Layne enjoyed the whole thing a little too much. The boxers had her screaming with laughter. “Good idea, Coach Ick. Why don’t you put your initials on all your shorts? Then you’ll always be able to tell the front from the back.”
Before long, everybody was calling him Coach Ick. The team came to be known as Ick’s Fish, which seemed appropriate for a team that played baseball about as well as the average trout. There was one kid he was pretty sure had never tried to run before, let alone play baseball. About halfway through the season a pitch accidentally hit his bat and the shortstop picked it up and threw it into the stands. The chubby little guy rounded first, waddled halfway to second, stopped, turned around, took his helmet off, scratched his head, looked back at Mick, who was coaching first base, and asked if he was going the right way. Not having been there before, he was unfamiliar with the route. The team parents put their heads together and told Mick he should iron numbers on the bases to help the kids remember which one was which.
Ben never took the bat off his shoulder the whole season. He didn’t bail out, he just never swung at a pitch. Not once. Nobody could convince him the pitch was a strike, ever, and anyway he liked arguing with the umpire better than running the bases. But Ben was short for his age and when he went into a crouch he had a very small strike zone, so he led the league in walks. Toad, on the other hand, swung at everything. They could throw the ball over the backstop and she’d swing at it. She struck out most of the time. When she did get on base she always tried to steal second because she liked to try to spike the shortstop. She led the league in fist-fights.
Defense? Ick’s Fish used the Bob Uecker method: wait till it stops rolling and pick it up. Mick tried to teach them to hold onto the ball after they picked it up—just run it in and stand on home plate—but they wouldn’t do it. Every time one of them got his hands on the ball he’d throw it into the outfield or the dugout. They gave up several grand-slam bunts that year. They also had a deaf outfielder—great kid, but stone deaf. He didn’t pay attention any better than any other seven-year-old, so sometimes he wouldn’t see a ball hit over his head and he’d just stand there with this puzzled look on his face trying to figure out why everybody in the bleachers was jumping up and down and pointing.
Whenever Layne could get off work in time she came to the games. She made sure Mick brought his camera so he could record Ben and Toad’s baseball experience, but the pictures didn’t turn out very well. He used the long lens and got a good close-up of Toad landing a punch, and another one of Ben looking up at a ball in the outfield right before it hit him, but Layne wanted pictures of them sliding into home plate, so they faked a couple after a game. There wasn’t much chance of catching Ben or Toad sliding into home during a real game.
24
* * *
Rounding out the six.
AUBREY got excited the night he developed the pictures from Overpass Plantation. Mick had never seen him that animated; he was usually pretty reserved. Aubrey went through the whole stack with a magnifying glass and there were a number of pictures he liked, but he found two that blew him away. Mick could have predicted he’d like the close-up of the kid hugging the backpack. That one was a no-brainer. Only the very top of the backpack showed; it was just a picture of a kid’s face, glowing. Even without Toad in the shot, the boy’s face told a story. But the one that surprised Mick was one he had forgotten taking, probably because the light was weird and he didn’t think it would turn out.
The photo was a silhouette. They had gone down to the street below the bridge at one point—Mick, the Man With No Hands, and Dylan—figuring there were a few people who couldn’t or wouldn’t make it up the hill. Mick carried a sack full of groceries to hand out. He shot a few pictures while he was down there, but not many. Mostly faces. There were some real characters, but for the most part the shadows were too deep. He never shot with a flash, and besides, he got the feeling there were people down there who didn’t want their picture taken. But there was this one old guy—really old, with a long, grimy, gray beard—who came up and started talking to Dylan. A tall man, he walked with a cane, very slowly, swinging one leg out because the knee wouldn’t bend. Mick kept an eye on Dylan, thinking any minute he was going to bolt and run between his daddy’s legs, but he never did. The old guy stopped and talked to Dylan as if he were a grownup. No baby talk. Called him “young man.” There was something in his smile and that deep formal voice that fascinated Dylan. Mick could see it in his eyes.
They were standing in semidarkness under the bridge, but the street was wet and the sunlight bounced off the pavement toward him from the other end. When Dylan held up a loaf of bread with both hands the old guy hung his cane on his arm and bent stiffly at the waist to take it. That’s when Mick shot the picture. He wasn’t prepared for shooting into the light like that, and he didn’t have time to fiddle with the settings; he just shot from the hip and forgot about it. He didn’t figure it would come out.
But when Aubrey developed the picture it jumped off the page.
“Oh, this is perfect,” he said.
Dylan and the old man were in almost complete silhouette. Only the old man’s face caught some of the light reflected up from the wet street. He was smiling, and something in that wrinkled smile and formal posture spoke of warmth and kindliness. He had a kind of dignity about him. Dylan was looking up at him, leaning back a little as if the bread was heavy.
“Look at the symmetry of it!” Aubrey said. “And the way the light comes from a vanishing point to engulf them. It’s like it connects them, somehow. Astonishing.”
He got excited then, pulled out the top drawer of his filing cabinet and started leafing through folders. Being the kind of meticulous nerd that he was, Aubrey had made contact prints of all Mick’s pictures—the ones they hadn’t culled—twelve to a page, and sorted and labeled them and filed them neatly so that in less than a minute he had Mick’s whole portfolio spread out in front of them.
