The Legend of Mickey Tussler

by Nappi, Frank;

  Practice was earlier than usual the next day. Unable to sleep the night before, Lefty was the first to arrive. He came in quietly, went straight to his locker, and noticed with some alarm that someone had been there before him. His spikes had been moved, and something odd was sticking out from the slats in the top of the locker.

  The cryptic note, a soiled cocktail napkin smeared with several ink blotches that had bled together unceremoniously, was barely legible. The pitcher removed his cap and scratched the top of his head while deciphering the message.

  Meet me at The Bucket. Back room.

  10:00 pm. Don’t be late.

  C.M.

  He read deliberately, lost in the mystery of the strange request. What could it mean? Whom was it from? He thought a lot about the past few weeks—how he was outside himself, a stranger drifting helplessly through what had formally been a pretty good life. Now he was afflicted with this strange antagonism, his taste for life vanquished by the arrival of Mickey. He thought some more and was certain that he was about to make some sense of it all, when all at once he felt a flowering uneasiness that came in the form of voices from around the corner. It was Murph, and maybe Boxcar and Woody. He folded the note away, conscious somehow that discretion was in order.

  At approximately three minutes before ten, Lefty pushed open the back door of the local watering hole, frequented most often by a few of the more downtrodden locals, and was greeted almost instantly by a stagnant odor, aggressive puffs of musty air laced with whiskey and cigar smoke. He stepped inside, his feet moving gingerly across the tacky floor, and saw nothing at all. The only light came from a single brass lamp with marble-swirl glass, which illuminated little more than the mahogany, bow-fronted table on which it sat.

  As he moved cautiously toward the light, he finally saw him, standing in the farthest corner, his back to the center of the black room, hunched slightly, and bathed in lurid reflections.

  “Come in George” came a voice from the shadows. “Can I call you George, or do you prefer Lefty?”

  “Coach McNally?” the anxious pitcher asked. “Is that you?”

  There was no immediate response. Lefty strained his eyes and his mouth grew set, a thin, severe line. He shook himself as though to free the seizing darkness, trying to rid himself of the specter of impending danger that shrouded his brain.

  “Yes, why, yes, it’s me,” McNally finally replied, turning ever so slightly in Lefty’s direction. A splash of light threw itself across a face awash with calamity. “How are things Lefty? Team’s doing good, huh?”

  “Yeah. We’re doing okay.”

  “Okay?” McNally snapped. “Okay? I’d say you’re doing better than okay. Christ, eight wins in your last ten games? That’s downright impressive.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  McNally shifted his shoulders and moved to the center of the room, and with the lamp now directly at his back, Lefty viewed him in silhouette.

  “Tell me, Lefty,” he continued purposefully. “For a guy on the hottest team around, you sure don’t seem all that happy now.” He paused, as if hatching something else of great importance, then picked at his two front teeth with the end of the penknife he pulled from his trousers. “I wonder about that.”

  “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

  “It’s okay now, boy. You don’t have to mince words with me. I know what it’s like to be underappreciated. To take a backseat to some two-bit hayseed when it’s you who ought to be doing the driving yourself. You follow?”

  Lefty sighed. His face grayed with anger and resentment. It was as if the coach had located the bruise on his forearm and was stepping on it with all his weight.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lefty insisted. “I ain’t got no problem with Mickey.”

  “Listen, boy.” McNally placed his damp hand on Lefty’s shoulder. “It’s only natural. Who could blame you? You’re a stud. Probably the top prospect in the whole goddamned league. Shit, I know if you was wearing my uniform, you wouldn’t be playing second fiddle to some fucking circus retard. That’s for shit sure.”

  Behind one of the threadbare walls, a man’s muffled laugh was suddenly muted by footsteps. Lefty’s gaze slid around the room. His stomach protested and he could feel his saliva bubbling, hot and acidic, at the back of his throat.

  “Look, Mr. McNally, if it’s all the same, I’d like to get going. Do you want to tell me what it is you want from me? Why did you ask me here?”

  McNally threw his head back and laughed. In his diabolical cynicism lay the difference between men like him and most others.

