The picnic was on a Saturday. Moses was about as sober as I’d ever seen him, and for reasons none of us will probably ever know, he had decided to come with us to the picnic. Ma was happy, because he hadn’t darkened the church door since they got married, and I think she hoped maybe a little mingling with church folk might help turn him around.
So Ma and I climbed into our black 1917 Ford Model T, Moses cranked her to life, and we rattled our way toward Coon Hollow, several miles down the valley. I held my worn, hand-me-down glove on my hand and ground my fist into the faded, supple palm, imagining myself scooping up an ankle-high line drive before flopping down on my belly in dramatic fashion. I hoped Moses would be watching the baseball. Never was I more excited about playing a baseball game. Moses had never seen me play, and I was determined to put on a show.
By the time we arrived at the picnic grounds, I'd made the difficult decision to abstain from participating in the other games in order to save my strength for baseball, and when it came time to dig into the mouth-watering mounds of food, I ate like a bird—partly because I didn’t want to feel too sluggish, but mostly because I was just too nervous to eat.
“Let’s play ball!” Deacon Wilke bellowed through a bullhorn.
My heart bounced off my Adam’s apple and I felt the sweat bead on my forehead. I tried to walk nonchalantly over to where Ma and Mrs. Herman Schnell sat on an old red and white checkered picnic blanket under the shade of a gnarly oak tree, discussing cream prices, dress patterns, and other things of concern to women. Moses was not one to socialize, so he sat on the other end, plucking blades of grass absentmindedly, staring distantly at a legion of ants racing back and forth with bits of food.
I picked up my mitt from under the tree where I’d left it and put it on slowly.
“I guess I’ll be going to play ball,” I said to no one in particular, hoping Moses would come over to watch. He didn’t move. I started to walk slowly past him.
“You coming to play baseball?” I asked, trying to sound offhand, like it really didn’t matter to me if he came or not. He took his eyes off the ant he was worrying with a blade of grass.
“I reckon I might come watch.”
Immediately, I wasn’t sure whether I felt glad or just more anxious. Part of me was elated he was coming to watch, but the other part felt pressure, not from him, but from myself.
He got up slowly and we walked to the diamond. He settled down on the grass to the right of home plate, and I lined up for picking teams. Captains were chosen, and Big Joe Daniels picked me fourth, which I was somewhat self-satisfied with, since there were a lot of bigger, older boys and men there. I glanced over to see if Moses had taken note. I don’t know if I was expecting him to have a look of awe and wonder on his face at seeing his son picked so early in the draft, but if he was bursting with pride, he sure did hide it well.
The game commenced, and I was reasonably happy with my performance. I was playing cautiously, defensively, wanting to be a hero, but more concerned with avoiding looking like a fool. I would be content with convincing Moses that I was a solid ball player, though I really wanted to prove I was a superstar.
One inning trailed another, and the score see-sawed back and forth. For me the score wasn’t so important as personally doing well. I singled, doubled, and flied out. I caught a fly in left field that was two strides away from being a spectacular catch. But until the top of the eighth, I really hadn’t shown the prowess I’d been hoping to show. I knew it might be my last at bat.
There was one batter out with two runners on the corners as I approached the plate, looking askance to see if Moses was still watching the game. He was. On most days I would have been assessing the crowd to see if Sally Anderson was spectating. She didn’t even cross my mind. I decided it was time to take a risk. Time to attempt a big hit.
I clutched the worn hickory bat in sweaty palms as I approached the batter’s box and wiped my hands on the sides of my overalls. Pulling my ball cap low, I settled into the batter’s box, scraping the two shallow dirt troughs on the left side of the plate with my feet, like a hog making things ready to settle down. I slowly brought the bat horizontally over the plate, indicating the strike zone, and settled back, twitching it back and forth in what I hoped to be a strong, catlike motion.
