Waiting for Teddy Williams (12 page)

He told Judge Charlie K and Editor James K, over their regular six
A.M.
coffee in the hotel dining room, that, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, he believed Orton and Norton were not bad boys at all but just needed a break. He added that in his opinion there was no such thing as a genuinely bad boy. Charlie took issue with this pronouncement, citing himself as exhibit A, an assertion his brother the editor did not contradict. Moreover, Charlie said, during his several decades as a defense attorney he had represented many bad boys and later, as a judge, had sent not a few such incorrigibles down the line to the state reform school without a moment's hesitation. At this the headmaster pounded his fist on the table and said by God, Orton and Norton were good, skylarking country boys, and he would stand by them until Doomsday.

Doomsday arrived the following Wednesday afternoon when the skylarking country boys tiptoed into Profs office while he was taking his customary after-lunch snooze, tied him to his chair, stood on his desk, and peed first into the wastebasket, then on him. For this, Prof summarily expelled them and declared them officially uneducable and unofficially (to the judge and the editor) depraved. After that they worked full-time for Devil Dan.

And if, now that E.A. was old enough to outrun them, Orton and Norton were not quite the bane of his existence, they were a constant source of anxiety and often appeared in his prayers to Our Father, whom he fervently beseeched to annihilate the brothers from the face of the earth. He was more or less resigned, however, to having to put up with them until he turned fourteen or fifteen, at which point he believed he would be able to kill them himself and bury their skinny, underfed, tattooed remains up on the mountain where they'd never be found. Not that anyone would look real hard.

One morning in September when Teddy was giving him BP, E.A. smacked a long foul ball into Devil Dan's junkyard. As usual at this hour, Orton and Norton were out hanging up sheets and blankets under R.P.'s all-seeing eye. The ball came to rest beside Dan's 1943 Bucyrus Erie crane, which he called the Hook, and which he occasionally used to haul a wrecked tractor-trailer or a derailed boxcar up an embankment or out of a deep ditch.

“You want to fetch that one back, Ethan?” Teddy said.

Orton and Norton had already started for the ball.

“Not really,” E.A. said. “There's two of them. Plus that goat.”

Teddy nodded and started toward the crane himself. Norton and Orton watched him.

“Hey, mister,” Norton shouted. “What you looking at?”

Teddy took his time answering. “Right now I'm looking at you boys.”

He continued to look at them as he walked over and picked up the ball.

“Who give you permission to trespass on us?” Orton said.

Then, for the first time, E.A. heard Teddy laugh out loud. He looked right at the Horton boys and laughed.

Finally Orton yelled out, “E.A.—you, E.A. Allen. This old drunk ain't always going to be here to protect you. You're on our list, boy.”

Teddy and E.A. finished BP while the Horton brothers finished hanging up the wash. E.A. figured that sooner or later he'd have to pay for this morning. But he was delighted that someone had faced down the brothers.

After practice he and Teddy sat on the Packard seat in the mild fall sunshine, E.A. sipping his Hires, Teddy and Bill drinking from Teddy's Crackling Rose bottle. The sun felt good on the back of E.A.'s neck.

Over at Midnight Auto, Orton and Norton had started hoeing out the inside of a car totaled in a head-on wreck at Memphremagog over the weekend. Three elderly people, the driver and two passengers, had been killed on their way to services at the local Pentecostal church.

“Them boys are bullies, Ethan,” Teddy said, pointing the neck of his bottle at the brothers. “Time's coming when you're going to have to go up against them.”

“I know,” E.A. said.

“What are you waiting for?”

“To grow a little more. One more year, two at most, I figure I can take them both.”

Teddy nodded. “Well, I'll tell you how to put an end to that bullyragging right now.”

E.A. thought about the two shallow graves high on the mountain. Maybe three, the third somewhat wider to accommodate Satan Davis.

Teddy said, “The thing with bullies—or for that matter with anybody you go up against—you have to get an edge. The way you did with that schoolteacher pitcher. Ichabod. Once you get an edge, they'll be afraid of you.”

“I've tried to fight them. Pitched into them three, four times. Right now they're too much for me.”

“Sock my hand.”

“What?”

Teddy held up his right hand like a traffic policeman. “Go ahead. Sock it. Hard as you can. You won't hurt me.”

