Gods of Wood and Stone

by Mark Di Ionno

  “I loved it. Of course I loved it.”

  “No, just think about it for a second,” she said, patting his leg for emphasis. “Because I remember, even back in high school, it all just seemed like work to you. Serious work. Those pictures I took of you, you were never smiling, or even seemed happy. You were always so . . . grim.”

  “That’s a crazy question,” Grudeck said, turning to face her. “Of course I loved it. I wasn’t grim. I was intense.”

  “Don’t dismiss it so easily,” she said, pulling back against his arm. “Did you really love it, or were you just so damn good at it, you had no choice? Because now that I think about it, it wasn’t only high school, it was all the times I saw you on TV, too.”

  “I took it seriously, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “No. It’s beyond serious. You always looked . . . like I said . . . grim.”

  “Stop saying it like that . . .” Grudeck said. He turned back toward the ocean, and now the wind seemed cold to him, too. “Like I was in prison.”

  “Were you?” she said.

  Grudeck was quiet.

  “Or golf? Do you enjoy playing golf?” Stacy asked. “It is fun for you, or more work?”

  “Where are you going with this?” Grudeck asked.

  “The whole speech, all the stories, they all point to the same thing. It seems you didn’t enjoy any of it.”

  “You’re not going to give me a bunch of psychological bullshit about my father, now, are you?” Grudeck said, making sure he added a laugh to not offend her. “ ’Cause I don’t want to hear it.”

  “No way I’m going there . . . that’s between you and up there,” she said, tapping her index finger against his temple. “But since you brought it up, did you ever get a chance to be good at anything else? Or learn that you might have other passions? Look, I’m not saying it’s anybody’s fault. It’s just what happened, and all with good intent, I’m sure.”

  “If you’re asking me if I ever wanted to quit, the answer is no,” Grudeck said. “If you’re asking me if my dad forced me to play, the answer is no.”

  Stacy saw she was headed up a dark alley, one Grudeck might not follow her through. She wasn’t confident he would accept the concept of childhood self-worth being so tied to parental approval, especially mother-to-daughter and father-to-son. It was unspoken coercion.

  She stayed quiet, except to say, “Well, just think about it.”

  Grudeck looked at the horizon, now diminished in the fading light. She could see him thinking, those wheels spinning in there. His look reminded her of her son a decade earlier, head bent over the kitchen table, struggling with grammar school math. Joe Grudeck, big, strong, famous, Hall of Fame Joe Grudeck, still had enough confused little boy in him to bring out something maternal in her, something like protective love, and she wasn’t sure that was good.

  “I see what you mean, though,” Grudeck said. “The first few years after I retired, I helped an old coach with a baseball camp for kids, like twelve and up. They were like robots, programmed to get scholarships, or at least try. Their parents would line the fences, living and dying with every strike, every error. I stopped because it was depressing. Like you said, all the fun was sucked out of it. My dad wasn’t like that. At least I didn’t notice. But I can’t sit here and pretend I didn’t know it was important to him. So maybe I got stuck in it, a little. But I was one of the lucky ones, ’cause it paid off. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if it didn’t. How my dad would have felt. How I would have felt about letting him down. When I would go to those camps, I would see all these parents with unrealistic hopes. Not just unrealistic. Insane. And the money they spent? Craziness. The fathers would pull me aside . . . ‘Joe, you think so-and-so has what it takes?’ And you know what I wanted to say? ‘Takes for what? Takes to be happy? Takes to become a doctor or a teacher or whatever? Takes to be a pretty good high school ballplayer?’ Because that’s what almost all of them were ever gonna be. And there is nothing wrong with that.

  “But that’s sports today. My dad told me being strong and good at sports was part of the measuring stick of a man. Now it seems to be the only measuring stick. The fans today, they cheer guys accused of doping, of sex assault, beating their wives, beating their kids, drunk driving. Then you see people, with kids, asking these guys for autographs. It’s sick, when you think about it. So I guess you’re right. Maybe all the joy went out of it. I don’t know . . .”