Aubrey had already circled the ones on the contact prints that he thought were the best, so within minutes he had pulled the negatives and started setting up to print eight-by-tens of his top choices. He couldn’t contain himself. As soon as the prints were dry he rushed upstairs to show them to Celly. Mick followed.
She was sitting at the sun table by the bay window off the kitchen, sipping tea from a china cup. Eight o’clock and she was already in her robe. She looked tired. Celly Weems could be charming when she wanted to be, like when she brought Christmas presents over for the kids, but Mick figured it was the kind of charm she could turn on and off like a light switch. On her home turf, she was imposing. Even sitting at her kitchen table in her robe she was the kind of person that made him uncomfortable.
Aubrey coddled her, talked to her like a child, called her Baby. When he spread the eight-by-tens out on the table in front of her she made no move to touch any of them, she just placed her teacup on the saucer very gracefully and laid a finger against her chin.
“Mr. Brannigan, did you take all of these photos?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He couldn’t help it, it just came out that way. She was older than him, but not old enough to be a ma’am.
“They’re quite nice,” she said. “Your children photograph so well.”
“Oh, they’re terrific!” Aubrey said, with an enthusiasm she didn’t seem to share. “We’re going to enter these in the Clayton show. I have a hunch Larry Mac’s not going to run away with it this year.”
“They’re very nice,” she repeated, and Mick got the distinct impression he and Aubrey were being dismissed. She lifted her teacup and looked out the window at the twilight woods.
“Can I get you anything, Baby?” Aubrey asked softly as he picked up the pictures.
“No. Thank you, I’m fine.” She didn’t look at him.
* * *
By the time they got back down to the darkroom Aubrey didn’t seem so excited anymore, as if his wife had taken all the starch out of him. Mick just came right
out and asked him, “Is Celly okay?”
Aubrey hesitated, pushing his glasses up onto his forehead and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Well, yes and no. It’s a long story.”
He meant it was a private story. Mick knew enough not to ask any more questions. Aubrey put the pictures into a manila folder, and then, while his hands were busy straightening up the darkroom, he must have decided he needed to talk.
“She suffers from depression sometimes,” he said quietly, swabbing the sink with a cloth.
Mick hadn’t expected that. He thought she was just snooty. He let it lay there for a minute, but then he couldn’t help asking.
“What has she got to be depressed about? I mean, Celly’s an attractive woman and you’re comfortable financially,” which they both knew was code for stinking rich. “She’s got a husband who’s crazy about her, your kid is doing well at college, and you don’t even have to worry about how to pay for it! I would have figured if anybody was content, Celly would be. She’s got it made.”
Aubrey glanced at the door then, and dropped his voice a notch. “Well, she’s had her share of problems. Now it’s mostly empty nest syndrome, I think. Our youngest is off at school, as you know, but he’s going through that whole ‘breaking away’ phase. Tanner called his mother yesterday and said some things about how we’re screwing up his life. I know it’s just a phase and he didn’t really mean it, but Celly takes things like that pretty hard. I just don’t get it, Mick. We’ve done everything for our kids. We’re still doing everything. Where’d we go wrong?”
Mick shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you, Aubrey. At the moment I’m busy screwing up my own kids’ lives.”
That drew a laugh out of Aubrey. Apparently it was what he needed because he sighed with his whole body, and when he looked up it was as if he had turned a page. He picked up the folder with the pictures.
“Names,” he said, slapping the folder against Mick’s chest. “You’ve got to put titles on these. Apart from actually shooting the pictures, it’s the one thing I can’t do for you. The deadline for entry is only a couple weeks away, and the only thing left is titles. Give it some thought. Try to keep it simple and tight, but appropriate.”
25
* * *
Looking for answers.
WHEN he got home from Aubrey’s with the folder Mick went off by himself and just sat at the desk for a long time staring at them. The kids were in bed and Layne was reading. The house was quiet.
Aubrey had picked what he said were the best six pictures—the one of Toad flying through the air over the haystack, a close-up of Ben’s face gazing up at an unseen kite, another of Ben peeking out the window of the old house, the one of Toad leaning out the door, Dylan handing a loaf of bread to an old man, and the close-up of the homeless kid hugging Toad’s pack.
They were good pictures, and he believed in them, but this photography contest scared him half to death. Like everything else that had happened to him lately, it was an accident. It wasn’t his plan. He started out thinking he would take a few pictures for fun, just to see how they turned out. If anybody had told him in the beginning that he would end up with framed, matted, titled photographs hanging in a gallery being judged by people in suits, people with education and refinement and discriminating taste, he would have run the other way as fast as he could. It scared him a lot worse than the high steel in a thunderstorm. Even in the quiet, sitting alone at his desk, he couldn’t quite get his mind around it.
