Riding Pine

Riding Pine

For Ray Bradbury

“This wasn’t really put together well,” Alphonso Ruiz told Hank James. The All-Star games was over, if you could even call it an All-Star game. The league had just combined the HooseCows with the Radiation (the one team the league felt would not try to brawl with the ‘Cows) and then combined the Man-Pigs and the Ugly Birds. The managers for the teams picked the best line-up they could and they played another game.

The only difference was this game was being played in Des Moines, and it was being played in a carnival environment. To Hank, it seemed like the league had decided  no one would care about this brand of baseball anyway, and they had to pack the day with activities to distract from the game. There had been local bands singing before the game, and a marching band for the Star-Spangled banner. Beer was cheaper than water. He had even heard someone say there was a promotion where each section had been assigned a player, and if your player got a home run, hot dogs were free for fifteen minutes. He had a feeling some of those hot dogs had found themselves thrown at the outfielders before the day was done. Hank shook his head. This was the part of the minors he was most glad to leave behind.

The Mason City Ugly Birds were almost all on the field, now that the game was officially over. The Ugly Birds were a big part of the reason this even had not felt professionally run. The Swede family members on the team had insisted on playing the whole game, because in the mind of the Ugly Birds this event was about getting drunk and seeing who could slap his teammates in the crotch the most. Even Chuck Swede had gotten in on the action. The smallest member of the Swede family was laughing loudly with his family. No one would ever know Hank and Mickey Danz had recently calmed Chuck down after he called them from a greasy spoon diner. Just days earlier Chuck walked away from waking up in a room with two dead ballplayers and his own ball bat, which was covered in blood, and now he just as giddy as the next Ugly Bird.

Hank spit some sunflower seeds and grimaced. He knew there would be more to come from the murders of two former HooseCows. Mickey thought it was a ghoulish revenge on the part of the Ugly Birds, for what Hank had done to their pitcher in a game. Hank still thought it was the same person who had murdered the girl outside of the ballpark. They didn’t spend long arguing the point, and instead quickly buried the bat out in the cornfield behind the house and left the building, careful to dust off any fingerprints. They both agreed that Chuck probably had not done it, and when it came down to it, hiding from the what scared them seemed what they were comfortable doing.

“Did you see the Man Pigs pitcher freak out and point to his wedding ring when that woman ran out on the mound and kissed him?” Alphonso Ruiz chuckled.

“I don’t think he knew about the whole “Kissing Bandit” thing,” Hank said. “I guess they couldn’t afford to bring in the official Kissing Bandit.” The girl who had run out to kiss the opposing team’s pitcher, to the tune of “Love Shack,” had smiled sweetly as she sauntered onto the field, but her body filled out the outfit they had dressed her in like there was nothing at all sweet on her mind. No wonder the pitcher made sure to mention he had a wife; she was probably in the audience.

“Did you see the kid in the stands staring at ‘Bud’ Abbott?” Hank said to Alphonso. “Looked like he was going to pass out or have a fit when he saw ‘Bud’.”

Volunteer players from both sides were helping the final piece of entertainment set up on the field. Mickey Danz was sitting lifelessly on the bench behind Hank. He had probably had the worst day of all. He started the game but, after only two batters, he refused to pitch to the third batter. When Manager Taylor Nickles finally brought him out of the game, Hank could hear Mickey chanting “I can’t stop the game. I can’t stop the game.”

Hank knew Mickey had been seeing more of the dead children since that night at the abandoned farmhouse. Hank wanted to help him, but he was spending most of his free time with the cordless phone in his lap, wondering if he should call the cops anonymously or just turn himself in for his involvement. He had never been this far past the light gray side of legal living. Mickey would stop in periodically to inform Hank the ghosts had told him they were doing it all wrong. It didn’t help anything.

Chuck was supposed to have gone up to Hank’s house in Minnesota to relax for a while, which is why Hank and Mickey were extremely surprised to see him playing today. They met up with him during his batting practice (being careful to stay in the stands, away from the Ugly Birds thugs who were eying them). Chuck smiled like he hadn’t just been framed for a double-murder and said his family had something special planned for him during this game. After that, he smiled and mouthed, “I’m leaving for your house right after the game.”

“Just hang in there,” Hank told Alphonso, patting him on the shoulder. The final attraction of the night was almost completely assembled. “The Majors are going to go on strike, and that means there’ll be some openings. It can only help us, right?”

Alphonso nodded, and Hank heard the remaining crowd start to cheer. Hank realized he was mostly talking to himself about getting up to the majors. He knew he was hitting the ball well enough to make it somewhere, and he was ready for another shot. He had been calling his ex-wife to talk with her about it, but so far, he hadn’t been able to get in touch with her.

Hank’s thoughts were interrupted by what he thought he heard on the field.

“Did someone say ‘dynamite?’” Hank asked Alphonso.

“Dynamite chair. Saw one of these things when I was playing down in Florida once. Weirdest thing. Guy sits in that chair, all that dynamite goes off, and somehow it works just right that he doesn’t get hurt at all.”

Hank looked out to see a man wearing a shiny silver outfit, complete with motorcycle helmet, visually inspecting an old wooden chair and large amounts of dynamite strapped to it. A couple of Swedes were out watching him and jostling each other, including Chuck Swede.

“That guy makes his living doing that,” Alphonso said. “Makes what we do seem grown-up.”

Hank smiled and went to get more sunflower seeds. As he did, he saw the look on Mickey’s face. When Mickey had come off of the mound, Taylor had taken him to the training room. When Mickey had come back out, he was much calmer. Taylor had probably sedated him. Now, however, he could see a look of panic trying to force itself through the medicinal stupor. Mickey’s eyes were red and bulging, and his jaw was wide opening and trying to work out some words of warning.

Hank turned back to the field to see Chuck Swede’s family members gently guiding him to the chair. They were smiling and messing with his hair, and Chuck was beaming like it was the proudest day of his life. The crowd was cheering. Even the baseball players, in both dugouts, were cheering. Chuck sat in the chair and put on a helmet someone had handed him. The crowd started counting backwards from “10.”

Hank heard Mickey collapse on the bench behind him. The pitcher was drooling and kicking his legs on the floor. The trainer was running over to see him, but Hank knew it was because the ghosts were close now, and they were angry enough to scare Mickey into trying to work through his sedation. How big of a dose had Mickey gotten?

All of this served to delay Hank, who didn’t get out of the dugout until the crowd chanted “4.” Hank stood at the top of the dugout and waved his arms back and forth, screaming “no.” No one heard him. Those who saw Hank thought it was just part of the act. In the stands, Hank could just glimpse the ghosts of the dead, young ballplayers. They had turned away from the field, their heads tilted as if they were disgusted. On his big chair surrounded by dynamite, Chuck saw Hank and gave him a “thumb’s up” sign.

Then, the crowd reached zero.

(NEXT)