And even now, as an old man, Slocum was hitting that fence post resoundingly. He would angle on a knee-high slicer that just caught a bit of the post. He would hit it dead center with a shoulder-high fast rock. And, when he threw his change-up, that fence post seemed to lean weakly towards him in frustration.
“I could have been halfway to second, and you skylarking there on the mound,” came a voice, friendly but full of timeless authority. “What? Do you no longer use the eyes in the back of your head?”
“I remember you from somewhere,” Slocum said as he turned to see the ancient man with the venerable horse and medicine wagon. How could it have slipped up on him when it had to clatter up that rough and rocky gypsum road?
“It was the year you first tried out with the St. Louis Browns,” the timeless man said, “and what antiquarian remembers the old Browns now? You ran athwart a barnstorming bunch of bearded men.”
“The House of David!” said Slocum with friendly awe in his voice. “Now they were ball players and they beat many of the major league teams. But we took them three to nothing that afternoon. I two-hit them.”
“It's another and more outsized bunch of bearded blokes that I meant,” said the ancient traveler.
“Now you open an angry wound,” Slocum almost moaned. “That afternoon-mare of a game has stuck in my undermind for this much more than half a century. They called themselves the Flats, I believe it was. Off name, off bunch. They had half a dozen real giants; must have been over eight feet tall, some of them. The Flats, the Boomer Flats they called themselves.”
“Yes, we had some pretty good-sized fellows on our team,” the traveling man said. “They were the Uncles, the Old Bachelors, the Bashful and Silent Ones.”
“You'd unwind pretty long,” Slocum said, “but not that long.”
“I'm six six,” said the traveler. “I was a little taller then, but I'm not one of the Uncles. I'm the little shrimp who played third base.”
“Eighteen runs they tagged me for in that first inning,” Slocum remembered blackly, “and the man kept me in there and let me suffer.”
“It was fortuitous,” said the traveler. “You made every mistake that a young pitcher could make. But most of them you never made again. 'Twas luck you met us. Slocum, how would you like to have your arm back again, at its strongest, and at the same time keep your wits at their wisest? How would you like your youth back without losing a drop of your later acquired wisdom and savvy?”
“Wouldn't that be something, fellow? Who are you?”
“I'm the Licorice Man. This horse here is named Peegosh. He's better than my regular horse. He belongs to the Comet; but the Comet isn't traveling this year, and Peegosh wanted to amble the country with me a bit. What I sell is Royal Licorice; fifty cents a small jug, a dollar a large.”
“I'll take a small one,” Cy Slocum said. They transacted. Then Slocum took a great swig of the stuff. He began to throw rocks at a fence post again, but now he was throwing at one three posts down the line. Hitting it too. And he was throwing like a young man.
“It works, doesn't it,” Slocum said.
“Sure it works. Always does. And your hair is turning black again.”
“I know it. I can feel it.” He continued to throw. How that young fellow could throw those rocks!
The indomitable old dame had been driving an indomitable old Duesenberg. Both of them had been restored, polished and groomed in amazing fashion, and both looked good. The old dame and her old car had received a special award at the Antique Auto Festival Southwestern Division show. And the award read: For class, which doesn't have to be defined. There was no money attached to this award as there was to the first and second and third prizes. That didn't matter. The old dame didn't need it. She was pleased about the whole thing. She purred along in the sporty Dusie on a fine little country road, she remembering, and the snazzy little old Dusie remembering. Then they were passed by a long-legged, fast-ambling horse that pulled a flake-panted medicine wagon. Listen, nobody passed the old dame and the old Dusie like that! A horse and wagon sure does not.
She noticed, however, that, while the hoofs of the stilt-legged, stripling horse struck sparky fire at every step, yet these hoofs did not quite touch the roadway. That horse was going along six inches in the air. (Don't mention it, though; there would have to be explanations or denials.)
Then the horse was reined in ahead, and the old dame stopped the Dusie beside the wagon. An old, tall, raffish gentleman got out of the wagon and came over to her.
“Ma'am,” he asked, “aren't you Flambeau La Flesche?”
