Gods of Wood and Stone

by Mark Di Ionno

  Truth was, he hated the inanity of the parents around him at Michael’s games. All the talk, on and on and on, centered around their kids; the world beyond didn’t matter.

  And the overindulgence! Concrete dugouts. Manicured fields, some with grass infields, all with freshly limed batter’s boxes and foul lines. Electronic scoreboards and lights for night games. Fences with advertising banners. A snack stand that sold adult-sized Cooperstown LL hats, T-shirts, and replica jerseys. A loudspeaker system that announced each batter and blasted rap between innings, which Horace viewed as assaultive.

  “Do they have to do this?” Horace asked a beefy guy stuffed into a league golf shirt, whom Horace knew to be one of the league officials.

  “The kids like it.”

  “What about the parents? Do we count?”

  “Afraid not,” the beefy guy said, curt enough to make Horace want to square up.

  Worst of all was the schedule; three, sometimes four games a week. It dominated family life. School, church, dinnertime, working around the house, it all came in second to sports.

  “You know how many nights I’ve eaten alone while you’re off watching Michael play until dark?” Horace complained to Sally.

  “You could come, too.”

  “That’s not fair, Sally. I just don’t believe I have to be there every inning of every game. God forbid a parent misses a game nowadays. I look at all those people sitting there hour after hour. Do you know what forty grown-ups could collectively accomplish in all those hours?”

  Sally threw up her hands.

  “I can’t believe how you twist things around. There’s a social aspect, Horace,” Sally said. “It’s being part of the community.”

  “What are you saying, Sally?” Horace asked, but he knew. He was an outsider.

  So now Horace was back. The kids were older, and grown out of their childhood looks. Horace didn’t recognize a single one.

  He walked to the nearest bleacher and sat. There was Sally, across the diamond, chatting with a few other mothers. Horace was on the wrong side, and began the long, self-conscious trek to the other. As he approached Sally, she turned to him and made a face of pleasant surprise.

  “Well,” she said, with an uptick in her voice.

  “I took your advice.”

  “Good, Horace . . .”

  She didn’t finish the sentence, but Horace knew the end. Because now Horace didn’t stand out. He almost blended in, almost like a regular dad. Anger flamed up in him, and he tamped it down by clenching his jaw and saying nothing. Sally saw it, too, and let it go. Horace moved down the row and they both turned and looked toward the outfield, where Michael was warming up.

  The other men were grouped along the fence, away from their wives. A couple of them had their hats on backwards, like the kids. You could see separation among them; almost like high school. The men whose boys were stars, the taller, more confident-looking men, were clustered together at the fence. The others stood in pairs, constantly checking their cell phones. Horace nodded to a few he recognized from seasons past.

  My generation of men, Horace thought, scorned for sins of generations past, unable to shape generations of the future. In the end, we’re either too strong or too weak, and reduced to spectators in our children’s lives. He wondered how many of these fathers ever made their son miss a game for the opening of trout season, or to go camping, or to visit a historic site or museum. He knew the answer. None.

  There was a sucker’s game going on around all these sports: the chase for college scholarships. Horace heard it from Sally, the minute Michael showed promise. If they paid for this pitching coach, or put him in that conditioning program, or let him join these travel teams, it would help him get a scholarship. But Horace knew a scam when he saw one. An industry sprang up around these dreams. Camps, training centers, club teams, private lessons.

  “Tell him to put all that time into studying,” Horace would tell Sally, “and he’ll get plenty of scholarships. Like you.”

  He was thinking all this when Michael, batting fourth, got up in the first inning with boys on first and third, and hit a ball that went to the fence in a straight line. It died with a rattle against the chain link. By the time the ball was thrown back to the infield, Michael was slowing up, cruising into third. The group of jock fathers at the fence erupted when the ball was hit. Horace heard his son being called “Mike-O,” and one dude dad cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted, “Beeassst.”

  “That’s what they call him, Beast,” Sally said as she turned to Horace, expecting a derisive potshot.

