The Ringer

by Bill Scheft

  No hard feelings. Piece of shit. Take it easy on one long ball, and Morales, that prick, was all over him. And with a racehorse reference, no less. Take him out back and shoot him. Fucking Morales was onto him. And Papa J with the “old man” bullshit. Whatever punishment lurked beneath his hamstring, whatever muscular come-uppance he was trying to stave off, was nothing compared to the pain of someone being onto him. Thirty-five years old. Playing fifteen games a week when guys ten years younger played seven, eight tops. Fifteen games a week, sixteen if he got up early enough on Saturday to bag an extra forty dollars in Felipe’s nine A.M. pick-up game on Ninety-sixth Street. Forty dollars. That would make $890 for the week. $890 for running around. $890 for not stopping.

  Halfway down to first on that sure home run. That’s when he felt the heat again. On the back of the wheels. He just slowed, seamlessly, and eased, loped into second. Like that was the idea all along. Like he didn’t want to rub it in to Jimmy or Timmy. The two runners were coming home. Nobody was paying attention to College Boy. Nobody was onto him. Except Morales. And that was enough.

  Everybody got paid in Riis Park on Sunday. The official name of the league was Brooklyn Major Fast-Pitch. But everyone called it what it was. Riis Park Ringers.

  All ringers. All there. All waiting for College Boy to get to a place from which he couldn’t stretch himself free. All onto him. And his wheels. Still June. Still three months left on the ringer calendar. And College Boy needed a bunch of rainouts to get right. A bunch.

  T. J.’s Tavern won, 9–2. No, 10–2. No, 10–3. Right, 10–3. And they beat Sam’s. No, Sal’s. No, Barney’s. Some bar. Some bar with red shirts. Red’s. Red’s Cadillac Grille.

  Pretty good. The game had ended over five minutes ago and College Boy still remembered who he had played against. Shit, thirteen leagues a week, the victory was to go a whole game without looking at his shirt to remember who he was playing for. Fifteen games a week and still only June, he barely knew the names of half his two hundred teammates. It would be the first of August before he stopped calling every other player “Big Guy.” College Boy knew a little about women, okay nothing, but he knew one thing about men. Men loved to be called “Big Guy.” Every guy. Gay guys absolutely loved it. Call a fag “Big Guy” and you’ve given him permission to do one of three things: talk about his dick; do his “butch” impression; or grab another fag and say, “Guess what he just called me?”

  Some leagues were easy to remember. The Press League (Wed., one o’clock) had the same six teams every year. Although, there was an embarrassing moment in 1987, when College Boy ran out to center field with the New York Times team for the league opener against the Associated Press and then ran back in when he realized he was playing center field for the AP. And had been for two years. The same thing had happened in the Broadway Show League (Thurs., noon), but that was understandable. Les Misérables vs. Ain’t Misbehavin’? It’s too close, even after remembering to look at the front of the uniform jersey. College Boy hadn’t, but he recovered and got a big laugh when he ran in from the outfield and yelled, “Sorry I’m late. I went to the wrong theater.”

  There were things, other lines, that College Boy wanted to say all the time on the field. Funny stuff. But he couldn’t. Every time some self-important actor in the Performing Arts or Show Business League went down on a called strike, College Boy was dying to yell, like some casting director, “Thank you!” But he couldn’t. Or when a fat guy, any fat guy, came up and he was all set to cry out “Throw him a salad.” But he couldn’t. One time, the shortstop for Cats bobbled three ground balls in a row and College Boy was this close to saying, “It’s Cats. He’ll play with the ball for an hour, till he gets bored.” But he didn’t. He couldn’t. College Boy was paid to do a lot of things on a softball field, and after hitting and fielding, number three on the list was not to ridicule the 95 percent who weren’t being paid. And number four was to take whatever shit The Unpaid gave him for being a ringer, just a ringer. Whatever shit. Even if it wasn’t funny. And other than, “I just went through your bag. The card section’s a little weak,” it never was.

