Gods of Wood and Stone

by Mark Di Ionno

  “Joe.”

  “Yeah, Sal.”

  “What are you going to do tomorrow?”

  “What?”

  “The speech, that’s what. I’m worried you’re going to commit hara-kiri up there.”

  Grudeck shook his head, drained the Jack, and summoned the waitress for another, pointing to his glass.

  “Joe. What’s going through that thick head of yours?”

  Grudeck leaned back in his chair and put both hands on the table, as if he were laying out cards.

  “Truthfully, Sal, I have no fucking idea. When I get up there, I’ll see how it feels.”

  “Joe, listen to me, damn it. This isn’t getting to the plate, looking for a fastball, and hitting a curve. This is serious. This is your reputation, your image.”

  “My image . . . ,” Grudeck said, down-turning the words, and his mind went to the Syracuse girls in the doorway, and the bat-store girl tonight. “My image . . . my image, Sal, can come crashing down any minute. Any fucking minute. Everybody has a past. Anybody can come forward with—what’s the word?—allegations. Alleg-fucking-gations. You know that, that’s the way of the world today. The media up somebody’s ass every second. Better I do it myself.”

  “What the hell are you talking about . . . unless there’s something I don’t know . . . Is there something I don’t know?”

  Grudeck chucked the last of the Jack down his throat, winced, and said, “No.”

  “You sure? A few years ago your mother came to me worried you were a fag. ‘Why doesn’t he have a girlfriend?’ she said. I almost said, ‘Sylvia, if you only knew.’ It’s nothing like that, is it, kid? I mean, if it is, well, the world’s different today.”

  “Jesus, Sal. For Christ sakes. No.”

  “Then your image is golden, kid. It’s money in the bank. And you earned it. You’re one of the good guys. Don’t you see that?”

  Three Jacks later, Grudeck teetered to his suite; the baseball security guy was still there.

  “All quiet?” Grudeck said.

  “All quiet, Mr. Grudeck,” he said.

  Grudeck pulled out his wallet and took out a couple of hundreds.

  “Here you go. Thank you for your service. Your secret service.”

  The guy took the cash as easily as Darlena the waitress had.

  “Are you all right, sir?”

  “Fuck! I’m fine! I’m a baseball immortal!” Grudeck said with transparently phony glee.

  * * *

  GRUDECK SLEPT FOR SHIT. The booze didn’t take the edge off, and all the golf had his joints screaming. He got up to piss three times, finishing each trip with another two Advil. In the dark, ghosts and regrets, old and new, came to him. Hazy teenaged girls with smeared makeup, helping each other into the bleached white of a Syracuse summer morning. Stacy’s face on the porch at the history house, young and bright and beautiful, and now with looser skin on her neck and sadder eyes, but beautiful just the same. Still putting him off, pushing him away. The night he asked her to come to Cooperstown, to see him through this. It was your life, Joe. Not mine. That’s what she said. The bat-shop girl, so, so young, red thong and blond head in rhythm, still calling him Mr. Grudeck.

  He listened to his heart pound; it shook his entire chest cavity. He had to get back in shape. But all the pain. He drifted off, half awake, half dreaming about the end.

  * * *

  GRUDECK CALLED A FASTBALL, low and away, but the rookie threw it high. And hard. Ninety-four, maybe ninety-five. Wild pitch. Grudeck popped up to pull it down. He should have let it go. Nobody on, late-August game, pennant out of reach. But it was reflex. Of all those Joe Grrreww moments, that’s the one he wished he could take back. The pitch hit all wrong, square in the palm, not in the glove web. The impact quaked through the sponge; the smack of hard ball on pliant mitt was followed by a dull shock that radiated up his hand to his elbow through the fault lines of his bones. The aftershock was a sharp pain right above his wrist. He threw the glove off, the only time Grudeck ever showed pain, in all those years.

  The trainer came out and took him out, but not until Joe Grudeck made a scene of wanting to stay in. He jammed the glove back on this throbbing hand and started to pull on his helmet and mask. The trainer tugged at his arm but Grudeck pulled it away. He put up enough of a phony fight to get the crowd rocking, then went off as they chanted, “Grrrr-ewww . . . Grrrr-ewww . . . Grrrr-ewww.”