  But Horace said nothing and didn’t look in her direction. Instead his eyes were back at the plate, trying to savor the mental picture of his boy, back foot dug in, hips and shoulders rotating as one, chin tucked, arms extended in a compact but horizontal swing of brute force. It was a thing of beauty; it was Horace in the woodpile. A perfectly controlled violent stroke. Michael was his boy. His boy after all.

  * * *

  AFTER THE GAME, Horace stood aside as other parents congratulated the boys on their win. Horace noticed how some of the jock dads congregated around Michael, slapping him on the back. “Beeasst,” a few more said, and fist-bumped him. When the small crowd dissipated, Horace approached his son, and Sally, mercifully, said, “I’ll meet you in the car,” over her shoulder and left them alone.

  “Good game, Mike,” Horace said. “What did you have? Three hits.”

  “Two. One was a fielder’s choice.”

  “Still, a pretty good day.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  Michael slung his bat bag over his shoulder and they started walking toward the parking lot, his cleats scraping the pavement.

  “Want to get a burger with me?” Horace asked, hoping there was no desperation in his voice.

  “Dad. You? A burger?”

  “Sure, why not?” Horace said. “No lectures. Just a burger.”

  Michael looked toward his mother’s car.

  “I should ask Mom.”

  Horace swallowed the words—you don’t need her permission to see your father—and instead said, “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

  In town, they walked down Main Street. Horace stopped at a baseball-themed bar and grill, but Michael led him away.

  “You’d hate it there, Dad. It’s okay.”

  Instead they went to the Cooperstown Diner, brick-faced, railroad car–style, with a counter and a small TV usually tuned to the weather. Horace’s speed.

  They ordered—two cheeseburgers, fries—from a matronly waitress in plain black pants and vest with a name tag that said “Sunny.”

  “Dad, I’m sorry about the farm job,” Michael said.

  “Don’t be. You have to find your own experiences and define their value. Work at the bat shop, and see how you like it. Me, I wouldn’t. Cooped up in a store all day, placating tourists. But you’re not me, then, are you? That’s the thing I have to start to learn.”

  “Dad, don’t you placate tourists at the museum?”

  Horace bristled, then forced a phony laugh. “I’d like to think I educate them, too, but you’re probably right.”

  Michael’s eyes flashed over Horace’s face, a quick evaluation of his father’s sincerity. Horace had recovered quickly, genuinely happy they were actually conversing.

  “But that’s a brilliant observation, Mikey,” he said, meaning it.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “So when do you start?” Horace asked.

  “I started already, just learning everything. But in a couple of weeks, when the tourists start coming, I’ll work weekends when I don’t have a game, then more in summer.”

  “What’s the job, exactly?”

  “Stock, mostly. She told me I could learn to work the register for when we get busy in the summer.”

  “She?”

  “The manager. June.”

  Horace saw the look in his eye, and the blush. A girl. That was it. It wasn’t him, it wasn’t the
farm. It was the girl.

  “So, how old is this manager?”

  “I don’t know . . . twenty-five. Around that.”

  “Pretty?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You guess? That look on your face says you know.”

  Michael’s blush deepened.

  Horace looked at his son and wished he was back there, too, just starting out in a world filled with girls you wanted to get near, to inhale the clean scent of their flesh, pure as fresh water. Girls you wanted to touch so badly, you dug yourself into the mattress at night imagining the firm softness of their skin. Girls who made your mouth go dry. Girls who made you think if you were older, better-looking, more athletic, or had a cool car, they might pay attention to you. Girls you wanted. How could Horace tell his son that men were condemned to that want, a pervasive longing for love to fill the emptiness inside? And it never went away. Now he was getting it for Natalia, as someone to reach for and cling to. Horace wanted to tell him there is a hidden, dark place in every man’s soul that, if he’s lucky, a woman will reach once, maybe twice in his life. But she would never stay. He wanted to tell him that women, ultimately, sooner or later, break your heart. Even after you’ve married and lived together and built a life, they withdraw in the natural, conspiratorial bond between mother and children. Men are left on the outside, with a hollow gut of alienation, looking in. You love your wife and children, but they love each other more. Horace now understood why generations of fathers before him were sullen; and his own generation humiliated themselves by being buddies, not fathers.

