The Mascot

by Drew Banton



  The Mascot

  by

  Drew Banton

  The Industrial Strength Press

  ©Copyright 2015 Drew Banton

  All Rights reserved

  Also by Drew Banton:

  A Dangerous Job

  The Gurry Room (novella)

  The Jack (short story)

  e-mail: industrialstrengthpr@gmail.com

  Web: https://dbanton77.wix.com/industrialstrengthpr#

  Blog: https://theindustrialstrengthpress.wordpress.com/

  Authors Note: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental.

  Screech, screech, crunch, clatter. Screech, screech, crunch, clatter.

  Mary Beth was excited as she ran to the front window. Something good was happening in the neighborhood, something she could watch safely from inside. Grownups were doing bad things. This was a high form of entertainment as long as it happened at a safe distance.

  Katherine, her mother, was hurrying to the front of the apartment right behind the small girl but with a sense of dread. She had a pretty good idea who was responsible for the noise. But she couldn’t figure out what he was doing to cause it.

  The daughter, kneeling on a chair to peer over the sill, had the curtain parted. The mother leaned over her to see out, her hand resting on the child’s shoulder. A large car, pale under the blue streetlight, was moving backwards rapidly along the curb in front of the house.

  Screech. It stopped abruptly. Screech again as tires spun, then gripped, lurching the car forward until it smashed into her father’s old station wagon, nose to nose. Crunch. Pieces of car fell into the street. Clatter. Screech. The pale car backed up once more to repeat the process.

  “What the hell is going on?” Katherine’s mother Meg was leaning against her trying to get a better view. “Ohmygod. That lunatic! I’ll kill him with my own hands!”

  “Ma.” Katherine paused to make sure she could control her voice. She had resolved not to cry so often in front of Mary Beth. “Ma, go call the cops. Would you go call, ma, please?”

  “I hope they shoot him. I would myself if I had a gun.” She tossed this last over her shoulder as she left towards the rear of the house where the telephone resided.

  “Shoot who, mommy?”

  “Your father, but she doesn’t mean it. I told you how people sometimes say things they don’t mean when they’re angry, remember?”

  “Yeah, but why is she angry?”

  The pale car was silent at last. Vapor clouds rose from the front of the car like the breath of an exhausted animal on a cold night. A figure could be seen slumped over the steering wheel.

  “She’s angry because your daddy just wrecked grandpa’s car.” She supposed she should feel angry and distraught herself but she felt a laugh growing instead. He’d finally done it. The crazy bastard had finally done something he couldn’t repair with words. She could hardly wait to hear him try to explain how he really was a responsible person who should have joint custody even though he occasionally went around wrecking cars on purpose.

  “That’s my daddy?” The excitement was turning towards fear. Seeing grownups you knew do bad things was not entertaining at all. She was often angry at her father herself but she didn’t want to see him in trouble. Unless he got out of there fast, there didn’t seem to be much chance of avoiding it now. Two police cars, brilliant blue lights revolving, sirens dying to a low menacing groan, had pulled alongside the two battered cars. Sheet metal howled as one of the policemen managed to pry open the door of the pale car. The driver now stood next to the car, on the far side, away from the window. Her father was tall and she could see him clearly over the roofline of the car. He was looking towards the house. She wasn’t sure if she should wave or not.

  “Stay right here, honey,” her mother said. “I have to go out there.”

  Her mother opened the door to the apartment, walked down the short hallway to the door to the outside, crossed the porch, descended the stairs and moved along the walkway to the sidewalk. There were seven stairs. Mary Beth had counted them. Seven.

  She could see that a policeman had led her father around the car to stand on the sidewalk in front of the house. Another policeman was talking to her mother. Her mother was waving her arm at the cars and at her father while she talked. She couldn’t hear what her mother was saying. Mary Beth walked through the two open doors across the porch and down the seven stairs. She walked towards her mother so she could hear what she was saying.

