True Outcome Guys
New Orleans, Louisiana. 2011.
A woman in her late 40s walks past revelers working on getting drunk. She gets a few appreciative looks from the men she passes by, even though she’s old enough to be some of their mothers. The Bourbon Street crowd hasn’t reached its full capacity, so she is able to work her way through the street without having to slow her pace.
She sees her destination ahead, and she quickens her pace. The karaoke bar she is walking to is half full, but the lady in the kitty cat costume on stage is belting out the song “I’ll Make Love To You” as if she is in a packed concert hall. The singer hits all of the notes, but overacts her passion during the instrumental breaks.
A bouncer steps out of the open doorway into the street and glaces around. He’s nearly the same age as the woman, but he has the athletic build of a life-long jock. He has a serious expression on his face, but there are lines around his mouth that show he used to smile a lot.
The woman approaches him, and he recognizes who she is.
Waterloo, Iowa. 1994.
“Quit screwing around,” Taylor Nickles barked to his baseball team as they filed into the cement fallout shelter. “This is a practice run. If we have to get in here for real, we don’t have time to screw around.”
Taylor had outdone himself in preparing the fallout shelter. The team had been forced to cover it with dirt and grass, and Taylor had gone out every day looking for any sign of the shelter below he needed to disguise. When he pulled the heavy door shut, the outside looked like a small, decorative wishing well.
Taylor had prepared the inside, too. There were years of food and water stored inside, as well as enough ammunition and weaponry to start a war, then finish it. For entertainment, he had moved his entire collection of anti-government propaganda onto two shelves in the back of the shelter.
“I think the practice run was a good idea,” Taylor told Hank. The rest of the guys were looking at the bunks they would be sleeping in, if this were an actual emergency. Alphonso Ruiz and John Todd were standing near the entryway of the shelter. Hank met Alphonso’s eyes, and Alphonso and John Todd slipped out the door. Mickey Danz sat not far from where they were standing. He had his arms wrapped around his shoulders. Jean Gierau was singing “I need a brand new friend who doesn’t trouble me” and dancing like he was the Lizard King himself.
Hank didn’t think Taylor would think the plan was such a good idea if he could see what was in the shelter with the remaining HooseCows. The children who had died trying to save the baseball gear their parents had forgiven were also inhabiting the shelter, but their desires were not for safety. They were standing against the walls of the shelter, unnoticed and unmoving.
The children’s faces had changed. It was if they had gotten younger and smoother. They looked like moving porcelain dolls, and they were becoming more and more visible with each passing moment. The names of HooseCows players were written on the fronts of their shirts, and this time it looked like they were written in blood. Any moment now, the ghosts would finally become visible to the rest of the team. Then, the screaming would start.
As long as he had been in baseball, Hank James had heard other players talk about the Baseball Gods. If you didn’t follow the unwritten rules of the game, the Baseball Gods would punish you by taking away a home run or letting the other team hit one. Superstitious ballplayers swore by the Baseball Gods, and most ballplayers were superstitious. After seeing what he had as a HooseCow, Hank James knew the Baseball Gods were the young ones who never gave up on the game, and who were willing to give everything to it. He could see them assembling before him, grinding their small, porcelain jaws back and forth, and he knew these Baseball Gods could be terribly cruel.
“Mickey and I just have to bring in the beer,” Hank said. It was the only request Taylor Nickles had granted his team, who still managed to complain about the practice drill in spite of their fear of their murderous coach.
Taylor paused, as if reconsidering the one concession he had made. Then, he smiled and clapped Hank on the bank.
“Hurry up,” he said.
“It’s a small enough cooler, Hank,” Mickey said, without looking at his teammate and former friend. “You can carry it yourself.”
Hank felt his blood pressure drop and he looked into Mickey’s eyes. In the entire room, only those two men understood the severity of what Mickey was doing. Just those two men and the teeth-grinding ghosts standing around them.
“It’s really make me feel a lot better if you came along,” Hank said.
“Can’t,” Mickey said. “Not after what I’ve done.” There were tears in the man’s eyes. Behind him, Hank could see one of the ghosts move to stand right behind the pitcher. On the ghost’s shirt, written in blood, was the name “Mickey Danz.”
