The Legend of Mickey Tussler (28 page)

“But won't Lefty—”

“He has no proof. It would be mere hearsay. His word against ours. Besides, his fingerprints are all over this thing.”

McNally stood rocking a little, side to side, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. He was alert, intent, his breath faint so as not to interfere with his understanding of Quinton's plan.

“What don't you get, McNally?” Quinton asked almost belligerently. “It's pretty black-and-white.”

“Are you sure this whole thing won't backfire on us?”

“Come on, use your head a minute.” Quinton scowled. “The retarded boy wonder will be coming back soon. So, with Lefty in the can, at least for that duration, their pitching will still be short. It's a brilliant plan. Absolutely flawless.” He paused momentarily and stroked the stubble on his chin. “But, I guess you do have a point here. Maybe, just to satisfy your anxiety, we can wait a little while.”

McNally was breathing harder now. Aware of this, he tried desperately to convince himself that it was excitement and grand expectation, not fear or guilt or uncertainty. The culmination of months of planning had all at once risen up and presented itself like a peeled onion, each layer thicker and more acerbic than the one before. He had some unexpected difficulty facing it. At a loss for what to do, he shut his eyes and just stood there quietly.

Outside, it was dark, except for a blurred glow from stadium lights that had yet to be cut. Murph was tired, and his mind worked in random rumination. He stood before his team, eyes fixed on their fallen faces, needing to say something but unable to formulate the appropriate words. He had asked them all back—a team meeting he called it—an eleventh-hour attempt at rallying the troops before the final countdown. Naturally, his chief concern was his own immediate future. Where would he go? What would he do? Baseball was in his blood; it's all he really knew. The thought of existing outside the game frightened him like nothing else.

Then there were his players. So many, such as Boxcar and Pee Wee, who just poured their hearts and souls into the team and wanted nothing more than to raise a championship flag high above Borchert Field. It had been a season filled with such excitement and promise—a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that just turned on a dime. It seemed like another life, another world.

And what about Mickey? It had been too long. He had hoped beyond hope that it would all have a happy ending. That the boy would come back and still be able to pitch. He had said it so many times, to everyone, that he himself had begun to believe it. But now even he feared the worst. It was awful. He hadn't even begun to think of how he would tell Molly if the kid was washed up with them.

“Uh, I called you all here tonight so that we could talk about some things,” he finally said. “But I'll be perfectly honest with you guys—I'm sort of at a loss as to what to say.”

“It's okay, Murph,” Boxcar said, trying to mitigate the manager's turmoil. “We all understand.”

For a minute, it was difficult to swallow, and Murph's eyes welled with water. Then he composed himself, and his soul's passion directed his words.

“Look, guys, I don't know the reason for all the shit that's happened to us. Hell, I barely even know myself anymore. This thing with Mickey? I don't think I'll ever get over it.” He closed his eyes momentarily and sighed. “I was just informed that that prima donna Lefty had a hand in what happened that night at The Bucket.”

Danvers fidgeted uncomfortably on the bench and looked away.

“I want you to know that he's been suspended indefinitely. And the sheriff is involved. I have a meeting with Dennison, right after this, to hammer out exactly what's to be done. But enough about that. I cannot deal with any more negative energy right now. There's still us. Our family. I don't know that I'm ready to wave any white flags just yet. There's no clock in baseball, fellas. That's the beauty of the game. There's a calendar, yeah, but no clock. That means anything's possible. We've got ten games left—two hundred seventy outs. And I'm willing to bet that if we play 'em one at a time, something, something good just may happen.”

Thinking about what Murph said, they all felt a little better. Just knowing that
he
hadn't given up was reassuring. There wasn't much movement, and nobody spoke, but their eyes told the story. They were wide, receptive, and sparkled a little with possibility. Everyone was on board. Ten games to play. Two hundred seventy outs—270 chances to do something special. There were no guarantees, and the odds were certainly stacked against them, but by the time Murph had finished speaking, not one man in that room didn't think it was worth a shot.