  “…You’re damn straight. The restraining order is still in effect. He’s behind on child support. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s driving on a suspended license and the car’s not registered. I don’t care what you do with him. I don’t care if I never see him again.” Her mother sounded angry. Maybe she was saying things she didn’t mean.

  Her father tried to move a step closer but the policeman held him back.

  “But Kat, please. All I want to do is see Beth. You can’t keep me from seeing my own daughter. It’s just not right. I just want to see her.”

  Her father didn’t sound angry. He sounded sad. She ran around her mother and up to her father.

  “Here I am, daddy. What did you want to see me about?”

  “Baby!” Her father managed to pull away from the policeman. He jumped in front of her, squatted down and hugged her. He was laughing and crying at the same time. Mary Beth wasn’t sure what to do. “I just wanted to see you to tell you I love you. That’s all baby.”

  “Oh, OK.” Her father sometimes acted like he loved her and sometimes like he didn’t care at all. He could change quickly. She would wait and see what happened next.

  What happened next was that the two policemen and Mary Beth’s mother and her grandmother, too, who had appeared from somewhere took a moment to get over their surprise and then jumped at the father and daughter. The policemen grabbed the father by the shoulders and tried to pull him away but he had become very strong. The mother grabbed Mary Beth and tried to pull her away. The grandmother was waving her arms and yelling.

  “Get that goddamn asshole out of here. Get him!”

  Her mother was yelling, “Ma watch your mouth!” And “Let go, let go!”

  Her father was yelling “My baby, my baby!”

  The policemen weren’t yelling but one of them was saying in a loud voice, almost a yell, “Sir, you must release the child. Sir, right now!”

  Then her father had one of her arms and her mother had the other one and they were both pulling hard. Mary Beth began to yell, too, no words, just a howl of pain. Her father let go and her mother tumbled backwards onto the sidewalk, Mary Beth on top of her. The two policemen were taking her father to one of the police cars. He fussed and struggled with them but not very hard.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” he was calling. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  One of the policemen opened the back door to one of the police cars. The other one started pushing her father into the back seat. He took her father’s head and banged it against the part of the car just above the door. Then he pushed her father all the way into the car and slammed the door.

  Mary Beth bounced up off her mother. “Hey, don’t you hurt my daddy!”

  Her mother picked her up and began running up the front walk towards the seven steps before Mary Beth could see what happened next.

  ***

  The back porch of the wooden frame house was bright in the afternoon sun. The house formed an “L” shape with two rear entrance doors, one for the first floor apartment, the other for the second along one leg of the L and the clapboard sides of a back room forming the other. Two rows of slats and railings lined the open sides of the porch. Near the doors was a short flight of steps leading to a driveway shared with
the similar wood framed house next door. Mary Beth had often counted the steps. There were four of them. She had set up for receiving guests in the corner formed by the railings. Several tea cups and saucers sat on the lower lateral run of the railing. A tea pot, serving tray, assorted spoons, forks and knives (pink plastic) and crackers (real, the ants hadn’t moved in yet) were arrayed on top of an inverted red milk crate that read (upside down) “Property of Hood Dairy, Inc.” Four guests were sitting around the milk crate. There was Katrina, with a soft body and dark brown complexion, Joseph, also with a soft body but with an unfortunately disfigured face that had even more unfortunately been written on randomly with a blue ball point pen, Pooky, a bear-shaped little fellow who had once been pink but now was gray, and last, Candy, whose entire being consisted of a head, severely over-worked hair, and the top part of her shoulders. Mary Beth was pouring a second round of tea when her uncle Larry came out onto the porch from the second floor door.

  “Hey munchkin, whatcha doin’?”

  “Oh, Uncle Larry. You’re just in time for tea. Please join us.”

  “OK, but just for a minute. Got a practice soon.”

  “Candy, would you mind moving to one side like a dear so Larry can squeeze in? Thank you so much.”

