Four Freedoms

by John Crowley

  “I’ve got a war job, I’ve got a family dependent on me.” He turned then

  to point a look at Prosper. “You know? A family.”

  Prosper made small sympathetic facial movements, what’re you

  gonna do. They rode in silence a time, looking forward, till Bunce, still

  unsmiling, began to regard Prosper more deliberately, as though he

  were a thing that deserved study. Prosper had been the object of hostile

  scrutiny before, though not often so close to him. He thought of Lar-

  ry’s instructions, how to win a fight, or not lose one.

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  “So that’s tough,” Bunce said. He made a gesture toward Prosper’s

  body.

  Prosper made a different face.

  “What’s the toughest thing?” Bunce said. “I mean, living that

  way.”

  Prosper cast his eyes upward thoughtfully, as though considering

  possibilities. “Well I think,” he said, “the toughest thing is drying my

  ass after I get out of the bath.”

  Not the shadow of a smile from Bunce. That line always got a

  laugh.

  Bunce withdrew the toothpick. “I think I’m asking a serious ques-

  tion.”

  “Do you mean,” Prosper said, “not having the chance for a wife

  and kids, a family I mean, such as yours?”

  Bunce made no response.

  “Well yes,” Prosper said. “Yes, I’d have to say. Not having that.

  That’s hard.”

  “I knew this guy,” Bunce said. “He used to go around the bars and

  the Legion hall. He had no legs. He rolled on a little truck, with these

  wooden blocks on his hands to push with. He made candies, and sold

  them. Always smiling.”

  Prosper smiled. Bunce didn’t.

  “Funny thing was,” Bunce said, “if you saw him in his own neigh-

  borhood, not making his rounds. I did once. He had a couple of, I

  guess, wooden legs. And two canes. He was dressed in a suit. He

  looked fine.”

  “Oho,” said Prosper, not wanting to seem too familiar with this

  dodge.

  “He had a wife,” Bunce said.

  “He did. Well.”

  “Not bad looking, either.”

  “How do you like that.”

  The bus swung around a sharp right, entering the streets of the

  capital. Bunce fell heavily against Prosper somehow without taking his

  eyes from him. Then he climbed out of the seat. “Do yourself a good

  turn,” he said. “Stay away from my family.”

  5

  On a Friday night the Teenie Weenies bused or drove into Ponca

  City to watch Vi play fast-pitch softball with the Moths under

  the lights. The little stadium had been built by the oil company,

  but the new lights were Van Damme’s gift to Ponca City. The

  game was an exhibition game against the Traveling Ladies, a touring

  pro club, to promote war bonds.

  “Now how are women gonna play this g-g-g-game,” Al said, imi-

  tating Porky Pig, “when among the l-l-l-lot of them they haven’t got a

  single b-b-b-b—”

  “Shut up, Al,” said Sal.

  Sal and Al had come with Prosper. The park was packed, and all

  the lower bleachers full. Sal and Al liked to get a seat in the lowest row

  so they didn’t have to stand on their seats like nine-year-olds just to

  see. But not today. The steps were okay for climbing, and they went

  high up, passing as they went Bunce, Connie, and their son, primly in

  a row, Bunce for once without his cap. Prosper made himself seem too

  preoccupied with going upward to acknowledge her or him or them,

  and they looked out at the warm-ups on the field.

  The Traveling Ladies were show-offs, in their striped schoolgirl

  skirts and knee-high socks, hats like Gay ’90s ballplayers with a fuzzy

  button on the top; but they played hard. They played hard and made it

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  look easy, making fancy catches for no reason, setting up nick-of-time

  plays on purpose—you could catch them at it if you watched closely.

  Whenever they cleared the bases they tossed the ball round the horn

  with a little individual spin or jump or bend for each of the infielders,

  the third baseman always pretending not to notice and waving to the

  crowd up until the last moment, when she turned and snagged the ball

  backhand and laughed. When they got well ahead they’d sometimes

  pretend to be checking their makeup in little hand mirrors or exchang-

  ing gossip with the first base coach and let a ball go by them and a

  runner make a base she shouldn’t have—as though they were acting in

  a movie about girl baseball players as much as actually being them.

  The crowd loved it.

  But Vi and the Moths played hard too, a little grim in the face of all

  the funning, but Vi as good as anything the Ladies could show, her

  fiery fastball taking their best sticks by surprise. Most softball pitchers

  change their stance when they change their pitch—this way for a fast-

  ball, that way for a slider—but Dad had taught Vi to stand always the

  same, give nothing away, her body preternaturally still just before she

  wound up and fired. And unlike most pitchers who just stoop a bit

  when they throw, as though they were pitching horseshoes, Vi’s knuck-

  les nearly scraped the ground, the big pill floating and dropping trick-

  ily or slamming into the catcher’s glove.

