The Cardiff Giant

by Lockridge, Larry

  Whereupon we were ambushed by Schoharie County’s counterpart to Barry Tarbox and his men. “You’re under arrest for trespassing. Horace, read them their rights!”

  “But the Cardiff Giant’s in there. He’s trespassing too and he’s a much bigger fish,” I said, relieved at being arrested and spared sudden death at the hands of a malevolent giant.

  Horace crept up to peer through the window but saw nothing. “Sure, sure, buddy. The Cardiff Giant’s in there and I’m the Jolly Green Giant. Tell it to the judge.”

  There had been so many recent area sightings of the Cardiff Giant that law enforcement had become blasé, not responding to many 911 calls.

  Esther and I were handcuffed, put in the backseat of one of two police cars, and taken to Sharon Springs’s night court, which hadn’t seen any action for six months. The magistrate was cheered to have two customers and set bail at $50,000. Mastercard, Visa, and American Express all turned us down—further proof of our criminal status—so off we went to the county jail, right next to the most sulfurous Stygian pit in the entire county. Because this jail was a modest two-celler, Esther and I could converse through bars, holding our noses.

  “Well, Jack, must say, quite an evening. For a minute I had my hands on the Zohar.”

  “Yes, but I can’t say it warded off all harm.”

  “Please. Let’s try again! Please! Please!”

  Who could say no to such a plea? But the more immediate problem wasn’t the Zohar, not the giant, not the incarceration. It was the toll magnesia water was taking on our digestive tracks. A county jail with little privacy isn’t the ideal setting for belly distress. So extreme were our ordeals of evacuation throughout the night that we would readily have traded them in for more bronchospasms.

  — Chapter Nine —

  BALLROOM DANCING

  Tabby: “Tabby and Harris here for your Tuesday morning Cap’n Crunch. Lots to report on the latest caper involving the Cardiff Giant. Released from the Schoharie County jail this morning and taken on stretchers to the Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown were Jack Thrasher, investigative reporter for the Discovery Channel, and Esther Federman, hotshot Manhattan shrink. They were caught red-handed trespassing in an abandoned Sharon Springs resort hotel. Fleeing, they said, from the Cardiff Giant, a claim that law enforcement officials have neither confirmed nor denied. We have on the scene our own investigative reporter, Hortense Drew. Hortense, what’s the latest?”

  Hortense: “As you see behind me, Tabby, police have cordoned off the Hadassah Arms and are sifting clues that the Cardiff Giant may really have been a squatter here. From her sick bed at Bassett Hospital this morning, Dr. Federman claimed that, upon approach of the giant, they dropped a used library book called the Zoloft at the entrance to the hotel’s synagogue. No Zoloft recovered so far. Dr. Federman and Mr. Thrasher have pleaded guilty to a class F misdemeanor and say they seek closure and want to get on with the rest of their lives. Fine, but where might this lead? Doctors at the hospital say the two convicts are suffering from gastritis, bronchial distress, and fleabites, and Dr. Federman has a rampant fungal infection. She and Thrasher declined to discuss how they could come down with so many ailments in so brief a time. They have denied rumors of a romantic liaison, denials many are questioning today. This is Hortense Drew reporting from Sharon Springs. Boy, it stinks here.”

  Harris: “Thank you so much, Hortense! And now let’s look ahead to the weekend social calendar. Arriving for your Friday afternoon tea and crumpets in advance of the induction ceremony into the Baseball Hall of Fame will be famed slugger Tony ‘the Bat’ Homero. The Hotel Otesaga is staging an evening of ballroom dancing in his honor. Most tickets are still available, so ignore the scalpers. As you know, Homero holds the world record for granting interviews to the press despite court orders. Rumor has it his nickname is only in part owing to his skill at baseball. Just kidding, of course. He is also said to be skilled at tango. Who would have thought?”

  I listened to this twaddle from my bed at Bassett Hospital, hooked as I was to an IV. Esther was in the adjoining room—an improvement over adjoining jail cells. A night in jail of mutual puking and crapping had done little to strengthen the romantic bond between us—a bond that was already pretty feeble. It didn’t take deep insight into the human heart to sense that Esther was not in love with me. Nor I with her. Eros was on the run, if he had ever been nearby. In her eyes I could never be more than a goyishe kopf, a goyish blockhead. And as I’ve hinted, there was a check on my own passion—the emergent feeling I had for Sheila.

