Gods of Wood and Stone

by Mark Di Ionno

“I’m not challenging your interpretation, Horace. I respect your research and intellect. I’m just asking you to tone it down. A little. We’re in the history business, but we’re also in the entertainment business. Don’t you agree?”

  “I’d call it the education business, but you’re the boss, John. I’ll tone it down.”

  Still, Horace told the story, rich in detail; the secret deals Hull made with the Iowa quarry master and the Chicago sculptor; the comic burial and unearthing at Stubby Newell’s farm in the Onondaga Valley breadbasket. He told of the stage lines that traversed the valleys of New York State and brought the first few thousand gawkers. And how the rage of it all brought out the consortium of bankers who bought into Hull’s scam. Finally, he talked about P. T. Barnum’s imitation giant—and Horace correctly gave credit to Mr. David Hannum for the “sucker born every minute” line—and the absurdity of lawsuits and countersuits that brought the whole thing crashing down.

  Horace concluded each presentation by reading the quote from Andrew D. White’s piece about the Giant’s meaning in American society, hitting hard on the words joy in believing and truth is a matter of majorities.

  “In that way, the story about the Cardiff Giant isn’t so much about one man’s folly or the gullible rural public or the assault on religion or the emergence of natural sciences,” Horace said. “It’s about how we measure our culture. The commercial, pop culture forces count the number of people who watch a game or show on TV, go to a movie, download music, all to say, ‘This is what the public wants. This is who Americans are.’ But . . . who is counting you today? Who is counting all the people at museums or library talks or pursuing interests outside the realm of popular culture? Think about that, and how our identity as a people is manipulated and shaped by the ‘truth of majorities’ rather than the individualism that guided our earlier years.”

  Natalia came to one of the early presentations in her milkmaid dress, and as Horace delivered this last line, she began to clap with joy and the other visitors timidly followed.

  She lingered as the tent cleared.

  “That was wonderful, Horace. Very powerful,” she said. “Very convincing.”

  He moved toward her, fighting every urge to wrap one arm around her waist and pull her to him.

  Instead he offered to walk her back to the cow barn. As they emerged from the tent, Horace looked out over the farm museum and the valley. From that vantage point, there was nothing he could see that didn’t date back to 1869, except for a few tourists in their twenty-first-century clothes. And here he was, the village blacksmith, courting the milkmaid next door. He purposely brushed her hand several times as they walked, and wished he could return to the days, and age, of innocence.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Grundling appeared in the Giant tent the next morning as Horace was winding down his first presentation.

  “Quite a specimen,” he said as he admired the Giant, after the half dozen people filed out.

  “Yes, he’s the man,” Horace said. “Visitors seem to like him.”

  “Ah, visitors. That’s why I’m here.”

  Horace braced himself for another “tone it down” speech, but instead Grundling asked, “Do you know how many people visit the Hall of Fame every summer?”

  “I don’t know . . . a quarter million?”

  “Precisely,” Grundling said. “Now guess how many visit us. I’ll tell you; less than a tenth of that, including school trips.”

  “What is this, John, another round of budget cuts?” Horace asked.

  “No, not at all. This is something good. The board met last night and decided to do some cross-promotion, museums helping museums.”

  “They took my ‘rural roots of baseball’ idea?” Horace asked.

  Grundling looked puzzled.

  “Remember. Flat fields? Can of corn? Broad side of a barn?”

  “Oh, right. Well, not exactly.”

  Horace braced himself. Whatever was coming, he knew would be hokey.

  “You’ve seen those ‘Cool, Cool Cooperstown’ billboards, no doubt,” Grundling said. “Well, the board wants to include us, and Folk Art, in the campaign. We decided to play with the theme a little. They’re going to make some farm animal cartoons like the baseball one—and the Giant, too—all on the same billboard. They’re going to dress up the Last of the Mohicans the same way.”

