For Love of the Game

  He pitched then to the rest of that tune, the music and the words flowing on with every pitch, and he was throwing with smoke:

  “Place your head upon my pillow

  Hold your warm and tender body close to mine

  Hear the whisper of the raindrops fallin’ soft

  upon the window—

  And make believe you love me, one

  more time—”

  No more of that. He cleared the head, stepped back, then whirled and threw sidearm for a rare time in the game and struck out that hitter, and Gus let him know on the way to the bench that he hadn’t even seen that one comin’, and: “Jeez, Billy, signal me sometimes, will ya do that? I’m havin’ a charmin’ time trying to hang on to some of these things, but I tell you.…”

  Chapel looked up over the dugout and there again were the faces of the two sons who had traded him. He glanced quickly away. “Over the hill.” That’s what they’ll say. Fresh blood. Young blood. “Make believe you love me, one more time … for the good times.” He sat, the hat came over his eyes, but the music went on … one more time.

  Tap on the shoulder: Gus.

  “Go hit him, Billy. Make the bastard work for a livin’.”

  “My turn … so soon? Well. Won’t be long.”

  Up to hit again. What inning? Makes no difference.

  Chapel walked straight to the plate, wasted no time in the circle. But he began to focus on Durkee. Aha. Chapel’s mind cheered. Durkee, I betcha, this time will make the first one a strike, somewhere over the plate. Oh, hell, almost certainly the fastball, yes, the fastball. Try to finish me in a hurry, thinking I’m resting. Well, by Jesus, not today. Today, ole chap, we go the whole damn way.

  Chapel set himself, dug in. Wonder if Durkee notices? Or Joe. But they didn’t. Durkee came down the tube with the first pitch: a fastball, which Chapel hit—crack!—a line drive straight to center. Chapel took off running but hit too hard—and right at the centerfielder—who moved only a step or two, and took the ball in. Hit on a straight and solid line. Ah, son, bad luck, no luck hitting thataway. If it was only a little softer, it would have fallen in, or if you were swinging a little faster, you’d have hit it longer, and over to left … let it go. Forget. Maybe next time. But next time … he’ll be careful.

  Well, good. Make him work a little bit.

  … saw Carol on skis in New Zealand, learning the “flight” downhill, and that time she took off like a wobbling bird and the skis began to rotate, and she went tumbling along through flying mounds of white winding snow, and he was after her and fell on top of her, face-to-face half covered with snow, both of them, and he had rarely laughed so much, or felt so sexy, in other places, other times. Couldn’t make love at that moment: too many clothes, too much snow. Observers. Breathless. Blue eyes, stunning face, teasing him: oh but darling, how can you let this moment pass? I want you I need you have mercy. And with her hands probing, seeking, giggling away. Afterward … in the hotel she sat on the bed in a blue nightgown, ah, so beautiful, outlined against the wide window and the mountains and the snow. She said—she was holding a glass of—champagne?—she said: “You ever been in love with a girl, Billy?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “I mean in love. Really.”

  “Yep. Honest.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Girl in high school. Sheeee.…”

  “Well. What happened?”

  “Nothin’. To be exact.”

  “Crud. Why not?”

  “Oh … she was beautiful. A little dark doll. And the figure … ah, me.”

  “Well. Did you go out with her much?”

  “Nope. Not at all.”

  “Not at all? Why not?”

  “She was Jewish.”

  “Jewish.”

  “Yep.”

  “My God. You’re not serious.”

  “Yep.”

  “And for that reason you didn’t go out with her?”

  “Oh, no. Not her. Me. She wouldn’t go out with me.”

  Broke up in laughter, collapsed on the bed. She asked, filled glass balanced in her hand: “Are you part Indian? Tell me truth. She wouldn’t go with a … Comanche?”

  “I never went to church. To tell the truth. My folks didn’t believe in Hell. My pop used to say.…”

  “Tell me the truth. You from Denver, from the Rockies? You my half-breed?”

  Chapel started to laugh. In her face then there was a marvelous curiosity he was never to forget.

