Welcome to the Show Page 7

  Cripes, those sure were tough days. Murph continued to move his finger across the picture, as if each intermittent stop were a “Hello, nice to see you.” Clem Finster. Arkie Fries. Jimmy Llamas. Boxcar. They were quite a cast of characters. None, however, were more instrumental in the team’s success than Elliot McGinty, the shortstop they all called Pee Wee. Pee Wee stood a mere five foot, five inches tall and weighed a staggering 127 pounds soaking wet. He had red, cherubic cheeks and a head full of corkscrew curls. With his uniform on and his cap pulled neatly across his brow, he looked as if he should be studying for an algebra exam or shooting marbles in the schoolyard. Nobody would have ever guessed that his soft hands and lightning-fast feet made him the premier shortstop in the league.

  But it wasn’t Pee Wee’s fielding prowess that Murph was remembering. The troubled manager certainly appreciated McGinty’s talent, but it was the shortstop’s cabin in Baker’s Woods—a small, dilapidated shanty with weathered wood shingles and a rusty tin roof, that had suddenly captured Murph’s imagination. He recalled how the team was struggling to come together and how the fishing trip that McGinty hosted had united them and really helped the other fellas get to know and understand Mickey. Murph lifted the dusty frame off the wall, shook his head, and smiled. Maybe that was it. It worked once before. Why not now?

  With a renewed sense of hope and purpose, Murph began considering, with more and more certainty, the idea of getting the team together for some sort of team bonding event. This wasn’t Milwaukee though, and these were major league ballplayers who were used to more fast-paced, exciting endeavors. Fishing at some tiny lake was not going to cut it. Murph’s first thought was a restaurant or saloon, a place where the team could eat and drink and really cut loose. It was the perfect venue. It’s what most of the guys did anyway. Murph was certain he had found the answer and had already begun thinking of just the right place when he remembered Molly. All at once his spirit sagged. She would never allow Mickey to attend—not after the last two incidents that occurred while her son was at such a place. And Mickey was the most vital cog in this wheel. There was no point in putting this all together without him. There had to be another way.

  These were the times when Murph missed Matheson the most. The garrulous old-timer was certainly a handful, and his incessant babbling and generous use of clichés could really fray one’s nerves, but he always seemed to know just what to do in situations like these. “More than one way to skin a cat,” he would probably say, or something like that. Yes, there had to be a way—something he was not thinking of. He could hear Matheson’s voice, loud and clear, as he considered his options. “There’s none so deaf, Murph, as those who will not hear.”

  Murph spent the next half hour trying to come up with an idea. It had to be just right, right enough to satisfy Molly but also his most unforgiving critics, especially Ozmore. Murph knew that if Ozmore was not on board, the whole thing would tumble like a house of cards. Why was this guy such a hump? How does someone get to be so self-important, so full of himself? That was it! What better way to get Ozmore on board than to make it all about him? It was sheer genius. The vainglorious hothead would never be able to resist. Murph laughed out loud as he rubbed his hands together. Why hadn’t he seen it before?

  Later that day, after practice, Murph stood before his team and began unfurling his plan. His confidence and resolve gained more and more momentum with each word he spoke. It was, perhaps, his most calculated moment.

  “So you see, fellas, I think it’s important that we come together, both on and off the field. And what better time to do so than during our ten-game home stand.” Murph paused, crossed the floor over to the locker room door, and rested his shoulder against the jamb. He had everyone’s attention.

  “I was thinking that we should get together tomorrow afternoon before our series against the Reds begins,” he continued. “You know, maybe a little barbeque, some beer and cigars.” He paused briefly, walked back toward the center of the room, then settled right in front of Ozmore.

  “And I think that it’s only right that we do it all at the home of the team’s heart and soul.” He smiled, nodded confidently, and put his hand on Ozmore’s shoulder. “What do you say, Ozzy? Will you have us to your place if I take care of all the rest?”

  Ozmore wrinkled his nose. His mouth contorted as if something sour had just passed his lips. He was just about to speak when the entire room erupted in a mixture of cheers and applause.

  “Ozzy! Ozzy! Ozzy!

