by Homer Hickam
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“I want to see Albert.”
Homer stood back, then watched as she rushed down the steps to the Buick and flung open the door and greeted her smiling reptile. He remembered what he had written at the farm no more than a few hours past.
Elsie was found.
But that wasn’t what mattered.
What mattered was that he had looked.
It was only after he was back on the road that Homer realized Soufflé and Carlos had done more than give him an important insight. They had also stolen all of his money and both pistols he’d collected from the thunder road gang.
I was eighteen and it was summertime. Between my freshman and sophomore years at Virginia Tech, I was working for my father in the Coalwood mine. Mom was gone from Coalwood, for the summer. She’d finally convinced dad to go into debt to buy her a house near Murrell's Inlet, South Carolina.
To help celebrate the Fourth of July, a softball game was scheduled between a union team and a management team. Because I was young and not beat up like most of the older coal miners, I was tapped to join the union team. The management team consisted mostly of young foremen. To my surprise, my father took on the umpire’s job. I had no idea he knew anything about softball or any kind of ball.
The game was played and our union team won. I even hit a home run. Afterward, Mr. Dubonnet, the United Mine Workers union boss, sought me out. He and my dad were forever arguing about how the mine was supposed to be run and, even though they had gone to high school together, they weren’t friends. “Your mom called me yesterday,” he said. “She heard you were going to play today and Homer was going to umpire. She thought you ought to hear a story about your dad. It’s about her, too.”
Mom always had an ulterior motive for anything she did so I naturally asked, “Did she say why?”
“She said you don’t really know who your father is and it was about time you did.” He scratched his head. “That story taught me a couple of things about him and your mother, too. She’s an interesting woman.”
“Yes, sir. I guess she is.”
Mr. Dubonnet led me over the concession stand and bought himself a beer and me a Royal Crown cola. I drank my RC and heard my mom’s tale through the voice of Coalwood’s union boss, a man my father heartily disliked but thoroughly respected. Mr. Dubonnet, you see, was the captain of his high school football team. He was also the same football captain my mom had turned down so she could go to a dance with a certain blue-eyed, skinny young lad named Homer.
PART IV
How Homer Learned the Lessons of Baseball and Elsie the Nurse
22
THE JOURNEY OF HOMER, ELSIE, ALBERT, AND THE ROOSTER changed abruptly with the sound of breaking glass. Splinters and shards pelted Homer’s face, chest, and hands and he stared with incomprehension at the glittering mess in his lap. He picked a shard from his cheek, a trickle of blood seeping from the small hole left behind.
“What happened, Homer?” Elsie asked groggily from the back seat.
“Somebody busted our windshield,” he answered.
“Who would do such a thing?”
Homer didn’t answer because he wasn’t sure. His first thought was that the gang that had kidnapped Elsie had somehow followed them and was now on the attack, but when he looked around, there was no gang. There was only the empty field where he’d pulled over for the night, which, he now understood, was actually the parking lot for a nearby stadium of some sort. Upon closer inspection, the sign heralding the entrance to the stadium clarified both the name and the kind of stadium that it was:
FELDMAN FIELD
HOME OF THE HIGH TOP FURNITURE MAKERS
COASTAL LEAGUE CHAMPS 1912
Homer got out and spotted the baseball that had busted his windshield and wounded his face. Angrily, he picked it up and threw it with all his might, watching it sail over the fence and bleachers. Although the angry pitch made him feel better, it didn’t come close to solving his immediate problem: How was he going to get the windshield fixed, if it could be fixed at all? 1925 Buick convertible touring cars weren’t mass-produced. Who in the backcountry of North Carolina might have a windshield to fit it? Even if there was somebody, he and Elsie didn’t have any money. They also didn’t have any food. There was even the possibility that they were being hunted by the police for being (a) witnesses to a bank robbery (during which he’d stolen a penny), (b) accomplices to the destruction of a sock mill, (c) knowledgeable of the possible murders of more than several unknown persons on a poet’s farm, and (d) transporting illegal liquor along the thunder road. The end of his thoughtful sequence arrived at a singular conclusion: they were in a bad fix.
