Curveball, page 24
Jack decided not to think and focused on packing. Three pairs of socks and three boxers. If he was breaking every goddamn rule by flying on Rosh Hashanah, he sure as hell needed clean boxers. Watching, packing, worrying, Jack felt so verklempt he didn’t know which end was up. Glad had declined to accompany him. “No way,” she’d announced. “I’m not flying on the holiday. What kind of Jew are you?”
“A better grandfather than a Jew.”
“That’s for sure.”
Jack regretted she wasn’t coming. And what she’d said about being a bad Jew stung more than he let on. It was one thing for him to think it, something else for Glad to say it. What, she thought he didn’t have feelings?
On his big screen, the Mets were attempting to rally: no outs, a runner on first. In the old days, that is, before the pinheads took over and half-ruined the game, the Mets would have been bunting to move the tying run to second base with only one out. These days? Who the hell knew?
Jack watched with growing anger when the Mets’ seven hitter swung away and struck out. Gallagher couldn’t manage his way out of a sack with both hands! Then Furillo, whose bum knee and fat ass had led to the unearned run, banged into a 6-4-3 double play—and just like that, the Mets were six outs from cooked.
Vey iz mir, thought Jack. But to demonstrate to any higher power watching that he was a true believer, if not in Yahweh, then in the Jewish God of Pitching, Jack tossed another pair of socks into his suitcase.
Gallagher sent Heynen out to start the eighth, and he walked the leadoff batter on four pitches. He looked gassed. The pitching coach came out to the mound to discuss the weather and stall. When he returned to the dugout, Gallagher emerged and headed for home plate, indicating he planned a double switch. Gallagher continued on from the home plate umpire to the mound and took the ball from Heynen, who started, head down, towards the dugout.
No need to hang your head, Jack thought, you pitched great.
Furillo also headed for the dugout, and Jack saw that there was a catcher walking in from the bullpen with the relief pitcher, Big Barnes. Even before Gary Cohen, the TV voice of the Mets, announced the name of the new catcher, Jack could see it was Rah Ramirez.
What was wrong with Gallagher? Didn’t he know Rah broke Big’s nose and they hated each other? Who knew what Gallagher knew, the dumbass. Jack settled in to watch, fearing the worst. But Big induced a pop-up, then a strikeout, and got ahead, one ball, two strikes on Abrams, the Nats’ shortstop. Jack watched Big shake off one sign after another from Rah. Finally, he nodded, and instead of wasting a fastball high and wide, or a slider, low and out of the zone, Big fired a fastball, middle-middle. Putz! Abrams deposited the ball 410 feet away over the center field fence and slow trotted the bases, while the Mets fans in the stands made not a single fricking sound. In Delray Beach, Jack tossed another pair of boxers in his suitcase, thinking, Oh shit, Nats up three-zip, this is bad.
In the luxury box, the mood was grimmer than grim. The owner’s friends announced they had to leave and cleared out with their wives. Good riddance, thought Joe. He considered a drink, but he hadn’t touched alcohol since the cancer returned. Maybe it made no difference, maybe it did. Anyway, Frannie was drinking for both of them. He’d been watching her knock back scotch for several innings. Maybe, he thought, as she returned from the bar with a fresh one, he should have let her confess since whatever it was seemed to be eating her up. Or maybe it was the Old-Timers’ Day conversation with Abbott.
She sat down wearing a pixilated grin, while down on the field, Rah approached the plate, batting helmet on his head, lumber in his hand.
“Looks bad, doesn’t it?”
Joe nodded.
“Maybe it’s better,” she added, “if Jess doesn’t pitch in New York the day after the press conference.”
Joe shook his head. “I’m sure he was counting on pitching great Tuesday to take everyone’s mind off tomorrow.”
Rah dug in. The Nats’ reliever tried to sneak a first pitch fastball across the plate, which Rah roped into left center. The ball found grass, rolled to the track, and Rah, who ran well for a catcher, cruised into second. Frannie squeezed his hand, which Joe understood to mean she was focusing on the game.