Ethan wound up and reared back. Teddy reached out and grabbed his wrist before he could throw the punch.

Still holding his wrist, Teddy said, “You don't want to telegraph your punch like that, Ethan. The other fella, he'll see it coming a mile away.

“Do like this.” Teddy's left hand, closed into a fist, moved so fast Ethan couldn't follow it. The fist stopped an inch shy of E.A.'s jaw. “That's the one they don't see coming.”

He dropped E.A.'s wrist and stepped around behind him. Reached over E.A.'s shoulder and took his left hand. “Make a fist.”

E.A. did. “Like this,” Teddy said, and showed the boy how to throw a short punch straight out from the shoulder, then another with the same hand. Two short jabs.

“Put your shoulder into it but don't wind up. There. Go for the nose. Straight on, hit the nose both times. One, two. Other fella'll put his hands up to protect his schnoz, it'll be spouting like Old Faithful. When his hands come up, you take a short sideways step toward him, like this.” Teddy nudged Ethan's left sneaker with his steel-toed work shoe. “That's right, like stepping into a fastball and driving it. Only instead of driving a baseball you throw a right to the breadbasket. That will double him up. Then you come up with your left hand. Don't wind up. Use all short punches. That's it. Two left jabs to the schnoz, step, one right to the breadbasket, one more left to the jaw. He's done.”

“What about the other one? He'll pile on.”

“No doubt. When he does, you have to be ready to take a punch or two. That's all right. In a go-round, Ethan, you have to be prepared to take a punch. But as soon as the bigger one goes down, turn tail and run.”

“I'd take any pounding rather than run.”

Teddy nodded. “I understand. But turn tail and run—until the boy chasing you starts to get winded. Then let him catch you and serve him the same. Two jabs to the nose, hook to the gut, uppercut.”

E.A. thought. “Only thing is, like I said, those boys don't mind getting beat up all that much. They'll just lay for me again, with Satan Davis.”

“That's where the edge comes in. Get something on them and get it quick, the way you did that pitcher from Pond a year ago. Once you get that edge, it makes them afraid of you. That's what stops the bullying. Stops it in its tracks. Ethan, listen. Everybody has a weak point. You find their weakness. Let 'em know you know what it is. Then they'll back off. What do them boys do first thing every morning?”

“I don't know.”

“Yes, you do. Think.”

E.A. thought. “Well, first thing, they hang up R.P.'s wash.”

“All right. You watch when they do that. Then we'll talk again.”

“What about Satan Davis?”

“What about him?”

“Even if I whip the bullies and get an edge on them, he'll still get me down and roll me around.”

Teddy looked over at Midnight Auto. The goat was standing on the roof of a 1956 Ford Power Wagon, staring back at Teddy with his yellow eyes. “You just watch what them skinheads do every morning and report back to me,” Teddy said. “I'll tend to the goat.”

E.A.
WATCHED
, and the next time Teddy showed up, they made their plan. After BP they started down the river road toward the iron bridge to the village. As they passed Midnight Auto, Orton and Norton stared at them from a '72 Firebird they were cannibalizing for seat covers. They each had a used beer going from Dan's redemption center.

When E.A. and Teddy reached the T where the Canada Post Road off Allen Mountain crossed the M&B line, Teddy headed down the tracks. He passed the old water tower, stopped on the trestle, looked back, and waved. Then he continued across the trestle toward the village, and E.A. turned back toward home.

As Ethan came abreast of Midnight Auto again, Orton and Norton sidled out into the road. One on each side of him, cutting off escape in both directions.

“Where you going, boy?” said Orton, who'd positioned himself on the village side. “You got to pay the toll. Ten cents. Otherwise, you're goat bait.”

Ethan started walking toward Orton. When he reached the state boy he jabbed him twice in the nose, two short punches, no wind-up. Orton's nose was already spurting blood as he lifted his hands to his face, just the way Teddy said he would. E.A. took a short step and delivered a right to Orton's midriff, then a left hook to the jaw, and Orton was down in the road. Meanwhile, Norton was rabbit-punching his neck.

