Painting the Corners Again

by Weintraub, Bob;

  The driver took a step back toward the baggage compartment. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wheeler. I do that so everyone will wake up and know we’re here. Most of the players who are sleeping don’t like someone shaking them or hollering at them when the bus stops. You’re the first person who’s complained about it.”

  Wheeler was known for being a hothead and had few friends on the team. He’d been called up the year before, in September, to pitch a few games in the big leagues and seemed to think that gave him the right to sound off at anyone whenever he pleased.

  “I may be the first, but I’ll be the last one too, as far as you go, if it happens again. When I’m through with you, you won’t want to drive no buses no more.”

  Diamond stepped in before the driver had a chance to answer. “Okay, Jack, you made your point. Hoby drove back in the van with the coaches, so Kevin can’t ask any of them what to do. The next time he sees them, when we do the Columbus trip in a couple of weeks, he’ll tell them what you said.”

  Wheeler looked around and saw that a number of the players were waiting for the driver to empty out the baggage compartment. He glared at Diamond and started walking past him toward the bags that were already on the ground. “Good game tonight, Jimmy,” he said, a smirk on his face.

  Diamond’s bag was the next one pulled out. He grabbed it by the handle, stepped back and spotted Cavalho getting off the bus. He waited until Cavalho got closer before asking him if he could bum a ride home.

  “Sure, man, I’ll take you to your place, and no charge if you buy me a drink.”

  “It’s after one o’clock, Luis. There’s no bars open now.”

  “Don’t you worry about that. I know where to go. You with me?”

  Diamond didn’t want to go looking for a cab and spend twenty-five dollars to get home. “Yeah, I’ll go,” he said, “but just one beer, right?”

  “That’s it,” Cavalho answered. “One beer to help me forget going 0 for four again. I need my medicine.”

  “But you going for the collar wasn’t as bad as my error.” Diamond saw that the driver was closing the door to the baggage compartment. “Find your duffel and let’s go.”

  The bar had no sign outside identifying it as a drinking establishment, and heavy green shades that were hung in the windows on both sides of the door kept passersby from looking in. Diamond recognized the neighborhood as one in which mostly Latinos now lived.

  “I don’t know what time they close this place, or if they ever do,” Cavalho said. “I’ve been here at three in the morning and the owner was still behind the bar. The cops know this place is here, but they’ll stop in for a drink themselves while they’re working, and probably it’s on the house.”

  Diamond counted seven booths in the bar as Cavalho led him to the one furthest from the door. A young couple occupied one of the booths and three dark-skinned men, well-dressed in jackets and ties, were in another.

  “The guy across from the other two is on the City Council,” Cavalho said. “I’ve seen him here a few times. The other two are probably looking for a favor. I’ll bet a few bucks changes hands before they leave here tonight.”

  A tall, well-built man came to take their order. He wore a Phillies T-shirt, a beaded necklace and white sneakers. A nod of his head indicated that he recognized Luis. ”How you doin’?” he asked.

  “Okay,” Cavalho replied. “This is my buddy, Jimmy. We’ll have a couple beers.”

  “Glad to know you, Jimmy. You’re his buddy, you’re welcome any time. Be right back with the drinks.”

  “He’s the owner,” Cavalho said. “His name’s Rafael, but everyone calls him Rick. You can only pay cash here, but I heard Rick will loan you money if he trusts you and you’re sure you can get it back to him in two weeks. If you don’t, I don’t know what happens after that.” He smiled, and Diamond smiled back.

  “How old are you now, Luis?”

  “Twenty-six, man. I’ll be twenty-seven in September.”

  “And this is your third year in Scranton and you’ve never been called up to play in Philadelphia. What’s your future in baseball at your age? I mean why do you stay in it if it looks like you’ll never get to the big leagues?”

  Cavalho reached over to his jacket on the seat and took out a pack of cigarettes. He lit one for himself and returned the pack to his jacket without offering a cigarette to Diamond.