  Eros apart, I couldn’t help but be anxious about Esther’s future. Her knack for misdiagnosis seemed even greater than what I’d come to expect of mental health professionals. And her pre-August desertion of clients was risky. Already there were rumblings of a class action suit by these clients, two of whom were now in Manhattan hospitals undergoing electroconvulsive therapy.

  That Friday, Tony Homero was chauffeured to the Otesaga in a Lincoln Town Car followed by a Cadillac Seville, a Mercedes S-Class, and a Buick LeSabre, all full of his entourage and bodyguards. Since retiring from the game he had gone into the scaffolding business. Homero Scaffolds Inc. had a fame of its own, specializing, by all accounts, in early collapse. The catcher defended his company’s record, satisfying most observers that the collapses were acts of God to which Homero Scaffolds piously consented.

  You see, Homero, a devout Roman Catholic, grew up on Carmine Street in Little Sicily, Manhattan. Wikipedia has an unflattering entry on him, culled here: Son of second-generation Italian immigrants, first of nine children, he earned his neighborhood stripes by painting over parking meters so locals could park for free. Product of Our Lady of Pompeii’s early schooling, he believed in saints’ relics, vampires, exorcisms, and baked ziti. Once married, he kept his wife too busy as a baby factory to fret about her husband’s many rumored infidelities.

  Catcher at one time or another for the White Sox, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Yankees, Homero was strikingly handsome and slender in his earlier years but developed a paunch that grew with every season. The paunch carried the happy message that you don’t need steroids and can even go to seed but remain a famous well-performing athlete. He didn’t need to run fast anyway because he would belt the ball right out of the park and had broken Mark McGwire’s record for most home runs in a single season, and Josh Gibson’s and Hank Aaron’s lifetime records. More to the point here, he crossed himself before every swing, converting many to his faith whenever a mighty wallop followed. Though the election was close and rancorous, there was no keeping him out of the Hall of Fame.

  Like Joe Namath, he bragged about other conquests, claiming the world record for most bedroom home runs. He bragged about everything—and didn’t so much walk as swagger. Italian-American families are usually close and mutually supportive, but Homero’s many children protested that he must be somebody else’s father.

  Homero was the subject of caricatures in sports sections of the press throughout the nation. The American Italian Anti-Defamation League routinely objected to these caricatures, both verbal and pictorial, bringing libel suits against esteemed sportswriters and cartoonists. The league lost all these suits because the sportswriters and cartoonists handily demonstrated that their caricatures were literally the case, with no stereotypical cultural enhancements needed. He was, they agreed, hardly representative of Italian-American culture. But what sealed their case was that they had always highlighted his skill at tango.

  It was leaked that the league had futilely done a behind-the-scenes intervention, telling Homero to stop being such an easy target for skeptics. Could he at least stop claiming that Mary, mother of God, was behind every wallop?

  Ohnstad and his own entourage came through the front door to greet the baseball legend. He spoke through a mike at the podium. Unlike Esther, I had been released from the hospital on Wednesday and joined other press at the hotel’s portico. Schoharie County didn’t relish our return to their jail cells
, so had dropped all charges.

  “Mr. Homero, may I be the first to welcome you to Cooperstown, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Natty Bumppo, the Ommegang Brewery, the Fenimore House Museum, the Glimmerglass Opera, the life mask of Thomas Jefferson, and, uh, formerly the Cardiff Giant. That’s just for starters. Don’t worry, no quiz. Mr. Homero has agreed to take some questions from the press.” Ohnstad looked ill at ease, clumsily handing the mike to Homero.

  “I’d like express my gratitude to Ohnstad here and the folks of Cooperstown for welcoming us like family. And to Mary, mother of God, she’s the real mover and shaker behind my getting into the Hall of Fame. I owe it all to Mary, mother of God—and to my own mother, may she rest in peace. You got questions?”

  “Tony, what do you make of the recent resignations from the Baseball Writers’ Association in response to your admission into the Hall of Fame?” asked the reporter for the Freeman’s Journal.

  Aside to Ohnstad, “Fatti gatti due, stunod,” Italian-American for “Mind your own business, jerk.” Then to the reporter, “They wanna spend more time with their families, capeesh?”

