The Legend of Mickey Tussler

by Nappi, Frank;

  With the moon bright on the outside window and slanted shadows that stretched across the concrete floor mocking his restlessness, Lefty sat on the edge of his rickety mattress, springs squealing plaintively each time he moved. His chin was in his hands and his elbows rested uncomfortably on his knees as he lamented the wicked twist his fortunes had taken. The last thing he recalled with any clarity was sitting at the Bucket, his sorrows soaking in a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Then Sheriff Rosco and his deputy had their hands all over him, and with barely a warning, he was facedown, kissing the dirty floor.

  “Let’s go hotshot,” Rosco mocked. “You’re needed in the pen.”

  They dragged him out, hands pinioned behind his back. It was humiliating. A star of his magnitude, being yanked away in front of scores of eyes, two of which he recognized immediately; eyes that did not want to look but could not turn away; eyes that were green in sunken cheeks. Laney’s eyes. They were eyes that held a story that needed to be told but could not be, a story of hurt and broken promises, one of regret and recrimination.

  Once at the station, Lefty sobered up and sulked, all of his indiscretions and their consequences resonating in his head like falling timber in a gloomy forest. A thrumming began in his chest as he digested Rosco’s biting words:

  “Seems like you’re in it up to your neck, Rogers.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Lefty replied. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “Is that right? Tell me more.”

  In the dankness of a tiny, malodorous holding cell, Lefty spoke freely, his focus narrow. He had always been a creature of the moment. A one-strike-at-a-time kind of guy. It was always all about him. He saw everything only in terms of how it impacted him, at that very point in time. His insufferable self-absorption had rendered him a victim of a kind of egomaniacal myopia, a deficiency that left him open to the predatory ways of others.

  “They came to me, told me they needed help getting Mickey out of the way. I told them to take a walk. Shit, he’s my teammate.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Sure, that’s all I know.”

  “And who’s they?”

  “Coach McNally, of the Rangers. And some other stuffed shirt. I think he is the owner.”

  The sheriff turned his head away, looking at nothing, thinking of nothing, save the course of the present interrogation. With one hand on his head, and the other awkwardly at his hip, he resumed his questioning.

  “And exactly why did they want him removed?”

  “Because he was winning. Why else? He was getting our squad all sorts of attention. The Rangers were second fiddle. You can see why they would want him gone, can’t you?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Rogers. That’s why I’m asking.”

  “Well, why aren’t they here? Why aren’t you asking them anything?”

  Rosco chewed on the butt of his unlit cigar. “I got nothing that says they were part of it. And the motive is thin. Lots of guys in the league play well. They’re never attacked. It ain’t like it’s open season on baseball players. Besides, there are no witnesses. No one saw what you have described. For all I know, you’re just blowing a whole lot of smoke.”

  “Look, I am telling you they are the ones who came to me! You got nothing on me.”

  Rosco had the sense to let him go for a while. He sat back in his chair, rolling his cigar in between his teeth, his left hand busy it seemed with repairs to his shirt. “Interesting,” he continued, fingering the tiny lint balls attached to his shirtsleeve. “I seem to have a different version of the story. I got me a teammate of yours who can link a certain young lady to you. And that young lady, while she defended you as best she could, hung you out to dry, my friend.”

  Lefty scoffed. “So what? It’s their word against mine. Right? Like you said, no witnesses. Who’s to say how it really happened?”

  Rosco, struck by the smugness of the statement, reached into a cardboard box resting by his feet. “Ever seen this before?”

  “Can’t say that I have. Looks like a regular baseball glove, but I ain’t never seen it before.”

  “We found it in your locker. Along with some other personal items. And, as luck would have it, they all belong to Mickey.”

  Lefty straightened up and pounded his fist on the table in front of him. “That’s impossible. I never seen any of that stuff before. Can’t you see what’s happening here? It’s a setup, I tell you. I had nothing to do with what happened to Mickey. You got the wrong guy here.”

  Lefty sat there resting, almost blank-minded, except for an involuntary picture of McNally that formed in his mind’s eye. He was slowly realizing that he had been played.

