Travelin' Man

by Tom Mendicino

  “Sorry, KC, but Keller says you got to go and he owns the team. He said he don’t want to see your face again when I called him to tell him you’d been in a fight in a queer bar and the police were holding you until someone came to pick you up. He says the Spokane Chiefs ain’t having any fruitcakes on the roster. Only the name he called you wasn’t as nice a fruitcake,” he chuckles.

  “I got a contract!” KC protests, knowing that a stupid piece of paper means nothing to an owner determined to purge a clubhouse cancer.

  “Look, you call your agent about that in the morning. Nothing you and me can do about it right now. I feel for you, young man. I really do. Someday you’re gonna have to face the Lord and account for your sins. Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman, that is detestable.”

  “Leviticus 18:22.”

  The old man is surprised by KC’s familiarity with the moral lessons of the Good Book.

  “See. You already know.”

  The Percocet is beginning to take effect. The pain is dulled and each surge of panic and anxiety is milder, followed by long moments of peace, almost serenity. Soon enough, KC is swelling with confidence, knowing exactly the words Mr. Chandler wants to hear, a reason for the old man to go back to Keller and ask him to reconsider.

  “I’m saved, Mr. Chandler. I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Last year. Just call Coach Freeman. He’ll tell you. Just ask Tecchio and Rodriquez,” he pleads, citing his roommates as character witnesses. “They make fun of me for studying the Bible every night.”

  Mr. Chandler winces as he leans across the table, asking KC to turn his face so he can get a better look at his cheek.

  “I was so busy worryin’ about your nose I didn’t even see that. What happened to you KC? Looks like something bit you. You’re gonna need a tetanus shot.”

  The old man is shocked by the tale of a man in a woman’s dress sinking his teeth into KC’s flesh. He waves his hand, not wanting to hear the gory details. It’s unsettling to him, the thought of young people acting like savages, their demons unleashed by liquor and drugs. He looks at KC as if he’s toxic.

  “That thing that bit you probably got AIDS,” he says solemnly.

  KC’s stomach heaves when he realizes he could be infected. He bolts from the table, knocking over his milkshake, barely making it to the toilet before he throws up the entire contents of his belly. He’s broken and despondent, knowing he’s lost everything tonight. Mr. Chandler finds him on the floor, hugging the porcelain bowl.

  “Come on, boy, pull yourself together,” Mr. Chandler says, as KC struggles to his feet, blood dripping from his nose again. “If you’re truly saved, you know the Son of God will forgive you if you come to Him with a clean heart.”

  KC stares at his image in the mirror above the sink. His bloated face looks like a lumpy pillow. There are two black slits where he once had eyes. Mr. Chandler, standing next to him, looks almost sympathetic. The old trainer was once a ball player too, a lifetime ago. Mr. Chandler accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior after a life of whiskey and whoring had driven his wife and kids away and cost him his chance of reaching the major leagues. KC straightens his spine and, lifting his chin, picks up Mr. Chandler’s hand and asks if he’ll pray with him. The old man reacts as if KC had just slapped a red-hot poker in his palm. He plunges his hands in nearly scalding water from the spigot, pumping half a dispenser of pink liquid soap into his palms, scrubbing away any lingering trace of KC on his skin.

  “Keller said to let you have a week of per diems. That ought to get you where you need to go,” he says, coldly.

  “My car’s still in the parking lot. Can you give me lift?”

  Mr. Chandler agrees, reluctantly, knowing it wouldn’t be very Christian of him to abandon the kid in a Denny’s rest room. Mr. Chandler cranks up the volume of the car radio, tuned to the gospel music station. KC and the old man only speak so that KC can give him directions. Club Odyssey, the scene of his downfall, was once a K-Mart, the anchor of a strip mall that’s fallen on hard times. The only other tenants are bail bond shops and nail salons, a Chinese take-out and a laundromat. At this hour, there’s a single vehicle in the lot. KC’s heart sinks when they’re close enough to see the damage some vandal has done to his Blue Pearl Honda Civic. All four tires are slashed and the headlights and taillights have been smashed by a blunt instrument. The word FAG is spray-painted on the windshield.

