The Essential W. P. Kinsella

by W. P. Kinsella

  “Fucking queers,” I said as we passed, not caring if I was heard.

  “Behave yourself,” said Pascoe.

  The first real incident happened the second week of the season. I have to admit I am naturally a loud person. I tend to shout when I speak; I walk with a bit of a swagger; I keep my head up and my eyes open. I’ve never minded being stared at. I like it that girls often turn and stare after me on the street.

  The incident: there is a play in baseball called a suicide squeeze. A manager will call for it with a runner on third, and none or one out. As the pitcher goes into the stretch, the runner breaks from third; it is the hitter’s duty to get the ball on the ground anywhere in the ballpark, though they usually try to bunt it between the pitcher and third or first. The idea is that by the time the ball is fielded, the base runner will have scored, the fielder’s only play being to first. If, however, the hitter misses the pitch, the base runner is dead, hence the term suicide squeeze.

  We were playing Phoenix in Vancouver, at Nat Bailey Stadium, a ballpark that, like the city of Vancouver, is clean and green; the only stadium in the Pacific Coast League that can compare to it is the one at the University of Hawaii, where the Islanders play part of their schedule. I tripled to lead off the second inning. Pascoe was batting fifth and he popped up weakly to the shortstop. The manager put on the suicide squeeze. The pitcher checked me, stretched, and delivered. I broke. The batter, a substitute fielder named Denny something, bunted, but he hit the ball way too hard. It was whap! snap! and the ball was in the pitcher’s glove. He fired to the catcher, who was blocking the plate, and I was dead by fifteen feet. But I’d gotten up a real head of steam. I weigh 217 and stand six foot two, and I played a lot of football in high school back in Oklahoma. I hit the guy with a cross block that could have gotten me a job in the NFL. He was a skinny little weasel who looked like he was raised somewhere where kids don’t get fed very often. I knocked him about five feet in the air, and he landed like he’d been shot in flight. The son of a bitch held on to the ball, though. The guy who bunted was at second before someone remembered to call time. They pried the ball out of the catcher’s fingers and loaded him on a stretcher.

  I’d knocked him toward our dugout and had to almost step over him to get to the bench. What I saw scared me. His neck was twisted at an awkward angle and he was bleeding from the mouth.

  The umpire threw me out of the game for unsportsmanlike conduct. The league president viewed the films and suspended me for five games. The catcher had a concussion, a dislocated shoulder, and three cracked ribs. He’s still on the D.L. as far as I know.

  The next time I played against Phoenix, I got hit by a pitch the first time up. I charged the mound, the benches cleared, but before I even got to the pitcher, Pascoe landed on my back and took me right out of the play. Suddenly, there were three or four guys wrestling on top of us.

  “Behave yourself,” Pascoe hissed into my ear, as he held me pinioned to the ground, while players milled around us. Those have become Pascoe’s favorite words as the summer has deepened, and I keep finding new ways to get into trouble.

  Pascoe was happy when I started dating Judy. Word even got back to Skip, and he said a couple of civil words to me for the first time since I coldcocked the Phoenix catcher. Judy was a friend of a girl Pascoe dated a couple of times. She was a tiny brunette, a year younger than me, with dancing brown eyes, a student at the University of British Columbia, studying sociology.

  “You’re just shy,” she said to me on our second date.

  “Ha!” cried Pascoe. He and his girlfriend were sitting across from us in a Denny’s.

  “It’s true,” said Judy. “People who talk and laugh loudly in order to have attention directed to them are really very shy.”

  “You are, aren’t you? Shy, I mean,” Judy said later that evening in bed at her apartment. Our lovemaking had been all right, but nothing spectacular.

  “I suppose,” I said. “But I’d never admit it.”

  “You just did,” said Judy, leaning over to kiss me.