“Sir,” she said, “I am the socially prominent Mrs. Gladys Glenn Gaylord, a fancier of antiques and myself an antique.”
“No, no,” the man insisted. “You used to be in vaudeville. After that, you were a movie star.”
“And now I am an old character actress,” she said, “playing that old character, myself. You really remember?”
“Sure. Some of us used to dress up and take the train out of Boomer over to Tulsa whenever you played it the Orpheum. You are Flambeau La Flesche, are you not?”
“I was. The publicity man who coined that name for me is buried in a potters field somewhere, I hope. He couldn't even spell Flesh. But now I am the socially prominent Mrs. Gladys Glenn Gaylord. What are you chewing?”
“Royal Licorice Plug Tobacco.”
“Well, don't be ungallant. Cut a plug for me too. I'm a country girl originally. You're from Boomer, are you? That dump!”
“No. No. I said we used to take the train out of Boomer. But I'm really from Boomer Flats.”
“I apologize. They're as different as dusk and darkness, are they not? And the elixir you are selling, is it also called Royal Licorice?”
“Yes. Royal Licorice Youth Restorer and Clock Retarder. You catch on fast, Flambeau.”
“I always did,” she said, and she spat a beautifully straight stream of black Royal Licorice tobacco. The Licorice Man almost hesitated in offering her the benison of returning youth. She was one dame that had grown old gracefully. But he was a peddler deep in the long bones of him so he didn't hesitate very much.
“Flambeau, it goes at fifty a small jug, a dollar a large one,” he said with his easy finesse.
“All right, I'll take a small one then.” She bought it. She took a thoughtful drink of it.
“What's it made out of?” she asked.
“Catfish, mud-goose tears, Cimmaron River, Royal Licorice chewing tobacco.”
“Mud-goose tears? Tell me, Licorice, what can make a mud-goose cry? What's the one thing that can do it? This had better be good.”
The Licorice Man looked around furtively though there was no one else within a mile. Long-faced drollery had taken over his phiz.
“It's a little raunchy, Flambeau,” he said then. “I'd better whisper it to you.”
“I'll use it,” she said a while later as she wiped the smeared remnants of laughter from her face. “Raunchy, I'll say. But lots of times we used words in my skits and movies, and raunchy tales go well with me.” She took another thoughtful drink of the elixir. “Yes, I do feel something,” she said. “Wouldn't it be funny if I could come back that way, all the way? I'd give them all fits if I had my girlhood again. And never was the competition shabbier. The little babes these days, they have so little talent that all they can do is peel it down to the buff. Me, I had class, so I never had to do that. I always kept my garters on. They called me Golden Garter Girl.”
“I remember, Flambeau.”
“Oh, it's working all right. I can feel it. Say, Licorice, pour a big jug of that into Dusie's tank. He'd like to be young again too, not merely restored.”
The Licorice Man poured a big jug of Royal Licorice Youth Restorer and Clock Retarder into the tank of the snazzy little car. Flambeau paid him. Then she took off in the Dusie, leaving the smell of burning rubber and returning youth to drift above that fine little country road.
Tell all the boys that Flambe
au La Flesche is back.
Did you tell them all?
Sure, tell those in the graveyard too. Them especially. It will give them a lift, and those who have proper clothes will come to see her.
Ex-President Hiram Andrew Clayborne Johnson was fishing along Exendine Creek on the Ex-Presidential Ranch in Kaw County, Oklahoma. He was himself of a dead-fish complexion now, and so shrunken that the great cowboy hat and the sharkskin boots fitted him ill-ly. The Exendine Creek was only four feet wide at this place, but old Ex had cast his line far beyond its banks and had tangled it in some sumac bustles sixty feet on the other side of the creek.
Old Ex believed that the sumac bushes were Republican congressmen out to thwart him. He cursed them, and he chopped off their appropriations. Some days this would intimidate the bushes and cause them to release the line, but today they held it fast.
A man with an animal and wagon came bumping along.