Hank nodded once and turned away. He nodded at Taylor Nickles, too. He should’ve known it’d have to end like this. He and Taylor were both guys that either got what they wanted or died trying. If he, Alphonso, and John didn’t finish this now, Taylor would be shooting it out with cops and getting more innocent people killed before the end of the year.
Hank glanced back once, and he saw a ghost child peek its head out to glance up the stairs leading out of the shelter. The ringing in his ears (the ringing that sounded more and more like the awful music of the organist he had killed with a foul ball in Rochester) had become almost deafening.
Then, Hank slammed the door and Alphonso Ruiz backed the truck’s rear tire over it. John Todd quickly mixed the cement to seal the HooseCows in their tomb for good.
“Mickey wouldn’t leave,” he told John Todd, who just closed his eyes.
Hank wondered if they would hear ungodly screeching and wailing at that moment. He was glad the shelter was soundproofed.
New Orleans, 2011.
“Hank?” Penny asked her ex-husband.
Hank gave her the only smile he had left, and it wasn’t much.
She saw he was wearing a name tag that read “Gary Monaco.” Behind him, another bouncer with a goatee and glasses, name tag reading “Brian” something, cocked his head. Hank motioned him away and stepped forward toward his former wife. He reached out his hands to hold her shoulders, and then pull her into a hug, but too much time had gone by for him to feel comfortable doing that.
“I never stopped looking,” she said. Her voice rose and fell between betrayal and pure sadness. “I got married, I had kids, but I never stopped looking. I wasn’t sure what I’d do when I found you, either. I’m still not sure. When I saw your picture next to the article that made it all over the Internet, I knew where to pay the private investigators to concentrate their search.”
Hank winced. The article referred to an incident where he had been coaching first base for a small college, as Tom Malcolm. Someone had been heckling one of his players, and Hank (as “Tom”) had gone into the stands after the heckler. He hadn’t been recognized as former professional player Hank James, and he left town as soon as he could before that connection could be made. It wasn’t the first time he’d been involved in something like that. It was just the first time someone had a camera and posted pictures to the internet.
“I found John Todd five years ago,” Penny said. “He told me everything. He’s doing okay now, but it was rough for a while. He speaks at a recovery group two or three times a month. He told me what you did. He still believes you saved lived by doing that, and Hank? I believe you did, too.”
“They never found the shelter, did they?”
“No,” his ex-wife replied. Then, she saw the look in his eyes. “Hank, they can’t still be alive down there. And if you’d called someone any earlier they would’ve shot the first person who opened that door.”
Hank watched the people pass by on the streets, then steeled his gaze and looked back to his ex-wife.
“There was a lot of food in there.”
“There wasn’t 17 years worth of food.”
“There were things in there with them . . .” Hank said.
“What are you talking about?” Penny replied.
Hank realized he said too much. He took a deep breath and found one last smile inside of him.
“Where are you staying?” he asked.
“The Radisson.”
“I’ll stop by the front desk in the morning, around 10.” Hank looked back into the karaoke bar to see the seats were almost filled. David, another bouncer, gave him an exasperated look.
“I’m not asking for you back as my husband,” Penny said, maybe a little too quickly. Then, she steadied herself. “It’s too late for that. I have a family. I just want to have you back in my life. Somehow.”
He nodded, then gestured to the bar behind him. It was getting full now, and someone was on stage, rapping about gin and juice.
“I have to go or I’ll lose this job, and I don’t have many other options. 10 AM. We’ll get an early lunch and talk about this.”
Penny nodded. She looked across the street and saw something surprising. Some kid was out on Bourbon Street on Halloween night, and he was by himself. He was wearing a ratty, homemade baseball costume and make up that made him look pale and sickly. There was something written on his shirt, but she couldn’t make it out with all the people going by. She looked back to Hank, and she could tell he saw the kid, too.
“Be there,” she pleaded, and he nodded. She went to hug him, and he accepted the hug like and old friend and nothing more. She looked at him, and walked away. She walked half a block away and turned back. He was still watching her, and he waved.
Then Hank, as Gary Monaco, walked the other way to catch the next cab to the airport.
