Local Heroes

Local Heroes

By Jon Fain

The last leg of Jake Lester’s trip through New England began with him searching out the rumor of a game in Vermont, before crossing into New Hampshire to see a paper mill team play a shoe factory team. The next morning, the holiday, he headed down to Massachusetts.
 
When he got to Bluefield, he drove through its deserted town square, past large Colonial houses, white or brick, most of which were flying American flags. There was a white church, a clocktower keeping time for the birds. A bronze war memorial, a Union soldier, stood with cap back and shoulders caped on the town green, firearm at his side.
 
Jake had missed the Fourth of July parade but, as he’d hoped, the annual ball game was on. It would be a long shot to find any talent, but no more so here than any other place these days.
 
As he came down the muddy road, on the rise behind the stands, the team at bat made its last out of the inning and the players began to switch sides. Driving into the gravel lot, Jake heard some of the children yelling about his Missouri plates. Since rationing, an automobile that traveled such distance was surely on military business. No doubt, they were disappointed when someone less distinguished than a general stepped out of it.
 
On his way over to the field, Jake glanced at all the people gathered under the trees, setting up for the postgame meal to come. Boys and girls—who had grown bored of talking with the firemen, tired of climbing on the shining red trucks fresh from the morning’s muster—chased each other around the trees bordering the field.
 
“We’ll take ‘em island by island in the Pacific,” said the big young man at the end of the bench, as Jake came up and stood off to the side of the men who had gathered. “The Krauts are finished. ‘Nother year at most.”
 
The player was stripped down to his white undershirt, covered in front by a catcher’s protector thin as an old dog blanket. He held a scarred, weathered bat, and cracked it against his metal shin guards as he spoke. The dark mud he’d been squatting in behind the plate had caked his Army-issue shoes.
 
“Pick out a good one, Red!” someone called.
 
Out on the field, a short, pale-skinned man, bald except for the red strands of hair scattered like weeds across his scalp, slapped the next pitch into a short line drive that died after sailing over the mound. The pitcher tried to turn and run for the ball, but tripped and fell to his knees. The shortstop, a man of sixty-five if a day, gimped after it. Red managed to make it to first base.
 
The men who had gathered behind the soldier on the bench to listen to his stories laughed and hollered. Red made a big show of wiping his face with a handkerchief. Someone brought over a sudsy, sloshing bucket of beer from the grove of pine trees where the barbeque was being cooked.
 
As the half-inning dragged on, Jake walked away from the bench and headed for the shade of the trees. He went directly to the high, hunched back of his black Ford and sat down on the bumper. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his white shirt and leaned back against the sedan.
 
“What do you know?” someone called out.
 
Lou Chamberlain came toward where Jake was smoking, past the other automobiles and a horse-drawn wagon. The two men shook hands. They hadn’t seen each other in ten years.
 
“Got your letter,” Lou said. “Never figured you for a company man.”
 
“Hardly,” Jake turned, and spit. “What about that catcher?”
 
Lou rubbed his hand across the top of his head, where his hair was like the hard bristles on the back of a boar. He wore coveralls stained with grease and dirt.
 
“Boy’s got some size to him,” Jake said. “But he’s wearing a pair of Sam’s. He out for good, or just the day?”
 
“He’s been over at Fort Devens since he got home, guarding those German POWs,” Lou said. “We’ve lost a few of our boys around here, but he made it back. Okay except for the hand.”
 
Jake hadn’t noticed. He had heard someone with the Browns talk about a one-armed outfielder who was tearing up what was left of the Southern Association. That would be the day, when the majors got desperate enough for a one-armed player. Though, from what Jake had been seeing, and because it was the Browns, it was possible. There had been One-Arm Daily, back when they still pitched underhand.
 
Something was going on down at the bench. The on-deck batter had a hold on the fat part of the bat, which the catcher had been using to punctuate his story, and now neither player was letting go.
 
“Come on, George, I ain’t gonna hurt ya!”
 