  “I stay in it, Jimmy, because baseball’s all I’ve ever done since I was a kid, maybe eight years old. Getting to the majors has been my dream forever. Whoever’s seen me play knows I’m a better center fielder than Johnson, and he’s been the Phillies starter for two years. The difference between us is that he can hit .280 off big league pitchers and I hit .245 down here in Triple-A. They probably figure I’d drop another twenty points on my average if they called me up. But I ain’t given up yet on becoming a better hitter, more consistent and even reaching the fences once in a while. The coaches are working with me on it and one of these days everything’s gonna fall into place. I know it. Then I’ll tell the Phillies to either call me up or trade me to some other club that will.”

  While Cavalho spoke, Rick brought their beers to the table and Diamond gave him a ten dollar bill. “Keep the change,” he said.

  Rick nodded, winked at Diamond and left.

  “So how long do you keep that dream, Luis? Is there a cutoff date? When do you start the rest of your life if you never become a hitter?”

  “I don’t know, man. I ain’t asked myself that yet. That’s a negative and I want to think only positive. I want to see me picking up my duffel bag with a big smile on my face and going up to play in Philadelphia, not tears in my eyes because the club just released me. I want that dream to keep going.”

  “But what if you had to go back to the Dominican? What would you do there?”

  “Not the Dominican, Jimmy. I’m from Puerto Rico.”

  “I’m sorry, I thought …”

  “That’s okay. But what I’d do there, I don’t know. One brother-in-law’s in construction and the other one’s got a restaurant inside a casino. Maybe go to work for one of them.” Cavalho put out his cigarette. “What about you, Jimmy, how long you gonna be here? How much you love the game?”

  “If you’re done with your beer, I’ll tell you in the car. I don’t want my wife worrying about me.”

  “I’m all set. Let me just finish what’s in the bottle. Don’t want to let a good beer go to waste.”

  “So let’s hear it,” Cavalho said as soon as they started moving.

  “I’m the same as you, Luis, playing ball all my life. My Dad gave me a bat with my own name on it—‘Jimmy Diamond model’ it said—when I was in second grade, seven years old. I used to swing that bat an hour at a time, and kept swinging as I got older and used heavier ones. I got to be one hell of a hitter. Believe it or not I batted close to .500 in both my junior and senior years in high school. No shit. Not a lot of long balls, but I was on base and knocking in runs all the time. I was offered a couple of scholarships to play in college, but I took a bonus instead and got sent to Single-A down in Clearwater. That’s where I met my wife. She was from Texas and studying nursing at a college there. I had a good year, especially the end of the season, so the Phillies moved me up to Reading. A couple of the coaches there spent time in the big leagues and taught me stuff about playing shortstop I never knew. It didn’t hurt that both of them knew my Dad, and one had been on the same team with him for a few years.”

  Cavalho stopped the car at a traffic light and looked over at Diamond. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Who was your old man?”

  Diamond smiled as he began to answer. “He played in the majors for eleven years. His first nine were with Cincinnati and the last two with Detroit. He was a good corner outfielder, but not fast enough for center. He always batted between .270 and .290 but he could hit for power. In his best year he had thirty-seven home runs. They loved him in Cincy, but when he hurt his hip and couldn’t play every day, the Re
ds traded him to Detroit. The Tigers figured he could help the team as a lefty pinch hitter. They offered him a new contract after two years, but he’d had enough, he said, and there was a business thing at home doing something he liked, so he retired. He was there to watch me and teach me stuff when I was in junior high and high school.”

  “You’re one lucky son of a bitch,” Cavalho said.

  “Anyway,” Diamond continued, “I went back to Reading for a second year, but only stayed there a couple of months. My hitting and fielding were good and steady, and the Club figured I was ready to play here. When they told me I was going to Scranton, Heather and I decided to get married right away. The front office gave me five days to report here so we could have a short honeymoon.”

  “So you’re pretty sure you’ll get a chance to play in Philly, huh?”

