Bang The Drum Slowly Page 11

  Every time he seen us he said, “Romeo and Juliet,” and I laughed, and after he said it about 20,000 times I said, “Joe, I will leave you in on a little secret. After the first 20,000 times a joke stops being funny all of a sudden.” But he kept on, and when he called me “Romeo” I called him “Grandfather,” which he is proud to be except if you say it that certain way, and he stopped for a couple days and then called me “Romeo” again, and I said, “Romeo was a great lover, Joe. Are you jealous? If you are so jealous, Joe, I believe you can buy these little pills give you back your pep in bed you lost when you were young like me,” and he said, “You mind your tongue, boy, and be careful how you rag your elders.”

  “Do not pull your rank on me,” I said. “Give is give and take is take.”

  Ugly said the same. It must of been Ugly passed the word along to Dutch because I know Ugly and Joe didn’t speak for awhile. Dutch put the squelch on Joe. But he was mad and lonely. He walked around with a deck of cards in his pocket and nobody to play Tegwar with.

  Bruce never minded. He said, “They love to rag us, Arthur,” and I said they did, and I waited for him to discover they weren’t ragging me, only him. It takes him longer than most to discover a thing like that. Call me a name and I call you a worse one back, and the laugh is on you in the end, but call Bruce a name and he can never think of one to call you back. It is easy pickings, like punching a punching bag that can not punch back. Maybe it would be a smart move some time to string up a bag in the clubhouse and leave people punch it when their gripe is on.

  Horse and Goose picked it up, calling him “Juliet” and raking up all the oldest gags in the world, saying, “How tall are you, Pearson?” and he said “5’ 11”,” and they said, “We never seen a pile of shit so high before,” or saying, “By the way, Bruce, what is your whole complete name?” and he said, “Bruce William Pearson, Jr.,” and they said, “Well, up yours, Bruce William Pearson, Jr.,” until quite a number of the boys told Goose and Horse why not cut out the horseshit and play baseball.

  I said the same. I said, “One of these days we are going to start looking around behind us for Washington, but they will not be there because they will be up ahead of us,” which was true, for we could not shake them off.

  “It is a club of crying kids,” said Horse. “It ain’t the old Mammoths.”

  “If you rag them they run and tell Dutch,” said Goose. “The game is gone to hell, and I am glad to be fading from the scene.”

  “Why not just fade quiet?” said Coker.

  “Why not just shut your Polack mouth?” said Goose, “before I plaster it shut?”

  “Why not try?” said Coker, and he stood up, and Goose stood up. But nothing come of it.

  Goose hit 35 last summer. He was drinking quite a bit, borrowing 5 here and 5 there and going off alone and drinking it up and waking up with a head in the morning. One day he fell asleep on the bench in St. Louis, and Dutch seen him and begun to say something but then only turned around again. What would of been the use?

  Holly says, “Henry, people will wonder how boys get such names as “Goose” and “Horse” and “Piss”. You must tell them.”

  “It is all in “The Southpaw”,” I said.

  “Then tell them the pages,” she said, and I said I would, and I spent about an hour flipping through the pages and could not find where I said it, though I know I did. I guess I ought to know.

  “You find the pages,” I said, “and write them down.”

  “That is all I have on my mind,” she said. “I have washing and dipering the baby to do, and your mail to answer and your tax to be figuring out and your insurance racket and your food and your car to be running in and getting greased and your telephone to be answering all day, and now all I am supposed to do is start reading your book all over again.”

  “Do you wish me to finish this book before the winter meetings?” I said. “If so, find the goddam pages.”

  “I will not,” she said, which she must of meant because she never did. “And do not swear around the baby.”

  “When she is old enough to understand I will stop,” I said, and I will, or at least I hope I will, though I do not always do everything. All winter all I was going to do was lay around and play with the baby, and then I never done so. I will certainly do it next winter or die trying.

