by Sean Desmond
“Who is this?”
Crap, I’m out of material. Dan’s heart was half in it, and he couldn’t think of anything.
“This is really a pro forma quid pro quo survey, ma’am, and we have just a few dozen more questions. Now, it’s listed here in our research that your dog has cooties. Is that correct?”
“We don’t have a dog.”
“I see, so you’re the one with the cooties?”
“Listen—”
“No need to explain, I appreciate your honesty, Miss Bloomquist, and I’m just going to move on quickly here. If you could answer yes or no to the following, we’ll be done right quick. Who do you think would win in a fight between a gerbil and a hamster?”
“Uh-huh, okay, no . . .”
Yup, she’s too smart for this, Dan realized, then dry laughed. “Everyone says the hamster, isn’t that something?”
“Okay, whoever this is—”
“Miss Bloomingdale, just to sum up, our research here shows that you are single, spend too much on deli meats, and contracted herpes from a hamster. Is that correct?”
“Very funny, jackass.”
And right then Dan hung up, a jumper cable of nervous thrills. Stick looked disappointed.
“She was on to you.”
“Yeah. Survey only works with half-deaf old people. She’s not gullible enough.”
At that moment, the phone rang. Sticky and Dan freaked out.
“Could be your mom.”
“That would be weird.”
Sticky picked up on the second ring. “Hello, welcome to Arby’s, home of the big beef in your mouth. This is Kyle, how can I make your day taste special?”
A moment of listening passed, and Sticky made an oh-shit face at Dan.
“Hang on, he’s right here.”
“Don’t give me that!” Dan melted into a mortified jelly.
“It’s Cady. She knows it was you.”
“Shit.” Sticky practically punched Dan in the nose as he shoved the receiver in his face.
“Hi, Cady! Ha ha. You got me.”
She should be pretty cool about this, Dan thought. I didn’t take it too far . . .
“Dan Malone, how dare you!”
“I’m sorry. How did you know?”
“I star sixty-nined the call. When that croaky O’Donnell kid picked up, I figured it was you.”
“All in good fun.”
“You’re a dick. Don’t you have anything better to do than bothering me?”
She’s not that upset, Dan realized. She’s pretending too. “Sorry, we’re bored. Sticky and I are stuck at his house.”
“You know my mother is going to ask me who called and you’re going to get me in trouble.”
“Sorry. Sticky made me do it.”
Sticky punched Dan in the shoulder.
“Ow. He’s really the mastermind of the whole thing.”
“Well, you’re going to have to make it up to me.”
Dan heard giggling in the background. “What are you doing home on a Friday? Who’s there with you?”
“Dan Malone, I can’t believe you tried to prank-call me. I might never speak to you again.”
“A little dramatic, no?”
“Now you have to take me to the Spring Cotillion.”
“What?”
“I’m serious.”
“That sounds serious.”
“Come on—it’s at Christ the King, and the girls have to ask the guys.”
“Cady . . .”
“You need a tuxedo. You have a tux, right?”
More giggling in the background and Dan was conflicted. This sounds like a bunch of Park Cities bullshit. He wanted to see her, but a cotillion was as far from fun as you could get.
“How about I take you out on a proper—”
“Don’t make me call your mother and turn you in for prank-calling me.”
“Blackmail. Wow, Miss Bloom.”
“So yes?”
“I’ve never heard of this dance, and I don’t have a tux.”
“You can rent one.”
“Listen, Cady, how about—”
“Anne and Pat Malone, 3741 Crown Shore Drive, 286-1525. Is that the number I should call?”
“Okay.” Maybe we can go to Whataburger after the cotillion.
“Okay what?”
“Okay, yes, I’ll take you.”
“Fine. So I guess goodbye then.” Like a good saleswoman, Cady had closed the deal and knew to get off the call quick.
“Bye.”
“Oh, and, Dan . . .”
“Yeah . . .”
“Gotcha back!”
Click.
Dan had fallen for it. Sticky just shook his head. Fallen hard.
