J. Powers - The Stories of J.F. Powers

Bugs stuck his mitt with the ball in it under his arm and got out his Beechnut. He winked at Jamesie and said, “Chew?”

Jamesie giggled. He liked Bugs. Bugs, on loan from the crack State Hospital team, was all right — nothing crazy about him; he just liked it at the asylum, he said, the big grounds and lots of cool shade, and he was not required to work or take walks like the regular patients. He was the only Indee on speaking terms with Lefty.

Turning to Lefty, Bugs said, “Ever seen this Cuban work?”

“Naw.”

“I guess he’s got it when he’s right.”

“That so?” Lefty caught the ball with his bare hand and spun it back to Bugs. “Well, all I can promise you is a no-hit game. It’s up to you clowns to get the runs.”

“And me hitting a lousy.211.”

“All you got to do is hold me. Anyhow what’s the Foul Ball want for his five bucks — Mickey Cochrane?”

“Yeah, Left.”

“I ought to quit him.”

“Ain’t you getting your regular fifteen?”

“Yeah, but I ought to quit. The Yankees want me. Is my curve breaking too soon?”

“It’s right in there, Left.”

It was a pitchers’ battle until the seventh inning. Then the Indees pushed a run across.

The Barons got to Lefty for their first hit in the seventh, and when the next man bunted, Lefty tried to field it instead of letting Middle Pete at third have it, which put two on with none out. Little Pete threw the next man out at first, the only play possible, and the runners advanced to second and third. The next hitter hammered a line drive to Big Pete at first, and Big Pete tried to make it two by throwing to second, where the runner was off, but it was too late and the runner on third scored on the play. J. G. from the bench condemned Big Pete for a dumb Swede. The next man popped to short center.

Jamesie ran out with Lefty’s jacket. “Don’t let your arm get cold, Lefty.”

“Some support I got,” Lefty said.

“Whyn’t you leave me have that bunt, Lefty?” Middle Pete said, and everybody knew he was right.

“Two of them pitches was hit solid,” Big Pete said. “Good anywhere.”

“Now, boys,” J. G. said.

“Aw, dry up,” Lefty said, grabbing a blade of grass to chew. “I ought to quit you bums.”

Pid Kirby struck out for the Indees, but Little Pete walked, and Middle Pete advanced him to second on a long fly to left. Then Big Pete tripled to the weed patch in center, clear up against the Chevrolet sign, driving in Little Pete. Guez whiffed Kelly Larkin, retiring the side, and the Indees were leading the Barons 2 to 1.

The first Baron to bat in the eighth had J. G. frantic with fouls. The umpire was down to his last ball and calling for more. With trembling fingers J. G. unwrapped new balls. He had the bat boy and the bat boy’s assistant hunting for them behind the grandstand. When one fell among the automobiles parked near first, he started to go and look for himself, but thought of Jamesie and sent him instead. “If anybody tries to hold out on you, come and tell me.”

After Jamesie found the ball he crept up behind a familiar blue Hupmobile, dropping to his knees when he was right under Uncle Pat’s elbow, and then popping up to scare him.

“Look who’s here,” his cousin said. It had not been Uncle Pat’s elbow at all, but Gabriel’s. Uncle Pat, who had never learned to drive, sat on the other side to be two feet closer to the game.

Jamesie stepped up on the running board, and Gabriel offered him some popcorn.

“So you’re at the game, Jamesie,” Uncle Pat said, grinning as though it were funny. “Gabriel said he thought that was you out there.”

“Where’d you get the cap, Jamesie?” Gabriel said.

“Lefty. The whole team got new ones. And if they win today J. G. says they’re getting whole new uniforms.”

“Not from me,” Uncle Pat said, looking out on the field. “Who the thunder’s wearing my suit today?”

“Lee Coles, see?” Gabriel said, pointing to the player. Lee’s back — Mallon’s Grocery — was to them.

Uncle Pat, satisfied, slipped a bottle of near beer up from the floor to his lips and tipped it up straight, which explained to Jamesie the foam on his mustache.

“You went and missed me again this week,” Uncle Pat said broodingly. “You know what I’m going to do, Jamesie?”

“What?”

“I’m going to stop taking your old Liberty magazine if you don’t bring me one first thing tomorrow morning.”

“I will.” He would have to bring Uncle Pat his own free copy and erase the crossword puzzle. He never should have sold out on the street. That was how you lost your regular customers.

Uncle Pat said, “This makes the second time I started in to read a serial and had this happen to me.”

“Is it all right if the one I bring you tomorrow has got ‘Sample Copy’ stamped on it?”

“That’s all right with me, Jamesie, but I ought to get it for nothing.” Uncle Pat swirled the last inch of beer in the bottle until it was all suds.

“I like the Post ,” Gabriel said. “Why don’t you handle the Post ?”

“They don’t need anybody now.”

“What he ought to handle,” Uncle Pat said, “is the Country Gentleman .”

“How’s the Rosebud coming, Jamesie?” Gabriel asked. “But I don’t want to buy any.”

Uncle Pat and Gabriel laughed at him.

Why was that funny? He’d had to return eighteen boxes and tell them he guessed he was all through being the local representative. But why was that so funny?

“Did you sell enough to get the bicycle, Jamesie?”

“No.” He had sold all the Rosebud salve he could, but not nearly enough to get the Ranger bicycle. He had to be satisfied with the Eveready flashlight.

“Well, I got enough of that Rosebud salve now to grease the Hup,” Gabriel said. “Or to smear all over me the next time I swim the English Channel — with Gertrude Ederle. It ought to keep the fishes away.”

“It smells nice,” Uncle Pat said. “But I got plenty.”

Jamesie felt that they were protecting themselves against him.

“I sent it all back anyway,” he said, but that was not true; there were six boxes at home in his room that he had to keep in order to get the flashlight. Why was that the way it always worked out? Same way with the flower seeds. Why was it that whenever he got a new suit at Meyer Brothers they weren’t giving out ball bats or compasses? Why was it he only won a half pound of bacon at he carnival, never a Kewpie doll or an electric fan? Why did he always get tin whistles and crickets in the Cracker Jack, never a puzzle, a ring, or a badge? And one time he had got nothing! Why was it that the five-dollar bill he found on South Diamond Street belonged to Mrs Hutchinson? But he had found a quarter in the dust at the circus that nobody claimed.

“Get your aunt Kate to take that cap up in the back,” Uncle Pat said, smiling.

Vaguely embarrassed, Jamesie said, “Well, I got to get back.”

“If that’s Lefty’s cap,” Gabriel called after him, “you’d better send it to the cleaners.”

When he got back to the bench and handed the ball over, J. G. seemed to forget all about the bases being crowded.

“Thank God,” he said. “I thought you went home with it.”

The Barons were all on Lefty now. Shorty Parker, their manager, coaching at third, chanted, “Take him out… Take him out… Take him out.”

The Barons had started off the ninth with two clean blows. Then Bugs took a foul ball off the chicken wire in front of the grandstand for one out, and Big Pete speared a drive on the rise for another. Two down and runners on first and third. Lefty wound up — bad baseball — and the man on first started for second, the batter stepping into the pitch, not to hit it but to spoil the peg to second. The runner was safe; the man on third, threatening to come home after a false start, slid yelling back into the sack. It was close and J. G. flew off the bench to protest a little.