  We come back from the first swing west by way of Washington, 3 games on top, and Dutch said in the Washington clubhouse, “Boys, tonight we start shaking the son of a bitches loose for good. You know,” he said, “to me they are like a fly buzzing around your head, where you sit and watch it awhile without ever raising your hand against it.” He jumped off the scale and pulled up a chair and sat down. “Like this,” he said, sitting with his arms folded across his letters and his eyes looking at the ceiling, watching that fly go back and forth. “B-z-z-z-z,” he said. “Go ahead, you old Washington fly. Buzz me one more time and I will snatch you out of the air, and you will buzz no more.”

  From over in George’s corner comes the sound of a buzzing. It is Roberto Diego going, “B-z-z-z-z, B-z-z-z-z,” putting it in Spanish for George. Red never does it like that. Dutch might talk for 5 minutes, and then Red boils it all down to 15 words, but not Diego. He must give it the full treatment, and when he was done George give it back to him, “B-z-z-z-z, B-z-z-z-z.”

  “Forget it,” said Dutch to Diego. “This is not so much for George as for certain other persons to begin with. B-z-z-z-z goes the fly until you say to yourself, “Enough is enough. I have give you over a month now to trail along 2½ and 3 and 3½ games behind, and now I think I will reach up and squash out your miserable life”,” and up he jumped, and up Diego Roberto jumped. Up on the scale went Dutch, and the weights all rattled on the stick. “Fly! You are done for! Whack!”

  “Whack!” went Diego Roberto.

  “But only one thing is wrong,” said Dutch. “I look down in my hand and I have no fly, and I think to myself how could I of missed it when I already seen the circuit once around and know I am the only club in the league. How could I of missed?” He sat down in his chair again, and Diego Roberto sat down. “The fly is still going B-z-z-z-z, B-z-z-z-z.”

  “B-z-z-z-z, B-z-z-z-z,” said Diego.

  “Forget it,” said Dutch. “I said forget it.”

  “Forget?” said Diego. “What is forget?” He whipped out his dictionary. “Mister, forget is not remember, but is too quick to not remember. She just now happen.”

  “Forget it means fuck it,” said Dutch.

  Roberto threw his dictionary away.

  “Do you know why I missed the fly? Do you know why the fly is not dead? Do you wish to know why it was 2½ and 3 and 3½ and could never be shook, and maybe as time went by come up from behind and stole the flag right off New York? Do you wish to know? Tell me if you wish to know?”

  “Yes sir,” said the boys. “Yes sir, Dutch.” “Sure, boss.”

  “Because he flew right through my fingers is why, if you must know, which he should of never done because on paper he was no club a-tall but only a couple dozen men and boys dressed up in Washington suits. And if you wish to know why he flew through my fingers I will tell you that, too. The reason was because my fingers did not work together. The first finger says to the second finger, “I do not like you because you will not play cards with me,” and the third finger says to the fourth, “I do not like you from way back,” and the next finger goes back to the first and says, “You should hear what finger Number 2 been saying about you,” and the third finger says to the fourth, “Leave you and me cut finger Number 5 dead if we see him, and tell our goddam wife do the same, and bring up the kids likewise.” Boys, this is suicide. I seen it happen on other clubs, and I was always glad. But it never happens on any club of mine if I can squash it, and by God I will. As a starter there will be 2 things. There will be no more cards and no more borrowing nor lending. If anybody owes you money write it down on a piece of paper and we will see if we can clear it through the
front office. And tonight will be the beginning of the new way of things.”

  “Time, Dutch,” said Egg, for Dutch forgets the clock when he gives you a lecture. “OK,” said Dutch, “leave us go play real ball,” and we all shot out, and when we got there it was raining, though we begun anyways, and Dutch did not like it and said, “Stall,” and the boys stalled, and Frank Porter come over to the dugout and said, “Dutch, tell your boys stop stalling.”

  “It is raining,” said Dutch. “Somebody will get hurt.”

  “It is I who decides if it is raining,” said Porter. “I say it is not.”

  “Maybe not,” said Dutch, “but water is coming down out of the sky, and moonbeams are dripping off your nose,” and the boys went on stalling all the same, and Porter kept coming over and complaining. “I have no control over my boys,” said Dutch.