  On the other hand, ringers could give shit to other ringers. A couple of T. J.’s Tavern players were busy tossing their empties in the Dumpster behind the backstop. They let the metal top close with a sickly clang.

  “Hey, Julio,” said College Boy seconds into the reverb, “you dropped your glove.”

  College Boy and Papa J were making their way to Papa J’s car, a 1973 Chrysler New Yorker working on its fourth odometer cycle, sixth paint job, and third interior carpeting. The kind of car you only got into blindfolded and at gunpoint. Or if you really need a ride back to Manhattan. College Boy dropped Bagzilla while Papa J began jiggling the passenger side door handle. Thank God it had been a short walk.

  “New paint job, Papa J?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What would you call this color? Lime?”

  “No, bro. Mint Julep.”

  “And I see you removed the sign.”

  “What sign?”

  “The ‘Grand Marshall: Puerto Rican Day Parade’ sign.”

  “Don’t be doing that ‘Chico and the Man’ shit in my face.”

  “Sorry.”

  Papa J opened the door and College Boy began shoving Bagzilla into the back shag. “Thank you. I know how you old people hate to apologize.”

  “Fuck you,” said College Boy.

  “That’s better.”

  He would have loved another twenty minutes to stretch in the parking lot. But that would have prompted at least three more oldman cracks from Papa J. And maybe another asshole remark from Morales if he saw him on his way out. He didn’t need that. What he needed was a week of rainouts.

  He paid the toll for Papa J at the Verrazano Bridge. He’d bring the Valium tomorrow night, when they played in Bayside. College Boy for the Tom-Inators. Papa J for Rincon Bail Bonds.

  “Fucking Morales,” said College Boy.

  “You let that guy get to you? Viente dolares. That’s what he gets a game. I know. He’s just a mouth. Calls me ‘Whitey Lover.’ Keep calling me ‘Whitey Lover,’ you twenty dollar cunio. Nobody listens to him.”

  “Did you hear anything about rain tomorrow?”

  “No way. I ain’t waiting till Thursday for that Valium, Freddy.”

  5

  (Ring)

  (Ring)

  (Ring)

  (Ring—click) “How ya’ doin?…Good…” (click—BEEP!)

  “Hello? Hello? I hate this message. You know I hate this message. How do you expect people to leave you messages when they feel like—”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Oh, you scared me. Why do you wait?”

  “Sorry. I was on the john.”

  “I hate that message.”

  “I know.”

  “What if you get an important call?”

  “I don’t get any important calls.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since the last time you called, Mom.”

  “Don’t try and be charming.”

  “Okay…how’s this, better?” Dottie Sussman laughed, as she always ended up doing on the phone with her son.

  “Harvey—” Her son, Harvey Sussman. College Boy.

  “Mom—”

  “It’s Mort.”

  “Mom, I know. I had dinner with him two weeks ago Sunday, before he went out to L.A., and I haven’t called him back to reschedule. I just forgot and I’m the worst person in—”

  “He’s in the hospital.”

  “Now I’m the worst person in the world.”

  “Hey, Job…” College Boy thought about singing “Where you goin’ with that gun in yo’ hand?” but he knew she wouldn’t get it. And he’d be upstaging her hip reference. So, he just said what he usually said when he interrupted.

  “Sorry.”

  “He’s in Mount Sinai.”

  “How long’s he been there?”

  “Since last Monday.”


  “Three days?”

  “No, I mean the Monday before that.”

  “He’s been in the hospital nine days! Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I only found out last Thursday.”

  “Why didn’t you call me then?”

  “First, I didn’t want to bother you until I knew something.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “Nothing. I thought you’d tell me.”

  “Why would I know?”

  “Because he kept telling me I’d get a full report from you.”

  “Who?”

  “Mort.”

  “I haven’t seen him.”

  “I know that now. But I thought you had. He’s delirious, and he kept telling me you’d been stopping by.”

  “Didn’t the doctor tell you he was delirious?”