  “Wait a minute . . . ,” Horace said, his voice rising more than he wanted. “They’re going to put cartoon sunglasses and that stupid logo over a classic piece of American art? Are they crazy? Cooper and Cole will be spinning in their graves. And the Giant, too? That’s the most inane thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Actually, the Giant was my idea,” Grundling said. “And before you accuse me of sacrilege, let me tell you we must bring up our numbers. Not try. Must. These are tough times, Horace. The stock market put a big dent in the endowment, and we’re scrambling. The battle for entertainment dollars has never been more fierce.”

  Entertainment. There’s that word again, thought Horace.

  “Even the Hall’s attendance is down,” Grundling said. “Ours is worse. If we don’t come up with solutions, we’re going to find ourselves in part-time jobs.”

  You mean me, not you, Horace thought, but said nothing.

  Grundling filled the void of silence.

  “Okay, well, there’s more to this. We’re going to do some cross-promotion during Induction Week.”

  Horace waited to hear it.

  “You know who Joe Grudeck is, right?” Grundling asked.

  “Yeah, I saw his name on the sign,” Horace said. “He’s doing something at Michael’s job, too.”

  “Well, during Induction Week, the Hall is giving their customers a coupon for an official Joe Grudeck miniature bat, free . . .”

  “What makes it official?” Horace deadpanned.

  “That’s not the point,” Grundling said. “Point is, we are going to give them away. The people have to come here to get it. And I decided it was best not to give them away at the door, because the people could just turn around and leave. I figured we’d put them out here with the Giant. That way they’d have to see at least part of the farm collection and the carousel. Might get them to walk around a little. We’ll have a sign at the Hall, ‘Come See Our Giants.’ ”

  “I don’t get it,” Horace said. “What does this have to do with us, with our mission?”

  “Nothing, it’s a play on words. You know, Giants. San Francisco. Baseball’s Giants, our Giants.” Grundling was smiling, looking for approval, but Horace wasn’t giving.

  “I get that . . . but the whole thing seems like a stretch,” he said.

  “Now you got the idea . . . seventh-inning stretch,” Grundling said, and clumsily slapped Horace’s back and forced a smile.

  Horace shook his head, grim.

  “You don’t have to do anything,” Grundling said. “We’ll put a box by the entrance, and the fans can grab one as they come in. Simple, right?”

  “In every sense of the word,” Horace muttered.

  “Try to have a good attitude about this. It will be cool,” Grundling said.

  “Cool? I’ve always prided myself on being the Anticool,” Horace said.

  “Look, Horace, the museum consortium is trying to be aggressive about this. We even bought ad space in the ‘Dreams Park’ guide. They get ten thousand kids a summer. Maybe we’ll get some residual traffic.

  “Pray for rain, Horace,” he said as he left.

  Horace thought of all those SUVs and minivans he saw clogging Route 28, license plates from all over the lower forty-eight, windshields scribbled with “Cooperstown Bound!” as if they’d done something more than write a check to earn the trip. “Cool, Cool Cooperstown” was coming to his dignified museum, to be overrun by hyper kids, disinterested in anything but getting one more useless souvenir, a miniature version of a bat used by a washed-up player. Worse, his dignified museum was kissing their asses to come.


  * * *

  THAT AFTERNOON, MICHAEL SURPRISED HORACE in the smithy as he stacked pig iron rods. Horace was drenched in sweat, and his hair was matted against his face. His linen shirt was stained coal gray, and his leather apron and breeches were smudged the same. Michael stood in his bright white Legion uniform, looking almost fluorescent in the dim blacksmith shop.

  “Mikey! I’m just about to knock off and get ready for your game. You’re in Hartwick tonight, right? I’ll drive you over.”

  “That’s okay, Dad. Mom’s waiting in the parking lot.”

  “Oh, okay . . .”

  “Dad, I got something to tell you. Moeller offered me the scholarship.”

  “And . . .”

  “It’s cool, Dad. They travel to the South to play during winter breaks, and all summer there’s a travel team most of the kids play on. They want me to go out in a few weeks to join that team. The coach said Legion ball wasn’t doing me any good.”

  “And . . .’’

