EQMM, September-October 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Save for one thing or two.

  He stepped back from the mirror, looked at what he was wearing. A simple white cotton baseball uniform, frayed around the collar and wrists. On the back was his number—9—and his team name—Palmer Mills—but in his mind's eye, in a year or two, that name would be replaced by another. New York. Chicago. Boston. Anywhere but here, in little old Palmer.

  He went to the sole bookshelf against the wall, next to the faded pink wallpaper. Past the piles of Sports Illustrated magazines was his pitcher's glove; he picked it up, felt it slide onto his hand like a second skin, and grinned. More than just a baseball glove, it was his ticket out of here, his ticket to a better and greater life.

  Out the door. The game would begin in an hour, and that game, that game would start him on his way.

  * * * *

  Randy Jarvis blinked his eyes, startled. He must have slept. The droning of the bus engine had helped him doze off. He rubbed at his eyes. The bus was pulling into a town in Vermont, and the driver called out, “Ten-minute stop, folks! Time enough to stretch your legs."

  He eagerly climbed out of his seat, past his old athletic bag on the floor. For the last several miles his bladder had been screaming for release, but the foul-smelling toilet in the rear of the bus had kept him away. But the driver had pulled in front of a small news shop and coffee stand, and he had hopes the bathroom would be better.

  It was.

  He lucked out, ducking into a men's room before anybody else, and did his business. And damn, he couldn't help it, but he remembered how it had been, years ago, when he was so young and everything seemed possible. When your body was tough and rugged, when you didn't have to pee every other hour or so, and when you were certain that your strong left arm was going to give you everything you dreamed of...

  He flushed the toilet, washed his hands in the sink, remembered his arrogance, his cockiness, that everything would work out all right, that he would never grow old, but of course, if he did grow old, he'd have a wealth of memories and a thick bank account to go with it. He dried his hands with some brown paper towel and slowly walked back to the bus, its diesel engine grumbling.

  Yup, he had lots of dreams and fantasies back then, back in 1958, and none of those fantasies included taking a bus to his old hometown, on a mission of revenge.

  He got back on the bus, started down the aisle, and froze.

  Someone was kneeling on his seat, looking down at his athletic bag, reaching for it...

  And that someone was wearing a uniform.

  So in September, 1958, Randy bounded down the steps, into Mrs. Willoughby's kitchen, and at the long boardinghouse dining table, his fellow tenants looked up from their oatmeal and toast and coffee, smiling at his baseball uniform, for they knew who he was, what he had done, and where he was going. Except for the occasional traveling salesman, most of the men—no rooms were ever rented to women—worked at the mill. Some were old, some were young, but all had something in common: They didn't make much money, and none would ever leave Palmer.

  Mrs. Willoughby, wearing her cat-eye black glasses, floral dress, and a white lace apron, turned from the old electric range and said, “Breakfast, Randy?"

  He shook his head. “Nope. I pitch better on an empty stomach. Makes me more hungry."

  Some of the guys laughed and Mrs. Willoughby smiled and out of the kitchen he went, into the strong September sunshine that offered so much promise.

  * * * *

  He coughed. “Excuse me?"

  The man got up from the seat, looked to him, smiled. “Sorry, is this your seat?"

  "Yes,” Randy said, his heart thumping, seeing the guy wasn't police, but a work uniform. Yeah, the guy worked for one of those package delivery companies that promise overnight deliveries, no matter the time or temperature. He looked to be in his early thirties, short black hair, prominent ears, and he got up from the seat, looking embarrassed.

  "Sorry again,” he said. “The bus driver said there weren't many seats left, and these two looked empty, and then I saw your bag . . . “

  "Sure,” Randy said, getting into his seat, as the man sat next to him. The man held out a hand. “Steve Daly."

  "Nice to meet you, Steve,” he said, giving his hand a quick shake. “Randy Jarvis."

  He settled in. Not a cop. Thank God, he wasn't a cop, and then he almost missed what the man said next.