  “If I stay healthy, Luis, it ought to be a sure thing. Joey Kendall’s a free agent when the season’s over and the Philadelphia papers say the team won’t pay him what he thinks he’s worth to stay there. I’ve heard from some people close to the ballclub that they’ll call me up in September and let me play in enough games to show what I can do. They don’t expect to make the playoffs this year so the fans won’t care if I’m in the lineup. I’ll be in the right place at the right time, and hopefully I won’t blow it.”

  They were approaching the apartment complex where Diamond lived, and Cavalho slowed down. “What about when you’re all done,” he asked, “what will you do then? Go work with your old man?”

  “No way, Luis. I’m making baseball my life. When I’m through playing, I’ll ask the club I’m with to let me coach in the minors. And I’ll do that for as long as it takes to move up and manage in the big leagues. That’s the job I want until I retire. My big dream is to have my own kid on the team I manage. He’d be the shortstop, of course, because that’s what I’d teach him to play as soon as he was old enough to have a mitt. And maybe he’d even be the reason we get to play in the World Series and win it. Some dream, huh? You know, Luis, you ought to think about being a coach, too. No one’s as good as you at stealing bases, and you could teach that. The same for knowing how to play center field. You could do those things and coach one of the bases during the games. I’m sure the money’s better than doing construction in Puerto Rico, and you’d be doing what you love to do. Think about it.”

  “Yeah, I’ll think about it. And when you’re a big league manager, you get me on your team, okay?” Luis gave him a big smile.

  Diamond pointed to the next apartment building on the street. “That’s the one, Luis. Stop there. The most beautiful girl in the world is waiting for me on the third floor.” He got out and pulled his duffel bag from the back seat. “Thanks for the ride,” he said. “I’ll see you at the ballpark in the morning.”

  “Okay, mister Philadelphia shortstop, I’ll be there. And don’t forget what you got to do when you’re a manager.”

  Diamond tried to be as quiet as he could when he turned the key in the lock and then opened and closed the door to his apartment. He leaned his bag up against the wall and turned on the Tiffany-styled lamp that hung from the ceiling over the kitchen table. Looking down the short hallway, he saw that the bedroom door was closed. That meant, he knew, that Heather didn’t want to be awakened by any noise he might inadvertently make when he got home.

  Diamond took off the windbreaker he was wearing and threw it on a kitchen chair. He noticed the envelope sitting next to a pile of Scranton Times newspapers on the table and recognized it as stationery Heather used whenever she wrote to someone in her family. A sudden urge to urinate took him to the bathroom where he also washed his hands and face and brushed his teeth.

  Returning to the kitchen, he sat down and reached for the Times on top of the pile. He turned to the sports section, anxious to see how the previous day’s game against the Hurricanes was reported. He knew that Paul Gilroy, the Times columnist who covered the Miners, was trying to make a name for himself, and often went overboard in describing the team’s play, especially when it was bad. Two costly errors and the failure to hit with men on base had resulted in a 4–1 loss for the Miners, wasting an otherwise excellent pitching performance by Ward Masterson. Both errors were committed by Danny Davis, the second baseman, who dropped a throw on a double play ball, and later let a ground ball skip under his glove, allowing two runs to score when the inning should have been over. Gilroy used the occasion to compare Davis’s statistics to those of the other second basemen in the league, pointing out that Davis had committed the most errors and had the second lowest batting average of those in the group who played regularly. Diamond knew that the attack would put pressure on Hoby Bailey to sit Davis down in favor of one of the other infielders, and began to worry that Gilroy would attempt to embarrass him also for the error that allowed the Hurricanes to sweep the series.