  She began to insist: “Now don’t be hurt. I don’t mind. I mean … oh, hell, is that what happened? Was she one of those people against Indians?”

  “Won’t tell you.”

  “Oh come on.”

  “Nope. It very old, very hard secret. I promise. No tell. Ever. Ugh.”

  He was moving into her, remembered that, remembered. She was saying:

  “You really an Indian? No kidding? Which tribe? How much Indian?”

  “No tell.” He crossed his heart, then hers. They began to wrestle and it became a rare time, and he was inside her and he said, whispering: “Okay, the truth. You make good squaw. Honest Injun. Let’s … ride.”

  She wrapped him in her legs. “Geronimo!” she yelled, and he broke up laughing while making love. “Ride hard. Geronimo!”

  “Me not Geronimo. No. Not him.”

  “Who was it? In your family? Really. Who?”

  “Me … Crazy Horse.”

  They laughed for a long time. She said: “I can feel the resemblance.”

  “I thought you were gonna say Sitting Bull. If you’d said Sitting Bull …”

  Afterward: “You Crazy Horse. Me Jane.”

  Off she goes … to marry, marry.…

  * * *

  Up to go out again. Sing no sad songs for me. Memories were blending now into the pitching, and it was a magic blend: he would fire away and remember her touch, and fire away and remember the joy of holding, loving, without thought, with vast desire, and at the same time the mind clicking quietly calmly practically majestically along, cutting them down, one, then another, not one hit, one that gave that solid sound that made you turn with apprehension to see where it was going. Me Crazy Horse. Chapel’s Last Stand. Finished the inning. Music—Oh where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy—walking toward the bench, felt the arm of Gus around his shoulders. A sweaty delighted excited anxious face:

  “Hey, man, how you doin’? How you feel? You okay? Jesus, I tell you, Billy, I’ve never seen you better. You goin’ through them all like … God amighty. You … man, how you doin’?”

  “Okay.”

  “Now you pacin’ yourself? Good. Glad to see that. For a while there you throwin’ every damn thing so hard I was getting nervous myself.”

  “Not so’s I could notice it.”

  “Billy … I never seen you better. You worry me. You’re throwin’ your heart out. All right, all right. But man, if you can keep it up …”

  He sat.

  There is a trace of weariness, old chap.

  How long do you think?

  Pace yourself.

  Yes.

  Watched Christopher go up to hit.

  Gee. If this team could get a run … that’s all I need.

  Feel no more the heat of the sun, nor the furious winter’s rages …

  Where the hell was that?

  “Thou thy earthly task have done, home art gone and ta’en thy wages … golden lads and girls all must, like chimney sweepers, come to dust …”

  Carol … reading that … fireplace somewhere … wintertime … golden lads and girls all must … like chimney sweepers, come to dust.…

  … one time she dated somebody and went to bed with him.

  How did you know?

  I knew.

  She dated a lot of people. No. Not a lot. Seemed like a lot.

  You didn’t own her.

  We never owned each other.

  Always free … and yet …

  One time … she went to bed w
ith … whoever. And the way she acted, you knew. So you asked her. She said yes. Very cold. Do you mind? No word at all. You did mind. She knew. She said: won’t happen again. You said nothing. She never asked you who you were seeing. But from almost the beginning … you didn’t see anybody at all.…

  Love.

  Have never used that word. To anybody anywhere … except the folks.

  The girl that I marry will have to be …

  The biggest fool in all history …

  One day in her office, she said: “Dammit, Billy, you’re certainly no dum-dum. Why don’t you read a few things? You’ve had no education but high school and God knows that was no education where you went to school, but you have a fine mind, really, Geronimo, sweetie, I want you to read a few things. Hokay? The basic stuff. Just a few that everybody should read.”

  She had much of it already, because she had that job at the publishing house and did a lot of reading herself and had books all over her place, and she began pushing things to him, she seemed to need it, and he was grateful. Because perhaps he’d reached the right age to read things he’d never gone into as a kid. Some were very good, many he’d never heard of, and some he’d heard of and was supposed to be in awe of he did not like at all, so he assumed he had poor taste and it would have to develop and that would take time. But he began to read more and more when he was away from Carol, taking the books with him to the hotels during the season, getting him a reputation with the team as a bookworm, and then one day: Anna Karenina.