Nine miles off the road, just beyond a low ridge of hemlocks, and across thickets littered with tumbled conifers, stood a small, dilapidated cabin, an abandoned shanty with weathered wood shingles and a rusty tin roof. With its partially boarded windows and a front door that was locked crudely from the outside by an iron spike angled just below the knob, it resembled more of a prison than a country dwelling.

It was Pee Wee's getaway—in the heart of the tangled mess all the locals called Baker's Woods—the place he went to fish during the off-season and when the busy schedule permitted. It was the first place he thought of when Murph suggested to him that he organize some sort of “bonding activity” to help everyone relax while at the same time get to know Mickey a little better.

“Just throw him together with a few of the fellas,” Murph suggested. “Shoot the shit for a while. We need this now. It's our only shot. Once they get to know him like we do, they'll understand. They'll feel better, and he will too.”

Through those partially boarded windows slanted rays of light fell across a dusty floor and over a group of wet, hungry guys sitting on wooden crates as they bantered about the day's events. The place was a shambles. The windows were cracked and clouded, the broken sills filmed with a greenish soot. Flaps of splintered wood and viscous cobwebs hung loosely from the sagging ceiling. Walls that had been erected with little attention to the basic laws of geometry and physics now signaled a slow, steady protest.

“This place is a shithole, McGinty,” Danvers complained. “This is the best you could do for us?”

Pee Wee shrugged. “It ain't the Taj Mahal, pretty boy, but the fishing sure is sweet.”

“Yeah, not bad for only a few hours of casting,” Finster commented, looking at the score of fish dangling from a string in Pee Wee's hand. “Too bad you can't hit as good.”

Danvers finally laughed. “We all did pretty good. Enough to have us a good old-fashioned cookout.”

The three men surveyed the room with jocularity until their eyes fell on Mickey, who had failed to even get a nibble. He was just sitting there, sullen. He appeared so distant, so far away, that Pee Wee was tempted to view him through the binoculars he wore around his neck. Pee Wee shuffled his feet nervously as he watched the spirited mood he had tried to engender begin to wane.

“Jesus, Mickey,” he said, laughing, trying desperately to infuse some levity into the room. “How is it that you grew up on a farm, with a father who's a fisherman, and you do not know a blessed thing about fishing?”

Finster and Danvers sat quietly with their faces wrinkled, frozen in bemused amazement. They had grown to tolerate their most unusual teammate, but still found him odd and for the most part unapproachable.

“I reckon Mickey fished no more than a couple of times,” the boy replied. “Couple, two or three.”

“How is that possible?” Pee Wee persisted. “You told me your pa was always fishing in back of your place.”

Mickey just stared at all of them blankly. “I kept getting my hook caught on the bushes, sometimes in the trees. I tried, but Mickey just couldn't help it.” He paused reflectively. A single tear formed in the corner of one of his eyes. “Last time was real bad. Real bad. Pa broke my fishing pole across my back and threw it into the water. Told me that a fishing hole ain't no place for a numskull.”

Danvers, busy opening a can of chew, looked up at the boy. “So that's it? He says you can't fish no more, and that's it?”

Mickey frowned and sat rocking gently on his crate, staring at the little silver can in Danvers's hand. “It ain't no bother. Fish don't deserve to be treated that way anyhow.”

“Why do you listen to something like that?” Danvers said. “Christ, if my daddy pulled that horseshit with me, I'd bust him one in the mouth.”

Mickey blushed. His thoughts were suspended somewhere between Clarence and the little silver can in Danvers's hand.

“You want to try some?” Danvers asked, mindful of the boy's gaze. He pinched off a piece of tobacco and handed it to Mickey. The boy looked at it quizzically before sliding it into his mouth.

“It ain't that simple,” Pee Wee interjected. “It's not like any other relationship you may know. Mickey's daddy ain't such a nice fella.”

“That don't make no difference,” Finster said. “You gotta look after yourself. Be a man. Maybe that's what we should be teaching our boy here.”

Pee Wee looked at Mickey, who was packing the chew against his cheek awkwardly with his tongue.

“Well, Finny's got a point,” Danvers agreed. “That certainly would have helped that night at the Bucket. If our boy here knew how to fight, then maybe we wouldn't be in the mess we're in right now.”

