Bang The Drum Slowly Read online

  After supper it rung, and I sat beside it and left it ring 12 or 13 times until I picked it up and said in my most boring voice, “Fishing pier. Hookworms for sale,” only it wasn’t Old Man Moors a-tall but Joe Jaros, and he said, “Author, how about a hand of Tegwar or 2?”

  I already turned him down a number of times, not wishing to hang in the hotel and look anxious, but I was in the mood now, and I said, “We will be right down.”

  “Who do you mean by “we”?” he said, and I said I meant me and Bruce. “Me and Bruce been playing quite a bit all winter,” I said. “He is pretty good by now,” though this was not true, for he was not.

  “I will stay here,” said Bruce, and that settled it, at least for now, and he stood with Holly. When I got there Joe had things set up in the lobby, a table for 3, one chair for me and one for him and one empty and waiting for the slaughter. He had a pocket full of change and little bills. Next to the empty chair he stood a lamp all lit and bright, and at the empty place a clean and shining ash tray. The empty chair stood just a little sideways so a cluck could slide in easy.

  He shuffled, shuffling over and over again but never dealing, just waiting for the cluck to wander in sight. Joe knew. He can spot one a block away, or walk through a dining car and spot one, or pick one out in a crowd. He been at it 30 years, and I said, “Joe, when my wife goes home Bruce must play with us.”

  “Sure,” he said, not thinking, but then it hit home, and he said, “Now, Author, Bruce is not the type. He is too damn dumb. Anyhow, the way Piney Woods been hitting Bruce might not last the year.”

  “You must promise me,” I said, and he promised, for right about then he seen his party and would of promised you could hang him in the morning. He got all excited. “That looks like it,” he said, and we begun to deal, and in through the lobby come a big chap wearing sun glasses, though he was indoors, and though it was night, his arms all red the way a fellow gets when he never sees the sun except a couple weeks on vacation, a big button in his coat in the shape of a fish saying FEARED IN THE DEEP that the local people hand out by the bushel to every cluck that don’t actually faint dead away at the sight of the ocean. He bought a magazine and sat down in an easy chair and begun to read, soon wondering why he could not see, and then shoving his glasses up on his head, every so often peeking at us over the top of his magazine, me and Joe dealing fast and furious now, really working, too, because I will swear if you concentrate hard enough you can bring the cluck up out of his chair and over, which we soon done, for he closed his magazine and worked up his energy and hauled himself up, his sun glasses falling back down over his eyes. Over he come, sticking his magazine in his coat and leaning his hands down on the back of the empty chair and finally saying, “Would you mind if I watch?”

  We never spoke nor looked up. We played Casino, your 8 takes a 5 and a 3, your 10 takes a 6 and a 4, like that, pictures taking pictures, and when the hand was done Joe flipped his wrist around and said, “A quarter of 8.”

  “No,” said Mr. Feared In The Deep, “I said would you mind if I watch.”

  “Oh,” said Joe, “I thought you asked me if I had a watch,” not saying another word, only dealing again, straight Casino again except with a little switch here and there, maybe a 7 taking in a 5 and a 9, or a deuce an ace and a 3, Casino, only doubled, so there was still some sort of a system to it, though not too much system to the cash sliding back and forth, the cluck watching and studying, taking off his glasses and twirling them, 2 or 3 times starting to say something but then not saying it, only saying once, “It looks like Casino,” neither me nor Joe answering him nor even hearing him for all he knew until after the hand I said, “Did you speak?”

  “I only said it looks like Casino,” he said.

  “Casino?” said Joe.

  “Like the card game called Casino,” said Feared In The Deep.

  “You mean the game they play in boarding schools for girls?” said Joe.

  “I did not know it was played there,” said the cluck. “I personally played Casino myself from time to time.”

  “We only play men’s games,” said Joe.

  We dealed again. “Would you mind if I sat down?” said the cluck. Nobody said “No,” and he sat, and he slapped his pants where his money was and looked at his watch and sort of inched his chair around until he was finally forward over the table, his eye going from my hand to Joe’s, the game becoming a little more complicated now, Joe calling once, “Goddam it, fence-board!” and slapping down his hand and showing how he fence-boarded, me laughing and gathering in the money, Joe saying, “I never fence-boarded before since one time against Babe Ruth in St. Pete,” the cluck really quite confused about now and ready to go back and look at his magazine.

  Right about then I was paged, and Joe went red. “Hang around,” he said. “Never mind it. Hang around.”

  “It is the boss,” I said.

  “So you are Henry Wiggen,” said the cluck. “I seen you was left-handed but did not know who. It is quite an honor.”

  “I must go, Joe,” I said.

