Brittle Innings

18

In the second week of June, we went on the road against Quitman and Marble Springs and played good ball.

We didn’t sweep either series, though. That next Saturday, we split a doubleheader against the Seminoles, losing the opener on a squeeze bunt RBI in the bottom of the twelfth. Talk about peeved! We revved for revenge in the so-called nightcap (so-called because the sun never had a chance to set) and shellacked them three to zip in about ninety minutes. We got some nutritious shuteye that night and ambushed the poor saps again on Sunday.

At the end of my first road trip, we had fourteen wins and ten losses. Because Opelika and LaGrange had been playing like drunken Looney Tune characters, the pennant race tightened. We had a homestand against Eufaula and a big road trip against the Orphans and the Gendarmes scheduled at the end of the next week. I got a glow on thinking about it. Wins in those games could say a lot about that summer’s final standings.

Now, some pro leagues, including the Negro bigs, liked to play a split season because they always had more personnel changes than the two white major loops. At summer’s end, they had two pennant winners, a first- and a second-half champeen, and a playoff to decide the overall victor. Mister JayMac’s wartime philosophy-and he had a lot of say in the CVL-was simple: Since no team’d get more than a half dozen new guys once play started, we should pull one hard-fought season with the guys on board. If one team ran away with it, attendance might falter, but that summer we had balance at the top and lots of jockeying around during the dog-day swelter. So the fans never jumped ship. Even bunglers like the Boll Weevils, the Linenmakers, and the Quitman Mockingbirds drew crowds when Highbridge and the other top teams came to town.

On the road, we traveled in the Bomber, with Darius at the wheel and Mister JayMac in the catbird seat behind him. In other towns, the boss depended on taxies for transportation, or obliging locals with cars, or his own sore feet. But because he had a lot of friends around south Georgia, you seldom saw him walking. Sometimes he’d hijack the Bomber. Ration stamps for gas never posed him a problem.

Hellbender players didn’t stay in motor courts or hotels-with the exception, of course, of Hank Clerval. Jumbo wanted lodgings in commercial hostelries, and he got his way because, well, he could play. Also, he cowed even Mister JayMac, who still didn’t care for Jumbo’s taste for private rooms-his arrangements with locals to board his players were thriftier than running a hotel tab. I benefited from Jumbo’s stand because I got to stay with him in hotels. Or I guess I did. Maybe I just lost my chance to meet some charming folks. But whether in Highbridge, Quitman, or Marble Springs, where we shared a beat-up cabin in a motor court near Seminole Park, I often felt like a cockroach, a bug underfoot. Jumbo seemed more at home in these places than I did.

With a draw on my first paycheck (I never told anybody a soldier on the train had stolen my money), I’d bought a used radio, but Jumbo didn’t like me to play it, not even to catch up on war news. He preferred books to radio programs. He thought war, even news about it, “uncivilized.” When I turned on my set in our motel, he clomped around his mat and clicked it off, the scars at his lip corners glowing like coals.

“The hostilities of nations revolt me. They prey upon and increase the petty insecurities of men.”

Unlike baseball, I thought.

But, hey, what a speech. Jumbo belonged in politics. He should run for dogcatcher. If he nixed public appearances and ran a radio campaign, he might even win.

I sat there on my cot, scared and angry. Couldn’t he’ve just asked me to turn the radio down? Somehow, though, he picked up on how bad he’d browned me off.

“I’m a pacifist, Daniel. Even had I not been too tall for the services, conscience would have required me to resist my own induction. Frankly, I would have run away.”

This speech didn’t bleach the blackness out of my mood. At my first team meeting, he’d labeled bad ballplayers traitors. Now he was talking lily-livered trash.

“My only citizenship, if I possess one, is Swiss. In both war and peace, Switzerland remains neutral.” Jumbo lumbered back to his bed. Outside, a thousand cicadas whirred.

Bus trips aboard the Bomber would fag you out faster than a boulder-pushing contest. The speed limit was thirty-five miles per hour. That turned a trip to Cottonton, our farthest pull, into a five-hour fatigue fest. Mister JayMac tried to avoid travel on game days, but if we had two series on the same road trip, he couldn’t arrange off-day travel. Usually, though, CVL schedule makers set it up so back-to-back away series occurred against teams just two or three hours apart. On my first road trip, we lost to Quitman on Friday night and left town at nine the next day to get to Marble Springs by noon, two hours before the twin bill we split there. The ride’d drained us so bad, we did great not to drop both games.