After giving up the two-run bomb in the top of the eighth, Big had come off the mound looking so pissed off and upset, Jess almost felt sorry for him. They hadn’t said a word to each other in days, but with Big seated ten feet away looking like the top of his head was on fire, it was hard to ignore him. Instead of going over to talk to Big himself, Jess suggested to Wetherby and Burbank, that they say something to Big.
Wetherby hissed, “No way I’m telling that cracker it’s all right to give up that dinger.” He widened his eyes. “Piece of shit.”
Instead, Burbank approached Big, said a few words, and patted him on the back. Jess hoped Big felt better, even though in almost every way he was a total shithead. But he was a teammate, and if there was one thing Jess had been taught his whole life to love and value, it was being on a team. Teammates had each other’s backs. He hoped his teammates still felt that way about him after the press conference. He watched Big nod and grin up at Burbank, then Burbank returned and sat again beside Jess. Together with his fellow starting pitchers, whom Jess now thought of as friends—they’d adopted him as sort of a kid brother—Jess watched Rah’s leadoff double in the bottom of the eighth with such pride and love, that he was afraid he’d give away his special relationship with Rah, except that the entire bench of Mets players was screaming and shouting, slapping high fives, and letting themselves hope that maybe, just maybe, they could come back from three runs down.
The rally fizzled. After Rah advanced to third on an infield single and scored on a ground out with the Nats’ infield playing back, Pete and Squirrel struck out, stranding Nimms on second. When the Mets went back to the field for the top of the ninth, they still trailed 3-1, and Gallagher summoned Domingo Fuentes, the Mets’ closer, to try to keep the game close.
Fuentes did his job, retiring the Nats in order, and the Mets jogged off the field; they needed two runs to tie and three to win or they’d be flying to Milwaukee. The Nats brought in their closer, Gillespie, to secure the win, and he walked Sanchez, the first batter, on a 3-2 slider that could have been called a strike but wasn’t. Sanchez sprinted to first base, bringing the tying run to the plate.
“Rally caps!” Wetherby shouted the length of the dugout. To make sure it happened, Jess and Wetherby walked up and down the bench, repeating “Rally caps, rally caps.”
Passing him on their way back to the right corner of the dugout, Jess locked eyes with Big, who said nothing; didn’t smile, but he nodded, and reversed his cap, inside out and backwards, like most of the players, and even one or two of the coaches. The caps seemed to work. Harkness, batting sixth, singled hard to right, and suddenly the Mets had runners on first and third, nobody out, and the entire Mets squad was up and standing on the top step of the dugout.
The Nats’ pitching coach emerged from the visitors’ dugout to confab with Gillespie, which seemed both to wake him up and calm him down. Gillespie overpowered the Mets’ number seven batter, Sean Parker, on three fast balls: ninety-eight, ninety-nine, and one hundred miles an hour. That brought up Vic Villette. As Villette dug into the box, Jess looked at Rah, who was kneeling in the on-deck circle. Unless Villette came through, Rah would bat with two outs and home field advantage on the line. Jess tried to imagine how nervous Rah must be, in what was certainly the biggest moment of his baseball life, kneeling in the on-deck circle. Jess leaned further over the dugout railing and pounded the fence.
“Rah!” he shouted. “Rah!”
Rah either didn’t hear him or refused to turn.
Gillespie fired towards home. Villette swung and missed.
Jess shouted again, “Rah, Rah!”
Rah turned towards him. Jess pumped his fist and mouthed, without sound, “Te amo, Rah. Te amo!”
Rah smiled his incandescent smile just as Gillespie fired a four-seamer, up in the zone, that Villette popped a mile high in the infield. The first base ump signaled an infield fly, and Villette was meat even before the ball settled in the second baseman’s mitt. Villette stopped running halfway to first, fired his helmet into the dirt, and started towards the dugout, ass dragging. Rah embarked on the million-step trek to the batter’s box, with every eye in Citi Field watching.
Rah dug in, right foot obliterating the back chalk line of the batter’s box. He took two short, precise practice swings and settled into his stance. Gillespie nodded at his catcher, rocked into his motion, and broke off a sick slider that started on the plate, but dove off it. Rah swung and missed by six inches. Around Jess on the top dugout step, his teammates groaned and slapped the top rail.
“You can do it, Rah! You can do it!” Wetherby shouted.
