Bang The Drum Slowly Read online

  “You will understand it sometime,” I said.

  “When?”

  “No telling,” I said. “Maybe soon, maybe not for 15 years.”

  “I am 62,” said Dutch. “I will certainly be hanging by my thumb until I hear. Christ Almighty, I seen you on days when you hated Pearson, when you ate him out as bad as I myself ever ate him out. I seen you about to kill him for his stupidity. I seen you once get up from the table and walk away.”

  “Because he laughed without knowing why,” I said.

  “Such a thing can be not only hate but also love,” said Patricia.

  “It is not love,” said I.

  “I do not mean fairy love,” she said.

  “He laughs because he wishes to be one of the boys all the time,” said Dutch. “Must this clause go on forever?” He closed his eyes again, not sleeping but thinking. “I have 4 catchers,” he said. “I have a catcher that is old and another that can not hit and another that is wild and crazy and another that is just plum dumb.” He opened his eyes and begun checking them off on his fingers. “I would give both my eyes for Sam Mott of Cincinnati, but they want Author, and I cannot give Author, or if I give you I must have Scudder off Brooklyn which the son of a bitches will not give me except for all my right-hand power. I could spare my right-hand power if I could swing a deal with Pittsburgh, but Pittsburgh wants Author and I have already give you to Cincinnati on paper for Sam Mott. So I must play my old catcher on days when he feels young, and my catcher that can not hit on days the power is on, and my wild and crazy catcher on days he ever comes to his senses, which so far he has give me no sign of really having any. I will ship him back to QC and see if Mike can talk him off his motorcycle. We must never have another motorcycle in camp. I been trying for days to get some sleep. When you really stop and think about it I am libel to wind up using my catcher that is just plum dumb more and more.” He finished off his coke and belched a loud belch and scratched the hair on his chest.

  “Some day you will understand,” I said.

  “No,” said he. “That is too much to ask. Forget it. I will agree to this clause. I never done such a thing before and would not do it now except there is a look in your eye that tells me that I must.” He looked in my eye a long time. “Yes,” he said, “there is a look which tells me that I must,” and that was all he said but went back out and up to bed, and Bradley Lord drew up the contract and we all signed.

  CHAPTER 6

  WE PLAYED 6 exhibitions down around St. Pete, but I did not go. I wrote down the names of all the doctors in St. Pete on the back of the papers the doctors give me in Minnesota, and we checked with Bruce morning and night. We talked very careful because the operators listen in, saying only “How are you?” and he was fine. In the hotel in New York there’s an operator name of Tootsie that knows everything you know before you know it yourself half the time.

  Days I worked out with the QC Cowboys. I was supposed to run it off, but what could be more of a bore than only running, and what I mostly done I stood around sweating in a rubber shirt. I sweated myself down to 205 and felt good and started throwing a little, though as soon as I started throwing I started eating again and ate myself back up to 208, which would of scared me silly except I noticed 2 things. I noticed that I was throwing quicker, getting more speed out of less motion. Also I felt tip-top, and it begun to seem to me that if I felt tip-top there could be nothing wrong with my weight. Holly said the same. “It is not half so much where your weight is but what your mind thinks about it,” she said. You could feel 600 Dollars give a little kick every so often, and when he done so she said, “Patience, boy, you will soon enough be out and see it all.”

  The club got back on Tuesday night. Usually we always broke camp that night, but things been changed since I become Player Representative, and we do not leave until Wednesday any more. The boys get their full night sleep this way, and the day’s gate we lose in Jacksonville is out of nobody’s pocket but Old Man Moors.

  Wednesday morning Bruce come down and helped us close the house, and we took the key to Tom Tootle, a hobbly old fellow, a great ballplayer with the Mammoths back around 1904–10. For $25.10 a year he watches your house for you and sends you a postcard every 2 months, which is what the 10¢ is for, saying “Your house is in good shape” and signing it with a little drawing of a steam engine, and out of the engine a little puff of smoke saying “Toot Toot,” which is what everybody calls him, Toot Toot Tootle. You can take him off your tax. You can also take extra depreciation off your house down there on account of the salt air, which hardly anybody knows, though by now I told everybody along the beach. We also take extra depreciation off the car since it is parked 16⅔% of the year in salt air.