  “Damn it, Author. Stick around.” He was boiling inside, for Tegwar is serious business to him, the great laugh of his life. He will laugh for days after a good night of Tegwar. He will tell you Tegwar stories going back 30 years, of clucks on trains and clucks in hotels, and of great Tegwar partners he had, ballplayers now long since faded from the scene, remembering clubs not half so much by what they done but how they rode with the gag, how they gathered, like the boys even at that moment were gathering for a glimpse of the big fish on the line. It is the gathering of the boys that Joe loves, for without the watching of the crowd the laugh would be hollow. It would be like playing ball to empty stands, and the page come by, saying, “Mr. Wiggen, Mr. Wiggen,” and Joe said, “Scram!” and the page scrammed.

  But it was no good, and the boys knew it and Joe knew it and I knew it. It takes time. The cluck has got to lay his money on the table and leave it there awhile. He has got to think about it. It has got to be the cluck’s own choice every minute of the way, and he has got to hang himself himself, not be hung by others. It must never be hurried. Yet with the page calling we could not play it slow, though we tried.

  Then soon the boys all stepped aside, and Dutch come through and said, “I been trying for days to get some sleep and finally was just drifting off when I am told you are playing cards and too busy to talk contract. Do not push things too far, Author.”

  “It was my fault,” said Joe. “I would not leave him go,” and Dutch seen the cluck there and felt sorry for Joe, or as sorry as he can ever feel, and he said so. “What good is being sorry?” said Joe, and he slammed down the cards, and he swore, and Mr. Feared In The Deep begun backwatering as fast as he could, hearing both laughing and swearing but not understanding a word, and I went on up to the Moorses sweet, feeling sorry for Joe and yet also laughing.

  Nobody else was laughing but me when I got there. I said, “Leave us not waste time talking contract unless you are willing to talk contract. I was taught in school where slavery went out when Lincoln was shot.”

  “I know,” said Old Man Moors, “for you wrote it across the top of your contract.”

  “Not across my contract,” I said. “Maybe across the contract of a turnstile turner.”

  “Author,” said Patricia, “leave us all calm down.” She was very beautiful that night, and I said so, and she thanked me. Her nose was quite sunburned. “You are looking over your weight,” she said. “It will no doubt take you many weeks to get in shape.”

  “He looks 10 pounds over his weight at least,” said Bradley Lord.

  “Mr. Bradley Lord,” said I, whipping out my loose cash. “I have $200 here which says I am no more than 2 and ⅜ pounds over my weight if you would care to go and fetch the bathroom scale.”

  “What do you consider your absolute minimum figure?” said Mr. Moors.

  “19,000,” I said.

  “In that case,” said he, “we can simply
never do business, and I suppose I must be put to the trouble of scouring up another left-hand pitcher.”

  “That should not be hard,” said I, “for I seen several promising boys out there this afternoon. Any one of them will win 4 or 5 games if God drops everything else.”

  “They are top-flight boys,” said Mr. Moors. “Dutch thinks extremely high of at least 3 of them. I will tell you what I will do, Wiggen. I will jack up my absolute maximum figure to 13,500 and not a penny more, and if you have a good year we will make it back to you in 56.”

  “And when I have a good year in 56 you will make it back to me in 57,” I said, “and I will go on being paid for the year before. This shorts me out of a year in the long run.”

  “We heard this one before,” said Bradley Lord.

  “Every time Bradley Lord opens his mouth I am raising my absolute minimum figure,” I said.

  “Bradley,” said Patricia, “go get some drinks.”

  “You feel very confident about this year,” said Mr. Moors, “and I will tell you what I will do.” He turned my contract over and begun scratching down figures. “For the 20th victory you win this year I will pay you a bonus of 2,500, and for every game over 20 I will pay you 2,000 more, and then to show you where my heart is I will jack up my absolute maximum figure to 14,000.”

  “We are coming closer together,” said Patricia.

  “I believe we are just about there,” said Old Man Moors.

  Bradley come back with 3 cokes, giving one to Old Man Moors and one to Patricia and keeping one for himself.

  “As a starter,” said I, “I like the look of the arrangement.

  But instead of 2 0 victories you must write in 15.“

  “If I write in 15 I must lower the amount,” he said. “You are so damn-fire sure you are going to have such a top-flight year I would think you would jump at the arrangement.”

  “I am sure about the year I am going to have,” said I, “but I am deep in the hole, owing money left and right and Holly pregnant and the high cost of Coca-cola. I am tired living like a sharecropper.”

  “Bradley,” said Patricia, “go get Author a coke.”

  Old Man Moors was sketching out the new bonus arrangement on the back of my contract, but he looked up now. “How much do you still owe the goddam Government?” he said.

  “$421.89,” I said.

  He wrote this down on a separate sheet. “I will throw this in,” he said, “plus pay you a bonus of $1,500 for the 15th victory you win this year, and 1,000 for every victory over 15. You are better off than you were under the first arrangement.”

  “Not if I win 25 games,” I said.

  “If you win 25 games I will round out Bonus Plan Number 2 to equal Number One,” said he. “But you know you are not libel to win 25 games. I do not see why you are trying to heckle me. If you win 25 games I will be so goddam pleased I will pay you a flat 5,000 bonus if I do not drop dead from surprise.”