  He wanted to tell his son that all those adolescent emotions, that optimistic, romantic tachycardia Michael was now experiencing, were something to cherish and enjoy, but to never, ever hold on to as real expectations. Even strong men, like Horace, were weakened by these fantasies. He wanted to warn Michael that June, the Gone Batty girl, like life itself, would show him unintended but nonetheless painful cruelty. Because June, Sally, Natalia, no woman, from Ann to Zoe, ever cured the inherent ache of a man’s loneliness. They soothed it for a while, but in the end made you realize you were never too far from being alone.

  These were things left unsaid, from father to son. Societal order demanded it; if these things were said, the frail pretense of domesticity would degenerate into chaos, Horace knew. If young men were told enduring love didn’t exist for them, they would move from woman to woman, abandoning the children left behind. No, it was the civilized man’s job to prop it all up, and keep his mouth shut.

  “Well, just be careful,” Horace simply said.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  In the next weeks, the postgame burger would become a ritual. Mostly it was small talk, about the game, about school. On weekend mornings, Horace would pick him up and drive him to work.

  They were an odd pair. Horace in his circa 1860s woolen pants and high boots and loose, soot-stained cotton shirt; Michael in a cranberry golf shirt with the Gone Batty logo over the left breast, a pair of Walmart khakis, taupe or light brown. The new American uniform, Horace thought. What’d they call it? Business casual?

  The first time Horace drove him, Michael asked to be dropped at the corner.

  “I can walk from here.”

  “It’s okay, I’ll take you.”

  “No, Dad, you have all those one-ways. Just go straight. I’m good. It’s no big deal. I have to pick up coffee at the Bean Ball anyway. Part of my job.”

  Before Horace objected again, he got it. He looked at his son, hair trimmed neatly around his ears, bangs brushed neatly to the side, blemishes scrubbed into oblivion. June.

  Michael didn’t want to be seen getting out of the smoky Escort, driven by a man whose beard, hair, and clothes would take some explaining, explaining Michael would rather not do, especially to June.

  * * *

  A FEW DAYS LATER, while Michael sat in front of a half-eaten cheeseburger, Horace said he wanted to drop in to his job—not in blacksmith’s clothes.

  “Why, Dad?”

  “They should know you have a father. Someone who’s looking out for you, making sure they’re not skimming your paycheck.”

  “Why do you do that, Dad?”

  “What?”

  “Make everything so negative. Mom says you’re cynical.”

  “Put Mom aside for a second. You should give me a little more credit for understanding the world. I’ve been in it a lot longer than you. And maybe Mom should . . .”

  “Why do you always make her out to be so bad?” Michael’s face hardened, and in it, Horace saw Sally’s fed-up expression.

  “I don’t,” Horace said. “It’s complicated, Michael. But somewhere along the line, I feel your mother stopped respecting who I am.”

  “What? A blacksmith!?”

  Horace took a breath, to let the conversation cool.

  “What’s the matter?” he said, pointing to the plate of cold meat and fries. “You usually want another.”

  Michael picked up one fry with his fingers and put it in his mouth, staring down at the table.

  “Mikey. What’s wrong?” Horace asked.

  “I don’t know, Dad . . . you and Mom are getting divorced, right? She says you’ll never change,” Michael said.

  “Maybe she’s right. But I’m trying. You see that, don’t you? Like, I just asked you if I could stop in to your job. The old me would have just shown up,” Horace said.

  Michael continued to stare down, and made a move toward another lone fry. Here it was, the Sally silent treatment, and Horace, as always, broke the silence.

