If I Never Get Back

by Darryl Brock

  “Sam,” he said gently, “I wouldn’t think too much about her, if I was you.”

  Jesus, was it that obvious?

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “I won’t.”

  Chapter 14

  On Monday, July 5, I woke to pistol shots and sounds of processions. Half the city was on parade, the other half heading for picnic spots in the hills. The day was mild and beautiful.

  That afternoon the Union Grounds held a festive throng of seven thousand who came out to see us take on the Olympics again. City officials made grand entrances in festooned carriages and made patriotic pregame speeches. The Zouaves complemented their red pantaloons with blue sashes and white blouses for this occasion. The crowd sang as they played “Mabel Waltz” and “Tommy Dodd” and “Champagne Charley.” The last was Brainard’s favorite.

  “Champagne Charlie is my name.

  Good for any game at night, my boys,

  Good for any game at night. . . .”

  A group of ragged boys broke into a cancan on the sidelines. The crowd roared—and roared more when we banged out a series of ringing blows that swept us to an early lead, 14-4. Our fielding lacked its usual crispness, but everyone in the lineup had at least three hits—Andy’s five included two triples—and we won easily, 32-10.

  Afterward we sat in the clubhouse drinking lemonade and bantering. Our record was 26-0. No contests were scheduled for a while, a chance for the starters to rest. And for me to get going on my ideas.

  “I saw in the papers where we can sit on our laurels, now that the tour’s over,” said George, flashing his grin. “But since our sticks ain’t laurel, what’ll we do—sit on our ashes?”

  We cheered as Allison dumped his lemonade over George’s head.

  At dusk we stood in a tight group—Andy, Sweasy, Mac, Allison, and I—near the Fifth Street Market. Suddenly rockets streaked up over the river like brilliant snakes. We yelled and clapped with twenty-five thousand others jamming the downtown streets from Main to Elm, a sea of heads bobbing as far as I could see. The rockets exploded into fire balls, then showered golden rain overhead. Oohs sounded from the crowd. I loved all of it. Without TV and movies, without neon signs, without vivid twentieth-century colors, it was as if my eyes had been washed and rejuvenated.

  At the players’ rooms we drank a tub of foaming, locally brewed German lager that Allison ordered from a nearby saloon. While we played whist, Mac strummed on his guitar. I tried to teach them “Yellow Submarine.” Mac handled the chords easily enough, and they seemed to understand what a submarine was. But they thought the lyrics were stupid.

  Next morning I met with Champion and a saturnine man named Townley, an insurance executive, the club’s treasurer. Townley said he appreciated the nine’s new glory as much as the next man—but not its finances. When we finished going over his books, I saw why.

  In March, when the players had assembled and begun drawing their pay, the club was already $16,000 in debt. A $15,000 note due this November hung over the organization like one of the city’s smoke clouds. By leaning on a few wealthy members Champion had managed to raise a subscription of $500 for the eastern tour. We’d returned with $1,700, a net gain of $1,200. But player salaries—$300 weekly—were a constant drain. Good-sized crowds at the two Olympic contests had helped, but we needed more. Lots more.

  As I stared at the formidable columns of figures, several things became clear. The Stockings, for all Champion’s brave talk of being among the nation’s soundest sporting clubs, were hanging by their toenails. Some members might be flush, but that didn’t mean they’d pour money into the baseball team. The Stockings needed to be self-supporting. Even now, with all the hoopla, Champion was finding it difficult to meet costs.

  It was also evident why Harry hadn’t brought up Oak Taylor to replace Hurley: it would mean one more salary. Since I was already on the payroll and committed to funding myself, I would serve. I wondered how Harry privately felt about that.

  What if we raised admission to fifty cents every game? Champion admitted that Harry wanted the higher figure. But he himself was opposed, except for top matches, unwilling to see baseball revert to a game only for the affluent. Poor laborers needed diversion too, and deserved to share in the excitement. His egalitarian views surprised me. Champion had a sense of community stewardship that was genuine. Some things about him I was grudgingly coming to admire.

  Well, then, how about selling beer? Cincinnati’s lager was the finest I’d tasted anywhere. No, absolutely not; spirits attracted the worst sorts, engendered gambling, sparked violence.