  The walls of the locker room reverberated with raucous adulation for the newly elected host.

  Murph laughed heartily as he watched Ozmore’s reluctance soften.

  “Hey, uh, sure, sure,” Ozmore said, slowly embracing the sudden limelight. “I’ll have you guys at my place. Why not? It’s a little short notice, and I’ve got some things to take care of, but I can make it work.” He paused momentarily before continuing. “And after I do, it will be the best damn time you guys have ever had.”

  The next morning, under a brilliant, cloudless sky that had just given birth to an early May sun, Murph and the team arrived at Ozmore’s with all the accessories needed for a really killer get-together. They divided up the labor, shared the responsibility for laying things out, and within a hour’s time, the party was in full swing.

  In one corner of the yard, in a perfectly rectangular space between pristine rows of tomato plants and a two-tier birdbath fountain, Tommy Holmes and Johnny Sain were embroiled in a horseshoe match for the ages. Laughter spilled from the half circle of lawn chairs just across the way as a cigar-smoking trio, Lester, Bob Elliot, and Walter Cooper, reacted to Holmes’s theatrics after he rattled one of the silver shoes around the metal peg.

  “Don’t even mess with me, Johnny boy,” Holmes boasted. “I’ll hit it every time. I am the horseshoe master.”

  Warren Spahn was watching and laughing too. “I’ll school you later on, master,” he mocked as he handed out frosty bottles of Pabst Blue Ribbon from a metal washtub overflowing with ice. “Just as soon as I finish watering the troops, I’ll show you how a real man tosses them things.”

  There were other games as well, including cards, croquet, and even an impromptu contest of bocce ball engineered by none other than Ozmore himself. A dirty sack of old baseballs and an errant stick wedged strategically in the ground was all the host needed to get things rolling.

  “The cleaner balls belong to one side and the dirty ones the other,” he proclaimed proudly as he divided up the contents of the bag. “Who’s game?” Only Murph and Mickey, who had assumed the cooking duties at the grill, were exempt from the contest. Their focus remained on the sizzling meats.“You see, Mick, you have to be careful with the ribs,” Murph explained. “Don’t want to cook ’em too much.”

  Mickey said nothing at first; he just looked down at his shoes until the silence became too uncomfortable.

  “Well how much do you have to cook them?” he finally asked.

  “Huh?”

  “The ribs. If you can’t cook them too much, how do you know what’s too little and what’s just right?”

  Murph stared blankly into the white smoke billowing from the grill. “Well, Mick, if you just turn ’em and—”

  “Because my mama bakes pies all the time, and she always sets the timer for between forty-five and fifty-five minutes. Apple pie takes forty-five minutes, but sweet potato, pecan, cherry, and peach all cook for fifty. That’s the longest, except for rhubarb, which usually takes fifty-five or sixty. And lemon meringue, that’s the shortest—sometimes forty or even thirty-five. But if you don’t know how—”

  “Mick, it’s like pitching, ya know? You just have to read what’s happening. If you look at how it’s cooking, you know when it’s time.”

  Mickey’s concern had departed, but his curiosity surged. He was scanning the grill feverishly. “What about the hamburgers and hot dogs?”

  Murph shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “Same thing. Just have to look.�
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  “But how can you have ribs, hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken, too, all on the grill all at once and cook them for different amounts of time?”

  “Mickey, it really doesn’t—”

  “Mickey thinks that the hamburgers and hot dogs should go first because they would take the longest, then maybe the chicken next and then the ribs. They shouldn’t really touch each other either, Murph. You don’t want barbeque sauce from the chicken getting on the hot dogs or that stuff on the ribs getting on the hamburgers. Unless you put barbeque sauce on your hamburgers, then it’s okay, but only if you do it after they come off the grill. But you can’t put too much on account of the bun getting too wet. Then it starts to fall apart, gets messy, and sticks to the hamburger. One time my mama put so much sauce on my hamburger bun it fell apart right in my hands.”

  Murph filled his lungs and exhaled slowly. A swift return of more ordered thoughts helped him to extricate himself from Mickey’s whirling mania.

  “Say, Mick, how about we talk about something else, huh? Like the team. How ya liking life as a big leaguer? Everything okay?”

