Robert Coover - The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop

As time passed, he grew impatient. A couple guys standing on a street corner describing conquests, no doubt. Of course, they could also be cops. Better stay put. To take up the time, he explored a little further, left hand stretched out in front of him, right hand tracing the contours of the wall. Earthen. Sweating. It seemed endless. Finally, he gave it up, turned hack. Now, in fact, there was no street! Moment of panic, hut he made himself think. The wall he was tracing must have been curving. He stepped out away from it. Still couldn't see a thing. Better go back the same way you came. He reached out for the wall, but couldn't find it. Then he did panic. Wheeled around, scrambling in every direction at once, not afraid of the voices now, but afraid to cry out. Why? he didn't know — ah! the wall! But which one? He was breathing heavily, ashamed. He'd lost his head there for a minute. And now what, right or left? He decided to gamble on its being the same wall, so followed it now with his left hand. But after a hundred paces or so with no sight of the street, he realized he'd guessed wrong, was just getting deeper. Turned back. Keep calm. It'd be easy to break. Count. At one hundred, he paused. Must've started about here. Another fifty or a hundred paces, and he ought to see the street. But after twenty, the wall curved suddenly to the right. He swallowed, licked his lips. Keep thinking, keep cool. Could put your back to the wall, then strike straight out on the perpendicular — have to find the opposite wall sooner or later. But he had a grip on this wall and didn't want to let go. And when he did find that other wall, which way would he go? Besides, if these were excavations, there might be drops: he could fall, hurt himself, have to spend all night here. No, consider. This tunnel must go somewhere. Some other exit probably. Better stick with it, keep moving. He was afraid of the right turn he'd come on, so he went back over the same ground again, right hand out in front, left hand tracing the rough passage wall. Hundred paces and that wall curved, too, sharply to the left. Too soon. But maybe he was taking bigger steps now. No point in going back. Better keep moving. Don't think. Just lead to panic. Move, just move, hustle. In his mind, he kept up a little pepper. That's it. Lotta action. Hup, two, three. Every hundred paces or so, the wall again bent left. Going around in circles. Or maybe a spiral. What kind of a goddamn ball park was this anyway? Don't question it. Keep going. Seemed to be climbing now. Lift those knees. Come on, Sic'em baby, cover ground! He was sweating now, his clothes feh sticky on him, the air heavy— heart going too fast! He dropped his right hand to feel its beating and smacked up solid against a sudden right turn in the wall.

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.

FLYNNhad 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?"