Sophomore Campaign (3 page)

“Stop that foolishness,” she said, tugging at his arm. “Stand up. This is not a joke.”

“I'm not joking, Molly,” he said, rising again to meet her gaze. “I'm serious. I really think that Mickey can—”

“Enough. You know how I feel about this, Arthur,” she said, her arms folded tightly against her chest. “I know you do. I was very clear about this last year. But if you need me to remind you, that's fine. I will. For the last time—no baseball. None. Mickey has played his last game, do you hear, his last game—for you, or anyone else.”

The sky that morning was a bright pink, bathing the awakening earth with a peculiar light that seemed to intensify everything in its wake. Murph sat on the porch, coffee cup in hand, rocking ever so slightly to the rhythmic call of the osprey stirring in the distance, his mind filled with more thoughts than his consciousness could hold.

The crowding made him feel so lonely. Numb. He sat for a good while without moving, paralyzed by a heaviness he had never felt before. Then, without warning, the ferocity with which this loneliness arrived rose up and struck at him. It wasn't the fact that his baseball career was over; he had expected, as all ballplayers do, that it would have to happen one day. It was the way it had all unfolded that galled him. How could Dennison give him such an ultimatum? Where was the justice in that? He was no more responsible for what Mickey did and didn't do than Dennison himself. Sitting there uncomfortably, he considered telling Molly. Telling her everything. Explaining to her that Mickey could save his job. And that all of them would be fine. It was so clear to him. So simple. But Molly didn't see it that way. He might be able to convince her, to alter her way of thinking so that she too might see the benefit in Mickey taking the field again. It seemed as though it was worth a
try. The thought of upsetting her, however, and of possibly alienating her and losing her too was enough to suffocate the impulse.

“Hey, you're up early today,” Molly said, peeking her head out the front door. “Wanna help me put the finishing touches on my pie? Only a few hours till show time.”

“I thought you finished that last night,” he said.

“Well, I did,” she said, swinging open the door and stepping outside. “But I think I'm going to touch up the crust with my famous brandy and vanilla glaze.” She raised her eyebrows playfully and smiled, but he looked right past her, still feeling this desolation which was clearly now his and his alone.

“Hey, is everything alright?” she asked. “You look upset, Arthur.”

She was staring at his eyes, glassy and vacant, and at the tiny shaving nick on his neck, and the way his Adam's apple seemed to protest as he swallowed. He returned her stare, looking up at the intersecting planes of his life, now embodied painfully in her presence, with a vague sense of sadness and defeat.

“No, everything's fine,” he answered, his heart beating in his throat. “I'm fine.”

The Bowersville Harvest Fair was the pride of the modest bucolic hamlet, drawing every last denizen within its tiny borders—and many from neighboring towns as well—to the autumnal celebration, like moths to an open flame. Some said it was the smell of the homemade pies and other delicacies that was the allure; others cited the firehouse band and the array of carnival games and rides. All agreed, however, that they arrived each year like pilgrims because it was tradition, a weekend of rapture and revelry that they shared not only with each other but with the ghosts of thousands of other “Bowersvillonians” who had come before them. Truth be
told, it was all those things, but mostly it was the ineffable longing in every human heart that stirs this time each year—the desperate need to grasp one last dalliance with Mother Nature before winter dropped its icy veil.

This year, the fair was imbued with additional meaning. Times were bad, and the tiny town needed something to smile about. Everyone in Bowersville was still reeling over the shocking reports of alleged Ku Klux Klan activity in the sleepy hamlet, the most recent incident involving a heinous attack on a young black couple from Kentucky that occurred while they were traveling through town en route to a distant relation in Minnesota. The ghastly crime happened on a Saturday night, not long after most of the houses in the area had dimmed their lights for the evening. It was one of the local farmers, Hank Kaestner, who found the girl that Sunday morning. She was lying in a field, in the open air, only partially clothed. Her face, dirt stained and swollen, was pressed up against a damp clump of earth that appeared to be dislodged during some sort of scuffle. Kaestner looked at her and grimaced, the mournful silence and gloom eclipsing the morning light.

