Dirty Rice (5 page)

After I ate my first meal cooked by Miz Doucette that morning, I took off in a trot for the baseball stadium. When I got there, the big front doors in front were still closed, but there was one off to the side standing open. I could hear people huffing and puffing, and when I went through the door, I saw the reason why.

I'd say that up to a couple of dozen men were strung out in a ragged line, trotting around the edge of the field. Early as it was, the sun was bearing down, the air was full of water that you couldn't see but felt like a blanket weighing on you, and Dutch Bernson was sitting on a stool watching the parade pass by him. He caught a glimpse of me when he turned off to one side to spit tobacco juice, and he waved his hand.

“You the next to last one to get here, Gemar,” he said. “Ain't you got no alarm clock?”

“No, sir,” I said. “But I won't get here late again.”

“Is that the shoes you going to run in? Or you going to try it barefooted?”

“I'll run in the ones I got on,” I said, and fell in behind a clump of men passing in front of me, most of them not too much older than me but one looking like he was even older than Dutch. His hair was going gray, and he had a belly on him, and he was suffering from the heat and the pace, throwing his head back like he was trying to draw a fuller breath, the sweat just pouring down his face. He was being passed by everybody, no matter how slow they were going.

I did the same thing, closing in on him before we'd gone fifty feet, and veering out to one side. “Hey,” he said in between breaths as I passed, and I said hey back to him.

“Don't lap me the first time around,” he said. “Have mercy.”

Dutch let us all run probably ten minutes more, and then he blew into a whistle he had on a chain around his neck. At that the man running closest to me spoke up. “I swear he cut it close that time. One more lap, and I'd have gone for the bastard.”

“I'm going to kill that toad of his,” a short dark-haired man said. “That's what'd really get him.”

“You suppose he's got it in there this morning?” the first one said.

“You see how happy and satisfied he looks,” the short man said, bending over and holding his knees to ease his belly. “He's got it in there on every special occasion, don't he? This is the first day. It don't get no more special than that for Dutch Bernson.”

The fellow standing next to him hawked up a big wad and spit it into the grass. “Look at that damn thing. It's got a life of its own. See it running off?”

The ones that heard him laughed, and Dutch Bernson stood up from his stool and wiggled the fingers on both hands to call us all closer to him. We gathered in toward where he was standing, and he watched us until everybody had got settled.

“Y'all look terrible,” Dutch Bernson said. “Every damn one of you. Did any single soul of you do any moving around at all since the last time I saw you? The way you acting, I believe all you did was eat, drink, and lay up drunk somewhere.” He pointed at the tall skinny fellow in the long-sleeved shirt, and then the man with gray hair. “Clauson,” Dutch said. “Where'd you spend the winter? Spears, what about you?”

“I was at my old man's farm in Alabama,” the first one said. “Like I always am, mending harness and shucking seed corn, and trying to help get ready to put stuff in the ground.”

“Hope you didn't eat it all up in the process,” the manager said. “Bud, what about you?”

“I don't remember, Dutch,” the gray-haired fellow with the belly said. “Old folks forget things real easy.”

“Now we got the news of the off-season duly reported,” Dutch Bernson said, “let's talk about business. We got the first game of the season to deal with here in about two weeks, and Lord knows we got a lot to do to get ready for that. It's going to be a three game stand with the Millers over in Crowley, and I'd sure like for us to get off to a good start.

“I've got the schedule of practices all wrote up and put up on the bulletin board in the clubhouse, and I want y'all to get it by heart and be ready to follow it to the T every time you come to work in the morning. Rest of today, we're going to have a little batting practice and base running. I want the infielders over there in left field working on grounders and throwing to first base, and we'll do the outfielders and fly balls this afternoon. Pitchers and catchers in right field this morning.” After saying that, the manager stopped talking and looked around the bunch of us standing in that half circle in front of him. Everybody either had their heads dropped staring at the ground or throwed back looking up at the sky.

“We got a lot of you back that's been here before, the same as last year, and some that's brand new. You can tell who belongs in which of them categories just by looking around you, so I ain't going to waste any more time saying howdy and calling folks by name.”

“Old Bud ain't going to be able to tell who's new and who ain't,” somebody said, and a few people chuckled at that.

“He's going to have to figure that out for his self, then,” Dutch said, “but I will tell all of you that we got two new ones a little different trying out with the Rice Birds this year. One of them is from Cuba, trying to be a shortstop. He's standing over yonder in the back, and he's named Michael Gonzales. Goes by Mike.” Most everybody turned to look at where Dutch was pointing.

I'd noticed him during the second lap I'd run around the perimeter of the baseball field inside Addison Stadium, not only by the difference in skin color between him and the white players I was in the middle of, but by the smooth loose way he moved as he worked on his laps that morning. It was more of a glide than a running gait he was setting, and he was breathing a lot better than the rest of them.

When Dutch pointed him out to the Rayne Rice Birds, he raised his hand like he was waving to somebody. He didn't say anything, and he didn't smile like people will generally do when they're singled out in a crowd for folks to know who they are.

“I didn't know Mike was a Mexican name,” one of the jokers in the bunch said.

“He ain't Mexican, Eldridge,” Dutch said. “I said he was Cuban, from Cuba that means. That's different, see. Ain't that right, Mike?”

The ones still looking at Mike Gonzales could see him nod and smile a little this time, and I knew why he was adding that smile now when his name was said out loud. It will not pay to look to the white eyes like you're going to be permanently sulled up. Not if you need something from them.

