The Legend of Mickey Tussler (38 page)

“I don't give a good goddamn about your lousy pig, shit for brains. I am talking to you.” Lefty moved closer, continuing to bulldoze the uncertain boy until the blood at his temples drummed feverishly. “Look at me, ya goddamned water head. Are you listening to me? Answer me!”

Mickey's cheeks, soft and fleshy, crumpled. His pupils were large and strained, his thoughts stinging him at every turn.

“Oscar's smart too,” Mickey mumbled. “He can count and play fetch.”

“Hobble your lip, you fucking retard!” Lefty hollered. “I am talking to you. But all you care about is that stupid, mangy bag of fat.”

Lefty paused, and then like a tiny ledge of ice that suddenly breaks free from its glacial host, his senses left him. His eyes, now fixed firmly on Oscar, burned a fiery red. With his gaze narrowed and his lips wet with bubbling saliva, he swung his foot back and launched his boot into Oscar's ribs, sending the stunned beast, wailing plaintively, hurtling across the floorboards and into the rail with a thunderous crash.

“There you go, moron!” Lefty ranted. “Now ya have something to worry about.”

A momentary stillness filled the air. Then Mickey shot out of the chair. All the chords of past oppression sounded simultaneously. He heard the booming shouts of his father, and the soft whimpers of his mother. He felt the weight of bootheels in his gut and dirty hands around his neck. He saw the face of the monster who had orchestrated his abduction—and who had just maimed his dearest friend. Mickey was pure instinct now, a machine devoid of reason and feeling. His body lunged forward and crashed against Lefty's, his hands like an iron vise around Lefty's neck.

With his blood surging to every muscle, he lifted Lefty off the ground and shook him. Lefty's legs flailed. So did his arms—weak, flaccid hammers striking wildly, ineffectually, at a brick wall. Mickey was undaunted. He squeezed tighter and tighter, like a screw being turned slowly, steadily. The protest began to wane. The breath was fainter and the muscles listless. Mickey saw none of it. He was still gone, his eyes glazed with fear and terror and loathing. He had all but completely surrendered to the demon that had seized him when his outburst was arrested by a voice, distant, but soft and soothing.

“ ‘Slowly, silently, now the moon, walks the night in her silver shoon.' “It's ‘Silver,' Mickey,” Molly called to him. “Walter de la Mare. You remember. I know you do.”

The tiny group that had gathered outside the house stood and watched in helpless horror as Mickey released Lefty to the ground in a crumpled heap. They watched as Mickey's eyes slowly returned to him, his lips moving in unison with Molly's.

Sheriff Rosco, who had come shortly after the disturbance was called in, raced to the porch, silver cuffs clanking in his eager hands, only to be thwarted by Murph's body, rigid and strong.

“Let her handle it, Sheriff,” he said to him. “She's got him.”

Molly climbed the steps of the porch, continuing to recite the magical words. She could see the tears straining in Mickey's eyes.

“ ‘Couched in his kennel, like a log, with paws of silver sleeps the dog.' ”

Mickey's lips continued to form the same words. He looked quizzically at the body lying before him. It no longer seemed this menacing, wicked force but rather just a lifeless, inert mass for which he felt nothing more than indifference.

Molly reached the boy just as the two of them completed their recitation. Rosco was right behind her.

“Mickey, sweetheart, it's all right now,” she said, running her hand over the damp skin at the back of his neck. Mama's here. It's all right.”

Mickey's mouth fell open, and tears slid swiftly down his cheeks. His face flushed with a sudden calm, and he embraced Molly with a quiet, desperate longing.

“It's all right, sweetheart. It's over now. I'm here,” she whispered in his ear. Mickey's massive body melted in her arms. She rubbed his back lovingly for some minutes, then pulled away ever so slightly, so that he could see her face.

“Now you'll do something for Mama, right?”

Mickey wiped his eyes crudely with the back of his wrist and nodded.

“Be a good boy for Mama and just tell the sheriff here what happened.”

Sheriff Rosco no longer had any use for Molly. He thanked her but pushed her aside and sent her back down the porch steps, instructing her to wait with the others while he conducted his investigation.

“What happened here, son?” Rosco asked. “Did you hurt this man?”

