For Love of the Game

  Robinson was ready: cautious, wary, watchful. Chapel began to hum silently: “Oh where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy.” Robby’s never been a problem. Shortens up in the early innings—yes, he is now—hands move up the bat a trifle—hopes to squeak one through, get on base, short fly. Knows that ’gainst the fastball that will not do. Yes. Harder the better. Chapel smiled very slightly, cocked the arm, kicked the leg high, the fast one. Zip. Strike one. Robinson backed off. Chapel pocketed the smile. Now a bit faster. Pops used to call this one “Ole Smokey.” This one was fast. All covered with snow. He blazed. Strike two. If that ever hits a man—Pops put his hat down over his heart, soulful, sad: “You hit him with that one, Billy, poor boy’ll soon be in his grave, all covered with snow.”

  “Oh where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy.…”

  Gus was yelling: “Way to go, Chappie, way to go!”

  Now. Robinson will expect it … outside. He’s stepping in. Thinks I’ll waste it. But doesn’t know. Not for sure. Ah. No waste today. Throw it right by.

  Chapel armed again and threw the third fast ball right by Robinson, who did not move, was not expecting it. Strike three in three pitches. Ah. A vague sound: Robinson eyeing him, lips moving as he walked away. In his motion: anger. Get you later, alligator. Always a next time. After’while, crocodile.

  Next hitter: Babe Parrilli. Beefy Babe. Babe leans a bit forward, cocks the bat, but … he’s seen Old Smokey … a mite nervous today. Not truly set. Throw the curve right at him … so it’ll break down and in. He did: Parrilli flinched back: strike one.

  “I’m goin’ away for to leave you, might not come back any more more more, but if I ever more see your face again, there’s honey on that far distant, di-istant shor-or-ore, honey, on that far distant shore.” Kingston Trio. Long time ago.

  Now: fire away. He threw hard. Strike two. Right down the alley. Parrilli backed off to tap at his shoes. He hadn’t expected it. Next pitch, Parrilli thinks, will be the smoker again. This guy is throwin’ nothin’ but strikes. Set yourself. Parrilli, a gutsy man, dug in to hit. Chapel threw the sinker, it fell off the end of the table. Parrilli missed by six inches. Strike three.

  Chapel backed off the mound, feeling a healthy glow. All working well. It’s there today, buddy. Please God. For a while at least. One more time …

  The third hitter was Jed Murphy. Along with Birch he was Yankee power. Chapel decided: total surprise. Sidearm fastball. Chapel never did that this early. Murphy backed away, startled. Strike one. Seven strikes in a row. Rather unusual. Yankee bench screaming: Chapel glanced that way: they were standing up. Ready to fight. Okay. He nodded, touched his cap. Chapel leaned all the way back, threw Old Smokey. Murphy never saw it. Strike two. The umpire, Meyers, was looking out toward Chapel, then shook his head. Quite an inning. Gus yelled: “Jesus, Billy! Jesus!” He crouched, then yelled again: “Nobody here but you and me, Billy, throw one more and let’s go sit down.”

  Murphy knew the fastball was coming again, set himself, and Chapel threw the riser, the one that when held right in the fingers sometimes suddenly started to rise and float away and Murphy, set for one straight down the tube, went for it and just got a touch, popped it foul, and Gus wandered back, tucked it in, and the inning was done. In nine pitches. Should have been three strikeouts. Well. Nobody’s perfect. They got only a foul. Pleasant way to start the day. Bit like the old days.…

  “She’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes.…”

  Chapel wandered back to the bench listening to nothing, thinking of nothing, resting the brain for a long moment. A good beginning. Power in the arm. He sat down in his normal place—the empty spot near the end of the bench. He sat alone, as always. Gus sat nearby, but Chapel did not talk. He sat, crouched far back, crossed his legs, tucked his cap down over his eyes … closed the eyes, floated off into the comforting dark, at rest, at rest, and he saw.…

  … Carol. The blond hair. Down to the shoulders. Four years past, at the party, standing far across the room and still clearly visible, face lovely and weary and something dark in her eyes, seen from a long way away, but God in heaven, what a lovely thing. Movies? She wore something long and blue, bare down to the breasts, full round breasts, tired, she was talking to two expensive-looking men she apparently did not like. There was that girl Chapel was talking to at the time—dark-haired—who? No memory at all. Then—Carol appeared, facing him. Had come to see him. Curious. Weary eyes. He thought: drunk? She said, first words:

  “You the Man of Distinction?”

  “The which?”

  “You look like that man in the ad. Man of Distinction. Did you pose for that ad? No you didn’t. Nope. Who are you? Sir? If I may be so bold?”

  “I’m a ballplayer.”