  Mickey reached for the steel tongs in front of him and began moving the hot dogs so that they were now all perfectly aligned and occupied their own space—a safe distance from the hamburgers and chicken.

  “Yeah, I like being a big leaguer,” he answered. His eyes were still fixed on the hot dogs. “It’s fun. I sort of miss the old guys, like Pee Wee and Woody, but it’s okay.”

  The sun, in its present location, caused Murph and Mickey to look almost silhouetted, as though they were positioned on stage. Mickey continued to fiddle with the arrangement of items cooking on the grill while Murph rubbed his eyes; the white, viscous smoke was irritating.

  “Yeah, being a big leaguer is fun,” Murph commented. “Every little boy’s dream for sure. But I have to confess, Mick, it’s a lot harder than I ever imagined, you know.”

  “Why is it hard, Murph?” Mickey asked. “Baseball ain’t hard. Baseball is fun. It’s the same game you know—three strikes, four balls, nine innings. Same game, Mr. Murphy.”

  He didn’t expect Mickey to understand, but the kid was his only outlet at the moment. Murph couldn’t help but recall his long, circuitous route to the bigs—and how on many occasions he had resurrected his dream. It wasn’t the sort of idyllic image that faded with waking, acquiescing to the early dawn. This dream was imbued with a colossal vitality, insinuating itself into everything he saw or heard—everything he smelled. He couldn’t look at a scorecard or put a bat in his hands without hearing the calls from the crowd. Everything was haunted: the smell of freshly cut grass—the sound of flags dancing in a stiff breeze. He couldn’t even eat sweet potato pie—even Molly’s—without reminiscing about Rosie’s, the little truck stop he used to frequent with the guys when he was just a rookie. The images of glory days past spilled out of his head, always most intensely during those minor league moments when he had thought he was going to fall short for sure. It was almost crippling. Now that he had made it, the uncertainty somehow seemed even worse.

  “The same game, Mick?” he replied. “Yes, yes, I suppose so.” He was looking past the barbeque grill into the yard. “But with a lot more to lose.”

  The afternoon went on in glorious fashion, and Murph was pleased with the tenor of things. There was plenty of eating and drinking and good-natured fun, all of which seemed to belie the concern that Murph had previously harbored. Even Ozmore, whom Murph deemed his greatest challenge, had embraced the group and his role as the ambassador of camaraderie. The typically irascible athlete had spent the entire day reveling in his assignment as host, tending to the needs of his guests with great alacrity, and in doing so, facilitating a sense of unity and togetherness. Murph couldn’t help but smile as the feeling continued to gain momentum.

  “Hey, if anyone needs anything, anything at all, I will be inside for a bit with Spahny,” Ozmore announced. “Seems as though there’s a game of eight-ball that needs to be decided and it just can’t wait.” He flexed his bicep and growled. “Just let me know when my sister gets here.”

  The air cooled considerably as the day lengthened, but the festivities held their initial intensity. Even Mickey, who was usually guarded around those whom he viewed as strangers, got swept up in all the hoopla. He had found his way to the makeshift horseshoe pit and together with Lester and Sid Gordon held a couple of the steel shoes in his right hand and was eyeballing the spike some forty feet away.

  “Now take it easy there, Mick,” Lester joked. “That there ain’t no baseball to be thrown like no rocket. Could kill someone with that arm of yours.”

  Gordon chuckled and then nodded with a modicum of genuine concern. “He’s right, Mickey. Be real careful. Maybe you should sit it out for a while and just watch how we do this. You really should know a little about horseshoes before playing.”

  “Nah, Mickey knows a lot about horseshoes. I can try now.”

  A light behind the boy’s eyes seemed to shine as he made his first toss.

  “Mickey reckons he knows everything about horseshoes, Sid,” he said.

  “It’s okay, Mick, I didn’t mean to—”

  “Horseshoes is made from steel or iron. You nail ’em to the palmar surface of the hoof, but sometimes my daddy used to glue ’em if that was too hard to do, like with Agatha. She were this pretty horse we had on our farm. She had a long, brown mane and pretty eyes. But we could never really get them shoes on her right. She and Oscar got along real well. Oscar were my pig. He didn’t have no shoes, but he had a—”

  “No, no, Mick,” Gordon interrupted. “I didn’t mean that. I just meant that it helps to know a little something about the game of horseshoes before you start throwing them. That’s all.”

