The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop Page 12

  Face stung. Felt dizzy. Greasy. He paused there, in the corner, half ready to quit, getting his breath. Then he saw where he was. In his own dugout. Visitors' dugout near first base. Still dark, no shape to things, but no longer pitch black. He stepped through the dugout, out onto the field, to get his bearings, get some fresh air. As he did, as he passed through the dugout, he saw them there, but he looked away. No, that would be too much. Even out on the field, the night air was oppressive. He stared off toward where, more or less, home plate was, must be; but his back tingled. Another trick of the shadows, he supposed. Night. Always did that. Irrational. But he was pretty sure they were there, pretty sure he'd seen them. Sitting on the bench. Didn't know who. But they were there behind him. Imagination. Go back and check. No, don't be an idiot, that's how you've ended up here in the first place, remember? He recalled an exit behind home plate. Head for that. Get outa here. Yeah, boy. Walk, don't run. Control. But speed, too. He sighted on the bag at first, only thing he could see out there. Finally he was running.

  But at first base, he pulled up short. Figure lurking there. No turning away from that. Flynn was all alone out on a darkened ballfield, behind him that dugout with its goddamn spooky benchwarmers, the tunnel back of that—and something even worse ahead. The figure stood about six paces off first base, down the baseline toward second. Flynn's baseball habits made him think instinctively: he's playing too close to the bag. Or maybe he was moving toward first. Someone coming up from home? Base on balls? Or ... ? aha. Oh no.

  Damp dank wind curled around his ankles, crept down his back. Made his clothes tug and tremble on him, and the first baseman's pants fluttered around his motionless knees. Flynn felt rooted to the spot. "Matt?" he whispered. No answer. His mouth was dry, tongue thick. Almost didn't hear himself. "Matt, is that you?" Face in shadows, no features visible, but the body, the shape, looked like Matt Garrison. Cap tipped forward like he always wore it, jaw out-thrust. Just fixed there. Flynn, keeping his eye on the immobile first baseman, circled, then backed away. Toward home. Toward the exit. Oh man. You gotta get outa here. This is something awful.

  But then he paused. Felt the turf under his shoes. Not the baseline. He'd got off it. Must be near the ... the mound. Yes. And he knew: there was somebody behind him, all right. Didn't have to look. Didn't have the nerve anyway. "Jock?" Could still faintly make out Matt Garrison's figure, and beyond Matt, the black mouth of the dugout from which he'd come. McAllister Weeks over toward second. "That you, Jock?" Turn around and look, you ass. Can't. Sorry, just can't. "Jock, if you don't want to pitch it out..." He could imagine Casey's face. The hard thrust of bone against the lean flesh. The scooped-out shadowy loner's eyes. That set cold stare. Couldn't turn and look, though. "Just let me know, I can ..." The night wind. The lifeless field. His own heart which was going to fail, going to break, going to quit. "Why've you done this to us, Jock?" he cried out. Flynn was near tears. Behind him, he realized, past Casey, past home plate, there was an exit. Maybe it was a way out, maybe it wasn't. But he'd never make it. It was all he wanted, but he'd never make it. He couldn't even turn around. And besides, he wasn't sure what he'd find at home plate on the way. "I quit," he said. But then the lights came on.

  FLYNN had his back to the mound and was staring probably out toward his bull pen where he had two relievers working and at the same time watching Matt Garrison shift over there toward first as the Pioneer pinch runner came down the line to take his—but who was that? who'd those guys have? Tuck Wilson maybe: Bancroft sent Wilson in to run for Rutherford, okay. Henry stared woozily down upon those three ones on his kitchen table, trying to put all that scene back together again, get some order in this damn operation, men, and he was Old Fennimore McCaffree in his black suit giving orders and Barney Bancroft urging the boys how they had to win this game and all the old Elders sitting like a panel of enraged titans up on the Elders Bench and the catcher Chauncey O'Shea blubbering there behind the plate all broken up by this thing and he was the umpire Frosty Young hollering out they had to play ball no matter what and thinking how hard it was going to be to call them straight though he had to and he was also each of the old-time Pioneers who'd come there for Brock Rutherford Day at Pioneer Park and now a little awestruck but back there to see this thing out... but mostly he was only J. Henry Waugh, pooped and plastered Prop., thinking that this was sure a helluva thing for a grown man to be doing at dawn on a working day, and how was he going to face up to old Zifferblatt two hours from now?

  But Flynn finally turned to Jock Casey and asked him: "You sure you feel like staying in this game?"

  And Casey said, "Yeah, why not?"

  "Because I can always—"

  "Forget it." Casey was impatient. "Let's just get going."

  Well, old Flynn shook his head, as though to say it was out of his hands, and he left the field, Casey being essentially right: finish it out. See what happened. The stands were dead still. Jammed, though. They had all come back. They wanted to be there. Who could tell? might be the last game in the UBA.