  She smiled. Mind beyond those eyes a total mystery. “A ballplayer? Dirty joke. Oh. ’Scuse me.” Hand to her mouth, eyes with a glow. “That’s right. You’re the fella that throws real baseballs. The hero lass week. I saw that game.” Eyes widened. Not really so drunk—or was she? “You were very good.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Western. Did that on purpose. Country boy. In New Yawk City. Charmin’, thass me.

  She said: “You struck out those three guys … one right after the other. With the bases loaded. That was … somethin’. I want to drink to you. Sir.”

  She was referring to that inning in the All-Star Game. He appreciated the fact that a girl as pretty as this one, however smashed she was, knew all this. She was saying, New Yorkerish:

  “How much of that was luck? Truly?”

  “Probably all of it.”

  Then she said suddenly: “Sorry. I don’t mean … to be rude.” Then she giggled, and switched right back. “On t’other hand. Ballplayers. Good pun there. I’ve heard a lot … tell me the truth. Are you gay?”

  “Gay? Me?” He grinned. “Oh. You must have been readin’ things. Or did you hear somethin’.…”

  “Well, I know there’s a lot of gay guys playing ball”—giggle—“nowadays. Is getting to be the vogue. Or somethin’. So they say. Would you mind tellin’ me? You know those fellas?”

  “Nope. Honest.”

  “And you’re not gay yourself?”

  “Nope.”

  “But you fellas wander round nude all the time in the locker room. Does something like that … interest you?”

  Billy started to grin. Then he had to laugh. He’d never been asked that sort of thing before, not by anyone anywhere, and she was from another world, and something in her face changed, and she looked at him with a sudden genuine smile, the haze in her eyes beginning to clear, something different there, and he said: “Hell. No. Nope. Uh-uh.”

  “Would you like to go for a walk?”

  “A walk? Away from here?”

  “I’d like to talk to you.” She said that in an odd, intense way, vague glint in her eyes he did not understand. She said: “You’re not married.”

  “No.”

  “I was married,” she said. “Now it’s over. I’m feeling the effects. Fallout. Would you mind if I talked? I can talk to you. God help me. If I’m wrong. Are you a … rebound?”

  “A what?”

  “Rebounds are people you go with when you’ve lost your love. True love. Shit. I didn’t love … oh yes I did. But that was a long time ago. Would you walk?” She put a hand on his arm. First sign of great sadness. Now he saw. She said: “Please. Want to go out and … on the street … just talk. Need to clear a messy brain. Can we go? Do you mind? I don’t mean to bed. I mean … can we find a place where I can just sit down and let it out?”

  They left, went to a quiet bar. She told him of the ten years with that very wealthy lying conniving greedy vicious heartless lovable hatable son of a bitch who turned out in the long run to be very lucky that he never met Billy Chapel, who would have … “dusted him” … never marry again, she said, never never. You haven’t ever married? Oh, Billy Chapel, you’re either very lucky or very wise—and Chapel said: “Neither. I’m a
kid. A ballplayer. I’ll grow up one of these days. But not yet, not yet.…”

  Tap on the shoulder: Gus.

  “Rise and shine, Billy. Number Two.” Chapel came back into the game. Out toward the mound: no music: no pictures in the brain. All that cleared. He saw nothing but Joe Birch, slowly stepping into position to wait outside the box. Chapel’s mind focused on Birch. Next man to hit. First up in the second: the clean-up man. Josephus.

  Silence in Chapel’s mind now rather unusual. Not the time for music. Vision: the swing Birch made that day when he hit it farther than anybody ever had before, that fastball, vision of the ball rising, going, departing, gone. Birch said afterward: “Never hit it that far except off Chapel’s fastball. It was coming so fast I just closed my eyes and swung, and it bounced. S’truth, s’help me.”

  Birch stepped into the box. He nodded, from a long way away. Chapel nodded. Meyers, the ump, said something to Gus, grinned, stroked his mustache. This would be interesting. Chapel stepped back off the mound: Gus knew: sent no signals, waited.

  Chapel: sooner or later Josephus always hits you. He is one of the few, the very few, who gives you that slight clutch in the stomach that comes sometimes thinking of the way this one can hit the ball right back at you so hard and fast you may never see it coming, toward the head, as it did one time to.… Well. Fella has power. Great power. Almost never goes for the first pitch. Will he today? Look. No. Decisively no. Normal with Birch, but look: he sets himself and watches you and notes the wind and the thickness of the air—learned that from Williams—and all the details, and watches the first pitch with no motion at all, then two, slowly beginning to tick away to the timing zone that was just right, and then comes three, and by then he’s ready, and he might go, certainly by four, don’t ever ease up on four—but he often waits and walks, sensing properly the time when he’ll get nothing at all to hit, so he might as well take the free trip, but today … no free trip today. Today: give him the best. And we’ll see. Does he know? Think he does.

  Well. Nothing better than the smoker. And today’s the day. He won’t expect it on the first pitch. I almost never do. Because I don’t want to give him the timing. So today: fireball one.