Elsie opened the back door and came out to contemplate the situation. “What did you do to bust the windshield?” she asked.
“I didn’t do anything. It was a baseball.” Homer gestured toward the stadium. “From there, I think.” He looked around to see if he could figure out where they were. Past the parking lot and the stadium, there could be seen some low brick buildings that indicated a town of some sort. He supposed he could drive the Buick, even with its busted windshield, to the town, although what he’d find there in terms of car repair, or how he might pay for the work, he could not say.
That was when he saw a man hurry through the stadium gate beneath the sign, take obvious note of the Buick and its occupants, and turn steadfastly in their direction. The hurrying man wore a white shirt with suspenders, gray pants, and two-toned shoes, and had about him a determined look. He held up a baseball. “You throw this ball?” he demanded.
“If that’s the baseball that broke my windshield, then, yes, I threw it,” Homer said.
The man squinted at the windshield. “People who park here know they’re liable to get hit by a ball now and again.” He tossed Homer the ball. “Throw it again.”
“Where?”
“Back inside the park.”
Homer obligingly threw the ball. It easily cleared the stands and disappeared. Before long, a fellow in a baseball uniform, a catcher if his mask and pads were any indication, appeared. He was carrying the ball, which he held up, saying, “All the way to the other side of the field, Mr. Thompson.”
“Give it back to this young man, Jared,” the man in the suspenders said.
The catcher tossed Homer the ball and then ran a distance away and squatted down. “Right here,” he called, smacking his glove with his fist.
“Pitch it to him,” the man said.
“Homer played on the Coalwood Robins team, which won the league last year,” Elsie interjected.
“You’re a pro?” the man asked.
“I’m a coal miner,” Homer said, then wound up and threw the ball to the catcher.
The ball flew with unerring velocity straight into the catcher’s glove and the catcher yelped, then took his hand out of the glove and shook it. “Red hot!”
The suspendered man was looking thoughtful. “So this league you played in, it’s not professional?”
“Coal companies sponsor teams,” Homer said. “We don’t get paid to play, if that’s what you mean. We do it for the honor of our employers.”
“You ever think about going pro? You got some arm on you.”
“Most coal miners have good arms,” Homer said. “It goes with the job. I don’t think I’m anything special.”
“He got a gold cup when he won the championship,” Elsie said.
“We all got a gold cup, Elsie. The Captain got them made for us.”
“You were still the best player on the team.”
“I bet he was, ma’am.” The man with the suspenders put out his hand. “Jake Thompson. I’m the manager of the High Top Furniture Makers. Coastal League. I also scout a little. Want to try out?”
Homer frowned. “What I’d like is for you to pay for my windshield. We’re on our way to Florida, you see. Anybody in this town could fix it?”
“I think I could find somebody,” Thomps
on replied. “I’ll call around. Take a little while to get it in, though. Likely would have to be a special order and come all the way from Detroit. In the meantime, why don’t you come on inside the park, let us feed you and your wife, and let you use the bathroom if you’re of a need. Then, maybe you could take a few swings of the bat. Like to see what you can do.”
“Homer knocked a home run almost every game,” Elsie said. “They started calling them Homers.”
“They called everybody’s home run a homer, Elsie,” Homer said, then allowed a bashful smile. “I did hit a bunch of them.”
“Well, I imagine the pitching wasn’t up to the level of our league,” Thompson said, “so let’s see how you do today.”
Elsie nodded toward Albert. “Our alligator is also hungry.”
Thompson peered at Albert, who had come awake and was hanging his head out of the window. “Quite a fine-looking animal,” he said.
“He is beautiful, isn’t he?” Elsie gushed.
Thompson shrugged. “Sure, bring him on. We got hot dogs aplenty inside. And popcorn for that rooster I see sitting atop the front seat.”
Elsie put Albert in the washtub and Homer and the catcher carried him into the stadium and over to the hot dog stand, where a cook was cleaning up. “These folks are hungry, Bob,” Thompson said. “Cook them up some dogs, will you?”