  “You know, Mike, maybe she’s the one who changed. I feel I’m still the same guy who married her. Same values, same beliefs. Maybe I dug in a little too much. Maybe I didn’t explain myself well. But your mother has been unhappy with me for a long time, and that’s not an accusation, just an observation. Do you understand that?”

  Michael said nothing.

  “I know it’s tough for you. It must seem weird living in that apartment.”

  “Not really, Dad. It’s kinda cool. At least the whole place doesn’t smell like smoke.”

  Horace let that one go, too.

  “Well, the old house is your house, you can stay anytime you want,” Horace said, knowing it wouldn’t be long before the house was lost. “You can come back to live. Or just weekends. Or never. Whatever you want. You’re my son and I love you; I’m not going to let some divorce lawyer treat you like a piece of chattel.”

  “You mean cattle?”

  “No, chattel. Like a piece of furniture, or something like that, that your mother and I might fight over.”

  * * *

  SALLY WAS TRUE TO HER word, reasonable in this regard. Horace, too. He took a change of clothes to work every day Michael had a game, showed up, and took him out after most times to the little diner. The few times Michael opted to go with friends, Horace was careful not to pout. He knew he had to relax his hold on the kid, and it ate away at him. He was no longer the man, the father he wanted to be. He was at the end of his son’s string. He felt unassertive, even passive, beaten into plow-horse obedience. But he had no choice. He was getting Michael back, and this was the only way. Still, he couldn’t accept it as redemption or compromise; to him, it was defeat. And he had to swallow it. And swallow it again. Maybe he’d write a paper, “American Manhood in the Twenty-first Century,” as a secret diatribe, an outlet for the disgust he felt for giving in, and as a way, at least on paper, to not give up.

  On the woodpile, Horace found redemption for his masculinity. He split and stacked three cords in the weeks after Sally left, working into the warming, lengthening nights. It was invigorating, and like a fighter in training, he felt strong, fit, and ready for the coming tourism season. He was the blacksmith, damn it, he thought as he admired himself shirtless in the mirror each night and when he massaged his hands back to life each morning. He was going to make a move on the milkmaid, pretty Natalia, before she left for Rochester.

  It was in th
is state of burgeoning renewal that Grundling called him to the office one day. Horace sat and picked up the miniature Conestoga wagon to fiddle with.

  “Now, remember, Horace, we had a deal. I cleared a billet for Michael, so now I don’t have the summer docent for the Cardiff Giant presentation. Has he changed his mind?”

  “No, John, he was lured into one of the tourist traps downtown.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Do I really have to do this? I’m the blacksmith, goddamnit.”

  “I know. But I’m actually happy it worked out this way. I think we need an expert, not a college girl. Didn’t you write a paper once?”

  “Yes. ‘American Rubism.’ ”

  “Well, why don’t we republish it and put it in the tent as a handout? And you can give a talk, say, four times a day.”

  Horace wanted to crush the Conestoga model into splinters and tell Grundling, These are not the hands of a docent. But he thought of all Natalia had told him, and all he wanted to say. Grundling was giving him a platform.

  “Okay. I want to alter it somewhat, though, make it more relative to modern popular culture,” Horace said. “You know, 1869 was an interesting year.”

  Grundling gave a nod Horace saw as dismissive approval, his way of saying, “Whatever.”

  * * *

  ON THE LAST SATURDAY OF spring, Horace picked up Michael to take him to Gone Batty. He was wearing a new logo shirt, this one freezer-pop blue.

  “Summer uniform?” Horace asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Michael said, looking down at the shirt. “Hey, Dad, June asked me to pick up some posters at the print shop on the way to work today. Is that okay?”

  Dad as errand boy, Horace thought, but instead gave a cheery “Sure. Why not?”

  He drove to the outskirts of town on Route 20, to a print shop in a strip mall. Horace was a little ticked—he was going to be a few minutes late for work now, and wished Michael had let him know earlier—but he didn’t want to start the day with a reprimand.