Bells Above Greens

by David Xavier

  “You’re pulling double duty,” I said. “A priest and a coach.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  I laughed. “Just the style, I suppose.”

  “It’s almost the same. I pass along the teachings of God and baseball without a word changed. They are both pure traditions.”

  “Did you play?”

  He nodded. “I was a first baseman and lead hitter. I led the minors in RBI’s and was second in batting average to only Ted Williams. That was a long time ago.”

  “The Red Sox’s Ted Williams?”

  “Yep. He played in the minors before he was the Ted Williams that you know him as.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-nine.”

  “It wasn’t that long ago. You look twenty-nine.”

  “Well then it’s all a failure because I was trying to look nineteen.” He laughed. “It keeps me young. I played in the minors as soon as I graduated. Back then you could just show up and they’d give you a glove. I played for a few years and came back to the seminary. I had a different calling.”

  He turned to the field and clapped his hands, urging his players into another sprint to the backline.

  “I heard stories about you,” I said. “Red Chips, the barber.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “He said you were a gentleman to the ladies.”

  Father Donnelly laughed. “Well, what else can you be? I spent every cent I had on dating. I’ll have to tell Red to forget those stories. Things change. Priesthood was the last thing on my mind back then.”

  “What changed it?”

  He looked at me and pointed to his ear. “I listened and heard the call. It was simple. When you open your ears to God, He speaks.”

  “I wish He did.” I said it, forgetting that I was talking to a teacher, a priest.

  “He does. What does He tell you?”

  “I can’t hear Him.”

  There was a brief pause. “Just keep listening, Sam.” Then he jerked his head to the field. “Can you hit?”

  “A little.”

  He gave me the bat and ran to the outfield, blowing his whistle and gathering his fielders. He gave them a quick demonstration of footwork. They watched him, young boys with their gloves tucked under their armpits like wings, listening the way a child minds his father. Father Donnelly called out to his pitcher to send the ball across the plate.

  I gripped the bat easily, the familiar weight balanced in my hands, and stepped up to the plate. The pitcher mumbled something on the mound and then called out to me.

  “Can you hit?”

  “A little,” I said.

  “I’ll gift wrap this first one.”

  Father Donnelly was crouched in the outfield, his hands on his knees, his fielders to the left and right of him, crouched and ready. The pitcher wound up and tossed a slow ball that floated by me. I swung and twisted all the way around, hitting nothing.

  “They don’t get easier than that,” the pitcher said.

  “Throw it harder,” I said. “Give me something I can hit.”

  He mumbled again, almost laughing to himself, and he shook his head. He wound up again, a much tighter, much more powerful release, and threw a ball that came at the plate as if it had gunpowder behind it.

  I swung and heard the crack of the bat. The ball flew straight back at the pitcher, who had to duck to keep his head attached, and bounced into the outfield where a fielder scooped it up with almost pure footwork. Father Donnelly watched and then gave a quick word of instruction to correct his player’s technique. He clapped and shouted.

  “Just like that, Sam. Keep them coming.”

  I gave him four more hits, one right after the other, and the pitcher was becoming frustrated. His pitches kept changing in speed and curve, trying to get one by me. He was not in the drills. He was on the mound in the World Series, bases loaded.

  He gave me a staredown and I waited for his pitch, balanced on my back leg, the bat held high over my shoulders. He gave me a fastball, an asteroid burning up in the atmosphere. I swung hard and showered the infield with splinters. It felt good. A feeling I had not had in a long time. I saw the fielders’ eyes follow the ball over the back fence where it disappeared in the grass. The pitcher slapped his glove on the mound and kicked it away, his hands going to his hips, facing away from me.

  Father Donnelly clapped and smiled, shaking his head, impressed. He gave his pitcher an encouraging word and trotted over to me.

  “That was the only bat I brought today. You put an end to my field drills.”

  “I didn’t expect that. What is this made of?” I held out the splintered stub.

  “That’s a regulation outfield,” he said, putting a thumb over his shoulder, still smiling. “Three hundred and seventy feet from home plate to the fence.”

  “The wind took it.”

  “My pitcher was top five in the conference in strikeouts.”

  “He made it an easy hit for me.”

  He looked at me and shook his head again. “A few guys play both, you know?”

  “Both?”

  “Football and baseball.” He patted my shoulder without another word and ran back across the diamond, gathering his players for ball drills. The pitcher tipped his hat to me, giving me a sporting recognition, his expression still filled with personal disappointment.

  Elle was standing behind the fence as I walked off the field, a notebook in her gloved hands and a scarf around her neck, prepared to spend an afternoon in the ignored shadows where Irish baseball grew unnoticed, where the coach was turning weeds into plants. She looked professional and smart. I felt my breath stop in mid-exhale and a smile leap across my lips when I saw her.

  “Are you the baseball writer too?”

  “Sportswriter,” she said. She was particularly beautiful in winter wear, her smile beaming and her eyes moist from the chill. It brought out a brighter shade. “I cover it all.”

  “I didn’t know our baseball coach was our priest.”