  She let him reflect on his own resignation for a moment, especially after he turned away to look up the coast.

  “Well, on the bright side,” Stacy said, “maybe that’s the speech. Maybe that’s what the speech should be about.”

  * * *

  STACY GOT IT. GOT HIM. That night at Twin Lights, she figured it out. The next night, he was back at the club bar—same s., different d.—stirring another club soda, after another thirty-six holes with two sets of execs. Another stack of their money; these guys Grudeck took for two Gs. He was tired of this world. Tired of being Joe Grudeck. He couldn’t get that view from the shore hill out of his mind. This big world out there. His was reduced to foul lines, and now fairways. He wanted to move around in the big world, anonymous. He wanted to do it with Stacy. He’d call Dom Iosso, and tell him he’d rather be a regular, paid member than a glad-hander, and get free of this. After the Hall induction, he would opt out of all those “Meet Joe Grudeck” obligations. No more autograph sessions, no more spring training visits. Old-timers’ day? Fuck that. Okay, maybe. He didn’t want to become completely forgotten. But here was his chance to change his future, to answer questions he’d spent his life trying to avoid. He’d figure it out.

  Behind him, the laughter from a table of women, three martinis in, was getting very unclublike.

  “Maybe I should calm them down,” Pete the Greek said. “Or maybe I should just let them embarrass themselves. Life’s little dilemmas.”

  “Life’s little dilemmas,” Grudeck repeated.

  Just then, he heard heels approaching on the hardwood bar floor, then fingertips playing piano on his back, then the mild scent of perfume, mixed with gin and vermouth breath, in his ear.

  Joanie MacIntosh.

  “Hey, stranger,” she said.

  “Stranger? I’m here every night.”

  “Buy me a drink.”

  “I don’t think you need another drink, Joanie.”

  She moved her lips closer to his ear.

  “Is it that obvious?” she said, low, from her throat.

  That small moan, the exhalation of breath, went right to where he didn’t want it. His scrotum.

  He turned toward her, but she pivoted to keep close to his ear. Still, he could see the black sleeveless dress tailored and tight where it counted; her hair seemed lighter, or maybe it was the salon tan.

  “Why don’t you come over and meet some of the girls. The not-so-young and restless. With gin and Xanax, you never know what can happen. You might hit a double.”

  “No, Joanie, I’m okay here. Me and members’ wives, it’s a violation of my contract.”

  “Oh, stop!” she said, and playfully slapped his arm. “When did you become such a choirboy?”

  “Truth is, I’m seeing someone. I’m trying to be good.”

  “Oh, okay . . . so it’s discretion you want. Well, just leave your door unlocked.”

  “No, seriously. Joanie. You’re a lot of fun, but I can’t.”

  “Oh, you can, baby,” she said. “You can.”

  She turned and walked back toward her friends, tossing her hair back in his direction.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sally hoped Horace wouldn’t notice the two scouts from Archbishop Moeller, but they couldn’t have been less discreet in their silky navy-blue jackets with MOELLER BASEBALL embossed in gold letters, with Cincinnati, Ohio, embroidered in script.

  It all came together so quickly. Michael’s Legion coach knew a coach who knew a coach who knew the coach at Moeller. Sally wa
s called a few days before, and they all agreed to keep it secret. Sally didn’t want him to tell Horace. The Legion coach didn’t want Michael to feel pressure. The Moeller coach didn’t want him to get his hopes up. Moeller was regarded as the country’s best high school team in the north, the coach told her. “Barry Larkin and Ken Griffey Junior played here. One is in the Hall of Fame, and the other should be. Certainly, if we like your son, our school is a pathway to bigger things.”

  The names meant nothing to Sally, but she saw opportunity for herself, too. New city. Fresh start. Horace-free. And Sally had already plotted concessions to make it easier for Horace to let go; Sally would ask for no child support or alimony, and she would send Michael back for a couple of weeks a year. Horace was welcome to come to Ohio for the same.