If you began fresh and had a cloud cover, the bus rides could be a hoot. Sosebee played guitar, Fanning harmonica, and just about everybody else could mouth a Kleenex-and-comb kazoo or drum a seat back. Dunnagin and several other guys sang. Darius told funny courting stories, on himself, his buddies, or players no longer with the team, tales that skirted sleaze by zeroing in on his heroes’ hopes, then ticking off all their missed connections and comeuppances. We’d fall out laughing, but not Old Stoneface, Darius. His singing voice, though, was a frog’s croak, and the only musical instrument he really knew how to play was the Brown Bomber’s clutch.

Riding back to Highbridge, Mister JayMac always made us review our games. With a score book open on his seat, he’d defend or apologize for so-so plays, and asking everybody to analyze our botches. We’d also discuss opposing hitters-how we’d got them out, how to retire them in future games.

“Play better,” Sloan always said. “Jes play better.”

“Gentlemen, we play better by practicing,” Mister JayMac said. “By thinking about what we’ve done that didn’t work. By reviewing from all sides what actually may.”

“Thinking too much’ll kill you faster than a jilted honey with a Smith and Wesson,” Charlie Snow said. Snow had the best ballplaying instincts on the club. He flowed from one spot to another and hit with the grace of an otter sliding off a rock.

“Think beforehand,” Mister JayMac said. “Not during. Most bush leaguers never go up cause they don’t want to put in the before and after work necessary to improve.”

“Other clubs don’t do this,” Fanning said. “They use bus trips to cool down and have some fun.”

“Good teams do it,” Mister JayMac said. “Who among yall wants to copy the Boll Weevils?”

Darius said, “The K. C. Monarchs do it. The Birmingham Barons do it.” Colored clubs, both of them.

“Yeah,” said Sloan. “And look where they are. Right at the top o the baseball world.”

Anyway, Mister JayMac guided us through that three-game skull session for better than an hour. He asked Fadeaway to explain why he’d slacked off towards the end of Sunday’s game. He told Evans to get Snow to teach him how to bunt.

“I know how to bunt. I jes didn’t get it done Sunday.”

“Then you don’t know how to bunt. All you can do is fake the stance and pop out backwards.”

“Fine him!” Hoey shouted from a seat or two behind Jumbo and me. “Fine the sorry peckerwood!”

The Bomber rolled past drought-stricken cattle pastures and peanut fields, rattling like a gypsy’s wagon. Most of us had pushed our windows up, and the air blowing through still had a vague morning coolness.

Lon Musselwhite lurched up the aisle. “Hear ye! Hear ye! The Rolling Assizes of the Hellbender Bureau of CVL Justice is now in session! The Honorable Judge Lionel K. Musselwhite presiding.”

“Lionel?” Skinny said. “His name’s Lionel?”

“Baseball-Latin for Muscles,” Hoey said.

Almost everybody else clapped or stamped. Muscles held up his hand. Darius glanced back and cried, “Stop! Yall gon bust the bottom outta this boat!” That helped some. So did Mister JayMac lifting his hands and making stifle-it gestures.

But the hubbub went on, and the Bomber did seem about ready to burst open and spill us onto the blacktop. In the pasture whipping past, moon-faced cows watched us go by.

Muscles said, “Sergeant-at-Arms Clerval, ten-HUT!”

Jumbo got up, his head turtle-ducked to keep from scraping the ceiling.

“Sergeant-at-Arms Clerval, remove from this assembly anyone whose behavior upsets the scales of justice,” Muscles said. “Toss em out a window.”

“Yessir.” Jumbo didn’t smile. Even in his clumsy stoop, he towered like a grizzly. It was half a joke and half a real threat. When everyone got quiet, he sat back down.

Muscles said, “Mr Evans, a party of some probity and maybe even unimpeachable expertise has accused you of-”

“Brown noser!” Hoey shouted.