  After quickly perusing the rest of the sports page, Diamond reached for the envelope. He saw that nothing was written on the front of it and that it was unsealed. His first thought was that Heather intended to use it for a letter to her family or a close friend but hadn’t gotten around to writing it. She probably tired suddenly, he surmised, and closed the bedroom door before going to sleep. She may even have written the letter in the bedroom, he thought, and brought the envelope into the kitchen where she kept her address book. When he saw that a piece of Heather’s stationery was inside, he removed it and was surprised to find the words “Dear Jimmy” at the top of the page. It read:

  “I’m guessing that before you begin reading this letter, you’ll have taken a beer out of the refrigerator and maybe made yourself a sandwich if you didn’t like what they gave you to eat on the bus. You may even want to read some of the sports news in the papers I saved for you on the table.”

  Diamond smiled. For some reason the words reminded him of the love letters that passed between Heather and himself before they got married.

  “And if you haven’t yet gone into the bedroom and seen that I’m not there, this is where the hard part of my letter starts.”

  As soon as he read the last sentence, Diamond felt a sharp contraction in his stomach and a sense of panic an instant later. Still holding the letter, he ran to the bedroom and saw that Heather wasn’t there. The bed was made and the closet door was open. He looked inside and saw that some of his wife’s clothes were gone, what apparently she could fit into the one suitcase that was missing.

  Heather had left him, he realized, still in a state of panic, but why? He was devastated, unable to comprehend and unwilling to accept what was happening. “Why?” he cried out. “Why, for Christ sakes? What did I do? What the fuck is wrong?” He returned to the kitchen and remained standing as he continued reading the letter.

  “This isn’t your fault, Jimmy, so don’t blame yourself for what I’m doing. I love you very much, and always will, but I realize that I’ll never be happy as a ballplayer’s wife. I’ve had last season and this season to go through it, and it keeps getting worse. You’re home one week and gone the next for more than half the year. I’ve tried to get used to being alone when you’re not here, but I can’t do it. And it’s not as if it’s something you have to do for just a short time. It will always be like this, for as long as you’ll be playing baseball, and that could be for the next fifteen or twenty years. That means I’d have to get along without you for so much of the time. When you’re away, there’d be no one to help me with our children, and they wouldn’t have a father to play with them and do all those things a father does. I guess that’s in my mind a lot now because I just found out last week, when you left for those games in Allentown and Harrisburg, that I’m pregnant.”

  Diamond didn’t know how to react to the news. His head was still reeling from the fact that Heather was gone, that she had walked out on him without even discussing what was in her letter. He felt cheated to have to learn this way, without any joy in the moment, that he was going to be a father. How could she leave him now, he wondered, and returned
to the letter.

  “Before things start getting difficult for me, I’m going to find a place to live, get a job, and be ready for the baby when it comes. I know it’s your baby too, but here’s what I feel and what’s best for both of us. I don’t want you to get involved with the baby at all. The way our lives are, that wouldn’t be fair to me, you, or our son or daughter. I hope to find another man I can love, one who will be with me all the time. If that happens, and he wants to marry me, you and I will have to get divorced, or we can get divorced sooner if you meet someone yourself. That may be better for both of us. Please, Jimmy, I don’t want you to be trying to find me because we couldn’t get together again if you did. But I promise that if you let me be and we have a son, I’ll send you his picture and let you know if he’s growing up to be a baseball player. I won’t stop him from doing it if that’s where his heart is. But I won’t tell him that Jimmy Diamond is his father, and if I marry soon enough he won’t have any reason to ask. So I’m saying goodbye to you with a hug and a kiss. Take care of yourself and just try to forget about me. You’re a good man, Jimmy, and you’ll be a wonderful husband for the right woman.”

  It was signed, “Love, Heather,” and there was a P.S. reminding him to pay the rent to Mr. Dudley within the first three days of the month.

  Diamond put off the light in the kitchen and went to lie down on the living room sofa. All sorts of thoughts raced through his mind, most having to do with finding Heather and letting her know that he wanted to be fully involved as the baby’s father when it was born. He told himself at first that he didn’t want to sleep in their bed that night, not after this. But he soon remembered that Hoby Bailey would be watching his play carefully at infield practice in the morning, and he needed as much rest as he could get.