The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

Other players were coming in by then, and I had about a thousand things to do. Later on I saw the kid in Jersey Joe’s office, signing whatever needed to be signed. Kerwin McCaslin hung over him like a vulture over roadkill, pointing out all the right places. Poor kid, probably six hours’ worth of sleep in the last sixty, and he was in there signing five years of his life away. Later I saw him with Dusen, going over the Boston lineup. The Doo was doing all the talking, and the kid was doing all the listening. Didn’t even ask a question, so far as I saw, which was good. If the kid had opened his head, Danny probably would have bit it off.

About an hour before the game, I went in to Joe’s office to look at the lineup card. He had the kid batting eighth, which was no shock. Over our heads the murmuring had started and you could hear the rumble of feet on the boards. Opening Day crowds always pile in early. Listening to it started the butterflies in my gut, like always, and I could see Jersey Joe felt the same. His ashtray was already overflowing.

‘He’s not big like I hoped he’d be,’ he said, tapping Blakely’s name on the lineup card. ‘God help us if he gets cleaned out.’

‘McCaslin hasn’t found anyone else?’

‘Maybe. He talked to Hubie Rattner’s wife, but Hubie’s on a fishing trip somewhere in Rectal Thermometer, Wisconsin. Out of touch until next week.’

‘Hubie Rattner’s forty-three if he’s a day.’

‘Tell me somethin I don’t know. But beggars can’t be choosers. And be straight with me – how long do you think that kid’s gonna last in the bigs?’

‘Oh, he’s probably just a cup of coffee,’ I says, ‘but he’s got something Faraday didn’t.’

‘And what might that be?’

‘Dunno. But if you’d seen him standing behind the plate and looking out into center, you might feel better about him. It was like he was thinking “This ain’t the big deal I thought it would be.”’

‘He’ll find out how big a deal it is the first time Ike Delock throws one at his nose,’ Joe said, and lit a cigarette. He took a drag and started hacking. ‘I got to quit these Luckies. Not a cough in a carload, my ass. I’ll bet you twenty goddam bucks that kid lets Danny Doo’s first curve go right through his wickets. Then Danny’ll be all upset – you know how he gets when someone fucks up his train ride – and Boston’ll be off to the races.’

‘Ain’t you the cheeriest Cheerio,’ I says.

He stuck out his hand. ‘Twenty bucks. Bet.’

And because I knew he was trying to take the curse off it, I shook his hand. That was twenty I won, because the legend of Blockade Billy started that very day.

You couldn’t say he called a good game, because he didn’t call it. The Doo did that. But the first pitch – to Frank Malzone – was a curve, and the kid caught it just fine. Not only that, though. It was a cunt’s hair outside and I never saw a catcher pull one back so fast, not even Yogi. Ump called strike one and it was us off to the races, at least until Williams hit a solo shot in the fifth. We got that back in the sixth, when Ben Vincent put one out. Then in the seventh, we’ve got a runner on second – I think it was Barbarino – with two outs and the new kid at the plate. It was his third at bat. First time he struck out looking, the second time swinging. Delock fooled him bad that time, made him look silly, and the kid heard the only boos he ever got while he was wearing a Titans uniform.

He steps in, and I looked over at Joe. Seen him sitting way down by the water cooler, just looking at his shoes and shaking his head. Even if the kid worked a walk, The Doo was up next, and The Doo couldn’t hit a slowpitch softball with a tennis racket. As a hitter that guy was fucking terrible.

I won’t drag out the suspense; this ain’t no kids’ sports comic. Although whoever said life sometimes imitates art was right, and it did that day. Count went to three and two. Then Delock threw the sinker that fooled the kid so bad the first time and damn if the kid didn’t suck for it again. Except Ike Delock turned out to be the sucker that time. Kid golfed it right off his shoetops the way Ellie Howard used to do and shot it into the gap. I waved the runner in and we had the lead back, two to one.

Everybody in the joint was on their feet, screaming their throats out, but the kid didn’t even seem to hear it. Just stood there on second, dusting the seat of his pants. He didn’t stay there long, because The Doo went down on three pitches, then threw his bat like he always did when he got struck out.