  That was six years ago. He knew he was done. He was breaking down. There was a surgery and rehab, and a lazy off-season. He couldn’t catch again; the hand wouldn’t stand any more pounding. In spring training, they tried him at first base, then as DH. He could still hit pretty good, but felt lost not running the defense. He was out of the game, even when he was in it. Then people around him got quiet, and he knew a shot in the head was coming for the old horse. He talked it over with Sal.

  “Don’t hang on. Don’t humiliate yourself, or let them humiliate you. Go out on top. Protect your reputation.” Same old advice. Grudeck took it, and retired.

  Opening Day was also Farewell Joe Grudeck Night. He came out in the new white uniform, as thirty-five thousand people stood and cheered. He did his Lou Gehrig thing, sans tears, tipped his cap, and disappeared into the dugout. He changed and drove out of the players’ lot before the first inning was over. That was it. And just like that, one day you are Joe Grudeck, the next day you were Joe Grudeck.

  * * *

  THE HAND WAS KILLING HIM. It was under the full weight of his sweaty head, crushed into the pillow, and the pain woke him. It was four o’clock, and there, in the darkest part of the Otsego Lake night, Grudeck was suddenly filled with a sense of dread. Lonely dread. Today was the last day of his old life. In a few hours, he would be inducted as a baseball immortal, and then, just like that, he would be a ghost of baseball past. It was coming. The relentless march toward irrelevance. Lonely irrelevance. Grudeck lay there, listening to his heart pound, taking inventory of his pains and aches, not being able to envision a future beyond this day, Induction Day.

  Induction Day

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  At dawn, as the caw of crows rang out through the trees like cries of some tortured, woods-lore ethereal ghost, Horace got up and pissed out in the open. He checked his phone for messages from Michael, but his battery went dead during the night. He got his tools together and went to work. He moved the car almost to the street, a good two hundred yards from the house, farther than any pumper truck hose could reach. He fired up the chain saw, and began to drop small trees over the driveway. His expert angled cuts insured they fell where he wanted, creating a timber blockade to keep the town’s fire trucks away. The last thing he needed was some dumb volunteer fireman walking into the inferno. An arson warrant was one thing; manslaughter was another. They might not chase him for burning down a worthless house. Hell, it would save the bank some demolition costs. But for a dead fireman, they’d find him.

  After a few small trees, Horace was still worried the trucks might flatten them to get to the fire. He chose a fifty-foot pine a few feet into the woods, and he timbered it with ease, as the jagged metal saw chain tore through the soft wood like shark teeth on flesh. It fell across the driveway in a crash of snapping branches, dust, and flying needles. Horace noticed a few old bird nests, now dry and empty, spill out and break apart on impact. He dropped two more trees like it, and a third he sawed into thick logs. He rolled one out, split it in eighths with ax and maul, stacked it, then did another. He left the tools there, to give the impression he’d taken down the trees for firewood—not to stop fire trucks—and it was work in progress.

  He walked up to the house—no way those fat town volunteers were going to drag hoses up this fucking hill—and sat on the porch to catch his breath. It was just after noon, and the late-July sun beat down on the house. He was perspiring and his hands were sticky with pine sap, and raw from the ax and maul handles. He massaged his aching joints, and thought about the last night there with Michael
, looking at the stars, and Horace’s lesson of going your own way. It wasn’t all bullshit. Horace believed in it.

  This was his journey. It cost him his wife, his home, his job, but it wouldn’t cost him his son. Quite the opposite. His journey—his choice, his way—would take him to Ohio, to follow Michael, yes, and fight to be his father. This would be the greatest gift he could give his son; a definition of fatherhood Michael could use to anchor his own adult life. Wives, homes, jobs may come and go, but being a father is permanent. It is the relevance Horace fruitlessly sought in other places; in Sally’s arms, in the smithy, in his character. All the time it was right in front of him. He knew it, damn it, and should have been less forceful and more forgiving. He would have won, the way he was winning now. Because two days ago, he felt beaten. Now he did not. He was no longer afraid. Everything was lost, but he was free. With great loss comes great liberation. That’s the only way to look at life. Without Sally, a house, a job, he was free to be the father, the man, he wanted to be. If it had to be in Ohio, well, so what?

