Bradbury, Ray - SSC 07 (14 page)

 
          
 
"Ball one!" said the umpire.

 
          
 
The woman fussed. "I'll be glad when this
week's over, that's what I got to say," she said.

 
          
 
"Ball two!" said the umpire to Big
Poe.

 
          
 
"Are they going to walk him?" asked
my mother of me. "Are they crazy?" To the woman next to her:
"That's right. They been acting funny all week. Last night I had to tell
Big Poe twice to put extra butter on my popcorn. I guess he was trying to save
money or something."

 
          
 
"Ball three!" said the umpire.

 
          
 
The lady next to my mother cried out suddenly
and fanned herself furiously with her newspaper. "Land, I just thought!
Wouldn't it be awful if they won the game? They might, you know. They might do
it."

 
          
 
My mother looked at the lake, at the trees, at
her hands, 'T don't know why Uncle George had to play. Make a fool of himself.
Douglas, you run tell him to quit right now. It's bad on his heart."

 
          
 
"You're out!" cried the umpire to
Big Poe.

 
          
 
"Ah," sighed the grandstand.

 
          
 
The side was retired. Big Poe laid down his
bat gently and walked along the base line. The white men pattered in from the
field looking red and irritable, with big islands of sweat under their armpits.
Big Poe looked over at me. I winked at him. He winked back. Then I knew he
wasn't so dumb.

 
          
 
He'd struck out on purpose.

 
          
 
Long Johnson was going to pitch for the
colored team.

 
          
 
He ambled out to the rubber, worked his
fingers around in his fists to limber them up.

 
          
 
First white man to bat was a man named
Kodimer, who sold suits in Chicago all year round.

 
          
 
Long Johnson fed them over the plate with
tired, unassuming, controlled accuracy.

 
          
 
Mr. Kodimer chopped. Mr. Kodimer swatted.
Finally Mr. Kodimer bunted the ball down the third-base line.

 
          
 
"Out at first base," said the
umpire, an Irishman named Mahoney.

 
          
 
Second man up was a young Swede named Moberg.
He hit a high fly to center field which was taken by a little plump Negro who
didn't look fat because he moved around like a smooth, round glob of mercury.

 
          
 
Third man up was a Milwaukee truck driver. He
whammed a line drive to center field. It was good. Except that he tried to
stretch it into a two-bagger. When he pulled up at second base, there was
Emancipated Smith with a white pellet in his dark, dark hand, waiting.

 
          
 
My mother sank back in her seat, exhaling.
"Well, I never!"

 
          
 
"It's getting hotter," said the lady
elbow-next. "Think I'll go for a stroll by the lake soon. It's too hot to
sit and watch a silly game today. Mightn't you come along with me,
missus?" she asked Mother.

 
          
 
It went on that way for five innings.

 
          
 
It was eleven to nothing and Big Poe had
struck out three times on purpose, and in the last half of the fifth was when
Jimmie Cosner came to bat for our side again. He'd been trying all afternoon,
clowning, giving directions, telling everybody just where he was going to blast
that pill once he got hold of it. He swaggered up toward the plate now,
confident and bugle-voiced. He swung six bats in his thin hands, eying them
critically with his shiny green little eyes. He chose one, dropped the others,
ran to the plate, chopping out little islands of green fresh lawn with his
cleated heels. He pushed his cap back on his dusty red hair. "Watch
this!" he called out loud to the ladies. "You watch me show these
dark boys! Ya-hah!"

 
          
 
Long Johnson on the mound did a slow serpentine
windup. It was like a snake on a limb of a tree, uncoiling, suddenly darting at
you. Instantly Johnson's hand was in front of him, open, like black fangs,
empty. And the white pill slashed across the plate with a sound like a razor.

 
          
 
"Stee-rike!"

 
          
 
Jimmie Cosner put his bat down and stood
glaring at the umpire. He said nothing for a long time. Then he spat
deliberately near the catcher's foot, took up the yellow maple bat again, and
swung it so the sun glinted the rim of it in a nervous halo. He twitched and
sidled it on his thin-boned shoulder, and his mouth opened and shut over his
long nicotined teeth.

 
          
 
Clap! went the catcher's mitt.

 
          
 
Cosner turned, stared.

 
          
 
The catcher, like a black magician, his white
teeth gleaming, opened up his oily glove. There, like a white flower growing,
was the baseball.

 
          
 
"Stee-rike two!" said the umpire,
far away in the heat.

 
          
 
Jimmie Cosner laid his bat across the plate
and hunched his freckled hands on his hips. "You mean to tell me that was
a strike?"

 
          
 
'That's what I said," said the umpire.
"Pick up the bat."

 
          
 
"To hit you on the head with," said
Cosner sharply.

 
          
 
"Play ball or hit the showers!"

 
          
 
Jimmie Cosner worked his mouth to collect
enough saliva to spit, then angrily swallowed it, swore a bitter oath instead.
Reaching down, he raised the bat, poised it like a musket on his shoulder.

