The Brothers K (20 page)

A portion of my dad’s history lives on to this day when my family, while watching ballgames, calls a hung curve or fat fastball a North Korean or
No-K
for short, meaning the opposite of a K, which is a strike-out in baseball lingo. Anyhow, it was while serving up No-Ks on a diamond the Navy made on Guam by dumping oil on a beach then running over it in a steamroller that Hugh got the letter from his lovely wife telling how the Good Lord had sent along something drastic to cheer their lives up with, namely a drastic sized baby of 12 POUNDS 10 OUNCES, born Christmas Eve no less, who the doctor reported laughed merrily when he spanked it after it was born, though Laura was of course too punchy due to childbirth, drugs and such to
verify the jolly sound. This laughing infant was the biggest baby ever born alive to the hospital there at Pullman, and continues to be the largest best-looking kid here at John McLoughlin High School of downtown Camas Washington to this day. He was also the third Chance’s son to be born in three years, as I’m sure you’ve noticed Mr. Hergert, since you’ve gotten old and gray teaching all three of us. I’m sure I don’t need to add that the young monster of which we’re speaking here was none other but IRWIN DAVID CHANCE MYSELF, as Laura and Hugh named me in their next letter to each other, after two very old and dear friends of theirs whom I can’t go into at this time due to being too hungry to go on writing for now. (I should take a second to add however that I’m only kidding about you being old or gray!)

P
apa took his new pitching sessions surprisingly seriously. He wouldn’t let us come out to watch him, wouldn’t let us use his shed when he wasn’t in it, wouldn’t even let the twins have tea parties in it when he was at work. He said everyone on earth needed a little place to call their own, “and that smelly shed out there is mine.”

Of course his forbidding us to watch him throw had the same effect on Everett and me that Mama’s forbidding of “heathen reading material” had once had on Peter: no sooner did he lay down the law than we began figuring out ways to break it. You could get a crummy side view of his pitches from Irwin’s and my room upstairs, but if Papa saw our faces in the window he’d say, “Nothing to do?” then give us some tedious housework or chore. So Everett and I scouted around, and eventually discovered, in a laurel hedge between our backyard and the laundromat next door, a niche that was maybe thirty feet behind the shed, and a little to one side. It wasn’t exactly a box seat. All we could see of Papa’s motion was the grotesque double shadow it cast on the lawn in front of the mound. But we could hear the grunts of effort he put into each pitch; we could watch the baseballs streak out into the light; and we could see the fleeting dents they made in the strike zone he’d painted on the canvas, and call them balls or strikes.

Papa wasn’t kidding about “harelip prayers,” though. His resurrected pitches were fast, even to Everett’s educated eye, but shockingly wild. We
soon grew accustomed to the resounding
thwham!
of balls denting the bare garage siding, followed by a
whump!
inside the shed (Papa’s fist slamming the wall), a hissed
Chee-rist!
or
Sheee-it!
, and a palpably disgusted silence. Every time he fell into one of these funks I expected to see him stalk out of the shed and into the house to announce that he’d sworn off his new hobby forever. But instead, sooner or later, out would come another scorcher, which usually also missed the mattress and blasted the bare wall so hard I half expected the ball to stick.

It was hard, at first, not to burst out laughing at these great thwammings and whumpings of balls and fists. But after a few nights something changed inside us, and the same sounds nearly tempted us to cry. What bothered Everett were the fist-slammings and other shows of temper. Papa had always been the calmest man on the field, Everett said. As a young fastballer he’d needed the calm because his tremendous speed was so hard to control, and as an older, cannier junk pitcher he’d needed it still more, because when junk pitchers give way to adrenaline surges they lose the cockeyed perspective that gives the juju to their junk. But there in his shed, Everett said, Papa was throwing more than just adrenaline: he was throwing his frustration, his anger, his dissolved hopes, his fear, his fatigue; he was taking everything inside him and just slinging it, helter-skelter, out into the night. “It’s not even pitching,” Everett soon concluded. “Whatever it is, it’s not pitching.”

