Stephen King - Blockade Billy

What I saw was this: the kid whapped the glove on Anderson’s chest while he was still three full steps from the dish. Then Anderson hit the kid’s lowered shoulder. He went up and over and landed behind the lefthand batter’s box. The umpire lifted his fist in the out sign. Then Anderson started to yell and grab his ankle. I could hear it from the far end of the dugout, so you know it must have been good yelling, because those Opening Day fans were roaring like a force-ten gale. I could see that Anderson’s left pants cuff was turning red, and blood was oozing out between his fingers.

Can I have a drink of water? Just pour some out of that plastic pitcher, would you? Plastic pitchers is all they give us for our rooms, you know; no glass pitchers allowed in the zombie hotel.

Ah, that’s good. Been a long time since I talked so much, and I got a lot more to say. You bored yet? No? Good. Me neither. Having the time of my life, awful story or not.

Anderson didn’t play again until ’58, and ’58 was his last year-Boston gave him his unconditional release halfway through the season, and he couldn’t catch on with anyone else. Because his speed was gone, and speed was really all he had to sell. The docs said he’d be good as new, the Achilles tendon was only nicked, not cut all the way through, but it was also stretched, and I imagine that’s what finished him. Baseball’s a tender game, you know; people don’t realize. And it isn’t only catchers who get hurt in collisions at the plate.

After the game, Danny Doo grabs the kid in the shower and yells: “I’m gonna buy you a drink tonight, rook! In fact, I’m gonna buy you ten!” And then he gives his highest praise: “You hung the fuck in there!”

“Ten drinks, because I hung the fuck in there,” the kid says, and The Doo laughs and claps him on the back like it’s the funniest thing he ever heard.

But then Pinky Higgins comes storming in. He was managing the Red Sox that year, which was a thankless job; things only got worse for Pinky and the Sox as the summer of ’57 crawled along. He was mad as hell, chewing a wad of tobacco so hard and fast the juice squirted from both sides of his mouth and ran down his chin. He said the kid had deliberately cut Anderson’s ankle when they collided at the plate. Said Blakely must have done it with his fingernails, and the kid should be put out of the game for it. This was pretty rich, coming from a man whose motto was, “Spikes high and let em die!”

I was sitting in Joe’s office drinking a beer, so the two of us listened to Pinky’s rant together. I thought the guy was nuts, and I could see from Joe’s face that I wasn’t alone.

Joe waited until Pinky ran down, then said: “I wasn’t watching Anderson’s foot. I was watching to see if Blakely made the tag and held onto the ball. Which he did.”

“Get him in here,” Pinky fumes. “I want to say it to his face.”

“Be reasonable, Pink,” Joe says. “Would I be in your office doing a tantrum if it had been Blakely all cut up?”

“It wasn’t spikes!” Pinky yells. “Spikes are a part of the game! Scratching someone up like a…a girl at a kickball match …that ain’t! And Anderson’s in the game seven years! He’s got a family to support!”

“So you’re saying what? My catcher ripped your pinch-runner’s ankle open while he was tagging him out-and tossing him over his goddam shoulder, don’t forget-and he did it with his nails?”

“That’s what Anderson says,” Pinky tells him. “Anderson says he felt it.”

“Maybe Blakely stretched Anderson’s foot with his nails, too. Is that it?”

“No,” Pinky admits. His face was all red by then, and not just from being mad. He knew how it sounded. “He says that happened when he came down.”

“Begging the court’s pardon,” I says, “but fingernails? This is a load of crap.”

“I want to see the kid’s hands,” Pinky says. “You show me or I’ll lodge a goddam protest.”

I thought Joe would tell Pinky to shit in his hat, but he didn’t. He turned to me. “Tell the kid to come in here. Tell him he’s gonna show Mr. Higgins his nails, just like he did to his first-grade teacher after the Pledge of Allegiance.”

I got the kid. He came willingly enough, although he was just wearing a towel, and didn’t hold back showing his nails. They were short, clean, not broken, not even bent. There were no blood-blisters, either, like there might be if you really set them in someone and raked with them. One little thing I did happen to notice, although I didn’t think anything of it at the time: the Band-Aid was gone from his second finger, and I didn’t see any sign of a healing cut where it had been, just clean skin, pink from the shower.

“Satisfied?” Joe asked Pinky. “Or would you like to check his ears for potato-dirt while you’re at it?”

“Fuck you,” Pinky says. He got up, stamped over to the door, spat his cud into the wastepaper basket there- splut! -and then he turns back. “My boy says your boy cut him. Says he felt it. And my boy don’t lie.”

“Your boy tried to be a hero with the game on the line instead of stopping at third and giving Piersall a chance. He’d tell you the moon was made of his father’s come-stained skivvies if it’d get him off the hook for that. You know what happened and so do I. Anderson got tangled in his own spikes and did it to himself when he went whoopsy-daisy. Now get out of here.”

“There’ll be a payback for this, DiPunno.”

“Yeah? Well it’s the same gametime tomorrow. Get here early.”

Pinky left, already tearing off a fresh piece of chew. Joe drummed his fingers beside his ashtray, then asked the kid: “Now that it’s just us chickens, did you do anything to Anderson? Tell me the truth.”

“No.” Not a bit of hesitation. “I didn’t do anything to Anderson. That’s the truth.”

“Okay,” Joe said, and stood up. “Always nice to shoot the shit after a game, but I think I’ll go on home and have a drink. Then I might fuck my wife on the sofa. Winning on Opening Day always makes my pecker stand up.” Then he said, “Kid, you played the game the way it’s supposed to be played. Good for you.”

He left. The kid cinched his towel around his waist and started back to the locker room. I said, “I see that shaving cut’s all better.”

He stopped dead in the doorway, and although his back was to me, I knew he’d done something out there. The truth was in the way he was standing. I don’t know how to explain it better, but…I knew.

“What?” Like he didn’t get me, you know.

“The shaving cut on your finger.”

“Oh, that shaving cut. Yuh, all better.”

And out he sails…although, rube that he was, he probably didn’t have a clue where he was going. Luckily for him, Kerwin McCaslin had got him a place to stay in the better part of Newark. Hard to believe as it might be, Newark had a better part back then.

Okay, second game of the season. Dandy Dave Sisler on the mound for Boston, and our new catcher is hardly settled into the batter’s box before Sisler chucks a fastball at his head. Would have knocked his fucking eyes out if it had connected, but he snaps his head back-didn’t duck or nothing-and then just cocks his bat again, looking at Sisler as if to say, Go on, mac, do it again if you want .

The crowd’s screaming like mad and chanting RUN IM! RUN IM! RUN IM! The ump didn’t run Sisler, but he got warned and a cheer went up. I looked over and saw Pinky in the Boston dugout, walking back and forth with his arms folded so tight he looked like he was trying to keep from exploding.