Gods of Wood and Stone

by Mark Di Ionno

  Boston fans. Cowards. Bastards. Motherfuckers. There wasn’t a word to pen Horace’s anger.

  There was only this: What goes around comes around.

  They’d vandalized his stone man. He’d vandalize theirs. Grudeck’s bronze plaque.

  What goes around . . . The idea came as quick to him as his mood change.

  But for Horace, the blacksmith—the muscles of his brawny arms are strong as iron bands—there would be no skulking around under the cover of darkness. The blacksmith—a mighty man is he—would do it in the open—and looks the whole world in the face, for he owes not any man.

  His rage flipped to glee and he felt a rush of joyousness, bathed by golden purpose. Ah, this was sent by God. This is what his whole life, his whole world came to; this, this, this defining moment. This moment of clarity.

  He would deliver a message, one strike from Thor, good old Donnerstag, the god of the hammer, of strength, of courage.

  One strike, like the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

  One strike, his revolutionary act of truth against the false truth of majorities.

  One strike, against all he despised, against the things that stole his son, against the culture of cheapness and idiocy that decayed this great country, his great country, against all those who mocked him. One strike against all those under the anesthesia of the diversion-makers, those too numb or dumb to tune out the siren song from its whores in the media.

  The blacksmith, a mighty man is he, would stand. He would stand, and be seen, in all his physical and mental muscularity, and be counted. One truth. The truth, not of a majority, but of the lone man. The outcast. The blacksmith.

  He took the remaining copies of “American Rubism” from the stand, and shoved one in his back pocket to leave at the scene of his farewell act, his calling card, his written speech, his fuck you, if anybody cared to understand.

  He stepped across the broken bats on his way out, feeling the cheap wood snap under his feet. He did not bother to inspect the shards of the big bat, on the barrel of which was scrawled this message: To Michael—See you in the big leagues—your pal, Joe Grudeck.

  Horace raced into town and could hear the fire truck horns bouncing across the lake, their circular echoes crying that they were lost, trying to find the fire on the mountain no one bothered to report.

  On Susquehanna Avenue, not far from where the induction ceremony was being held, Horace could smell the smoke. It was stale and old already. As he looked north, he saw a wispy gray haze enveloping the hillside where he lived. Used to live. The stratus cloud now formed by his grand bonfire had a fog-blanket effect, far from the smokestack billows of black he saw from the farm museum valley. The old clapboard house, pretreated for arson, had burned quickly and efficiently. By the time the volunteers found it, it would be charcoaled timber, gutted, and in a red-hot smolder. No reason to fight it, just let it burn out.

  Toward the Clark Sports Center, traffic stalled as police slowly waved latecomers into the jammed parking lot. Horace jumped the curb on the opposite side of the street, turned the car behind a rock wall, and drove two hundred yards undetected through a hay field leading to the old stables. He pulled into the circular driveway, tracking mud from the pasture. Old Hank was there, sitting in a lawn chair behind orange cones that kept fans from parking on stable property.

  “Horace, what brings you here?”

  “I got a job to do,” he said, and popped the trunk hatch of the Escort. He reached for the long-handled hammer with a five-pound sledge. That ought to do it. And because his hands were raw from the earlier work, he pulled on a pair of leather mitts he had used to go elbow deep into the fire at the smithy.

  “Something for the museum?” Hank asked.

  “You could say that,” Horace said, thinking respect. Or revenge. A nose for a nose. What goes around comes around.

  The induction tent across the street was half the size of the soccer field it was pitched on, and loudspeakers carried the ceremony to the overflow crowd.

  While Hall of Fame execs droned on and some awards were given out, Horace grew impatient. Enough with all this self-congratulatory bullshit. Time was being wasted. He wanted to strike, escape, and head to Ohio. He leaned on the sledge, his battle cudgel.

  Hank gave him the skunk eye. “So, what’s that for?”

  “The job,” Horace said.

  Before Hank could ask another question, “Please give a Cooperstown welcome to our newest inductee . . . ,” and the frantic applause and cupped-hand yells of “Grrrewww!” and cowboy whoops drowned out his name. Horace got in the Escort, started it back up, got out again, and told Old Hank to “leave it running.”

