Waiting for Teddy Williams Read online

  “The other thing is,” the drifter went on, “a player like that pitcher? You have to get an edge on him. Rattle him. Call him Ichabod, maybe. A schoolteacher would likely know who your Ichabod was. Call him Ichabod.”

  Guyette seemed to be tiring. He walked Pappy on the next two pitches. Then he hit Elmer Kittredge, then he walked Elmer’s brother Porter. The Outlaws had the bases loaded with nobody out. But just when it seemed that they had the momentum to win, Merle Kittredge and Moonface Poulin struck out, leaving the team one out away from another disappointing season. Slim Johnson got ready to step into the batter’s box. Slim was a terrible curve-ball hitter and had already struck out twice on Guyette’s yellowhammer.

  “Time, Charlie,” Earl No Pearl said. He turned to the backstop, where E.A. had just penciled another K in the Outlaws’ column. “E.A. Leave me see that book.”

  E.A. trotted around the screen and handed him the scorebook. Earl glanced at it. “Does their book look exactly like ours?” he said.

  E.A. nodded.

  “Then you go up to bat for Slim. Take four balls. Allen for Johnson,” he called over toward the Pond bench.

  His heart thumping, E.A. headed out to the plate with Earl’s thirty-eight-inch Green Mountain Rebel. It was approaching twilight now. The swifts that nested in the belfry of the church steeple were working the sky high above the common for gnats.

  “Allen pinch-hitting for Johnson,” Earl said to Judge Charlie K.

  The schoolteacher started down off the mound. “See here,” he said. “What is this all about? Show me his name in the book.”

  Earl took the green scorebook out to the pitcher and showed him E.A.’s name at the bottom of the roster.

  “Allen, Ethan,” Ichabod read aloud. He looked at E.A. “What sort of charade is this?”

  E.A., leaning on his bat and watching the confab like Teddy Ballgame in his poster at home, did not like the word “charade.” He was not sure what it meant, but it had a nasty, sarcastic ring when the four-eyes used it.

  “What is this, a joke?” the teacher said.

  “It’s no joke,” Earl said. “E.A. Allen for Johnson.”

  The schoolteacher motioned for his scorekeeper, who happened to be his skinnyminnie wife, who, E.A. had heard, also was a schoolteacher. “Bring our book out here, Wilhelmina. Show me that absurd name in our book.”

  Wilhelmina came out onto the field. There was E.A.’s name in the Pond scorebook. Right where he’d penciled it in before the game.

  “This is a farce,” Ichabod said.

  No, E.A. thought. A farce is a substitute schoolteacher for a pitcher. That’s what a farce is.

  Judge Charlie came striding out, tapping his face mask against his leg. “What’s up, gentlemen?”

  “This is a mockery,” Ichabod said, pointing at E.A.’s name in the book, then at E.A.

  “Then strike him out,” Charlie said. “Play ball.”

  On his way back to the Outlaws’ bench, Earl No Pearl said quietly, “No fancy-Dan stuff, E.A. The season’s on the line. No drag bunts like when I put you in against Woodsville last month. There’s a force at every base.”

  “Just take four balls, E.A.,” Pappy called in from third. “Take four and tie her up. Old Earl’ll do the rest.”

  Ethan glanced over his shoulder. The stranger was still there, leaning against the elm, watching. The bottle was back in his jacket pocket.

  “All right,” the schoolteacher said as E.A. stepped into the batter’s box. “Two can play at this game.”

  Guyette turned and motioned to his outfielders, waving them in. To a chorus of hoots and jeers and angry horn blasts from the Outlaws’ fans, the Pond outfield trotted in and sat down on the edge of the grass just beyond the infield. Now E.A. saw with great clarity why Gypsy had always detested teachers, why she’d insisted on homeschooling him. Making fun of boys. Getting the upper hand. Schoolteaching, E.A. realized, was all about getting the upper hand on kids. Still, useless though they were, schoolteachers knew certain things. As the drifter had pointed out, the four-eyes would probably know his Washington Irving.