  “Can you take me home Mr. Chandler?” he asks, his voice weak and defeated.

  “I can’t have someone like you in my house,” the old man says unapologetically.

  “No. I mean my apartment.”

  “Keller don’t want you back there around those other boys.”

  “Fuck him!” KC shouts, immediately regretting using such offensive language to a Christian man like Mr. Chandler. “I mean I paid for it. Two hundred fifty dollars this month.”

  Mr. Chandler considers KC’s argument. They drive until they find an ATM and he asks KC to wait in the car. When he returns, he reaches to press a stack of fresh bills in KC’s hand, then reconsiders, setting them on the dashboard.

  “That’s two hundred fifty dollars. Go ahead and count it. I’m gonna take you over to the Travel Lodge. Put you up for three nights. Paid in advance on my credit card. I’m gonna make sure you get your per diem in cash and someone will bring you your clothes. I’m gonna be praying for you KC. Praying that you find your way.”

  The banging on the door forces him from his bed. KC’s still half-asleep, groggy from the second Percocet he’d swallowed after the pain jolted him awake when he’d rolled on his face. He doesn’t remember where he is, why he’s awakened in this strange room. Then it all comes crashing over him. The broken nose. The cops. Being cut from the team. Having nowhere to go and no way to get there. The pounding is louder now, more insistent, as he stumbles towards the door.

  “Who is it?”

  The simple act of speaking causes his face to ache. Breathe through your mouth, he remembers Mr. Chandler telling him.

  “Housekeeping. You want your room cleaned today?”

  “No,” he answers, then remembers every towel in the room is either soaking wet from melted ice or damp with blood.

  He opens the door, thinking it’s early morning, and is surprised by the streaks of fading violet in the twilight sky. He calls after the cleaning lady, who is pushing her trolley down the concrete deck, “Wait!”

  The housekeeper turns and stares at him, indifferent to both his battered face and the fact he’s wearing nothing but his underwear. “Make up your mind. My shift’s over in fifteen minutes.”

  “Can I have clean towels, please,” he asks sheepishly, suddenly stricken by an attack of modesty. He crosses his legs and covers his crotch with his left hand.

  “You need toilet paper?” she asks as she hands him a stack of towels.

  He thanks her and closes the door to his room. He’s overwhelmed by his circumstances, then panics, fearing that, sometime last night, he’d lost his cell phone. He finds it in the pocket of his jeans, but the battery’s dead and he has no way to recharge it. His spirits soar when the phone in his room rings. It must be Mr. Chandler or someone else from the Chiefs, telling him to come to back to the ballpark, that he’s being penciled into the lineup card, that all is forgiven and forgotten. He makes a quick bargain with God before picking up the receiver, promising to do whatever He asks if only things will go back to the way they were before last night.

  “It is the registration desk calling,” a heavily accented voice announces. “There is a man here for you. He says you must sign.”

  He dresses quickly and races to the office. He’d hoped the team would send a familiar face, a sympathetic ear willing to carry back his promise it will never happen again. But it’s a stranger in a FedEx uniform who asks him to sign the receipt for the sealed envelope and the duffel bag with the Spokane Chiefs insignia. The courier scowls when he realizes he isn’t getting a tip.

  “Open the b
ag please,” the dark-skinned man at the registration desk insists when they are alone. It’s a command, not a request, polite but firm. The man speaks with authority. He’s formal and dignified despite his short-sleeved sport shirt and sandals.

  “It’s just my stuff,” KC explains, not wanting to dump his dirty laundry on the floor.

  “Open the bag, please. I must be sure you are not having drugs delivered to my place of business.”

  KC is relieved that his phone charger is the first thing he finds when he unzips his bag. The man at the registration desk seems satisfied, saying he has seen enough, when KC pulls the Holy Bible from the duffel.