  At that moment a car drove up. An attractive dark-haired woman rolled down the window and asked Old Hank, “Can I please park here? Please? I’m so late . . .”

  “Well . . . you ain’t supposed to but I’m a sucker for a pretty face.”

  He waved her in next to Horace’s wagon, looked down at the plates, and said to Horace, “Wouldn’t you know it . . . Jersey driver.”

  But Horace was already moving quickly, long gone before the woman told Hank, in a way of explaining herself, “I’m a friend of Joe Grudeck’s,” and pressed a twenty-dollar bill in his hand.

  Horace jogged across the street, calm, the sledge bootlegged, to a side entrance. A female ticket-taker tried to stop him, but Horace squared his shoulders and just kept going. Poor girl. She didn’t want to make a commotion, Horace knew, because Almighty Grudeck was already at the podium, thanking the fucking world. Horace felt no eyes on him. He only saw his target; the bronze tablet with Grudeck’s expressionless face in perpetuity. No smile, no silent scream. Stone man, stoic mug. Horace brought the hammer up, horizontal at his waist, rifle-style, and double-timed up the side aisle. He was locked in on the plaque, and soon the stage was in front of him, a last hurdle to be cleared, and Horace did it with an ease and grace that surprised him. He scrambled up, then quickly got to his feet, and then there was nothing between him and his revenge. The plaque was secured on a sturdy platform and Horace was on top of it in two strides. He launched the hammerhead while still moving, and the strike was solid. The sound was a satisfying, rich clang, a lone funereal reverberation. Requiem for the Giant.

  The sound was so, so luscious, Horace wanted to hear it again. He twisted himself back as far as his spine would allow, then uncoiled with every ounce of torque he could ever coax out of his body. A mighty man is he. He swung with unleashed rage and frustration, but with a perfected pivot and arc, and with all that power, the centrifugal force of the hammerhead pulled him off balance. And when it hit, there was no musical tone. This was a deadening splat! Ax on wood, meat clever on bone, fist on nose, guillotine on neck. There were metal-on-metal sparks, where the hard steel sledge head hit the soft bronze throat of Joe Grudeck, and a lightning-bolt slash ripped through the plaque. It broke in two, and fell, not with the sound of a crashing cymbal, but of a dropped bowling ball. Horace’s work here was done.

  He tossed the hammer, shook off the gloves, and gave Grudeck a go-fuck-yourself look. Grudeck. Dumb ass. Standing there with his mouth agape. Ape. The dumb-ass ape then tossed the podium in some theatric display of jock macho and Horace dug in. A mighty man is he. A mighty man does not run. He stands, oaklike. Horace braced for Grudeck, stuffed in his suit like a sausage in membrane casing, and his aggressive pounce wasn’t catlike, it was cattlelike. Horace easily straight-armed him, but Grudeck dove for his legs and Horace simply stiffened and collapsed on him, and heard him panting like a tired dog. In this first moment of stillness, Horace saw cops coming from all sides. Time to go. He hammer-fisted Grudeck one, two, three times, maybe more, to free himself but by then someone had him in a headlock and there were hands all over him. He toppled backward, pulled by the cops, and Grudeck landed on top of him. Horace was done, but Grudeck went for his throat, and when Horace saw the crazy rage in his eyes, he got Grudeck’s neck and held tight, with large and sinewy hands,
and the muscles of his brawny arms are strong as iron bands.

  The power Horace felt at that moment was redemption for all that ate at him. He squeezed against the false hero worship of the Joe Grudecks of the world and the blind idiocy of their fans; he squeezed to defend his authentic, historic culture against the shallow, mind-numbing diversions of the modern world; he squeezed hardest to get his son back and to assert his own fatherhood—his own manhood—in these times when the whole fucking world seemed stacked against it. With this power, this Samson strength, he lifted this famous lug of a jock almost effortlessly and shook him to punctuate his physical superiority. A mighty man—he is!