  There comes a time in every man’s life when he . . .

  It was time. Horace went to the kitchen sink and washed the sawdust off his face, neck, and arms. He walked through every room, empty of everything of value, except the stove itself. This was not the time for sentiment. A new life, new memories awaited him; this place was as cold and barren as Sally became to him.

  It was time to let it go. Horace opened the second can of lamp kerosene and spread it sloppily this time, leaving pools in the room near the stove. He put the empty cans—Exhibit A—on the porch; they would have to be ditched far away. He went back into the house and slammed shut all the windows. He knew the first blast would blow the thin panes out, and the flames would inhale and gulp air, and exhale it in fiery colors of cobalt blue, red, and orange, and leave nothing but black, black, black.

  At the stove, he took a wooden match from the box and struck it on the worn strip of flint. It sparked to life; this spontaneous combustion of red phosphorus, sulfur, and potassium chlorate. He lit their marriage certificate first and a foreclosure notice second, and only stayed long enough to see the flames move up to the kindling. He left the grate open and ran to the door. It wouldn’t take long for the fire to spit an ember, or for the stove temperature to reach one hundred degrees, the flashpoint of kerosene fumes. Christ, it was already ninety, so Horace had to be way clear, quick.

  He was halfway down the driveway when he heard the deep, guttural howl of a gale-force wind and the shatter of glass. He turned to see the flames erupt from the windows and felt a wave of heat on his face. After that, he never looked back.

  * * *

  SALLY WENT TO SHAKE MICHAEL awake at 5:00 a.m. She’d been up since 3:00, packing the car. Life came down to this. One carload. This was not what she’d dreamed of but nonetheless it was liberating. She felt unencumbered, about to make her escape from Horace and the house and all that went wrong in Cooperstown. In a few minutes she would put her sleepy son in the car and drive away. All that open road, all that expanse of highway, of opportunity, of adventure. She had already lined up three job interviews in Cincinnati and booked herself into one those extended-stay hotels near the school. In ten hours, she would be in her new city, Michael would be with his new team, and who knew what the future would bring.

  “Mikey. Baby. Time to get up,” she said close to his ear.

  But he was awake, troubled all night by the thing he had seen, and that he didn’t get a chance to see Horace.

  “Let’s go later, Mom,” he said.

  “No, no, no, sweetheart, we have a plan.”

  Michel had a plan, too. He wanted to see June, one more time, at the shop or the induction ceremony. Maybe those tickets Grudeck gave them were next to each other. Then he would go to the museum and say good-bye to his dad. And somewhere deep inside him, he was hoping his dad would talk him out of going. He didn’t tell Sally about June, or that maybe he didn’t want to leave after all, just about seeing Horace.

  “You were supposed to do that last night.”

  “I missed him. My phone was off, and then he didn’t answer his. Maybe he was asleep.”

  Sally didn’t like the sound of this. Something was changing, and she could feel Michael’s trepidation.

  “We should go, Michael. You have practice. We’ll call your dad from the road.”

  “No, Mom, it’s no big deal if I miss one practice.”

  “Mikey, please.”

  Michael heard the slight desperation in her voice, and it confirmed his suspicion: leaving Cooperstown wasn’t for him, it was for her. He thought of his father’s words again, This town is our home, your home. Cooperstown. For better or worse.

  “What’s one more day, Mom? I just want to say good-bye to my dad.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Grudeck slept in again, till late morning, lulled by the overworked hum of the air conditioner. He woke choked by thick mucus that clogged the back of his throat. In the bathroom, he hacked it up, gobbed it out, then pissed again. Two more Advil. Fuck it, three. He looked at his face in the mirror, framed by the bright floral wallpaper that conflicted with the darkness of his mood. He looked gray. Puffy. Tired. “Kid, it ain’t your day.”