  “Then you are no use on the bench,” said Porter. “Get out!”

  “With pleasure,” said Dutch. “May you die in boiled oil,” and he went back in the clubhouse, the first time he been give the thumb all year, though not the last, and Joe took over and said, “Stall,” and the boys stalled some more, and soon the rain come down hard, and Porter called it off.

  And then not 30 minutes after the lecture, not 30 minutes, Perry and Keith and Jonah and Wash Washburn started singing “K-K-K-Katie, B-B-B-Beautiful Katie” in the shower again, only sticking these filthy and vulgar words to it.

  “They are ragging us, Arthur,” said Bruce.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You know,” he said, “they are ragging me more than they are ragging you any more.”

  “You bastards,” I shouted. “Did it all go in one ear and out the other?”

  They pretended they did not hear me.

  “Honey lamb,” sung Perry, “tell me if I am the first.”

  And Keith sung out in this high, girly voice, “No, my sweetie pie, but there been only 4,000 before you.”

  “Sweet husband pie,” sung Wash Washburn, “that will be $20.”

  “B-B-B-But I am your husband,” sung Perry.

  “It makes no difference,” sung Wash, and Jonah laughed. The whole place shook when Jonah laughed, and you would of laughed yourself to hear him, laughing and hanging on the shower sprays to keep from falling, and finally falling down in a heap and rolling over and laughing, too weak to rise, and Dutch heard them, and he come out of his office and said, “Turn off the water,” and they done so. “That will be $100, boys, to the 4 of you,” and they quieted down fast then and begun figuring out if he meant 100 each or only 25. I never did know what he meant myself, and I never did know what they paid. In the end Dutch probably kicked it all back anyhow.

  CHAPTER 10

  ARTHUR,” said Bruce to me, “how do I change my beneficiary?”

  “Who do you wish to change it to?” said I. “

  To Katie,” said he. “She is going to marry me at last.”

  “When?” said I. “When you change your beneficiary?”

  “Arthur,” said he, “you got no right to tell me who I can and who I can not change my beneficiary to.”

  “Why did she not marry you last year?” said I. “Or the year before?”

  “She never loved me before.”

  “Before what?” said I.

  “Before now,” he said.

  “How is now different?” said I.

  “Will you change it for me,” said he, “or not?”

  “I will write away to Arcturus,” I said.

  “When?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “Why not now?” said he. “

  Because it is time to go to the park,” I said. “You have time,” he said. “I seen you dash off many a letter in the cab or standing against the wall.”

  “This is a matter of $50,000,” said I. “Such a large figure must be handled sitting down with plenty of time to wet your pencil.”

  “Very well,” said he, “but do not forget and do it Tuesday.”

  Holly hit town that night, her belly button all punched out and 600 Dollars kicking up a fuss. “He is practicing slides,” said I.

  “This is nothing,” she said. “You should feel him when he is swinging 3 bats before taking his swipes.”

  “He will be no hitter,” said I.

  “Sid sure been hitting,” said she.

  “He is neck and neck with Babe Ruth,” said I.

  “But something is wrong,” said she, “for you should of long since shook Washington.”

  It was good having her there. It was good talking to somebody that knew the truth, for it was heavy carrying it around alone. We shoved the beds together, her in Bruce’s bed, though the linen new. Bruce was up at Katie’s all night. “I think Katie knows,” I said, and I asked her did I have the right to swindle him out of a change of beneficiary, and she said I did, and she laid for a long time tapping her teeth with her finger like she does, and she said, “I am just now elected the new Change of Beneficiary Department of the Arcturus Company.”

  “That is a pretty damn smart idea,” said I, “even if I do say so myself.”

  “I am thinking for 2,” she said.

  “I personally been doing the same for some months now,” I said. “It is keeping me hopping. It is a strain.”

  “Where do you stow your official Arcturus paper?” she said.

  “In the flat desk in the little bedroom,” I said.