  She filled another cup with tea. It was remarkably clear tea, more like water from the garden hose, but nobody was complaining.

  Larry sat with his back to the railing, his knees drawn up. He was a lanky young man but he managed to fit himself into the available space. Mary Beth handed him a tea cup. A normal coffee cup looked small in Larry’s hand. This thimble sized cup was almost invisible as he held it between thumb and index finger and pretended to sip.

  “Mm, good stuff. You make a mean cup of tea. I’d love to stay, really but I gotta get to practice.”

  “Practice what?”

  He held up his well broken-in fielder’s glove. “Ball”

  “Can I come?”

  “What about your tea party?”

  She looked around at her guests. “I’m terribly sorry, my dears, but I must be running off to practice now.”

  ***

  Dorchester Avenue, lined with sub shops, take out Chinese restaurants, bars and insurance agents (“No risk refused”), where red lights were merely a suggestion, ran behind the third base line. The somewhat less busy Park Street ran behind the first base line. This was the thoroughly urban side of Town Field. But beyond the distant left field fence were several residential triple deckers, and right field was bordered by a quiet, tree lined street with huge Victorian houses, mostly in good repair. The grass in the outfield was more green than brown and the dirt in the infield was more dirt than broken glass. Behind the batting cage was a playground and far down the right field line was a basketball court, always in use. There was even room for a smaller softball field, nestled between the first base side of the batting cage and Park Street. Did drunks fall asleep under the bleachers and unconsciously display their parts to young children? Sure, sometimes. And did kids smoke dope and drink and throw up and fight away from the lights at night? Sure again. This was the city and not a particularly well off part of it. But was the field used for its intended purposes? You bet. And was it valued, prized even by most of the residents? Right again. And it certainly didn’t hurt that the men of the public works crews or their fathers or uncles or brothers who were charged with keeping the park in good order would leave work and go straight to practice or a game on the field they had spent the day grooming. Just being a local didn’t mean you got a free pass into the league, though. You had to be good.

  Mary Beth headed over to the swings and slides and monkey bars when they got to the field but she lost interest quickly. There was something about the sound the ball made when it found its way into the catcher’s mitt that commanded her attention. It sounded like it should hurt but she wasn’t hearing any cries of pain. She wandered over behind the batting cage to watch. Larry had begun her baseball education early. She knew there were four bases even though one of them wasn’t a base, it was a plate, even though it didn’t look like any plate she had ever seen. She knew who the pitcher was and the catcher. The catcher was wearing a thing like a cage on his face and a bullet proof vest and other things on other parts of his body. That was because it hurt to get hit with the ball the pitcher was throwing at him. He was squatting down as if he wanted to draw pictures in the dirt but he didn’t dare do that because he had to be ready when the pitcher threw the ball so he could catch it. He had a big glove on his hand, about the size of one of the little pillows her grandma liked to put on the furniture but when the ball hit it didn’t sound anything like a pillow, it sounded more like a hard smack on a bare bottom but even harder than that. But the catcher would just catch it and throw it back to the pitcher. It had to hurt. The catcher must be very brave not to cry.

  Now it was her Uncle Larry’s turn to stand next to the plate and try to hit the ball thrown by the pitcher before the catcher could get it.

  “Hey Uncle Larry!”

  He smiled at her through the chain links of the cage. “Hey, munchkin. Watch me hit now.”

  He swung the bat a few times even though the pitcher wasn’t throwing. Then he shuffled with his feet in the dirt near the base that was a plate. Then he held the bat up in the air behind him and looked at the pitcher as if he was daring him to do something he didn’t like. The pitcher looked back at him as if he was double daring him right back. The pitcher moved his arms and legs and threw the ball very hard at her Uncle Larry. She wanted to shout to warn him but before she could form the sound he had swung the bat and hit the ball far away towards the trees that lined the street they had walked on to get to the park. She watched the ball fly until it went into the trees.

  Her Uncle Larry was laughing. “Move your cars, ladies. We’ll be denting some fenders this afternoon.”

