The House of Daniel (18 page)

The boarding house had crickets. Crickets aren't as disgusting as cockroaches or bedbugs, but they're about as annoying. For one thing, the little bastards kept chirping all night long. I've heard they do it 'cause they want to meet lady crickets. I wish they went to dances or promenaded in the town square instead.

And for another thing, crickets hop. They end up in bed with you instead of with a lady cricket. You yank a cricket off your eyebrow in the middle of the night, you won't go back to sleep right away. Believe me, you won't. And if you fling it against the wall hard enough to splatter it, the spot it leaves there will make the landlady screech at you while you're leaving.

She was screeching at a bunch of us when we left the next morning. We were mostly yawning. I wasn't the only one who'd had a crummy night. We went back to the chili joint for breakfast. They scrambled eggs and peppers and spicy sausage all together and wrapped 'em in those flat corn things they call tortillas. And they made coffee strong enough to pry our eyes open before we went on to Las Cruces.

Las Cruces is a real town, almost a city. Six thousand, maybe eight thousand people—bigger than a place like Pampa or Big Spring, though not a patch on somewhere like Ponca City. It sits alongside the Rio Grande. Wherever they can make the water from the river stretch, everything's all green and growing. Cotton, corn, beets, asparagus, sweet potatoes, pecans … I don't know what all else. Go six inches past where the Rio Grande reaches and you're out in the desert again.

They said the La Mesa Town Team was older, but the Blue Sox had their own ballyard. They didn't have to play in the city park. They may have had it, but I didn't much like it. Lions Park was, well, a sight to behold. It was only about 290 feet down the right-field line, and the fence was low.

Center was something else. That was why I didn't like it. There was no fence at all out there. If somebody hit one over your head, it would roll as far as it rolled, and all you could do was chase it.

“Snake, you better play deep,” Harv told me.

“Thanks, boss. I never would have worked that out on my own,” I said. He kinda laughed. I went on, “How come you didn't warn me it was like this?”

“I've seen too doggone many ballparks, that's how come,” he answered. “I remember every one of 'em real good, but I don't always recollect which one's where, if you know what I mean.”

I hadn't thought about it, but it made sense once I did. He'd taken that team over most of the country and down south of the border. He'd been doing it for years and years. How could you blame him if he misremembered whether a park was in this town or that other one fifty miles farther down the highway?

Then I stopped caring about small stuff like that. When the Blue Sox went out to catch flies, the fellow who patrolled that fenceless center field for 'em was black as moonless midnight. He looked like a center fielder, tall and skinny. He ran like a center fielder, too, and threw like one. But he was
black
.

*   *   *

That jerk of a second baseman in El Paso called me a Yankee just before he hauled off and punched me. All of a sudden, it struck me funny, almost laughing funny. I never felt less like a Yankee than I did that afternoon in Lions Park, not in all my born days.

Don't get me wrong. I knew colored folks played ball. I never had any trouble with that. I knew some colored teams were mighty good, too, likely about as good as some of the clubs in the real bigs. But where I came from, after folks got grown whites played with whites and coloreds with coloreds. That was how things worked. I didn't wonder about it, any more than I wondered that water was wet. I just took it for granted.

Oh, I knew they did it different in other parts of the country. But knowing that was one thing. Seeing it was something else. And playing against a colored fella on a mostly white team, that was something else again.

I sidled over to Eddie. Then I sorta nodded toward that colored outfielder. I didn't want folks to see me pointing at him. I didn't want him to see it, either. “We really gonna go up against him, Eddie?” I asked. I must've sounded like I had trouble believing it. Well, I did.

“Sure we are,” Eddie said. It didn't feel like
sure
to me. He went on, “You aren't in Oklahoma any more. You aren't in Texas, either.”

“Yeah, I know.” I spat on the ground. It was so dry, the glob soaked in in nothing flat. “But it feels wrong to me. Know what I'm saying?”

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “You want to tell Harv you won't play against him?”

