Raising Demons

by Shirley Jackson

  “You think he might worry?”

  “Well, yes,” I said. “I think he might.” I closed the dishwasher affectionately.

  “You think he’d take away my chemistry set?”

  “I’m almost certain of it,” I said.

  “Then can I learn to play the trumpet?”

  • • •

  Before the children were able to start counting days till school was out, and before Laurie had learned to play more than a simple scale on the trumpet, and even before my husband’s portable radio had gone in for its annual checkup so it could broadcast the Brooklyn games all summer, we found ourselves deeply involved in the Little League. The Little League was new in our town that year. One day all the kids were playing baseball in vacant lots and without any noticeable good sportsmanship, and the next day, almost, we were standing around the grocery and the post office wondering what kind of a manager young Johnny Cole was going to make, and whether the Weaver boy—the one with the strong arm—was going to be twelve this August, or only eleven as his mother said, and Bill Cummings had donated his bulldozer to level off the top of Sugar Hill, where the kids used to go sledding, and we were all sporting stickers on our cars reading “We have contributed” and the fund-raising campaign was over the top in forty-eight hours. There are a thousand people in our town, and it turned out, astonishingly, that about sixty of them were boys of Little League age. Laurie thought he’d try out for pitcher and his friend Billy went out for catcher. Dinnertime all over town got shifted to eight-thirty in the evening, when nightly baseball practice was over. By the time our family had become accustomed to the fact that no single problem in our house could be allowed to interfere in any way with the tempering of Laurie’s right arm, the uniforms had been ordered, and four teams had been chosen and named, and Laurie and Billy were together on the Little League Braves. My friend Dot, Billy’s mother, was learning to keep a box score. I announced in family assembly that there would be no more oiling of baseball gloves in the kitchen sink.

  We lived only a block or so from the baseball field, and it became the amiable custom of the ballplayers to drop in for a snack on their way to the practice sessions. There was to be a double-header on Memorial Day, to open the season. The Braves would play the Giants; the Red Sox would play the Dodgers. After one silent, apoplectic moment my husband agreed, gasping, to come to the ball games and root against the Dodgers. A rumor got around town that the Red Sox were the team to watch, with Butch Weaver’s strong arm, and several mothers believed absolutely that the various managers were putting their own sons into all the best positions, although everyone told everyone else that it didn’t matter, really, what position the boys held so long as they got a chance to play ball, and show they were good sports about it. As a matter of fact, the night before the double-header which was to open the Little League, I distinctly recall that I told Laurie it was only a game. “It’s only a game, fella,” I said. “Don’t try to go to sleep; read or something if you’re nervous. Would you like an aspirin?”

  “I forgot to tell you,” Laurie said, yawning. “He’s pitching Georgie tomorrow. Not me.”

  “What?” I thought, and then said heartily, “I mean, he’s the manager, after all. I know you’ll play your best in any position.”

  “I could go to sleep now if you’d just turn out the light,” Laurie said patiently. “I’m really quite tired.”

  I called Dot later, about twelve o’clock, because I was pretty sure she’d still be awake, and of course she was, although Billy had gone right off about nine o’clock. She said she wasn’t the least bit nervous, because of course it didn’t really matter except for the kids’ sake, and she hoped the best team would win. I said that that was just what I had been telling my husband, and she said her husband had suggested that perhaps she had better not go to the game at all because if the Braves lost she ought to be home with a hot bath ready for Billy and perhaps a steak dinner or something. I said that even if Laurie wasn’t pitching I was sure the Braves would win, and of course I wasn’t one of those people who always wanted their own children right out in the center of things all the time but if the Braves lost it would be my opinion that their lineup ought to be revised and Georgie put back into right field where he belonged. She said she thought Laurie was a better pitcher, and I suggested that she and her husband and Billy come over for lunch and we could all go to the game together.