  Michael averted his eyes, making Horace realize the kid had already made up his mind. Horace decided to make it easy on him.

  “When do you leave?”

  “The end of July.”

  “Your mother, too?”

  “I think. She has to find a job.”

  Horace tried to fight off the lonesome pit that was spreading through his insides, that sick feeling of abandonment he got when Sally took Michael the first time. He didn’t want to put guilt on the boy, but he also didn’t want to appear nonchalant or resigned, in case Michael was even slightly conflicted. In case all was not lost.

  “Are you sure that’s what you want? To leave home?”

  “I think it is.”

  “What did your mother say?”

  “She said I should follow my dreams.”

  “I agree. My question is ‘Do you have to leave home to do that?’ Now, at fourteen?”

  “Mom and the coach say it’s the best chance to get a college scholarship. But they want me on this travel team now. They even found a sponsor to pay for me.”

  “To pay for you? How much?”

  “Mom said it was two thousand dollars, but when she told the coach we couldn’t afford it, he said not to worry.”

  Horace was now at another fork: Should he caution the kid about false hope and look like he was squashing Michael’s dreams, or stay quiet and pretend he was oblivious to the realities and corruption of the long-shot youth-sports world?

  He was stuck there, and suddenly angry that Sally had sent Michael in alone to do the dirty work, with no advance discussion. He knew what she was doing: daring him to say no to the kid, to once again be the guy who denied everything to everyone. Horace the heavy. The bad guy. He was trapped and his mind was scurrying, a rat in a corner.

  Horace slammed an iron rod down on the stack harder than necessary and it snapped.

  “Dad, are you mad?” Michael asked with a timidity in his voice that shamed Horace. Here he was, the bully Sally always made him out to be. And before he could check it, Michael added, “Mom said you would be.”

  Horace took a deep breath, not realizing it puffed him up to his full imposing height, chest out, shoulders expanding. Michael shrank back.

  “Mikey,” Horace said, trying to calm his voice. “I’m not mad. I’m irritated at your mom. She should have told me.”

  “She wanted to, but I thought I should,” Michael said. “It was my decision.”

  And now the circular conspiracy of mother-and-son fit Horace like a crown of thorns. Sally tried to run interference for Michael, who was now defending his mother. And they were right. Michael did the right thing by not hiding behind his mother and coming to his father man-to-man. And yet Horace still bled, cut by their intertwined alliance, with Horace as odd man out. Suddenly that expression made sense to Horace in ways it never had. Here he was, in a costume from Civil War days stained with bituminous coal, railing against . . . everything . . . fighting to remain relevant. And employed.

  An odd man.

  And there was his son, in spanking white, now the beneficiary of his mother’s successful grand scheme and coup. She was right! Baseball, not real work, had paid off. He had a sponsor, and a scholarship. At fourteen. Horace’s work was not only obsolete but a dead end. See? All these years, she was right to let him play and not help his dad. She was right to not make him work at the farm. Michael was getting opportunities Horace’s grunt work would have never provided; Horace was proven wrong. She showed him.

  Odd man out.

  “Ah, goddamnit,” Horace said, unconsciously.

  “What’s wrong, Dad? I was hoping you’d be happy. I mean, for me, at least.”

  Horace moved from the stack to the back tunnel, where the coal was kept. It was the darkest place in the shop, the best place to hide his face. He grabbed a shovel and began to push some coal around, and the scraping of blade against brick was the sound of his blackening mood: a harsh, irritating scream in his head he couldn’t make stop.

  He was the father, goddamnit.

  Why didn’t he act like it?

  Just tell the kid, “No.”

  Michael was too young to carry the weight of such a decision. A good father—the father Horace wanted to be—would have stepped in. But Sally had so long denigrated Horace’s role with all her “it’s Michael’s life, not yours” bullshit that he backed off. In his last conversation with Michael about going away, Horace told the boy he should decide for himself. Now that he had, Horace was angry with his choice, but more furious that he, Horace, had abdicated his responsibility. He was the father, but he punked out. He shied away from the very essence of his character: the blacksmith, the strongman, the man out of time forging ahead with his own values and identity.