  But then there was a nightstick across Horace’s chest, and too many arms at him. Horace yielded again. Easy, now, easy. When they said, “Turn over and put your hands behind your head,” he did. Easy. Take it easy. Then he felt knees crash down on him driven by the full weight of men, while others twisted his arms and cuffed him too tight. He was yanked roughly to his feet. Tough guys, these cops who always had you outnumbered, with their billy clubs and stun guns and automatic weapons. Horace thought all that, and went quietly, but not meekly, into the crowd of cowards now rushing toward him. I do not fear, he thought. Instead, he relished the moment as cups and programs flew, and they mocked him, this king of chaos, loathed by pagan worshippers. He stood tall above them, proud, upright, and unbeaten—the lone voice, the blacksmith, a mighty man is he—even when the bat smashed down mightily on his head.

  Horace fought off the black flash of unconsciousness.

  I, too, am a stone man.

  The blood of their sins trickled into his eyes, but through it he saw new light, the sunlight from outside the tent that illuminated the crush of faces, red, meaty, twisted, angry faces, cursing, slobbering, bellowing like wounded animals of a human subspecies.

  And from that light and crush of hating faces came an urgent sound he’d heard many times as he contemplated his purpose and sought peace in the bleak of night.

  “Dad! Dad!”

  It was Michael, who had come to rescue him.

  Fall

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  There was deep sleep, dark and infinite, something close to death. He was still and naked, stripped of uniform and fame, at the mercy of hired hands, some tender, some not so. They washed him and adjusted his tubes. He felt hands work on him, not pulling at him, not asking anything from him. When the hands were gone and there was silence in the room except for the constant blips and hums of medical machines, he went deeper into the hole of himself. Some cavern of brain and soul. There he found himself through the ages. The him in his first conscious moments, taking in the world with wonder. The him on colt legs and with fledgling balance stumbling from chest-high coffee table to couch cushion. Joining the world of other children, oblivious yet nervous, discovering there were many others like him in that world. The him that was just another Joey, before he became Joe Grudeck.

  There were moments, too brief for memory, when he did not sleep. It was then that he heard the murmurs of voices, or the rhythm of a machine, wheezing in and out, and the pedestrian beep-beep-beep of another. In these first hazy moments of consciousness, he fought to move or call out. But he could not, and fell back into the black hole of coma. There, in a jumble of memories and images, he found an essence, a baseline of himself, lonely and adrift. He was separate from a crowd, people he knew, his parents, Stacy, Sal, old coaches and teammates, through the ages. He wanted to join them. He held out his arms and waded in and they embraced him.

  He slept. He heard his mother’s voice. She was telling stories about him he’d never heard or barely remembered. Always first to shovel snow for old Mrs. Ippolito, a neighbor, or help carry her groceries, always first to volunteer for the nuns. Made his mother proud.

  There were other stories, these from Stacy. Yes, she was here! He heard adjectives like gentle and kind. He picked up fragments—“I knew he was different”—and his mother agreeing and affirming.

  “Joey, I’m here.” It was his mother.

  “Joe, I’m here.” It was Stacy.

  He wanted to cry out, “I’m here, too.” But he could not.

  He felt more hands on him. Tape being pulled off skin. A warm rag washing his nuts. Something hard down his throat. Wake up, he told himself. But he slept. Through the ages. He heard his own voice, mocking and self-loathing. “You got what you deserved, prick. Fuck you.” But it was shrill and weak. A stronger voice came. One of peace and serenity. Guilty, but forgiven. Wasn’t that the way? Wasn’t that what Jesus promised? It came to him in those coma dreams.

  He saw the surrender in the big guy’s eyes as the cops took him away and the crowd pelted him. Did the big guy see the surrender in his? Was he the Messenger of Humility, sent by the Holy Ghost? Grudeck heard the voice of God. “Yes, asshole.”

  His hand hurt. It was being squeezed. He was alive. Pain meant that. It was the hand McNulty broke.

  “Joe, I’m here, baby.” Stacy. She called me baby.

  He slept more. His head hurt. Then he slept again, numb to all the pain.

  The skin on his back felt raw, then many hands pulled him up, while other hands rubbed cream on his back. “God, this guy is heavy,” a woman said, but Grudeck felt weightless, drifting in space. He slept again. Then, some unformed time later, Stacy again.

  “I’m here, baby.” She was close, there to take care of him. Even in this muted stupor, he slept, satisfied.

