Butterfly Winter

by W. P. Kinsella

  Fernandella refused to leave her stream of plenty; she still killed pheasants for each family meal. It was the endless supply of fish and the pheasants that all but leapt into her frying pan, that saved the day for the only Major League Baseball Club in the True South.

  AFTER WINNING THE CY YOUNG AWARD and being named Most Valuable Player, Julio, and Esteban because he was his twin brother, were invited to the White House to meet the President. After viewing the White House, Julio and Esteban decided that they wanted their mother to live there, in fact they made it a condition of their playing another season for the only Major League Baseball Club in the True South. It did not concern them when the owner waved signed contracts under their noses, and threatened to suspend them and let them rot in San Cristobal, and never play another Major League game. The twins pointed out through their interpreter, a cousin of the Wizard, though Esteban often had to correct the interpreter, whose English seldom surpassed a McDonald’s menu, that the baseball stadium was full for every home game, though the team continued to finish dead last. They pointed out that the previous year Julio had won twenty-seven of the team’s sixty-two victories.

  The President of the United States agreed that Fernandella Pimental and her children, who now numbered eight, five of the final six unexceptional, except for Aguirre the dwarf, could visit the White House, even stay for a few days, two weeks at maximum, as guests of the State Department. The Pimental brothers found a Spanish-speaking travel agent and booked first-class seats to San Barnabas. “We already have enough money to live comfortably forever in Courteguay,” they told the only Major League Baseball Club in the True South.

  Julio and Esteban were exceptionally generous with their father. They bestowed on him a large allowance which he gambled away. The Wizard was now the biggest bookmaker in all Courteguay. The only client he dealt with personally was the father of the twins. For one hundred and one consecutive days Julio and Esteban’s father bet on losing teams. The Wizard, who never asked directly for anything from the twins, became a very wealthy man. He became interested in overthrowing the government. He acquired a fleet of hot air balloons.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE GRINGO JOURNALIST

  The first time the battery returned home they paraded their money like military medals. They bought their mother silk dresses of iridescent greens and silvers; they bought her scarves and jewelry. On that first visit the brothers discovered that many of their neighbors, at the instigation of the Wizard, were worshipping the furnace in the basement of Fernandella’s renovated house. It was the only furnace in all of Courteguay. The local priest refused to bless it, even from a distance, claiming it was an instrument of the devil; the Wizard conversed with it. Fernandella’s children, and Fernandella herself, felt comforted by the way it hummed like a sleeping pet in the black hours before dawn.

  Fernandella refused to even visit the United States.

  “If the President wants to see me so badly, let him come here,” said Fernandella. As for seeing her sons play professional baseball, she said sternly, “Watching my sons play baseball brings back painful memories.”

  “Look,” the Wizard said, “the annual income in Courteguay is 200 guilermos, or roughly $60 US. In Courteguay, a house, even a mansion, is very inexpensive to construct. The White House can be built in replica for less than its original cost, and, if properly handled, written off as foreign aid, charity, a gesture of international goodwill.”

  The twins hired an architect who reconstructed the White House on the barren, sun-scorched hillside on the outskirts of San Cristobel. The replica was built in such a way that the magic stream splashed through the rose garden.

  FOR EACH OF THE NEXT THREE SEASONS Julio won thirty or more games. Each year the team finished above .500, and by developing a young and talented infield, were in a position to win a pennant. But in February, just before he was due to report for spring training in Florida, Julio was kidnapped by a rebel faction of the Courteguayan guerrillas, not the ones who at one time had been the government, and would be again, led by General Bravura. The government of El Presidente would then become the guerrillas, and the cycle would repeat itself. These were guerrillas within guerrillas. Their leader was a flat-nosed fellow with wild hair that blossomed from beneath a Fidel Castro cap. Because of his nose, his enemies called him El Puerko, the pig, though his name was said to be Colonel Castillo.

  El Puerko first demanded, in return for Julio’s safe return, money and arms from the government of El Presidente.

