long while, getting on toward time to get something to eat, the driver pulled the toad mobile off the road in a little town called Kindry, and stopped in a big gravel lot in front of a café with the word EATS painted on a sign hanging off the porch. The building hadn't never been painted, like a lot of the ones I was used to seeing back in Coushatta County, its boards the color they turn when the sun and rain's had a long time to work on them.

“How did you find this one, Dutch?” G.D. Squires hollered out. “I bet it took a while to locate such a place for fine dining.”

“I imagine Dutch has got a financial interest in this establishment,” Dynamite Dunn said. “I expect some kind of a kickback is about to kick back in a minute or two here.”

“I have ate here before, boys,” Dutch said. “I will tell you that, and they serve up a real nice plate lunch.”

“How long can a man hold it down?” somebody else said.

We all unloaded, and in a little while, we'd filled up several tables inside the place called EATS. A couple of fellows wearing overalls were up at the counter eating, and scattered around at some other tables was a few more folks looking into their plates. The waitress and a man from behind the counter came around to talk to Dutch, and you could tell that they'd already been told we was coming there sometime that day to eat.

I'd sat down at a table with Mike Gonzales, and a couple of other fellows came up and joined us. We were all looking up at a blackboard above the counter, and Dutch stood up and called out for us to listen to him. “Gentlemen,” he said. “We already made special arrangements about what you'll be eating today, so there ain't no use looking at the menu and thinking you're going to order off that. We going to have a real good plate lunch, and everybody's getting the same thing. So just sit back and relax, and Mr. Arlis Pritchard and his girls will be bringing your plates to you just as quick as they can. You boys are going to enjoy this meal. I flat guarantee you.”

“Tump it on out here on the ground in front of us, Dutch,” Clarence Meche said. “It's feeding time.”

In a little while, the waitress came out with the first load of plates. It looked like pinto beans and squash and something green and a chunk of cornbread and a piece of gray-looking meat covered with gravy, and wasn't much different from what I'd been eating all my life. The waitress stopped laying the plates down and went back to the kitchen with two of them still in her hand.

“She couldn't bear to inflict them two on us,” Dynamite Dunn said. “She's got a kind heart, that girl does.”

The man Dutch had called Mr. Arlis Pritchard was out from behind the counter, looking over at the table where I was sitting and walking over to the Rice Bird manager. He leaned over, said something in Dutch's ear, and both men started talking at the same time, shaking their heads back and forth.

“Shit,” Mike Gonzales said. “I know what's going on.”

Pritchard said out loud, “You didn't tell me it was going to be coloreds in the bunch. I done told you. We don't let them in the house, and we sure don't serve them nothing to eat.”

“Where is a colored man?” Dutch said. “Show me where he is.”

“Right over yonder,” Pritchard said, pointing with a long-handled fork he'd carried with him from the kitchen toward the table where we were sitting.

“Him sitting next to that Mexican. That's the nigger I'm talking about, and we don't serve niggers in my café.”

“I ain't a nigger,” Mike Gonzales said. “I'm a redbone, and that ain't a nigger.”

“Arlis Pritchard ain't talking about you, Mike,” I said. “I believe you're the Mexican he's pointing his fork at, so I must be the nigger.”

“Bullshit,” Dynamite Dunn said, jumping up from his seat. “You ain't the nigger, Chief. I got to confess it, boys. I'm the nigger.”

“You lying son-of-a-bitch,” G.D. Squires yelled and stood up so fast his chair fell over behind him. “Goddamn it, I'm the nigger, and I'll whip your ass if you say I ain't.”

Everybody got into it then. By the time Arlis Pritchard had run back into the kitchen, everybody on the Rice Bird team was claiming to be the nigger, and not a one backed off all the way back onto the toad mobile.

After a while, things calmed down enough for folks to start complaining about being hungry, Dutch promising we'd stop at a hamburger place up the road a piece where we could eat outside. “I'm still pissed off,” Mike said to me. “I ain't no nigger. I'm a redbone.”

“Well, I ain't a Mexican,” I told him. “Let's get that straight. I'm a Coushatta.”

“Dutch,” G.D. Squires hollered out about then. “I didn't hear you while ago admit that you're the nigger. Are you trying to hide that from the team?”

“Oh, shit,” Dutch said. “All right, goddamn it. I'm the nigger.”