  “I’m here, baby.” But then he wanted to see her and he forced his eyes to flutter, and then he slept again, and then he got his eyes to open and everyone was there. Stacy, Ma, Sal. People in green scrubs. All to take care of him.

  “Welcome back, Mr. Grudeck,” one of the green people said.

  Medically induced coma to reduce brain swelling is how it started.

  “But you must have liked it there, so you stayed longer than we anticipated,” the doctor said. “This concussion on top of the old ones made your brain vulnerable.”

  There were things he had to know. The surgery scar. The stiffness. Some numbness in the face, left side. The slight loss of “motor skills” and weakness, also on the left.

  “The average person might not notice, but you will. It will bring your coordination level down to, say, mine,’’ the doctor joked. “Eighteen holes of golf might be tough, and your scores might climb. But seriously, you’re a lucky man.”

  Grudeck looked in the mirror. He saw the slight droop in his face. He thought of the girls in Syracuse. It was the face he deserved. A public penance for his private sin. Or was it still secret?

  He asked, “Who was that guy?”

  “The police said he was some local eccentric nut,” Stacy told him as she held his hand at his bedside. “His wife left him and they were having money problems.”

  “Tha’s it?” Grudeck slurred. “Tha’s all?”

  He was safe. His reputation intact. Ancient history.

  Sal was right. The speech was a bad idea. No one would have understood. The big guy saved him from himself. And for that, the big guy was forgiven.

  He got his legs back under him in physical therapy, his limp now a slight drag, and learned how to dab at the drool on the side of his mouth before it got noticeable. They packed him up and sent him back to Union, to stay with his mother for a while until he figured out the rest. Before he left the hospital, he signed autographs all around, leaving a signature that looked shaky and craggy, like from an old, feeble hand. They wheeled him out a side door, dodging the cameras, into a waiting limo. He struggled to lift himself from the chair, with his mother on one side and Stacy on the other.

  One day you were Joe Grudeck, the next day you were not.

  Chapter Forty

  The judge said the system had a special place for a man with Horace’s unique skills. Downstate in Wallkill, a minimum-security prison housed a program where inmates cared for retired thoroughbreds, to teach the gang members and thugs about responsibility and care. Ho
race thought it was a joke at first, but sure enough, they needed a blacksmith.

  Horace would do his time there after pleading out; five years for arson, and five years for simple assault, reduced from aggravated. The tapes supported his claim that he had no intention of attacking Joe Grudeck himself, and only acted in self-defense. His public defender said it was good deal; Horace didn’t disagree. The sentences would run concurrently, since Horace had no priors and always held a job. In three years, he’d be eligible for parole. His prison salary would go for restitution of the destroyed Grudeck plaque and the cleanup of the blackened rubble that had been his house, now on bank property.

  The horse farm was two hours south of Cooperstown, and Sally promised she would bring Michael down every few weeks or so, from home. That’s what Michael wanted, to stay home, near his dad. Horace felt vindicated in that alone. Michael visited three times while he was being held in the county jail awaiting sentencing. He never asked Horace why he did it, and Horace never explained. It was just something that happened. Michael didn’t seem bothered by it, so they left it at that. Someday Horace would tell him the truth: I did it for you.

  Natalia came once and held his hand through the bars. He kissed that hand, like a nineteenth-century gentleman, before she left for Rochester, promising to write. Whether she did or not didn’t matter much to Horace. He had his son. He’d won back his son.

  On the kind of autumn day that brings tourists into apple and wine country, Horace was transported to Wallkill. The long white Dutch barn that sheltered the horses was illuminated by a brilliant, cloudless sky and almost shimmered in the light. Horace had never seen a sky so blue, or a barn so white. He looked over the rolling pastures and the dirt exercise tracks and decided he would like it here.

  Dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, he went to his old work.

  His co-workers were men in similar costume. Their faces mapped the journey of their hard lives. Broken and bent noses, scars from knives or knuckles. The drug addicts all had bad teeth. The dealers had gold caps. Teardrop tattoos on the faces of the Bloods, swastikas on the necks of the Aryans, MS13 on the forearms of the Spanish.