Sophomore Campaign (20 page)

The game began uneventfully, with Mickey retiring the first three batters in order, each on a weak groundball to the right side of the infield. The Brewers went quietly in their half of first as well, and were back on the field before most of the crowd had time to grab a hot dog or arrest the thunder of the beer carts rolling through the stands.

The leadoff batter for the Giants, Johnny McCullers, began the top of the second frame with one of those classic at bats that seemed to go on in perpetuity. He had fallen behind 0–2 on two straight fastballs that shaved the outside corner, but battled back, fouling off
the next two offerings before demonstrating a keen eye on the next two pitches, which both missed just off that same corner. With the count now even, McCullers really went to work, spoiling the next five fastballs with a quick, defensive flick of the wrists, spraying the crowd with a shower of souvenirs. Mickey continued to fire, and McCullers answered the bell every time, fouling each one into the stands. The dance went on for several more pitches, until the umpire, having depleted his supply of baseballs, called time so that he could reload his pockets.

McCullers stepped out, and banged his cleats with the barrel of his bat. His arms were tired, but the determination still burned. He exhaled loudly, rolled his shoulders, and dug in once again. Mickey was up for the challenge as well, drawing strength and energy from the 15,000 strong who were standing and chanting in unison his name.

Mickey received a new ball from the umpire and spun it in his hand, searching for just the right grip. Then he took his sign from Lester. Another fastball, this time up and in. A little chin music. Something high and hard, designed to get into the stubborn batter's kitchen. McCullers had been leaning over the plate the entire at bat, trying desperately to protect the outer half. He was definitely vulnerable inside. A well placed heater would most certainly saw him off at the hands and end the interminable battle right then and there.

Lester kept one finger flush against his inner thigh until Mickey nodded; then he set the target just inches from McCuller's belt buckle. As the determined batter whirled his bat overhead, Mickey rocked back, extended his front leg and fired a dart that blistered the air en route to Lester's yawning pocket. McCullers, who had been expecting something away, froze instantly, his arms locking up like seized gears in an overworked machine, just as the ball exploded through the strike zone.

“Ball three,” the umpire shouted. “Inside.”

The Giant's bench roared its approval, reveling in the valiant battle their comrade was waging against his formidable opponent, while Murph broke out of his silence with cries of torment.

“Oh, for Christ sake!” he thundered. “Come on, ump. You're squeezing him now. That plate's got two sides. Holy crap. Open your eyes. You're missing a pretty damn good game here.”

A torrent of boos rained down all across Borchert Field as the crowd began to voice its displeasure as well. Mickey, unphased by the raucous milieu, took the return toss from Lester and prepared for his next delivery. He licked his lips, blew out a cleansing breath, and adjusted the buckle on his belt, pulling it sharply to the left, then back a tad to the right, so that it lay in the center of his waist. Then he lined up his feet in their customary position, three inches from the right edge of the rubber. Standing there, looking at Lester's index and middle finger dangling furtively in between the crafty catcher's legs, Mickey was thinking that the air was cooler than usual. And that his stomach felt full, like maybe he had eaten too many biscuits and gravy at the pre-game meal. His eye marked the antics of two pigeons just beyond the grandstand, tussling over the discarded remnants of a hot dog bun. He smiled. He thought of Silas Harper, and the coop of pigeons the old man had at his place just down the road from the old farm where Mickey had grown up.

“These are special birds, Mick,” he always told him, placing one in the boy's hands so that he could examine the creature up close. “Messenger pigeons. Trained 'em myself. Can carry a message a hundred miles. Yes sireee. Amazing birds.”

Mickey smiled at the reminiscence, and somewhere, in the region of his mind reserved only for those thoughts that possessed the power to warm his fractured heart, he considered that maybe these Borchert Field pigeons weren't Borchert Field pigeons at all.
Maybe, just maybe, they belonged to Silas Harper, and had flown all the way from Indiana with a message. For him. His smile grew wider. He had just stepped off the rubber and began his quest to catch a better look when the sound of Murph's voice shook him from his momentary musing.