  “How many more nights do I have?” he asks, uncertain how long he’s been asleep, how many days since Mr. Chandler rented the room.

  “Two nights. Your friend paid for three nights. Last night. Tonight. Tomorrow. Then you pay eighty-nine dollars a night to stay longer. In advance.”

  KC plugs in his phone as soon as he returns to his room. There are eight missed calls and three voice mails. All from Sacramento, from Coach Freeman’s phone.

  KC, it’s John Freeman. I just got a strange call from the Chief’s general manager. What’s going on up there? Are you all right? It sounds like there’s been some kind of big mistake. Call me as soon as you get this.

  KC, I thought I would hear back from you. I called your g.m. again and he said I need to talk to you and your agent. That the Chief’s lawyers told him not to discuss this with me. I don’t understand why they are doing this to you. We’re getting worried because you haven’t called us back. Here, Miriam wants to say something to you.

  Mrs. Freeman sounds more anxious than her husband.

  Please call and let us help you, KC. John will get this fixed. I promise. Don’t forget that we love you.

  And, finally, one last message left in mid-afternoon.

  KC, we’ve been calling every emergency room in Spokane. Where are you? Call me as soon as you pick this up.

  No one from the Chiefs has called. Not Mr. Chandler. Not the business manager. None of his teammates. There’s exactly two hundred and ten dollars in the envelope, seven days of per diems and a copy of the letter from the law firm representing the Chiefs to KC’s agent formally informing him his client’s contract has been terminated for breach of the morals clause. There’s also a sheet of notepaper tucked under the cover of the Bible. Citations to Bible verses are printed in Mr. Chandler’s handwriting.

  Genesis 18:22-23.

  The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham approached Him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?”

  And.

  1 Corinthians 6:18-20.

  Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body.

  And, finally.

  Acts 3:19.

  Repent then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.

  He rips the paper into pieces that he flushes down the toilet. He’s got more than four hundred dollars between the per diems and the cash from the sanctimonious reformed drunk. The money isn’t enough to salvage his car. It won’t pay for new tires, let alone replace the head- and taillights and remove the paint from the windshield. But he’s got almost a thousand in his checking account. Fourteen hundred bucks should cover the repairs if he settles for retreads. He grabs his wallet, locks the door to his room, and goes in search of an ATM. The desk clerk says there’s a machine at the convenience store across the street that charges a fee and a Wells Fargo branch two blocks away. He receives the same ominous message at both of them, TRANSACTION UNAUTHORIZED. It’s only eight o’clock. Not too late to reach Frank Stapleton, his financial advisor, on his cell. And it’s an emergency. He desperately needs his wheels back.

  “KC, it’s eleven o’clock at night,” Mr. Stapleton’s sleepy voice reminds him when he answers the phone. KC’d forgotten about the three-hour time difference between Spokane and Tampa.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Stapleton. But I need to talk to you.”

  “I’ve been expecting your call, KC. John said I would hear from you.”

  Mr. Stapleton and John Freeman have known each other since they came up together in the Pirates farm system. Their bond runs deep, strengthened by worshipping together at the New Covenant Christian Fellowship Church during the years Mr. Freeman coached junior college baseball in Tampa.

  “The ATM won’t take my card.”

  “I know KC. John told me to deactivate it.”

  “Mr. Stapleton, please. I really need money.”

  “Are you in trouble KC?”

  Mr. Stapleton’s voice is sonorous, like God speaking to

  Moses on the mountaintop. It invites a confession and a plea for mercy.

  “No. I just need money.”

  Mr. Stapleton reminds him his money’s in a trust, with Coach Freeman as the trustee. He gets a small allowance to supplement his paycheck and, even then, he has to give a strict accounting of how he spends it. KC had agreed to the arrangement, even thought it was a good idea at the time, to ensure his future against his own bad, impulsive decisions and to put his assets beyond the grasp of his mother back in Albany.

  “You know I can’t send you money without John’s permission. You call him, KC. Call him now. He wants to hear from you.”