  I spent all morning taking movies of the Memorial Day parade, particularly the Starlight 4-H Club, because Jannie was marching with them, and I used up almost a whole film magazine on Sally and Barry, standing at the curb, wide-eyed and rapt, waving flags. Laurie missed the parade because he slept until nearly twelve, and then came downstairs and made himself an enormous platter of bacon and eggs and toast, which he took out to the hammock and ate lying down.

  “How do you feel?” I asked him, coming out to feel his forehead. “Did you sleep all right? How’s your arm?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  We cooked lunch outdoors, and Laurie finished his breakfast in time to eat three hamburgers. Dot had only a cup of coffee, and I took a little salad. Every now and then she would ask Billy if he wanted to lie down for a little while before the game, and I would ask Laurie how he felt. The game was not until two o’clock, so there was time for Jannie and Sally and Barry to roast marshmallows. Laurie and Billy went into the barn to warm up with a game of ping-pong, and Billy’s father remarked that the boys certainly took this Little League setup seriously, and my husband said that it was the best thing in the world for the kids. When the boys came out of the barn after playing three games of ping-pong I asked Billy if he was feeling all right and Dot said she thought Laurie ought to lie down for a while before the game. The boys said no, they had to meet the other guys at the school at one-thirty and they were going to get into their uniforms now. I said please to be careful, and Dot said if they needed any help dressing just call down and we would come up, and both boys turned and looked at us curiously for a minute before they went indoors.

  “My goodness,” I said to Dot, “I hope they’re not nervous.”

  “Well, they take it so seriously,” she said.

  I sent the younger children in to wash the marshmallow off their faces, and while our husbands settled down to read over the Little League rule book, Dot and I cleared away the paper plates and gave the leftover hamburgers to the dog. Suddenly Dot said, “Oh,” in a weak voice and I turned around and Laurie and Billy were coming through the door in their uniforms. “They look so—so—tall,” Dot said, and I said, “Laurie?” uncertainly. The boys laughed, and looked at each other.

  “Pretty neat,” Laurie said, looking at Billy.

  “Some get-up,” Billy said, regarding Laurie.

  Both fathers came over and began turning the boys around and around, and Jannie and Sally came out onto the porch and stared worshipfully. Barry, to whom Laurie and his friends have always seemed incredibly tall and efficient, gave them a critical glance and observed that this was truly a baseball.

  It turned out that there was a good deal of advice the fathers still needed to give the ballplayers, so they elected to walk over to the school with Billy and Laurie and then on to the ball park, where they would find Dot and me later. We watched them walk down the street; not far away they were joined by another boy in uniform and then a couple more. After that, for about half an hour, there were boys in uniform wandering by twos and threes toward the baseball field and the school, all alike in a kind of unexpected dignity and new tallness, all walking with self-conscious pride. Jannie and Sally stood on the front porch watching, careful to greet by name all the ballplayers going by.

  A few minutes before two, Dot and I put the younger children in her car and drove over to the field. Assuming that perhaps seventy-five of the people in our town were actively engaged in the baseball game, there should have been about nine hundred and twenty-five people in
the audience, but there seemed to be more than that already; Dot and I both remarked that it was the first town affair we had ever attended where there were more strange faces than familiar ones.

  Although the field itself was completely finished, there was only one set of bleachers up, and that was filled, so Dot and I took the car robe and settled ourselves on top of the little hill over the third-base line, where we had a splendid view of the whole field. We talked about how it was at the top of this hill the kids used to start their sleds, coasting right down past third base and on into center field, where the ground flattened out and the sleds would stop. From the little hill we could see the roofs of the houses in the town below, half hidden in the trees, and far on to the hills in the distance. We both remarked that there was still snow on the high mountain.

