Waiting for Teddy Williams (7 page)

E.A. waved. The drifter nodded. E.A. wished he'd say something. About how much he'd grown in two years, or about his diving catch of Porter's foul ball. From the diamond came the loud crack of Earl's bat. Another foul ball, very high. It descended into the elm tree, glanced off several limbs, and narrowly missed the oriole's nest. Ethan ran to it and got his glove on it, but it was harder to catch a ball falling out of a tree than people might think. The baseball ricocheted off the heel of his glove onto the ground near a trash barrel. The white ball lying there reminded Ethan of the official baseball the stranger had given him on the night of his eighth birthday. He was afraid the man was going to ask about it. Hurriedly, he reached down with his glove, picked up the foul ball, and returned to the backstop. Earl flied to center for the third out of the inning.

Between innings E.A. went around the backstop to give the ball back to Judge Charlie K. “Keep it for a souvenir, Ethan,” the judge said. “I've got more than enough.”

E.A. ran over to the bleachers. “Hold this for me, ma, will you?” he said, handing the ball to Gypsy. He jerked his head toward the oriole's hammock. “Almost hit the bird's nest.”

“Well, I'm glad it—” Gypsy started to say. She stopped, stared at the drifter a moment, looked back at E.A. “I'm glad it didn't,” she finished.

“I was hoping it would,” Gran said. “I could never stand orioles.”

E.A. returned to his station behind the backstop.

“Ethan.”

The drifter's voice was as harsh as E.A. remembered it. He'd moved a few feet out from the elm tree. “A dead ball like that? Pick it up with your throwing hand. Not your glove.”

E.A. wasn't sure what he meant.

“You always pick up a dead ball with your bare hand,” the man explained. “That way you don't have to take it out of your glove before you throw it. Saves time.”

E.A. realized that the drifter was referring to the foul ball that had fallen out of the elm tree. He didn't sound critical. He sounded like a man stating a point of information to another man. The drifter nodded at E.A. as if to say, okay, now you know. Then he took another swig from the bottle in the brown bag.

Out of nowhere, here came Deputy Warden Kinneson, big hat jutting forward, marching toward the stranger. E.A. did not often see the deputy on foot. Generally he sat in his cruiser outside of town on the county road, waiting for someone to go thirty-six miles per hour on a wooded, unpopulated straightaway.

The deputy's official blue hat bobbed along. E.A. hoped the orioles would let fly all over it.

“You there. In the baseball cap,” the officer said. “There's no drinking on the village common.”

The drifter was just lifting the bottle to his mouth again. He took a drink, and his ice-colored eyes did not leave the ball field, where the Outlaws were hustling out, the Pond townies hustling in. He watched the two teams dispassionately, like a man watching ants at work.

“You hear me, mister? You don't put that bottle away, I'll have to write . . .”

The deputy's voice trailed off. He took a step back, then another, then turned and walked quickly away. The drifter sloshed what was left in the bottle and lifted it to his mouth and knocked it back, then flipped the sack with the bottle inside end over end into the green trash barrel. Once again his eyes were back on the common, on Earl taking his warm-up pitches.

The championship game stayed tied through the eighth inning. In the top of the ninth, Pond in the Sky pushed a run across, and it began to look like a repeat of last year. A dispirited silence had fallen over the grandstand, over the green lined with pickups and cars. The drifter had left for an inning, but now he was back with a fresh bottle. This time there was no bag wrapped around it. When Pappy Gilmore started out the bottom of the ninth with a foul onto the church lawn, E.A., retrieving the ball, saw the label on the drifter's bottle. Crackling Rose. Like the cover song Gypsy sometimes sang at the hotel.

E.A. watched the stranger watch the game. He was noticeably taller than Earl. A really big man.

“They can't seem to get to old Ichabod,” E.A. said to the drifter as Pappy took a ball outside.

“Would that be the pitcher's name? Ichabod?”

“His name is Horace Guyette. But they call him Teach on account of he's a substitute schoolteacher in the off-season. I call him Ichabod. For old Ichabod Crane in a storybook a fella gave Gypsy.”

Pappy swung at Guyette's sweeping curve and missed.

“He keeps them off balance with that big yellowhammer hook,” E.A. said. He wanted to impress the drifter with knowing what a yellowhammer was.