Not too far from there, another grisly discovery was being made. It was the young girl's husband, mouth gagged, arms pinioned behind his back with chicken wire, his inert form dangling and twisting ever so slightly underneath a flaxen rope affixed to the lowest branch of the enormous Sycamore tree just outside the Protestant Church. The minister was the first to discover the evil design; he called Sheriff Rosco immediately. Rosco did his best to quell the hysteria attenuating the scene, assuring everyone that this event was in no way related to the other incidents that had occurred recently. They all wanted to believe his words, and some did, until news leaked out about the note Rosco found stuffed inside one of the man's pockets:

GREETINGS FROM THE KNIGHTS OF THE KU KLUX KLAN OF WISCONSIN

Gossip held the next few days, creeping into every house and igniting a maelstrom of rueful speculation. Nobody had an answer. Many of the old timers in town spoke about Klan activity some twenty-five years earlier, and how it damn near destroyed all of them. It was a time, as Kaestner put it, “to be ashamed.” It took many years for the town to expunge the stain of racial unrest.

“It wasn't easy,” the farmer recalled. “But we did it.”

Now, years later, for some inexplicable reason, it was back.

Murph, together with Molly and Mickey, was one of the first to arrive at the fair. He was holding the prize-winning pie for Molly, careful not to tip it to one side or the other, all the while trying in earnest to mask the continuous pounding in the back of his head, a ceaseless knocking that poked urgently at him like something had gotten trapped inside and was fighting to escape. It was a cool night, the darkening sky providing a velvet backdrop for the thousands of festival lights that glowed like a ceremonial gathering of fireflies. Mickey walked deliberately, his eyes darting wildly between three juggling clowns, a hand-painted carousel featuring a menagerie of mythological creatures and chariots, and the throng of children lined up for rides on a Shetland pony everyone called Jake.

“What do you think, Mickey?” Molly asked. “It's really something, isn't it?”

“There are twenty-one kids waiting for pony rides,” he answered. “Twelve girls, nine boys.” Then his eyes shifted once again, to the carousel, where he noticed that there were exactly sixteen hand-carved animations: eight horses, four unicorns, two dragons and two eagle chariots. He watched momentarily, as each whirled round and round to the inimitable sounds of a Wurlitzer band organ, delighted by the symmetry and repetition of the scene.

“Do you want to ride anything, Mickey?” Molly asked, “or play any games?”

Mickey smiled. He was about to answer, the words forming precipitously on his lips, when he caught sight of a decorated stand next to the cotton candy machine. A tall man with a painted face and a ten-gallon hat was standing behind a table adorned with a neat row of multicolored balloons, crepe paper streamers, and a series of plastic bags, each one containing a tiny goldfish. Mickey swallowed his thoughts and was off like a shot.

“Would you look at him, Arthur,” Molly said, shaking her head with wonder. “Amazing, isn't it? You would think he was still a ten-year-old boy.”

Mickey walked deliberately to the table, as if negotiating the perimeter of some invisible island between he and his intended destination, and stopped before the painted man, who stood now like some cartoon figure beneath the ridiculous brim of his hat.

Nothing about the boy stirred except his eyes, which traced with great precision the outline of the festive table.

“Howdy there, partner,” the man called. His face exploded into a full blown smile. “Try yer luck?” he continued, flicking the feathered end of a wood dart while chomping on a wad of chewing gum. “Break a balloon, win a fish.”

Mickey said nothing. It was an odd, waiting silence. His mouth had formed a lopsided grin, yet there was a severity to his look, a limitless rumination in his eyes. “Well, what's it gonna be, young fella?” the man prodded. “Try yer luck?”

“Your table is crooked,” Mickey said, pointing to one of the four table legs that was slightly shorter than the rest. “The fish on the left are lower than the fish on the right.”

“How's that?” the man asked.

“The left side of your table is almost an inch lower than the right.”

The man, irritated by the observation, rolled his eyes. He was chewing his gum slowly now, as if he were keeping time with the music in the background. “Well, I tell you what, partner,” he said, scratching his head. “You're making a bit of a scene here. Weirding people out. Know what I mean? But if you run along now, and keep this whole table thing our secret, you can pick out one of these spectacular gold fish.”