The sun wasn’t high, but it was intense, so in spite of my cap, I squinted toward the pitcher’s mound as though keeping the shards of sunlight from penetrating my eyes. Billy Thompson stood on the mound, looking so tall it seemed he’d obscure the sun if I stood any closer. He’d played semi-pro in Illinois as a young man, and when he’d throw a pitch, you’d swear he could make the seams smoke. The year before he’d pitched to me like I was a kid, and he’d been a little soft on me at the start of the game, but by now, he was coming at me with all he had. He spat on the ground and put his glove up near his face, so I could just see his eyes. My body started and jerked, imperceptibly to the eye, but I could feel it, as if my over-stimulated brain was sending minute, premature impulses to my muscles.
Billy reared back slowly, lifted his leg in a high kick, and drove it forward as his hand whipped over his shoulder. The ball snaked toward me. It seemed to dart away just after I decided to swing. I swung, trying to put every ounce of my strength and weight into it. I missed completely.
“Strike one!” “Honest Amos” McCall umpired from behind the plate.
I moved away from the plate and tried to settle myself down. I told myself I just needed to relax and be patient. My heart was hammering so hard I could feel it in my neck.
Moving back to the plate, I was still unable to loosen up much. Another slow motion windup, snap of the forearm, and the ball hurtled toward me again, looking like a carbon copy of the first pitch. I let it go.
“Ball one!”
After another failed attempt to relieve myself of anxiety and tension, I was back at the plate, throttling the bat so vigorously it wouldn’t surprise me if my fingerprints are still on that bat.
The giant on the mound gathered himself up and uncoiled like a spring as he fired his third salvo toward me. It looked pretty good, and I took a half swing before deciding it looked a little low, so I held off. There was a brief silence. I held my breath, waiting for the call.
“Ball two, two and one,” Honest Amos made the call.
I let a long breath funnel through pursed lips and rolled my shoulders back. I had to get a hit. A big hit. I didn’t want to walk.
Settling back into the batter’s box, I suddenly felt strong, confident. I was focused, and the bat in my hand felt like an extension of me, another appendage. I no longer used it as a tool. I was the bat.
Billy’s arm cocked back behind his head and he brought it forward like a catapult. It was fast. It was straight. It was gone! I swung harder and cleaner than I’d ever swung before. It was that powerful, effortless type of swing that rockets a ball into the sky. I lost the ball in the sun, and it was only as I was about to round first base that I looked out toward center field and saw the ball arcing downward toward Mr. Richard Carr. He backpedaled madly and I could see him flail his glove wildly, almost as though he were trying to throw his entire arm at the ball as he backed into the field of corn behind the ball field and fell over backwards. Home run!
My sprint became a trot as I calmly rounded the bases, doing my best to look like the hit was all in a day’s work. I could hardly wait to reach third base and see Moses’ reaction. Maybe he’d be on his feet, staring marvelously at the place where the cornfield had swallowed up my bat’s blast, or paying respect to the hit with a wide smile and a nice slow clap. Perhaps I would cross home plate and coolly make my way to the sidelines, and he’d walk over and say, “I didn’t know you could hit like that!” At the very least, he’d probably say something on the way home to my mother, like “Liza, you shoulda seen the home run Bobby hit into the cornfield this afternoon. That was somethin’ else!”
I cornered third base and raised my head a little to take an incons
picuous peek at Moses under the brim of my cap. He wasn’t sitting where I’d seen him last. I raised my head higher and scanned the sidelines to see where he’d moved to. I was so preoccupied with locating Moses I almost missed stepping on the plate.
My team swarmed me and pats on the back commenced. Their plaudits floated meaninglessly around my head. I didn’t hear acclaim, all I heard was noise that rang hollowly off my eardrum and dissipated unacknowledged.
The scrum subsided and I walked stiffly off the field, only now able to feel the burning in my legs and the tightness in my chest.
I scoured the area with my eyes again, hoping that maybe I’d just missed him, maybe he’d seen my hit from afar. Ma and Mrs. Schnell were still talking, now with a few other women I couldn’t identify from that distance, but Moses was nowhere to be seen.