  “It appears to me, Lefty, that you and I have a similar problem. Life doesn’t always give you what you want—or deserve. But there are always options. You know, ways of helping your cause along, so to speak. This Mickey poses a very large problem for the both of us. So, I was thinking that, uh, I don’t know, that maybe we could do just that—take charge of our destinies—and in the process, help each other too.”

  McNally snickered and rolled his arms in bitter mockery. Lefty winced at the prospect attached to McNally’s declaration. He had not expected anything like that. But somehow, it sounded a whole lot better than what Murph had been saying to him lately. He steadied, considered, and decided.

  “Okay,” he finally said, folding his arms while resting his bottom on the corner of the table. “What did you have in mind?”

  JULY

  Molly caught her reflection, a distorted image cast unexpectedly in the soapy water of a washbasin. She stopped scrubbing, as if startled by a stranger, brought her wrinkled fingers to her face, and touched deliberately, trying to substantiate what her eyes had just revealed. Her skin, damp with an early evening humidity, seemed to wither beneath her touch, a gradual fading that alarmed her as never before. She dropped her head and wept openly.

  Her heart felt as though it were precariously resting between two stone walls drawing closer and closer, inches away from pressing together. She had survived all these years by not focusing on the vast parameters of the world at large but on what was immediately around her. It usually worked. She could lose herself in the mixing of animal feed or the husking of corn. She knew just how to wash a cow’s udder—a warm cloth and gentle strokes—so as not to alarm the animal prior to milking. She could even spend a whole afternoon bottle-feeding the lambs. But occasionally, this vapid existence preyed upon her more tender sensibilities, awakened now and again by glimpses of what could have been, and she cried out in painful protest for the life she really desired but had yet to cultivate.

  Over fading heartbeats, she heard Clarence’s voice, cold and vituperative. “Molly!” he bellowed from inside the barn. “I can’t find my goddamned penknife.” His voice scraped at her soul and pressed those walls even closer, suffocating what little breath she managed to hold. Where were the moments she’d read about in all those tantalizing romance novels? The horseback rides and careless walks through wildflower meadows? The taste of strawberry ice cream cones while swaying gently on a porch swing? Or the sound of violins or clarinets floating on a cool summer breeze?

  Life just seemed to make its pattern around her. She cooked and cleaned, and on most days, like today, she washed. She made all of Clarence’s meals, ordered his socks and underwear, and watched dutifully from the kitchen window each evening for when he was finished in the field, then prepared his pipe so that he could smoke while listening to the radio. Then night would arrive outside their window, with its pinching air and silent darkness, and she would prepare to retire next to him, holding only a gas lamp to light their way and stabbing thoughts of yet another day’s drudgery.

  There was, however, on occasion, some conversation. Not the exchange of pithy observations she’d prefer, but it passed the time. She always marveled at how her depth of feeling and emotion could coexist with his absence of imagination. It became a game of sorts to her—retaining her sensitivity and passion while navigating the stagnant waters o
f their relationship.

  “Say, Molly, have ya had a look-see at Oscar lately?” Clarence asked, picking his teeth with the tip of a rusty piece of chicken wire. “Moping around, like he’s done lost his best friend. I swear to Christ, if I didn’t know no better, I’d get to thinking that little porker sort of misses that boy.”He laughed sardonically as he packed up the feed pails for the day.

  “We all miss him, Clarence,” Molly replied. “Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?”

  Clarence chewed the inside of his cheek and said nothing. Molly frowned. She could smell his sweat. She saw herself being watched by him—with those dark, ulcerous eyes—and shuddered at the realization that there was no longer a visible beginning or end to how they were tangled together. Her spirit sagged with a palpable heaviness. But she refused to vanish, to disappear beneath its uncompromising weight. She took a deep breath and composed herself.

  “You know, Clarence, now that you brought it up, don’t you think it’s about time we went and visited the boy? Mr. Murphy says he’s doing real fine.”

  The sun, in its steady descent, caught the broken clouds. The day’s light dimmed on Clarence, but not enough to mask the bilious imp that had suddenly seized his soul.