  “Tony, what role did your company play in the recent scaffold collapse in Chinatown?” asked the reporter for the New Berlin Gazette.

  “Basta!” Homero was otherwise tongue-tied. Aside to Ohnstad, “Don’t have time for this. Where’s the men’s room?”

  Ohnstad nervously called off the press conference, citing an imminent interview in Homero’s suite with a rep from Dance Magazine. Homero and company checked into the Otesaga, occupying most of the second floor’s east wing, close to my own room.

  That Friday evening, the Otesaga’s high-ceilinged main dining room, in elegant Georgian Revival décor, was the scene of the Baseball Hall of Fame’s first gala of the season. All principals of my small cast were there: Thor Ohnstad, Barry Tarbox, Hazel Bouche, Tony Homero, Tabby Thomas, Harris Scalia, Sheila Drake, Esther Federman—just released from the hospital—and I. Ohnstad had us all seated together and made introductions. The occasion was black tie, and the women were dressed for tango.

  “And finally, Mr. Homero,” said Ohnstad, “allow me to introduce you to Sheila Drake, set designer for the Glimmerglass Opera.”

  “Opera? I was just saying to Miss Bouche, I know all about opera. My mother sang the great Puccini arias washing the dishes—”

  “Mr. Homero,” said Hazel Bouche, not letting Sheila utter a word, “it’s not Sheila what’s-her-name’s business to know anything about opera. I am opera and have sung the arias your mother sang and more—in all the great houses of Europe, whenever my horoscope permitted.”

  “Miss Bouche, I’ve hit home runs in all the baseball stadiums of the U.S. of A., with Mary, mother of God, looking on, grazia.”

  These two deserve one another, I thought, and maybe here’s a scandal in the making that would appeal to my producers. So I was a bit put out as the evening progressed that Ohnstad was encouraging Homero to address his fatuities more to Sheila than to Hazel Bouche. And I found it disquieting that Sheila seemed to be warming to Homero. The baseball great’s reputation as stud went before him—and it’s well known that erotic sensors go deeper than cultural differences. Even a celibate New Age hippy can be drawn to a celebrity buffoon, yes?

  In a word, as the evening wore on, I found myself getting jealous. We finished off the banquet fare, most of which was consumed by Bouche and Homero. Bouche gobbled up the crudités and caviar from the lazy Susan before the rest of us got a chance. Homero ate five borrowed drumsticks, and Bouche asked if she could borrow my cherries jubilee, then Sheila’s, then Ohnstad’s. Well, it’s a truism that divas require extra stuffing.

  It was time to tango.

  When freshly divorced, I took Argentine tango lessons at a dance parlor in Des Moines, learning 5 or 6 of the 160 canonical steps. I was eager at last to put my investment to good use. A little apprehensive of Esther, I played my hand.

  “Sheila, let’s hit the dance floor.”

  Esther frowned. She wasn’t having a good time anyway, scratching at fungal itch under the table.

  Ohnstad intervened. “Sorry, Jack, Tony is guest of honor. He’s already asked Sheila for the first dance, right, Tony?”

  Homero looked puzzled but was quick on the draw. “Yeah. Sheila, let’s tango.”

  “How did you learn tango, Tony?” asked Sheila. “You’re an Italian baseball player, right? As a rule I dislike male athletes.”

  “Began in the crypt of Our Lady of Pompeii during the Carmine Street festa. Parishioners were doing the tango Italian style and priests were shooting craps. Bada bing! This was before I played stickball and Johnny-on-the-pony. My Aunt Matilda—may God rest her soul—she gave me a gift certificate to Arthur Murray’s. I was only thirteen but they taught me to tango like Rudolph Valentino, and when my certificate ran out I stole a set of footprint diagrams. Set them out on the Bedford Street sidewalk and charged girls a dime a lesson. Fantastico!”

  Sheila looked impressed. “So did you transfer motor skills from tango to baseball?”

  “You’re a fancy talker, Sheila. Andiamo a ballare!”

  For her part, Sheila learned the tango during the faded era of her promiscuities, drawn to it because dancers were encouraged to think of themselves as great jungle cats stretching and pouncing. Though she hadn’t done it in years, the tango lurked in her muscles. It was paunch-bellied Homero, not I, who was about to tap this muscle memory, stirring up a dormant passional inner life while I warmed the bench.