I turned around toward the game and pretended to watch. I felt my lip tremble just the slightest bit, and my vision blurred a little as my eyes watered, but not quite enough to create full-fledged tears.
Sally walked by with two or three of her girlfriends. They’d been hovering around the area pretty much the whole game.
“That was a fine hit, Bobby,” she complimented, sounding real matter-of-fact, but she looked a little red and it wasn’t from the sun. She twirled her hair around her finger, and if I’d been in the right state of mind, I would have observed how light and smooth it was, like corn silk.
“Thanks,” I muttered, lifting the bill of my ball cap off my head and twisting it back and forth before seating it firmly back down. I wiped my eyes with my thumb and forefinger, as if I was wiping the sweat out of my eyes. Sally and her friends kind of hung around awkwardly for a few seconds before running out of nerve and scattering. I heard one of the girls say something, and Sally giggled. More was said and there were girlish laughs all around.
I blankly watched Billy strike out two more batters to retire the side, and we took the field two more times and batted once. I was an automaton, my body going through the motions of play, but my mind was a storm of emotion far away from the game. Hurt, anger, and resentment chased each other through my mind, feeding off one another, growing larger and uglier.
The game finally ended. I don’t remember who won. All I remember is that I lost.
The rest of the evening I hung around like a stray dog, not wanting to play games, socialize, converse, anything. My eyes finally tired of roving the picnic grounds to confirm that Moses had left, so I just settled under a tree with my cap pulled over my eyes and hoped to be left alone.
Later on, folks began to pack up their things and cars pulled off toward their respective homes. Moses was still nowhere to be found, but he had left the car at the park. Ma and I both knew where he was.
“How’re we getting home?” I asked Ma. She had never driven the car and didn’t have the ambition to start.
“I guess you’ll have to drive,” she replied, her tone emotionless and her face stony.
I had only driven around the farm and a little piece down the road, never into town, so I approached the car with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. As I cranked our Tin Lizzie, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted everyone to see me starting the car and driving Ma home like a big man, or whether I just wanted to be invisible and not have anyone point or whisper how Moses was a low-down skunk for abandoning his wife and half-grown son to fend for themselves.
Ma settled down in the passenger’s seat and I seated myself behind the wheel and took a minute to reacquaint myself with the controls. Deacon Wilke leaned in the window by Ma.
“Do you folks need any help gettin’ home?” he asked quietly. His big brown eyes reminded me of a kind, docile horse that wouldn’t harm a child.
“No thank you, sir,” Ma said smartly, “Robert will get us there just fine.”
“Very well then,” He smiled gently. “Good evening to you.” He tipped his hat and left.
I couldn’t ever remember Ma calling me Robert, it was always Bobby, but I pretended I hadn’t heard her say it. I just sat up ramrod straight and purposefully put the car into gear. It bucked and stalled. The brief, saccadic movement was embarrassing. I tried not to look around, for fear seeing onlookers' amusement would only sap my confidence.
I kept my head down as I restarted the car, climbed back in, and coaxed the engine to rev higher this time. Too high, really. The car shot forward, moving in jerky fashion for a short distance before finally smoothing out. By then it was revving too high for first gear, and it began to jerk again, like it was having spasms, so I pushed the lever to my left forward, released my foot from the pedal, and it shifted into high gear. We were off.
As we wound our way down the road, I could feel the hotness leave my face. I finally felt like I was master of the machine. I looked over at Ma. She sat stiffly, proudly, but it seemed I could see her austere face was hiding some of the same feelings I was feeling about Moses. There was anger and humiliation in the way she held her mouth, and her eyes looked dull and distant. I saw her sadness, and I hated Moses. I could feel the bitterness rise within me. I clutched the wheel as tightly as I’d held the bat earlier. My teeth ground and gritted against each other so hard I thought they might break.
“That son of a bitch would throw a baby down a well for a thimble of whiskey,” I forced the words through my clenched teeth.