“Come on now, Mick. Concentrate now. Go get him. No letting up. Go right after him, kid.”

Mickey refocused, steadying himself once again on the still pristine white stripe. With Lester's target now his primary focus, he placed his hands together, rolled his arms in inimitable fashion, and broke off a 12–6 bender that dove through the strike zone so sharply, so stealthily, that by the time McCullers had taken his hack, the ball was gone, leaving only the cool, vacant air as fodder for his eager bat.

“Steeerike three!” the umpire cried, ringing up McCullers with a histrionic flare that delighted the expectant crowd. Their boy had won the battle. The roars of approval were fleeting, however, replaced by gasps of incredulity and disappointment once everyone saw McCullers scampering down the line toward first base and Lester, who had let the brilliant pitch slip through the five hole, chasing the ball all the way to the wall behind home plate. By the time the dejected catcher retrieved his blunder, McCullers was standing safely on the first base bag.

Lester had been brilliant all year defensively. Nobody in the league was better. He had performed flawlessly for the entire season, making all the routine plays when called upon and turning in some highlight reel material as well. But there were still some malcontents, a sect of myopic trouble stirrers who refused to accept the presence of a black man on a white man's diamond, who came to the ballpark, just waiting for a moment like this to spew their venom.

“That's what you get when you let a negro do a man's job,” one
of the more vitriolic members of this unholy faction screamed from the seats behind home plate.

“Hey, boy, don't you have some things to shovel, or some shoes that need shining? Hmm? Are you listening to me, boy? Maybe I ought to come down there and slap that fat head of yours, teach you not to go messing up the game the way you do.”

Lester looked up at the rabid miscreant, his eyes heavy and gray, then turned and began walking back to home plate.

“Don't you turn your back on me, boy. Ain't you listening? Huh? Is you stupid too? Can't you talk? Maybe that's your problem. You're just a big, dumb coon who don't know no better. That's why maybe you need to be taught—and I'm a mighty good teacher, boy—that there ain't no place for no dirty, stinkin' monkeys on a baseball field. That's right. Are you listening, boy?”

Lester was more than halfway back to home plate when he stopped suddenly. His face, now moist with perspiration, was hard and strained, and his nostrils flared, sending forth into the cool night air, with every breath, two barely perceptible lines of volcanic respiration. He knew that he should have just kept walking, like his mama would want him to, but something inside broke loose and was insisting to be heard.

He had just turned to face the reprobate once again when the strangled cries of another arrested his advance.

“Lester Sledge ain't stupid, Mister,” Mickey shouted, walking in from his position on the mound toward the angry man's seat. “He's right smart. And he's my friend. My friend. You stop saying those bad words to him. He's my friend. Mickey thinks that…”

Lester turned yet again, this time placing himself strategically between an unhinged Mickey and his intended destination. The boy continued to scream at the man while trying to get closer, despite Lester's bear hug and reassuring whispers that everything was
okay. The entire Brewers' bench emptied. Mickey's unexpected display enraged the man even further.

“Are you talking to me?” he fired back, finger pointed in Mickey's direction. “Ain't this rich. This is just priceless. Man alive. Now I done seen everything. A damn retard defending a stupid, good for nothing coon. What a circus. Sit down, retard, before you get hurt too.”

Murph and the others got in between the war of words, and someone was just about to summon security when the natural order of things took over. It hadn't been more than a second or two after the words left the man's mouth that he was besieged by an impromptu assembly of Brew Crew vigilantes who, having taken umbrage at the pejorative remarks launched at their favorite son, leapt from their seats, subdued the villain and began dragging him, with a good deal of difficulty, toward the exit.

“Let me go! Take your friggin' hands off me!” he screamed, struggling to break free. “What's wrong with you people?” The man continued to struggle, his invectives becoming less and less audible as the group of men dragged him further and further from the field. He continued to rant about the white race, and injustice, and the old world order, but nobody was listening. Nobody, except Mickey, who heard the final words of the man's diatribe loud and clear. “I'll get you! You hear? Your black ass is mine. You hear me? I will get you.”