  "Hell of a thing,” Steve said. “My truck broke down and you'd think the company would bail me out . . . but since my deliveries were done, it's, Steve ol’ boy, leave the truck there and find your own way back to Palmer, thank you very much."

  "You live in Palmer?"

  "Sure. The company has a distribution center outside of Manchester, so I can get to work early in the morning and back to nice little Palmer by late afternoon."

  Randy almost burst out laughing. He had never thought of Palmer as a nice little anything.

  Steve looked down at Randy's feet and quietly said, “Your bag . . . “

  "What about it?"

  "Can I look at it?"

  His heart started thumping again. “Um . . . why?"

  Steve said, “I saw something painted on the side. I mean, it's faded, but it looked like the logo of the Granite League. Am I right?"

  Randy felt the tightness in his chest increase. The dark brown leather was worn, but sure enough, there was enough of the old paint remaining. It showed the natural stone formation in the White Mountains that had collapsed a few years back—the Old Man of the Mountain, the official symbol of New Hampshire—and the words Granite League written in some old-fashioned English script.

  "Yeah, you're right,” he said. “The Granite League."

  Steve grinned. “That's cool. Were you on a team in the League back then?"

  Randy hesitated, looked at the friendly and inquiring face. He swallowed, looked back out the window as the driver boarded the bus to take them all where they belonged.

  "No, no, I wasn't,” he said.

  * * * *

  Randy Jarvis went behind the boardinghouse to a sagging wood structure that was once a barn, and retrieved his old black Schwinn bicycle. He backed the bike out and started riding along the side of the road, heading off to the town fields. A nice, clear, hot summer day, no chance of rain in the forecast, his pitcher's glove in the front wire basket. He rode hard, knowing he looked silly, a guy his age riding a bicycle. But ever since he had started out playing pickup games, joining the Little League, and then playing for the American Legion league, and the Palmer Mills team, he knew he had something special. He was a pretty fair hitter, but it was pitching that really counted for him, and so instead of spending money on a nice apartment or some used Ford or Buick, he saved his money for other things. Sports magazine subscriptions. Good gear like top-of-the-line gloves and spikes. And books on pitching and hitting.

  He rode through the familiar streets of Palmer, catching a whiff of the tannery plant, on the polluted Palmer river. The plant tanned cattle hides that eventually became shoes, purses, or automobile seats, and it was the biggest employer in town. You couldn't get away from the smell or the way the mill had its hands in everything—his sole job upon graduating from the regional high school was as a clerk in the shipping department—but he planned on getting away, and his left arm and glove were going to do it.

  For this was the last game of the summer for Palmer and the Granite League, and in the stands this fine Saturday morning was going to be a major league baseball scout, and if all went well—and why shouldn't it?—he would be plucked out of Palmer, sent off to a farm team for one of the major league clubs, and he would get the smell and the taste of Palmer forever out of him.

  He pedaled his bike faster.

  * * * *

  His fellow passenger wouldn't let it go. “Excuse me, I don't mean to pry . . . but it's been awhile since I've seen that logo. You see, I've always enjoyed reading about the minor-league teams that were in New England back then. Like the Granite League,
the Sunset League."

  Randy didn't take his gaze away from the window. “Granite League wasn't minor league."

  "Excuse me?"

  Despite all of it, Randy had to smile. This day, of all days, heading back to Palmer, he had to share a bus ride with a baseball nut, and not just any kind of baseball nut. A guy who thought he knew something about the Granite League and old-time baseball.

  Randy said, “Minor league . . . sort of means triple-A or double-A ball, a farm team connected with a major-league club. That wasn't the Granite League. It was just an amateur league. Baseball clubs rustled up from the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, small businesses and companies. That's all. Sometimes the companies kicked in the cost of uniforms and such—it was good advertising, back then—but mostly it was just guys who got together because they loved playing baseball. They didn't like the idea that if they were a certain age, they had to put away their bats and gloves. So that's what the Granite League was. Just a bunch of guys who loved playing baseball."

  His bus companion nodded. “Sure. There was an exhibit in the library a couple of years back about the Palmer Mill. There was a photo of one of the baseball teams, from the late nineteen forties. When did the mill stop fronting a team? Do you remember?"