  Prosper’s difficulty in ballparks was that he missed most of the

  exciting plays, when all around him the spectators rose to their feet to

  see the ball sail over the fence or the fielder make the catch, or just in

  spontaneous delight or astonishment or outrage. He couldn’t get up

  fast enough and would finally be standing by the time everybody else

  had cooled off and sat down again. He liked a so-so game. This wasn’t

  that. This night he also wanted a clear sight of Connie and Bunce and

  the boy with the unfortunate name, just down there between the heads

  and hats. What he saw, as an inconclusive inning was drawing to an

  end, was a blond woman, one he knew and had himself swapped wise-

  cracks with, slip into their row and seat herself beside Bunce. Connie

  on his other side. It seemed to Prosper that the blonde—was her name

  Frances?—actually leaned around Bunce to greet Connie, which

  seemed to take a lot of crust. Prosper couldn’t help but feel for Bunce in

  between them.

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  Just then, the Ladies’ right fielder, with a three-and-two count on

  her, backed off a high inside pitch, and then came running out at Vi, bat

  in hand, yelling that she’d been aimed at; then she turned on the umpire

  who called after her, denouncing him in fury as the spectators variously

  booed and cheered. The ump threatened to toss her out of the game. She

  stuck out her tongue at him, a dame after all, and at that the ump did

  order her out, or tried to—the Ladies instantly came off the bench in a

  crowd, yelling and gesturing; when they made for Vi on the mound, the

  Moths rushed the infield. A fine rhubarb, everyone pushing and shoving

  and those girlie skirts flying while the men rose and roared. It was hard

 
not to believe they’d got into it on purpose just for the fun of it; cer-

  tainly Vi, alone and superb on the mound, chewing bubble gum and

  waiting for the dust to settle, seemed to think so.

  Prosper had seen nothing much but backs and behinds, but when the

  view cleared again he saw in some alarm that Connie, Adolph in tow,

  was mounting the steps toward where he sat, and even from that dis-

  tance Prosper could see grim resolve in her face, or maybe fury. By the

  time she reached his pew she was smiling theatrically, not for his sake

  he knew, and indicated she’d like the seat next to him, yes that one, if

  Sal would scoot down a bit, yes thanks, Prosper turned his knees out-

  ward so she and Adolph could work their way past him. She sat. She

  still said nothing, only looked on him with a blind beatific gaze.

  “Hi there,” he said.

  She seemed not to notice that Adolph was tugging her arm, trying

  to be released from her ferocious grip.

  Play resumed, the apologetic Lady fielder kept in the game, Vi

  scrunching her shoulders, gloving the ball, warming up.

  “So,” Connie said icily. “Who are you rooting for?”

  “Well, the Moths,” said Prosper. “Of course.”

  “Well, sure.”

  “But the Ladies are, well.”

  “Yes, they sure are. They sure know their stuff.” The smile

  unchanged, as though it was going to last forever.

  He thought it would be best to face front, not engage in eye-play, no

  matter how innocent. His pose was that she’d happened to desire to

  change her seat, for reasons he couldn’t be expected to know, and hap-

  pened to choose the one next to him, ditto. How much of this his face

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  and body expressed to distant onlookers he couldn’t be sure. “Though

  actually, I guess,” he said to the air. “I guess I’d hope they both could

  win.”

  “Well that’s dumb,” she said. “They can’t both.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s stupid.”

  He chanced a glance in her direction. The smile was gone. “Maybe

  better say,” he said, “I don’t want either of them to lose.”

  Vi gave up a big hit then, and once again Prosper lost sight of the

  field, though Connie was up as fast as anyone. When they sat, Bunce

  and Francine—that was her name—down the bleachers were revealed,

  and it was apparent her arm was in his, and just then she laid her head

  on his shoulder. At that, Bunce’s head swiveled a bit to the rear, as

  though tempted to look back up toward Connie, then changed its mind

  and swiveled back.

  “God damn it,” said Connie.

  “Hey,” Prosper said softly. “It’s okay.” But Connie had got up again,

  and lifted unsurprised Adolph to her hip, and begun pushing out of the

  row. Prosper held up a hand to forestall her, gathering his crutches and

  preparing to stand, as there was no way she could climb over him with-

  out everybody losing their dignity, which he thought mattered.

  “Now listen, Connie, you’re not, you’re not gonna . . .”

  “I’m just getting out of here. I’m sorry.”

  “Well hold your horses.” He wasn’t sure she wasn’t going to go

  down and black his eye, or hers, kid or no kid, and he had a feeling

  that the vengeance for that would be wreaked on him, not Connie.

  He’d got up from his seat and stepped into the aisle, Connie after him,

  and as he turned to get out of the way downward, the tip of his right

  crutch landed on something, a candy wrapper maybe, something slick

  that slid away, turning him halfway around; in putting out his left

  crutch in haste to stabilize himself, he overshot the step and put it into

  air—it went down to the next step, and he knew he was falling, stiff-

  legged, face forward and one arm behind. The steps were concrete, as

  he’d already noticed; he actually had a moment to consider this as they

  rushed up toward him and a high shriek filled his ears, not because of

  something happening on the field—out, home run, grandstand play—

  but for his own disaster. Then for a while he knew nothing at all.