  We picked up Coker and Darlene Roguski in front of the Silver Palms and headed north for Jacksonville. While loading Darlene’s gear in front of the Silver Palms up walks Piney Woods. He was wearing these parachute shoes and airplane pants and a scarlet shirt and helmet and goggles, and he took a big watch out of his pocket and said to me, “It is 13 o’clock. I will give you a handicap of 45 minutes and beat you to Jacksonville.” His clock shows 24 hours. The old-fashion 12 is not good enough for Piney. “So get going,” he said, and he went back to his motorcycle piled high with gear, a catcher’s mitt sitting on top. He pulled his goggles down and sat on his machine with his arms folded. I never give him another thought but got in and took off.

  We sung, me and Holly and Coker and Darlene. Me and Coker sing in The Mammoth Quartet and pick up a little change now and then on the TV, and after we sung awhile Bruce begun, though I hardly ever heard him sing before except one thing and nothing more. Sometimes he sings—

  Yes, we have no bananas,

  We have no bananas today.

  That is all he sings, never more. But now he sung—

  All that year the sun did shine

  Except it rained ‘bout half the time.

  The well went dry, and so am I-I-I-I-I

  So pass the jug around.

  He sung many songs, singing low and soft but also merry. In all the songs things started bad but turned out good, and they all took place in the dark, but with a moon, the kind of songs you pick up late at night on the road, especially down in the south, corn that you would switch to another station if there was another station on. But hearing somebody sing them they weren’t so corn at that. There was one about a farmer boy in love with the girl down the road, but her old man said “Nix!” and built a fence between their house, and the boy clumb the fence, and every time he clumb it the farmer built it higher, and every time he built it higher Bruce sung higher, singing of the boy climbing over until he sung so high he could go no higher and said, “Holly, you take it from there,” and she went up and up with the fence until she could go no higher and said, “Bruce, I am as high as I can go,” and Bruce sung very low now of the boy digging under the fence, and the girl digging under from the other side until they met in the middle, and the girl’s father come along and seen them and shot them and shoveled them over, and out of their heart grew these weeds, up through the ground and winding and winding around the fence forever, which I know sounds corny when you write it.

  Soon Piney Woods come up behind us, probably going 75 or 80 and passing us, not looking at us but only sticking his arm out sideways at us and cutting in front with not more than a foot to spare so if I didn’t come off the gas we would of clipped him, and Coker said, “You would think a young fellow like Piney would wish to live the summer through and see who wins the flag,” and I cut him short, saying, “You been hitting good all spring, Coker, have you not?” but he kept right on, saying, “With all the ways of dying you would think a fellow would wait for them, not go out looking.”

  “My, Darlene,” said Holly. “Is that a new dress? It must of set your husband back a pretty penny.”

  “What in the hell is the sense of dying young?” said Coker. “Why not live and see how life treats you?”

  “Coker,” said
I, “I hear you are being sold.” That stopped him, plus we come around a bend and seen Piney Woods by the side of the road whipping off his goggles and unstrapping his tools, and we pulled in, and we said, “What is the matter?”

  He never looked up. “Nothing,” he said, “I simply busted my master distributor. Do you have any spare parts?”

  “Motorcyle parts?” I said.

  Coker called back to the car. “Darlene, did we bring along our spare motorcycle parts this trip?”

  “Tie her on the back,” said I. “It is not far to Gainesville.”

  He still never looked up. “What would I do in Gainesville?” he said.

  “Get a new part,” said I, “or else you are libel to be out here in the middle of nowheres until 67 o’clock or half-past 41.”

  “I will beat you to Jacksonville,” he said.

