The Brothers K

by David James Duncan

  We were all very happy for him—Mama too, I’m glad to say. And when the season began we piled into the car—rebels and Adventists alike—and began making the pilgrimage down to Tug Stadium, where we lolled in our choice new all-season seats, watched Papa walk around in his Tug uniform, and waved like idiots whenever he happened to grin at us. But as the weeks passed and he continued to do nothing but stand in the dugout talking strategy with John Hultz, or coach first base, or at best stroll out to the mound to steady a rocky young pitcher, we began to find it necessary to tell each other how great it was to be a baseball family again. And then Mama and Bet began to stay home; and Peter and Freddy began to read books; and Everett and Irwin began to spend their time ogling the players’ wives (who’d suddenly become shockingly close to us in age), and coddling their leaking, squalling infants in order to facilitate the ogling; and even I began to wonder whether my box seat was in any way preferable to my old outpost in the laurel hedge.

  The basic baseball problem was that the season was too young and the team too full of energy and hope for “stupid relief” situations to arise. Hence the glory of Papa’s resurrected baseball career consisted solely of seeing him in uniform—or, back home, of hardly seeing him at all. Both glories wore off fast. Thus did my siblings and I learn one of the hard lessons of life: the best way to strip the allure and dreaminess from a lifelong dream is, very often, simply to have it come true.

  But the flip side of the same principle has enabled my brothers and me to maintain a great deal of dreaminess about our own little baseball careers …

  –II–

  Everett was the only one of us who really burned with the desire to play ball. But then any desire Everett ever had, he burned with it. What finally quelled this particular conflagration was the number of times he had to listen to high school coaches damn him with faint praise like “He makes up in desire what he lacks in ability,” or “He’s a real scrapper out there,” or “Whatever else you have to say about him, that li’l Everett always gives it his best shot.”

  As a freshman at McLoughlin High, li’l Everett stood 5′5,″ weighed 130 pounds, played a sure-handed but feeble-armed catcher, hit .315 in the leadoff spot, and led his team in walks and on-base percentage. As a sophomore he played the same position for the JV B-team, but only hit .270. As a junior, still stuck at 5′5,″ if not 5′4″ (I think that tension may have literally shrunk him an inch that year), he barely made varsity, was stolen blind as a second-string catcher, and hit .214 as one of those diminutive, coach-emasculated pinch hitters sent in against wild pitchers with orders to squat down low in hopes of a cheap walk. It was a year of total baseball humiliation. In fact it drove the family agnostic to search the soul he didn’t even believe he had to decide whether or not to continue playing ball.

  After several weeks of agonizing, Everett decided that his problem was not the fastballs being hurled past him by boys six or eight inches taller and a half hundred pounds heavier, but his eyesight. (What can you expect from a soul you don’t believe you have?) He therefore began a kind of antiheroic quest, journeying first to an optometrist, who told him, “You’ve got eyes like an eagle!,” then to an ophthalmologist, who said, “You’re 20/20, son,” then to a second optometrist, and a third, and so on, till finally he found some sort of eye quack who never did say, in writing, whether he was nearsighted or far, but who at least agreed to sell him a natty-looking pair of glasses.

  The odd thing was, the things worked. Whether it was luck, or placebo, or whether he simply needed a homeopathic dose of window between himself and those big pitchers, Everett went out for second base as a tortoise-shelled senior, fought his way into the starting lineup, and even became something of a standout. Though he looked (in the words of one of Irwin’s girlfriends) “cute as a button” in his big specs, his style of play was far from buttonlike: he fought with umps, fought with opposing players, made only three errors all season, hit .281, “did some real scrapping out there,” “made up in desire what he lacked in ability,” “gave it his best shot,” helped his and Peter’s team finish second in the district, and scored the winning run in the play-off game that sent McLoughlin High to its first state tournament in two decades. He even began to talk (while Peter reddened and Papa tried not to smile) about college ball, future minor league tryouts, and a Chance family dynasty.

  He then struck out four times in a 15 to 2 loss to North Wenatchee in the play-off opener, handed his new infielder’s mitt to the first kid he passed on the street afterward, stomped his superfluous glasses into the sidewalk, and commenced to grow head and facial hair and study politics and poetry.