  Barry stayed near us, deeply engaged with a little dump truck. Jannie and Sally accepted twenty-five cents each, and melted into the crowd in the general direction of the refreshment stand. Dot got out her pencil and box score, and I put a new magazine of film in the movie camera. We could see our husbands standing around in back of the Braves’ dugout, along with the fathers of all the other Braves players. They were all in a group, chatting with great humorous informality with the manager and the two coaches of the Braves. The fathers of the boys on the Giant team were down by the Giant dugout, standing around the manager and the coaches of the Giants.

  Marian, a friend of Dot’s and mine whose boy Artie was first baseman for the Giants, came hurrying past looking for a seat, and we offered her part of our car robe. She sat down, breathless, and said she had mislaid her husband and her younger son, so we showed her where her husband was down by the Giant dugout with the other fathers, and her younger son turned up almost at once to say that Sally had a popsicle and so could he have one, too, and a hot dog and maybe some popcorn?

  Suddenly, from far down the block, we could hear the high school band playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” and coming closer. Everyone stood up to watch and then the band turned the corner and came through the archway with the official Little League insignia and up to the entrance of the field. All the ballplayers were marching behind the band. I thought foolishly of Laurie when he was Barry’s age, and something of the sort must have crossed Dot’s mind, because she reached out and put her hand on Barry’s head. “There’s Laurie and Billy,” Barry said softly. The boys ran out onto the field and lined up along the base lines, and then I discovered that we were all cheering, with Barry jumping up and down and shouting, “Baseball! Baseball!”

  “If you cry I’ll tell Laurie,” Dot said to me out of the corner of her mouth.

  “Same to you,” I said, blinking.

  The sky was blue and the sun was bright and the boys stood lined up soberly in their clean new uniforms holding their caps while the band played “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the flag was raised. From Laurie and Billy, who were among the tallest, down to the littlest boys in uniform, there was a straight row of still, expectant faces.

  I said, inadequately, “It must be hot out there.”

  “They’re all chewing gum,” Dot said.

  Then the straight lines broke and the Red Sox, who had red caps, and the Dodgers, who had blue caps, went off into the bleachers and the Giants, who had green caps, went into their dugout, and at last the Braves, who had black caps, trotted out onto the field. It was announced over the public-address system that the Braves were the home team, and when it was announced that Georgie was going to pitch for the Braves I told Marian that I was positively relieved, since Laurie had been so nervous anyway over the game that I was sure pitching would have been a harrowing experience for him, and she said that Artie had been perfectly willing to sit out the game as a substitute, or a pinch hitter, or something, but that his manager had insisted upon putting him at first base because he was so reliable.

  “You know,” she added with a little laugh, “I don’t know one position from another, but of course Artie is glad to play anywhere.”

  “I’m sure he’ll do very nicely,” I said, trying to put some enthusiasm into my voice.

  Laurie was on second base for the Braves, and Billy at first. Marian leaned past me to tell Dot that first base was a very responsible position, and Dot said oh, was it? Because of course Billy just wanted to do the best he could for the team, and on the Braves it was the manager who assigned the positions. Marian smiled in what I thought was a nasty kind of way and said she hoped the best team would win. Dot and I both smiled back and said we hoped so, too.

  When the umpire shouted, “Play Ball!” people all over the park began to call out to the players, and I raised my voice slightly and said, “Hurray for the Braves.” That encouraged Dot and she called out, “Hurray for the Braves,” but Marian, of course, had to say, “Hurray for the Giants.”

  The first Giant batter hit a triple, although, as my husband explained later, it would actually have been an infield fly if the shortstop had been looking and an easy out if he had thrown it anywhere near Billy at first. By the time Billy got the ball back into the infield the batter—Jimmie Hill, who had once borrowed Laurie’s bike and brought it back with a flat tire—was on third. I could see Laurie out on second base banging his hands together and he looked so pale I was worried. Marian leaned around me and said to Dot, “That was a nice try Billy made. I don’t think even Artie could have caught that ball.”

  “He looks furious,” Dot said to me. “He just hates doing things wrong.”

  “They’re all terribly nervous,” I assured her. “They’ll settle down as soon as they really get playing.” I raised my voice a little. “Hurray for the Braves,” I said.

