As Bobby took the mound in the eighth, Judge Carlton’s voice interrupted his first warm-up throw. “My good friends and fans, as you know, a Lunker win today combined with a Pelican loss will put Lake Charles in first place for the first time in franchise history.” The crowd cheered. “Now, this just in from Houston. The first game of their July Fourth double-header is now over. The score was New Orleans . . . seven.” The crowd’s enthusiasm died. “The Houston Buffs . . . eight!”
The noise almost drowned out Carlton’s next statement. “The Lake Charles Lunkers are the new division leaders of the Gulf Coast League!”
The Judge’s banging gavel echoed through the speakers and out into the town.
Bobby smiled. He was sitting on a 6-1 lead with one inning left to pitch. Chozen opened the inning, as usual, by signaling for an outside-corner fastball. Bobby waved it off. The batter was Skip Randazzo, the Crowley pitcher, and Bobby figured he could put him away with his curve. He did. Then the game unraveled. Back-to-back singles brought him face to face with Butch Maroney, an angry Italian who looked like a breeding mistake between Hack Wilson and Burleigh Grimes.
Chozen called fastball. Bobby said no. Chozen asked curve. Bobby nodded yes. Maroney drove it to Scoop’s left. The runner on second stopped like a matador to let the ball pass, then slid into third to load the bases. After stalling to regain his composure, Bobby walked in his first run in two years.
Chozen ran out to the mound. “Bobby, you ain’t fooling me and you sure ain’t fooling these batters. You got a tender wing, don’t you?”
Bobby nodded.
“You want to give it to Bill?”
Bobby nodded.
Chozen hit him with his catcher’s mitt. “Good job. We’re in first right now because of you, and we’ll be in first when this game is over.”
Judge Carlton whisper-talked into the mike as if announcing a crucial putt in a golf tournament. “Folks, it looks like Mr. Chozen is going to call in Bobby’s brother, Bill ‘Striker’ German, to put the period on this nine-inning sentence.”
Bill let two runners across in the eighth and another in the ninth. When he picked Shrug McDonald off first base to end the game, Polly Lutner launched into a patriotic rendition of “Bringing in the Sheaves.”
The game ended 6-5. The Lake Charles Lunkers were the new Gulf Coast League leaders.
Chapter 15
FROM his seventh-floor window at the Charleston Hotel, a towel of ice saddle-bagged over his shoulder, Bobby watched triangular white sails scudding across the lake. He could not feel the pain of his shoulder through the pain of the ice and the fog of the bourbon.
He took another bracing shot straight from the pint bottle. The last thing he wanted was his Wild Turkey on the rocks. He remembered the painful cold of Minnesota, playing for the only D team that would give him a contract, then working his way south as he improved, finishing that season in the panhandle heat of Texas with the Class-A Amarillo Goldsox.
During Bobby’s brief stint with the Pawtucket Slaters, a one-armed veteran tossed him a white rabbit’s foot after he pitched a two-hit loss. Soon after acquiring the gift, Bobby studied the position of its nails and determined his good luck charm was a southpaw. His luck, his arm, and his ERA quickly improved, so he allowed the foot to nestle next to his lucky buckeye seed.
The chill of the icepack reached Bobby’s bare feet. He looked down to see a puddle of water surrounding them. He positioned his heels on the rungs of the chair and took another swallow of the amber-warm bourbon. In a state between sleeping and daydreaming and drunk, he remembered the chilly November evening in El Dorado, celebrating his twenty-two wins for the Little Rock Red Roosters with Louis Martin, Jim Hunt, and the handful of Oilers who hadn’t risen to A ball or fallen completely off the deep end of the alphabet—C. R., Tomcat, and Little J.
It was a bar trying to pass as a billiard parlor out on the highway to Calion. The girls had gone home before dark to let the men celebrate in their own way.
Outside by the front door, Louis and Bobby sat on the edge of a pink-brick planter filled with red sand, a thousand cigarette butts sprouting from the sand like arthritic tombstones. Bobby turned up the collar of his Red Rooster jacket.
“First hard frost always comes before Thanksgiving,” Louis said.
C. R. and Tomcat burst through the door.
“Come on back in! Y’all gonna spoil the party.”
Tomcat, a nonsmoker, sucked on an imaginary cigarette and blew an icy cloud into the dying evening. Bobby took a last drag and pushed his Lucky into the red sand.
Inside, their group stood at the far end of the bar. A few sat at tables. A lone man nobody knew was shooting pool under a cone of smoky light. Other patrons would come later, hunters and mill workers, college boys and secret drunks escaping their doughy wives.
Bobby recalled that night as if he were watching a raucous TV western with the volume turned all the way down. PIC Baseball magazines were scattered about the bar and tables, a life-sized image of Bobby’s face smiling out from the red and white cover. The front of the previous PIC featured a full-length shot of Ted Williams impossibly twisted in the batter’s box, his uplifted face watching the glory of another home run. Bobby knew he was about to walk among the gods.
