The Legend of Mickey Tussler (12 page)

The field was a mess—a quagmire of woeful turf bowed by the deluge and streaked here and there by intermittent tinges of ocher courtesy of the encroaching swirls of mud. It looked like a child's finger painting. The sun's hands, however, were fast at work, and after almost two hours, eleven bags of sand, and several artful strokes with some metal rakes, the diamond was asparkle again and ready for play.

“Hey, Larry,” Arthur ordered. “Lefty is done. Been sitting too long to finish. Don't want that arm of his tightening up. Take Mickey down the right-field line and warm him up.”

The players from both sides stretched and ran and played pepper, trying to shake off the ill effects of their idle endeavors. And when the final fungo was hit, and the few spectators who had braved the soaking showers settled back in their seats, a tiny roar could be heard as Mickey and the rest of the beloved Brew Crew took the field.

The sun, fully exposed once again in a pale blue sky, bathed the players in golden hues. Mickey stood tall on the mound, like a tiny mountain. The nervousness that had befallen him in his first outing was gone, replaced somehow by a quiet confidence that spilled out of his tattered jersey.

“Come on now, big boy!” Boxcar encouraged. “Just like warmups before. Put her right here.” Nausea began to work in the catcher's stomach, an uneasiness for the hulking farm boy, as the first batter approached the plate, swung twice, and dug himself into the sandy muck that just hours before was the batter's box.

With the umpire crouched expectantly behind him, Boxcar set the target just as he always did—high and inside. It was his calling card—hard stuff in, junk away. The entire field knew his way, so they always made the defensive adjustments accordingly. They had watched Boxcar from their positions for years. But on this most unusual day, a curiosity emerged from the yawning cowhide—a bright red sphere of sorts imprinted right in the center of the pocket.

“What the hell is that?” Danvers whispered to McGinty, as both infielders peered in incredulously. “Is that a goddamned apple painted in his glove?”

Pee Wee liked Mickey and would have done anything to help the boy. But he questioned Murph's vision. He scowled, dimpling his smooth, ruddy cheeks. His eyes fluttered, and Danvers lamented under his breath about the “bush league” appearance the team had seemed to suddenly embrace, just as Mickey rolled his arms, reared back, and fired. The pop was thunderous and separated all of them from their cynical thoughts.

“Steerike one!” the umpire shrieked.

A spring wind, which carried on it a mixture of oohs and aahs, blew across the diamond. Boxcar smiled from behind his mask and returned the ball to Mickey. Then the enigmatic pitcher cupped the ball with his right hand, buried it inside his glove, rolled his arms, and fired once again.

“Two!” screamed the umpire. “On the corner.”

The batter never even flinched. It was past him almost instantly. Perplexed, he stepped out of the box and banged his spikes with the knob of the bat, trying to figure out how it was possible to hear the ball behind him before ever really seeing it.

Mickey was cool. He caught Boxcar's toss and stepped back on the rubber, impervious to the gaping mouths and incredulous stares aimed at him. It was as if he were back on the farm, tossing apples. Everything around him seemed to just melt away, so that all he saw was the eleven-inch leather frame sixty feet away from him.

The batter returned to the batter's box. He held his right hand up behind him as he dug in with his back foot. Mickey just waited. Then, after a few practice passes with his Louisville Slugger, the batter was ready. Mickey rolled his arms again, uncorking a tiny white meteor whose trajectory was true. The batter grit his teeth. He was determined to make contact this time. As the ball streaked toward home plate, he began his swing, a violent, spasmodic explosion whose force buckled his knees and drove him to the ground in ignominious defeat.

“Steerike three!” the umpire thundered. The batter kicked the dirt and cursed his fate.

“Shake it off, Rumson,” the Beavers' skipper screamed from the dugout. “He got lucky.”

And then it happened again. And again, and again, and again. Mickey buzzed through the entire Beavers lineup, sitting down one discouraged batter after another. The crowd was electrified. All of their own hopes and dreams and wild aspirations rose to the surface, a molten energy that fixed itself to this episode so remote, so absurdly improbable. Something about the whole scene was supernatural—this misfit farm boy, with all his quirkiness, mowing down batter after batter. Just to be a part of it, even from a distance, was intoxicating. Upon the eradication of each batter, the crowd stood up, in unison, and saluted the unlikely icon by placing their right hands in their left and rolling their arms breathlessly, all the while chanting at fever pitch,
“Mickey! Mickey! Mickey!”