“Are you registered, friend, and will you vote right?” Ex asked the man in what had once been a great voice.
“I am and I will,” said the man. He was the Licorice Man; no use keeping it a secret from you; you'd find him out anyhow. And the Licorice Man was untangling Ex's line from the bushes.
“And the donkey, is he registered?” Ex asked.
“He's a horse and not a donkey,” the Licorice Man said. “He is registered, but how he votes is his own secret. Reel in, man.”
“I know that a donkey will always vote my way,” Ex said, reeling in his line, “but I never trusted a horse. What did you do with the fish that was on my hook?”
“Don't you one-up me, Hiram Andrew Clayborne,” the Licorice Man said.
“How would you like to be restored to your youth and to your faculties? Then you could run again. You have just nine days to file for the first primary.”
“There's no restoring needed for me,” old Ex said. “My wits are as they always were.”
“True, true,” said the Licorice Man. “Sad but true.”
“And I still have my same fund of fine stories, and I still have my great name. I always say that I am the only Apostle who ever became President. There was an earlier president Andrew Johnson, it's true, but he wasn't the Apostolic type. But I have the Andrew Johnson in my name somewhere. Andrew, as you know, was the brother of Peter. Boy, look up chapter and verse for me quickly! I wonder where that boy has gone. He's never around any more. And Christ once said ‘Peter, Son of John’ so that was his name, ‘Son of John,’ ‘Johnson,’ get it? And I, as Peter's brother, am Andrew Johnson, the only Apostle who ever became President.”
“Yes, you still have your same fund of stories,” the Licorice Man agreed. “And you still have your great name. But there are restorations needed. Your voice is cracked and broken. Your eyesight is about gone. You are stooped and old and toothless and hairless and deaf, and you smell like a goat. As you are, you just don't inspire confidence.”
“Have I aged? Is it true? That I have aged?” old Ex asked.
“It's true. Now, what I can do is…”
“How much?”
“Yours is a hard case. Nothing short of a big jug will do it. One dollar.”
“Have you figured excise tax in that? Ex-Presidents are exempt from excise taxes, you know. I had that regulation passed myself.”
“Seventy-one cents, then.”
Old Ex fished out the seventy-one cents from somewhere. He took a jolt from the jug; then another; then another. He began to fill out to the size of the great cowboy hat and the sharkskin boots. He began to talk in the high manner.
The horse Peegosh was restive. So horse, man, and wagon, took their bumpy farewell. Behind them the Apostolic voice of Hiram Andrew Clayborne rose in cracked and broken thunder. And then the cracks were healed by the miracle of Royal Licorice Youth Restorer and Clock Retarder.
The strength and timbre came back to that voice. The power came back. It was a restoration, a resurrection. It was a new manifestation in all its former glory. It was itself again; the Golden Calf. Country, look out!
And there were other persons restored and reyouthified in those crisp late winter days. But if all that happened was told, there'd not be paper enough in the world to record it all.
2.
For both, the year bloomed pulsey red:
Contraries and Compliants.
A Springtime of the Ghosts, they said;
A Springtime of the Giants.
—Boomer Flats Ballads
The wonder colt Red Licorice seemed ready to sweep the big four that year from his bruited reputation. And this was when the public had not yet seen him run. There was a big noise about him from the men who knew these things. No unknown was ever so widely known so quickly.
He was possibly the last colt ever sired by that grand old champion Black Red. And Black Red, full of years and honors, had died only a short time before this, according to his owner. He had been buried at a private ceremony, very private; but an imposing stone, red granite with black obsidian inset, had been mounted over the grave. There were now several hundred visitors a day who came to that grave, and these visitors were told that the horse buried there now lived again in his son.
Red Licorice was the absolute image of his great sire. Early films of Black Red as a colt were run, and you would almost swear that this was the same animal that now trained daily at the Red Hills Barn. The long low gallop, the laid-back ears, the rhythmic-hooved thunder, the snorting that sounded half-horse and half-wolf, the red-black mahogany gleam, the bowed neck that was almost bull-like, the very long and large (and, some said, empty) head, the flowing tail and streaming mane, these were all identical in the father and the son.