Mickey could not answer. His eyes raced back and forth between the lifeless carcass of his fallen friend and Lefty.

“Boy, I'll ask you again, one more time, and one more time only, because I'm losing my patience. Did you hurt this man? Yes or no?”

Mickey's mouth moved spastically, but nothing came out. Rosco stood, shoulders square and stiff, his face frozen with frustrated rage. Mickey's heart beat frenetically. His eyes were fixed beyond the sheriff, on Molly, as she continued to mouth the words
It's all right.

“He killed Oscar,” Mickey finally cried. “Killed him. Right there. Killed him. That wasn't nice.”

“So
you
wanted to kill
him
? Is that right?” Rosco persisted. “Oscar was my friend.”

“Did you want to kill him? Just answer the question.”

“He were my favorite porker. Biggest one too.”

“What's the matter with you, boy? You stupid or something? I'm talking to you here. And you could be in a heap of trouble. Answer the question. Now.”

All at once there was a drumming in Mickey's head. There were too many thoughts, and no place to put them. He placed his hands over his ears and shut his eyes tightly.

“Answer me, boy. Answer me now,” Rosco demanded.

A low mutter of thunder moved along the sultry sky, and a moment later some cold drops began to fall to the earth. Then in a voice high and abject, almost inhuman, Mickey began the haunting recitation.

“ ‘Slowly, silently, now the moon …' ”

Rosco was out of patience. He removed the billy club from his waist and pressed the end up against Mickey's throat. Molly gasped and buried her face in Arthur's shoulder. The boy's eyes exploded open, followed by words, desperate and emotive.

“Mickey did not mean to hurt Lefty,” he cried loudly. “Oscar's my friend. My friend. I did not know. Mickey does not lie. I just wanted him to stop. To stop hurting us. I did not know. Lefty will get up. Then I can take Oscar. Mickey did not know.”

Rosco shook his head. He had a nasty impulse to just cuff the boy and throw him into the back of his car, but the ambulance had arrived and Lefty was coming to.

“Don't let him go nowheres,” the sheriff said to Murph before turning his attention to the victim. “He's far from free. I'm gonna have plenty more questions for him.”

Molly sobbed out loud before collapsing into Murph's arms. He squeezed her tightly. His wet face, lit now by the flickering glow of the sheriff's car lights, melted into clay, his dream of play-off glory all but gone, once and for all, carted away in the ambulance with the battered body of Lefty Rogers.

The clouds the next morning were thick and restless, a suffocating shroud of steel gray that threatened to burst open at any moment. Murph and the entire team sat in the locker room expressionless, numb from the previous day's debacle. Nobody wanted to talk about it—even think about it—but Murph had Mickey with him, per the request of Sheriff Rosco, who would be by later that day to bring the boy in for more questioning.

“Look, fellas,” Murph began. “This ain't easy. For any of us. But we are a family here. Have been all season. And something bad has happened to one of us. We need to stand together here and help Mickey as best we can.”

Mickey looked uneasily up at the ceiling and lost himself in the symmetrical pattern of the tiles.

“ ‘Something bad has happened to
one
of us?' ” Danvers repeated scornfully.
One
of us? Like hell! Something bad has happened to the
rest
of us, because of
one
of us.”

“Now listen, Woody, there ain't no use in—”

“What the hell was you thinking, Mickey, for Christ sake? One day before the big game. Jesus, how stupid. How fucking stupid. And over a mangy pig no less. That's what we get for putting all our faith in a fucking retard.”

“Stand down, Woody,” Boxcar warned. “That ain't gonna do us any good now. The kid is sorry.”

“Sorry? He's sorry?” Danvers barked. “Oh, well, isn't that just great. He's sorry. That makes it all better now.”

Murph put his hand on Mickey's shoulder. The boy moved around uncomfortably in his clothes and seemed to be buckling beneath the oppressive weight in the room. He looked as though he would just lie down, right there, and shrivel up before them. None of them could watch. They simply hung their heads in quiet desperation, a sort of catatonic state that lasted until an unexpected voice shattered the silence.

“Mickey is sorry,” the boy burst out suddenly. “I didn't mean to hurt no one. Honest. I don't know why Mickey did it.”

“It's okay, Mick,” Murph assured him. “Nobody blames you.”

