Calico Joe

We tap glasses, and I take a sip. Not bad. We shuffle to the side porch and find seats amid the wicker. Ms. Rook is a study in bright colors. Her white hair has a streak of purple above the left ear. Her toenails are painted pink. Her cotton drip-dry dress is a collage of reds and blues. “You must stay for dinner,” she says. “We eat from the garden, everything is fresh. No meats. Is that okay?”

There was no way to offer a polite no, and besides, I have already realized that a good restaurant might be hard to find in Calico Rock. Nor have I seen a motel.

“If you insist,” I say, and this seems to thrill her beyond words.

“I’ll go pick the squash,” she says, bouncing to her feet and hurrying away.

We sip our drinks and talk about the heat and humidity but soon find our way back to more important matters. He begins, “You have to understand, Paul, that the Castles are very protective of Joe. If you met him, let’s say randomly, out there on the street, for example, though that would never happen because Joe is seldom seen around town, but, anyway, if you bumped into him and tried to say hello, he would simply walk away. I can’t imagine Joe chatting with a stranger. It just doesn’t happen. Over the years, we’ve had the occasional journalist show up looking for a story. There were a couple of pieces written a long time ago, and they said things that weren’t nice.”

“Such as?”

“Joe is brain damaged. Joe is disabled. Joe is bitter. And so on. The family is very distrustful of anyone who shows up and wants to talk about Joe. That’s why they would never allow him to speak to you.”

“Could I talk to his brothers?”

“Who am I? You’re on your own, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Red and Charlie are nice enough, but they can be tough guys. And when it comes to their little brother, they can turn nasty real quick. They carry guns, like a lot of people around here. Hunting rifles and such.”

The lemon gin is settling in, and I want to change the subject to anything but guns. I take a long sip, as does Mr. Rook, and for a moment the only sounds are the whirling blades of the ceiling fans. Finally, I ask, “Did you see him play at Wrigley?”

A wide, nostalgic smile breaks across his face, and he begins to nod. “Twice. Fay and I drove to Chicago early in August of that summer. The Sports Illustrated piece had just been published, and the world couldn’t get enough of Joe Castle.”

“How did you get tickets?”

“Scalpers. There were a lot of folks around here who wanted desperately to get to Chicago for a game, but word was out that you couldn’t get tickets. Joe got a handful each game, and there was always a fight for those. I remember drinking coffee one morning downtown and Mr. Herbert Mangrum walked in. He had some money, and he had just flown to Pittsburgh to watch the Cubs. Said he had to pay a scalper $300 for two tickets, in Pittsburgh. Herb was a big talker, and he went on and on about seeing Joe in Pittsburgh.”

“So you drove to Chicago with no tickets?”

“That’s right, but I had a contact. We got lucky and saw two games. Spoke to Joe after the first one. The kid was on top of the world. We were so proud.”

“Which games?”

“August 9 and 10, against the Braves.”

“You missed the fun. He got ejected the next day.”

Mr. Rook licks his lips, cocks his head, and gives me a strange look. “You know your stuff, don’t you?”

“Yes sir, I do.”

“Could you please drop the ‘sirs’ and the ‘misters’? I’m Clarence, and my wife is Fay.”

“Okay, Clarence. What do you want to know about the short, happy, and tragic career of Joe Castle?”

“How many games did he play?” Clarence asks, knowing the answer.

“Thirty-eight, and I have the box score for every one. He would’ve played forty-three but for the ejection on August 11, the day after you saw him play.”

Clarence smiles, nods, takes a long sip, and says, “You’re wrong, Paul. He would’ve played three thousand games if he hadn’t been beaned.” He sets his drink on the table, stands, and says, “I’ll be right back.”

He returns with a cardboard box, which he sets on the floor next to his sofa. From it he removes four thick three-ring binders, all matched and perfectly organized. He places them on the wicker table and says, “This is the book I never wrote—the story of Joe Castle. Many years ago, I started the first chapter, then put it aside. This is not the only unfinished project, mind you, in fact there are many, and I suppose the world is a better place because of my tendency to procrastinate.”

“How can a newspaper editor procrastinate? Doesn’t your life revolve around deadlines?”

“Some deadlines, sure, but because we stare at the calendar all day long, we tend to shove aside our other projects.”

“So why didn’t you write this book?”