  The next thing that got me in bad with management was far worse than just coldcocking a catcher with a football block. Pascoe, Martinez, and I had been out making the rounds after a Saturday night game. I had several beers, but not enough that I should have been out of control. We closed up Champagne Charlie’s, decided to walk home instead of taking a taxi. When we crossed the Granville Street bridge, the predawn air was sweet and foggy. We were near Broadway and Granville, swinging along arm in arm, when the police cruiser pulled up alongside us.

  The passenger window of the police car rolled down and an officer no older than Pascoe or me said, “Excuse me, gentlemen, but I’d like to see some identification.”

  Pascoe was reaching for his wallet when I said, “What the fuck are you hassling us for? We’re minding our own business.”

  The officer ignored me, but he opened the door and stepped out, accepting the piece of ID Pascoe handed him.

  Martinez, coming from a country where the police do not always exhibit self-control, stayed behind us, looking worried.

  The officer returned Pascoe’s ID. “And you, sir?” he said to Martinez.

  “Leave him alone,” I said. “He doesn’t speak English.”

  “I’m not addressing you,” the officer said to me.

  “Fuck off,” I yelled. “Leave him alone.” I stepped in front of Martinez.

  “Behave yourself,” said Pascoe, and grabbed my arm. But I shoved him away, and before he could recover his balance, I shoved the officer back against the car. As the driver was getting out I leapt on the hood of the police car.

  What happened next is a blur. I remember screaming curses at the police, dancing madly on the hood of the police car, feeling the hood dimple under my weight, dodging the grasping hands of the police and Pascoe.

  I remember hearing Pascoe’s voice crying out, “Oh, man, he’s just crazy, don’t shoot him.” Then there was a hand on my ankle and I toppled sideways to the pavement. My mouth was full of blood and someone was sitting on me and my arms were being pulled behind my back and the handcuffs fastened.

  I missed the Sunday afternoon game because management let me sit in jail until my court appearance Monday morning. The police had charged Martinez with creating a disturbance, but when a translator explained what had happened the prosecutor dropped the charge. I faced a half-dozen charges, beginning with assaulting a police officer.

  The judge looked down at me where I stood, unshaven, my shirt torn and bloodstained, the left side of my face scraped raw from where I landed on the pavement. He remanded me for fourteen days for psychiatric evaluation.

  “I’m not fucking crazy,” I said to no one in particular.

  The Vancouver Canadians’ lawyer got on the phone to Milwaukee, and the Milwaukee Brewers’ high-powered lawyers got in on the act. Before the end of the day, they struck a deal. If I agreed to spend an hour every afternoon with a private psychiatrist, the team would guarantee my good behavior, and my sentencing would be put off until the end of the baseball season.

  Management had me by the balls. “You fuck up again and you’re gone, kid,” Skip said to me. “It doesn’t matter how talented you are, you’re not worth the aggravation.”

  I saw the shrink every afternoon for the whole home stand, weekends included. I took all these weird tests. Questions like “Are you a messenger of God?” and “Has your pet died recently?” I wore a jacket and tie to every session and talked a lot about what a nice girlfriend I had and how much I respected my parents.

  “Well, Barry,” the doctor said to me after about ten sessions, “you don’t appear to have any serious problems, but I do wish you’d make an effort to be more cooperative. I am here to help you, after all.”

  “I thought I was being cooperative,” I said innocently.

  “In one sense you have been, but only partially. I find that you are mildly depressive, that you’re anxious, under a lot of stress. Stress is natural
in your profession, but I sense that there is something else bothering you, and I wish you’d level with me. To use an analogy, it is said that with a psychiatrist one tends to bare the body, scars and all, tear open the chest so to speak, and expose your innermost feelings. However, to date, you have scarcely taken off your overcoat.”

  “Look, I’m okay, honest. I had too much to drink, I got out of control. It won’t happen again.”

  “Suit yourself,” said the doctor.