  “Yes, of course. But I didn’t believe he was being delirious about seeing you. He sounded normal. Then, when I didn’t hear from you for a few days, because you always call, I figured maybe he hadn’t seen you.”

  “Well, he hasn’t.”

  “I figured that out after he said to me, ‘Do me a favor and put Dottie Sussman on the phone.’ And I said, ‘Mort, it’s me. Dottie.’ He did that like three times in one call and then I figured maybe he was a little crackers about being in touch with you.”

  “How did you find out he was in Mount Sinai?”

  “I called his cleaning woman. She took him in Monday. I said, Helga—”

  “Sheila.”

  “Right, Helga was the mother. So, I said, ‘Sheila, how come you didn’t call me to tell me he’d gone in?’ She said, ‘I thought your son would have told you.’ And that’s when I waited to hear from you.”

  “When do you want me to see him?”

  “Well, today.”

  “Mom, what time is it?”

  “Eleven.” Wednesday. Press League at one, Bayside Elite Fast-Pitch at seven. Stretching in between.

  “Is it raining where you are?”

  “What?”

  “I can see him around nine tonight.”

  “No sooner?”

  “I can’t. I’ve got an audition at one, then a thing at four, then I gotta meet this guy at seven.”

  “You can’t change the seven appointment?”

  “It’s a big guy, Mom.”

  “Who?”

  “You wouldn’t know him.”

  “What’s the audition for?”

  “I don’t know. Some product.” Dottie Sussman didn’t bother to pursue it. For fourteen years, it had always been “a thing” or “this guy” or “some product.” It was like having a conversation with a drug dealer. Not that she knew any drug dealers, but if Dottie Sussman ever called a drug dealer and asked him what he was doing that day, after five seconds she would think, “This is like having a conversation with my son. Except my son doesn’t sniff as much.”

  “Well, make sure you give me this many details after you see your uncle.”

  “Do you know what’s wrong with him?”

  “It’s his prostate.”

  “I bet he left it at the hotel in L. A.”

  “He almost died.”

  “Sorry…. Have, have they operated?”

  “Not yet. He’s still delirious. They think it’s probably the withdrawal from Valium.”

  “And alcohol.”

  “The doctor just said Valium.”

  “Mom, it’s Mort.”

  “I’m more than a little worried about him. You know, he hasn’t worked in almost two years.”

  “That’s not true. He goes into the office every day. I called him there like three weeks ago.”

  “Well, he took retirement from the magazine at the end of 1989.”

  “Really? When did you find out about this?”

  “Last Thursday. That’s the other thing. When I talked to his doctor, Banks, he asked me to call Civilized Man and find out about the status of his insurance. That’s when they told me he took retirement. I guess he had a fight with his editor—”

  “About the piece on placekickers.”

  “Right. Well, I guess the editor—”

  “Liebenthal.”

  “Right, that fascist. Well, he told Mort he had to retire. Luckily, he was there long enough to keep full medical benefits. They’ve been waiting for him to clean out his office, but he keeps going in, saying he has to take care of a couple of things and never starts to pack his stuff up. This has been going on for a year and a half. The receptionist told me.”

  “Marion?”

  “She told me about the medical benefits. Sheila told me about the fight with Liebenthal. He needs to get out of there.”

  “The hospital?”

  “New York. I don’t think he can stay in New York by himself anymore,” she began. “He’s seventy-five years old with no job, no family, no friends, and poor health.”

  “What about Alistair Cooke?”

  “You think Alistair Cooke gives a shit about him? He calls Mort at the last minute when his plans for the evening fall through. I don’t know what he does all day and I don’t know what there’s left in New York for him. And he certainly isn’t getting any help from his shrink.”

  “Dr. Levitz?”

  “That bum. I’d like to get my hands on that guy.”

  “Me too. I could use some Valium.”

  “I think he’s got to stop kidding himself,” she began again. “I think we’ve all got to stop kidding ourselves.”

  “You mean about Mort.”

  “Yes.”

  “Because I think the kidding ourselves thing in general has been going quite well for us for a lot of years.”