The pitcher out on the mound looked up. Jake watched the storm clouds gathering over the valley, and then a cool wind swept through the trees, sending smoke swirling off the cook fires.
 
Jake noticed the batter’s limp as he hurried toward the plate. The kid moved into the batter’s box and tried to find his footing. He swung early at the first pitch, hit a bounding, lazy grounder to third, and was thrown out by ten feet.
 
“Well,” Lou said. “Back to the salt mines.”
 
Jake watched the kid who had grounded out as he kept going down the first base line and off into the outfield. He picked up his glove, lying in the bluish grass. There was a small pond out there. A group of boys were throwing stones into the water. He heard the pop of firecrackers, as the big storm clouds moved off again.
 
Chatter ebbed and flowed out from the fielders. Jake lit another cigarette while the outfield changed. He walked down to the old backstop. There were perhaps a hundred people spread out around the picnic tables, benches, and ball field. The men who were tending to the grills and kettles began to serve the food, mothers called out to their children.
 
On the mound, Lou scuffed at the dirt and kicked at the homemade rosin bag. Positioned as he was, Jake could see the catcher’s fingers, his good hand, as he gave the signals. Lou didn’t have the quick fastball anymore, but he would never forget how to pitch.
 
“Thataway, Lou!” Jake called, joining the chorus as the batter struck out.
 
He had played with Lou for the Bluefield Blues, Class C. They had played their home games on this very field. Jake had made it all the way to the majors and the Cardinals. He had been with Dizzy and the Gashouse Gang for a little more than three years.
 
Lou hadn’t been as fortunate. Eventually the Cards, like they always did, found players who were younger, bigger, faster. Lou’s years in the minors here in Bluefield had made him a local hero of sorts, but Jake wondered, and always had, if it hadn’t hurt Lou, being a hometown boy. It sometimes happened, when the big club had a popular player in the minors, especially one who helped draw some fans, they kept him there.
 
Two outs. The next batter swung hard and hit a grasscutter. It was fielded cleanly by the elderly shortstop, but he threw wide of first. The runner took the turn and started for second when he looked over his shoulder and saw the young right fielder charge in with surprising speed to gather up the overthrow. Jake had watched him backing up first on every play, and now it paid off. The runner never had a chance.
 
Most of the people who weren’t playing had moved over to the picnic area. The catcher left his mask at the plate for his counterpart on the other team, and Jake saw that the kid was staring at him. He hoped Lou hadn’t told anybody who he was, that he was coming. It usually made them try too hard, or worse, come right up to Jake and try to talk a good game.
 
Lou was first up that inning. He examined the bats that were available. There was the one the catcher and the batter had tussled over. Another was short and lightweight, like a baton. Most of the older men were using it. One was flat on one side of the barrel, good for nothing but fungoes. Lou picked up a bat that had a crack in the handle, which someone had nailed together and taped up. He swung it easily back and forth as he walked to the plate.
 
“Over the fence,” Jake called, his fingers curled in the backstop’s wire mesh. He guessed it had been too rusty to be melted down for the war effort. Lou gave him a wink. It occurred to Jake that his old teammate was the best player there. He considered that.
 
Lou got the fat part of the old cracked bat on the first pitch, hit it hard at the second baseman, an eight-year-old kid who had taken over the position while his father was getting something to eat. The kid jumped out of the way and the ball bounded out between the outfielders. A pair of bad throws later and Lou stood on third base with a big smile.
 
The young catcher came up to the plate, trying to get a grip on the bat. Jake saw now the kid was missing half the hand. When the kid glanced over again, Jake took a sudden interest in the condition of his fingernails, before he realized what he was doing and put his hands in his pockets.
 
He could see the kid had a sense for the game. He watched the pitches closely, then picked one out and hit a weak fly ball to left. The outfielder ran in. The catch was made, but the throw was weak and wild, and Lou ran in from third.
 
After he’d scored, Lou, fighting off a yellow jacket, walked over with two tin cups of beer he had poured from the bucket by the bench. As they drank, Jake tried to figure out how old Lou was. Forty-five, at least. He’d have to lie about that.
 