“Not only that, boys,” Dynamite Dunn said. “Our manager is the nigger with a toad under his hat.”

“Is the toad the nigger?” somebody hollered out.

“Leave Herbert out of this,” Dutch said. “He ain't nothing but pure dee toad.”

• • •

I wasn't scheduled to pitch that first game with Monroe. It was Hookey Irwin's turn to start, and I would be up on the mound in the second one. Dutch had put me out in center field for the first one. When you play center field, the way you see the field is some different from the view you get in either one of the other outfield positions.

Dutch Bernson was not a manager who tried to get scientific when he was telling players where to stand. But in that first game against the Monroes, I was playing pretty much on a line straight out from second base and standing about halfway to the wall when a batter would come to the plate. I could see everything taking place on the diamond, positioned like that, and nothing was on a slant. What that meant was I could see how the second baseman and the shortstop played every ball hit in their direction, and I could judge how good their throws would be to all the bases.

Hookey was rocking along just fine, getting people out when he had to, making Monroe leave men on base without scoring, and not giving up any well-hit pokes. By the end of the seventh or eighth inning, the Rice Birds was ahead by a couple of runs, and everything was settled in and working like it ought to. It was then that Val Scoggins batting for the Zephyrs caught one of Hookey's fastballs where he wanted it, and by the time I'd gone to the wall in center field and throwed the ball back in to the second baseman, Scoggins was standing on second base.

The next man up worked the pitcher for a walk, since Hookey was throwing a little too careful to him, and that put men on first and second, and I relaxed a little bit. The next batter was an old fellow who'd been rattling around for years playing wherever he could. His name was Ernest Bell, and players called him Ding Dong sometimes. He handled that all right, as far as anybody could tell. There was one out already, and I figured Bell for nothing more than a ground ball to short, and then Mike Gonzales would force the man at second and maybe start a double play if things went right.

They did, at first. The second pitch Hookey made was just where he wanted to put it, and Ernest Bell swung too high, got a piece of it, and the ball went on two hops to Mike Gonzales. He stepped up, fielded the ball clean, and then spun to flip it to the Rice Bird second baseman who'd tag second and burn it down to first to put out Bell for the double play. When Mike turned to throw the ball to Phil Pellicore, he didn't flip it, though. He threw it hard and he threw it high, and the ball ended up halfway to the right center field wall before it stopped rolling. Two runs came in by the time I'd got to the ball, grabbed it and threw it toward home plate to Dynamite Dunn, and Ernest Bell ended up on third for the first time in a long time.

Mike Gonzales was looking deep into his glove like there was something hiding inside the pocket, and the hometown fans of the Monroe Zephyrs were hollering like they'd all just been handed ten dollar bills.

So the score was tied, there wasn't but one out still, and the next man up, a lefty named Cletis Morris, got around on Hookey's first pitch and knocked it to the right field wall, where G.D. Squires caught it and tried to throw out Ernest Bell at home. He had tagged up, and the third base coach'd sent him, and G.D.'s throw was way up the third base line. Bell didn't even have to slide to score, but he did anyway.

That one run stood up for the Monroe Zephyrs during the rest of the game, and when we made our last out and drug on back toward the high-school gym, we'd lost a game in the standings and the Alexandria Aces had picked up one more on us. Tommy Grenier was waiting in the Monroe High School gym to tell me and anybody who'd listen.

“Chief,” he said, “let me know what you're thinking after the Rice Birds losing that close one. I bet you're really blue about now, right?”

“Gemar Batiste ain't never been called blue before,” Dynamite Dunn said. “I guarantee you. Red, now, he's been called red a lot.”

“He is the original red man,” G.D. Squires said, listening in.

“You're wrong there, G.D.,” I told him. “The original red man was that color because he was made out of mud, and all Abba Mikko had to work with was that old Alabama clay which is red as fire.”

“It's really gratifying to hear you Rice Birds be able to joke at a time like this,” Tommy Grenier said. “That way of looking at hard times will stand you in good stead for the rest of the season.”

“I don't know about G.D.,” I said. “I ain't joking about how the original man got to be red colored.”

“G.D. can't talk for himself,” Dynamite said. “It's always somebody needful to talk for him.”

“This banter among you fellows really cheers me up,” Tommy Grenier said, not looking up from scribbling in his notebook. “But let me ask you one more thing, Chief.”