  “I will,” KC promises, a blatant lie.

  “Will you pray with me now, KC?”

  “No,” he answers decisively as he ends the call.

  Ten minutes later Coach Freeman is calling his cell. KC assumes the Coach has just heard from his friend in Tampa. He doesn’t answer, letting the call roll into voice mail.

  KC, call me and tell me where I can wire money for you to get back to Sacramento. I told Frank not to release any funds to you until we get this all straightened out. I talked to Jerry Breakstone at your agency and he says Bill Keller is crazy and a hothead. Jerry is calling the assistant g.m. of the Rangers about sending you to Hickory or Myrtle Beach. We know you didn’t do anything wrong and that the things they are saying aren’t true. The Lord is testing us, KC. We will be fine. Call me back.

  Coach Freeman will know by KC’s skittish response, his shaky voice, that he’s lying when he denies the story the Chiefs are telling to justify their decision. The Coach will never believe KC’s tall tale that he was jumped by two black guys coming out of the laundromat, that the cops got it all messed up, thinking he’d gotten into a fight with a drunk coming out of the queer bar next door. His story sounds preposterous, even to KC. So he chooses the safer course of responding by text.

  I AM OK I WILL CALL U SOON AS I CAN

  Sacramento’s out of the question, at least until he can come up with a more believable explanation for being cuffed and hauled off to the police station. He needs to get the fuck out of Spokane, but can’t even think about where to go until he has his car back. He knows a gypsy repair shop run by some scary Mexicans who will give him a good deal on a set of retreads. They’ll sell him used parts they’ve scavenged from the salvage yard and might throw in scraping the paint off the windshield for free. He’s gonna need to pay for gas and oil and eventually he’s going to have to eat.

  There’s one man in Spokane who’ll be willing to help. Mr. McGwire has always been kind and generous to KC. He’s always telling KC that they’re friends, good friends, despite the forty years’ difference in their ages. Mr. McGwire says it doesn’t matter how they met—KC responding to a post on craigslist by a GEN dad seeking younger, fit son for good times.

  Call me Red, he’d insisted, a nickname he’d been given many years ago before his still thick hair turned silver. Mr. McGwire’s a rich dude, with a big house outside the city. Every few wee
ks, KC gets a text or a call inviting him for steaks on the grill and carrot cake. Red’s made him promise more than once to never be too shy to ask if he ever needs anything.

  “Hi Red. It’s Kevin,” he says when Mr. McGwire answers his phone. He’s a little anxious since the unbroken protocol has been that the older man contacts the younger to suggest they get together. Mr. McGwire seems angry, or at least irritated, to be receiving a call from his young friend.

  “I’m really, really sorry to call you,” KC apologizes, regretting his impulsive decision. “But I wanted to let you know I’m leaving Spokane.”

  Red’s attitude changes and he even sounds concerned, asking if everything is okay. No problems or emergencies he hopes.

  “No, no,” KC lies. “I got promoted. I’m gonna manage a Radio Shack in Tacoma.”

  Mr. McGwire may be his friend, but he can’t be trusted with KC’s true identity. The guy Red knows is named Kevin Conroy, a shift supervisor at the electronics franchise in a mall on the other side of town.

  “When are you leaving?”

  “Tomorrow. I didn’t know when you’d call and I wanted to say goodbye.”

  “We need to celebrate, Kevin! Why don’t you come over around eleven? I’m at a banquet right now. I’ve got to give a testimonial after dinner. One of my best salesmen is retiring.”

  Mr. McGwire’s dealership moves more Hyundais than any lot in the entire Pacific Northwest. He’s got more money than he needs, but he’s lonely. He’s a widower and his daughter lives in California. Pictures of his grandkids are in every room of the house. They visit often, but Red is always down when they leave. His young friends are a distraction and he’s willing to compensate them for their trouble and time. KC’s his current favorite and always leaves with a hundred fifty bucks in spending money for doing nothing but letting Red watch him jack off.