  Chapel stepped to the mound. Looked again. Knew: he’ll take the first one. So Chapel threw hard, right down the tube. Strike one.

  Birch changed the position slightly. Ready now. He may go for … anything at all now. Yes. If it’s close at all … the way he’s set … hook to the inside. Off the wrist. The screwball. It took Gus a long time to find the right signal: even Gus wasn’t expecting the screwball, which was not Chappie’s best bending ball, at all at all, unless he was having one of those rare days when everything curved in every direction. Chapel cocked, threw, the pitch broke down and in toward the right-handed hitter: he swung, caught a tiny piece, fouled it back off his wrists. Strike two.

  Haven’t thrown a ball yet.

  Hell of a day.

  Yep.

  What now, sonny?

  Two strikes, no balls.

  He won’t expect one over the plate. He’ll think I’ll tease with a curve or a slider, like I just did. Why don’t we … go to Number One?

  Gus picked the signal. Chapel threw Old Smokey. He fired all there was, it blazed on by. Strike three.

  Birch took it without any motion. Just stood there. He had expected something teasing, curving, bending, had been looking for the waste. He had struck out. He took a long look at Chapel, knew what was happening, put a hand up to his cap as a salute, went slowly away.

  Three out of four strikeouts. Better settle down, ace. Can’t go all the way. But gee … wasn’t that fine?

  No holds barred today, Billy. Throw it all, throw it all. Goin’ home, Billy, goin’ home.

  Music came back into the mind now softly: Goin’ Home, Goin’ Home, I’m just goin’ home. The symphony … of the New World. He began to relax a bit, now that Birch was gone, and did not go back to the fastball for several pitches, since that’s what they all were expecting. It was unnecessary for the next two hitters. They were both tight, set for the heavy stuff, so he went to the big curve, the soft slider, and both grounded to the infield. Inning number two: done. Goin’ Home, Goin’ Home … walked slowly, happily to the bench, sat, tucked his cap down over his eyes.…

  … they went to bed that first night—no—early in the morning. It was the wrong time. Too soon, too soon. There should have been more … time to open. She talked to him for hours about the mess of her life, she poured things out she had told no one else—she said: “I have no friends, and … there is something about you, something in that wide-eyed face.” Across a crowded room. Something gentle and … innocent, the ballplayer, the big kid, and he was somebody she could talk to, and so she talked and eased out from under the weight of it that night and afterward she gave him her body, lay there as a social gift, did nothing but mechanize, exhausted, and he felt strange, missing links all over the place, because that woman, when you sat across a table from her and listened to her talk and watched her eyes move and glow and felt her hand come across to touch you, that woman was not the same one in bed that night. In the bed she was a robot. She watched him: she knew. She said: “Very sorry, Billy Boy.” First time she called him that. “It was too soon.” Chapel didn’t understand why. But it was. She said: “I was doing you a favor, because you did one for me … but there’s more to it than that … or should be … or probably never will be. You wanted more than that, and I don’t have it, Billy, I don’t have it. I’m a weeper. I don’t have the right things … for anybody. Or was it—Billy—was it just … too quick? Was I too easy? Was that what it was? Because you are important to me already, you are not just another roll in the hay. What.…”

  “I don’t know what.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. I’ll go. But … thanks, Billy.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  Long look. “You want to see me tomorrow? Really?” She was genuinely surprised.

  “Hell, yes.”

  She said: “We won’t go to bed tomorrow.”

  “I want to see you. Do whatever.… Want to go flying?”

  “I just want to have some fun,” she said.

  “I’ll look into the matter.”

  “I think I can make you laugh. I betcha I can.”

  “How about flying? I know this fella who has a plane. Do you like to fly? I was thinking of flying up the river.”

  And they did. And it began. And they did not go to bed for.…

  … tap on the shoulder. Gus.

  “Less go, Chappie.”

  Chapel stood up, yawned dreamily.

  Gus said, with a grin: “No. I mean it’s your turn at the plate.”

  “Oh.” Chapel looked round. Nobody on base. Hell with it.

  Gus: “Now you take it easy. Durkee’s throwin’ in close today. Think he’s tryin’ to keep up with you. Shit. Never will. But we don’t need nothin’.”

  “Eh.” Chapel, who had always been blessed with a fine hitter’s eyesight and excellent reflexes, was going to the plate not truly a good hitter but adequate, adequate: he knew where the ball was and sometimes guessed very well and had he gone into another position, not pitching, he might have had a pleasant surprise. Pops always believed that. With men on base Billy was consistent. But there was nobody on base at all and he did not want to use up the fuel by running, or even just standing there swinging, so he stepped casually up into position giving a happy cheerful peaceful grin, and Joe Birch, knowing him, said: “Howdy, Champ. Hell, you ain’t takin’ us serious.”