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  “You look bad,” Vi said. “Very bad.”

  “It’s just my face,” Prosper said. The scabs had hardened around his

  chin and cheek, and the bruises at his nose, spreading under his left

  eye, were the colors of a sinister sundown. Plaster bandage across his

  forehead. He lay in his bed on Z Street, where Vi the morning after the

  game had gone to find him. “I’m all right otherwise. Except for the

  wrist.”

  He held it up to her, rigid in its wad of windings. He’d “come to”

  pretty quickly, though he had little memory now of what had hap-

  pened before the stretcher that the ambulance men rolled him onto was

  lifted to slide into the little brown van with its flashing red light. A

  small crowd gathered there at the ballpark entrance to see him off.

  “I can’t walk,” he said. “Not for a week or so. Not broken though.

  Just a sprain.” He didn’t describe the bruises up and down his thighs

  from the contact of the stone steps with the metal that encased them.

  By the bed he lay in, which Pancho had pulled out into the sitting room

  for him, was the wheelchair the clinic had furnished him with, an old

  model with a wicker seat and wooden arms. It wouldn’t fit into the

  bathroom; getting out of it and then up onto the john with only one

  hand working was a process. Of course when he was without his braces

  he always sat on the pot, like a girl. He kept all that to himself.

  “I heard at the shop they were making you a new pair of crutches.”

  “So they said.” He tried a smile. “They’re good fellows. It’s kind.”

  “People like to help.”

  “I’ll be up and around before they’re done.”

  “Well you might still use this chair, though. Easier for getting to

  work, maybe. Or church. You know.”

  “Oh. Well I wouldn’t want to use it in the street.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh I don’t know.” He knew: lame but upright was one thing, but

  in a wheelchair he knew how he’d be regarded. Even by Vi herself,

  maybe, at first sight anyway, and that would be the only sight he’d

  likely get. “So who won the game?”

  “They did. Ten-six.” She looked at him long and somehow appre-

  ciatively. “I’m not ashamed. We came off better than you did.”

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  “Hum.” With his elbows he hoisted himself up a little on the bed,

  bandaged wrist held up.

  “Was this the worst one ever?” Vi’d seen him go down once before,

  not badly.

  “Just about. I fell a lot when I was a kid. I got used to it. But the

  older I got the farther my head got from the floor. It’s a long way down

  these days.”

  “The way you do it,” Vi said. With her forearm she illustrated his

  headlong fall, like a felled tree. “Anyway,” she said. “That was my last

  game.”

  “What,” said Prosper. “Season’s just starting.”

  “I’m quitting, Prosper,” she said. “Not the team. Van Damme. I’
m

  done.”

  “What do you mean?” A coldness began to grow in him, starting

  from way down in, below any physical part of him. “What’s that sup-

  posed to mean?”

  “I’m quitting means I’m quitting,” she said. For a moment her eyes

  left his, and then returned, frank and warm.

  “You’re not leaving,” he said.

  “Well I’m not staying here if I’m not working.” She put a hand on

  him. “Listen, this is really amazing. There was a woman I met when I

  first left home. Maybe you remember—I told you—I think I did . . .”

  “The one in the truck.”

  “Yes! You know I’ve never stopped thinking about her, I don’t know

  why. Maybe because she was the first, the first war worker I met. I

  don’t know. But anyway guess what.”

  “What.”

  “She found out I work here, and she came to see me.”

  “Okay,” Prosper said, his apprehension unrelieved. “Good.”

  “Guess how she found me.”

  “Stop making me guess, Vi.” That coldness was growing, going far-

  ther up, it was nothing he’d known before and at the same time he

  knew it.

  “She saw that big magazine article that Horse wrote about the team.

  She knew right away.”

  “Oho.”

  “And so. We’ve been talking. She quit the place she was working,

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  driving trucks, and we’re going up north together. Up to my daddy’s

  place. We’re going to get it going again. We’ve decided.”

  Her eyes looked down away again, as though they knew how much

  they shone and were a little shy about it, but they came back, alight,

  ablaze. “You want to meet her?”

  “Sure. Sometime.”

  “She’s outside now. Her name’s Shirley.” She rose, holding out a

  hand at him that meant Stay there, which was ridiculous, and she

  laughed at herself, but Prosper didn’t laugh.

  “Wait, Vi.”

  “Yes?”

  “What about me?”

  “What do you mean, what about you? You’re not aiming to come

  be a cowboy, are you?” When he said nothing, she stopped. “Do you

  mean,” she asked, “you and me?”

  He didn’t need to answer that. She came back and sat on the edge of

  the bed. She took his shoulders in her long wise hands. “Prosper. You

  and me. That was good, that was such fun, it meant a lot. You’re a fine