  Mickey heard nothing being said—no footsteps, no voices, not even the loud clanking of each shoe as it hooked around the metal spike.

  “Looks like he knows all he has to Gordy,” Lester said laughing. “The kid is unreal. Freaky good at some things. And if I know him like I thinks I do, he going to be here a while.”

  Having heeded Lester’s warning, Gordon slipped away with the catcher and moved to the other side of the yard while Mickey continued to throw one shoe after another, pausing only to retrieve the shoes once he had tossed the last one. On his walks to and from the spike, he thought more about Agatha. And his father, Clarence. There were so many moments he wished he could forget, like the time Clarence took apart the horse’s bridle in a fit of rage and began whipping her with the throatlatch, all because she wouldn’t stand still while he washed her.

  “You good fer nothin’ nag,” he had barked as he slashed at her hind quarters and back. “I’ll learn ya to mess around while I’m working here.”

  Mickey was horrified; his throat closed and tears filled his eyes. His roiling terror and panic and helplessness supplanted his submissiveness.

  “Let her alone—stop it, stop it!” he pleaded. “You’re hurting her. Stop it! Stop!”

  His enraged father had halted his attack abruptly, as if some invisible force had suddenly seized his arm. He stared blankly for a moment, as if he were reading his next move from a random point off in the distance. Then he turned from the horse to face his son, the leather strap dangling lifelessly at his side. His eyes moved slowly at first, up and down the boy’s body in measuring fashion. Then, without much warning, the ferocity with which his eyeballs shifted accelerated exponentially, spinning riotously back and forth as if the beady gray dots were about to detach themselves from their sockets.

  “So you feel something for this no good, flea-bitten nag, do ya?” he thundered, raising the strap behind his ear. “Well, maybe when you feel this, you’ll learn to keep yer big, fat mouth shut and keep yer nose out of my business.”

  Mickey had not thought about Clarence in some time. He let the horseshoes fall to the ground before wandering over to a wooden bench where he proceeded to sit uneasily, rocking back and forth as if trying to rid
himself of the awful memory. These were the moments that, for him, seemed to rage on with an indefatigable vitality and no clear remedy. Sure, the recitation of “Silver” helped calm the tremors, but only after someone else, someone safe, interceded at some point. He had just begun rocking more deliberately and forming the words “Slowly, silently, now the moon” when it happened.

  Squinting into the late afternoon sunshine, Mickey saw her. She appeared through the golden haze like an angel. He recognized those soft sandy curls instantly, and was calmed by the familiarity. She saw him as well, and soon the distance between the two had been erased by eager steps from both directions.

  “Mickey, right?” she said enthusiastically the second he was close enough to her to hear. “From the bar? What are you doing here?”

  Mickey closed his eyes. The scent of lilac was strong and his heartbeat was loud in his ears. “Where is your rabbit’s foot, Miss Jolene? I hope you did not lose it again.”

  Her face softened in remembrance. She studied him, her collard green eyes twinkling in the late afternoon sunlight. “No, no,” she said, reaching into her pocket to retrieve her key ring. “It’s still right where it needs to be. See?”

  Mickey smiled and ran his finger over the soft white fur. “That’s good. Good luck too. Just like horseshoes. I was just playing them, over there.” He pointed in the direction of the game. She began to comment but before she could pass a word across her lips Mickey was off.

  “But I reckon I don’t get why horseshoes is good luck neither. Ain’t nothing lucky about them for Agatha or any other horse that’s got to stay still for the nailing of them on their hooves. And I ain’t so sure how them things are lucky for people neither. Can’t wear them none and they is too heavy to put around your neck. Four-leaf clover is lucky, cause you can’t ever hardly find one. So you’s lucky just to get one. Now ladybugs is lucky, I suppose. One time one landed on my shoulder and after that Mickey won three games at a carnival. That was lucky but not as lucky as when I saw a shooting star and—”