Sophomore Campaign (22 page)

The sheriff said nothing for a minute. A dark matrix of confusion washed across his face as he stood, arms folded and foot tapping, weighing the request.

“Well, I certainly don't want to make this a habit now, Arthur,” he said peremptorily. “I got a whole damn town to look out for. Can't be doing personal favors for anyone that asks. But, I suppose this one time wouldn't hurt. Besides, it'll give me and Lester a chance to chat—get to know each other a little better.” The Sheriff flashed a crooked grin and slapped Lester gently on the back.

“Super,” Murph exclaimed. “We'll be ready in a flash.”

The four men walked out to the car together. The sun was burning hot in a high sky, with the only relief coming from an
occasional breeze. Murph and Mickey loaded their gear into Murph's car while Lester prepared to do the same with Rosco.

“Why don't you give me them bags, boy,” Rosco said, extending his hand. “We'll put ‘em in the trunk.”

Lester stood, biting his lips, his eyes wide and distant.

“Just take the big one,” he said, clutching the other tightly to his chest. “This one here is special. Has my gloves in it. I always keeps it with me.”

“Suit yourself. But you best climb in the back with it. I don't want no dirt getting all over the front of my car.”

Lester sat quietly, his bag flat on his lap, staring hypnotically as the bucolic landscape rolled away just outside his window. The gilly flowers were beautiful, a magical blanket of purple and white splashed across a field of weeping pines. He was thinking of his mom, and how she loved this time of year. “Hot July brings cooling showers, apricots and gilly flowers,” she always sang when the calendar approached her favorite month. God, she loved those flowers. He could still hear so vividly her humming over the running water as she filled the old pickle jars she had collected with fragrant bouquets of freshly cut purples, pinks, and whites.

“You see, Lester,” she explained, surveying the austere condition of their dwelling. “There's always a way to light up even the darkest room.”

That was her. Always searching for the silver lining. He missed her.

“So, Lester,” the sheriff began, as if suddenly bored by the silence. “These white folks gave you a pretty bad time?”

“Yes, sir, Sheriff. Ain't been easy.”

“Well, then you won't mind me asking why the heck you came back here.”

Lester took a while to answer.

“I was ready to just walk away, ya know? I knows what people think of me. Some of ya anyway. And I might a just stayed away, if it hadn't been for the guys. I miss the fellas. Mickey. Pee Wee. And Murph. That's one true white man. And I miss the baseball. Ain't the same in the Negro League. So I says to myself, after Murph's wedding, do you want to take the chance? Sure enough, my answer was that darn easy. So, here I am.”

Rosco sighed.

“Well, it's like I told Murph. Don't have to be that way. You could always stop what you're doing, and go back to that Negro Leagues. When you stop and consider what you may be facing here, you might find it more to your liking.”

“That's what I used to think too, ‘cept I ain't doing nothing Sheriff,” he answered. I'm just playing baseball. Baseball. A game. Ain't no crime in that.”

Rosco laughed.

“Looky here. Why don't we just cut the horse crap, boy,” he said, catching Lester's gaze in the rear view mirror.

Lester was surprised by the sheriff's sudden candor.

“You know that you don't belong here, and that these good old-fashioned white folk ain't gonna rest till you're gone. So what's the sense of it, huh? Ain't we all suffered enough?”

Realizing the true sentiment implied by Rosco's comments, Lester had the impulse to lash out, to tell this prattling bigot just what he'd like to do to him, but he remembered what Murph had told him and restrained himself before any invectives could pass his lips.

“I don't reckon I know how any of
you
have suffered,” he said. “Looks to me like y'all doing okay. I'm the one's been put out.”

Rosco checked his mirror again for Murph's car then shook his head and sighed.

“Goddammit, boy, you must be one stupid coon, you know that?
Now, I'm gonna say this, just one more time. And if you go repeating what I say, I'll deny it, and then I'll come after you myself. I'm telling you to pack up your shit and get the hell out of town. If you leave, I'll make sure nobody touches you. I can do that. And nobody has to know we talked. But if you're gonna be the same old pig-headed negro that don't know his place, well then, boy, I'm afraid you're in for more trouble—a lot worse—and something tells me I won't be around to help you when they wrap that rope 'round your neck and hang you from the highest limb in town.”