  “Hush up your mouth, woman!” he chided, making a deft motion as if to backhand her. “Do ya hear me? Are you plum out of yer cotton-picking mind? Wanting to go all the way to Milwaukee, or wherever it is, just to watch some good-fer-nothing game? Shit, you must be stupider than that retard of yours.”

  “Clarence, I just—”

  “Clarence nothing, goddamn you!” he ranted. He picked up a plate and fired it through one of the kitchen windows.

  “You shut your trap, little Miss Molly, ya hear? I’ve had enough of this foolishness. So help me, if it don’t stop, I swear to the Almighty you’ll feel me.”

  Molly felt, listening to his harangue, a pain and desperation so deep that she could scarcely fathom how a person could feel it and still remain a part of this world. But there she was, still making her way. Surviving. She was certain, however, that this resiliency would one day fail and the pain would kill her. She’d end up dying right here, in this shithole, right next to the man she abhorred.

  “And another thing,” he screamed, slamming the end of a tarnished flail in between the slanting boards of the kitchen floor. “If all this Mr. Murphy talk continues to be something, I reckon I’ll have to learn you proper. And then once I’ve done that, I will just git rid of the problem altogether—like you know I can, Molly, same way I got rid of that fox in the henhouse.” He raised his hand again. Molly winced and curled her toes in fear. “Am I understood, little Miss Molly?”

  Mickey was also struggling. He missed Molly and would have loved to have seen her. He did okay on most days, but still found himself thinking of her a lot. Being with Pee Wee helped a little. As the early season spilled into summer, the two of them began spending a good amount of time together, mostly at Lucy’s, the local diner just minutes from the ballpark.

  The place smelled like animal fat and cigarette smoke and was sort of dark, with only errant light slipping through the turbid glass squares that ran asymmetrically along the front of the tiny structure—errant light that once inside fell oddly on the few seated figures, casting each in ghostly shadow. The two of them sat facing each other across the gray Formica tabletop, exchanging bits of information between mouthfuls of cheeseburgers and apple pie.

  “You have much family back home, Mick?” Pee Wee asked. “You know, brothers and sisters?”

  “Nope. Mickey just got a ma and Oscar, my pig.” He paused deliberately, as if weighing something of great importance, while moving some potatoes around on his plate. “And I got a pa. I got a pa.”

  “I don’t have one of those. I mean a pa.”

  Mickey’s hands worked nervously, moving the food on his plate around in small, tight circles. “What about a pig? Do you got a pig, Pee Wee?” Mickey asked, looking up from his plate.

  “Ain’t too many pigs in Chicago. But we had a kitten once, my sister and I, but he ran away. Broke her heart, poor kid. His name was Ziggy.”

  They sat there traveling for a moment through early recollections. They were suddenly nostalgic and maudlin as each pushed back the imaginary walls of time.

  “Did your daddy teach you to play ball?” Pee Wee asked. “You know—catch and all that? That’s how I always picture me with my dad—if things had been different.”

  “Naw, my daddy don’t know nothing about that sort of thing.”

  “You guys close? I mean, do ya do other things, like hunting or fishing?”

  Mickey’s posture and voice were full of resignation. “Nope. Nothing like that.”

  Pee Wee moved in closer. He was near enough now to see some of the scars on Mickey’s face. “Well, then, besides work, what is it that you all do on that farm of yours?”

  “Nothing. We don’t do nothing. Mickey’s always stirring up trouble. It makes my pa holler a lot. He gets real sore.”

  “Well, that don’t seem right now, does it? Don’t it bother you? You know, all the yelling?”

  “It’s okay. It’s okay. Mickey’s used to it.”

  Pee Wee felt a pressing need to turn the conversation elsewhere. He crossed his arms tightly and sighed. “Are you having a good time with the fellas and all, Mick? I mean, I know that some of the guys are giving you the business and whatnot.”

  Mickey’s eyes wandered to a poster tacked up sloppily on a bulletin board behind the counter. It looked as though he were measuring it with his eyes.