  “It is no longer there,” she said. “There is a crib there now.”

  “Where is the flat desk?” I said.

  “In the play-room,” said she.

  “Whatwhat?” I said. “In the what?”

  “In the play-room, which was formerly your ex-work-room,” she said.

  “Where is my work-room?” said I.

  “In the kitchen,” she said.

  “Why not the living-room by the fire?” said I.

  “It is too near the baby’s room,” she said. “You are libel to keep him awake swearing.”

  “I never swear,” said I. “Or if I do I must of picked it up somewheres.”

  We seen the first game of the doubleheader Memorial Day from the Moorses box on the third-base side. There was a couple automobile people in it plus the Prince of Persia. I rather sit on the first-base side myself except I wished to watch Murtha work, a right-hander, the same boy Bruce stole off and told the boys how, which we would of done Memorial Day again except we hardly got anybody on base.

  Down the right-field line, just shaded fair from the flagpole, the fans went mad when Sid come up, standing and hollering, “Here! Here!” upper and lower decks both and holding up these big signs with the number “16” painted red, meaning Sid should swat Number 16 in there. They probably had “17” and “18” and “19” along as well, but Sid swatted nothing off Murtha, and nobody else did neither. The power was off. We had a little rally going in the fourth, but Jonah popped out. We started moving again in the seventh, and Dutch yanked him altogether and sent Ugly up to hit, and Ugly drove in a run, the first and only run we scored off Murtha, and Bruce took over for Jonah. It was 2–1 at the time. I said “Goodby” to Holly, and she said “Good luck,” and I went down and got dressed. It was 5–1 a minute later, for Kussuth homered off Van Gundy, the best hitter Boston ever owned since Casey Sharpe. He give me more trouble all year than all the rest of Boston lumped together. Dutch yanked Van Gundy.

  I no sooner hit the clubhouse than he walked in, Van Gundy did, and I said, “What did he hit off you?” and he said, “I do not know any more. It makes no difference. You simply can not get the son of a bitch out. I think I rather face Goldman,” and he tossed his glove down and kicked it across the floor, a drop-kick, like in football. Mick picked it up and dusted it off. Poor Mick! He must greet you alone in your worst minutes.

  I got dressed and went out. The board showed Washington smearing Brooklyn all over the place, which cut our lead to 1½, the lowest it been all year. Bruce picked up a hit in the ninth, a hard single pumped down the li
ne in left, and that made me feel better, though not much, and as soon as it was over I begun warming with Goose.

  And that was really the big switch, when everything changed or at least begun changing.

  I naturally had no idea. I walked over towards the warm-up rubber with Goose, not talking, for we never talk, me and him. There was never anything to say. He had a couple balls in his hand, rolling one down his arm and giving it a little ride with the inside of his elbow, popping it with, rode trains with, and showered with, but never liked, nor him me, and I said, “I wonder what it is a good idea trying throwing that Kussuth,” but I never got an answer, for the loudspeaker said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the national anthem of Persia,” and we stood still a minute while they played it through, and the Prince of Persia took a bow, and Goose seen Holly in the box and said, “How is your wife, Author?” which for a minute never registered because he never asked me such a thing before, never cared about me, would not of thought much about it one way or the other if I dropped dead. “You know,” he said, “I ain’t took my wife out to the ball game in 11 years.”

  “Take her when we hit Chicago,” I said.

  “I actually first laid eyes on her in a ball park,” he said. He was looking at me. I could see his eyes. They were halfway between brown and gold. His beard was 3 days old, and his breath stunk from these mints he ate to stink out the liquor he drunk. Sweat was hanging off the hair of his chin. He never even bothered wiping it off any more. It sparkled in the sun. “I probably looked like you,” he said. “I shaved my face every day, and every new Kussuth that come along I went around asking everybody what to throw him. But there was Traphagen and all, and finally the only person that loved me I bashed her in the eye now and then to keep up my spirit. Yet I love her. Or at least I better start loving her again because I am all washed up and broke and will wind up in skid row without help.”