Imperfect Day
All of the signs pointed to this game being just another day at the ballpark for Hank James. They were at home again, and he and Mickey Danz could take some time understanding what they had seen Mankato relief pitcher Alan Carpenter doing out in amongst the trees. They were playing the Rochester Radiation, a team financed by wealthy Rochester doctors and populated by numbingly average players who were playing at exactly the level of baseball they should be. The only thing remotely interesting about the Rochester team was that a few of the players, including ace pitcher Ernest Barron, had been highly regarded pro prospects who suffered injuries the Rochester doctors thought they could fix.
Hank wasn’t even upset when he saw the HooseCow ticket takers asking patrons to sign a “waiver” stating the fan is aware every member of the HooseCows team had a criminal history. It was someone’s way of trying to sell tickets. The money guys in Rochester were probably worried the Waterloo/Cedar Falls area would still be mourning the disappearance of their minor league affiliate, the Waterloo Diamonds, and then boycott the HooseCows unless they had a scandalous reason to pay attention. Having played ball with the team for over a month, Hank knew most of the players had just had trouble with drugs or alcohol at some point, gotten in trouble, and were now trying to get past it. Some had no criminal background at all; aging, crime-free pitcher Fred Duchess had been instructed to tell people he was guilty of “robbing Father Time,” and barely mediocre center fielder Tommy O’Leary delighted in telling the girls he was guilty of “being drop-dead gorgeous.”
Hank was comfortable with the entire team as they prepared for the night’s game against the Radiation. He was getting more convinced that Coach Nickles was just a nervous old man, and that none of the players were killers at all. That said, he still didn’t trust Drew Holland, and found he was the only player on the team he wouldn’t choose to be around when he wasn’t playing. The only thing that made Hank James nervous in the locker room was the old baseball he had gotten from the the spectral child that night at the playground. He kept it in his locker, wrapped up in a towel.
Hank was absolutely cheerful when he got to the dugout and heard the announcers call his name. There were some boos in the crowd, but they were friendly. It seemed as if the HooseCows were professional wrestlers more than ballplayers. Thinking this, Hank looked down along the stands and saw their mascot, Babe Mooth, acting tougher than a mascot should act. When they left the dugout to take the field, there was no frightening organ music to worm inside his head.
It was someone odd when Hank noticed “Bunk” Edwards slump down in the bullpen. Relievers should pay attention to the action on the field, but “Bunk” was barely human in his social skills. “Bunk” smelled like he was begging people to stay at least ten feet away, and if a player braved the stench, one of “Bunk’s” never ending stories about growing up in Texas would drive them away next. Even with the HooseCows short on pitchers since T.S. Wilson up and left them, “Bunk” rarely got into games. Maybe he was just giving up.
The HooseCows won a 3-2 ballgame and everyone went in to laugh and shower. Hank hadn’t quite made it to shower before he realized “Bunk” still wasn’t in the locker room. Hank’s mouth went dry, and all of the imperfections of his nearly perfect day returned to him in one moment. He slid back into his uniform pants and, bare-chested, he ran back to the field because he had to see.
The reliever was still motionless in the dugout, his elbows on his upper thighs and his cap pulled down. As Hank ran across the field, ignoring the few fans lazily trickling out of the stadium,, he was able to see the dark pool of fluid growing on the bleacher seat his feet were resting on. A stadium usher was standing near the bullpen. The old man was looking at the unmoving relief pitcher and shuffling his feet. The usher then looked to Hank James and relaxed, because he somehow thought Hank James would have some idea of what to do.
Hank got to the bullpen and pushed his way through the chain-link door. He yelled for the usher to get the cops, and the usher jogged a few paces down the bleachers to shout at another usher, who then went for the cops. Hank sat down next to the man he had not minded, but had never liked, and realized he was the first person to find him dead.
“Is he . . .” John Todd asked Hank James. He had noticed the big infielder leaving the locker room, and then he had gone out to see if he could help. Todd looked shaky, like he might pass out.
“I think so,” Hank said. He almost wished crazy Mickey Danz was out there, too. Except Mickey didn’t do as well with the real things that weren’t ghosts going bump in the night.
Careful not to touch the body, Hank peered under the chin of the dead man in front of him. The man’s face was blue, and his tongue was thick and protruding from his mouth. The blood pooling on the floor came from painful-looking wounds where “Bunk” had bitten his own tongue. Bitterly, Hank wondered if, when the man was convulsing and dying, his teammates and the bullpen chalked it up as just another way “Bunk” found to be obnoxious. Hank sat next to the body, and John Todd sat down on the other side. Together, they waited for the cops, and Hank wondered why bad luck was allowed to happen on good day.
Then, Hank saw John Todd sneak “Bunk’s” tin of chewing tobacco, take it from the dead man’s back pocket, and put it in his own. At that moment, Hank stopped thinking about luck all together.