“It felt like a train,” the boy continued. “Roaring by Mickey's face. It was loud, and rumbly. My head was shaking. I couldn't hear nothin' in my ears, except that sound. Honest. It would not stop.”

Murph felt sick, deep in the pit of his stomach, as the boy unburdened his mind; not because Murph believed he could really have done anything to prevent what had happened, but because it was all just so damn ugly. They all seemed to share the same feeling. The room fell absolutely silent, except for the squeaking of Mickey's sneakers, scraping nervously on the floor. Nobody knew what to say, or do, and they all would probably have remained that way indefinitely had Rosco not come in, blustering about “unanswered questions” and “good old country justice.”

“I need him, Arthur,” he instructed curtly. “Right now.” Mickey stood, defeated and exposed. His chest began to heave as if there were not enough air in the room for all of them to share.

“Let's go, big boy,” Rosco said flatly. Then he pinioned Mickey's arms behind his back, and just like that Mickey was gone.

Later that afternoon, Murph and the Brewers had a casting off of their own, bidding farewell to their dream season. The Rangers made fast work of their archrivals, defeating them in just under two hours by the score of 5–1. With the image of Mickey being dragged away in cuffs still fresh in his mind, Murph found the sight of Chip McNally and his club celebrating on the pitcher's mound intolerable.

“Look at that jackass McNally,” Matheson said, draping his arm over Murph's sagging shoulder. “Christ, if dumb were dirt, that shithead would be about an acre.”

Murph forced a grin. Then he frowned and his lids narrowed with disappointment. “That may be the case, Farley,” he said with resignation, “but that shithead is going to the play-offs.”

The loss was so much more than just a loss. For Murph, baseball was the center of his universe. He had come to the game years ago, young and naïve, with the feeling that he was to be, always, at the very heart of it. It was in his blood. He knew no other way. It's why saying good-bye for the winter at each season's end was so painful.

“I'm sorry, Murph,” Boxcar said on his way out later that day. He, like all the others, had the contents of his locker in a tan bag flung over his shoulder. “It should have been different.”

Murph shrugged his shoulders, as if to suggest that it didn't really matter. But in the darkest, most remote corner of his soul, hanging restlessly from a single strand of sticky filament like an anxious spider, was the unmitigated, undeniable truth.

In the deepening night, ensconced in grotesque shadows, Mickey still struggled with
his
good-bye. His prison cell was putrid. Cockroaches. Pungency of urine. Animal feces. And lurid scrawlings on the walls all around: skull and crossbones; demoniac sketches; the haunting message
G.L.R. was here
. From the moment the cold metal doors slammed behind him, he sat in his cell like some overwound automaton, talking to himself and rocking uncontrollably for hours before finally getting up from his cot and looking out the small window on the far wall, his eyes roving across the burned bed of grass outside to the faint line of trees and rooftops that dozed just beyond Borchert Field. He wiped his eyes with the corner of a dirty rag he found stuffed between the slipshod mattress and wire bedframe and tried to catch a glimpse of something familiar.

“Hey, chucklehead,” Rosco's deputy shouted through the rows of black metal bars. “I stand to lose a heap of money 'cause of you. You know that? All because of you. ‘The Brewers are a sure thing,' they all said. A sure thing. Right. That was the plan. But then you go and fuck it all up with your goddamned retard rage. It's just like you reached your fat fucking paw in my pocket and robbed me. How do you reckon we square that?”

Mickey remained facing the window, his entire body enveloped in spasmodic convulsions.

“ ‘Slowly, silently, now the moon, walks the night in her silver shoon.' ”

“What'd you say, boy? Turn around when I'm talking to you.”

Mickey just continued to recite, his eyeballs swerving from side to side, lost in the crossing shadows of past and present.

“ ‘This way, and that, she peers and sees, silver fruit upon sliver trees.' ”

The baleful deputy burned with agitation, his heart beating furiously beneath his potbelly. In between the cascading folds of fat running from his neck beads of sweat began to form. He swiped at them nervously with a napkin already stained with cooking grease.

“Don't you be mocking me now, boy,” he demanded, banging his billy club against the iron bars. “Ya hear now? You is gonna be here awhile, till they sort this whole mess out. So we best come to a goddamned understanding! You got that!”