Part of me wanted to. Playing against coloreds wasn't how I was raised. But I could guess what would happen if I did. I wouldn't play. I wouldn't get paid. And when the bus went up the road to wherever the House of Daniel had their next game, I wouldn't be on it. Because this smoke wouldn't be the only one playing side by side with white men here. He was just the first.

So I spat again. I let out a long, long sigh. And I said, “No, I don't want to tell Harv anything.”

He nodded. “Probably a good idea to keep your trap shut. Less you say, less you've got to be sorry for afterwards.”

“Uh-huh.” Ballplayers go,
He's a good guy. Wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful
. I understood it better now than I ever had before.

“Okey-doke. It's just a ballgame, Snake. Jack, I mean.” Eddie called me by my right name to show he was serious. “In between the white lines, only thing that counts is whether he can play or not. The field doesn't care what color he is. I'm not telling you to marry his sister. I'm not telling him to marry yours, either. But if he whacks one out to you, you catch the son of a bitch, all right? 'Cause he'll sure be trying to catch yours.”

“It's just a ballgame. Right.” I tried to sound as though I believed that. I didn't have an easy time of it.

The man who called out the lineups to the crowd said the colored guy's name was Willard Something-or-other. Weren't more than a handful of black faces in the stands. But the hand he got sounded about the same as the ones the fans gave the rest of the Blue Sox. They booed us. They wouldn't have booed any louder if we were all black—or green, come to that. They couldn't have. We were Goliaths, come to take on their Davids. They wanted to throw us all to the lions.

Out went the Blue Sox. The crowd cheered some more. Their pitcher warmed up from the mound. He threw hard, but he could put it where he wanted. You go up against somebody like that, you're liable to have a long day. I hoped Fidgety Frank would have his good stuff.

We went down in order to start the game. Willard came in toward the infield to catch a fly ball. I saw where he was playing out there: deep, deep, deep. I'd already made up my mind to do the same thing. Now I decided to take even a couple more steps back.

Nobody hit the ball my way in the bottom of the first, so it didn't seem to matter. I had a long jog in. The Blue Sox's colored center fielder trotted out to take my place. You get an edge any way you can. As we passed each other, I said, “How's it goin', Tarbaby?”

He stopped. He was bigger than I thought. Bigger than me, and he looked tougher, too. I wondered what I'd bigmouthed my way into, and if I'd get out of it in one piece. But he just said, “Up yours, Snowball,” and went on to take his position.

All right. We split that one, near enough. The House of Daniel got a single in the second, but that was it. I was in the on-deck circle when we made the last out. The colored guy didn't say anything to me when I came out, and I didn't say anything to him.

He did say something to the Blue Sox's pitcher when they were in the dugout. I didn't know what, but I could guess. Sure enough, when I came up to start the third, the guy got me right in the ribs. “Oof!” I said.

“Take your base!” The plate ump pointed down to first. I breathed tiny little sips of air till the ache eased back some.

Azariah was coaching first. “He meant that,” he said. “Don't worry—we'll get even.”

“Don't bother,” I told him. “Reckon I had that one coming.”

Azariah sent me a funny look. So did the guy playing first for the Blue Sox, only his was a different kind of funny look. “Now you know better than to give Willard crap,” he said.

“Just riding him some,” I answered. “Hey, he's a ballplayer, too, right? You can't wrap him up in excelsior.”

“Being colored's hard enough. Getting crap for it's worse,” he said.

I didn't say anything to that. Instead, I lit out for second as soon as their pitcher went into his stretch. Stole it easy—he wasn't paying much attention to me. My ribs hurt some more when I slid, but I didn't show it.

Two pitches later, I swiped third. Thought it was one to a customer, did they? Okey-doke, they had their reasons for plunking me. But I'd do my doggonedest to make 'em pay. Man on first, no outs, that's nothing much. Man on third, no outs, and they've got worries.

Sure enough, I scored on a fly ball to center. Willard put everything he had into his peg, but the ball went deep enough so Big Bertha couldn't've shot me down from there.

When I got back to the dugout, they patted me on the back and swatted me on the rear. “Keep an eye on the smoke,” I said. “If he gets on, you bet your backside he's gonna run.”

