by Billy Coffey
“We’re growing down there, Owen.” She looked off toward where the pine trees lay in fading light as though they were something of her own creation. “You wouldn’t believe it. People are changing. It ain’t like the old way of doing things anymore. They believe what I tell ’em. About that Love, and how they’re more. They’re giving up their drugs and drink. It’s wonderful.”
The Shanties began wearing dandelions, tucked into the brim of their hats or pinned to their threadbare clothes. Flowery ones, fat and yellow as the sun. Mom said when Micky would come to town she’d have a handful and give them away as though they were something precious. There was even an article about it in the Record, a picture of her handing one to Louise Townsend, our sheriff’s wife. Dad read the piece aloud over supper. Two hundred words about the strange girl who was taking it upon herself to champion the plight of Camden’s poor. The writer called her “a voice in the Appalachian wilderness.” Dad huffed and set the paper down. Mom read in silence.
“It’s for you, Owen,” Micky said that evening. “Dandelions is what you always left as a marker. I never even knew how perfect they are. Like a symbol, you know? They’re so pretty, but all folk seem to think of them is they’re weeds. Like folk think of us”—meaning, I supposed, Shantytown—“and even like how we think of each other. Like we all think of ourselves deep down.”
-5-
And through it all, drifting at the fringes, was Earl Dullahan. In truth it pains me to think of him even these many years later, given his role in all that would happen that summer. His face more than any other is the one that has haunted my long nights. Earl became the reason I kept in contact with Camden once Dad and Mom took across the mountain to Charlottesville. Looking for him. Waiting for him to be found. A part of me hopes he’s burning in hell for his sins. But much of me—too much—despairs at the thought of Earl Dullahan sitting at a bar down Mexico way with a suitcase full of money at his feet and a pretty girl on each arm, still with those spindly legs and that bushy white beard, laughing at it all. It is rare that things are made right in this world, and that has always been a sticking point between me and the Almighty.
Earl was there all along, hovering in the shadows and trying to make sense of the peculiar thing that had overtaken his daughter-that-shoulda-been-a-son. When he figured out what Micky was doing (or figured enough of it), he pounced. Wasn’t love for his daughter that spurred him toward the light so much as wanting a piece of that newfound attention she was getting.
It was Earl who took to building Micky’s church, which involved nothing more than fixing up some old abandoned barn deep in the Pines. He even came up with a name for it: The Fellowship of the Lost, seeing as how that’s what they all had been. Telling everyone in town who’d listen that he’d “sought the Lord and changed his ways.” Earl who came up with the idea of how best to help everyone in Shantytown “on the economic side” since his precious child was tending to their hearts. Since most had nothing and only a few had some, he called it the Christian thing to have everybody share everything. Most in Shantytown lived by some sort of government help (one hand holding an upraised Don’t tread on me flag, the other held out to demand their fair share—that explains much of the Pines back then). Micky bought into it all. She told every Shantie it was up to them all to see to the general well-being of those in the Pines, especially since the people of Camden never much cared what went on in the hills. People started taking their welfare and disability checks to the bank and depositing them straight into Earl’s account. He got to strutting around like he was blessed. Like it’d been him up there on those tracks right along with his little girl, getting a word from the Lord.
Micky told me all of this one night on our hill. I was running out those innings, thinking of graduation and the summer and how by August all of it would be back to normal. Some nights I left early, unable to bear the growing distance between us. Other nights Micky was the one who parted first, talking of all the work needing done. Time was short, that’s what she would always tell me. She would say that and then say, We should be dead already, you and me, but we been given a little more time.
But that night I didn’t hear much of what she said. What I was thinking about was Micky’s feet and all that money coming in to her and Earl. How that money was supposed to have been getting spread around but some of it had somehow found its way to Micky’s feet in a pair of New Balance high-tops so fresh from the box that the toes had yet to be scuffed.
And I remembered this as well, other words Micky had once spoken to me that were not so holy and wise as the ones falling now from her mouth. About how all she’d ever wanted was to leave her mark upon the world, any way she could.
-6-
Mom got to working late nights at the library to get us more money, leaving Dad and me to fend for ourselves when it came to supper. Micky started asking me to come to the hill later so work on the church wouldn’t interfere with us, though I believed it otherwise: she didn’t want us interfering with her church. I took to waiting until my parents had gone to bed and sneaking out of my window to see her, wondering how long it would be before Dad found out.
We had hot dogs off the grill and a Braves/Cubs game on the TV a few days before graduation. Dad always was a Cubs fan. His governing philosophy of baseball centered upon the conviction that whatever joy the game granted you would at some point turn to bitter disappointment—a lesson he had well learned. Whether such thinking played a role in his allegiance to a team whose last World Series championship came before the invention of sliced bread, I do not know. To Paul Cross, there existed a certain honor in throwing your support behind the perennial loser and constant underdog. Dad stuck with the little guy because life had made him one. In that regard he likened baseball to God and its adherents to a mass of long-suffering Jobs who lamented their fate yet held enough faith to appreciate the sheer beauty of a 6–4–3 double play or a sacrifice bunt that hugged the line.