  “I won 26 in 52,” said I.

  “Yes,” said he, “but never come near it since.” He mentioned my Won-and-Lost for 53 and 54, which everybody knows, so no need to repeat. Bradley Lord come back with my coke, and Old Man Moors shoved him the separate sheet, saying, “Make out a check in this amount and send it to the United States Bureau of Internal Revenue in the name of Wiggen. Very well, Henry, your base pay will be 14,000 plus Bonus Plan Number 2. I think that is fair. I know that you are going to have a grand year,” and he reached out his hand. He was calling me “Henry” now, all smiles, which he had a right to be, I guess, for I believe he was ready to go much higher on his absolute maximum. But I did not push him, for the main job was yet ahead, and I did not take his hand, saying, “Sir, there is one clause yet to go in my contract.”

  “Shoot,” said he.

  “There must be a clause,” said I, “saying that me and Bruce Pearson will stay with the club together, or else go together. Whatever happens to one must happen to the other, traded or sold or whatever. We must be tied in a package on any deal under the sun.”

  “No deals are on the fire,” said he.

  “I never heard of such a thing,” said Bradley Lord.

  Patricia was powdering her nose out of a little compact. She snapped the lid shut, and it was the only sound, and she said, “It is not a matter of whether anybody ever heard of such a thing before or not, and it is not a matter whether any deals are on the fire or not. It is a thing we could never do for many reasons, the first reason being that Dutch would never hear of it, and all the rest of the reasons second.”

  “Boys and girls,” said Old Man Moors, “leave us be calm. Wiggen, I will give you my verbal word instead of writing it in.”

  “It must be wrote in,” said I.

  “Bradley,” said Patricia, “call Dutch.”

  “He is asleep,” said Bradley.

  “He been trying for days to get some sleep,” said I.

  “Call him,” she said.

  Bradley called him, and it rung a long time, and when you heard his voice you could hear it all over the room, like he was there, and Bradley held the phone away from his ear, and then he said, “Mr. Moors wishes to see you,” and after awhile he come down in his slippers and robe, pajama pants but no top. “I been trying for days to get some sleep,” he said, still not awake. “Go get me a coke.”

  “Tell him your clause,” said Patricia.

  He looked at me with his eyes shut. “So it is you with a special clause, Author? I will bet it is a dilly.” His voice was low and full of sleep, and he kept scrounging in his eyes with his hands, trying to wake up. “Bradley, run get me a wet rag,” he said. He took a swig of his coke. “Sterling must be shot for hay fever with a special shot. Vincent Carucci must have contact lenses. Gonzalez must have a buddy along to speak Spanish with, and Goldman must go home on Passover. What do you wish, Author, the Chinese New Year off or Dick Tracy’s birthday?”

  “I wish a clause,” said I, “tying me in a package with Pearson.”

  “Does he owe you money?” said Old Man Moors.

  Bradley brung him the rag, and Dutch squeezed it out on the floor. “Jesus, Bradley, you ain’t got much strength in your hand,” he said. “How do you mean tied in a package?”

  “If he is sold I must be sold,” I said. “Or if he is traded I must be traded the same place. Wherever he goes I must go.”

  His face was covered with the rag, and when he took it away the color was gone, drained away down in his chest. I will swear the hair of his chest was red, and then slowly it drained back up again, and he said, “This is telling me who I must keep and who not, which nobody ever told me before, Author, and nobody will ever tell me again as long as I am upright. If it is money talk money, and good luck. Talking money is one thing. But talking business is another, and I will as soon trade the whole club for a tin of beans as leave anybody tell me who stays and who gets cut loose.”

  “I am sorry to hear it,” said I, “because without that clause there will be no contract.”

  “Then there will be no contract,” said Dutch, “and I must suffer along the best I can.”

  “Several of those left-handers looked good to me,” said Old Man Moors.

  “Good for what?” said Dutch.

  “Will you go sell insurance?” said Bradley Lord. “You do not know a soul on earth to sell insurance to outside of ballplayers. Will you sell insurance to other insurance agents? Where will you run up against people with money with the language you speak? I never seen you wear a necktie.”

  “Shut up,” said Dutch.

  “I am ignoring him,” said I. “I am only laying it out straight, all my cards up. I do not wish to sell insurance. Insurance is for later. I rather play baseball than anything else. I do it best. I like the trains. I like the hotels. I like the boys. I like the hours and the money. I like the fame and the glory. I like to think of 50,000 people getting up in the morning and squashing themself to death in the subway to come and see me play ball.”

  “That
is how I feel,” said Dutch.

  “I am dead serious,” said I.

  “What is up between you 2? A roomie is a roomie, Author, not a Siamese twin brother fastened at the hip. I do not understand this a-tall, and I will investigate it. I will run it down to the end of the earth. Are you a couple fairies, Author? That can not be. It been a long time since I run across fairies in baseball, not since Will Miller and another lad that I forget his name, a shortstop, that for Christ sake when they split they went and found another friend. This is all too much for me.”