  My life leveled out for almost a month. We went on a road trip. I continued to hit well; I watched the American League standings, studied Milwaukee’s box score in each day’s newspaper, watched them fade out of the pennant race. I wondered how much longer it would be before I got my call to the Bigs. Once in Tacoma, Pascoe had to keep me from punching the lights out of a taxi driver who said something insulting about ballplayers, but other than that incident I stayed cool. I phoned Judy almost every night. I found myself doing with her what Pascoe so often did with me; I analyzed the game, dissected my at-bats pitch by pitch. I knew what I was saying wasn’t very interesting for her, but it was a release for me, and not only did Judy not seem to mind, she gave the impression she enjoyed it.

  I can’t understand why I continue to fuck up. Judy brought two friends to a Sunday afternoon game. It was a perfect blue day and the stands at Nat Bailey Stadium are close enough to the field that I could look over at Judy and smile while I stood in the on-deck circle swinging a weighted bat. Her friends were a couple, Christine, a bouncy blonde with ringlets and a sexy way of licking her lips, and her husband, a wimpy guy who wore a jacket and tie and looked like he was shorter than Christine.

  Although I had three hits and two RBIs, I wasn’t in a good mood after the game. We went to one of these California-style restaurants with white walls and pink tablecloths, where everything is served in a sauce, and they look at you like you just shit on the floor if you ask for French fries. To top it off, I didn’t like Trevor, and he didn’t like me. I pounded about three Bud and then I drank a whole pitcher of this wine-cooler slop that tastes like Kool-Aid.

  What really threw the shit into the fan was when the three of them decided the four of us would go to a movie, something called Kiss of the Spider Woman, about a couple of queers locked up in a prison in Argentina or someplace. Trevor gave us a little lecture about the eloquent statement the director was trying to make.

  “There’s no fucking way I’m going to a movie like that,” I said, standing up to make my point.

  “Barry, don’t you dare make a scene,” said Judy.

  “No need to be boisterous about it,” said Trevor. “You’ve simply been outvoted. We’d be happy to let you choose, but I don’t think The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is showing in Vancouver at the moment.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just grabbed the tablecloth and pushed everything across the table into Trevor’s lap, then turned and stomped out.

  I was surprised when Judy caught up with me a half block down the street.

  “You were only half to blame for that scene,” she said. “I’m always willing to go halfway,” she added, taking my arm.

  “I’d rather you went all the way,” I said.

  But things didn’t go well back at her apartment.

  “For goodness’ sake, Barry, relax,” Judy said. “You’re still mad. Nobody can make love when they’re mad.”

  But I was thrashing about the room; I’d pulled on most of my clothes by the time I got to the door. Ignoring the elevator, I ran down the stairs, realizing about halfway that I’d abandoned my shoes in Judy’s apartment.

  I crossed the lobby running full out, and it felt to me as if I was on one prolonged suicide squeeze, the catcher twenty feet tall, made of bricks, waiting with the ball, grinning. I didn’t even slow down as I hit the wall of glass next to the door.

  In spite of my bragging about spending my time in the strip joints while the team was on its road trip, I actually stayed out of downtown the whole time. Last night I met this chick at a club over on Broadway, near the University of British Columbia. She was with a date, but she knew who I was and made it pretty plain she liked me. I made a late date for after the game tonight. I’m supposed to meet her at some white wine and fern restaurant in the financial district downtown, in the same building as the American embassy. Vicki is her name. She’s tall with red-gold hair and freckles on her shoulders. Last night she was wearing a white sundress that showed off her tan.

  “Bazoos that never quit,” I said to Pascoe. “You should see her, man.” I made a lapping motion with my tongue.

  The game ended early. I took right up where I left off before the accident; I hit two dingers, a single, and stole a base. After each home run, I toured the bases slowly, my head erect, trying to look as arrogant as possible; I have a lot to prove to Skip, to management, to the self-righteous bastards I play with.

  Sometimes I can’t help but think about a note that was shoved through one of the vent slats in my locker at Nat Bailey Stadium. It was written on a paper towel from the washroom, printed in a childish scrawl. “Management pays Pascoe 300 a month to be you’re freind,” it said. For an instant my stomach dipped and I thought I might vomit. I quickly crumpled the towel and stuffed it in my back pocket. I glanced around to see if I could catch anybody watching me. No luck. I’d never ask Pascoe. What if it was true? I hate to admit it, but that note got to me. I think about it more than I ever should.