  Randy shook his head. “No, I'm afraid I don't know anything about that."

  Then, as if a little light bulb had flashed over that young head with the big ears, the man said, “Hey . . . you must be from Palmer, am I right?"

  Hard to deny it, since he was planning to get off there and the nosy son-of-a-gun had spotted his bag, so he said, “Yeah, you're right."

  Steve said, “Going to see family? Friends?"

  Not for a moment, he thought. Not for a moment. “No, not really,” he said. “Just going back for a visit, that's all."

  Steve nodded. “Like a homecoming. Right?"

  Randy felt a little smile appear. “Sure. Like a homecoming."

  * * * *

  So on that Saturday in 1958, he rode his bicycle to the town playing field, situated near a stretch of the Palmer River. This part of the river was the cleanest in the state; it was only after it went through the mill that it became one of the dirtiest. He leaned his Schwinn up against an oak tree, ambled out to the field, trying to keep cool, trying to pretend it was just like any other day. His teammates were out there now, shagging flies and tossing the ball about, and he was pleasant enough to them, but in the deep dark secret part of him that he hated to visit, he knew that they were here for only one reason: to make him look good. He had talent with a capital T—he had yet to lose a game in the three years he had pitched for the mill team—and his teammates, while not particularly liking him, respected what he could do with that left arm of his. The same with the manager, a retired guy named Poulin, who thought he knew something about baseball but was mostly ignored by the players.

  One of the new guys—Johnson? Johansen? It was easy to forget—started warming him up, out in the lumpy, grassy outfield, tossing back and forth, back and forth, that thumping sound of the ball striking leather that he never quite got tired of, and the new guy said, “Big day today, eh?"

  "Maybe so,” Randy said. “Maybe so."

  The kid was about seventeen or eighteen, bright red hair and freckles, and he said shyly, “My mom and pop are in the stands. Told ‘em it was going to be a good day. Your folks here?"

  And Randy just curtly nodded and said, “Nope. C'mon, cut down on the chatter, okay? Gotta keep my mind on the game."

  Sure, he thought, as his chastened teammate kept up with the ball tossing. No folks. Dad had been a tailgunner on a B-17 that got blown out of the sky over Frankfurt in ‘44, and Mom, after Dad's death, had fallen in love with the bottle. He had been eight years old when the telegram had been delivered from the local cab company telling them Dad was gone, and he had been sixteen when Mom, soused something awful with Narragansett beer, had gotten into a Packard with some even more drunken lout at the annual mill picnic, and both of them had ended up in the Palmer River.

  That had been that, and Palmer . . . well, he knew he was going to leave this place, and leave it because of his left arm. And since Mom's death, he never let himself ever get drunk. Never. Drunks were sloppy and his whole life, leading up to this moment, was due to his never being sloppy.

  He turned for a moment, looked up to the stands. Where? . . . There. There she was. Sandy Grissom. Dressed in blue jeans and a sleeveless white blouse, long blond hair tied back in a ponytail, and she waved and he waved back. He had been dating her for about eight months now, she being the daughter of a mill manager named Frank Grissom, and a couple of nights ago, he had made a few promises to her, frenching out in the backseat of her dad's Oldsmobile.

  And one of those promises had been to take her with him when his time came.

  He waved at her, and then stopped waving, as an old man appeared in the stands, an old man who was a stranger to the town, an old man who suddenly had so much damn power over him.

  * * * *

  His young seatmate would just not shut up, and with every passing mile, Randy wondered if it was because of all those lonely hours driving a delivery truck; he had nobody to talk to and was making up for lost time.

  "Always loved baseball, as a kid and in high school, even college,” Sam said. “Wasn't much of a player in college, but you know . . . some of my best memories are from on the diamond. I keep track of the Red Sox and Yankees and Dodgers, but you know what I really like? I like working with the kids. That's what. Little League and Babe Ruth league. That's the best."

  And despite himself, Randy asked, “Why's that?"