E.A. twisted away and sprinted toward home. Then he slowed down, and when he heard Norton panting behind him, he turned and let the younger skinhead run straight into his first jab. He thought his left hand might be broken. Fighting now with his right, he went for the breadbasket. But Norton, though his nose was bleeding, kept coming. He was all over E.A., whose left hand hurt so much he couldn't lift it. It was time for Teddy's contingency plan. E.A. stepped back, and when Norton charged, E.A. kicked him as hard as he could kick, right “where the sun don't shine,” as Teddy had put it. Norton howled, went down, rolled on the ground. Now Orton was up and headed his way, leading Satan Davis on a chain. E.A. still had time to get away, beat him home. But he wasn't finished.

“Orton and Norton Horton,” he said in a sharp, carrying voice. “I know what you boys do every morning. I know why you have to hang up those sheets.”

Orton stopped short and jerked back on the chain. Satan kept trotting and dragged him several steps down the road. Ethan stood his ground.

“What about our sheets?” Orton said.

“You hang out your sheets every morning because you pee the bed every night. You ever punch me again, or shag me home with rocks, or put Satan Davis on me, I'll have it all over town that you boys pee the bed every night. Anybody doesn't believe me, I'll invite them out here to see you hanging up your sheets.”

Orton and Norton were trying to pull Satan back toward Midnight Auto when they spotted Teddy, standing in the river road between them and the entrance to the junkyard. He'd come up out of the meadow, his pant legs wet from wading back across the river.

“What you staring at?” Orton yelled. “You old drunk.”

“Sic!” Orton shouted and loosed the goat. Old Satan charged straight toward Teddy, who punched the goat once, hard, right between its horns, driving it to its knees. The dazed goat staggered back toward the junkyard, bleated, and took refuge inside a doorless bread truck. Orton and Norton had taken off across the meadow.

Teddy lit a cigarette. “How's your hand, Ethan?”

“I think I broke it.”

“Bend your fingers back. Now the other way. Over your palm, toward the wrist. No, it's not broke. It was broke, you couldn't do that. Besides, it ain't your throwing hand. Long as it isn't your throwing hand, we can live with it.”

 

That afternoon Devil Dan drove his four-wheeler into the
WYSOTT
Allen dooryard. He spun around and around the yard at a furious pace until Gypsy and Ethan came outside. He stopped, facing them, still aboard the running ATV

“That little bastard of yours took his ball bat and frailed hell out of my state help this morning,” he screamed. “Then he half-kilt my prize goat.”

“That's too bad,” Gran called out through the open doorway. “Now Satan Davis won't be able to service R.P. tonight.”

Dan shouted, “I'll dozer down these buildings by snowfall. We'll settle up, you can bet.”

“We'll settle up right now, you impotent dwarf,” Gran shrieked, and tossed Grandpa Gleason Allen's rifle to Gypsy. And to E.A.'s delight, as Devil Dan spun out of the dooryard, his ever-loving ma put one right through Dan's hat.

All around, it had been a grand day for the Wrong Side of the Tracks Allens.

“Y
OU DON'T ASK ME
to throw you BP much these days, hon. You aren't losing interest in baseball, I hope. Baseball's your ticket to college.”

“He probably doesn't want to end up beaned and wearing a metal plate in his head for the rest of his natural life like that imbecile Don Zimmer,” Gran said. “Zimmer handed the Yankees the 'seventy-eight playoff game on a silver platter.”

“We know, ma,” Gypsy said. “Bucky Dent's pop-fly home run.” Gypsy yawned. She'd had a busy night. First the Reverend had pulled in and wanted her to dress up like Potiphar's wife in the Bible and “give Joseph the works.” He'd left about ten. At eleven Father LaFontaine had shown up and requested “Christ's Temptation in the Wilderness,” with a very different outcome from the original story, since Father L never got past the second temptation, the Appearance of Salome in Gypsy's West Texas cowgal outfit.

“It wasn't just Dent's home run,” Gran complained. “Instead of lifting that rag-arm Torrez, Zimmer left him in to get hammered some more. The game got out of reach, and I knew right then I'd never walk again. All because of Don Zimmer and that metal plate.”

“Ma, Don Zimmer does not have a plate in his head. That's one of those convenient Red Sox myths to explain the unexplainable. Like Harry Frazee trading Ruth to New York to finance
No, No, Nanette
—the Curse of the Bambino. The fact is, the Sox's slump is a mystery. Sort of like the Virgin Birth.”