  “That’s rather curious, because a Miss Laney Juris, your girlfriend, seems to think otherwise.”

  “Girlfriend? This is bullshit. I’m being set up here. I don’t have a girlfriend.”

  Rosco laughed. “Well, not anymore I presume. I mean, shit, you can’t have a girl grab you by the onions and squeeze and still call her sweetheart. Right? Come on now. What kind of guy would you be? But then again, you wouldn’t care about that, now would you. Because you dumped her, right after you used her of course for your little plan. And, despite this twisted love she still has for you, she decided to get even.”

  Rosco placed his hand on Lefty’s shoulder and leaned in real close, so that he could smell the pitcher’s fear. “You were sloppy, Mr. Rogers. That was a mistake. A real mistake. Even a dope like you should be familiar with that old saying: ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’ Is all this sounding about right?”

  “She’s a lying bitch,” Lefty screamed. “Just some psycho boot licker that I poked once or twice. Now she won’t leave me alone. She made up this fantastic story ’cause she wants a piece of me, on account of me telling her to hit the bricks.”

  Rosco stood up, stretched his arms, rolled his shoulders, and let out a raucous yawn.

  “And I want to know which teammate of mine is in on this. It’s that self-righteous bastard Miller, isn’t it?”

  Rosco put his finger to his lips, then spoke deliberately. “What it looks like here to me, Mr. Rogers, is that this here country boy blew into town and became a thorn in your side. Was cramping your style. He stole your thunder. So you and your girl, this poor, desperate waif from the other side of the tracks, cooked up this plan to get rid of him, clearing the way for you to be the hero. Almost worked too, except someone remembered she was your girl. Then your head got a little too big for your cap, you dumped your little lady friend, and she blew the whistle. Case closed. Now you could be looking at some hard time for aggravated assault.”

  Lefty sagged. At fist, he refused to believe it was happening. It was not that he was a stranger to these harsh vicissitudes; he had had his share of misfortune of late—a sack of calamity he carried around with him wherever he went. But the dreamlike quality of the unfolding debacle was hard to grasp.

  He moved now across the dirty prison floor to the window, in the direction of the plaintive wailing of a stray dog and the discordant melody of night creatures that seemed to linger in the oppressive air. Then he sat again and slumped, thinking for a second that this is what it must feel like to drown in the ocean. The waves just continue to swell and keep coming, taller and faster, and although you manage to dive under a few, they continue to roll over you, beat you down, until you stare hypnotically at the last, knowing that it’s the final one, and coming bigger and stronger. But you don’t move, can’t move, because your spirit has been broken and you’re tired of fighting, and because some small part of you, deep inside your soul, is relieved, almost elated, that the struggle is finally over.

  THE RACE TIGHTENS

  The Brewers played their next game under a bright moon, a glowing candle set in the soft sky.

  Mickey was not available to pitch and wouldn’t be for another few days, but his presence was definitely felt. All around the ballpark, signs and banners expressing love for the unlikely he
ro who had captured the fans’ hearts rippled and waved in the cool night breeze. A restless energy had been excited by the likelihood of Mickey’s returning to pitch for the Brew Crew during the stretch run. Everything just seemed better. The balls were whiter and the grass a more vibrant shade of green; the dirt felt softer, the crack of the bat was louder, the players’ legs were lighter, and the air smelled sweeter. Even the hot dogs tasted better.

  The players all sat cross-legged before the game, watching from the dugout as the exuberance of both children and adults spilled out of the stands and rolled across the field. It was magical, like a small child who for the first time discovers the flight of a butterfly or the trail of light left behind a shooting star.

  “Would you just look at this place?” Pee Wee said, wide-eyed and breathless. “What a frenzy.”

  “That’s good old-fashioned electricity,” Finster said, swaying histrionically to the rhythmic cadence of the “Let’s go Brew Crew” chant. “Can you feel the energy?”

  “Amazing,” Danvers marveled. “Just amazing.”