  Okay, let’s start by installing turnstiles at the gates; that would give us accurate attendance figures.

  They looked at me in puzzlement. What were turnstiles? Good grief, I thought. Square one. I suggested posting uniformed members of the juniors at all entrances, to count paid and unpaid admissions, and to discourage the gatekeepers from letting people slip in. They both liked this hard-line approach.

  And what, I inquired, was the deal on concessions? Not much, they admitted. Vendors, mostly from local restaurants, operated freely on the Union Grounds during public events. But, I argued, we were a red-hot property now. We ought to get a cut. Who else was regularly putting seven thousand hungry and thirsty customers out there for them? Furthermore, I wanted to introduce some things of our own. Things tried and tested the American way, like hamburgers and hot dogs.

  What exactly were those?

  Trust me, I told them.

  Looking for a permanent place to live, I checked out the Henrie House on Third, between Main and Sycamore. Recently it had been refurbished and charged only two dollars a day—a buck less than the Gibson. Third-floor rooms offered a nice view: to the east the shipyards at the foot of Deer Creek Basin; to the north the Miami Canal and Over the Rhine; to the west the Mill Creek Hills behind Lincoln Park and the Union Grounds. But the Henrie’s gilt wallpaper and frescoes of cherubs entwined with grape leaves put me off. Not to mention two large parlors “exclusively at the disposal of ladies” from which rococo piano strains floated incessantly.

  In the end I settled for my room at the comfortable Gibson, with its spittoon-littered, high-ceilinged lobby redolent of cigar smoke, its floors of black-and-white Italian marble, its saloon with the long, elegant mahogany bar, and a fully equipped billiard room with six tables. The ladies’ parlor and washroom were shunted upstairs near the reception and banquet rooms. The Gibson was primarily a man’s environment. It lodged visiting teams, convenient for me in my new role. It cost more, but what the hell. I had money, and not much to spend it on.

  Harry worked our asses off that week. We spent mornings at the YMCA on West Fourth, hefting Indian Clubs and a variety of free weights, and practiced at the Iron Slag Grounds in the afternoons.

  He drilled us endlessly at “headwork”: cutoffs, relays, defensive shifts, hidden-ball tricks—George had already pulled one in a game—and pickoffs. I showed them one pickoff play in which I flashed a sign from behind the plate to initiate a silent count. On three, Brainard whirled and threw to George breaking behind a runner leading off second. Harry promptly included it in his tactical weaponry.

  Augmented by Oak Taylor and several of the juniors, we played intrasquad games pitting “Fats” against “Slims.” Harry assigned me to the Fats with Mac, George, Gould, and Waterman, our power hitting a counterpoint to the others’ fielding and quickness.

  It was hard, systematic work. We knew it kept us ahead of competitors, but that made it no less grueling. Tempers flared: Sweasy and Allison would have traded punches if we hadn’t separated them; Waterman threw a ball at one of the juniors after being upended by a hard slide; George and Brainard, their animosity growing, exchanged verbal cuts almost daily. Even Gould, the most stolid of workers, muttered about Harry’s unrelenting pace. After missing a session, Brainard showed up complaining that the practices were sapping his strength and straining his pitching arm.

  Harry confronted him. “Asa, is that y
our brand of ginger?”

  “You’re working us too hard.”

  “Then take more time away.”

  As Brainard walked off, Harry added, “Your pay will suit your new hours.” Brainard turned back, scowling. Harry put him in the outfield and ran him to the verge of exhaustion.

  My muscles had hardened from the daily workouts. Above the whiskers that hid my gash and made me look like a House of David player, my face was deeply tanned. I drank nothing stronger than beer now, and was in by far my best shape since college.

  One morning Andy said, “Cait told me she didn’t mean to stir you. She’s a mite sorry, I’d guess.”

  “Tell her I’d like to see her.” It came out before I could edit it.

  “I don’t guess she’s that sorry.”

  His idea of humor didn’t always send me into laughing fits. “Tell her anyway, okay?”

  He shrugged. “If you say so.”