  E.A. lifted his hand and stepped out of the batter’s box.

  “Time,” Judge Charlie K barked.

  E.A. said to Earl, in the on-deck circle, “Ichabod.”

  “What?”

  E.A. jerked his head toward the schoolteacher. “Call him Ichabod. Ichabod Crane.”

  Earl didn’t know Ichabod Crane from Nebuchadnezzar. But he cupped his hands around his mouth and called out toward the mound, “Hey, Icherbod. Hey, hey, Icherbod.”

  “What’s that?” the schoolteacher said. “What’s that now?” Earl signaled to the Outlaws’ bench.

  “Hey, Icherbod,” they yelled. “Hey, hey, Icherbod.”

  The first pitch was a blazing fastball, inside, at eye level. It just missed the bill of E.A.’s Red Sox cap. Fine. E.A. was afraid of Devil Dan’s Blade. If the truth be known, he was afraid of Orton and Norton Horton. But not of a baseball. He’d never been afraid of a baseball in his life. His foot didn’t go into the bucket.

  “Ball one,” Judge Charlie K said.

  “That’s a strike on anybody but a midget,” the catcher said.

  “It was above the letters on the batter and it was inside,” Charlie said in the courtroom voice that had put fear into the hearts of so many drunk drivers, wife-beaters, bar fighters, and officious authorities, as well. There was no further argument from the catcher.

  “Hey, Icherbod.” The whole grandstand was taking it up. The Outlaws’ girlfriends and wives and exes, high school kids, little kids younger than Ethan. Everybody. “Hey, Icherbod Crane.”

  The teacher missed outside with the yellowhammer, and Judge Charlie barked, “Ball two.” But oh Lordy, E.A. thought, how that curve ball had dipped, swooped down like one of the swifts flying over the village. He wondered how a man ever got a baseball to behave like that. E.A. did not see how he could get his bat on a pitch that darted downward like a swallow.

  “Two and oh,” Judge Charlie said. “Play ball, boys. Night’s coming.”

  E.A. glanced over his shoulder at the drifter. The big man touched the bill of his cap with his index finger.

  “That’s two, E.A., take two more,” Earl called out as the grandstand behind third base started up with their “Icherbod” refrain again. With Gypsy’s assistance, Gran stood up on the peeled wooden bleacher, ringing a cowbell and shouting “Icherbod! Icherbod!” She’d gladly have stoned Guyette if given the chance.

  The teacher took his time coming to his set. E.A. leveled his bat waist-high, then set his hands back the way the drifter had taught him two years ago. He knew what pitch was coming, and he knew that the four-eyes would let up on it just enough to be sure to put it across the plate. It occurred to him that maybe he should see a pitch there once in order to time it. Then he decided. If it was there he’d swing.

  It was there. Straight, medium-fast, standard BP fare. E.A.’d seen quicker pitches from Porter. He kept his eye on the ball, white in the dusk, and he turned on it hard without overswinging and drove it ten feet above the head of the left-fielder, who was sitting on the grass behind the shortstop. Pappy was so surprised that he forgot to run. Elmer, coming hard from second, had to remind him. They crossed home plate five feet apart.

  The grandstand was up and shrieking, horns were blowing all around the common, Gran’s cowbell was clanging like a five-alarm fire. As Ethan rounded first, the Outlaws poured onto the field. Between second and third they intercepted him in a body, got him up on their shoulders, while he fought like a wildcat, wanting to retrieve the ball. They paraded him all over the field. The whole village cheered. Players, fans, farmers, loggers, big boys, the Outlaws’ women. Only the Pond players were silent, heading slowly toward their vehicles. Judge Charlie K, ambling home across the outfield with his umpire’s mask tucked under his arm, stooped and picked up the game-winning ball to give to E.A. later. Already the cars and pickups and farm trucks were lining up
for the victory procession around the common, drivers plugging in their deer-jacking spotlights, horns bleating.