Lester felt a steady throbbing at his temples and his throat burned. Waves of fury pulsated through his blood, igniting his eyes and heart and the rest of his body before finally settling in his hands, which had already begun curling into fists.

“Now that don't seem mighty fair, Sheriff,” Lester said through clenched teeth, forcing his hands open before resting them on either side of his bag. “I'm just a ballplayer. That's all.”

“It may not be fair, boy,” Rosco replied, biting the tip off a new cigar, “but that's the law of the land in these parts. Always has been. Always will be. Now, you just use your head, boy. Go play your game, and in the morning, I trust you'll do the right thing.”

Lester played the game, just as Rosco said. And what a game it was. He was never better. Everything he did was swift and effortless. In the top half of the first, he scooped a ball that was in the dirt, and from his knees, gunned down a would be base stealer by a good four feet. He followed that with a long two-run homer in the home half of the frame and added an extra base hit in each of the next three at bats as well. His stellar play electrified the crowd, who spent the majority of the contest on its feet, chanting the words “
Sledge Hammer”
while striking the air with clenched fists in celebratory
pantomime. By the time the final out was recorded, Lester's stat line read as follows: 4-4, homerun, 2 doubles, triple and 8 RBI. He was also credited with 4 scored runs, 3 put outs, and 3 assists by virtue of the 3 base runners he cut down. All in all, it was quite a performance.

The most important statistic, however, was the “W” that the struggling Brew Crew earned, snapping a prolonged malaise that had all but decimated their chances of post-season play.

“Man, you were something else today, Lester,” Murph said on their way home, shaking his head in glorious disbelief.

“Yeah, it felt pretty good today.”

“Pretty good? Are you joking? You were a one-man wrecking crew.”

Lester's self-effacing countenance erupted uncharacteristically into another toothy grin.

“Yeah, I
was
something, wasn't I? I guess I was motivated today for some reason.”

Murph was dizzy with relief.

“Maybe Rosco should drive you to the games all the time,” he said winking.

Lester laughed.

“Yeah, right. When pigs fly.”

“So tell me now. Did he say what I thought he would say? Or something like it?”

“Uh huh.”

“Just like I said,” Murph exclaimed.

“Well, not exactly. But close enough. He expects me to leave tomorrow morning. First thing.”

“Is that what he said?” Murph asked.

“Yup.” Lester motioned with his eyes to the back seat, where Mickey sat, and put a finger to his lips. “I'll fill you in on all the rest once we get home.”

Rosco received a call from Murph at eight o'clock the next morning just as the sun had pushed through what appeared to be a red-orange canvas through a bank of clouds loitering on the horizon. He was at the house by nine.

“Of course I'll escort Lester out of town,” he said gaily. “Why, it's the least I can do for the kid, after all he's been through.” Murph exchanged a quick look with Lester, then shifted his attention to the sheriff.

“That's not exactly why we asked you here,” he said, reaching inside Lester's bag and removing the wire recorder which had been resting on top. Rosco scrutinized the machine, his mind floating vaguely on the intent of such a display.

“What's that?” Rosco asked, shrugging his shoulders. “This is why you asked me here? To show me some gizmo?”

“Not exactly.” Murph responded. “We have something that we think you should hear.”

Rosco stood moodily beside Murph and Lester as Murph hit the middle button on the machine.

“Goddammit, boy, you must be one stupid coon, you know that? Now, I'm gonna say this, just one more time. And if you go repeating what I say, I'll deny it, and then I'll come after you myself. I'm telling you to pack up your shit and get the hell out of town. If you leave, I'll make sure nobody touches you. I can do that. And nobody has to know we talked. But if you're gonna be the same old pig-headed negro that don't know his place, well then, boy, I'm afraid you're in for more trouble—a lot worse—and something tells me I won't be around to help you when they wrap that rope 'round your neck and hang you from the highest limb in town.”

“I think I can stop it there,” Murph said, his emotions in full control. “You get the idea.” Rosco was standing dispiritedly, arms folded.