Willard singled with one out in the fifth. Did he take a big lead? What do you think? Fidgety Frank threw over there. The colored guy dove back to the bag. “Safe!” the base umpire yelled. Willard took another hefty lead. Frank threw over there again. “Safe!”

This time, Fidgety Frank seemed to forget about the runner. Willard took off … but Frank was pitching out. The batter swung anyway, to try to protect the thief. It didn't help. Amos turned loose a perfect throw.

“Out!” the umpire shouted. Willard couldn't even beef. The ball was waiting for him when he got there. He got up shaking his head, brushed himself off, and left the field.

The guy who'd been in the box launched an enormous drive to center. It would have sailed out of a lot of parks, and I don't mean small ones. Here, I was already so deep, I took half a dozen steps back—I didn't even have to turn around and run—and caught the ball. He kicked at the dirt. He'd killed that one, and he had nothing to show for it but a big, fat out.

We got another run in the seventh, when Wes swung late and lobbed one just over the short fence in right. The ball the guy from the Blue Sox teed off on went a lot farther, but Wes' counted for more. Baseball's like that sometimes. Not only how far you hit 'em, but where.

Fidgety Frank kept getting into trouble and wriggling off the hook. He gave up seven or eight hits and walked three or four more, but nobody scored. The Blue Sox loaded the bases in the bottom of the ninth with one out. Their batter hit a line drive back at Frank. He caught it—probably to keep from getting smacked in the kisser—and doubled their runner off first. That was the ballgame. Not pretty, but we'd take it.

First thing out of their manager's mouth was, “Well, at least you beat La Mesa, too. We won't hear about it on the Fourth of July.”

“They told us to take care of you so they wouldn't have to,” Harv answered.

“Why'd you have to go and listen to them?” Their manager was one of those guys who couldn't stand losing and didn't know how to hide it. A lot of people like that are good at whatever they end up doing. A lot of them end up dead sooner than they might otherwise, though.

“You've got a good ballclub here,” Harv said, and he wasn't joshing to make the other fellow feel better. “Will we see you in Denver?”

“We'll be there,” the Blue Sox's manager said. “I hope we don't run across you long-haired so-and-sos till one of the late rounds.”

“Long-haired so-and-sos. That's us.” Harv patted the lion's mane embroidered on his shirt. He sounded proud of being one of those.

They went on gabbing for a while after that, but I lost track of what they were saying. The colored guy, Willard, came up to me and jabbed a finger in my chest. “You want to make something out of what you said before, buddy, we can go back behind the right-field fence and settle it now.”

A black man who said something like that to a white in Oklahoma would've been asking for a hemp necktie. Or if he got shot on the spot, no jury in the state would convict the white man. But I wasn't in Oklahoma any more. Things here were different.

You can't back down. That never changes anywhere. I didn't care to fight, but you can't back down. So I said, “We can if you want to. Your call. I've got no quarrel with you outside the white lines. If you've got one with me, we'll go take care of it, that's all.”

He'd had some time to simmer down after I razzed him. He wasn't so steamed any more. After a couple of seconds, he said, “Hell with it. Johnny got you pretty good there. That'll do for payback.”

“Cost you a run,” I said. I wondered if I'd have the stitches from that baseball printed on my bruise when I stripped down. That's also the kind of thing where you don't let on, though.

The corners of Willard's mouth turned down. “Yeah, you ran on us. I wanted to get even.”

“Reckoned you would,” I answered.

He thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Godalmightydamn!” he went. “No wonder you pitched out! I shoulda figured on that.” He walked off scuffing through the dirt and kicking up dust.

“You havin' trouble with that fella?” Azariah asked me.

“Nah. We fixed it,” I said. And since nobody chucked a rock through my window or set fire to the bus or anything like that, I guess I was right.

*   *   *

Seventy miles, more or less, from Las Cruces north and east to Alamogordo. It's another one of those lonesome roads. Not a lot of traffic on it, and the countryside is mostly desert. A few ranches, but none close by the road. They stick to the water holes that spawned 'em. Without those, they'd be nothing but sand and rock and rattlesnakes and roadrunners.