  She had hoped the scouts would blend in, but instead they came in those screaming jackets. During warm-ups, all the boys eyed them, and when Michael jogged in, he caught Sally’s eye, tapped his index finger against his chest, and mouthed, “Me?”

  Sally shrugged, but she knew her huge smile gave it away.

  Horace arrived for the game, and began the long walk from the parking lot down the right-field line. When he stood along the visitors’ side fence, Sally couldn’t help but notice how his shadow, in the late afternoon, seemed to reach the foul line.

  Michael delivered. Line drive up the middle in the first, then again in the third. It was 5–0 by then and he’d driven in three runs. In the sixth, as the ballpark’s overhead lights glowed down on the field, he showed he could go to the opposite field, and the ball reached the right-field fence on two bounces for a stand-up triple. In the ninth, he put one over the left-field fence into the now-dark evening. Four for four, six RBIs. Quite a day.

  Sally’s enjoyment only lasted beyond the third hit. By then Horace saw the scouts making notes on Michael’s every move and he came to the seat next to her, taking the bleacher steps two at a time.

  “So, who are those guys?” he asked, purposely unaggressive.

  “I guess they’re here to see Michael.”

  “You guess? Or you know?” he said, still even.

  “His coach invited them. That’s all I know. They say they’re the best high school baseball team in the country. In the North, anyway.”

  “Jesus, Sally, from where?”

  “Ohio. Cincinnati.”

  Horace stared down at them.

  “Cincinnati? What are we talking about here, Sally?”

  “It’s a long shot,” Sally said.

  “What if they want him? Then what, Sally?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge . . . But if they want him, it would be a great opportunity. He’d get a scholarship and they play all over the country. They make one trip to Texas, Arizona, and California, and another down South and Florida. The coach said most of their starters play Division One somewhere, and get full rides.”

  “For someone who doesn’t know a lot, you know an awful lot,” Horace said, the bile rising. “When were you going to tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to upset you unnecessarily . . .”

  “Or was it that you just didn’t want to deal with me. I mean, don’t I have a say in this? I’m his father, for Christ’s sake.”

  Here we go again, Sally thought. She wanted to launch yet another “it’s Michael’s life” speech, but didn’t want the thing to escalate. Not here, not in the bleachers, not surrounded by other parents.

  “Horace, please . . .” she said, lowering her voice as if to plead not now. “Let’s just see what happens.”

  “Let’s see what happens?” Horace said, his voice lowered, too, but with edge. “Here’s what’s happening. We’ve got a mountain of your debt, a house going into foreclosure, and you’re going to run off to Cincinnati and I’m going to be left here to clean up your fucking mess. Your fucking mess.”

  “No one said anything about me running off, Horace. This is about Michael,” she said.

  Sally stared straight ahead, into some unknown but hopefully better future, knowing Horace was more than a little right.

  When the game ended, Michael was waved over by the scouts. They talked briefly, shook hands, and one of them clapped a hand down on his shoulder while the other reached down into a navy-and-gold Crusader Baseball equipment bag and pulled out a T-shirt and sweatshirt for Michael.

  Michael pointed up to his parents, still in the bleachers, the men gave a quick wave, and that was that. Michael then climbed the bleachers two steps at a time like his dad.

  “They said they’ll be in touch,” Michael said.

  Over that night’s burger, Michael told Horace he knew nothing about the scout visit, and Horace believed him. Sally, so fucking duplicitous.

  “So what’s next?” Horace asked.

  “They said they had to talk to the head coach, and they might bring me to Cincinnati to meet everybody.”

  “When will that be?”

  “I don’t know, Dad.”

  “Do you want to go?”

  “I don’t know, Dad. I have my friends all here, and I’m looking forward to high school. I’m just getting used to the way things are with Mom and you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean this is okay. The way things are.”

  Horace felt elation in his chest. The way “things are” was better than the they way were; Michael being haggled over by his parents. Now both had their own time with him, and Horace felt Michael drawing closer to him without Sally’s interference.

  “So, if you went, what would it be? Like college? Would you live in a dorm?” Horace asked.

  Michael had a mouthful of burger and stopped chewing.