  Henry wrote in Wilson pinch-running for the hit-and-now-buried batsman, R.I.P., but his gloves made his fingers so clumsy he could hardly read it afterwards, so he pulled them off and threw them over on the shelves, then traced over what he'd written; it was still pretty hard to read. Henry considered the situation, that it was the bottom of the third, Pioneers batting, Wilson on first, no outs, Ramsey swinging against Casey on the Rookie-to-Rookie chart, and even managed a dim picture of how it was down there to start this game up again, how it must be, no matter what anybody was saying out loud; then he picked up the dice, scrambling the bean ball in his fist, and rolled for Toby Ramsey, and things were moving again: GO 1B/R Adv 1 if F, which meant that Garrison took the play unassisted at first, Ramsey out, but Wilson now down on second, and it suddenly occurred to Henry, now thinking like Bancroft, or maybe like one of the old Pioneers, Willie O'Leary perhaps, that Ramsey should have been ordered to bunt, but it really didn't matter, came out the same way anyhow, and also: why did Bancroft send an old tub like Tuck Wilson in as a pinch runner? he must have meant to use one of the younger boys, and in the confusion—but, hell, that was no damn way to run a ball game. Henry, feeling oddly suffocated, realized then he still had his coat on, so he took it off and dropped it over the back of the chair. So now it was Grammercy Locke, one out and a man on second, which meant Casey should give Locke an intentional pass and try for the double play, and even though Henry personally wanted to see Locke swing away, wanted to see them all swing away, he gave in to the logic of it, and that put Locke on first, Wilson on second, and Hatrack Hines at the plate: action on the Rookie-to-Star chart now for four straight Pioneer batters. He supposed there was probably a little chin music down there now around the base paths and in the dugouts, and maybe even some gathering hoopla up in the stands, but he couldn't hear it He rolled for Hines, who got a walk, loading up the bases, with home-run champ Witness York coming to the plate, and finally he was able to smile, and, scratching his head, he wondered where he had left his hat. He rolled: FO RF/R Adv 1. Well, a fly-out to right, pretty disappointing, but at least it brought old Tuck Wilson waddling in from third after the catch, put runners in scoring position on second and third, two outs, Star hitter Stan Patterson at the plate, but Patterson, trying too hard maybe, struck out, and that was all. Struck out! Henry was standing, curved over his table, supported by both stiffened arms, gazing despondently down upon his Universal Baseball Association. It was as though nothing had happened, Casey was still burning them in, and even though it was now Pioneers 1 and Knicks 0, nobody had got a hit yet.

  Henry tugged off his scarf, tossed it over on the drainboard by the sink, and sat down heavily. Should go to bed. No, then he'd never get up and he'd be out of a job. Today was Friday. If he could just get through the day somehow, there was the weekend to recover. All right, who was up? oh wait, that's right, the Pioneers needed a pitcher in there, and who was it going to be? better use their ace, Micke
y Halifax: they had to win this one, didn't they? they did. And so he sat there, leaning on one elbow, fighting sleep, vaguely worried about Zifferblatt, one of Sandy's tunes wandering through his sodden head, rolling the dice, and not much happened for a couple innings except that Chauncey O'Shea, the Knicks' rookie catcher who was supposed to be blind with tears of remorse, tripled in the fifth to spoil the Rutherford-Halifax no-hitter. Luckily, Halifax got the side out, O'Shea dying on base, but meanwhile the Pioneers were doing just nothing at all.

  Okay, so now the sixth, the game was officially a complete one, even if it got called, and as of now the Pioneers would be the winners, 1-to-O, so surely it was a temptation for Frosty Young to see clouds in the sky, but on the other hand, Casey still had a no-hitter, and there would be a lot of resentment if they didn't let the Pioneers have another chance or two at busting that up, and besides, it still wasn't time to go to work, and he had to do something. Henry put fire on under the day-old coffee sitting on the stove and tried to talk himself into a little of the old excitement. He even said out loud: "All right, fellas, a little pepper now, let's wake up!"—but he heard himself talking to a wooden kitchen table all too plainly, and he thought: what a drunken loony old goat you are, they oughta lock you up.