  The Giants made six runs in the first inning, and each time a run came in Marian looked sympathetic and told us that really, the boys were being quite good sports about it, weren’t they? When Laurie bobbled an easy fly right at second and missed the out, she said to me that Artie had told her that Laurie was really quite a good little ballplayer and I mustn’t blame him for an occasional error.

  By the time little Jerry Hart finally struck out to retire the Giants, Dot and I were sitting listening with polite smiles. I had stopped saying “Hurray for the Braves.” Marian had told everyone sitting near us that it was her boy who had slid home for the sixth run, and she had explained with great kindness that Dot and I had sons on the other team, one of them the first baseman who missed that long throw and the other one the second baseman who dropped the fly ball. The Giants took the field and Marian pointed out Artie standing on first base slapping his glove and showing off.

  Then little Ernie Harrow, who was the Braves’ right-fielder and lunched frequently at our house, hit the first pitched ball for a fast grounder which went right through the legs of the Giant center-fielder, and when Ernie came dancing onto second Dot leaned around to remark to Marian that if Artie had been playing closer to first the way Billy did he might have been ready for the throw if the Giant center-fielder had managed to stop the ball. Billy came up and smashed a long fly over the left-fielder’s head and I put a hand on Marian’s shoulder to hoist myself up. Dot and I stood there howling, “Run run run,” Billy came home, and two runs were in. Little Andy placed a surprise bunt down the first-base line, Artie never even saw it, and I leaned over to tell Marian that clearly Artie did not understand all the refinements of playing first base. Then Laurie got a nice hit and slid into second. The Giants took out their pitcher and put in Buddy Williams, whom Laurie once beat up on the way to school. The score was tied with two out and Dot and I were both yelling. Then little Ernie Harrow came up for the second time and hit a home run, right over the fence where they put the sign advertising his father’s sand and gravel. We were leading eight to six when the inning ended.

  Little League games are six innings, so we had five more innings to go. Dot went down to the refreshment stand to get some hot dogs and soda; she offered very politely to bring something fo
r Marian, but Marian said thank you, no; she would get her own. The second inning tightened up considerably as the boys began to get over their stage fright and play baseball the way they did in the vacant lots. By the middle of the fifth inning the Braves were leading nine to eight, and then in the bottom of the fifth Artie missed a throw at first base and the Braves scored another run. Neither Dot nor I said a single word, but Marian got up in a disagreeable manner, excused herself, and went to sit on the other side of the field.

  “Marian looks very poorly these days,” I remarked to Dot as we watched her go.

  “She’s at least five years older than I am,” Dot said.

  “More than that,” I said. “She’s gotten very touchy, don’t you think?”

  “Poor little Artie,” Dot said. “You remember when he used to have temper tantrums in nursery school?”

  In the top of the sixth the Braves were winning ten to eight, but then Georgie, who had been pitching accurately and well, began to tire, and he walked the first two batters. The third boy hit a little fly which fell in short center field, and one run came in to make it ten to nine. Then Georgie, who was by now visibly rattled, walked the next batter and filled the bases.

  “Three more outs and the Braves can win it,” some man in the crowd behind us said. “I don’t think,” and he laughed.

  “Oh, lord,” Dot said, and I stood up and began to wail, “No, no.” The manager was gesturing at Laurie and Billy. “No, no,” I said to Dot, and Dot said, “He can’t do it, don’t let him.” “It’s too much to ask of the children,” I said. “What a terrible thing to do to such little kids,” Dot said.

  “New pitcher,” the man in the crowd said. “He better be good,” and he laughed.

  While Laurie was warming up and Billy was getting into his catcher’s equipment, I suddenly heard my husband’s voice for the first time. This was the only baseball game my husband had ever attended outside of Ebbetts Field. “Put it in his ear, Laurie,” my husband was yelling, “put it in his ear.”