I agreed, but was not so troubled, because Papa had warned me that this would be the case. What moved and disturbed me about his pitches was that they really did resemble Vera’s praying. He and Everett didn’t have to listen to her every Sabbath, so they couldn’t know, but his shedball throws had the same “no matter what” earnestness, the same abject helplessness, and they aroused in me the same weird blend of embarrassment and admiration as I listened to the preposterous results. His left thumb, like her lip, had the same bad-dream quality, too, in that the harder they tried, the more laughable their efforts grew. Yet with identical, terrible stubbornness, Vera kept praying and Papa kept throwing. And the more he missed the mattress, the louder he blasted the bare wall, the fiercer and deeper my love for him grew.

February 25 1951 was a day even those of my family members not yet born fondly remember. It started out in the evening with another dumb morale booster game in front of a huge crowd of green recruits at an Airbase in Hawaii with one of those crazy Hawaaian names Hugh calls Fort Oopawanapoonawahinipopo for laughs. In the third inning though, our hero smashed a tremendous home run with two aboard, giving the Goons a temporary 3 to 2 lead over the Stars, in addition to which the Stars’s 2 runs were purely due to several No-Ks the fat-assed lieutenant had ordered poor Hugh to throw. So the real score was Goons 3, Stars Zip, and as Hugh trotted round third he shot the lieutenant a look that said how well the two of them both knew it. And boy did Hugh’s look hit the bull’s eye! By the time he reached the bench, there was the lieutenant on the walkytalky, jabbering about how the Goon Squad was getting uppity and the Stars were getting punchy so today by golly they would play for keeps! No fake errors! No gopherballs! No pitch-out-doomed Goon base-stealing nor any other form of Morale Building whatsoever! “JUST KNOCKDOWN DRAG OUT HARDBALL!” the lieutenant yelled, “WITH TRIPLE K.P. DUTY FOR THE LOSERS, AND MAY THE BEST TEAM WIN!”

In defence of what happened next Hugh said the Stars could of beat the Goons four fair games out of five normally, and that it was only due to months of half-speed fastballs and fake-hung curves that they’d forgot what real hurling looked like. But I must also point out that once Private Hugh Chance started throwing his genuine scorchers they couldn’t see the old horsehide at all! After a couple innings Hugh started feeling so sorry for the Star hitters that he let them glimpse the ball again. Unfortunately the only balls he let them glimpse were the blazing snapping curveballs which started out at their terrorized faces causing them to dive for cover, then nipped down over the inside corner for the most embarrassing kind of called strikes! And with nothing to lose and their whole self-respects to win back, Hugh and his buddies just cruised! The egg-faced Stars could do nothing right. The jolly Goons could do nothing wrong. The results? One of the hideous disasters of Army Morale-Building History! After eight innings
of slaughter with the score standing at 17 to 2, no outs, and the basepaths loaded with laughing Goons, a furious Brigadeer General came storming out of the- stands and ordered the game called to a halt on account of darkness even though it was still totally light!

Hugh’s six innings of real stuff, in case you’re interested, was a five-hit shutout, in addition to which he hit for The Cycle as it is known as, adding a sixth inning triple and eighth inning double to his third inning homer and first inning single for one each of every type of bingo known to man! Anybody who didn’t think Hugh Chance was Big League Material at this point better get there head out as the saying goes! When the game got called the Goons realized they might of poured it on a bit thick, though. The poor recruits in the stands were silent as a rock, making none of the happy murmurings you hear normal fans murmur as they dribble out the exits. IS THIS WHAT THE NORTH KOREANS ARE GOING TO DO TO US? their sadly youthful faces seemed to wonder into the bleak and quiet stillness of the fragrant Hawaaian evening. Things were not exactly hunkydory in the airplane hanger the players used for a lockerroom either, since the Goons shared it with the slaughtered Stars. “There is a fight in the air if ever I smelled one!” Hugh reports smelling at the time. “Before this night is over I wouldn’t be surprised if the boys and me end up in the Fort Oopawanapoonawahinipopo Brig!” he reports thinking. “But it was worth it!” he claims thinking as well.

Right at the extreme danger point though, a voice like a sonic boom came crashing through the unhappy hanger. “SO THIS IS THE ARMY’S GREAT MORALE-BUILDING BASEBALL PROGRAM?” it boomed. And there stood the smoking Brigadeer who’d called the game on account of fake darkness! Removing the Star Lieutenant to the far end of the hanger, he about chewed his rear end off as the saying goes! But that was nothing compared to what came next!