  His phone vibrated on the nightstand. Stacy.

  “Joe. Hi. Did I wake you?”

  “No, I’m up. Just groggy. I’m moving. Got to get there pretty soon.”

  “Well, I just wanted to tell you good luck today,” she said.

  They were both quiet, and Grudeck tumbled back onto the bed, head fuzzy, exhausted.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  What do you care? The words of self-pity formed in his head, but he stopped himself.

  “Yes. Fine. Just about to go over the speech.”

  “You’re going to do it?”

  “Sal keeps telling me not to burn bridges . . . ,” Grudeck said, not adding he was in a bridge-burning kind of mood.

  More quiet, then Stacy tried again.

  “Well, how’s it been? Are you having fun?”

  “Fun?” Grudeck said flatly, hoping to mask the resentment in his voice. “Not exactly. Playing golf with sponsors. Too much. Shaking a lot of hands. Too much of that, too. Dinners. Drinks. Like Sal said, the whole party’s just for me.”

  “You sound down,” she said.

  “Down and out,” Grudeck said.

  “My God, Joe, this should be the happiest day of your life! This is everything you worked for.”

  “I worked to play. Not to be a bronze plaque,” Grudeck said. He stopped. She couldn’t possibly understand.

  “Joe, please, just try to enjoy it.”

  “I am . . . but something doesn’t feel right,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it,” Grudeck said. And that was true. It wasn’t just her, or all the handshakes, or all the smothering attention, or his limp member, or feeling old on the cusp of being forgotten. There was something else. Some sense of doom.

  Even when Stacy said, “Well, maybe the day will bring a pleasant surprise. You never know, right? Anyway, I miss you,” it didn’t soothe Grudeck’s unease.

  Stacy was the surprise. She was on her way, calling from the road about two hours south of Cooperstown. She hadn’t planned it but when she woke on the morning of Induction Day, the first thought that popped into her mind was Cardinal Sin. Joe wanted her there. It was a big moment—maybe the defining moment—of his life. She should have been there. Maybe not front and center, but at least to witness it and show herself later. In a restless night, she thought that her refusal to go might alter a future she was still trying to figure out. It would give Joe a reason to run again, armed with the excuse that she just didn’t care. But she did. Was it love? Or comfort? Or just a deep friendship forged in the hazy adolescence of coming dreams? Joe lived his. She shouldn’t hold that against him any longer. She was going to be there. Somewhere in the night, she felt that if
she wasn’t, he might slip away.

  * * *

  GRUDECK WENT TO THE CLOSET and pulled out the black Cerruti suit she’d helped him pick out and laid it on the bed. He showered and dressed. It was time to go, to meet Sal and his mother in the lobby and board a stretch limo to the ceremony. The air conditioner clicked up; the straining motor was the only sound in the room, and it reminded Grudeck he had not yet opened the room-darkening curtains to see what kind of day it was.

  He went to the large window that faced the lake and pulled open the drapes. Otsego Lake was deep blue, the golf course lush green. Carts moved along the fairways and a tour boat was docking. Life, going on. Below him, on the extensive restaurant patio, the guests of baseball were finishing brunch, wearing blue blazers and summer dresses, attired for Grudeck’s big day. To his right was the expanse of lake, tailing off to some unseen corner, shadowed by a long mountain. To his left was a lakeside motel, with children splashing in a small pool while their watchful parents lounged on the deck. It was peaceful, and quiet, with all the noise drowned out by the air conditioner buzz. It all seemed so picturesque, so perfect—marred only by a long column of black, roiling smoke rising above the treeline midway up the mountain.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Stigmata. Stigmata. That was the word. Horace’s fingers probed the Giant’s bloody divots, the red smears on his gypsum skin. The anguish on the Giant’s face, that twisted, silent scream, now cried pain. Ribs and arms broken by a baseball bat; nose chipped and smudged scarlet like that of a battered heavyweight.

  The old guy didn’t deserve this, Horace mourned. Requiem for a . . . Whoever took the bat to him . . . those cowardly bastards . . . whoever did this to a defenseless . . . Horace knew, and his grief rocketed to rage.