  “Clergymen are many things, especially at a Catholic university.”

  “Are you here to gather quotes from the team?”

  “I was. Now I think I should write about the player who knocked it out of the park.”

  “Oh. No, I was just filling in for Father. It was a lucky hit.”

  “I’ve been covering the teams for four years and I’ve never seen anyone hit it that far over the fence. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it hit over the fence at all.”

  “The wind funnels in right here behind the plate,” I said. “A big gust must have taken it.”

  She held her look on me, not giving in. “I was standing right behind home plate. It was calm. You can’t make up stories for it.”

  As I walked up to her it was natural to open my arms and hug her. I only noticed the ease with which it came about because of the awkward fitting of our two very different heights, an obstacle I found myself happy to overcome. She gave a sincere squeeze back, lifting her chin to rest on my shoulder.

  “How have you been?” she asked.

  “Fine. I earned forty dollars last night. Let’s get lunch.”

  “I have to get a story written. I’ve been so busy lately. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Sounds great.” We looked at each other, unmoving, with friendly smiles. Hers was a smile from deep within, behind layers. Was it worry that hid it? I wondered what she was thinking. “Do you need a line for your article?”

  “I need several.”

  “How about this: Team in shock at mystery homerun slugger. Man retires after fluke hit.”

  “Sounds suspenseful. A bit long for a headline.”

  “Alright then: For Sale. Broken Bat. Used Once.”

  “Actually, I do have a project coming up that I could use your help on.”

  “Okay. What is it?”

  “It’s for the Chicago Tribune. I’ll need you to drive me next month.”

  “Elle, that’s great. Congratulations. Are you a
reporter there now?”

  “No, no, but I’m hoping this will change that. It’s a tryout. A portfolio. If I knock it out of the park they might consider me.”

  “And I am to be your chauffeur?”

  She gave a hopeful nod.

  “Very well, but my services come at a price.”

  “What price?”

  I waited for a moment, enjoying the innocent smile that my words put on her face. “A car,” I said. “I don’t have one.”

  “I’m borrowing my professor’s car. I’ve already talked with her about it and she’ll have it ready with a full tank of gas. She believes I have what it takes.”

  “Then it’s a date.” I said the word lightly. “And best of luck to you knocking it out of the park.”

  “Anyone with the talent to knock it out of the park should give it a try. Don’t you think?”

  She gestured to the field, no, not the field, but to the ball that I had clobbered. One of the players had hopped the back fence to retrieve my homerun, searching the grass for it. I looked back at Elle and she had her eyebrow raised.

  “Trick question,” I said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The bicycle shop on the corner survived on the lean budgets of students. Anywhere else and it could have made a decent earning, but the former student who started the shop twenty years ago never could bring himself to move beyond earshot of the Sacred Heart bells.

  Students were the bread and butter of his shop and there is nobody on earth who needs a bicycle more than a student. They hovered in swarms around the shop like bees. But with a generous student discount in place, written in black marker on his store window twenty years ago, the shop owner’s earnings were meager. His business was never empty, his tasks never completed for the day. Hundreds of students were on a first name basis with him, his hands ached at the end of the day, and yet his pockets were never filled, his bank account never over a thousand, his meals were plain, but his heart spilled over with a joy he would not be able to find elsewhere.

  His name was William, shortened to Will, turned and twisted into Wheel and then finally to Wheels. Go see Wheels, he’ll get you fixed up. I think Wheels has one like that, just around the corner. He was as thin as a fence post, he rode a bicycle wherever he went, and he darted around the shop, inside to get a wrench, outside to change a tire, always in a sort of dance on his feet as his radio played on an outside speaker.

  “Here you are, Sam,” Wheels said, holding a pair of bicycles at his sides. “Pumped, jumped, and ready to hump.”

  “Thanks, Wheels.”

  I pulled a couple of dollars from my pocket, flattening them out and putting a crease down the middle lengthwise. Wheels snatched them, and with a lick of his thumb he counted the two dollars as if it were a hundred, tucking them into his shirt pocket.

  “You’re probably coming into your busy time of the year,” I said.

  “Indeed,” he said, his knobby fingers wiped grease on the thighs of his jeans. “The first sign of spring sends everyone in a dizzy. Peter used to come by and turn a wrench for me when he had the time.”

  It seemed that everyone knew Peter or had some sort of connection with him. I was still learning the breadth of people that loved him.

  “Shame about the war,” he said. “I was at his funeral.”

  “Seems like everyone was.”

  “You were only a year behind him?”

  I nodded.

  “Catholic twins,” he said. “Close in age like that. I have three brothers and we were all born within a year of the last. Dad used to call us that.”

  “You’re the oldest?”

  He spat to the side. “You bet. We lost the youngest in ’44. Jim. He was in Normandy.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I wish it was me sometimes. I should have been there alongside him. I have bad vision. They wouldn’t let me go. Jim was colorblind but he could see for miles. Being colorblind is a plus for soldiers. They can see through camouflage. You know that?”

  “No, I didn’t know that. Is that true?”