  “Didn’t Mom tell you? She would move to Ohio.”

  For fuck’s sake. The words almost escaped, but Horace just leaned back against the booth and said, “No, in fact . . . forget it.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “So you and your mom would move to Cincinnati, and what? I stay here? Or am I supposed to go, too? How do you see it, Michael?” Horace said this in the most measured way possible, without sarcasm or anger.

  Still, Michael asked, “Dad, are you mad?”

  “No, Mike. I just want to understand what everybody’s thinking.”

  “I don’t know, Dad. I guess everybody just does what they want.”

  That night, Horace told Michael he wanted to swing by the house before he drove him to Sally’s.

  “There’s a few things I’d like you to have,” he said, not adding that those things would end up in a Dumpster when the bank reclaimed the house.

  They came up the long dirt driveway, the Escort’s headlights bouncing, illuminating the woods in bursts of yellowed light. A whitetail deer with a fawn stood motionless in one frame, like a still-life painting.

  The house was dark, a black box against the midnight-blue Otsego Lake sky.

  “A great night for stars,” Horace said, as they got out of the car.

  He put one arm heavily around his son’s shoulders and pointed north to the darkest part of the sky over the lake, then traced an outline, a million miles away, with his finger.

  “See. Perseus. Remember?”

  “A little.”

  “He was the Greek hero who killed Medusa, and used her head to turn his enemies to stone. You have a book inside. It was one of the things I wanted to give you.”

  They sat at the kitchen table, with the buzz and flickers of the old fluorescent lights overhead. Horace went into his room and came out with the Greek mythology constellation book, the local geology book, and the pamphlet from an old exhibit at the art museum on the American flag in Indian art.

  “I remember this,” Michael said. “This was pretty cool.”

  It was eight or nine years ago—a childhood—already. Michael was a little boy, soft and impressionable, with a spongy brain willing to absorb the world around him. Horace tried to fill that head with his view of the world, like any father. Now Michael was lean, and long-muscle
d like his father, with the same head of wild, dark hair.

  As he looked through the pamphlet, the old wonderment returned to his eyes. There were pictures of a horse blanket with beads of the Stars and Stripes sown in, a teepee with the flag painted on it, a large weave where Old Glory was the centerpiece, contrasting the turquoise, red, and brown patterns that zigged and zagged around it.

  “I remember you told me the Indians thought the design was cool.”

  “At first,” Horace said. “Then came the killing, and the resettlements. But things like this, about their early curiosity, are the little things that make history so fascinating, aren’t they?”

  The center of the book was a two-page print of Thomas Cole’s The Last of the Mohicans.

  “I remember the time you asked me what ‘Mohicans’ meant,” Horace said. “I told you, and you said, ‘Oh, I thought it meant ‘pests.’ There was some brilliance to that.”

  Michael laughed. “I was a goofball.”

  “No, you weren’t. You were smart . . . you are smart. You were interested in all these things,” Horace said, with a wave of his hand across the tabletop.

  He pointed to the Cole picture again.

  “This is what the land looked like before the big towns, highways, and strip malls,” Horace said. “Remember when we used to hike in the woods? These were the same woods James Fenimore Cooper used to hike in as boy, after his father came up from Jersey and built Cooperstown out of the wilderness. Back in those days, this was the frontier, home of the Iroquois. That’s why he wrote the Leatherstocking books. His imagination, as a boy, took hold as a man.”

  “We had to read some of them in school,” Michael said. “I thought they sucked.”

  “Maybe, but you should know local history,” Horace said, “and how local history sometimes influences bigger things. Like in this case, Natty Bumppo was the first American fiction hero. A loner who got the job done. It’s been that way ever since, from Wyatt Earp to Batman. Of course, it’s kind of been that way forever. Cooper stole it from the Greeks.”

  Horace picked up the mythology book.

  “When you were little, you used to love these stories,” Horace said. “Remember this stuff? Orion, who killed all the wild beasts on his island. Perseus, who freed the flying horse by beheading the lady with the snake head. Hercules and the twelve impossible labors.