The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

I hesitated over giving him 19, because it was poor old Faraday’s number, but the uniform fit him without looking like pajamas, so I did. While he was dressing, I said: ‘Ain’t you tired? You must have driven almost nonstop. Didn’t they send you some cash to take a plane?’

‘I ain’t tired,’ he said. ‘They might have sent me some cash to take a plane, but I didn’t see it. Could we go look at the field?’

I said we could, and led him down the runway and up through the dugout. He walked down to home plate outside the foul line in Faraday’s uniform, the blue 19 gleaming in the morning sun (it wasn’t but eight o’clock, the groundskeepers just starting what would be a long day’s work).

I wish I could tell you how it felt to see him taking that walk, Mr King, but words are your thing, not mine. All I know is that back-to he looked more like Faraday than ever. He was ten years younger, of course … but age doesn’t show much from the back, except sometimes in a man’s walk. Plus he was slim like Faraday, and slim’s the way you want your shortstop and second baseman to be, not your catcher. Catchers should be built like fireplugs, the way Johnny Goodkind was. This guy looked like broken ribs and a rupture just waiting to happen.

He had a firmer build than Frank Faraday, though; broad in the butt and thick in the thighs. He was skinny from the waist up, but looking at him ass-end-going-away, I remember thinking he looked like what he probably was: an Iowa plowboy on vacation in scenic Newark.

He went to the plate and turned around to look out to dead center. He had blond hair, just like a plowboy should, and a lock of it had fallen on his forehead. He brushed it away and just stood there taking it all in – the silent, empty stands where over fifty thousand people would be sitting that afternoon, the bunting already hung on the railings and fluttering in the morning breeze, the foul poles painted fresh Jersey Blue, the groundskeepers just starting to water. It was an awesome sight, I always thought, and I could imagine what was going through the kid’s mind, him that had probably been home pulling cow teats just a week ago and waiting for the Cornholers to start playing in mid-May.

I thought, Poor kid’s finally getting the picture. When he looks over here, I’ll see the panic in his eyes. I may have to tie him down in the locker room to keep him from jumping in that old truck of his and hightailing it back to God’s country.

But when he looked at me, there was no panic in his eyes. Not even nervousness, which I would have said every player feels on Opening Day. No, he looked perfectly cool standing there behind the plate in his Levi’s and light poplin jacket.

‘Yuh,’ he says, like a man confirming something he was pretty sure of in the first place. ‘Billy can hit here.’

‘Good,’ I tell him. It’s all I can think of to say.

‘Good,’ he says back. Then – I swear – he says, ‘Do you think those guys need help with them hoses?’

I laughed. There was something strange about him, something off, something that made folks nervous … but that something made people take to him too. Kinda sweet. Something that made you want to like him in spite of feeling he wasn’t exactly all there. Joe DiPunno knew he was light in the head right away. Some of the players did too, but that didn’t stop them from liking him. I don’t know, it was like when you talked to him what came back was the sound of your own voice. Like an echo in a cave.

‘Billy,’ I said, ‘groundskeeping ain’t your job. Your job is to put on the gear and catch Danny Dusen this afternoon.’

‘Danny Doo,’ he said.

‘That’s right. Twenty and six last year, should have won the Cy Young, didn’t. Because the writers don’t like him. He’s still got a red ass over that. And remember this: if he shakes you off, don’t you dare flash the same sign again. Not unless you want your pecker and asshole to change places after the game, that is. Danny Doo is four games from two hundred wins, and he’s going to be mean as hell until he gets there.’

‘Until he gets there.’ Nodding his head.

‘That’s right.’

‘If he shakes me off, flash something different.’

‘Yes.’

‘Does he have a changeup?’

‘Does a dog piss on a fire hydrant? The Doo’s won a hundred and ninety-six games. You don’t do that without a changeup.’

‘Not without a changeup,’ he says. ‘Okay.’

‘And don’t get hurt out there. Until the front office can make a deal, you’re what we got.’

‘I’m it,’ he says. ‘Gotcha.’

‘I hope so.’