  –III–

  To reach the crappy little ballfield where we JV B-teamers went about the blooper-riddled chaos which we, with the crazed optimism of young Zen students, also called “practice,” you had first to traverse the football field and the quarter-mile cinder oval where the track team worked out, then skirt the varsity baseball team’s posh diamond. So every day, if I dawdled along slowly enough, I got to sneak a look both at Irwin—the new Washington State prep record-holder in the javelin—and at Peter—the two-time All-State center fielder—before slinking off to my Sorry-State career as a B-grade first baseman.

  Like all earthly pleasures, though, dawdling had its price: those wide-open, grassy expanses were, for me at least, a psychological minefield. The “mines” were a number of adult American males, all of whom happily barked in reply to the name “Coach.” The “explosions” were caused by the coaches’ unending readiness to ignore the “Comparisons Are Odious” adage. It was my being one of the famous Chance brothers that brought on the comparisons. And it was my athletic abilities that made them odious.

  That I wasn’t ashamed of my baseball prowesslessness is, I think, eloquent testimony to the noble character of my family. I was close to spastic on a ballfield, and they all knew it, but with Papa’s eternal minor-leaguing setting the cautionary example, my family had become as athletically tolerant as Babcock was religiously intolerant. Perhaps part of the tolerance stemmed from an unspoken suspicion that the cause of my spasticity was poor vision in the eye Papa had long ago punched. But I’d noticed no Before & After contrast. I think I simply inherited Mama’s contradictory love of ballplayers and inability to deal with having things thrown at her. At any rate, my diamond exploits, though less lauded than Papa’s or Peter’s, were considered no less interesting or enjoyable around our suppertable, for my family had an unfaltering willingness to make oral literature (be it history, farce or myth) of any sort of baseball escapade. The game in which I made three errors and watched three called third strikes in five innings, for instance, was viewed as a game in which I had taken part in six interesting and enjoyable baseball feats. It was a mere quibble, to the Chance clan, that all the enjoyment happened to have been had by the opposing team.

  But at the lofty level of high school, the athletic system of values is not defined or governed by one eccentric family. It is the Royal & Ancient Brotherhood of Coaches that calls the shots there. And it is, in my experience, a rare high school coach who cherishes the athlete whose chief virtue is the enjoyment he gives to the opposing team …

  “Who’s that sorry little tortoise?” the varsity track coach, Bobby Edson, bawled into the face of the JV A-team baseball coach on April 20, 1966—a date I remember perfectly because (1) it was Hitler’s birthday and (2) it was the day I hung up my mitt, cap and cleats forever. Bobby Edson, like most coaches, was a kind of mystic: he believed the cosmos was endowed with an ineffable muffling system that rendered all the racist, sexist, tasteless and denigrating remarks made by coaches inaudible to the students about whom they bellowed them.

  “That there, believe it or not,” bawled the JV skipper (another muffler mystic), “is the youngest Chance brother.”

  “Naw!” Edson blored. “I mean that fat kid, with the goggles. The one gapin’ at my Winnie tossin’ his javelin out there.”

  “Yup. That’s Toe’s youngest
. Katie, they call ’im. Appropriate too, I hear.”

  “Think he might firm up any?” Edson wondered. “Wasn’t Winnie kind of a chunk at that age?”

  I felt their eyes on my back now, probing my bike tires, X-raying my infrastructure, analyzing my aura for signs of “Late Bloomer” potential. “Nope,” the JV CAT-scanner finally sighed. “Winnie’s a rock. Always has been. Damn nice kid’s the rap on Katie there. But no speed, no suds, no arm, no nuthin’.”

  I kept my back turned to hide the slow incineration of my face. Meanwhile the varsity baseball coach, Donny Bunnel, joined them from somewhere, and turned their attentions back to the two family prodigies by bellowing, “Can you feature what my team’d be doing with Irwin battin’ cleanup behind Pete instead o’ chuckin’ spears around out there like a goddamned Jaboom?”

  “Shit, Coach,” Edson retorted. “Can you picture what we’d be doing with Pete winnin’ sprints and quarters and anchorin’ relays instead of doodlin’ around your pissant ballfield?”

  “Ought to breed ’em,” said the JV geneticist.

  “There you go,” said Edson.

  “Get old Toe to sow a wild oat or two, an’ us harvest the crop,” said the JV agriculturalist.

  “There you go.”

  “Any more of’m comin’ up at all, Donny?” the JV genealogist wondered.