We never could merely watch a baseball game. Every pitch was considered the result of a decision that must be analyzed, every defensive position a thing to be dissected and studied. Yet on that night entire innings played out with no comment. Dad’s two hot dogs and bottle of beer remained untouched on the small table beside his chair.
“Seen Earl Dullahan today.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Stopped by the Ace on the way home, he’s there buyin’ up wood and such. Nails. Said they got them a church to fix up. Had them Harpers with him and some I didn’t know. Paid cash for it all, and I did not wonder where he got that money.” He shook his head. “That girl and Earl got them Shanties living like Communists.”
“Won’t last,” I said.
“Shouldn’t matter if it does or doesn’t. Shanties always been a different sort. They live their own way and we live ours. We provide them jobs, feed them, give them money to spend on their drink and drugs, in return they do as they’re told.”
It sounded funny the way he said that, like Dad counted himself a pillar of the Camden community. He was right about our hill people. Those of them who bothered to work did so doing the worst jobs for the smallest money. But at least the janitor down at the high school wasn’t no Shantie, was he? No sir, he was not.
“Rupert’s there,” he said. “Him and Jeffrey come in to get some floor wax for the IGA, and Rupert’s up at the register paying. Earl butts on in front of him like Rupert ain’t even there. Them two got in it so bad I thought I’d have to get a bucket a water to throw on ’em both.”
On the TV, Andre Dawson sent a 2–2 fastball that caught too much of the plate high into the Wrigley air. The Cubs were up 1–0. Neither of us noticed.
“What’s a girl like that know of love?” Dad asked.
“Who?”
“Dullahan girl. All her talk. Thing like love’s good for the young alone. Like them”—pointing at the television—“and you. Get on in life, you come to know different. You get old, you’ll find love don’t get you far. I
t only costs.”
I could have said something smart to lighten the mood, like how that sounded a fine thing coming from the man married to my mother. But Dad only watched the screen. He made no mention of how the Braves pitcher took too long a stride or how the Cubs would never win so long as they lacked plate discipline. It was as though he saw nothing but the young men playing and how one sore shoulder had kept him from playing it the same. Love had nothing to do with it. Love had only cost him. All those years I resented my father for the man he became. That night was the first I wondered if he ever looked upon me with something of the same—if Dad resented me for the man I would become.
He asked, “How’s Bubba?”
“Guess you could say I’m making a difference in the world one coat of wax at a time.”
“It’s work. Makes you appreciate things.”
“More work than Travis does.”
“Travis is different,” he said. “Always has been. There’s little folk and big folk. Travis got born big. Like you, Owen, only different. Like me once upon’a.” He reached for the beer then and tossed it back in a long gulp, washing away the taste of what he’d said. “Them boys on that field’s the winners, son. They get to play for a living what I’d do for free.”
Mom rushed in close to nine thirty, going on about the books she’d shelved. I went to bed and out the window soon after, though I had no heart in it. I didn’t want to see Micky that night. It felt strange to realize that, like how you spend your whole life a kid only to wake up one day and decide you’re not supposed to play with toys anymore. It did not matter. I reached our hilltop and found beneath the oak a small stack of river stones, nothing more.
-7-
On a cloudy Saturday afternoon in early June of 1990, Camden High School bid farewell to its one hundred and forty-third graduating class. There were cheers and laughter and the sense of things both ended and begun, one speaker I doubt any of us can remember now, and enough pictures taken to keep the King Photo store on Waverley Avenue busy until the next Christmas. We were all there. Even Todd Foster. All but one. When Principal Taylor called out the name of Michaela Constance Dullahan, only silence answered. All that was present of her that day in the school gym was the growing sea of yellow weeds scattered along the bleachers and seats of those who called Shantytown home, every one worn with pride.
-8-
It is a quiet half inning that comes and goes in little more than a blink, Knoblauch and Justice grounding out to second, Jeter between them sending a line drive caught by Gibbons in left. Beside me, Country is growing nervous. The sixth ends with us up 8–1, bringing the final innings. A sense of panic starts in on me, a notion that something is drawing close. I stand and stretch my legs as our guys come in from the field. Mike cuts his eyes to me and seems to pause in thought. I look away and don’t know why. I should want to be out there, right? That’s all I’ve pined for. Get up to bat or take an inning or two behind the plate. Show my worth. Prove I belong.
My hand reaches into my back pocket. I feel the piece of rock there. Knight comes out of the Yankee dugout to take the mound. His head is down. Only Jeter and O’Neill are jogging out to their positions with purpose. The rest carry the bearing of ones who merely want the night over at this point. Grind through these last innings and get home, get some food and a good night’s sleep, come back ready to play tomorrow. In the Bigs, there is always tomorrow. But as I look back over at Country, standing from his place to welcome Segui in from first base and trying to conceal the desperation on his face, I realize it is the same in the Bigs as it is anywhere else in the world.
There is always tomorrow until there is not.