  Carol: “You don’t like it? Tolstoy, you don’t like? What the hell is wrong?”

  Chapel said: “Well, the way I see it, she’s okay. I mean, Anna. She’s good. But the guy she falls in love with is a cluck. I have no sympathy. She gives her life away for a cluck.”

  “A cluck.” Carol was staring at him. No idea what she was thinking. Then she began to laugh. She laughed very hard and then came and put her arms around him. Then she whispered in his ear: “That’s what all us clever women do. We give our lives to clucks.” Chapel was oddly hurt by that, and she knew, she knew. She took him to bed where they always eased all pain. She was good at that. She was … the best. She made him feel that day as if … but the word she did not use. He never used it, either. One day she was drunk. She said, he remembered her dull eyes: “Love. Getting to be dirty word. Don’t believe in it anymore.”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes.…”

  “How many people you know—hic—really love each other? I mean … really? Really and truly would die without the other … like—hic—Romeo and Juliet?”

  “Well now, that one is by Old Will, and with that fella.…”

  “I think people need each other for a while, and that’s what they call it. Love. When a guy needs to have a girl to screw and boost the ego, and he finds this doll, for a while there things are mooney-spooney, and she’s that way with him, and it’s all some kind of weirdo joke. The girl goes with some guy for two weeks, three weeks, and raves about him and dreams about him and then suddenly sort of—wakes up, you know what I mean, and she asks herself, My God, what did I ever see in that guy? It’s all some kind of genetic code.”

  “A what?”

  “Genetic code. Find the right guy, like any female animal, to father the necessary kid.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Yep. Thass what they all do. Right guy. Kid comes along and they need that because the little thing needs them, and it’s love like between Momma Kitty and the little kitties. All for a while, but then the kitties grow up, and nobody needs you. Love is … need.”

  “Hmm. Have to think on that. I sure did love my folks.”

  “Oh sure. Genetic. You needed ’em, but you, Billy … you love the game. Don’t you? Truly? I mean, you’re the most happy fella … out on the mound. ‘In’t that true?”

  “Yep. I think.”

  “What do you love? Can you tell me that?”

  … at that moment there was a base hit: he opened his eyes, somebody on his team had doubled and was pulling up at second. Well. Getting to Durkee? No, I don’t think so. Durkee went back to the heavy stuff. Chapel closed his eyes.

  … Carol said something about … all life … a crazy game. And Billy said: “No. It’s more than a game. If you play right.”

  “Meaning? In a hundred words or less. What is there about baseball, that … special type of game, as it were, that you so love and adore?”

  “Very funny.”

  “No. Really.” An odd strange wistful look in those wide blue eyes. Aha. A mystery. Of what that thing is that a man could adore.

  “Well.” Pause. “Gee, this ain’t easy.” Pause. “Best I can explain … when I go out on the field, I go out … all of me. I mean … the best moments I’ve ever known were the times in an important game when they had men on base in the late innings, scoring position, and their best hitters coming up, and you stand there and take a deep breath and then you give it all you have, all you have, and you don’t fool ’em, oh, no, not just that, nothin’ foxy about it, when the big times come and the big guys step in to hit, to win, and you throw it right by them, pop, the sound of that thing belting the catcher’s glove, the sound of … strike three! Ah … those are the moments you look forward to … and they’re always waiting just a little way ahead, every guy steps in there to hit, and you put ’em down, but not all … you don’t expect to get ’em all, but it’s there in every moment, every pitch, the possibility they’ll hit, and they sometimes do. But mostly no … yet sometimes … I guess that’s the main joy of it. I’m good at it. Yes I am. And maybe … mmm … never thought of this … the other thing I love is the airplane … up in the high and lonely blue. I go up there to wander and dream and relax … rest … wandering through clear air between the clouds when the air is soft and smooth, no bumps, and you can see all the way to the end of the world. Then at night you play the music and dream of the good times … which are coming again.”

