John Grisham - Calico Joe

“What’s that?”

“Moonshine.”

“They serve it with dinner?”

“No, it’s strictly an after-dinner drink, at least in the Rook household. Clarence called it a ‘digestif.’ ”

“What does it taste like?”

“Liquid fire.”

“Sounds delicious. Any other excitement?”

“Not really.”

“Are you going to call Jill?”

“Not tonight, maybe later. I doubt if she wants to hear about Warren.”

A week later, I leave the office for lunch and drive to a city-owned, multi-field complex where most of my friends have coached their sons in the various youth leagues. But for a few groundskeepers, the place is empty. The season is over. I climb the bleachers of the “big field,” as it is known, a regulation-size diamond with a center field wall four hundred feet away. I sit in the shade below the press box and eat a chicken wrap.

It is August 24, 2003. Thirty years ago tonight, I was sitting with my mother in Shea Stadium, watching my hero Joe Castle walk to the plate to face my father. I slowly recall those images and again hear the sound of Joe being struck. The horror, the chaos, the fear, the ambulance, then the fighting and the aftermath. His skull was cracked in three places. His cheekbone was broken. He was bleeding from his ears, and the doctors at first thought he was dead.

That time and place seem so far away now. The beanball ended two careers, and I’m not sure what it did to me. It broke the hearts of millions of people, so I wasn’t the only one wounded. But I was the only one, aside from my parents, who knew Joe was about to get drilled in the head.

I wonder if Joe is marking the anniversary. Is he doing what I am doing—sitting alone in a ballpark, remembering the tragedy, and longing for what could have been? Somewhere in his altered state, does he look back with bitterness at what happened? I certainly would. Thirty years later, and I still get choked up thinking about the needless injury and the ending of a beautiful career.

I suspect this date means nothing to Warren Tracey. He is probably on the golf course. He dismissed the beanball decades ago. “It’s sports. Bad things happen.”

After lunch is finished, I sit and try to think of some way to put the story of Joe Castle behind me. I finally admit that I’m not sure that will ever happen.

Two weeks pass. The girls return to school, and I get lost in my work. Our normal, happy life resumes, and I slowly forget about the idea of a reunion in Calico Rock. The phone rings one night, and Rebecca, our ten-year-old, answers it. She runs into the den and says, “Dad, it’s some man named Warren. Wants to talk to you.”

Sara and I look at each other. Neither can remember the last time Warren called our home.

“Who’s Warren?” Rebecca asks.

“Your grandfather,” Sara says as I head to the kitchen.

The call has no purpose, as far as I can tell. His voice is scratchy and weak, and he informs me that chemotherapy is not pleasant. He has no appetite, so he’s losing weight, along with his hair. Agnes drives him to the hospital twice a week for the infusions, which take two hours each in a depressing room with a dozen other cancer patients hooked up to their drips.

He stuns me by asking, “How’s the family?” And when Sara walks through the kitchen and hears me talking about our children, she is shocked. He informs me that he called Jill a few hours earlier, but no one answered the phone.

Warren Tracey is calling his children. He must be dying.

I check in with Clarence Rook once a week, but these conversations get shorter and shorter. There is not much news in Calico Rock, and I am not sure how he fills up a newspaper every Wednesday. I call Warren occasionally, not really out of a deep concern over his health, but more to remind him that I am still around and I want something. We never discuss Joe Castle.

In the second week of October, I am in the middle of a meeting with my boss and colleagues when my cell phone vibrates. At my company, it is not a crime for a cell phone call to disrupt something important. I step into the hall and say hello to Agnes. Warren is in the hospital, internal bleeding, low blood pressure, fainting spells. The doctors just completed another scan, and the cancer has spread rapidly, tumors are everywhere—liver, kidneys, stomach, and, worst of all, the brain. He has lost forty pounds. She believes Warren is finally accepting the fact that cancer will kill him.

What am I supposed to say? I don’t know this woman, and I hardly know her husband. I offer a few half-baked sympathies and promise to call tomorrow. I do, but go straight to voice mail. Three days later, I am driving home from work when Warren calls my cell. He says he is back home, feels much better, has changed doctors because the old ones were idiots, and has a fighting chance of beating his cancer. At the beginning of the brief conversation, he sounds alert, chipper, full of energy, but he cannot maintain the ruse. By the end, his voice is fading, and his diction is not as sharp. I go through my short list of things to say, and I am ready to finish the call when he says, “Say, Paul, I’ve been thinking about that trip to Arkansas.”

“Oh really,” I say, avoiding any trace of excitement.

“Yes. I like the idea. Not sure my doctors will approve of me traveling, but let’s give it a try.”

“Sure, Warren. I’ll make some calls.”

The worst part will be the long drive, just me and Warren in the car, with so much history to cover and no desire to go there.

Our flights take us to Little Rock, and I arrive two hours before him. I eat lunch, kill time, work on my laptop, and find a spot to observe the arriving passengers. It’s a small airport with lots of open spaces, natural light, and not too much traffic.

According to our last phone call, his doctors said no to the trip, and this only heightened his determination. He finally admitted the cancer is now in control of things, and he has stopped chemo. “I doubt if I’ll make it to Christmas, Paul,” he said, as if the holidays meant something to him.

Christmas. When I was eight, he was playing winter ball in Venezuela and was a no-show at Christmas. Jill and I opened gifts near the tree, and my mother could not stop crying. I wonder if Warren remembers all the things I remember.

He appears in a crowd with other passengers from Atlanta. He’s wearing a cap because he has no hair, and he walks with a slow but determined step. He has shriveled into a small man with a girlish waistline and sunken chest. He’s rolling a small carry-on behind him, and he’s looking around for me.

I almost rented a hybrid for environmental reasons but realized we would be shoulder to shoulder for hours. Instead, we’re in a large SUV with as much room as possible between the two front seats. Not much is said until Little Rock is behind us.

He has aged ten years in two months, and I understand why his doctors said no to the trip. He nods off repeatedly and for a long time says nothing, then really opens the door with “God, it’s nice being away from Agnes.”

I laugh and think of all the wild directions this conversation could now go. “What number is she—five or six?” I ask.

A pause as he calculates, then, “Agnes is number five. Karen was four. Florence was three. Daisy was two. Your mother was the first.”

“Impressive that you can still remember the lineup.”

“Oh, some things you never forget.”