On the field, Gillespie nodded at his next sign, wound up and hurled a hundred-mile-per hour heater that Rah fouled straight back. Jess tried not to lose hope, but with Rah down oh and two, the game was on life support. Gillespie glowered towards home. He was a nasty-looking, unshaven fucker, and in that moment, Jess hated him. Gillespie rocked into his motion and fired another supercharged heater, but it rode high, and Rah laid off. Ball one.
He’s setting you up for the slider, Rah, Jess thought. You know it!
And Rah did, because this time, when the slider broke off the plate, Rah didn’t chase, and though the pitch was clearly outside, just for a micro-second, with the crowd screaming so loudly he could barely hear his own thoughts, the ump seemed to hesitate, and Jess feared, Oh no, he’s going to ring him up!!
Instead, the ump signaled ball two. On the mound, Gillespie shouted, although Jess couldn’t hear what he said. When the Nats’ catcher pegged the ball back to him, Gillespie snapped his glove angrily. He wanted that call, Jess thought, of course he did. And now he’s pissed off and coming with heat because he doesn’t want to go three and two.
You know that, Rah. You know it!
Jess glanced at Wetherby on his left, and Burbank on his right, their caps inverted and reversed. On the field, Gillespie peered towards the plate, nodded, and rocked into this motion. The pitch sizzled homeward, the platonic ideal of a four-seamer rather than an actual ball moving through space. But Rah saw it, he saw it, and the crack of bat on ball, maple compressing rawhide, was the most beautiful sound Jess had ever heard.
The struck ball arced from home plate towards dead center, still rising as it left the infield, rising still as it took aim on the New York Home Run Apple. Rah flipped his bat triumphantly and raised both fists overhead. Every player and coach in the dugout began to scream because he’d done it, he’d done it, he’d done it. His blast flew past the Home Run Apple, landing halfway up the black batter’s eye behind it. Mets win, Mets win. 4-3.
Rah took off sprinting towards first. The Mets players and coaches poured out of the dugout. Sanchez scored first, followed by Harkness, joining the mob waiting for Rah to cross the plate so the wild rumpus could begin. Rah rounded third, and Jess, who headed the scrum of players waiting to mob him, could see Rah’s smile lighting the way. Their eyes met, and Rah nodded a private recognition. Of what? Who knew? Pure joy. Then Rah leapt up and landed both feet first on home, entering the joyous, bouncing throng. Suddenly, Jess was crying. When he looked around, he saw that he wasn’t the only one.
PART FOUR
WILD CARD
Chapter Thirty-One
That night, just past ten—as they’d agreed in the clubhouse—Rah knocked, and Jess let him in. Rah wore a t-shirt and jeans, carried his orange-and-blue duffle. He looked exhausted and happy, much like Jess felt. There’d been a great deal of sprayed champagne in the clubhouse. Quite a bit had found its way into the players’ mouths too, although everyone agreed they shouldn’t get trashed with the Wild Card series starting in less than forty-eight hours. Still, boys will be boys, Jess thought. Even men will be boys. He bet he wasn’t the only Met with an aching head, as he stepped back to admit Rah, then double-locked the door behind him.
“Anyone see you?”
“You know what?” Rah tossed his duffle onto the bed. “I doan care.”
“Since when?”
“I think, I hit that home run? I doan have to be afraid all the time. They’re not gonna send me down.” Rah grinned. “They can kiss my ass.”
“Who can?”
Rah was still grinning. “Anyone who wants to.”
Jess gazed with love at his catcher. “You trying to make me jealous?”
Rah nodded.
“Are you drunk?”
Rah nodded again. “It feels good not to be afraid. Like a thousand pounds off my head.” He stepped towards Jess. “Fuck ’em.”
“Fuck ’em.” And then, taking Rah in his arms, he whispered, “I’ve missed you so much.”