What came next was he walked straight up to poor Hugh Chance of all people and ordered him to report to his private office, where he shoved him in a chair, handed him a cold beer with plenty more where that came from, and roared, “AT EASE PRIVATE! I WANT TO CHAT IS ALL!”

Poor Hugh could only nod and gulp at his beer like so much rat urine. He’d never chatted with a guy with so much ribbons and crap decorated on his chest in his life. Knowing that when guys like Brigadeer Generals set you down for a chat they aren’t just messing
around, Hugh soon discovered today was no exception! “Do you enjoy playing ball for that Goon Squad?” was the first interrogation.

“Well Sir!” Hugh quivered, “frankly I would prefer to be home in the States, pitching Pro.”

“What professional team are you normally affiliated on young man?” was the General’s next inquiry.

“I was called up from Triple A to the White Sox just before I got drafted, Sir!” Hugh said. “But I didn’t have time to report, Sir!”

“Rotten luck!” went the Brigadeer.

“NO KIDDING SIR!” Hugh practically screamed in his face, forgetting who he was talking to for a second.

“Have you got a family?” went the Brigadeer, not seeming to mind.

“YES SIR!” Hugh blasted off again. “Bu-but pa-pardon the shouting Si-Sir!” he stuttered pitifully. “It’s just that we’d already had three sons in three years when my wife came up to Fort Lewis last fall, and at the Fort there we er, went on a picnic and er, well er Sir, er, one thing led to another er, and there’s another family member on the way!”

“Well, Private,” went the General. “Something has got to be done.”

“About wha-what, Si-Si-Sir!?” Hugh jibbered.

“About YOU!” growled the decorated stranger in the opposite chair.

“Oh, that!” Hugh groveled.

“If these ballgames are supposed to be Morale-Building dramas, then you are not much of an actor!”

“I guess not, Sir!” Hugh squeaked.

“There’s no guessing to it,” the Brigadeer said. “I know talent when I see it, Private. Don’t you see the problem? You are too unknown to pitch for the Stars, but too good to be a Goon. It’s simple. How much time have you got left in the service anyway?”

“Four months Sir!” Hugh barked.

“Well, Private,” said the General. “That’s four months too long!”

“Yes Sir!” Hugh gagged, thinking MONGOL TRENCHES AND YOUNG DEATH HERE I COME, JUST LIKE MY DAD!

Then came the punchline! “What would you think of an immediate honorable discharge?” scowled the Brigadeer.

“Come again Sir!?” poor Hugh finally stumbled.

“How would you feel about clearing out of the Army and heading back home to the ChiSox and to your family, where you belong?”

“YOU’RE NOT SERIOUS SIR!” Hugh blasted. But how wrong he was! And though we don’t know to this day how the Brigadeer pulled
all the strings and cut all the red tape he pulled, we found out why he cut it! For as the two men sat drinking beers far into the night, it came out that in real life the General was Number 1, from Chicago, and Number 2, as a civilian had been known as Mr. Blank (Sorry Mr. Hergert but I’m under orders not to report his genuine name in full in case it’d get him in trouble!), and best of all, Number 3, one of Mr. Blank’s acquaintances as a kid back in Chicago had been a fine young pitcher who was a math whiz as well, yet had a strange hole in his head where gambling was concerned since the only team he would bet on was the Chicago Cubs! “Does such a man sound familiar, Private?” inquired the Brigadeer with a new and tender touch leaking out into his voice.

And with tears nearly blurting from both eyes, “Yes Sir!” Hugh softly rejoindered. For he saw that the Brigadeer’s long-lost friend was his own late father Everett Senior!

To make a long story short, in two week’s time Hugh was right back home with Laura and his sons where he belonged, then two weeks later was kissing them a fond goodbye and scooting back out the door to where he also belonged at the White Sox spring training camp in Florida or else Arizona, I forget. The rest of course is History! Or it would of been History, except in training camp Hugh twisted the snot out of his left ankle against second base in a stupid sliding drill, then tried to come back too soon with a wrecked pitching motion so that he tore the bejeezus out of his big left shoulder causing him to lose both his famous fastball, his pinpoint control, his slider, and so forth till he ended up stinking it up so royally he got swapped in a seven player deal the Sox wangled with the Senators, who took one look at their mangled young southpaw and sent him clear down to a Double A squad in Oklahoma!