  “Twin girls is it, I hear,” said Bunnel.

  “Too bad.”

  “Yep. Too damn bad.”

  “What’s become of the oldest?” Edson asked Bunnel. “Kinda colorful character, ol’ Herbert, wudn’t he?”

  “Everett,” the JV pundit corrected.

  “Oh, he was colorful all right,” Bunnel snorted. “He was a fuckin’ handful!”

  “So what’s he up to now, Coach?”

  “Ain’t heard boo. Shall we ask Katie?”

  “There you go.”

  “Hey, Chance!” Bunnel bellowed. “Come on over here, li’l buddy!”

  I turned around, faked a “Who? Me?” look, then trotted over, trying my li’l buddy best to outgrin them. “Coach, Coach, Coach,” I said, giving a democratic nod to each. “What can I do you for?”

  “We were just wonderin’,” Edson said, “what’s become of that brassy brother Herbert of yours.”

  “You mean Everett?” I asked.

  “What I tell you?” the JV wazir crowed.

  “Now why do I want to call him Herbert?” Edson muttered.

  “So what’s he up to now, Katie?” Bunnel asked.

  “My name,” I said, as politely as possible, “is Kincaid.”

  “Picky picky picky,” smirked Bunnel.

  But I’d just had a minor brainstorm. “It’s not me that cares, Coach,” I said in a stage whisper. “It’s my big brother Pete. He gets wild about teasing! Why, he just flat quit his summer camp softball team when the coach kept calling this boy named Pat ‘Patricia.’”

  Bunnel turned pale for a second, then grinned and clapped me on the shoulder. “So then, Kincaid!” he cried. “What did you say ol’ Everett was doin’ these days?”

  “He’s up at Washington,” I said. “Got a pretty decent scholarship.”

  The grin vanished. All three coaches gaped at me in disbelief. I didn’t get it for a second. Then, reading their one-track, one-diamond minds, I added, “An academic scholarship. He aced his SATs is all.”

  “Ohhhhhhhhh!” went the coaches, relaxing completely. “A Husky now, is he?” “Up at U Dub, is he?” “Damn!” “That’s great.” “Good for him!”

  “A good student, Everett,” opined the JV emir, “when he kept his trap shut.”

  “But good as he was,” Bunnel gloated, “he wasn’t near the student my Peter is.”

  “I hear your peter’s quite the little student all right,” Edson sniggered. “I heard all about you and the new Español teacher!”

  Unison: Hawr hawr hawr hawr!

  “Hey now!” Bunnel huffed. “Clamp it, Bobby!”

  “Yes, Bobby!” Edson moaned. “Please! Clamp it harder—she said!”

  Repeat chorus: Hawr hawr hawr hawr!

  “Uh, er, you’re a pretty fair student yourself, I hear, Kincaid,” Bunnel sputtered.

  “Not ol’ Kincaid!” wheezed Edson. “He hasn’t touched that Spanish teacher!”

  Hit it: Whaw whaw whaw whaw!

  McLoughlin’s coaches were not complicated men.

  “So what’s Everett studying up at U Dub?” the JV wazoo asked.

  “Typing, I bet,” Bunnel cut in. “Like types o’ taverns, types o’ beer, types o’ hell-raisin’, types o’ hangovers …” But he was a temporary outcaste now: nobody deigned to hawr-hawr with him.

  “How ’bout types o’ coeds, Donny?” Edson cracked. “Types o’ positions, types o’ lubrications, types o’ hot water to get into with the wife, types o’—”

  “Stow it, Bobby!”

  “Oh yes, Bobby! Please! Stow it harder—she said!”

  Whawr whawr whawr whawr!

  “What’s Everett really studying, though, Katie?” Bunnel asked.

  “Kincaid,” I said.

  “Oh, damn!” Bunnel looked genuinely panic-stricken. “I’m sorry, Kincaid! I didn’t mean it.”

  “He meant it!” Edson hollered. “He meant every filthy word! Katie he called you! So tell Pete to quit the sumbitch’s ball team pronto, and come on out for track!”

  Whaw whaw whaw whaw!

  Red-faced and outnumbered, Bunnel lamely repeated, “So what did you say Everett was studying up at U Dub?”

  Without even thinking, and while the other two coaches were still chuckling, I answered, “He seems to be focusing on modern poetry at the moment.”