[ APRIL 8 ]
That same Friday after Easter, Pat Malone limped toward the Dugout, the baseball-themed bar of Dovie’s restaurant. He had spent the morning jawing with some Jed Clampett at Addison Airport who was scaling up his operation of flying asshole oilmen around the Permian Basin. Not a bad idea, but Billy Bob Gulfstream didn’t grasp what an actuary was, and what he really needed was a charter concierge to cater to and coddle his J.R. Ewing jet set.
The morning crapped out, Pat was nowhere in this job hunt—Borman’s office had turned into a black box. Anne would give him grief for a restaurant bill, but Pat, in the logic of self-pity, deserved a lingering lunch. Dovie’s was actually built out from a ranch house Audie Murphy had bought but—typical of North Dallas real estate—never lived in. The staff was setting up for a rehearsal dinner that night, so the dining room was closed and lunch served in the Dugout. The host offered Pat any table, so he made for a booth in the back, ordered a High Life, and unfolded the Times Herald want ads. Taking his first gulp off the beer mug, Pat realized that his booth was decorated with a picture of Don Larsen being tree-climbed by Yogi Bear after his perfect game.
Goddamn Yankees.
Ever the discomforted Dodgers fan, Pat moved to the bar. One beer became three in short order, and it was time to eat lunch—just past noon—but he wasn’t ready. He had no appetite, just thirst. Unable to catch a buzz, Pat was tired of this. And tired of being tired of this. He sipped his beer and brooded.
And that’s when Mickey Charles Mantle hobbled into the bar and perched two stools down from him.
“Howdy.”
“Hi.”
Holy Jesus. It took Pat a minute to make sure it was him, and he spotted that lopsided, bucktoothed grin as the Mick ordered a white wine, then changed it to a bourbon. But there was something Pat didn’t recognize about the man until he stretched, the way he used to unlimber with a bat behind his back. Gone were the cut-from-marble muscles, the broad shoulders and fire-hydrant neck; instead he kind of plopped and sagged onto the bar stool. Pat tried not to stare. The Mick’s hair was graying and thin, and he took out a pair of dime-store reading glasses that did nothing but magnify the road map of tiny broken blood vessels spread down the slope of his nose and etched around his once-hawklike eyes. He squinted through his specs at the lunch menu and kept looking around. Uneasy alone, Pat thought. The Mick hunkered over his double bourbon, and Pat pretended to read the paper. They were the only two in the Dugout.
“How’d the Yankees do?” the Mick asked.
“Off. In Milwaukee tonight.”
“That’s a win.”
After an impatient five minutes of the Mick craning his neck to look at the front of the house, his lunch date walked in. Pat peeked over the sports page—it was the sportscaster, the one who had been the kicker for his goddamn Giants. His arrival relaxed the Mick and let him settle in. The sportscaster ordered a matching bourbon in his honey basso.
“Why the hell we ain’t at the club?”
The Mick shot him a disappointed look. “Bu
nch of rich cocksuckers—can’t get any peace to play holes.”
The old kicker didn’t buy it. “So they threw you out?”
“Oh yeah.” The Mick smiled.
“What for?”
“Buck naked at the buffet.”
“Jesus, kiddo.” The sportscaster snorted. Preston Trail Golf Club, all boys, just a couple veers up the tollway.
“Fuck that place. I hold the club record. Twelve lost balls for nine holes.”
The two of them started to drink and shoot the shit, and Pat tried not to be aggravated at the irony. Like a South Bronx Fabian waiting out an occupying enemy, he had suffered through the entire Wonder Boy campaign. For eighteen years he couldn’t escape the Captain America idolatry. Pat pried himself from the bar to use the john. He had let go of the Dodgers, but the second-best thing that could still happen in the box scores was the Yankees losing. Pat’s left leg tingled out of numbness and he hop-stepped past the bar. The Mick noticed.
“Bad knees, fella?”
“Bad everything,” Pat muttered.
“I hear ya, I got near nothing holding this one together.” He smacked what was left of his famous right knee. “Sore all the time. Like a real dull toothache.”