“They need to lay for his fastball,” the man said. “You can't tell what pitch he'll start you off with. But anytime he misses with the curve, the next one is almost always a fastball. That's the pitch your team has to lay for.”

Pappy took another ball, a curve inside. Pappy couldn't drive the ball anymore, but he was more patient than the other Outlaws and got his share of walks and singles, loopers over the infield or seeing-eye grounders.

“You mean you have to guess what the next pitch'll be?” E.A. said.

“A good hitter guesses a lot,” the man agreed. “But in the case of old Ichabod, there's not much guesswork to it. The last pitch he thrown? To that old man? It was a curve that missed. Now watch. This one will likely be the heater.”

It was. Twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, Pappy would have parked Guyette's fastball over in the street in front of the brick block. Now all he could do was foul it back into the screen.

“The other thing is,” the drifter went on, “a player like that pitcher? You have to get an edge on him. Rattle him. Call him Ichabod, maybe. A schoolteacher would likely know who your Ichabod was. Call him Ichabod.”

Guyette seemed to be tiring. He walked Pappy on the next two pitches. Then he hit Elmer Kittredge, then he walked Elmer's brother Porter. The Outlaws had the bases loaded with nobody out. But just when it seemed that they had the momentum to win, Merle Kittredge and Moonface Poulin struck out, leaving the team one out away from another disappointing season. Slim Johnson got ready to step into the batter's box. Slim was a terrible curve-ball hitter and had already struck out twice on Guyette's yellowhammer.

“Time, Charlie,” Earl No Pearl said. He turned to the backstop, where E.A. had just penciled another
K
in the Outlaws' column. “E.A. Leave me see that book.”

E.A. trotted around the screen and handed him the scorebook. Earl glanced at it. “Does their book look exactly like ours?” he said.

E.A. nodded.

“Then you go up to bat for Slim. Take four balls. Allen for Johnson,” he called over toward the Pond bench.

His heart thumping, E.A. headed out to the plate with Earl's thirty-eight-inch Green Mountain Rebel. It was approaching twilight now. The swifts that nested in the belfry of the church steeple were working the sky high above the common for gnats.

“Allen pinch-hitting for Johnson,” Earl said to Judge Charlie K.

The schoolteacher started down off the mound. “See here,” he said. “What is this all about? Show me his name in the book.”

Earl took the green scorebook out to the pitcher and showed him E.A.'s name at the bottom of the roster.

“Allen, Ethan,” Ichabod read aloud. He looked at E.A. “What sort of charade is this?”

E.A., leaning on his bat and watching the confab like Teddy Ballgame in his poster at home, did not like the word “charade.” He was not sure what it meant, but it had a nasty, sarcastic ring when the four-eyes used it.

“What is this, a joke?” the teacher said.

“It's no joke,” Earl said. “E.A. Allen for Johnson.”

The schoolteacher motioned for his scorekeeper, who happened to be his skinnyminnie wife, who, E.A. had heard, also was a schoolteacher. “Bring our book out here, Wilhelmina. Show me that absurd name in our book.”

Wilhelmina came out onto the field. There was E.A.'s name in the Pond scorebook. Right where he'd penciled it in before the game.

“This is a farce,” Ichabod said.

No, E.A. thought. A farce is a substitute schoolteacher for a pitcher.
That's
what a farce is.

Judge Charlie came striding out, tapping his face mask against his leg. “What's up, gentlemen?”

“This is a mockery,” Ichabod said, pointing at E.A.'s name in the book, then at E.A.

“Then strike him out,” Charlie said. “Play ball.”

On his way back to the Outlaws' bench, Earl No Pearl said quietly, “No fancy-Dan stuff, E.A. The season's on the line. No drag bunts like when I put you in against Woodsville last month. There's a force at every base.”

“Just take four balls, E.A.,” Pappy called in from third. “Take four and tie her up. Old Earl'll do the rest.”

Ethan glanced over his shoulder. The stranger was still there, leaning against the elm, watching. The bottle was back in his jacket pocket.

“All right,” the schoolteacher said as E.A. stepped into the batter's box. “Two can play at this game.”

Guyette turned and motioned to his outfielders, waving them in. To a chorus of hoots and jeers and angry horn blasts from the Outlaws' fans, the Pond outfield trotted in and sat down on the edge of the grass just beyond the infield. Now E.A. saw with great clarity why Gypsy had always detested teachers, why she'd insisted on homeschooling him. Making fun of boys. Getting the upper hand. Schoolteaching, E.A. realized, was all about getting the upper hand on kids. Still, useless though they were, schoolteachers knew certain things. As the drifter had pointed out, the four-eyes would probably know his Washington Irving.