The cook took a look at the odd assembly. “I got eggs and toast I could fix, too.”
“Fix ’em, then. In the meantime, Homer, come on over here to home plate.” Thompson put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. “Franco! Get your lame butt out to the pitcher’s mound. Got a batter for you.”
There were bats lying around and Homer picked up the first one he came to. He stepped into the box while the catcher settled in behind him. “Watch this fellow,” the catcher said. “He’ll try to dust you.”
Homer wasn’t sure what that meant until the baseball came straight at his head. He dodged just in time. The ball slammed into the catcher’s mitt with a resounding whack!
“Quit that, Franco!” Thompson yelled out to the pitcher’s mound. “Give him one right down the middle.”
Franco, a skinny youth with a uniform that was at least a size too big for him, spit on the ball, then shrugged. “Sure, boss,” he said and wound up.
The ball flew from the pitcher’s hand and seemed to wobble midflight. Homer recognized the trick: spitballs were used in the Coalfield League, too. It was a pitch perfect for a sequential thinker with a very fast mind. All Homer had to do was follow the ball’s wobble, calculate the spin, and apply the bat appropriately and this is what he did, blasting into it with the heaviest part of the bat and sending it screaming into the air and over the farthest fence.
Thompson, who’d inserted his thumbs in his suspenders, let them go with a slap. “I’ll be blamed,” he said.
“He can hit one, can’t he, Mr. Thompson?” Elsie asked with a proud grin.
“I reckon he can, ma’am. Franco, give him a curve, then a slider. Best you got.”
Franco, looking decidedly peeved, performed the pitches. Homer easily swatted them out of the park.
“You know how to hit a single, son?” Thompson asked. “Give him a change-up, Franco.”
Franco served one up, hard, fast, and high. Homer knocked it down past third base, just inside the line.
Thompson smiled. “Come on over here, son. Got somebody I want you to meet.”
Homer followed the manager, as did Elsie. A man in a wheelchair, pushed by a young woman, was rolling into the park. Thompson went up to the pair. The woman was a young blonde dressed in a tailored, navy blue suit with white pinstripes. “Mrs. Feldman,” Thompson said, tipping his hat to the woman. “Mr. Feldman, I want to sign this boy for twenty dollars a game, pending we see how he works out.”
“Twenty dollars!” Elsie could not hide her astonishment. “How many games?”
Thompson waved at her to stay silent. “How about it, Mr. Feldman? I think we got a good one here.”
The man’s voice was shaky and barely intelligible. “Argh arghproof,” he said.
“Now, honey, let me be the judge of that,” the blonde said.
“What did he say?” Elsie asked.
“He said he approved,” Thompson replied.
“My mister is on his way to Hot Springs, Georgia, for the cure,” the woman informed the manager. “That’s why we’re here, for him to say goodbye. I will be running the club in his absence.”
“Nah,” Feldman said. “Nah go’n ha spring.”
“You have to go, honey,” his wife replied with an irritable edge. “There are no nurses to care for you here.”
“I always wanted to be a nurse,” Elsie said.
“Did you say you’re a nurse?” Thompson asked.
“Professionally qualified?” the young wife demanded, and rather archly.
“I have a diploma,” Elsie answered.
Homer noticed that Elsie had neglected to say that her diploma was from secretary school. “Elsie, you’re not . . .”
Elsie’s smile was frozen as she said, through clenched teeth, “We need the money, Homer.”
“There you go, Mr. Feldman,” Thompson said, although Mrs. Feldman continued to look dubious. “In this young couple, we got ourselves a new pitcher and long ball hitter and also a nurse. What could be finer?”
“Thaghh alahater.”
“What did you say, sir?”
Feldman raised his palsied hand and pointed a trembling finger at Albert. “Thaghh alahater!”
The manager looked after the point and saw Albert looking back with a curious expression and a hot dog protruding from his lips. “That alligator did you say?”