 
          
 
And here came the ball! It started out small
and wound up big in front of him. Powie! An explosion off the yellow bat. The
ball spiraled up and up. Jimmie lit out for first base. The ball paused, as if
thinking about gravity up there in the sky. A wave came in on the shore of the
lake and fell down. The crowd yelled. Jimmie ran. The ball made its decision,
came down. A lithe high-yellar was under it, fumbled it. The ball spilled to
the turf, was plucked up, hurled to first base.

 
          
 
Jimmie saw he was going to be out. So he
jumped feet-first at the base.

 
          
 
Everyone saw his cleats go into Big Poe's
ankle. Everybody saw the red blood. Everybody heard the shout, the shriek, saw
the heavy clouds of dust rising.

 
          
 
"I'm safe!" protested Jimmie two
minutes later.

 
          
 
Big Poe sat on the ground. The entire dark
team stood around him. The doctor bent down, probed Big Poe's ankle, saying,
"Mmmm," and "Pretty bad. Here." And he swabbed medicine on
it and put a white bandage on it.

 
          
 
The umpire gave Cosner the cold-water eye.
"Hit the showers!"

 
          
 
"Like hell!" said Cosner. And he
stood on that first base, blowing his cheeks out and in, his freckled hands
swaying at his sides. "I’m safe. I’m stayin' right here, by God! No nigger
put me out!"

 
          
 
"No," said the umpire. "A white
man did.
Me. Get!"

 
          
 
"He dropped the ball! Look up the rules!
I'm safe!"

 
          
 
The umpire and Cosner stood glaring at each
other.

 
          
 
Big Poe looked up from having his swollen
ankle tended. His voice was thick and gentle and his eyes examined Jimmie
Cosner gently.

 
          
 
"Yes, he's safe, Mr. Umpire. Leave him
stay. He's safe."

 
          
 
I was standing right there. I heard the whole
thing. Me and some other kids had run out on the field to see. My mother kept
calling me to come back to the stands.

 
          
 
"Yes, he's safe," said Big Poe
again.

 
          
 
All the colored men let out a yell.

 
          
 
"What'sa matter with you, black boy? You
get hit in the head?"

 
          
 
"You heard me," replied Big Poe quietly.
He looked at the doctor bandaging him. "He's safe. Leave him stay."

 
          
 
The umpire swore.

 
          
 
"Okay, okay. So he's safe!"

 
          
 
The umpire stalked off, his back stiff, his
neck red.

 
          
 
Big Poe was helped up. "Better not walk
on that," cautioned the doctor.

 
          
 
"I can walk," whispered Big Poe
carefully.

 
          
 
"Better not play."

 
          
 
"I can play," said Big Poe gently,
certainly, shaking his head, wet streaks drying under his white eyes.
"I'll play good." He looked no place at all. "I'll play plenty
good."

 
          
 
"Oh," said the second-base colored
man. It was a funny sound.

 
          
 
All the colored men looked at each other, at
Big Poe, then at Jimmie Cosner, at the sky, at the lake, the crowd. They walked
off quietly to take their places. Big Poe stood with his bad foot hardly
touching the ground, balanced. The doctor argued. But Big Poe waved him away.

 
          
 
"Batter up!" cried the umpire.

 
          
 
We got settled in the stands again. My mother
pinched my leg and asked me why I couldn't sit still. It got warmer. Three or
four more waves fell on the shore line. Behind the wire screen the ladies
fanned their wet faces and the men inched their rumps forward on the wooden
planks, held papers over their scowling brows to see Big Poe standing like a
redwood tree out there on first base, Jimmie Cosner standing in the immense
shade of that dark tree.

 
          
 
Young Moberg came up to bat for our side.

 
          
 
"Come on, Swede, come on, Swede!"
was the cry, a lonely cry, like a dry bird, from out on the blazing green turf.
It was Jimmie Cosner calling. The grandstand stared at him. The dark heads
turned on their moist pivots in the outfield; the black faces came in his
direction, looking him over, seeing his thin, nervously arched back. He was the
center of the universe.

 
          
 
"Come on, Swede! Let's show these black
boys!" laughed Cosner.

 
          
 
He trailed off. There was a complete silence.
Only the wind came through the high, glittering trees.

 
          
 
"Come on, Swede, hang one on that old
pill. . . ."

 
          
 
Long Johnson, on the pitcher's mound, cocked
his head. Slowly, deliberately, he eyed Cosner. A look passed between him and
Big Poe, and Jimmie Cosner saw the look and shut up and swallowed, hard.

 
          
 
Long Johnson took his time with his windup.

 
          
 
Cosner took a lead off base.

 
          
 
Long Johnson stopped loading his pitch.

 
          
 
Cosner skipped back to the bag, kissed his
hand, and patted the kiss dead center on the plate. Then he looked up and
smiled around.

 
          
 
Again the pitcher coiled up his long, hinged
arm, curled loving dark fingers on the leather pellet, drew it back and— Cosner
danced off first base. Cosner jumped up and down like a monkey. The pitcher did
not look at him. The pitcher's eyes watched secretively, slyly, amusedly,
sidewise. Then, snapping his head, the pitcher scared Cosner back to the plate.
Cosner stood and jeered.