  ***

  Another afternoon she was sitting on the top step (of four) when her Uncle Larry came home from work.

  “Hey munchkin, no tea party?”

  “Will you play with me?”

  “Play tea party?”

  “Ball.”

  “Ball? Hell yeah, why not? Lemme think a sec. OK. I know. Be right back down.”

  He came back down in a few minutes with a yellow plastic bat and a white ball, also plastic with slots in it. He was also carrying a very worn fielder’s glove, smaller than his own.

  “Wiffle ball. Great way to start. And this is one of my old gloves. It’ll be a little big for you but it’ll do for now. Now you wanna hit or pitch first?”

  “Hit.”

  “I figured. Just like me.”

  They stood in the driveway. He leaned over her and placed her hands in the correct position on the handle of the bat. “Like this. And like this.” They swung the bat a few times together. He stepped back. “Now you try it.”

  She swung as he had shown her but backwards.

  “Whoops! Looks like our little munchkin wants to bat left handed. OK. It works for Wade Boggs.” He rearranged her hands on the bat. “OK. Let’er rip.”

  She swung again, more easily, trying to swing like she had seen him do. The bat made a whoosh as she swung.

  “All right! Now I’m gonna pitch it to you and you try to watch the ball all the way until it hits the bat.”

  He tossed it softly towards her with an underhand motion. She swung as the ball was barely past his fingertips and missed by several feet.

  “Nice swing, there, munchkin. Try a little patience. Wait on the ball. You’ll get it.” On her twelfth swing, she hit the ball into the next yard.

  It was a hot afternoon. After a while, he went upstairs and got them cold sodas. They sat on the steps drinking.

  “You’re gonna be a good little hitter there, munchkin. The hardest thing to learn is patience. I’m just learning myself. I think I’m gonna make some noise in the league this year because I’m just staring to learn to think when I get up there to hit. What you wanna do
is wait for a good pitch to hit. Not too many pitchers can get their best stuff over the plate all the time. So if you lay off if it's not really right there for you, you get ahead in the count, it's called a hitter’s count, and then they have to let off a little or they’ll walk you and that’s when you’ll see something you can really handle. But what the pitchers got going for them is hitters are afraid of getting two strikes on them. You can’t be afraid. If you’re afraid of two strikes then they got you. OK, so sometimes they’re gonna make a good pitch and you’ll strike out but so what. It takes three strikes. They still got to come in with that third one. You watch Boggs. I swear to god, that guy likes to have two strikes on him. You can almost hear the pitcher thinking, christ two strikes, now he’s gonna foul off about ten of my best pitches and then finally I’ll get one over the middle and boom, into the gap, Boggs on second. That’s the secret. Don’t be afraid of two strikes. Your turn to pitch.”

  ***

  She began waiting for Larry to go to his practices. She began to learn the names of the other players. They all knew her as “Munchkin”. When Uncle Larry was hitting she would watch. When he was out in the field, she would run and get balls that rolled into foul territory, she would line up the bats not being used in a row, leaning against the cage and count them, she would take the glove of the person batting and put it on the end of the bench where they soon learned to look for it. When she had to go shopping with her mother one day and missed practice, they asked Larry where she was. They were glad to see her again at the next practice.

  The season was about to begin. The games were at night under brilliant lights that made the white chalk foul lines seem to glow. She had gone with her mother to a couple of games the summer before but had fidgeted and squirmed and been taken home early. This was different. Now she knew you got four balls, three strikes, three outs. Now she knew her Uncle Larry played third base and batted fifth which meant he didn’t get up until the second inning unless two people didn’t make an out. She threw a fit when her mother told her she couldn’t go to the game because it was too late. An hour later her mother sat her down and explained that if she ever threw another fit like that again, she’d never go to another game but that after talking to her brother, she decided to let it slide this one time and Mary Beth could go to the game. But no more fits, I mean it.