Top 7
Country says to me, “Be right back, gotta put a bug in Mike’s ear.” He takes Betsy along. Moving down the narrow dugout path between rail and bench, tapping the bat’s barrel against a knee of every player he passes. Country saying, “Look good out there, Bubba” and “Got ’em on the ropes, don’t we?” and “Big ol’ moon’s on our side tonight.” At the end of the dugout he lays the bat to his left shoulder, says, “Mikey”—I can’t imagine any other Oriole can do that except maybe Ripken—and I watch as the two of them slide into conversation. David Segui walks from the on-deck circle to the plate as the Yanks throw the ball around the horn and back to Knight on the mound.
Caldwell, that hotshot rookie who flew past Double-A in Bowie like it was a rest stop along my own interstate of dreams, sits beside me. He’s looking at our manager and shaking his head as he smiles, says, “Does that every game. Goes up there begging to have one at-bat, get out there in the field. Gotta get that four hundredth dinger. He don’t care how it looks neither. But ain’t nobody gonna say a word to him about it. Ol’ Country. Love that guy. Sorry again I spiked you.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“You up from Bowie? I see you when I went through?”
I nod. “Hit right behind you.”
“That’s right.” He taps me on the leg. “That’s right. Got a decent stick, Hillbilly.” Now Caldwell leans back, appearing to stretch but really trying to read a bit of my name on my jersey.
“Owen Cross,” I say.
“Right. I’ve seen so many faces I can’t keep them all straight in my head. But I’m here now. Not going anywhere. Mikey”—that’s what he calls Mike, and I cannot believe it—“says I could be starting next year. Got some old guys out there need to get out of the way. It’s a young man’s game, you know.”
“I know.”
Segui takes a curveball by night and pops it behind third base. Caldwell says it could fall but I know it can’t; Brosius is out there and he can handle the leather. My guess is proven right when Brosius calls off Jeter and makes the play. Segui makes the turn at first and heads back to the dugout. It’s one out at the top of the seventh in a game that will count for nothing in the end, yet Caldwell is grinning like it’s Christmas Day and he’s got a stack of presents taller than himself.
He says, “Man, I love this game. All I ever played. You know? Ever since I was a kid.”
“Where you from?”
“Cali. You?”
“Virginia.”
He chuckles. “Hillbilly. No wonder you and Country get along so well. Two of a kind.”
We look where Country has gone. He’s standing beside Mike but they’re no longer talking.
“They bring you up to babysit Fordyce?” he asks. “Or is this your shot?”
“Little of both, maybe.”
“Good on you, man. Always need a good catcher. Brook’s good. Can’t much hit. Lopez neither. Could use a stick like yours.”
Melvin Mora faces Knight. He’s had a tough night at the plate so far but redeems himself with a liner to left that ends up bouncing off the wall, putting him on second. Caldwell leaps atop the railing with a cry of “Atta boy.”
When he settles down beside me once more, he says, “No place like the Stadium. I love Camden Yards, don’t get me wrong. It’s about as nice a ballpark as there is. But it ain’t got no ghosts. You know?”
“I heard about them ghosts.”
“It’s crazy, isn’t it? You gotta watch. My dad always said baseball’s a living thing, you know? Like it’s real.”
“Mine always said much the same.”
“He here tonight?”
“Depends. You believe in them ghosts, maybe. I ain’t got no family anymore.”
“Send my bats back home every once in a while. For real. Dad bundles them all up and takes them down to the church. Priest blesses them. Then he gets them back to me. Been doing that since Single-A. Because you gotta watch. You know?”
“Yes.”
Gibbons steps up to the plate and promptly calls time, trying to throw Knight’s rhythm off on the mound. It’s a good tactic.
Caldwell says it again: “I love this game. Used to play all the time when I was a kid back home—”
“What’s that?” I ask him. “Last year?”
“You’re
funny for an old man. But I’m serious. All year long. Out there every morning in the summertime, and I’d play straight through till the streetlights came on and my mom called me home. It’s crazy.”
“Guess we all did that. Probably a big part of why we’re here.”
“But it’s the same game. You know? Doesn’t matter if it’s Yankee Stadium or the sandlot out by the county dump back home, it’s still the same game. Only difference is I used to ride my old bike down to that sandlot, now I drive a Porsche.”
“Got me an old truck down in Bowie. Don’t think I’ll ever get me nothing fancier’n that.”
Gibbons shoots an easy fly ball to right that O’Neill catches after taking a few short steps. Two down. Country is pacing.
“Shoot,” Caldwell says, “you’ve still got time. What are you, twenty-five, twenty-six?”
“Twenty-nine.”
Caldwell pauses. “Twenty-nine’s not old, even for a catcher. It’s you they called up here tonight, not some Triple-A catcher. Must be something to it.”
I appreciate the kindness, even if it is from a cocky utility infielder who calls me sir but our manager Mikey, but that’s not the point.
“I’m slumping,” I tell him. “Been in a funk at the plate for a month now. Think this was my skipper’s way of getting me out of it.”
“You give me your bats, I’ll send’m home to my dad. Put the Lord in them.”
I chuckle.
“Seriously.” Caldwell nods at Fordyce, who looks lost stepping up to bat. “Brook is good, man. For real. But he’s not having such a hot game tonight now, is he? Oh-for-what? Hear me? Got three Ks already. Could be Mikey puts you in.”