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Murph said to Matheson. Murph couldn't help but chuckle. Things never went this well for him. He, along with everyone else in the park, was swept away by what looked like the simultaneous spreading of wings by a frenzied flock of seagulls.

Not everyone was amused. Some took exception to all the attention.

“What the hell is Murph thinking?” Finster complained in between innings. “Is this a baseball game or some cheesy, two-bit publicity stunt?”

Buck Faber nodded. Something irreducibly human, or maybe just male, threatened the order of their world. “Something needs to be done, Finny,” he said gravely. “This is bullshit.”

The crowd, however, continued its celebration. With each strikeout, the Brewer faithful exploded from their seats like champagne, roared their approval, then lapsed into this bizarre choreography of rolling arms that spilled across each section of the stands like an ocean wave. Of the fifteen Beavers Mickey had faced, he'd fanned ten and retired the other five on weak ground balls to the infield.

When the final out was recorded, on a 2-2 fastball that shaved the inside corner, and a small group of Brewers, lead by Murph, charged the mound in celebration, Mickey was overwhelmed. Stampedes were never good. His first impulse was to run. Pee Wee saw the panic and thought he heard Mickey call for his mama as he darted in the other direction. But the shortstop was able to arrest Mickey's flight with what started as a bear hug but ended up looking more like a little boy hanging on to his father's leg.

“You done real good, Mickey,” Murph said, smiling. “Real good.”

“Like peaches and cream,” Matheson added. “Peaches and cream.”

Mickey was still unsettled but smiled back. The crowd remained on its feet, chanting Mickey's name and saluting him with the reverent impersonation of their newest hero's delivery.

“They love him, Murph,” Boxcar said, as the three of them lingered on the field. “They ain't never seen anything like it before.”

Murph looked up at the crowd one last time, animated by a new certainty. “You got that right, Box,” he said, shedding any previous trepidation. “Things are sure looking up.”

News of Mickey's Herculean exploits vibrated in sweeping circles. It was all anyone could think about. In every barbershop, saloon, factory, and schoolyard, talk of the “fireballing phenom” insinuated itself into even the most banal conversations. Casual discourse that included such mundane topics as the Republican Party and the gross national product, and issues of a more whimsical nature, such as the latest weather patterns, dance music, or the recipe for Aunt Mabel's sweet-potato pie, somehow always made its way back to the local baseball scene. The fervor knew no boundaries. Young. Old. Male. Female. Sports enthusiast and occasional observer. It was of little consequence. Talk of Mickey and the Brewers was on everyone's lips.

Perhaps it was the fantastic headlines that adorned the local paper every fifth day:

“Brew Crew's Fireballer Brands Colts.”

“Mickey Gases Rangers.”

“Baby Bazooka Shoots Down Bears.”

Of course, it could have been the mythological stories, turgid tales of superhuman physical feats that seemed to swell in proportion with every outing Mickey had.

“Hey, Pop,” a little boy asked his father after having just seen Mickey pitch a game, “do you know that Mickey once threw a ball one hundred ten miles per hour? Threw it so hard that it tore the glove and three fingers right off the catcher's hand?”

“Don't be silly, Son,” the father admonished, rubbing his son's head playfully. “One hundred ten miles per hour?” The man chuckled, brought his index finger to his temple, and scratched gently. “I don't think it could have been any more than one hundred. Don't believe everything you hear, boy.” Then he smiled at his son's naïveté before continuing, “Besides, it was only one finger, not three.”

Or maybe it was just a natural reaction to unnatural happenings, the universe's logical response when something spectacular suddenly lights up the gloomy face of the daily grind. Whatever it was, Mickey had created quite a stir.

Despite some of the rumblings, the entire team was inspired by all the attention. With the exception of Lefty, the long faces and slumping shoulders were replaced by laughter, unbridled enthusiasm, and boyish antics. Brewer baseball was fun again. Nothing screamed this enjoyment more than the off-the-field high jinks. They roared when someone filled Jimmy Llamas's jockstrap with liniment—and when Woody opened his locker only to discover that his favorite bat had been painted pink. Boxcar got a cap full of shaving cream, the fingers in Pee Wee's glove were stuffed with hot dogs, and Lefty received a hot foot that burned his spikes so badly it took three of them to put the fire out.