Muscles ignored him. “-a demonstrated ignorance of the art of bunting. How do you plead?”

“Give him a defense attorney!” Quip Parris said.

“Turkey Sloan,” Evans said. “Give me Turkey.”

“Nyland Sloan, the court hereby appoints you to defend the incompetent accused,” Muscles said. “Mr Dunnagin, you must prosecute.”

Sloan traded places with Fanning so he could talk with Evans, and Muscles asked anyone willing to witness to say so. Sosebee, Fanning, and Sudikoff agreed to testify for Evans; Nutter, Curriden, Hoey, and Snow to speak against.

“How does your client plead?” Muscles asked Sloan.

Sloan stood up and said, “Your Honor, Mr Evans thinks these whole proceedings reek of kangaroo dung. The fix is in. A skinny kid from Brunswick ”-he meant Dobbs-”grabbed his starting role thout so much as a by-your-leave n-”

“A by-your-leave?” Mister JayMac roared. “Mr Dobbs beat Mr Evans like a drum! What’s this by-your-leave folderol?”

“Sorry, Mister JayMac,” Sloan said. “Just a formal legal way of speaking. It don’t mean pig tracks, actually.”

“Then you admit it’s a lie,” Mister JayMac said.

“Sir, you’re out of order,” Muscles said. “Mr Sloan, how does your useless scumbag of a client plead?”

“Objection!” Evans said.

“Shut up,” Muscles said. “I mean, hush. Overruled. I can’t say anything objectionable. I’m the judge.”

Sloan stretched out one arm and cleared his throat:

“The question is, Can Trapdoor bunt?

Does he know how, or is it a stunt

When he assumes the stance and then

Allows the ball to bruise his shin

Or bounce off his bat like popping corn?

Does he deserve our ruth or scorn?”

“For Christ’s sake, Turkey, how’re you pleading the sap?” Hoey said. “We aint got time for the goddamn Iliad.”

Sloan blinked and continued:

“Is a player who cannot bunt

A guilty lout or a innosunt

Victim of our expectations?

Blame we him or those vile matrons

Who sewed the ball to such a trim

Its twisting seams bamboozled him,

Causing him to look a lout

By poking it up, for an out?

So how pleads Evans this fine day?

Like this: Nolo contendere.”

“Okay,” Muscles said. “Mr Evans, I hereby fine you two bits and sentence you to practice bunting with Mr Snow.”

“Wait a sec,” Hoey said. “Don’t I get to present my testimony against the bastid?”

“Yeah,” Curriden said. “What about Nutter and me? Evans can’t bunt any bettern he can fart ‘ America the Beautiful.’ ”

“He doesn’t say otherwise,” Muscles said. “I’ve assessed the fine and stated the penalty. Case closed. Court continues in session, however. Next case!”

The Bomber groaned along, belching and smoking. Nobody said anything. I looked out the window. A line of oaks or elms split one of the rising pastures. Their branches dripped with Spanish moss. Red-winged blackbirds perched on the weeds in the roadside ditch; puzzled cattle looked out from hardwood clumps along the pasture ridge. Despite the bus’s growling, I felt nearly peaceful enough to fall asleep.

“Cmon, you guys,” Muscles said. “Next case!”

Jerry Wayne Sosebee stood up. “Awright.” He swallowed. “I accuse Jumbo and young Boles there of hoodwinking the boss. He gives em special road privileges that hurt team morale and affect how we play.”

A flight of locusts wheeled through my gut. The bus went quiet as a morgue.

Mister JayMac turned in his seat. “Hoodwinked?”

Only Hoey got a kick out of Sosebee’s accusation. “Jerry Wayne thinks Dumbo and Jumbo mumbo-jumboed you, sir.”

A couple of players sniggered. Guys with sense, though, hung on bent tenterhooks and bided their time.

“Do you really believe a speechless flea like Mr Boles could hoodwink me into anything, Mr Sosebee?” Mister JayMac said.

“Sir, I jes don’t believe Mr Boles cain’t talk. I think he could if he tried.”

“Case thown out,” Muscles said. “Mr Sosebee has based his accusation on ill will and prejudice. Therefore-”

“No, no,” Mister JayMac said. “I assume Mr Sosebee plans to demonstrate how Messieurs Clerval and Boles hood-winked me?”