“Good play by the boy out in right last inning,” Lou said. “Didn’t you say in your letter the Cards had that team still going in New York? Needed a glove? Of course, we’d damned sure miss George around here. A good kid, does some work around the farms, really throws himself into the Civil Defense.”
 
“That was a heads-up play,” Jake agreed. “That limp why he ain’t in the service?”
 
“Among other things. His dad died a few years back, it’s just him and his mother. Doesn’t run too pretty, but don’t bet against him in a race. The Army saw fit to call him 4-F, and I know he doesn’t care for it still, but he’s like the rest of us. He supports who Uncle Sam did choose to go.”
 
“What about you?” Jake asked.
 
“What about me?”
 
“Looks like you’ve got a few more innings left. The way things turned out, maybe you quit too soon. You never know, Lou.”
 
“Had my chance,” Lou said. “Plus I’m needed around here.”
 
It was a long inning. The batters fouled off a lot of pitches and time passed slowly. Lou wandered off after a while to talk with some friends. Under the hot sun again, Jake began to sweat.
 
By the time the right fielder came to the plate, the bases were loaded. Jake made a deal with himself. If the kid hit a home run, over the old fence, no less, he’d offer him a chance.
           
“Here he comes!” called the catcher, before he got down in his squat. He tossed aside the cigar he had been puffing on between batters, and sometimes between pitches, and it sent a plume curling up from the grass.
 
“Ducks on the pond!” someone shouted from the bench.
 
The kid fouled a vicious liner off first.
 
The pitcher rubbed up the ball. He wasted one, wide and in the dirt. Strike two was a wild swing from the kid, at a pitch over his head. The catcher whipped the ball back.
 
“Hey, look it!” Jake yelled.
 
The ball was coming. The kid jerked his attention back in time to swing and miss. The players in the field, and not a few on the bench, shouted their delight. Quick pitch.
 
The Bluefield men decided it was too hot to play two. The weather, combined with the heavy eating they did after the first game, and of course the beer, sent them to the cool shade of the pines. They kept their fine holiday form, however, singing together and trying to sneak more beer when their wives weren’t looking.
 
The children had long since captured the bats and balls anyway. They were in the outfield, playing a game of their own. They pointed the bats to the high blue sky, to shoot down German Messerschmitts and Japanese Zeroes. They rolled in the grass, diving for foxholes and bunkers. They lobbed the balls at each other as if they were grenades.
 
Jake backed his car up and went out along the rutted access road. The Cardinals were coming in by train to Boston that night. Jake was headed there, to give his report. He thought about the right fielder, 4-F, like him. An image had stuck with Jake from the game. It began with the kid chasing after a fly ball.
 
Jake, watching the flight of the ball as it curved away from the field, was surprised to see the kid stay after it. Suddenly he ran into the pond that was out there, glove outstretched.
 
It was only as the ball ticked off the fingers of his glove that he seemed to realize he was up to his waist in water. A pair of ducks burst out from under a willow at the edge of the pond, quacking wildly. The kid’s momentum took him one final step and he fell into deeper water. His old blue cap floated on the surface of the pond. Then he came up, sputtering and splashing from underneath it.
 
Jake smiled while players from both sides joined in the laughter. Then he looked out and caught the expression of the man on the pitcher’s mound.
 
Lou scuffed at the dirt. He shouted to get the catcher’s attention, pointed for him to get down and ready. As the kid dragged himself from the water, Lou began to crack warm-up pitches into the catcher’s mitt. People stopped laughing, silenced by the sound of it, like gunshots.

Jon Fain began publishing fiction in commercial and literary magazines in the 1980s. His baseball story “Sneaky Fast” was a prizewinner in Winning Writer’s Sports Fiction contest in 2014. His stories have been most recently published in Blue Lake Review, (mac)ro(mic), Potato Soup Journal, The Daily Drunk, Molecule, Fiction on the Web, Star 82 Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Massachusetts. For more, you can follow him on Twitter @jonsfain.

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