  “Let’s the three of us stop by Champagne Charlie’s,” I said to Pascoe and Martinez in the locker room. “We can pound a few Bud and eyeball the strippers. There’s a new one since you guys have been out of town. You should see the fucking contortions she goes through. Someone there said she licks her own pussy during the midnight show.”

  “I thought you had this red-hot date,” said Pascoe.

  “Fuck her,” I said. “Let her wait. They like you better if you treat them like shit.”

  We headed off, three abreast, just like old times. Me in the center, Pascoe to my left, Martinez linked to my right arm.

  “Just like a fucking airplane,” I said, walking fast, watching pedestrians part or move aside to let us pass.

  “Punchline!” I shouted, as we loped along. “So I stood up, tried to kick my ass, missed, fell off the roof, and broke my leg.”

  Pascoe laughed. Martinez grinned foolishly.

  “The nun had a straight razor in her bra,” said Pascoe, the bluish streetlights reflecting off his teeth.

  “Fucking, right on,” I said.

  We swaggered into Champagne Charlie’s, got seats at the counter, right in front of the stage, ordered a round of Bud, and settled in.

  “This Canadian beer tastes like gopher piss,” I said, drawing a few ugly stares from the other customers. But we knocked back three each anyway.

  The stripper was named La Velvet and was very tall and black. She took a liking to Pascoe, winked, and crinkled her nose at him as she did the preliminary shedding of clothes. When she was naked except for red high-heeled shoes, she dragged her ass around the stage like a cat in heat. Then, facing us, with her hands flat on the floor at her sides, she edged toward us, braced her heels on the carpet at the edge of the stage, spreading her legs wide until her pussy was about a foot from Pascoe’s face.

  “Way to go, baby,” I yelled. “Hey, Marty, how’d you like to eat that for breakfast? And lunch? And dinner?”

  Martinez grinned amiably, pretending to understand.

  I stood up and clapped in rhythm to her gyrating body.

  “Behave yourself,” hissed Pascoe.

  “Way to go, baby. Wrap those long legs around his neck. Show me a guy who won’t go down on his lady, and I will.”

  The bouncer came over and tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Sit down,” he said.

  I was holding a bottle of Bud in my right hand. For half a second I considered smashing it across his face. He was obviously an ex-fighter, with a nose several times broken and heavy sc
ar tissue across his eyebrows. Then I felt Pascoe’s huge hand on my arm.

  “Sit down, Barry,” he growled. “Why do you always have to act like an asshole, man? Why do you have to be bigger and tougher and raunchier and more rough-and-ready than everybody else?”

  I sat down. La Velvet was gathering up her robe and heading down some stairs at the back of the stage. I noticed that her nails were painted a deep, dark red, the color of a ripe cherry.

  “Sorry, I just get carried away,” I said lamely.

  Pascoe glared at me.

  “You spoiled my chances, man. Why do you have to act like a fucking animal?”

  I didn’t have any answer for him. I suppose I could blame it on the summer, the pressure of playing pro ball, being a long way from home for the first time.

  La Velvet, wrapped in a scarlet robe that matched her high heels, appeared from a door on Martinez’s side of the counter. As she walked behind us she leaned close to Pascoe and said in a throaty voice, “My last show’s at midnight. You plannin’ to be here?”

  “Somebody’d have to kill me to keep me away,” said Pascoe, grinning like a maniac.

  “Don’t you have a date?” he said to me as soon as La Velvet was gone.

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  “You don’t seem very excited about it anymore.”

  “Why don’t you guys walk over to the restaurant with me? Just to keep me company.”

  “Naw, I want to sit here and dream about that midnight show and what’s comin’ after it,” said Pascoe.

  “You want to come for a walk, Marty?” I said.

  Martinez stared at me, smiling, uncomprehending.