“That's clever. Real clever. But it don't mean a hill of crap, Arthur. No sir. Not a hill of crap. And I got a good mind, as is my right, to confiscate that machine there. Looks mighty similar to one that was reported stolen recently.”

“You can take the machine if you want,” Murph said sharply. “Wouldn't make no difference. The message has been saved somewhere else. You know, in the unlikely event that some unscrupulous person should try to tamper with it.”

Rosco plunged his restless hands into his pockets and busied himself with some loose change.

“What are you trying to pull here, Arthur?” he asked, leaning forward as if to suggest some sort of physical threat. “Are you feeling okay?”

He laughed nervously. The two men stood for a moment staring at each other.

“It's really quite simple,” Murph said. “You give us the names of those good old boys under the hoods, or I'll turn this whole thing, recording and all, over to the FBI, and blow the lid clear off this friggin' stink hole.”

The sheriff stood awkwardly now, as if the room were moving beneath his feet and he were losing his balance. His face grew a shade paler, and his breath, quick and erratic, was all at once audible. Murph pulled out a chair and motioned for his guest to sit. Then, in the revealing glow of the morning light, Rosco began to speak, his blood burning beneath his skin as he struggled mightily with the acute discomfort that accompanies a man upon the sudden realization that he is suddenly suspended inviolably in the tendrils of fickle machinations.

Married life agreed with Murph. He had never felt so grounded, so much a part of the universe. It never occurred to him it could be like this. Sure, he had had relationships before. But those were all, in retrospect, superficial dalliances that served only to fulfill transitory desires. It never lasted. This was different. Much different. His soul was directing his thoughts now, as if all of Molly's warmth and tenderness had filled his body and had become, through some celestial transformation, a salubrious energy and virility that was now guiding him through the rigor of every day.

The eight-game home stand provided a wonderful glimpse into what life would be like for them, if and when Murph should hang up his cleats for the very last time.

“Hello there, Mrs. Murphy,” he said each time he came back home, a smile burgeoning behind a bouquet of freshly cut flowers. “What would you like to do?”

She always blushed and giggled like a school girl when he asked her that.

“I do not know, kind sir. What did you have in mind?”

It was good. The calendar indicated that the Brewers were scheduled for a night game, so Murph and Molly spent the first
part of their day together, working in the garden or sitting on the porch, sharing lemonade and stories that neither one of them had ever heard before.

“Did I ever tell you about the time we were in Cleveland, with Whitey Burgess and the farmer's daughter he went skinny dipping with?”

“No,” Molly said. “But from the look on your face, it sounds like a good one.”

Murph took off his hat and began twisting it in his hands, as if the motion were somehow wringing out the details of the distant reminiscence.

“Whitey was a real ladies' man. Golden hair, broad shoulders, million dollar smile. He had it all going. So we're in this small town for a double header, and the night before, Whitey meets this beautiful girl—I think Eva was her name. Anyway, she agrees to sneak out and meet him at the lake that night, for a moonlit swim, and he tells me and Bump Livingston to come too, cause her old man apparently was a loose cannon. Used to follow her whenever she left the house, shot gun and all. Whitey wanted us to stand guard while he made time with this girl.”

The laughter bathed both of them in a playful glow.

“So you guys went?” she asked. “Just like that?”

“Let me finish now. Somewhere between him asking and us actually going, we came up with the idea that it would be funny to teach old Whitey a lesson. He was always shooting his mouth off about how he was scoring all the time with the ladies. So Bump, he borrows a shot gun and some overalls and a hat. And about twenty minutes into Whitey's little escapade, Bump, dressed as this crazed farmer, starts hollering ‘where's my little girl' and firing bullets into the air. Well Whitey, as soon as he hears all the ruckus, ducks his head down real low, just above the water, trying to stay out of the
moonlight. He was terrified. It was priceless. Then, just to really put the fear of God into him, Bump starts screaming at me. ‘I see you there. I'll learn ya to mess with my little girl.' With that, he fires another shot, well over my head, but I drop to the ground like a sack of potatoes, and lie there, still as a log.”