Murph and Molly had busied themselves as well, stopping to try their luck at the carnival wheel after submitting Molly's pie to the judges. They stood next to each other, watching glumly as the magic wheel of fortune clicked and turned past their hopeful predictions, time and again.

“Must not be our night,” Molly laughed. She closed her eyes, delighting in the ambling breeze that swept across her face, and let her hand fall cheerily on Murph's shoulder. “Let's try again anyway,” she said. “Our luck's bound to change.”

She kissed him gently on the cheek, her lips soft and warm against his skin, whispered loving thoughts in his ear and convinced him to play again. Murph sighed loudly, dropped another quarter on the table with reluctant fingers, and spun the wheel. It just wasn't meant to be. After several more unsuccessful spins, followed by a series of Murph's loud, emphatic swearing and histrionics that seemed to release itself from somewhere deep within his soul, they walked away, three dollars in the hole.

“Calm down, Arthur,” she said. “What's wrong with you? Why are you getting so upset? It's just a stupid game.”

In a moment, things righted themselves. Mickey, now finished with his business at the goldfish table, ran into Pee Wee, Woody, and Jimmy Llamas, and all of them joined Murph and Molly just as they were about to try their hand at Tic Tac Toe.

“Hey, Mickey,” Pee Wee said. “Watcha got there in the bag?”

“Fish,” he replied.

“Where'd you get him? You ain't holding out on your best friend now, are you?”

“He was the fourth one. Fourth from the left end.”

“Nice job, Huckleberry,” Woody teased. “Did you win him or something?” Murph, aware of Molly's watchful eye, shot Danvers a look.

“No, Mickey did not win him,” the boy answered. “I just got him. From the man over there.”

They each took a turn tossing the plastic balls onto the Tic Tac Toe grid, with only Llamas managing to get the required three in a row. After watching the mercurial character dance around with a rubber dog in hand and listening to him extol his prowess as “simply the best there ever was,” they moved on.

They walked slowly, eyes lit by flickering bulbs, feet moving collectively to the Polka tunes emanating from the Bowersville Fire Department band. Murph was enjoying himself as best he could. But his interest was waning. He moved listlessly, the frenetic surroundings connecting themselves somehow to his subconscious mind. He gasped, and lagged behind Molly's gait, as if he were suddenly realizing the harvest of bitterness and regret he was sowing by not pursuing the issue with Dennison and Mickey.

“What are you chuckleheads doing here anyway?” Murph asked. “Someone lock the door at The Bucket?”

“No, we thought we'd come here first for a while, have some laughs,” Llamas replied.

“Where are the rest of the guys?” Murph continued. “I thought Boxcar was going to be here?”

“Yeah, he was supposed to be,” Woody explained. “He was all set, but then he said he wasn't feeling too good. Don't reckon I know about the others.”

Murph found himself growing more and more restless. He abandoned the jocular façade for good and by varying degrees peered warily into the eyes of his star third baseman. “Damn shame,” he said. “I really needed to talk to him.” He paused momentarily, placing his hand on Woody's shoulder indulgently. He was running out of time and the path of his inner demon was easy to follow now. “Maybe you have a second, Woody. I sure could use it.”

The two men distanced themselves from the others and spoke in hushed tones beneath a sky that was now entirely black. Murph just wanted to be cleared of all the angst. From the way things looked now, he felt as though his life as a baseball man was over and he needed to begin the arduous process of moving forward, to clear his mind through some sort of formal acknowledgment or announcement. To say the unspeakable out loud just might clear his mind. And to have his mind cleared would be ecstasy—a definable, liberating purification. He longed for that now above all else, the way he had longed for Molly, with a simplicity of the heart that was deep and true.
Just let my head be clear
, he thought,
and I can move on
. Everyone else could either support the decision Dennison had made or scream foul and rally to his defense. He just wanted to be finished with it.

“Now listen to me,” he began, his face flushed and broken. “What I'm about to tell you, Woody, stays right here for now.”