“Well, mebbe Dumbo didn’t,” Sosebee said. “He’s jes flying on Jumbo’s coattails.”

“You excuse Mr Boles from your accusation?” Muscles said.

“Yeah, sure. I mean, the real favorite in this business is ol Goliath there.”

“And you see yourself as David?” Mister JayMac said.

“Nosir. Well, mebbe,” Sosebee said. “Jumbo needs to be brought down, though. Somebody has to do it.”

“Brought down? From what?” Mister JayMac said. “Leading us in home runs and RBIs? Playing his bag bettern any other first baseman in the league?”

“Taking advantage and stirring up ill will,” Sosebee said.

“You must be talking about yourself, Jerry Wayne,” said Lamar Knowles. Wow. Knowles never came down on anybody. If you pulled a merkle, he’d sidle over and tell you to forget it.

Jumbo stood up. “I confront my accuser.”

Sosebee’s jowly gills went ashy-gray, but he kept facing Jumbo across five seat backs. He didn’t sit.

“Mr Sosebee must speak for others too,” Jumbo said. “How many agree that Mr JayMac’s kindnesses to me have undone your good will or degraded the quality of your play?”

No one answered.

“A fair question,” Mister JayMac said. “Do any of you play sloppy ball because Jumbo gets commercial rooms on the road?”

“I resent the special treatment,” Trapdoor Evans allowed. “I don’t play any worse for it, though.”

“It’d be hard for you to play any worse than you did this past weekend,” Buck Hoey said.

“An honest admission,” Mister JayMac said. “Give credit.”

That remark-praise instead of a lynching-opened some more guys’ mouths. Sloan, Sudikoff, and Fanning all spoke up-not malcontents, exactly, but ballplayers who always looked outside themselves for Christs to hang on trees.

Jumbo said, “Last year I lodged alone, both in Highbridge and on the road. By nature I’m a solitary person, and Mister JayMac saw that I could tolerate the compelled camaraderie of our sport, or of any joint human enterprise, for only so long. I did not demand this favor. I asked it humbly and received it most gratefully.”

“He speaks true,” Mister JayMac said.

Sosebee kept standing: Jumbo was answering his charge. He looked less hepped than before, though. His skin had turned ashy-gray. Sweat showed in loops under the arms of his shirt.

“I would have agreed to the lodgings that Mister JayMac arranges for us,” Jumbo said, “except that small children and a great many female adults find mine a fearsome presence. I also discomfit not a few men. I didn’t wish to test the hospitality of Mister JayMac’s host families by presenting myself to them as a guest. I had no wish to burden them.”

“He still speaks true,” Mister JayMac said.

“Once last year, I might add, an innkeeper in Eufaula refused me a room because my appearance… offended him. I made no clamor. I simply went elsewhere.”

“So why’d you accept Dumbo as a roomy this season?” Jerry Wayne Sosebee asked.

“It was time,” Jumbo said.

“And Dumbo’s as close to nobody as Jumbo could get without taking nobody,” Hoey said.

“I assure Mr Sosebee that Daniel cannot talk,” Jumbo said, “but I reject the slur that his inability to speak renders him a cipher.”

“Translation!” Hoey shouted. “Translation, please!”

Jumbo put one big raw hand on his chest. “Mr Sosebee, if you still feel that I must relinquish the privileges I enjoy, I have a compact to propose. A deal.”

“What deal?” Sosebee said.

“I will come down to the second floor of McKissic House if you will take me as your roommate.”

Sosebee looked at Jumbo, then at Mister JayMac. No one wanted to give him any help. “Never mind,” he said. “Forgit it.” He lowered himself back to his seat. Either he or the seat cushion sighed like a bellows.

“Mr Sosebee,” Muscles said, “the court fines you two bits for trying to initiate a meritless proceeding. Case closed! Court adjourned!”

So ended that morning’s Rolling Assizes.

Forty minutes later, we hit the outskirts of Highbridge, gagged on the sweet stinks of the Goober Pride peanut butter factory, and waved at a gaggle of colored young uns waving like mad at us. Their heroes’d come home.