In half an hour, the three pool tables are surrounded by gesturing men, laughing about deer, turkey, and ducks; a priest, a frog, and a goat; three naked nurses knocking at a one-eyed farmer’s door.
Four men come through the door shielding a woman in gauzy white. The boys introduce her to Bobby. Her name is Ophelia. She is a gift, they say, before his marriage. “A parting gift,” Tomcat says, quickly spreading his legs in a humorously vulgar way. Silky as smoke, her arm wreathes around Bobby’s neck.
A man muscles up to the bar and orders a drink. While waiting, he looks at Bobby’s jacket and makes a joke about a solitary Red Rooster screwing himself silly in a barnyard. His beer arrives and he makes another crack about a buzzard humping the Red Rooster. Friends close ranks around Bobby until the man passes. But the man stops. He leans his head over Jim’s shoulder and discovers he is out of jokes.
“Fuck the Red Rooster,” he says. “Little fucking rooster red fucking cock of the barnyard walk. You think you’re big shit because you can throw a baseball? I could ram that baseball up your ass.”
A large empty silence surrounds the small silence around the loud man.
Bobby places his cigarette on the lip of a pewter ashtray. Holding his hands up as if being arrested, he says, “Hey, we’re all just trying to have a good time here.”
“Fucking red rooster,” the man says.
“And we’d appreciate it if you didn’t use that kind of language around the lady.”
The man looks at Ophelia through a raspy alcoholic fog. He bursts out laughing and stumbles back to his pool table. The circle around Bobby relaxes and the men make light of the common occurrence.
A minute later, a rack of billiard balls breaks with the sound of a line drive coming off a hot bat. Bobby is facing the bar, holding up an empty can to signal for another drink. Ophelia is playing with his ear. A hard hand grabs his shoulder and spins him around. A fist, dirty and hard, is coming at him. Bobby has fielded thousands of baseballs hit over a hundred miles an hour. The man’s fist comes at him in slow motion. Before Bobby has a chance to think, his reflexes take over and he blocks the swing and smashes the man’s face.
As soon as he feels the man’s nose collapse, Bobby drops to his knees, covering his closed left fist with his right hand. The man falls backwards and hits a table that crashes to the floor with him. In an instant, Bobby is cold sober and terrified, praying to God, Please. Please don’t let it be broken.
Louis is saying something in one ear, Jim in another. Bobby slowly uncovers his throwing hand, expecting something horrible. He works it open and closed, testing it, and he feels like crying because it is unharmed. He feels himself being pulled up and looks over at the felled man being dragged awa
y and watches as he is helped out the door. Bobby checks the pool tables for other friends of the felled man. His table is empty, but at the next is a familiar face, laughing at Bobby and pumping a clenched fist to congratulate him on the knockout. It is Earl Self with a cowgirl draped around his neck.
That is the end of it. When a fair fight is over, it’s over, and the normal barroom sounds return: pool balls clacking, glasses clinking, and the sound of good clean cursing.
A six-pack and several retellings later, Bobby excuses himself to retrieve fresh cigarettes from his car on the lot. He steps out of the door and is hit full in the face with a bracing gust of frigid air. He stops and closes his eyes. The boisterous noise behind him is almost inaudible. The air smells faintly of hay and cattle manure. To his right, Bobby hears the music of bottles knocking together. A crashing sound makes him jump back and raise a fist. The garbage can rolls slowly and pauses, as if it were a living thing. A raccoon emerges, drunk from the meager samplings. He looks about to get his bearings, then bumbles away in the dark.
Bobby laughs and walks to his car. He opens the passenger door and retrieves a pack of Lucky Strikes from the glove compartment. He shuts the door and notices the car next to his rocking steadily. Smiling, he stops to open the pack of Luckies but sees nothing through the foggy windows.
Two men sitting on a car call to another standing by the door. As Bobby approaches, he lifts his hand in a stranger-friendly greeting. The man by the door grabs Bobby’s raised hand. It is the grip of a farm hand who mends fences and does rough carpentry work. The two men bring him to the ground. The man by the door folds Bobby’s left hand into a fist and holds it on the cement walk while the two men take turns stomping it with work boots. The hand is numb, so Bobby feels nothing and he is grateful when it is over.
But then they lift him and place his forearm across the brick planter. When the boot drops, his bones snap with the crisp sound of dry kindling. He loses touch with himself for a time. When he comes to, the men have his other arm ready, positioned across the planter. The boot is about to fall when the door opens and a couple walks out. Earl Self separates from his girl and takes down the man closest to him. As they struggle on the ground, the two men kick Earl in the ribs until he turns loose of their friend.
A sharp explosion rattles the windows of the Charleston Hotel and Bobby awakens from the past nightmare into the present one. A feeling of overwhelming sadness smothers the pain of his shoulder. He leans in the chair and lets the cold wet mass of towel slide off his arm onto the floor. Another explosion rocks the building and Bobby looks out the window at red, white, and blue fireworks blossoming against the sky.