  When E.A. finally fought his way to the ground, he ran to the elm tree. The stranger was gone, but it didn’t matter. Because the boy was already thinking, This is nothing. All this is nothing to what will happen when I do the same thing in the last game of the World Series for the Boston Red Sox.

  9

  “WELL?” ETHAN SAID. “You see my game-winning double?”

  “I scored it a single in my book,” the Colonel said. “On account of the game was over and won by the time you reached first base. Of course I saw it. I see everything that takes place on this so-called common. Including a great plenty I’d rather not witness.”

  The victory procession was over. The deputy had made them stop after they’d gone three times around the green, citing a noise ordinance. But the celebration was still going strong at the hotel, where the barroom was lit up like Christmas. On Anderson Hill someone was burning leaves.

  “I thought you were instructed to leave four go by,” the Colonel harangued him. “On my team, a fella that can’t take instruction is going to ride the pine, by the hollering Christ child.”

  “Number one, you don’t have a team. Number two, you don’t have to swear at me. I’m expected to watch four go by with the bat on my shoulder? Let a four-eyes substitute schoolteacher make a fool of me?”

  The Colonel frowned. “I wasn’t aware that the fella was a schoolmaster. That throws a different light on the situation. I never favored schoolmasters that much myself. Stuck a Canada bull thistle up through a knothole in the backhouse wall when the old dominie was inside doing his business and got myself expelled from school for good when I was your age. Before I was your age, I reckon. What are you, eight, nine?”

  “I’m ten, as you very well know. Don’t pretend you don’t. Besides which, you’ve told me that Canada bull thistle story ten times. You’re getting forgetful in your old age.”

  “It’s a good story that doesn’t get into the history books. Howsomever. To get back to what’s important. In baseballdom, a fella that can’t take orders will never make the grade. That was more than half of your—of my own trouble. I’d been able to take orders, I’d have been president of the United States. Governor of Vermont at the very least. Now. You say you hope to go all the way to the top. Is that correct?”

  “Not hope to. Intend to.”

  “Fine. Then you need to be able to take orders. Otherwise, what you’ve got isn’t baseball, it’s anarchy. I was your manager, you’d ride the pine till the cows come home.”

  “Well,” E.A. said, “you aren’t my manager. And you aren’t my father, or Our Father, either.”

  “Maybe not. But for a while I and Gypsy Lee were the only friends you had and don’t you forget it.”

  E.A. grinned. “Everybody in the village is my friend tonight.” Then they were quiet, the Colonel standing, broken sword extended toward the ball field, E.A. sitting on the pedestal. The bonfire on Anderson Hill smelled good. E.A. noticed that the stars were out. He’d better be getting home.

  10

  “CANDLEMAS DAY, Candlemas Day. Half your wood and half your hay.”

  It was February 2, and a gale was blowing out of Canada. As usual on Candlemas Day, Old Bill had come up to the house from his trailer to recite the ancient adage to the effect that by early February a farmer should have used up no more than half of his supply of firewood and hay, with half left to see him through the balance of the winter.

  It was winter, all right. Through the blizzard, E.A. couldn’t even see Fenway Park. Bill, who loved sayings of all kinds, particularly if they reassured him that his decision to do no work that day was unquestionably right, peered out the window.

  “How do you like this Canadian thaw, E.A.?”

  “What’s a Canadian thaw, Bill?” E.A. said, feeding a couple of split floorboards from the back bedroom and a piece of a cow stanchion into Gran’s Glenwood.

  With considerable satisfaction, Bill said, “Two foot of snow and a hang of a blow. We won’t be able to get out and do much today.” Then, “Candlemas Day, Candlemas Day. Half your wood and half your hay. What a winter!”

  As far as E.A. was concerned, this winter had been like any other. Cold and long and no baseball, except throwing to his swinging tire inside the empty hayloft. He stayed busy with his homeschooling, Gran read the Weekly World News, Gypsy sang on weekends and put on shows at home for her regulars, Earl and Moonface and the Reverend and Sergeant Preston and a few others. The escort business always fell off in the winter. Sometimes, for fun, Gypsy and E.A. slid down the hill behind the house on flattened-out cardboard boxes.