  Under that bright moon, and a coal black sky dotted here and there with glinting diamonds, the Brewers took the field dreamily. Despite having only started three games before in his brief career, Rube Winkler got the ball. He was not the best choice for such a weighty assignment. His chewed fingernails and sweaty forehead were clear indicators of his nervousness. He was the first to arrive at the ballpark and the last to walk onto the field, fettered to the dugout rail by a fear of failure.

  “Come on now, Ruby,” Matheson cajoled at the behest of Murph. “This is your night. Nice and easy now. Steady as she goes. Remember—little strokes fell great oaks.”

  Both Murph and Matheson had to practically throw Winkler out of the dugout. It was ugly. But once his feet hit the turf, it was as if all the energy in that stadium rose up from the ground and shot through his legs and into his arms and spread to the rest of his body too. As quickly as it had come, his fear was gone and he strutted around the mound with a quiet intensity.

  With the raucous crowd shouting and clapping and stomping their feet, Winkler delivered the game’s first pitch. It was a jam job, a two-seam heater that sawed the Bison batter’s bat in two. The barrel went sailing down to Danvers at third, while the handle remained safely in the grip of the batter. He shook his hands as he walked back to the dugout, trying to drain the bee sting from his throbbing fingers. Then, with a new piece of lumber in hand, the Bisons’ table setter prepared for Winkler’s next delivery. This time, Winkler dropped a wicked yellow hammer right into the hitting zone, buckling the knees of the batter, who had been geared up for another fastball.

  Boxcar pounded his glove in approval. “Attaboy, Ruby!” he yelled from behind the dish. “Way ahead now. Be smart.”

  Mickey sat stoically on the bench between Murph and Matheson. All he would be on this day was an observer, safely ensconced between the Brewer brain trust.

  “Mickey sure would like to toss the ball around out there,” he said with partially suppressed excitement. “Sounds fun out there, like the summer carnival my ma always takes me to every July.”

  Matheson groaned, his mouth sliding slightly to the side while his feet dangled helplessly beneath the bench. “This ain’t no roadside cavalcade, young fella,” he admonished. “No, sir. This here’s Murph’s livelihood. His life’s blood. Ain’t nothing carnival about that. Enough kids’ stuff. You best heal yourself but fast and be ready to put your keister on the line when you’re called.”

  Matheson’s words ricocheted across the dugout and seemed to repeat themselves over and over to Murph, who sat with folded arms, his face still calm but his voice a pitch higher.

  “Relax, Farley,” Murph said, patting the old man’s knee. “It’s okay. He’s excited. He just wants to play.”

  Winkler was excited too. An irrepressible grin exposed the joy he was feeling over his early command. He worked quickly, eager to maintain his rhythm. Before each batter even had time to get set, Winkler was in midstride, his arm arched back like a stretched bow, his toe pointing in the direction of his next shot.

  He was cruising when the most feared of all the Bisons’ hitters strode to the plate. Winkler postured and adjusted his cap. His first impulse was to retreat rather than face the music. But he fought valiantly against the surging anxiety. He drew a breath into his lungs and wiped his hands across his chest, which was rumbling like a volcano. He looked as if he could blow at any second. But then, somehow, the gases settled and the ball came out of his hand effortlessly. It traveled toward the batter true and strong, although its trajectory deviated some from that intended. Boxcar, who had been set up on the outside corner, about an inch from the dish, reached back over the plate to snag the ball as it sliced through the hitting zone, dead center. He would close his glove just as the ball arrived, but before that, the batter unfurled his bat and tagged the cardinal sin right on the screws, sending a low drive up the middle. It was most certainly a clean single to center. But Pee Wee had been shading the batter that way and got a great jump on the ball. With just two quick steps, he closed the gap between himself and the ball to almost nothing.

  The velocity of the drive, however, was tough to gauge, and at the last second, realizing that he was going to come up a little short, the crafty shortstop lay out full, his body completely horizontal, and snared the ball on one hop just as it was going by. He sprang to his feet, cocked his arm, and fired a strike to Finster, nipping the runner on a bang-bang play at first. Winkler, realizing that Pee Wee had bailed him out, pumped his fist feverishly and pointed his finger at the shortstop in admiration. Then he retired the next two batters uneventfully.