In his insecurity, he wondered if Aubrey was just toying with him. What if Aubrey was just telling him he was a good photographer so he could gather around with his rich friends at the gallery and horselaugh him? But no. Aubrey might be a nerd but he was a serious nerd—he didn’t know how to be insincere. And yet, what if he was just wrong, and the pictures were no good? Aubrey wanted this for himself, anybody could see that. He’d wanted it for years and couldn’t get there. Maybe he was projecting his fantasies onto Mick, and it was all just wishful thinking. Mick believed his pictures were good, but didn’t everybody? Didn’t everybody think their own work was the best?
He needed a second opinion.
He went into the den, sat down on the couch next to Layne and handed her the folder. She put her book down and gave each of the six pictures a long look. They were eight-by-tens, and she studied them for a long time. Mick didn’t say anything, he just sat there twiddling his thumbs. He didn’t want to prejudice her. By the time she was done he noticed there were tears in her eyes.
She closed the folder and wrapped him in a hug. “These are wonderful,” she whispered.
“You really think so? They’re that good?”
“Oh, absolutely! We have such beautiful children. Do you have any pictures where they’re smiling?”
So much for an objective opinion. To Layne, these were just good snapshots of the kids. Very good, but snapshots all the same. He knew without further discussion that she was never going to see beyond the faces of her children. She was too much of a mom.
The next day he took the folder over to Hap. He was in his shop, under the hood of a candy-apple red ’56 Ford pickup. Hap wiped his hands on a greasy rag and sat his big self down on a tool chest to look at them.
“Pretty pictures,” he said. “I like that’n of Toad. That girl’s about a whirligig, ain’t she? When you gonna get yourself a color camera?”
He loved Hap, but there were times when he wished he were a touch more sophisticated.
* * *
The folder rode around on the dashboard of his truck for a couple days and Mick’s insecurities only grew. He still didn’t know for sure if they were any good, and he certainly couldn’t come up with any titles for them.
That Friday afternoon Ick’s Fish had a big game. There was one other team as bad as the Fish, and the highlight of the whole season was the next to last game, when the two worst teams played each other. Neither of them had won a game, so the outcome was terribly important. Ick’s Fish kept their record intact, losing four to three.
Mick took the team to the Dairy Barn for ice cream after the game. The kids were whooping and hollering and cutting up, flipping ice cream all over the place with those long plastic spoons and giving each other hot-fudge wet willies. Mick stayed by the garbage can, out of the line of fire, sucking on a butterscotch shake.
Danny Baez walked into the place in the middle of the party. He’d been working overtime and was on his way home, all rusty and dirty. Danny didn’t recognize Mick right away because he was wearing his Marlins cap and COACH ICK shirt, but he finally spotted him and threw a hand up. After he got his sack he came over to say hello, dodging a stray missile of chocolate ice cream on the way.
“Hey, Mick, I didn’t know you were coaching a team,” he said. “Those little guys party hard. They win the championship?”
“Nope. Lost,” Mick said. “Haven’t won a game all year.”
“Wow. Then what are they celebrating?”
Mick shrugged. “Free ice cream. And they get to keep the uniforms.”
“Cool,” Danny said, nodding, flashing a wide smile. “Kids got their priorities straight, man.”
He was right. Win or lose, seven-year-olds knew how to have a good time. Watching them made Mick think about the pictures. Everything made Mick think about the pictures.
“Say, Danny, can I ask you for a favor? If you got a minute, I want you to come out to the truck and take a look at something.”
There were plenty of other parents hovering around the edge of the melee trying to control the kids, so Mick and Danny slipped out the door and went to the truck. Danny pulled the tailgate down and sat up on it unwrapping his burgers and fries while Mick got the folder off the dash.
Danny wiped his hands on his jeans and went through the pictures without saying anything, just a chuckle here and there. While he was looking at them, Mick filled him in a little, told him about the juried show Aubrey wanted him to enter. When Danny closed the folder and handed it back he shook
his head and said, “Man, I wish I could do something like that. Those are like art.”
“You really think so?”
Danny shrugged, bit into a burger, talked around a mouthful. “Well. If you want to talk about art, you’re way over my head, Mick. I think they’re good, but that’s just me. I’m a rod-buster, not an art critic.”
An old yellow biplane passed overhead, on a final for Bear Creek. “That’s that Steerman out of Williamson,” Danny said, watching the plane. Mick waited. There was something else on Danny’s mind, he could see it in his face. Danny finally got still for a minute, staring at the ground, and said something not at all like a rod-buster.
“All I can tell you is those pictures make me feel something, Mick. Every one of them. When I look at them I feel something. They leave questions, like a good story. Is that what you wanted to know?”
Mick nodded. “Yeah. That’s a big chunk of it.”
They sat quietly for a minute, Mick pulling on a shake and Danny dipping fries in ketchup.
“Listen, Danny, there’s one other thing. I’ve got to name them. If I enter these pictures in the show I’ve got to put titles on them. You got any suggestions?”
Danny shook his head. “Shoot, I ain’t got a clue. You’re on your own there, pard.”
* * *
The phone rang right after Mick got home that evening. Everybody else must have been busy because Dylan picked it up. Mick was putting chemicals in the pool when Dylan brought the cordless out to him.
Summer of Light Page 18