“Yeh. Thaghh alahater. Noo makot.”
“New mascot,” Mrs. Feldman said, rolling her big blues.
“Albert a mascot?” Elsie questioned.
“Albert a mascot?” Homer questioned.
“A new mascot,” Thompson mused. “Makes sense. Alligators are tough and mean. But we’re the furniture makers, not the alligators.”
“Hoo giff a chit?” Mr. Feldman demanded, which settled the question.
23
ELSIE HAD ALWAYS FELT HER LIFE WAS LIKE A JIGSAW puzzle with no picture on the box to show her how the puzzle pieces should fit together. To her delight and complete surprise, as soon as Homer started playing baseball for the High Top Furniture Makers (soon renamed the Chompers in honor of its new mascot), it seemed as if the pieces suddenly fitted themselves together in a way that made complete and utter sense. Homer seemed to have become a changed man. When they saw each other, baseball was all he talked about. The two weeks the Captain had given him for the journey came and went but he never mentioned that or anything about Coalwood. Elsie didn’t know what her husband was thinking, especially about going back to the coalfields, and she didn’t care to find out. As her daddy often said, it was best to let sleeping coal miners sleep.
Homer had taken lodging in a broom closet at the stadium while Elsie lived in the Feldman mansion. To her way of thinking, their lives were now completely perfect. She could do what she wanted to do and Homer could do what he wanted to do and their lives, still officially joined together, were separate. If this seemed selfish of her, she supposed it didn’t matter. It was a fact, one she had not planned but had just happened.
Each morning, Elsie eagerly dressed in the nurse’s white starched skirt and blouse and low-heeled white shoes that Feldman provided her. He was a delightful patient. He appreciated everything she did and there were many things she did that nobody seemed to have ever thought of doing. She was there when he woke with a breakfast she cooked herself—eggs, bacon, toast, coffee—sweeping away the gruel the cook had said the patient was usually served, and then she saw to his bath, lifting him out of his chair into the tub by herself—she was a strong West Virginia girl, after all—and then wheeling him into his library, where she sought out the books he asked for, and gave him his pills, which were
not washed down with tap water but sweet, fresh water from the well in the yard she hand-pumped because he liked the taste and she thought it better for him. While he read his books, she massaged his legs to turn them pink and no longer the gray of death, and combed his thin hair, and rubbed his bony shoulders, and sat nearby should he need anything.
More than anything, she loved the conversations she had with Mr. Feldman, his garbled words gradually becoming completely understandable to her. Their talks were more stimulating than any she’d ever had with Homer or anyone in the coalfields, all about life and past loves (she waxed on about Buddy, and Feldman of his first wife, who had died of tuberculosis), and the philosophies of the ancient and modern world, and politics (he hated the New Deal but she thought it might work, given time), and Hitler and Stalin, who were both despicable, and Mussolini, who Feldman thought was more comedic than evil, and religion, of which Feldman was a Jew and Elsie a Methodist, which they found weren’t at all alike except those parts that were, and so forth. Within a week, he could not live without her and said so, not only to her but also to Young Mrs. Feldman (as she was universally known) and anyone else who came within the range of his voice, including his doctor.
The town of High Top was a small town, its main street but a hundred yards long, and every house, whether it was old, new, mansion, or shack, was less than a mile from its Courthouse Square. The Feldman house, built on a hillock, was a neo-Georgian mansion with big porches and lots of bedrooms, one of which had been turned over to Elsie. She loved the spacious room and the huge canopied bed and the antique chairs and tables and bookcases filled with gilt-inscribed classics. Although Feldman’s library was extensive, Elsie still walked to the library beside the courthouse and applied for a library card, whereupon she proceeded to check out every book she could find on the science and procedures inherent to the profession of nursing. So top-heavy was her selection toward nursing, it came to the attention of Dr. Martin Clowers, the only physician in High Top and therefore the general practitioner in charge of Mr. Feldman’s health. With stealth and guile, the doctor arranged to place himself so that he might meet Elsie in the stacks.