  “Why should we care about the safety of a mere baseball player, who is fast becoming a gringo?” replied the Government. “Do with him as you will.” Though in private, El Presidente, who had played baseball as a young man and claimed, since he had a reputation for being as honest as a politician was likely to be, that he had shaken the hand of Octavio Court after whom the country was named. El Presidente followed the career of the fabulous Pimental twins, and was exceedingly worried lest something happen to Julio. Still, he knew that there could be no negotiation with terrorists, which El Puerko and his band of idiots certainly were. Now if the kidnapping had only been carried out by General Bravura, an honorable man who had on occasion been President of the Republic, the problem would have been solved in a moment. He would have sent for General Bravura and he would have entered San Barnabas under a flag of truce. They would have had a leisurely dinner at the Presidential Palace, and a variety of favors would have been handed to General Bravura, ranging from ammunition for his machine guns to a case of brandy to keep him comfortable during the upcoming monsoon season. Julio would have been released. El Presidente would claim the credit, have Julio and Esteban put on a personal display of pitching and catching and he would warn Julio to be more vigilant in the future, and since Julio was very rich, perhaps ask for a financial hand in covering the expense of his ransom.

  “You do not understand,” the guerrilla-guerrilla leader replied. “In the United States baseball players of quality are revered as saints. If the United States deems your Government responsible for the death of Julio Pimental, it could result in diminished foreign aid, which, as we all know, makes up most of Courteguay’s gross national product. And since it is known that you use all agricultural and social service foreign aid money for military equipment, then where would you be?”

  “We will take our chances,” El Presidente replied, but with more bravado than he actually felt.

  The kidnapping made the front pages of the Atlanta Constitution and the St. Louis Sporting News.

  “I volunteer to seek out the offending parties and act as intermediary,” the Wizard, Cayetano Umberto Salvador Alfredo Jorge Blanco, as he now called himself, said to El Presidente. He was reluctantly allowed to do so, though El Presidente warned him that he was allowed diplomacy only, that no money or goods would be paid.

  The Wizard sent a message by shortwave radio. The guerrillas replied that they would shoot down the Wizard’s balloon on sight.

  The Wizard promised to make himself invisible.

  The only Major League Baseball Club in the True South offered the guerrillas five hundred dollars, no questions asked, for the return of Julio Pimental.

  The guerrillas set an execution date.

  “I will pay you one-quarter of my salary and all the residuals from my Mexican Bean Dip commercials,” Julio told the guerrillas, some of whom were his childhood friends. When they rejected the offer he promised to buy all the guns in the largest pawn shop in Miami and ship them to the guerrillas by rumrunner.

  Preceded only by an eerie hissing of calamitous magnitude, the Wizard appeared suddenly in the middle of the guerrilla fortress. He was freshly shaved and manicured, dressed in velvet breeches and knee-high boots.

  “I will buy uniforms for all the guerrilla officers,” he said. With his long, pale fingers he withdrew colored pens from the ears of the officers present, and a scarlet one from the nose of El Puerko, and sketched uniforms of turquoise fabric, spangled with gold braid and fla
mingo-colored epaulets, which quickened the hearts of the kidnappers.

  “Picture yourselves dressed thusly, marching in triumph into San Barnabas,” whispered the Wizard who knew the secret desires of every man with whom he came in contact.

  “Perhaps you would care to join in our fight for freedom,” said the guerrilla leader, who knew the Wizard’s secret desire to be President of the Republic.

  The guerrillas postponed the execution for two weeks. Cayetano Umberto Salvador Alfredo Jorge Blanco disappeared into the jungle as mysteriously as he had been breathed from it.

  The only Major League Baseball Club in the True South upped the offer to one thousand dollars and a baseball autographed by the whole team. The American State Department hinted darkly that the kidnapping was communist inspired. The CIA airlifted twenty-three tanks to the government forces in San Barnabas with which to fight for Julio’s freedom. The Government Department of Industry and Tourism sold half the tanks to Papa Doc Duvalier and declared a Festival day.