  “Did I tell you what a big help you’re being?”

  “Sorry.”

  “He needs to get out of there, come here where he can be closer to the rest of his family. I’m not saying we throw him in a home. I can find him some places to look at up here, but I don’t think he’s even thought about moving.”

  “He hasn’t thought about moving out of his office.”

  “I don’t want you to have to take care of him, but I do need you to get this in motion. Talk to him, find out what he needs to do to close up things and get himself out of there. I mean, if we work quickly, we could have him here and set up by the end of the summer. Get him out of that shitbox of an apartment and into a decent-size place with a bit of a yard and some trees.”

  “I don’t think his apartment is a shitbox.”

  “Well, maybe he’ll let you have it.” College Boy felt himself begin to cheer, then stopped like he was checking his swing. “I just think we need to move fast. I have a feeling if he fully recuperates in New York after his operation we’ll never be able to get him out of there. You’ll have to straighten things out with his accountant, his lawyer, that bum Levitz, his other doctor—”

  “Whoa, Mom. What time is it?”

  “Quarter after.” Five minutes before he resumed being College Boy.

  “I’m a little under the gun here. I think we’re getting way ahead of ourselves. We don’t know what happened. We don’t know what’s going to happen. Nobody has really talked to Mort face to face. There may be no operation. He may not want to leave New York. He may have plans of his own. I’ll go there tonight and speak with him, but right now, I’ve got like four minutes to call Mort and tell him I’m coming. I’ll call you back after I see him.”

  “Okay, dear. His number at Mount Sinai is (212), well, you know that, how silly. I always do that. I completely forget you live in—”

  “Mom—”

  “JL5-6147.”

  “—6147. Thanks.”

  “Good luck on your audition.”

  “What? Oh, right. Good-bye, Mom.”

  “Good-bye, dear.”

  (beep-beep-beep, beep-beep beep-beep)

  “Hello?”

  “Mort?”

  “This is your sister Dottie’s kid.”

  “Am I glad you called.”

  “Reall
y? How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Fine, now that I’m back here.”

  “Where were you?”

  “I was abducted last night. This large black woman and two men. They held a knife to my prick and took me naked down to the subway. And this was very clever. They took all my money, and invested it.”

  “Mort, I’m going to come see you tonight. Around nine.”

  “Good. We’ll watch Johnny Carson together. You know, he’s been talking about me. Every night this week. Where have you been?”

  “I was out.”

  “So was I. I was down in the subway. Did I tell you about that?”

  “You did.”

  “I wonder if Carson will say anything about it.”

  “He usually mentions the big items in the news.”

  “Oh, I think they’ve hushed this up pretty good. They’re very clever. But then again, you seemed to know all about it.”

  “So, I’ll be by around nine to see you tonight.”

  “—”

  “Mort?”

  “—”

  “Uncle Mort?”

  “You’re looking awfully well today.”

  “Did somebody just come in?”

  “Not that I know of. But I am expecting my nephew.”

  “Well then, I won’t keep you.”

  “Well, good-bye then.”

  College Boy heard the sound of a phone receiver bouncing on the floor.

  He’d have to take a cab.

  6

  “You know, they just released the official figures. Forty-six Americans were killed during the Gulf War. Forty-six. That’s not a war. That’s Labor Day weekend on the New Jersey Turnpike….

  (“Ah-hah HAH, clap clap clap, ah hah-hah ha ha”)

  “I was thinking about this. I was watching a tape of the Today Show. I can’t watch it live because I’m doing this program, this piece of phlegm which we hock up every morning. You know, long moments of awkward silence interspersed with chunks of lame comedy that make you pine for the moments of awkward silence….

  (“ha-HAH!”)

  “And sycophantic laughter…

  (“Ah-HAH-HAH-HAH!”)

  “By the way, it’s Friday, and as you know, on Fridays we have 50 percent more sycophantic laughter. You remember that song from the ’40s: ‘Sycophantic laughter, ba-da, ba-da-da…’