“The other one of these two new ones,” Dutch Bernson said, “that I been mentioning is standing right next to Clauson Vines. He ain't from Cuba, no matter how much he might look like he is. His name is Gemar Batiste, and he says he's a pitcher, but I ain't seen him throw a ball yet. We'll find out about that, I reckon, soon enough.”

“I seen him hit, though,” Dynamite Dunn said in a low voice.

“Gemar Batiste is an Alabama Indian from Texas,” Dutch Bernson said and pointed in my direction. “That's what he claims. Ain't it, Gemar?” I nodded and lifted my hand the way I'd just seen Mike Gonzales do it.

After a few more words, Dutch broke us up into the groups he wanted, and as folks started walking off in their separate directions to clear the field for a session of batting practice, he called me over to him.

“I'm thinking I want you to throw batting practice this morning to a few of these folks,” he said. “Can you get the ball over the plate so they can hit it?”

“Most of the time I can put it where I want to,” I said, “but most of the time I don't want to do that. Fix it so they can hit it, I mean.”

Dutch cocked his head and gave me a look. “I know what you're saying, and I got a plan, see. I want to let these boys hit the ball, like you do in practice, you know. I can still get the ball over the plate, but with nothing on it no more. That's perfect for letting these boys get their eye back and their timing in gear and up to snuff. So that's part of what I'm talking about. Get my drift?”

I nodded and waited for him to go on. I figured he wanted more from me than just serving up balls for batting practice. Lots of folks can get the ball over the plate. That ain't pitching.

“So just put the ball over the plate easy, nothing on it, now, to these boys,” Dutch said, “but be listening to me. After you get your arm warmed up, I'm going to have you do some real pitching to some of these galoots who're supposed to be hitters. When I say the word Alabama, I want you to throw real pitches. Get what I mean? It'll let me see if what you're claiming to have you do have or not.”

“But they ain't going to be expecting that, these batters,” I said. “They'll be thinking I'm going to keep on coming in with practice stuff for them to hit. They won't like that.”

“Don't worry about them. They'll catch on if you got good stuff, and it'll tickle me to see how they act when they're surprised. Assuming you got the goods, of course. We're going to find that out, I reckon, don't you think?”

In a few minutes I was on the mound with Dynamite Dunn catching, Dutch Bernson off to one side, and eight or ten Rice Bird players waiting to take their cuts at batting practice.

I started in to make a few throws to Dynamite, just seeing where the plate was and where he was setting up, and as soon as I'd leaned back to throw the first of them, a couple of the ones looking at me and waiting to take some cuts at batting practice pitches hollered out stuff about lefties. “Watch out for your head,” a short quick-looking man off to one side, rubbing on his bat with a piece of rag, said. “He's wrong-sided.”

The first man up to take batting practice my first morning with the Rice Birds was somebody that hadn't spoke to me yet, and I laid that pitch right across the heart of the plate, straight and true, about half speed. He rapped it pretty good and if it had been a game the ball would have got through the infield for a ground single. He gave me a satisfied look, and I put another one about in the same place, and we went on from there until I'd worked through about five or six of them guys lined up for batting practice. I made all the pitches come in between the knees and where the letters would've been on the uniforms if the batters'd been wearing something other than old practice jerseys and t-shirts and such, and everybody got a good chance to hit the ball.

Until the sixth man came up for batting practice, Dynamite Dunn had been working behind the plate in a stoop, not ever having dropped into a full crouch yet. When that man stepped into the batter's box, though, Dutch Bernson called out to Dynamite to get down in his full position. The batter was named G.D. Squires, a tall thick fellow. Dynamite had already mentioned him to me the day before when I'd asked him who the best Rice Bird hitters were.

“Take your full crouch, Dynamite,” Dutch Bernson said to him a second time, “give this man from that Alabama Indian nation a better target.”

Dynamite looked over his shoulder at Dutch. I couldn't see his face behind that catcher's mask, but I imagine it wasn't wearing a smile.

I'd gotten good and warmed up from all that easy batting practice pitching I'd been serving, and when my first real pitch left my hand, it felt good to me. It wasn't fair for me to throw it that way, I knew, to G.D. Squires, up there waiting for a soft pitch like the ones that everybody had been served with, but the manager was trying to prove something to G.D. Squires, I reckoned. Dutch was also looking hard at me to see if my calling myself a pitcher was the truth, and so I put something on that fastball.

Of course, the pitch was by G.D. Squires waist-high before he had time to see it was coming like it was, and it popped in Dynamite Dunn's mitt the way a pitcher loves to hear his fastball sound. It was loud enough that people's heads jerked around, even the ones standing in right and left working on fielding soft grounders.

“Goddamn,” G.D. Squires hollered as much to himself as to me, spinning around to look at Dynamite Dunn like the catcher'd done something sneaky and wrong behind his back. “What the hell are you doing?” G.D. Squires hollered at Dunn and then jerked back around to look at me.

“Wait a minute,” Dutch Bernson said. “G.D, I didn't throw that pitch myself, and I don't expect I ever could have, even back on my best day. Gemar throwed it, but I told him to.”

“He might've hit me with that damn ball,” G.D. Squires said, “coming at me like that and me not knowing it.”

“Baseball is full of surprises, ain't it?” Dutch said. “If I'd have known Gemar was going to get so much on it, I would've told you it was coming.”

“Well, I'm warned now, by God,” G.D. Squires said. “I'll be looking to jump out of the way next time he does that.”

“You didn't get hit by it,” Dutch said. “That was a controlled pitch that went by you, I do believe.”