  The deadline for the execution passed and the Wizard did not appear with the uniforms. In America the baseball season was due to open in a few days. The only Major League Baseball Club in the True South was frantically trying to trade Julio Pimental to a club willing to pay a larger ransom. The owners hinted broadly that the New York Yankees were probably behind the kidnapping, after the Yankees offered two of their superstars and a player to be named later in return for Julio.

  The only Major League Baseball Club in the True South, in the meantime, refused to sign Esteban to a new contract.

  “What do we want with a catcher who can’t hit? Let’s wait and see if we get Julio back alive.”

  In return for his release Julio offered to buy enough medical supplies for the whole guerrilla army; when that offer was refused he offered to buy guns and ship them to Courteguay as medical supplies.

  “Shoot him!” said the guerrilla leader.

  But he could not assemble a volunteer firing squad. Julio Pimental, in spite of playing his baseball in America, was a hero with the rank-and-file guerrillas. Since he had been held captive in the guerrilla camp, a makeshift baseball diamond had emerged from the jungle. Dense rain forest melted away, and the foul lines and base paths were illuminated by rows of tropical flowers, some white as wedding gowns, others indigo and orchid. The pitcher’s rubber was a bar of golden poppies. Since they had no bats, the guerrilla soldiers used their rifles, holding them by the barrels, swinging with verve as Julio twirled the one battered baseball that had emerged from some irregular’s duffel bag. A sandbag served as catcher, since none of the soldiers would even attempt to catch Julio’s sidearm curve, or his seething fastball. There were a number of rather serious accidents involving batters who forgot to unload the bullets from their bats.

  The guerrilla leader appointed a firing squad from the ranks of the non-baseball players. He stood Julio Pimental, the world’s greatest living baseball pitcher, against an adobe wall and gave the order for the squad to raise their rifles.

  “If you please,” said Julio in a strong voice, “I request to be shot while standing on the pitcher’s mound.”

  A chorus of affirmative sounds emanated from the assembled guerrilla army.

  “Very well,” said El Puerko.

  Julio Pimental stood on the bar of golden poppies, which were soft as velvet beneath his feet, and stared resolutely at the firing squad, which was assembled at home plate. The sky was low and leaden; the trees dripped sullenly. Julio refused a blindfold.

  The leader raised his hand. The firing squad raised their rifles. Suddenly the air was filled with a sibilation, as if a million swords were slicing the sky.

  The guerrilla leader lowered his hand slowly, so slowly that the firing squad was not certain if he was giving the signal to fire, or if he was just lowering his hand. Three discharged their guns. Three didn’t. From the barrels of the three fired weapons there dropped three blood-red hibiscus, which lay in front of home plate quivering like fresh-caught fish.

  As Julio and the army watched, the Wizard descended through the clouds in a blue teardrop of a balloon, of such color that those who remembered the sky, recalled it as being less perfect than the blue of the balloon.

  Two more balloons followed, one red as the trembling hibiscus, the other orange as the sun. Beneath each balloon, the wicker gondola was piled high with exotic uniforms, while in the lead balloon the Wizard was arrayed in the most magnificent uniform of all, a uniform that caused the guerrillas to develop magnificent erections.

  TWENTY-NINE

  THE GRINGO JOURNALIST

  “Here he is,” said the Wizard, “the player to be named later.”

  “Hmmmph,” said General Bravura, his medals glinting like gun barrels in the sunshine. “He looks to me as if he has a club foot.”

  “Nonsense,” cried the Wizard. “He is a fine second baseman, agile as a panther, with the speed of gazelle on the bases.”

  The player stood in front of General Bravura’s massive desk, eyes downcast, a hangdog expression about him. He was slumped forward, his shoulder blades prominent beneath his khaki shirt. He needed a haircut.