“Now Robert, you be watchin’ your language,” was all Ma said softly, still staring straight ahead. I waited for her to contradict me, but she didn’t. Usually when I got to criticizing Moses she’d give me a sharp reprimand, reminding me it wasn’t my place to be railing on him. I would have expected to get a piece ripped off my hind end for using language like that, but not today. That was the day Ma was finally able to show me that maybe she wasn’t all that thrilled about living with Moses either. That was the day she showed me that she trusted me, depended on me, not him. That was the day I felt like a man.
Table of Contents
TWO
I FIND MYSELF ALONE
In 1935 I was 16 years old, and beginning to figure out who I was, who I wanted to be, and struggling to reconcile the fact that those two particular coordinates had a sizeable piece of real estate between them.
I decided life in the backwoods of Kentucky, working the land like my father and grandfathers had done, was not for me. Oh, I loved the country and the humble, God-fearing folks sprinkled unobtrusively in the nooks and wrinkles of the land. But from a young age, part of me always wanted to leave, to explore, to achieve. Journalism appealed to me. I was a curious and attentive observer of the world around me, and ever since I was able to read, I read books and newspapers and periodicals on any subject imaginable. There wasn’t a plethora of reading material to choose from in a small community that far from a large center, but I read whatever I could get my hands on. In that respect, I kind of considered myself to be an Abe Lincoln of sorts. I had a thirst for knowledge, and knowledge came from books.
Writing for a newspaper intrigued me. I dreamed of interviewing famous politicians and celebrities, yet, I also felt I would best be able to identify with everyday folks, empathize with their causes, and bring to light the struggles of the less-privileged.
Despite growing up in a dysfunctional household with a negligent, abusive, alcoholic father, I always believed, or wanted to believe, the best in people, and in life. I believed I would chart my own destiny, and no ill could befall me that wasn’t of my own creation. Sometimes it makes me a little nostalgic to think back to my days of unbridled optimism and idealism, and I am saddened by my own cynicism, and mourn the loss of my innocence.
Moses thought I was soft. Sometimes I’d have to resort to reading in the woods by the spring, or by candlelight at night, because if Moses saw me “fritterin’ my time away” reading something, I’d more than likely get a cuff to the side of the head. Then he’d yell that he couldn’t believe what a weakling, milksop son he’d raised, and often, he’d pick up whatever I was reading and pitch it against whatever happ
ened to be in front of him.
I secretly planned to go to college, but never breathed a word about it, because I knew then for sure he’d make sure I didn’t finish high school.
But, my dream died that summer. I worked all summer on the farm again, and when I was preparing to go back to school in the fall, Moses let me know that my education was over. There would be no more learning, just work. In a sense, it was a relief, as I’d had to balance my academics with helping out at home. And by helping out, I mean doing most of the work when Moses was gone and doing more than my fair share when he was home.
~~~
In November of that year we were running low on meat. Since we didn’t have any cows or pigs we wanted to slaughter at the time, I dusted off my old Marlin 30-30 rifle, which hadn’t been used since a rabid skunk had been found lollygagging amongst Ma’s cabbages, and set off to procure some venison. The gun had been Ma’s pa’s, and had not so much been given to me, but given to me to use. I had formed something of an attachment to it, and had christened it “Slayer.” The older I got, the more silly the name sounded, but I never went to the effort of renaming it.
The steely sky was skimmed with scaly white clouds that day, and the wind briskly herded them along like so many sheep. With my head bowed, my rifle under my arm, I left the yard to hunt. Charlie, our hound, was eager to tag along, but I sternly told him to stay home, and after several admonitions he finally slunk away.
I proceeded alone, butting against the impudent wind. It was a cool day, not bad for the season, but the wind was edged and unceasing. I was happy I’d worn a sweater underneath my army surplus jacket as I entered the woods to the west of our yard site, where the trees tamed and sliced the wall of wind into a thousand wispy fingers that whispered their way around silently, teasing the hair that stuck out from my woolen cap and tickling my nose before rushing on to explore hill and dale. Above, however, the wind continued its boisterous assault on the tree tops, bending the supple tips this way and that.
Love is a Wounded Soldier Page 2