  “That’s Rosie the Riveter,” Pee Wee explained. “She’s sort of an icon. You know, from the war and all. It’s no big deal. Her face has been around for years. I guess you’ve never seen her before. Christ, the way you’re staring at it, you’d think it was a Picasso or something.”

  “She looks like my ma. The handkerchief in her hair. That’s just like my ma. When she scrubs the floor.”

  “I guess you miss her and all, especially when the fellas get on you the way they do.”

  “Mickey’s having an okay time, Pee Wee. Okay. It’s okay I guess.”

  “You know, Mick, you can help yourself sometimes. Like when they ask you questions and then laugh at your answers. They do that stuff on purpose. You don’t have to answer them. Just lie—make up a story to shut them up.”

  “Mickey don’t make up stories, Pee Wee. On account of there’s so many to choose from.”

  “What does that have to do with anything? Just pick one. Any one. Don’t give them what they want.”

  Mickey brought his palms to the sides of his face and held them there, as if steadying the surging thoughts inside his head. “Let’s say someone asks me what I ate here at Lucy’s. Mickey had a hamburger. That’s what I would say. But supposing I don’t want to say that, ’cause the guys will laugh, and I want to say sweet-potato pie instead. But I can’t say sweet-potato pie because before I can get the words out, I would want to say bacon and eggs, or meat loaf, or macaroni and cheese. Or maybe I’d just start naming sweet things, like chocolate pudding or sugar cookies. I don’t know. Things get all bunched up sometimes. So you see, Mickey don’t tell stories. It hurts my head. It’s just easier to say hamburger.”

  With this glimpse into the workings of the boy’s mind, Pee Wee smiled, because he now felt a little closer to Mickey than before. “Well, I have to say, that no matter what anyone says or does, including you, Mick, we’re all mighty glad you’re here. All of us. Cripe, since you got here, the team’s been playing better than I’ve ever seen.”

  Outside, it was humid and all at once dark. Claps of thunder alternated with flashes of lightning. Then the rain came hard. Pee Wee and Mickey watched, through the cloudy window, as some of the locals scampered frantically through puddles that were already ankle deep. Pee Wee chuckled. Mickey dipped his finger in some ketchup and brought it to his lips. He opened his mouth, let his finger slide inside, and sucked it clean. His gaze was fixe
d off in the distance. The weathered wood fence that edged the road just outside conjured more images of the farm back home. He had begun to feel pangs of loneliness, a sort of bottomless anxiety, when a clanging of pots and pans from the kitchen jolted him from his thoughts.

  “So if it weren’t your daddy who taught you, where’d you learn to pitch like that, Mick?” Pee Wee asked. “Sure is the most goddarned thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “I don’t reckon I ever did. Too busy with the farm.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Why, it were Mr. Murphy showed me how to pitch. Shoot, I ain’t never even seen a baseball until Mr. Murphy put one in my hand.”

  Pee Wee paused, rolled his two fists in his eyes, then asked with sudden resolution, “Are you trying to tell me that you never pitched before? Or even played baseball?”

  Mickey nodded.

  “Nothing? Not even a catch or a pickup game?”

  “Nope. Most I ever done was throw some crab apples into a wine barrel for Oscar’s slop.”

  Pee Wee smiled and let his forehead fall quickly into his open palm. “This is too much. Here we are going out on a six-game road trip, fighting for first place, and our star pitcher is some hayseed who got his training from a pig.”

  A look of sudden amusement passed between them. Mickey abandoned his pursuit of a trapped fly that was frenetically bouncing against the window and smiled. They sat a little longer, each piecing together the difference between the polluted past and the near future burgeoning with opportunity.

  The road trip began against the Mudcats. The stands were packed. At the ballpark, with the smell of cowhide and freshly cut grass in your nose and the taste of hot dogs dancing on your tongue, your vision of the world adjusted, narrowing to a snapshot of life as it should be—ordered, playful, and limitless in possibility. Each enchanted game shows you the glory and breathless exhilaration that lies somewhere out there, just within your grasp, there for the taking should you ever decide to finally reach.