  Pee Wee’s stellar play set the tone for the entire game. Every time one of them faltered, another was right there to pick him up. When both Danvers and Boxcar failed to knock in Pee Wee from third with less than two outs, Finster delivered a clutch two-out single that ignited a four-run inning. After Arky Fries made back-to-back errors in the top half of the fourth inning, creating a real jam for Winkler, the snakebitten pitcher reached back for a little something extra and fanned the next two batters to squelch the threat. Jimmy Llamas got into the act as well, turning in a circus catch at the base of the wall with the bags full of Bisons who had reached safely courtesy of a walk, a throwing miscue, and a hit batsman. The entire ballpark seemed to catch fire while watching Llamas fire his invisible sixshooters in the air as he jogged in toward the dugout. The scene that day was indeed magical; all logic and reason dissolved into brilliantly detailed fiction.

  The remarkable Brewer victory, coupled with a late-inning loss by the Rangers to the lowly Mud Hens, had Dennison dreaming of future glory.

  “You know, Arthur, I just may owe you a slight apology,” he began.

  “Why’s that?” Murph questioned.

  Dennison was seated behind his desk, hands folded neatly on a pile of old newspapers. “I believe that this farm boy of yours, the one I called a reclamation project some months ago, is some sort of a talisman. I hate to admit it, gosh darn it, but just the mere mention of his name and the whole yard becomes some sort of enchanted holy land, like something out of the Arabian Nights.”

  Moving soundlessly, he rose from his chair, walked to the window, and glanced out at the distant lights that glowed faintly in the thick night air like fireflies on a freshening breeze.

  “We picked up a whole game tonight, Arthur,” he continued, turning around to face Murph. “One full game. We’re only two behind with nine left. And the last one, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, is just what we want—head-to-head against that pompous ass Quinton and his little bitch McNally. This is good. This is real good.”

  Murph was quiet. It was difficult for him to be totally receptive to Dennison’s overture. The man was so erratic, so irascible, and too many things could go wrong in nine games that could spoil the premature celebration.

  “Listen, Warren, I appreciate the sentiment,” Murph began, “but
we are still looking at an uphill battle. We are still shorthanded here. Our pitching is a huge question mark. I really don’t want you to expect too much.”

  “Come on, Murphy, loosen up a little for Christ sakes. It ain’t so bad. Winkler tossed a gem tonight. And you still have Sanders and Hooper. And, let us not forget our ace in the hole, returned to us by the baseball gods, just in time.”

  “We may not have Mickey at all, Warren. I told you that.”

  “I’m not asking you for miracles, Arthur. That was already done for us when the doctor said Mickey could be ready for the stretch. No, I’m not asking for anything miraculous here. All I’m asking is for you to keep us close enough, in striking distance, until Mickey returns.”

  Looking at Dennison, Arthur saw on his face a curious expression of tranquil pride. He hated these proclamations of Dennison’s and stood there in hopeless agitation, his hands opening and closing below the frayed cuffs of his sweatshirt.

  “Well, we’ll do our best, certainly, but you’ve been around this game long enough to know that things happen, Warren. Bad hop. Dropped third strike. Blown call at home. Shit happens, and there’s no way of knowing or preventing it.”

  Dennison opened his eyes wider and stared at Murph. He smiled and gestured to the championship pictures on the walls all around as if to say, Can’t you just see us up there with the rest of them?

  “I will do my best, Warren. Really. I think we have a decent shot here. But no promises. I just can’t do that.”

  Dennison sat back down, tucking his feet as far back under his chair as they would go. Arthur saw the owner in a stark, uncompromising light just as he had always been—unwavering and impossible to please.

  “Just get us to that last game, with Mickey and a chance. Just a chance. That’s all I want.”

  Realizing the improbability of that scene, Murph restrained himself and smiled at Dennison, as if he were impervious to the incessant badgering. However, his mind was elsewhere—on a field somewhere, wondering what the next two weeks held for all of them.