But Red Licorice had sheared three seconds off the mile and a half time of Black Red, on the same practice track, under the same almost perfect conditions.
Then Red Licorice won four warm-up mile and a quarter races, and he won them easily, this against the best colts in the world in what was billed as the Year of the Great Colts. Red Licorice set four new track records in doing this and three of them had been held by his father.
Derby time came, too soon, too soon. The steep interest in the affair was still climbing. But it would be a Derby to be remembered as long as Men and Derbys last. Red Licorice took the Derby in really sensational fashion, and now this magic colt had taken the fancy of all race-dom. As rock-headed as his father had been, he also had his father's outrageous talent as a ham actor. How that big colt could cavort about a track!
Here were memories being made as one watched. Big Blue-Stem grass of the pastures where the colts were raised; black loam and red clay mixed and mingled and managed into the fine straightaways; smell of hot horses in the springtime and the summer (smell composed of clover and green oats and manure); weathered grandstands, and the blue-green infields at the tracks; winged money flying with the winged horses; the Sign of Equus and the Summer Solstice; these were ever the images of the year for millions of fine folks. And one magic colt could always turn it into a magic year.
Cyrus X. Slocum the Third had shown up in training camp in Phoenix, unsolicited, uncontracted, unknown.
Yes, he was the grandson of the original Cy Slocum, he said. “You can't trade on even a great name,” the manager told him, “you would have to make it entirely on your own.”
“I know it, I know it,” young Cy said. “Just let me pitch. Let me pitch and I'll show everyone.” Well, he did look and move like an athlete. He did look very much like those old pictures of his grandfather. He had a strong personality, a strong arm, and outrageous confidence. “And it never hurts things for a player to have a great name,” the club's publicity man said. So young Cy was given a try-out in the training camp.
They always kept the wraps on the pitchers for a couple of days at first, but Cy was ready to blast loose.
“Shape up my arm slowly?” he asked. “Man, my arm is always in shape. Haven't we any heftier catchers than those? I'd blow them clear out of the park. You don't have
a steel back-stop here? I like to warm up with a sixteen pound shot at regular distance, but hard as I throw it it'd go right through anything here.”
Cy was scolded somewhat for standing against the centerfield fence and throwing half a dozen balls clear over the grandstand, very high above home plate and still rising till they went out of sight.
“Not only will you throw your arm away with that showboating,” one of the coaches told him, “but balls are too expensive to toss half a dozen of them away like that.”
“Nah,” Cy said. “The balls aren't gone. I was throwing my famous return ball then. I put a little twist on it when I throw it, and it comes back to me.”
A small dot appeared in the sky far above and beyond the grandstand. The dot grew, it came as fast is a bullet, it grew to baseball size and it zanged into Cy's glove there by the centerfield fence. And the other five balls followed it quickly.
“A long time ago I — ah, I mean my grandfather — used to lob the ball up to the batters,” Cy said. “It would come almost all the way to a batsman, near enough to draw his swing most of the time. Then it would zoom back into my glove, I mean to my grandfather's glove. I finally quit throwing it though. The umpires got together and decided to call them balls instead of strikes whenever I threw my return ball even if the batter took a full swing at it.”
“The old-timers say that your grandfather told tall stories too,” the coach commented.
Cy pitched in inter-squad games, three innings one day, six the next, nine the day after that. The batters couldn't even touch him. He pitched about fifty inter-squad innings and never gave up a hit. The reporters were making a great to-do about this bright new rookie with the bright old name.
The team played the Giants who also trained in Phoenix then. They threw Cy at them in the first game and he no-hit them. Three days later he did it again.
He burned his way through all those exhibition games. He had a great collection of pitches of his own; and every good pitch that he saw he mastered instantly and added to his repertoire. He had the strength and speed of youth. He also had, from somewhere, such maturity and wisdom and judgment as could hardly be acquired in less than a lifetime.
The Man Who Talled Tales: Collected Short Stories of R.A. Lafferty Page 170