Pat nodded as he got his feet working, and he shuffled off to the bathroom. He stood in the cool, damp stink of the porcelain and thought back to the ’56 series and the Mick outrunning a drive by Hodges to left center. Backhanded in Death Valley at full speed; it was a great fucking catch for a guy who played with bum knees. The wall was at four eighty in center then. Deep and lonesome. What no one remembers: the Duke made a better catch the inning before, diving in on a Yogi line drive. But no, it was the Mick’s catch that kept Larsen’s perfection going. The goddamn Mick.
When Pat came back from the john he was finally ready to eat. A burger. A club sandwich. Something. Instead he found a bourbon neat by his beer.
“Compliments of the gentlemen.”
Pat caught the eye of the Mick, who nodded like a shortstop at second to cover. Pat saluted and downed the shot. “To the Duke!”
“Oh shit.” The Mick’s aged face puckered as he elbowed off the prow of the bar. “I’m buying a drink for a Brooklyn bum?”
The DJ in the next room tested his speakers with the country station. The catgut fiddle of “Pissin’ in the Wind” came jangling through as bourbon snuck its way into Pat’s bravado.
“Actually grew up in the Bronx, near the stadium.”
The Mick signaled for another round. “The Bronx, yeah, I spent my summers there. Hey, what was the name of that big building out past right? Corner of 161st?”
“The courthouse?”
“Yeah. You know, some asshole used to get up there with a big mirror and shine it in our eyes. It was a long ways off, but it was like lightning.”
“That was me.” Pat pushed aside the lunch menu and welcomed another shot of bourbon.
“I believe you.” The Mick chuckled. “Well, here’s to making it out of the Bronx.”
Pat forgot to order lunch and kept at it with the beer and bourbon back. As they continued to get lubricated, he tried to leave the Mick alone but kept getting pulled into the gravity well of his stories. Of all the famous ballplayers I had to run into. Pat held his tongue as his thoughts went back. Sure, the Mick and Willie were great, but don’t forget: no one hit more home runs in the 1950s than the Duke.
Just then a kid, a few years younger than Dan, and his mother came over from their table on the patio with the gleaming hide of a red-stitched Rawlings. The mother was a piece of work, tight jeans, fluorescent blue T-shirt, and a kind of Texas shandy tan that matched the yellow of the Mick’s jaundiced skin. The Mick frowned at their interruption.
“Can I help you?”
The mom began her plea. “We are so sorry to bother you.”
“No bother.” He gave the mom a lupine grin and borrowed a pen to spell out his name in that famous Palmer-method signature. Finished, he rolled the ball down the bar at the kid.
“Thank you.”
“You’re lucky, kid, your mom has nice tits.”
The country music station was playing some Bob Wills rag now. Pat watched the mother and child blush and laugh through the bad taste. And the Mick turned away. There was your evidence—He’s a cocksucker—but Pat figured otherwise: his best defense was being offensive. He’s signed a million baseballs, and all they want is that stupid third-grader signature.
“You know, I led the league six straight years in the crabs.” The Mick continued his crude assault as he turned to Pat. “Did you know that? Major league record.”
The sports announcer rattled the ice in his glass and set up the punch line. “Still hold it?”
“Still hold it! And my wife was second four times.”
Mantle howled with laughter. And through all the drinking, Pat recognized this was and wasn’t the Mick. This wasn’t the Wonder Boy swinging with ballistic efficiency. That guy is in a cemetery called Cooperstown. This guy acts like a hick and a drunk. And I’m a drunk. And as his drunkenness coagulated around this sad realization, Pat was terrified of being sober. He had to get out of the Dugout. Away from the fading half-life of the Mick. Pat laid four fives on the bar and slid off his stool. His leg was completely stiff. The Mick jawed another line about shitty knees, but Pat wasn’t listening. And some other Dovie’s customers came over and the Mick was repeating the lost-golf-ball joke and then a new one about Steinbrenner giving Billy Martin a million-dollar contract—one dollar for a million years. Goddamn Yankees. As he passed by, the Mick caught Pat’s glance with rat-red eyes.
“Adios, pardner.”
The Mick had the hollow glare of someone looking for their own importance in the reflection of others. Pat’s sole thought was to finish his drinking alone.