  “I think it is. Jim wasn’t but four years younger than me, a grown man, but I always thought of him as the baby, you know?” He took a large breath. “It’s something you don’t get over. There was still a lot I wanted to show him. I bet Peter is looking down thinking the same thing. He’s probably glad it was him and not you.”

  Being a brother is a strange thing at times. There are so many things that go unsaid, things that stay under the surface and are only understood by actions. Peter was more than an older brother to me, he was also the man I looked up to and he filled the roles of protector and teacher to me since we were children. There was so much I wanted to learn from Peter still, and I realized now it was a two-way street. There was so much he wanted to teach me still.

  Wheels must have felt that he had overstepped a boundary, saying too much, because he half-turned away and wiped his hands again on his jeans to fill in the silence.

  “If you ever have a day when you need to earn some extra cash, come on down. I’ll have more work than I can get to.”

  “Thanks, Wheels.”

  “Sure.” He looked around, taking in the day. “Well. Swell day for a spin.”

  “Thanks for the loan. Have them back to you tonight.”

  “Keep them for however long you need them.” He waved his hand. “They could bring you luck. Love happens on two wheels.”

  He stood fully confident in his claim. Bicycling on the first day of spring, when the sun suddenly appears in full and sprays the earth with so much more than rays. It was a romantic thought.

  “Can it do all that?” I laughed. “Much more than just transportation.”

  Wheels nodded. “Oh, Lord, much more. A bicycle puts a smile on anyone’s face. I should think the world would be a much better place if we got rid of cars altogether and sent people around on bikes. If Jesus had come two thousand years later He’d have entered Bethlehem under His own pedal-power.”

  “There’s always the Second Coming.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Liv met me on the Le Mans roundabout. I was standing there with the bicycles on kickstands. Girls were streaming into the warm air as if it were the first day of the sun’s existence. They were dressed in the thin spring sweaters and skirts, short sleeve shirts and shorts, ignoring the goose bumps that spread underneath, proud and excited to show off their long limbs. They want you to look but you always feel that you should not.

  The opaque sticker of winter had peeled away the white and gray, all the coats and scarves along with it, to reveal a tender new world in bloom.

  “When you said a surprise I thought we were going somewhere.”

  “We are,” I said. “A bicycle ride.”

  “I’m wearing a skirt.”

  “Just be careful of the chain.”

  We pushed off the curb and rode through the neighborhood lanes of South Bend, under the floating tree buds. The early tulips sprouted in the sidewalk greens, the robins chirped from the fences, and the bees buzzed the blossoms. Old men sat in rocking chairs and waved in short sleeves from their porches, women looked up from their knees in their gardens. Everything breathed with warmth.

  There was a market along the main street, farmers with outstretched hands weighing their early greenhouse produce, women waving fists of flowers, fresh bakery items steamed from tables and small boys stuck their thumbs in the center. Trinkets caught the sun, pages of old books flipped with the breeze; wives tested the firmness of melons, carvings stood in piles of shavings, paintings jumped out from artist’s arms. Little girls ran from sidewalk to sidewalk selling homemade hair clips and barrettes with butterfly buttons and ladybug beads. The men whistled as they walked through the market and shook hands with each other while the women spoke in smiles and light voices.

  Liv held a handful of flowers to her face and sniffed herself into a delicate sneeze.

  “There goes your first semester classes,”
I said. “I saw all the words jump out.”

  She waved her hand at her face while her mouth and nose pulled together in another sneeze.

  “Now you’re working on your junior classes. All your education, blown through your nose.”

  She put her hand on my arm and fought the last sneeze hard enough to keep it in her nose and release it as an exhale. “I’ll forget who you are if this keeps up.”

  We moved down to a table of books. A small boy was peeking up from behind rows of literature, his hands folded in front of him as though he was a banker with a table full of investment advice.

  “A quarter a book, sir.”

  “That’s a good deal,” I said. “Are all these books yours?”

  “My grandpa’s. He’s a book collector.”

  “Have you read all these?”

  His eyes widened. “No, sir.”

  I began to point out different books. “How about this one?”

  The boy leaned in and read the title, making a great show of it. “Yes, sir.”

  “This one?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I grabbed the first hardcover, a tattered copy with worn edges. I held it close to my nose and breezed the pages.

  “Ever read Mark Twain?” I asked Liv.

  “No,” she said, looking away at the other booths. “I’ve heard of him.”

  “Everybody’s heard of him. He’s a classic.”

  The boy came around the from behind the table with several selections he must have thought any girl would surely seize with both hands. He held them out to Liv.

  “For you, ma’am.”

  “No, thank you.”

  He had not managed to get her attention. He gathered himself and tried again. “Only a quarter a book.”

  “No, thank you.” She was looking away still and the boy lowered the books in disappointment.

  “I’ll take all of them,” I told him. “Here’s a dollar for the books and another for your expert opinion.”

  The boy exchanged the books for the money with a huge smile printed on his face, a new confidence in his service.

  “That was awfully nice of you,” Liv said.

  “It was just a couple dollars. I have some of the finest novels in literature and I might have changed that boy’s life.”