  My off-hours—what few there were—I spent exploring. I rose early and climbed Mount Adams to see the city before foundries began pumping out smoke and was entranced by sunlight glowing on church steeples and glimmering on the river. I poked around the riverfront and stood gazing at the huge side-wheelers’ twin stacks and curved decks, imagining what the glory times must have been like, back when Twain was a Mississippi pilot. I walked through slums spreading above the river enbankment: Rat Row, Sausage Row, Blacktown, Helltown; through alleys where anything could be bought, where honky-tonks and whiskey groceries abounded, and where derelict blacks and whites mingled without distinction.

  I also made forays to Over the Rhine, into teeming German neighborhoods. None of the Stockings could tell me where to find what I needed—though Brainard and Waterman knew all the leading beer palaces. Since little English was spoken in the district, I made next to no progress—until the morning a most improbable individual nearly ran me over.

  I had just stepped from the plank curb onto Mulberry when he careened downhill around the corner on a battered velocipede that bounced crazily on the cobblestones straight for me. I froze for an instant, then tried to leap back to the curb. He skidded and swerved, grazing my hip as he bucked wildly past, his feet splaying off the pedals. The velocipede toppled sideways. Through some quicksilver shift of weight he stepped away just as it crashed. Ignoring it, he lifted green goggles and looked at me calmly.

  “Johann Sebastian Bruhn,” he said in a high-pitched voice, “at your service.”

  I forgot about my hip as I stared at him. He was skinny and angular, a mulatto with light-coffee skin, yellow mud-colored eyes, and a lopsided grin. His hair was orange-red and kinky where it poked out from under his jockey cap, and his ears stuck out from his narrow head like enormous pressed flowers. He wore a patchwork jacket of reds, yellows, and blues; baggy pants were wrapped at his ankles; long square-toed shoes made his feet look like paddles. All in all, probably the silliest-looking character I’d ever seen—which is saying something, considering I went to school in Berkeley. I couldn’t help returning his grin.

  “Getting in trim for the county heats,” he explained. “Sometimes I forget myself coming down Mount Auburn. You hurt?”

  I rubbed my hip. “Not really.”

  “Everybody around here knows Johnny.” He gestured at the storefronts. “I’m good for any damage I do, just ask.”

  “You know people here?”

  “Sure as beans.”

  “Okay if I ask you a few questions?”

  “Least I can do.”

  He picked up his bike—it was wooden, with iron-rimmed wheels—and wheeled it to the top of a steep street where he opened a gate below a sign, gasthaus zur rose, and led me inside a tiny courtyard. We sat at a table in the shade of a grape arbor. I could see a slice of the city below.

  “Helga!” he shouted. “Kommen Sie bitte heraus, wir haben Besuch!”

  It couldn’t have astounded me more if he’d burst out singing like Marlene Dietrich. His German was convincing—but he looked like he should be spouting pure Stepin Fetchit. Within seconds a plump woman bustled from a doorway, apron flapping. Her cheeks were red, her graying hair pulled into a bun. Something in his tone, and in her familiar deference to him, suggested they were intimate. Did he live here with her? She went off and reappeared with mugs of steaming chocolate.

  “Helga keeps the best lodge in Over the Rhine,” he said. “Ever need a place, you can’t do better’n Gasthaus zur Rose.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Inn of the Rose,” he said, pointing at trellises where tree roses were covered with blossoms. Banks of primroses and geraniums spilled over planters and window boxes. I looked around, aware of his scrutiny. “Not many non-Dutch come up here, except to the beer gardens on Sundays. What brings you?”

  After ascertaining that by “Dutch” he meant German—I would come to find that it was a commonly used derivative of Deutsch—I gave him a general idea what I was looking for. He said it was no problem at all, he could arrange everything in a matter of hours. When I told him it involved the Stockings, he grew excited.

  “Brother athletes!” he said, gripping my arm. “Keepers of our bodies!”

  “You’re a bicycle racer?”

  “Velocipedist,” he said proudly.

  “You make a living at it?”

  “Haven’t made a dime—yet.” He grinned. “Been a mainstay with old John Robinson’s till lately.”

  “With who?”