  He made a mockery of his own morning prayer—“God, help me continue to find my meaning”—by abandoning it himself. He thought it would win Michael back, but now he’d lost Michael—and himself. All these ideas bounced and slammed in his head, and he suddenly understood the lure of blowing your brains out. Or somebody else’s.

  A man filled with the lethal combination of uselessness, rage, and despair.

  He took the shovel and speared it into the coal, and moved back into the shop near Michael.

  “I am happy for you, Mikey . . . if this is what you really want,” Horace said, trying to keep his voice even. “But I have to tell you I’m a little concerned. You’re only fourteen, and maybe you’re not ready for such a big decision. To leave your home, your friends, like this. And if your mother goes, too, then, let’s face it. That’s your new home. Cincinnati.”

  “I can come home, Dad, on vacations.”

  “Vacations? You just said you play down South in winter and on a travel team all summer.”

  Horace thought of all those out-of-state license plates on the road to Dreams Park, and saw himself in the junky old Escort, spending hours on I-81 to get to some citrus town or heading west on I-80 into the flatlands to see Michael play. No, not to see Michael play. To see Michael, over lousy meals in state highway fast-food restaurants. Travel team, travel dad. This was not the fatherhood he wanted, being a spectator in his son’s sports life. The very idea disgusted him, and now he was disgusted with himself.

  “You’re fourteen, and you’re joining the vagabond circus of travel teams,” Horace said.

  Michael knew where this was going, another WWWA speech.

  “Dad, you’re forgetting Moeller is a good school, too. I’ll get a good education. It will help me get into a good college.”

  “Your mom and I both went to Cornell without running away to some out-of-state private school,” Horace said. “We both got there on our brains. We built a life here, near our homes. Maybe things didn’t work out the way we expected, but this town is our home, your home. Cooperstown. For better or worse. When you leave—and take your mom with you—that all changes. I’m not saying you should stay forever, or not eventually find your own way, but I’m not sure it’s a smart thing to do at f
ourteen, to pull up your own roots.”

  Michael was quiet.

  “Sorry, Dad. I thought you’d be excited.”

  And now the shame of ruining the moment attacked Horace and he again saw how he lost to Sally. No doubt she was ecstatic, hugged her boy and congratulated him, told him how proud she was and voiced not a scintilla of caution. One hundred percent supportive. Horace, on the other hand, was Mr. Bubble-Burster.

  Now his soaring anger crashed just as quickly, into a twisted wreckage of regret.

  “No, no, Mike, I am,” Horace said, as he moved to hug his son. “It’s just my job to give you all sides. And to worry about what’s right. For everybody.”

  He held Michael tight, and felt the boy sob against him.

  “C’mon, Mikey. Don’t. It’s good news. It just caught me off balance,” Horace said. “It will all be okay.”

  He squeezed the boy hard, his strong arms trying to tamp down Michael’s heaving chest and soothe him.

  “It will all be okay,” Horace said again, in almost a whisper into Michael’s ear.

  He held him that way for several seconds, until Michael relaxed and gently pushed away as Horace simultaneously let go. And even in the dim smithy light, Horace could see he’d left coal smudges on Michael’s clean uniform.

  Induction Week

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Grudeck forgot to close the room-darkening curtains, so the brilliant morning sun over Otsego Lake illuminated his suite at the Otesaga Hotel. He was alone in the largest room in the hotel, with a king bed, a pullout couch, four upholstered chairs, a desk, an entertainment center, a dry bar, and three basins in the oversized bathroom. The room was floral in décor, with pink flowers—they might have been orchids. Stacy would know. But she wasn’t there.

  On the antique nightstand was a booklet of Grudeck’s itinerary for the week. It was waiting for him when he checked in the night before, swarmed by valets and deskmen and managers despite arriving well after midnight. He was supposed to be there much earlier but couldn’t bring himself to leave New Jersey, hoping Stacy would change her mind.