  “OK,” we said, and off we went, singing another 30 miles until up alongside comes Piney again, a little stream of brown and blue smoke trailing out behind, and past he went, sticking out his arm again, and we followed his trail for miles and miles, the smoke becoming more brown, and then pure blue, and then black, until soon we seen him at the side of the road again, wrapped in black smoke, all black himself now, sitting on the shoulder with his legs straight out, the parts of his machine all spread out in a circle around him, and we stopped again, and Bruce said, “You been smoking all the way.”

  “Tell me another,” said Piney.

  “You are libel to need a bath one of these days,” said Coker.

  “Get going,” he said. “I will beat you to Jacksonville.”

  “He is going to carry her in on his back,” said Coker, “juggling the parts in his other hand. Tell me, Piney, are you planning to go all the way back to QC on this motorcycle?”

  “I am not going back to QC,” he said.

  “I will bet you $10,” said Coker, “that you get shipped back to QC, and another 10 that you do not beat us to Jacksonville.”

  He finally looked up now. “It is a bet,” he said, and up he got and counted out his money and give it to me to hold, never smiling, only spraddling down again and slamming his parts back in. “You better get going,” he said.

  He passed us about 5 miles out of town, smoking worse than ever but doing 80, a hanky tied around his mouth and tucked up under his goggles. He was waiting in front of the hotel when we got there. I give him back his 20.

  We said “Goodby” to the girls. “Good luck, boys,” said Holly. “I believe this is your year again,” and she went around the car to the driver side.

  “Take care of 600 Dollars,” I said.

  “He is always right here where I can keep a track of him,” she said, and she kissed me and kissed Bruce, standing on her toes and kissing him solid on the mouth and then climbing back in under the wheel and taking off. She stood with Darlene 2 days in West Virginia, and then she went on home. I did not see her again until she come down for the doubleheader Memorial Day.

  In the hotel in Jacksonville, and then again in all the hotels all summer, the first thing I done was flip open the book to the yellow page and wrote down the number of 6 doctors or so on the back of the pages the doctors give me in Rochester, Minnesota. He always seen me doing it, but he never said a word, only pulled a chair up to the window and kicked off his shoes and spit down once or twice, sort of trying it out, and then he sat back and stuck his feet on the ledge. He liked to watch people in windows across the way, and he liked to watch the signs flash off and on. He liked to watch the sun go down and up.

  He begun thinking about baseball a lot, which he never done before, always treating it before like it was football or golf, not a thing to think about but only play. He said to me, “Arthur, tell me, if you was on one club and me on another what kind of a book would you keep on me?”

  “If I was to keep a book on you,” said I, “I would say to myself, “No need to keep a book on Pearson, for Pearson keeps no book on me.” Because if I was to strike you out on fast balls letter high you would not go back to the bench thinking, “That son of a bitch Wiggen struck me out on fast balls letter high, so I will be on the lookout for the same thing next time.” No, you go back to the bench thinking, “I would like a frank,” or “I see pretty legs in the stands,” and by the time you face me again you have forgot all about the time before. You must remember. Or if you cannot remember you must write it down. The man you are facing is not a golf ball sitting there waiting for you to bash him. He is a human being, and he is thinking, trying to see through your system and trying to hide his own. This is not golf, goddam it, nor football, but human being against human being, and the son of a bitch that wears his thinking hat has got the advantage over the other.”

  “I will keep a book,” he said.

  “Either in your head,” I said, “or better still on paper for awhile. You already have terrific power. But power plus brains is the difference between nobody and somebody.”

  “I must develop brains,” he said.

  “Plus confidence,” said I. “Brains and power are nothing without confidence.”

  “I never had it much,” he said. “You always had it, Arthur.”

  “No sir,” said I, “but I always looked like I had it and sounded like I had it. Days when I am tired and days when my curve is not breaking it is confidence keeps me going. I hitch up my britches and spit. Crowd in and look fierce, and you will find it works wonders. Watch any of the boys when they hit. Watch Pasquale or Canada. They crowd in like they simply can not wait, though in their shoes they might know it is not their day. Half the pitchers you face are only country boys like yourself, and the other half are only country boys from the city. They are no smarter than you.”

  “I never been smart, Arthur.”