  “You don’t know?” He took a breath and launched into a frenetic barker’s spiel. “John Robinson’s Leviathan World Exposition! Mastodon Menagerie! Cosmographic Caravan! Monster Musical Brigade! The Animal, Arenic, Antiquarian, Aquarium, Aviary, and Amusement Aggregation of the Age! Acrobats, Funambulists, and Olympiads! Worlds of Wonder under a Continent of Gaslit Canvas! Carloads of Curiosities! The Albino Moor! The Living Skeleton! No Humbug! No Ventriloquial Frauds! A STRICTLY MORAL CIRCUS!!!”

  He had me laughing by the end. He said he’d worked for years as a clown and tumbler in Robinson’s Circus, which wintered in Cincinnati. This spring when it departed he’d stayed behind, intending to become a racing champion.

  “Velocipede matches are nearly as big as baseball,” he said. “Right up there with billiards, horse racing, and pedestrianism.” The latter, it turned out, meant track events. “I’m saving for a racing wheel now,” he said enthusiastically.

  “But how do you live since you’ve left the circus?”

  “Oh, there’s lots of jobs in Over the Rhine.”

  “What sort of jobs?”

  “Connecting, you might say.” He explained that his language fluency enabled him to operate as a sort of agent, putting people in touch with whatever they sought. “You, for instance,” he said, grinning. “I’m just the one you need.”

  I eyed his ragtag coat. “You really named Johann Sebastian Bruhn?”

  “The Dutch called me it in fun, and I liked it,” he said, shrugging. “I was born John Brown, but that got touchy back before the war. Heap of Secesh here, you know. In the circus I was always Jughandle Johnny”—he flapped his ears with his fingers—“on account of these. Want more chocolate?”

  Over another mug I learned that his mother was black, his father a white dry-goods peddler. Growing up in the riverfront slums, Johnny had recognized early what life might hold for him. Finding he had an innate ability to make people laugh, he’d begun as a street dancer and graduated to the circus.

  “How’d you happen to learn German?” I asked.

  “Hid up here during the riverboat troubles.” He saw my blank look and explained. “After the war some of the niggers hereabouts tried out the new freedom by riding the boats first class. They got themselves chopped up and tossed in the river by gangs of roughs. For a while it looked like things might spread over the whole city.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “I hid out up here. The Dutch people, most of ’em, haven’t been over here so long. They’d had their own miseries with the Know-Nothings.
They gave me work, taught me Dutch.”

  As he favored me with the lopsided grin, I made my decision. “Tell you what, let’s tackle this first project together and see how it works out.”

  He grinned again. “Yassuh, Boss.”

  “One thing, Johnny.”

  “What?”

  “Call me Sam, okay?”

  Champion’s message was urgent: get as many players as possible on the night train. The Olympics had failed to show up to play the Illinois state champs, Rockford’s Forest City club. People were journeying from as far as St. Louis. To save the day Champion had agreed—for a share of the gate—that the Stockings would replace the Olympics. All we had to do was get there. Fast.

  I hired a hack and managed to track down everybody except Gould, Brainard, and Waterman. I left messages for them, tipped the hackster a small fortune, and reached the depot barely in time.

  We filled the next twenty-four hours with cards and newspapers. I read that Queen Victoria had just turned fifty—a fact I found impossible to assimilate. General O’Neill was urging the Fenian Senate of Pittsburgh to initiate a policy of “active operations,” whatever that meant. O’Neill. I stared at the name. Cait used it. Did she consider herself married?

  In baseball news, the Brooklyn Atlantics had beaten the Philadelphia Athletics by the whopping score of 51-48, the largest ever posted by two professional clubs. Attendance was noted as over fifteen thousand.

  “We’re the ones who stirred ’em back there,” George said, “but it’s the eastern clubs cashing in.”

  Talk turned to our opponents, the Forest Citys. My ears pricked up at mention of a pitcher named Spalding.

  “They’ll be burning to steal our glory,” George said. “Folks a hundred miles around will be on hand, too.”

  He probably underestimated. We had trouble even claiming our reserved rooms at the Holland House, a four-story brick hotel beside the Rock River. The city’s population of twelve thousand was swollen with thousands more. Bob Addy, the Forest Citys’ catcher, who boarded at the Holland House, told us he’d never seen the like.