* * *
Pat plunked down in the pleather stuffiness of his Mercury Cougar. Both legs were seizing up on him now. It was early afternoon, but the day was shot. A couple hours until Anne and Dan are home. He started the car and lurched out of the Dovie’s lot. Traffic went screaming by, but Pat darted across Midway. This was it—Just enough vodka to settle in and pass out for a nap and then I’m done. Last run to the liquor store and it’s all over. Where is the liquor store? Goddamn Baptists with their blue laws. Pat lefted onto Belt Line and went west, figuring Addison was dry to the county line. It was muggy as all get-out. Too early for this summer hell. Pat hit traffic on Belt Line and pumped his brakes a little too hard, screeching to a stop. Take it easy. Just get to . . . what’s the next town over? Carrollton? Carrollton’s wet, just a few more blocks and there’s got to be a liquor store near there. Does Belt Line cross that way? It does. No, wait. Fuck. Just head west until you hit something.
Pat’s hand slipped on the wheel and skidded the car into the center lane. Stop it. Stop weaving. Go steady. He could take Belt Line all the way out to the airport if he wanted. Maybe drive out to AMR and piss on the hood of Crandall’s blue Brougham. Pat drove like he was heading somewhere, but this was where Dallas kind of trailed off into prairie. Shouldn’t have had that bourbon. “Bourbon and blues,” Pat said aloud to himself, and he sounded crazy. Wait, shit . . . Carrollton is dry and Addison is wet. Or is it Farmers Branch? He had gone all this way for nothing. Great job, Pat. What a fucking drunk, you can’t even find the liquor store.
Attempting some sort of sobering distraction, Pat turned on the radio. He crawled around the dial, somehow landing on an AM show-tune station, playing the original cast recording of Carousel. Christine Johnson as Aunt Nettie. My mother’s favorite. Those pipes. Pat’s left leg was quite numb now. His mind whirred over each song with a clarity only brought on by a long episode of drinking. And then the cast, the chorus, joined Nettie in a warm orchestral rise:
Tho’ your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on.
He tho
ught of his parents, Jack and Hannah, their chins high, their silver songs. He pictured their store and looking out the windows at the end of a storm, the rain crossing from the Bronx into Queens, leaving a wind-picked sky above Willis Avenue.
Pat drifted along in this dark, deep memory as he was speeding toward the overpass for the Trinity River. Gathering in the wide open of the city limits was a menacing, dark column of thunderclouds. Storm’s coming. This evening for sure. Tossed and blown. It would be another half mile in the wrong direction if he didn’t U it immediately. Pat veered into the right lane to turn, and that’s when he couldn’t feel his leg or the brake pedal, and he panicked and jerked the car off the road, missing the retaining wall by inches.
The black mouth of the Cougar tore through weed trees, and then the car bucked over the berm by the road and dipped down until Pat finally found the brake. The car heaved into a ditch a few feet from the Elm Fork of the Trinity River. He braced himself against the dashboard and steering wheel, and the car stopped, the engine groaning over the rushes.
He was lucky not to have gone full-on into the river, and Pat, his head and heart swimming with adrenaline, the throbbing gone from his legs, looked out at the miserable brown flow of the Trinity and thought of lying on his childhood bed as the radio from the McGarritys’ kitchen blared from across the air shaft. Scully takes over the call from Allen. Top of the fifth, one out, Hodges drives it to left center. And somehow the Mick gets there. And Larsen is still perfect.
All of Willis Avenue was listening, and he could hear the cheers and claps echoing down the shaft. And Pat realized, he didn’t care. He just hated losing more than he ever wanted to win.
[ APRIL 15 ]
Number seven, Donna Passerine, picked at the edge of the cheap and chipped wooden table with crimson nails, her head bowed as if in prayer, as she speculated to her fellow jury members.
“I’m pretty sure she confronted him that night about the affair.”
“We don’t know that,” Dr. Mark Ferris replied. He was the foreman, juror number one. When the deliberations had started, he cheerily shared that he was a dentist and then made some canned drilling-down joke. Dr. Ferris was like a lot of chivalrous, prosperous Dallas men, and Anne was quick to detect undertones of chauvinism in his feints at being trustworthy.