Hours later, with Rah sleeping beside him, Jess flipped his pillow, hunting a cool spot, worrying, as he’d been doing most of the night. Was he making a huge mistake, hanging a curve in the middle of the plate, where anyone could hit it? What would the other players think? Would Rick still be his friend? And Wetherby and Burbank, the other pitchers and catchers, Furillo, all the Latin guys, the coaches, all of whom probably suspected because of the Twitter storm, but didn’t know for sure? And what about the evangelicals who prayed together in the locker room after every game? And these were his teammates, who had reasons to like him. Well, not Big, the motherfucker, who would turn out to be Big I-told-you-so, with his broken nose, jealousies, and homophobia. Fuck Big.
What about the Nats? And the players on all the other teams? The fans at Citi Field? What if he pitched like crap and the Mets lost the opening game of the series because he was gay, and everyone hated him? At 4:00 a.m., he almost got up and phoned Mr. Dean, who’d said he could call any time, day or night, to ask him to cancel the press conference. He couldn’t get up in front of everyone like that. He couldn’t. But did he really want to make a scene and mess everything up, with Rah beside him for the first time in what seemed like forever?
Joe woke early and stared at Frannie, who lay beside him sound asleep, softly snoring. The clock on his end table read 6:14 in vampire-red numbers. It was Rosh Hashanah morning, and Joe’s soul, like that of other Jews on this first Day of Awe, hung in fearful balance. He remembered Rosh Hashanah the year he was suspended, twenty-five or was it twenty-six years ago? He was already in love with Frannie but hadn’t kissed her yet. He had attended services at that strange little synagogue on the boardwalk in Venice, CA. Afterwards, for the first time in his life, he’d taken literally the Old Testament invocation that for sins against God, prayers, repentance, and charity would avert the evil decree, but for sins committed against other people, you had to ask their forgiveness directly. He’d asked forgiveness from the husband of a woman he’d had an affair with, and although he hadn’t kissed Frannie yet or told her he loved her, he’d asked forgiveness of Frannie’s boyfriend, Des, because he’d been lusting after her.
He’d wanted so badly, then, to get his life in order, and he craved the same thing now. With his cancer returning, who knew what the future held, or if he even had a future? The rest of his life were all Days of Awe. Joe knelt beside the bed and prayed for Frannie and Jess, even for Jack: may they all be inscribed in the Book of Life. A sweet year, a healthy year. May Jess do well at his press conference. May everyone accept him, except for the jerks and assholes who never would. May he throw lights out tomorrow night, and may he be kept safe from harm. May he win the Cy Young someday, though I never did. As for me, God, grant me time enough to enjoy the many gifts you’ve given me, however long that may be. But I’d sure like to see Jess take home the Cy Young.
Then he climbed back into bed to wait for Frannie to wake so he could ask her forgiveness.
After she returned from the bathroom in a monogrammed terrycloth robe, wet cheeks glowing, mind likely not yet clear despite the coffee Joe had fetched from the lobby—she’d had an awful lot of Chivas yesterday—Frannie said, “Are you crazy? What do you have to ask my forgiveness for?”
“It’s the Days of Awe.”
“I know that.”
“If I hadn’t stuck my head in the sand last winter, the cancer might not have gotten so bad.”
“That’s why you’re asking my forgiveness?”
He nodded.
“That’s all you’ve got?”
“Well, I did have horny thoughts about that golf pro before she told me she was a lesbian.”
“I forgive you, Joe, I do. Now it’s my turn.”
Uh-oh. “But you’re not even Jewish.”
“I’m a Jew-lover.” She smiled. “Wait here.”
She returned to the bathroom, and when she emerged, still looking a little crispy about the edges, as if maybe her head hurt, she carried a black velvet drawstring bag: too small for shoes, too large for jewelry.
“Open it.”
“Is it a present?”
“Not exactly.”
Joe un-snugged the drawstring and extracted an eight-inch pink, slightly soft to the touch, bendable piece of plastic. The object was as big around as the base of his electric toothbrush, and there was an on-off switch near the bottom with different speeds and settings. Its shape and the embarrassed smile on Frannie’s face left little doubt of its function.
“What’s this?” Joe asked.
“An Unbound Bender. It’s a kind of vibrator.”
“I can see that.” He felt himself getting upset. “Why are you giving me a vibrator?”
“I bought it last spring when you wouldn’t have surgery. I was so mad, Joe. I wanted to show you, and myself, I could replace you and your penis, no problem. Thirty-nine, ninety-five.”