  But he sat down anyway, just to see what the dice would bring, because it was clearly on his mind, either something happened—something in short remedial—or into the garbage hag with the whole works, and with that the Knicks started laying into Halifax. It was Killer Casey who started it appropriately enough with a line-drive single, and then after a couple outs, Garrison doubled, Baldwin singled, and McCamish homered, and so suddenly it was a 4-to-1 ball game, the Mad Jock and his Knicks out in front. There was still time for the Pioneers to fight back, and Henry barked irritably at them, or maybe just at the dice, as he threw for them in the bottom of the sixth, but grim Casey cut them down, one-two-three. A hard-bitten cold-blooded sonuvabitch. And then the seventh, the old lucky seventh, there was Crybaby O'Shea kicking things off for the Knicks with a double off the left-field wall and Musgraves walking and Casey doubling them both home and Batkin singling to score Casey. And were they laughing about it, for god's sake? Weeks struck out, but Garrison singled and Baldwin got a base on balls, loading up the bags. "Aw, get your Ace's ass to the showers!" Henry grumped disgustedly at Halifax, and called in Drew McDermott in relief. And so McCamish knocked the ball down to Hatrack Hines at third, who fumbled it, and a run scored, and Maverly singled and a run scored, and O'Shea singled, his third hit of the ball game, and a run scored. Henry, chin in his right hand and rolling with his left, watched them prance around the bases, having a damn picnic. Musgraves, the only Knick in the whole line-up so far without a hit, singled home McCamish, which brought Jock the Jerk to the plate for the second time this inning, and now with the bases loaded and the game a goddamn rout. Henry supposed, in his morass of gloom and nausea, that Casey would probably tear the cover off the ball, but he didn't. Against every rule in the book and contrary to Flynn's signals, he bunted, a squeeze bunt under the awesome circumstances, and Maverly scored from third; Pioneer catcher Royce Ingram's throw to first was wild, Casey was safe, and on the error O'Shea came sliding in for yet another run. Insane, but there it was. Nor was it all. Batkin popped up to Hines, but Weeks singled home Musgraves and Matt Garrison doubled, scoring Casey, before Biff Baldwin finally lined out to center to end the massacre. Knicks 15, Pioneers 1. Henry couldn't see much down there in Pioneer Park, but he did notice that just about all the fans had got up and walked out.

  By now the coffee had been boiling for some time and the kitchen stank of it. Henry pushed himself up out of his chair, turned off the burner, dumped pot and all into the sink. Outside, the sky, starless, was graying toward day. A few neon signs burned in the half light, proclaiming names and wonders: the new and wearisome order. He looked at his watch: still more than an hour before he had to,confront the old man. What could he tell him? This was probably the end, all right: got the axe, boys, got the aches. The most he could hope for was a terrific chewing out, and bad as he was feeling this morning, that was really nothing to hope for at all. It was autumn, but Henry felt plunged into the deepest of winters. But no, it was the middle of a baseball season, remember? Green fields and hot suns and shirtsleeved fanatics out on the bleaching boards, last to give it up and go home: he turned back to the table.

  Who was up? Ingram. Damon's old battery mate. Damon's old battery mate struck out—for the third straight goddamn time. Then Wilder singled to spoil—at last—Mad Jock's no-hitter (and oddly he felt regret, because not even punishment then was total), but Goodman James bounced into a double play. Why am I murdering myself like this? he wondered, but he went on pitching the dice, and in the top of the eighth, the Knicks' Walt McCamish drew a base on balls, Maverly whacked a fly ball out to Witness York, who dropped it, and Shook-up O'Shea belted out his fourth hit of the game, bringing in McCamish. Musgraves walked to fill the bags, and Casey knocked a ball out to the mound, busting McDermott's finger, two runs scoring on the error. That was too much. Henry threw the dice across the kitchen, took a cold shower, put on fresh clothes, pulled the chain on the lamp over the kitchen table, and went out for breakfast.

  His bus was already overloaded when it arrived at his stop, and Henry was tempted to walk, getting out in the air was already doing him some good, but he couldn't risk arriving late, not today, so he squeezed on with the others, joining the sour community on its morning pilgrimage. Din of coughing and snuffling, here and there a sneeze exploding from a buffed nose: assailed by microbes, his head uncovered, he felt anything but invulnerable. He pressed rearward, pushed out a couple stops early, the bus exhaling as though with profound relief, and bought a newspaper at a stand on the corner there, obeying some old impulse which, he realized, he'd nearly forgotten, the giving of the coin, the snapping up of the paper, taking the world to heart and mind, or some world anyway.

  In the coffee shop, he looked around for Lou: not here yet. He waited for one of the small tables in front of the counter to clear, glancing the while at the headlines. Some priest who quit and got married. Gold and silver shortages. Orgy that the cops broke up. Rapes and murders. Makings of another large war. A table opened up: Henry claimed it, looping his scarf over the second chair. War seemed to be a must for every generation. A pageant to fortify the tribal spirit. A columnist plumped for bloodless war through the space race. Henry sympathized with the man, but it could never work. Mere abstraction.

  People needed casualty lists, territory footage won and lost, bounded sets with strategies and payoff functions, supply and communication routes disrupted or restored, tonnage totals, and deaths, downed planes, and prisoners socked away like a hoard of calculable runs scored. Besides, war was available to everybody, the space race to few: war was a kind of whorehouse for mass release of moonlust. Lunacy: anyway, he sure wasn't inventing it. The dishes on his table were cleared with a hard clap and rattle that hammered on the bare raw lobes of his brain and made him wince with pain. Don't give up, he cautioned himself. The waitress sponged the table with a rag that smelled like something between an old goat and a dead fish. He ordered a muffin and coffee, hoping he could keep it down.

  New customers wheezed in, questioned the scarfed chair: "Sorry, taken." Henry ducked from their scowls into his paper, sipping the hot coffee, and thankful for it.