  “You been dumb on one count only. You left somebody tell you you were dumb. But you are not. You know which way the rivers run, which I myself do not know. Even Holly does not know, and I doubt that Red Traphagen himself can look at a river and tell you which way it runs without throwing a stick in it. All the way down from Minnesota I never knew.”

  “I thought you knew,” he said.

  “Because I bullshit you,” I said. “You know what is planted in the fields and you know the make of cows. Who in hell on this whole club knows one cow from the other? I could be stranded in the desert with 412 cows and die of thirst and hunger for all I know about a cow. Did Hut Sut Sutter know a cow or a river when he seen one? No, I guess not. And where did he wind up anyhow, this great brain you admire? A goddam professional football player! Would you like to be a football player in snow and ice up there in Wisconsin, up and down on the frozen ground? You have already proved yourself smarter than Sutter and smarter than 90,000 kids from coast to coast, every one of them dying to be in your shoes, a New York Mammoth riding the best trains and the best hotels. Why has not Dutch cut you loose if you are so dumb?”

  “I do not know,” he said.

  “Simply because you are not,” said I. “Dutch will be keeping you and shipping Piney Woods back to Mike. Is Dutch smart?”

  “He certainly is,” he said.

  “Do you think he would stand for a dumb ballplayer?”

  “No.”

  “Then if you were a dumb ballplayer would he be standing for you?”

  “No,” he said, “I guess not, Arthur, now that you mention it.”

  “Did you not buy an Arcturus policy? Did it not prove a smart move?”

  “I guess so,” he said.

  “Can a dumb person do a smart thing?”

  “No sir, Arthur, I guess not.”

  “Then wise up,” I said.

  “I will keep a book,” he said. “I will have more confidence and brains. You are giving me the old confidence already. You are a smart fellow, Arthur.”

  “And tell me one more thing,” I said. “Would a smart fellow like me room with a dumb one? How do people room with people around here? Do you room with your opposite type or do you room 2 by 2 like Jonah in the a
rk. Take Jonah. Who does he room with? He rooms with Perry, color with color, and Washburn rooms with Crane, color with color again, and George with this Spanish boy because language with language, and Pasquale and Vincent together because brother with brother, coaches with coaches, like with like. Goose Williams and Horse Byrd together, stinker with stinker. There is always a reason why 2 fellows are roomies. I never seen it fail yet. So I would not be libel to room with you if you were dumb because you yourself just said how smart I was. Did you not?”

  “Yes I did,” he said. “And I meant it,” which he did, for he always thought high of me, thought I was just about the smartest individual going. He always asks me 1,000,000 things like who in hell is some cluck in the newsreel or why in hell did they ever take the 2-deckers off 5th Avenue or what kind of a salary does the President make, and I always told him, whether I knew or not, and he always believed me, dumb as he was.

  He caught in about 8 games on the way north with Philly. It was cold. Also the railroad was out on strike, the Louisville & Nashville I think they call it, and twice we took planes. It was all a mess. Standing around in the airport one day Bob Dietz of Philadelphia said to me, “Author, what in the hell was the name of your catcher last night? How come Dutch is using him all of a sudden? He is not a bad ballplayer, only hits too much in the same place all the time,” which meant to me that they were keeping a book on him, which they never done before.

  “I do not know,” I said. I did not. I mean, I did not know why Dutch begun using him. I only know that by the time we hit home he went back to using only Jonah, deciding he had all the power he needed. We really had power all spring, Pasquale and Sid and Canada the big guns, especially against right-hand pitching. They hit 3 home runs in a row one night in Savannah, the kind of a thing that makes a pitcher lounge back on the bench with a smile on his face, which I myself done anyhow all spring no matter what, for I was hot, 9 pounds over my weight but faster than ever. The boys on Philly all said the same, saying, “Author, I never seen you so fast. I guess holding out agrees with you.” I felt good in mind and body and said to hell with my weight and never stepped on a scale all spring. The Quartet sung in the shower, and we sung one TV date in Atlanta and picked up a little change. I remember we sung “Come Josephine In My Flying Machine” quite a bit.