  He blinked, opened his eyes, jolted by his own mind.

  “Make believe you love me … one more time … for the good times.”

  Music of that next line: “I’ll get along … you’ll find another …”

  Wonder who she’ll marry. Will I ever meet him? Will she be happy? Someone she needs?

  “Billy, you don’t need me.”

  She said once: “Billy, tell me, other than my butt, is there any one thing about me you like? What’s the best thing?”

  “Oh, that’s simple. You’re fun to be with. Every time you show up, I begin to smile. And … I don’t mean jokes.”

  “I see. Me. The sunshine kid.”

  “Well. Is there one thing about me? Any one thing?”

  “Your strength.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t mean muscle. I mean … first thing I could see … in your eyes … what you call ’a tough cookie.’ I thought: this one’s a tough one. He doesn’t run from trouble.”

  “Ah, well. That ain’t exactly strength of mind.”

  Gus: tap on the shoulder. Something about the next hitter. Chapel nodded, not listening. He thought: Philosophy … one day he told Carol … remember? … that the book that impressed him the most was that German … Immanuel?

  She said: “Who?”

  “Immanuel. Last name is … Don’t. No. Can’t.”

  “Immanuel Kant.” She pronounced it “Kahn’t.” He said: okay, Kahnt. She eyed him with considerable thought.

  “Well. What do you think of Kant?”

  “Right on the button. He says that when people see the same thing happen, they see it with different eyes, and remember different things—although they all saw the same thing.”

  “Critique of Pure Reason.”

  “Yeah. That one. He’s right on the nob. My father said the same thing. Used to warn me. People see different things.”

  “Your father?”

  “Yep. He was a cop, you remember.”

  “Oh. Oh, yes. Cop. Deputy?”

  “Both. H
e was a very good cop. Everybody knew that. Proud of him. And I’ll always remember the way he’d talk about interpreting witnesses, the way you could pick people up who were there, who stood there and watched while the crime happened, and yet they told you different stories you had to sort of, filter, and yet they all would believe exactly what they said, and sometimes their memories would change in a few days, too, and they’d remember it differently but that wasn’t necessarily lying … no point in getting mad at people for changing memories. It was just that people saw with different minds … and saw sometimes what they wanted to remember seeing. Just about the same thing Kant said. Good point.”

  “Golly,” Carol said.

  Chapel’s memory smiled.

  “Oh ye,” he said, “of little faith.”

  “No, Billy, no I’m not. That’s one thing I have faith in.…”

  Later she said: “You are my … big little boy.”

  “My boy.” She said that. That she said.

  Child. Heart lies still but blood’s a rover.

  Straighten up, child.

  But she said … mine.

  Change the pitch. Think of … flying.

  She liked it. Really did. I remember at the beginning she barfed, after the flight. I thought: she’s only doing it for me. But she went on, and, gee, the girl has guts.…

  … his mind began to chuckle.

  The Mile High Club.

  Ah, yes. Did that … where?

  In Scotland.

  That one day … going up out of Inverness and heading west, toward the Isle of Skye … in a Cessna 150, a little bitty airplane which they would let me fly as a rental only by making me a member of the Royal Club, to make it legal, which it really wasn’t, and oh, it was a bumpy day … we were bouncing along over the Highlands, round spots of snow in the rounded mountains, when he mentioned the Royal Club, and how it reminded him of the other club, the Mile High Club, grinning away over pure and lovely Scotland, and Carol said: “How do you join that club? I mean, can I join that club?”

  “Oh very difficult. Very very. You gotta have a lot of heart and guts and desire … oh, yes, desire, you gotta have that.”

  “For what. Tell me.”

  He explained that the Mile High Club was a very exclusive club joinable only by people who had managed to make love in a small private plane at an altitude of at least one mile: 5,280 feet. In a private plane it was very difficult, especially to have room enough; and also, it wasn’t cricket to do it with an auto-pilot, that was considered “bad form.”