  The floor was cleared for the first couple, just as in the old movies. We all applauded as they strutted center stage and an anachronistic big-sound orchestra, Neal Flotsam and the Jammers, began a medley of tango classics.

  Homero crossed himself and led, his cummerbund somewhat confining the midriff bulge, while Sheila’s muscular catlike thighs flexed through the slits of her skirt. Her décolleté red silk blouse, straight out of Glimmerglass’s costume storage and faintly redolent of mothballs, set off cleavage and collarbones to stunning effect.

  As he lifted his head in stylized hauteur, Homero’s double chin was minimalized. I watched his thick fingers press Sheila’s spine beneath her shoulder blades as their cheeks met and, with arms extended, they did la salida, “the beginning,” and moved to el paseo, “the stroll.” Since the tango is a “walking” dance, Homero’s inability to run was no handicap, and I could see how the lout routinely finessed his way to first base in matters of the flesh. Leading her slowly through these steps, he injected various adornos, “adornments,” including golpes, “toe taps”—to which Sheila responded with golpecitos, “little toe taps.”

  But these maneuvers were nothing compared to what followed. Zigzags, including el ocho, “the figure eight,” were followed by caricias, “caresses.” During a pause, Homero pushed his right leg between Sheila’s legs, an entrada, and wrapped it around her left knee, then slid his calf down hers. From fifty feet, I thought I could see a shudder ripple up her body. Weren’t those goose bumps raising the fine blonde hair on her arms?

  Homero was still leading, but Sheila began to turn tables in this tournament of lust. With remarkable bravura and control, she lifted her left leg above her own waist, then allowed her steely calf, now bare, to descend, caressing the back of his right leg.

  Sheila led Homero to do el molinete, “the wheel,” but she usurped the traditional male position at the center. Homero became merely the rim as they spun and spun like binary stars, accelerating and spewing out more and more contagious erotic energy. Homero was now the helpless victim of her will, his face a register of baffled surrender. Proud but pliant only minutes earlier, Sheila was now a ruthless dominatrix.

  I averted my eyes in envy and inadequacy, sickened at how this struggle of wills might continue in kind off the dance floor. I watched the others watching. Esther seemed surprised at her half-sister’s sudden reversion to bad-bad girl. Ohnstad seemed less surprised than inquisitive, with a raised left eyebrow, wrinkled fo
rehead, and bemused smile.

  Chaffing and huffing, Hazel Bouche was eager to show Sheila a thing or two. Renowned for her Carmen, she could dance a raunchy toreador variation on the tango. Tabby and Harris were slyly elbowing one another at a scandal in the making. And finally there was Tarbox looking like a hog in a tux. He gave the dancers a gaping stare such as hedonistic tourists occasion in toothless peasants whenever they drive their rentals through northern German burghs.

  Sheila and Homero brought their tango to a close with a milonga, best described as a tango in triple time. They finished with Sheila crouched over him like a preying mantis. I joined in the applause, hiding my real feelings. The finale had so winded Homero that he wheezed and collapsed like one of his own scaffolds, but he responded well to oxygen and was soon ready for another number.

  All who knew the steps entered the dance floor. I tangoed with Sheila, who had spent her better energies in the duel with Homero. I felt low down on her dance card. And whenever we were near Esther and Thor, who were doing la cruzada, “the cross,” Esther gave me a painful “back step” in the seat of the pants. Thor seemed unaware of the injury his partner was inflicting, and I was too much the pacifist to retaliate. Partnered by Homero, Hazel Bouche stalked about like Carmen as if to oust all memory of her predecessor. Homero didn’t

  have much spunk left, but Tabby and Harris overheard him assuring Bouche that he was a true matador in bed.

  This left only poor Tarbox without a partner. Just as he placed personals in the local Pennysaver, always ending with “must know how to can,” so he made the rounds of all the wallflowers, advertising his prowess on the dance floor and asking if anybody had what it takes. Sally Grubb, local manicurist, volunteered, and the two made their way to the center of the busy dance floor. Tarbox walked like a walrus, not even attempting to dodge the dancers’ kicks. As it turned out, neither Tarbox nor Sally Grubb could tango. Instead they began jitterbugging with much gusto and little observance of the beat. Flaps of corrugated red skin jiggled over Tarbox’s starched rental shirt, as he threw Sally in all directions. It was chaos taking over at the center of measured motion.