E.A. lifted his hand and stepped out of the batter's box.

“Time,” Judge Charlie K barked.

E.A. said to Earl, in the on-deck circle, “Ichabod.”

“What?”

E.A. jerked his head toward the schoolteacher. “Call him Ichabod. Ichabod Crane.”

Earl didn't know Ichabod Crane from Nebuchadnezzar. But he cupped his hands around his mouth and called out toward the mound, “Hey, Icherbod. Hey, hey, Icherbod.”

“What's that?” the schoolteacher said. “What's that now?” Earl signaled to the Outlaws' bench.

“Hey, Icherbod,” they yelled. “Hey, hey, Icherbod.”

The first pitch was a blazing fastball, inside, at eye level. It just missed the bill of E.A.'s Red Sox cap. Fine. E.A. was afraid of Devil Dan's Blade. If the truth be known, he was afraid of Orton and Norton Horton. But not of a baseball. He'd never been afraid of a baseball in his life. His foot didn't go into the bucket.

“Ball one,” Judge Charlie K said.

“That's a strike on anybody but a midget,” the catcher said.

“It was above the letters on the batter and it was inside,” Charlie said in the courtroom voice that had put fear into the hearts of so many drunk drivers, wife-beaters, bar fighters, and officious authorities, as well. There was no further argument from the catcher.

“Hey, Icherbod.” The whole grandstand was taking it up. The Outlaws' girlfriends and wives and exes, high school kids, little kids younger than Ethan. Everybody. “Hey, Icherbod Crane.”

The teacher missed outside with the yellowhammer, and Judge Charlie barked, “Ball two.” But oh Lordy, E.A. thought, how that curve ball had dipped, swooped down like one of the swifts flying over the village. He wondered how a man ever got a baseball to behave like that. E.A. did not see how he could get his bat on a pitch that darted downward like a swallow.

“Two and oh,” Judge Charlie said. “Play ball, boys. Night's coming.”

E.A. glanced over his shoulder at the drifter. The big man touched the bill of his cap with his index finger.

“That's two, E.A., take two more,” Earl called out as the grandstand behind third base started up with their “Icherbod” refrain again. With Gypsy's assistance, Gran stood up on the peeled wooden bleacher, ringing a cowbell and shouting “Icherbod! Icherbod!” She'd gladly have stoned Guyette if given the chance.

The teacher took his time coming to his set. E.A. leveled his bat waist-high, then set his hands back the way the drifter had taught him two years ago. He knew what pitch was coming, and he knew that the four-eyes would let up on it just enough to be sure to put it across the plate. It occurred to him that maybe he should see a pitch there once in order to time it. Then he decided. If it was there he'd swing.

It was there. Straight, medium-fast, standard BP fare. E.A.'d seen quicker pitches from Porter. He kept his eye on the ball, white in the dusk, and he turned on it hard without overswinging and drove it ten feet above the head of the left-fielder, who was sitting on the grass behind the shortstop. Pappy was so surprised that he forgot to run. Elmer, coming hard from second, had to remind him. They crossed home plate five feet apart.

The grandstand was up and shrieking, horns were blowing all around the common, Gran's cowbell was clanging like a five-alarm fire. As Ethan rounded first, the Outlaws poured onto the field. Between second and third they intercepted him in a body, got him up on their shoulders, while he fought like a wildcat, wanting to retrieve the ball. They paraded him all over the field. The whole village cheered. Players, fans, farmers, loggers, big boys, the Outlaws' women. Only the Pond players were silent, heading slowly toward their vehicles. Judge Charlie K, ambling home across the outfield with his umpire's mask tucked under his arm, stooped and picked up the game-winning ball to give to E.A. later. Already the cars and pickups and farm trucks were lining up for the victory procession around the common, drivers plugging in their deer-jacking spotlights, horns bleating.

When E.A. finally fought his way to the ground, he ran to the elm tree. The stranger was gone, but it didn't matter. Because the boy was already thinking,
This is nothing. All this is nothing to what will happen when I do the same thing in the last game of the World Series for the Boston Red Sox
.