  It was almost like his companion was embarrassed. “Well . . . it's the game. It's like the kids really get into it because it's a game. They're more innocent. Not cynical. Even with the Internet and iPods and video games, when they're on the field . . . it's like a time machine, you know? The kids are playing a game that's over a hundred years old, and still playing almost like it was played back then."

  Randy had to smile. “It's a game, all right. But I'm not sure how innocent it is. Or was."

  "Sure, I know, the steroids and all that—"

  "Oh, more than steroids. There's been cheating, there's been double-dealing . . . even guys like Ty Cobb, who sharpened his spikes to gouge the other ballplayers’ legs, that's all part of the history of baseball."

  "Sure, yeah, but I mean, back when the Granite League was playing, you know, that must have been a simpler time. Just a bunch of guys, wanting to get together for the love of the game. Real simple stuff. Right?"

  Randy kept his voice even. “You'd think so, wouldn't you."

  * * * *

  So the old man took his place in the stands—just three long planks of painted green wood on a metal frame, under some trees—and he had a small black notebook in his hands. He had on dusty black slacks, a white long-sleeved shirt rolled up to his elbows, and a faded blue porkpie hat. His face was red and he had a big nose, and he looked like any other old man, out here today to catch a game between Palmer Mill and American Legion Hall #42; but no, this old man was special.

  He was a scout, working freelance for the major leagues, checking out players with talent out there beyond the fringes of minor-league play. Name of Flaherty. Two weeks ago, he had stopped by Mrs. Willoughby's boarding house, not even bothering to come in. His visit had been short and to the point. The scout was on a swing through New England, looking at possible prospects to be signed for one of the farm teams—he wouldn't say which one—and he had spotted a write-up about one of Palmer Mill's games, where Randy had struck out eight and had allowed only one hit. He was planning on coming to a Palmer Mill game in two weeks. Randy was not to bother him in the stands. But if the scout saw something he liked, he'd come down and chat, and then, well, we'll see.

  So there.

  Randy knew he shouldn't stare, but he couldn't help it. That old man, up in the stands, had it all in that little notebook. He wondered fo
r a moment what it must be like to travel all these small roads connecting small towns, looking for bits of talent, like a prospector working through piles of mud and gravel, looking for that tiny bit of gold. Long hours of driving, bad food, nights in tiny motels with lumpy beds and thin walls. What a life. Must really like baseball to do that . . . but the payoff of discovering that new talent, that piece of gold, must make it all worthwhile.

  He rubbed at his baseball glove.

  He planned on being that piece of gold.

  A male voice, calling out to him from home plate, “Hey, Randy! Let's get ready to play some ball!"

  He turned, saw the umpire down at home plate. Tom Grissom, older brother of his girlfriend and a manager at the mill, was waving him over to the mound. Randy waved back and made the walk to the mound, feeling so light and happy that he might have gotten there in one jump.

  It was game time.

  * * * *

  His bus mate looked at him and said, “C'mon, tell me . . . you were in the Granite League, weren't you?"

  Randy kept silent.

  "Why else would you be carrying that bag? Or know about the league? You were there, weren't you?"

  Damn it, he thought, why had he carried the bag anyway? Might as well put a neon sign on his back, saying who he was, where he was going. What had been the point of that?

  But he knew the answer. The point was to . . . well, hell, to make a point.

  That's all it had been. Which was why the .38 revolver was nestled in there, right above his glove and uniform.

  "Yeah,” he finally admitted. “I was in the Granite League."

  He could sense the man's smile. “There, I knew it. Must have been something back then."

  Another pause, the droning of the bus's diesel engine seemingly settling right into the base of his skull. “Yeah, it was certainly something back then."

  * * * *

  Not a bad crowd for a Saturday morning, with millworkers from Palmer and American Legion guys sharing the bleachers, such as they were. The bleachers were shaded by a grove of oaks, and back among the trunks were coolers of beer and the faint burning smell of charcoal. It was a pretty low-key place, like most of the fields that were played in the Granite League, but the exception, of course, was that guy Flaherty, out there sitting by himself, notebook in his skinny lap.