“I don't think that would have mattered none,” Pee Wee shot back. “You know that Woody. Ease up, will ya.”

“I ain't saying nothing that ain't true,” Danvers said with a glint of protest in his eye. “I just mean to say that a man—no matter what type of man he is—has gotta know how to defend himself.”

“Against three guys?” Pee Wee lashed out. “Three of them? You're telling me you could handle
three
guys?”

Both Danvers and Finster rolled their eyes and slowly, quietly looked away.

“Tell 'em what happened that night, Mick,” Pee Wee insisted. “Go on. Tell 'em. I want you to tell them everything you've told me.”

For a while, Mickey said nothing—just sat languidly, arms folded against his chest. The skin across his face tightened, and his eyes, lit only by a few errant rods of sunlight that had infiltrated the dilapidated structure, darkened even further.

Twice he tried to speak but failed. The air seemed to thicken. He sat uncomfortably, rocking and blinking his eyes, his right cheek now distended. Then he exhaled mightily and pushed out a few words.

“It were bad,” he said timorously, struggling to keep the wad of chew in place.

They all watched as Mickey explained how it all had seemed so wonderful. A beautiful girl, caressing his back, kissing his face with soft, full lips, whispering wonderful things in his ear.

“You are just the cutest ballplayer I have ever seen, Mickey,” she'd said. “Just adorable. Do
you
want to see how cute
I
am? Hmm? Or maybe you'd rather just feel for yourself.”

It all happened so fast. She had told him that she wanted to take a walk with him, in the cool night air. They strolled for a while, hand in hand, eyes fastened to the full, glowing moon and the glinting constellations all around.

“Ever just sit, Mickey, and look up at the stars?”

He shook his head, too busy with the joy of her presence to answer.

“My mama, she and I would sit outside, on an old blanket sometimes, and just stare at the stars for hours,” she said brokenly. “I used to be able to spot 'em all. Andromeda, Orion, the Big Dipper. I knew them all.”

“Why?”

“Why? What do you mean why, silly? Because they're there.”

“We never spent no time watching stars,” he said absently. “I don't suppose my pa would like it very much.”

Her body gave a nervous jerk. Through the chilly summer air, she heard a faint, faraway sound that quickly died.

“That's a shame, Mickey. My mama used to say that God's promises were like the stars—the darker the night, the brighter they shine. I think about that sometimes.”

A mild buzzing was in his ears, something nervous and uncontrolled. He turned his head and swallowed hard. She looked as if she was going to cry. Face-to-face with an unannounced emotion, she had no words of any kind. She breathed in the night air and shook her head as if to rattle the troubled thoughts from her mind. Then she grabbed his arm and pulled him behind a service station.

“Enough with the stars. I think we would have more fun back here.” Then she grabbed his other arm, slid her hand over his, and brought his fingers to her breast. It was soft, he thought, and he marveled at how the tiny nipple rose up beneath her shirt to welcome his advance. It was a glorious feeling, exciting and energizing, like electricity flowing under his skin. He wanted to touch her everywhere, with his hands and mouth, to explore the contours of her curvaceous frame with the reckless abandon surging through his body. It felt familiar to him, although he did not know why. He thought of his first hayride, and the first time he jumped into a stream without his clothes. He remembered the rush, the breathless flow of energy and the thumping of his heart.

Now, it was happening again. And this time, that feeling had traveled to other parts of his body as well. He smiled uncontrollably and was just about to take her other breast in his hand when the moon disappeared. One minute he was lost in the rapture of his first romantic interlude, and the next, he was holding his head, struggling to get up off the ground.

“So did you get any?” Finster asked as Mickey struggled through the memory. “You know, before you were clocked?”

“Get any what?” Mickey asked quizzically. Then he swallowed hard, his face exploding into a full-scale grimace.

They all smiled. “You're supposed to spit the juice
out,
Mick,” Pee Wee reminded him. Danvers and Finster laughed. They watched like patrons at some vaudeville act as Mickey crumbled to his knees and grunted, enveloped in a wave of dry heaves.