Bobby German wonders—he has wondered for years and now he wonders again—whether Earl saved him from another broken arm or planned the fight in the bar and the later ambush. He wonders if Earl was smart enough and desperate enough to spend half a dozen broken ribs to ruin a good baseball career and win back a better woman. Because Irene knew about Ophelia, and Bobby never found out who told her.
At the hospital, Irene said, “You defended the honor of an unworthy woman while you yourself were not being honorable.”
She said some other things, but that was the most important.
Chapter 16
BOBBY and Roberto were selected for the1952 All-Star team. By the time of the contest on the twentieth of July, Bobby was bringing his practice throws up to game speed but was unable to pitch in the midseason affair. With Bobby watching from the bench, Roberto pitched the opening three innings and was credited with the win, striking out seven of nine batters. The day after the game, Roberto was called up to Little Rock.
Chozen gradually worked Bobby back into the rotation, pitching him five innings his first outing, seven the next, nine the next. Bobby lost his first game, won the second, and no-decisioned the third. He seemed to be fully recovered, but Chozen could tell he was holding back and favoring his shoulder.
After the wasted effort of game three, Chozen consulted with Bobby in the clubhouse. “Bobby, you can waste a fastball outside now and then, but you can’t live on the corner of the plate like you’ve been doing the last few games. Sooner or later, you have to challenge the batter.”
“Yes, sir,” Bobby said. “I know.”
In early August, with Roberto gone and Bobby waffling, the Lunkers started tumbling down the ladder of the Gulf Coast League—second place, tied for second, third. Then, tied for fourth, they found themselves where they were when the gale-force Cubans blew onto the scene.
* * *
Before the road trip to New Orleans, Bobby was stocking up on Luckies in Abe’s Supermarket on the lakefront when Irene strolled out of the produce section with a single large watermelon in a pushcart. He knew he would see her sooner or later, and he had planned some polite things to say. But when he saw her, he lost all his lines.
“Hey,” he said.
“Well,” Irene said. “We meet at last.”
Bobby nodded. He didn’t remember her being so beautiful. She had been attractive as a girl just out of high school, but over the span of six years her features had matured. With money from a steady job, she had learned about makeup and wore a more stylish cut of clothes.
“Marlene always gives me the latest on you,” she said. “She works with me. Or I work with her.”
“I know. Louis told me.” Bobby had a lump in his throat and didn’t know what else to say. He reached into the basket and thumped the melon.
“I’ve seen you pitch a few times.”
Bobby’s heart soared. “I know. I’ve seen you in the stands.”
She remembered him nodding at her during the Fourth of July prayer. “So. You doing all right?”
“Good,” Bobby said. “The usual injuries. Nothing unusual.” He winced after saying it. He had not meant to call attention to the El Dorado incident and remind her of all that. Suddenly uncomfortable, they both spoke.
“You—”
“You—”
Irene laughed.
“Go ahead,” they said at the same time, then both of them laughed.
And that eased the tension. Bobby asked about her father, the hotel business, the dairy farm, Fay and Claude, Jim Hunt, the Oilers, and anything else he could think of to keep the talk going. When it stopped, Bobby looked full into her green eyes. “You’re more beautiful than ever.”
“Don’t,” she said. “I—”
“I think about you all the time.”
“That’s nice to hear, but—”
“I can’t help but think about you when Polly plays ‘Goodnight Irene’ every time someone hits a home run.”
“God, I was so embarrassed when that song came out.”
“Thirteen weeks at number one in 1950.” There was an awkward moment as Irene realized how much Bobby still cared for her. He took advantage of the silence. “Do you think much about me?”
She turned her head away. “Don’t make me do this, Bobby.”
It was the first time in half a decade he had heard his name spoken like that.
“Do you?”
“Now and then,” she conceded. “But he’s a good man.”
Bobby noticed she had not said her husband’s name.
“I would have been a good man, too. What happened was really nothing. You should have let it go.”
She was almost in tears. “Bobby, I’ve cast my lot with him. He’s a good man.”
They had nothing else to say to each other in that direction.
“If he ever strays, will you get in touch with me?”
“I don’t think he will—”
“If he does, will you promise me to?”
“I can’t promise that.”
“Sometimes they leave, you know.”
“Don’t hope like that, Bobby. It only makes it worse for you.”
“And you?”
“I don’t want to think about it. I can’t.”
Irene looked around to see if anyone could overhear their conversation.<
br />
“I really have to go, okay?”
“Okay,” Bobby said. And he let her go. “Get in touch if anything happens,” he said as she turned toward the checkout. When she didn’t respond, Bobby knew she was crying.
Chapter 17
AFTER returning from the New Orleans-Lafayette-Crowley road trip, Bobby heard there was a run of speckled trout in the lake. He kept his boat at his brother’s house and asked Bill if he wanted to make a trip.
“Some of us have to work tonight,” Bill said.
“Suit yourself.” Bobby clamped the trailer onto the ball. “If I’m not back by game time, y’all butcher the anthem without me.”
Switch Pitchers Page 18