  Then a wonderful thing happened: for maybe five full seconds the coaches went dead, like three big TVs the word “poetry” had somehow unplugged—

  and the day grew not perfect, nor still, but still enough to hear perfectly the singing of a thousand fed-winged blackbirds in the swamp beyond our diamonds—a choir, tremendous, convening there daily, their ecstasy reduced to white noise by our first catch or throw—till this moment: the coaches’ decommissioning: a word … “poetry”… and their song came raining out of the cottonwoods, innocent, joyous, pouring over anyone willing to listen. The rush of understanding was too quick and condensed and physical to call a “thought”: I simply knew, via song, sunlight, redwings and cottonwoods, that there was a world I was born to live in, that the men I was standing beside lived in another, and that as long as I remembered this their words would never hurt me again. I knew—the redwings were all telling me—that there was ancient ground here, and ancient songs, and that if I laid my mitt, cleats and uniform aside I could stand on that ground, and maybe learn to sing on it too …

  “Modern poetry,” Coach Bunnel repeated, looking as though Everett had somehow betrayed him. And I was suddenly hard put not to laugh—or to start singing.

  “He was always a little different, was ol’ Herbert,” Edson murmured.

  “Ol’ Everett,” the JV savant corrected. But it no longer mattered. I suddenly liked the way Edson got the name wrong. I felt free to like all three of these men now, because I’d realized I didn’t have to become them. I was standing right next to a world in which Everett was Herbert, blacks were Jabooms, Pete and Irwin were heroes, and I was a no speed, no suds, no arm nuthin’. But I was not standing in it. Some simple shift inside me had turned their words into the harmless white noise, and the blackbirds’ singing into the heart of my day.

  Ospreys eat fish. Deer eat foliage. Switch their diets and they’ll die.

  I gave my first unguardedly friendly nod ever to each coach, told them I had to go, walked back to the locker room, took off my baseball uniform, put on my street clothes, and set out unencumbered into the singing, the cottonwoods, the entire spring day.

  –IV–

  Hey, Kincaid. How’s it hangin’, buddy?

  Little limp to suit me, Donny.

  Sing it: Hawr hawr hawr hawr.
>
  But hey! What about you? How’s that affair with the Spanish teacher going?

  Oh! Hot damn! Just great, Kade! Thickish legs, but what a pair o’ yum-yums! My wife’s flatter’n plywood, y’know. Say, though. Has Everett sent you any more o’ them rapturous letters ’bout Whitman or Pound or Yeats or any o’ them bruisers?

  Not lately, Donny.

  Well, when he does, swing on by the office so us coaches can give ’er a read. We’re pretty excited, y’know. We’re thinkin, the way that brother o’ yours used to scrap out there at second base, he’s gonna make one hell of a fine poet!

  Hey! Okay, Donny. I’ll do it. And give those yum-yums your best shot for me.

  Hey! Will do, Kade. Wake up! Hey, Kincaid! Wake up! Your brother’s up.”

  “Oh! Hey. Thanks Mr. Ledbetter.”

  I was lolling on the sun-drenched bleachers, by the varsity diamond, with old Spaz Ledbetter, a retired janitor, a baseball fanatic, and the only other village idiot besides me who came most days just to watch the varsity team practice. Peter was in the batter’s cage. Lance Clay was pitching—and smiling like a two-hundred-pound gray-haired princess on a parade float as he threw.

  Mr. Clay taught math, but he’d played minor league ball ages ago, and had by far the best baseball mind and body on the McLoughlin High faculty. Since he wasn’t the sort of jackass who could bray at kids all day, he let Donny Bunnel coach the team and grab the “glory.” But most of the real coaching that got done, Mr. Clay did. He was also the perfect BP pitcher. He was left-handed, like Papa, had pinpoint control, so the players didn’t have to worry about getting beaned, and since he was in his upper forties the only pitches he had left were a crisp but predictable curve, a no-hop fastball and a change-up he betrayed with a sniff. (“Allergic to deception,” Peter said when he noticed it.) Clay was still too much for most varsity players, but Pete lined every pitch he threw; never popped one, never chopped one, never put anything on the ball but the meat of the bat. And Mr. Clay, as usual, lost all track of time and the rest of his team, and just poured them down the pipe like water. Zzzooop! went his pitches. Fwack! answered Peter’s bat. Zzzooop, fwack! Zzzooop, fwack! The two of them were a show.