  “He is thin and starved-looking. Have you just taken him out of solitary confinement at some military stockade in order to bring him to me?”

  “By keeping his weight down he is able to sprint faster after ground balls,” said the Wizard. “He is a veritable vacuum cleaner when it comes to sucking up ground balls.”

  The repartee continued for several minutes, until General Bravura had exhausted his stock of insults and the Wizard was running low on praise.

  “Very well,” said General Bravura. “I think Edisto Montanez is a name that sounds like a second baseman.”

  “Ummmm,” said the Wizard. “I would prefer something more, ah, distinctive, but it is your choice. However, he will require a nickname. May I suggest, El Gato? It offers a sense of quickness, does it not?”

  “El Gato Montanez,” stated General Bravura, frowning. “Yes, I think that has possibilities. Distinctive and quick.”

  “If I might be bold once again,” said the Wizard, smiling, “something American either before or after the nickname. Whether we like it or not American Baseball is very big and influential in Courteguay.”

  “American?” said General Bravura. In one of his previous terms as El Presidente of Courteguay, General Bravura had banned the importation of the St. Louis Sporting News. There had followed a series of terroristic bombings of public latrines and the uprooting in the dead of night of the statues of famous generals. At the scene of each bombing or uprooting was left a small sketch of a St. Louis Cardinal, a red bird with a bat over its shoulder. The bombings and uprootings stopped when the ban on the St. Louis Sporting News was lifted.

  “Allow me to speculate for a moment,” said the Wizard. “We have seldom had an American player in our leagues. Oh, we have Courteguayans who have played for a time in the United States, but at the moment no real Americans. What I propose,” said the Wizard, smiling deviously, “is that we create our own. El Gato here speaks English of sorts that I have taught him. At least enough to get by. We claim he is from Miami, but born there you understand. And suppose we named him Mantel, just a fraction off the name of the American superstar. Only he pronounces it Man-Tell. We give him an American first name, say Michael, and we translate his nickname to ‘The Cat.’ We shorten the first name to Mike.”

  “What we have now, if I am not mistaken is Mike ‘The Cat’ Mantel, pronounced Man-tell,” said General Bravura.

  The Wizard glowed.

  “Although the idea is at least partially mine, he shall of course play for one of your teams,” said the Wizard.

  “Done,” cried General Bravura, clapping his hands.

  THIRTY

  THE GRINGO JOURNALIST

  When the boys arrived in the Bigs they were not only curiosities because of their youthful appearance; at the time Latin players were few and far between, so they were regarde
d as both exotic and dangerous. The boys found the large American ballplayers to be rough, crude, mean-spirited, and racist.

  Tiller tried to take them under his wing; he treated them exactly as he would if they were his own sons, and got along well with them, though that part of their relationship had to be kept secret.

  Esteban, whose brow was always furrowed, was an enigma to the other players, but they refrained from razzing him much because his dark countenance gave the impression that retaliation was inevitable. Julio, on the other hand, was slight and vulnerable to physical, but more often to emotional harassment. Cinnamon was the kindest thing he was called.

  SITTING IN THE TEAM LOCKER ROOM in Cleveland, listening to the unkind words of his teammates, Julio recalled that as a child he would wake as the first blue talons of dawn pierced the windows in the completely renovated tin-roofed hut, to hear his parents arguing about sex.

  “Courteguayan boys are born with erections,” his father would say when Fernandella complained about the frequency with which he demanded sex, and the startling positions he insisted on in hopes of producing other offspring as exotic as the twins.

  “A true Courteguayan man has an erection from the day he is born until the day he dies. A great man goes to his grave with a bulge in his pants. Those lucky enough to be born in hospitals are no longer virgins by the time their mothers carry them home. There are obvious reasons why hospital nurseries are divided in half with boys on one side and girls on the other.”

  The twins, Julio and Esteban, would peer across the hut, eyes straining in the bluish light, trying to comprehend what the ghostlike figures of their parents were doing beneath the sugar-sack sheet.