“You guys are a bunch of assholes,” he complained. “You know that? A bunch of fucking assholes.”

“What's your problem, Lefty?” Boxcar teased. “I thought you loved smoking.”

Boxcar's sarcasm sent Lefty's blood rushing to his temples. “Hilarious, Box,” he fired back. “You're a regular Jack Benny. You don't screw with a pitcher's feet. Jesus, how goddamned stupid are you?” Then he looked around awkwardly and folded his arms close to his chest, trying to cradle his wounded ego. “You wouldn't do that to Mickey now, would you?”

Boxcar scratched his chin in mock rumination, his face now hardened and grave. “Shit no! Do that to Mickey? No way. Now
that
would be stupid.”

The pitcher did not appreciate Boxcar's flippancy. Lefty had a nasty temper and unreasonable resentments. He paced for hours afterward, trying to exercise muscles that had tightened in his jaw and all around his other joints. All he could think about was his career, and the disastrous course it had suddenly taken at the hands of this novelty act. He stretched and threw and ran but just couldn't shake the suffocation. He was still seething the next day.

“So Murph wants us to treat Mickey like one of the guys, huh?” he mumbled to Danvers. They both smiled. A swirl, a glimpse of sweet justice passed before them. “I think that can be arranged.”

The next day, Lefty and Danvers stood outside Mickey's locker, like sharks drawn by the scent of blood in the water. Lefty beat his palm in gentle pantomime with the head of a hammer while his partner in crime rattled a box of tenpenny nails.

“This is perfect,” Lefty said, grabbing the boy's cleats. “A real classic.”

As Danvers handed him one nail at a time, Lefty drove each one through the inside of Mickey's cleats and into the floor.

“Looks real natural,” Danvers said, laughing. “He'll never know the difference.”

Hours later, as they all dressed for the game, Mickey took center stage. Lefty and Danvers could barely contain themselves, and a few of the others who were privy to the prank could not take their eyes off the hulking victim.

Mickey chatted softly with Pee Wee as he slipped his jersey over his head and pulled his pants up around his waist. He was in a fine mood, smiling and laughing easily with Pee Wee as the affable shortstop relayed a joke about a farmer, a dead donkey, and a town preacher. All eyes were glued to Mickey as he pulled up his stirrups and put on his cap, leaving only his cleats, which lay seemingly harmless on the floor in front of his locker.

At first the boy was just confused, tugging on the sides of the shoes with only mild frustration. Pee Wee didn't even notice any trouble. Then, like an electric shock, the uneasiness rocked Mickey's entire body. His chest heaved and sweat formed on the back of his neck. He let out a gasp, then looked up with pitiful gray eyes, wondering what was happening. Tears began to fall in his lap.

“Mick, everything all right?” Pee Wee asked.

The boy tugged harder at the cleats. “My shoes,” he cried. “My shoes. Mickey can't move 'em.”

Pee Wee reached over and yanked at the cleats. They did not budge. He looked up disgustedly and shook his head. “Which one of you assholes did this? You know the rules. Anything permanent to equipment is off-limits.” They all just looked at each other and shrugged.

Pee Wee continued to help, trying to wedge a small screwdriver underneath the cleats while Mickey pulled from the top. Kneeling there, Pee Wee thought with distaste of how this horrible moment was ripping Mickey apart. He tried to calm the boy, but the longer their efforts proved fruitless, the more he unraveled.

“Don't sweat it, Mick. We'll get it.” McGinty was right there for him.

But Mickey was losing it. He began rocking nervously, and the tears flowed more steadily now. Lefty and Danvers looked on with twisted delight as Mickey, in a sudden burst of explosive energy, ripped the tops of the cleats clean off the soles, leaving just the skeletal remains nailed to the floor. Several others roared with laughter.

This made Mickey sob even louder. “Oh, Mickey broke his shoes!” the boy wailed. “They're broke.” Then came the robotic recitation. “‘Slowly, silently, now the moon, walks the night in her silver shoon … ' ” He paced back and forth and rolled both fists over his forehead.