The words were shrill and hateful and rattled the boy, brought him back instantly to that violent memory of not too long ago. And to those horrible little notes that just kept coming, day after day.

Mickey tried to go on. He got back on the mound and continued to pitch. But his mind was somewhere else. Somewhere dark and menacing, a place he'd only just discovered. A place he scarcely understood. He walked the next batter he faced on four
straight pitches. That was followed by a sharp single up the middle, a booming double off the top of the left field wall, and a bases clearing triple that was smoked down the right field line. In a blink of an eye, the Brewers were trailing 4–0.

Lester called time and made a trip out to the mound at Murph's behest. Mickey was reeling, and spoke frantically to Lester with a back draft of fear and uncertainty washing over him.

“Mickey doesn't understand why people call you names, Lester Sledge,” he began. “And why they want to hurt you. Mickey is trying to help Lester. Honest. I am. But I'm afraid. Mickey is a little scared.”

Lester sighed and searched for words carefully, as if negotiating an unfamiliar room in the dark.

“Hey, no worries, Mick,” he said, patting the boy on the shoulder. “Come on now. You're one of my best friends. And you are helping. Just by being with me. That guy, and the others like him? Don't pay them no mind. Ain't nothing worth troubling yourself with. My mama used to say, ‘the empty drum always makes the loudest noise.' That's all they are. Empty drums. Ain't nothing fer either one of us to worry about.”

Mickey was still, silenced by some internal affliction that he could not permit to the surface.

“Hey, Mick, ya hearing me? Come on now. You got's a game to pitch. Just do your thing, and stop thinking 'bout me.”

More animated now, Lester returned to his position behind the plate, continuing his attempts to buoy Mickey's sagging spirits. The boy was listening, but the unyielding specter of impending horror was an uncompromising master. He couldn't do anything right. He hit one batter, then another. Two more Giants reached base via base on balls followed by a colossal drive that cleared the center field wall by a good twenty-five feet. “The wheels are coming off, for
Christ sake,” Matheson carped. “Go and get him, Murph. Cripe, we're down by ten runs and it's only the second inning. The fat lady's getting ready to sing and we haven't even had one dance.”

After the game, Murph sat in the shadows of his office, line score in one hand, a tumbler of Jack Daniels in the other. 19–2. One of the worst beatings he had ever taken as a manager. His shoulders slumped so heavily with weighty thoughts that it appeared he would topple forward and break right though the desk top at any moment. How did it get so crazy? Christ, it all seemed so perfect. That day at the mill. Lester and Mickey. The battery that was going to take the league by storm. Maybe that was his mistake, thinking it was only about baseball. That some sort of Darwinian principle would rule the day, and Lester's baseball prowess would render all of them masters of their little universe. He gulped his whiskey and grimaced, realizing now that he had forgotten about some little environmental struggles, things that skewed the parameters of competition, like ignorance, bigotry and hatred. Yeah, he had not taken those into account. Not fully anyway. Now he found himself in quite a mess; found himself drifting, being pushed inexorably by a merciless tide toward a rock laden jetty. The only thing in question now was when the horrific crash would happen. He felt defeated, but maintained still a little desire to paddle. To try and alter the collision course one last time.

He needed Mickey to be Mickey again. Yes. That was it. He needed Mickey back. Somehow, some way, he had to figure out how to make Mickey okay with this whole thing with Lester. And he desperately needed to find a way to make the boy talk.

Something was amiss. Yes, that was it. Mickey was the answer here. He was the one that made everything go. It had gone on long enough—all this mystery and unspoken truth of things. He poured himself another shot and threw it down. It is enough, he repeated,
returning the tumbler to the desk top with a vengeance. The time has come. No more.

Things for Murph went from bad to worse. Although he and Molly were moving forward with their plans, Dennison was pressing him again with threats to his professional future. Moreover, Boxcar continued to grow sicker by the day, and Lester, in the wake of all the violence and hatred, decided that he had had enough and that he would be going back to the mill and his former team.