  A few days before Christmas they had taken the bucksaw up through the snowy woods to their special place to select a balsam fir for their Christmas tree. Gypsy could never find one that suited her. The balsams were all full on the side facing the clearing, sparse and ragged on the woods side. If she’d let E.A. climb up and take the top off a taller tree, the way he wanted to, they could have had their pick. But Gypsy couldn’t bear the idea of topping a tree. She said that was the sort of thing Devil Dan would do, except that Dan did not believe in Christmas any more than he believed in the environment.

  So as usual they’d bucked down a scraggly little fir, and as they were dragging it back toward the sugar orchard and Gypsy was composing a song called “The One-Sided Christmas Tree,” which wasn’t going anyplace, she said, “Oh, Ethan. Look at this, hon.”

  In the snowy meadow, on the protected east side of their sitting rock dropped by the Great Wisconsin Ice Sheet, was the perfect imprint of an owl’s wings. It was probably a big white Canadian owl. The bird had dived into the snow after a mouse, most likely the night before, and the print of every wing feather stood out as if in a photographic negative. The owl’s wingspan was wider than E.A.’s arms when he stretched them straight out from his shoulders. And right there was Gypsy’s next great song, “The Snow Owl,” which she didn’t even know she’d been looking for. She finished it two weeks later, and everybody at the hotel barroom loved it. That also happened to be her twenty-ninth birthday. For a present, E.A. had gotten her new guitar strings out of a mail-order catalog.

  In January the State Environmental Board had found Devil Dan in violation of one hundred and forty-six separate regulations. But the state had no funds to take him to court. The day the indictment was handed down, during a midwinter thaw, Dan dozered five more junk cars over the bank along the river.

  By the Candlemas Day blizzard, the Allens were not only out of firewood, they were close to out of food. The deer Gypsy had jacked last December was nearly gone, and they were low on maple sugar for table sweetening. Gypsy’s escort service was suffering more than usual this winter; Earl was away on a haul, Moonface was in jail for three months for “tumultuous conduct,” meaning bar fighting, and she’d had to shut off a couple of the other regulars—the Reverend and the spindly little social services man from Memphremagog—because their requests were getting too outlandish. That was what a hard Vermont winter could do to people, Gypsy Lee said.

  One sunny day in March Gypsy and E.A. took a geology field trip to their special place through hip-high snow. Bill had announced the day before that water had begun to run down the ditches. “When the spring water runs down the ditches, the sap runs up the trees,” he intoned. “Sugaring time’s coming.”

  The snow had melted on top of their boulder, and as E.A. and Gypsy perched on it, looking out over the Kingdom, she told him again how the ice sheet had come inching down from the north, gouging out the trenches where Lake Memphremagog and Lake Willoughby now lay, clipping off the tops of the Green and White Mountains, depositing sand and gravel on the meadow, dropping huge boulders like theirs in its retreating path. She told about the Arctic char that swam down the rivers from the north when the glacier melted and by degrees over the eons transformed into brook trout. “Our own little Galapagos,” she said. “Charles Dar
win should have come to Kingdom County, Ethan. He’d have had a field day.”

  E.A. wasn’t sure who Charles Darwin was. Maybe a country singer, though Darwin sounded more like a country singer’s first name.

  “Look, hon.” Gypsy pointed at a red squirrel in the top of a sugar maple, biting off twigs and sucking on the fresh sap. “Bill’s right. It’s sugaring time.”

  They tapped the trees the old-fashioned way, with wooden buckets and wooden spouts, no plastic pipeline running straight from tree to sugarhouse for the WYSOTT Allens, thank you anyway. No sugarhouse, for that matter. The Allens boiled sap on the kitchen stove. On the kitchen wall hung the new Vermont Life calendar depicting children coasting downhill on gleaming new sleds, ice fishermen gathered around a miniature city of colorfully painted fishing shanties, steam rising at twilight from hillside maple-sugar houses, sleigh rides and hay rides and multicolored fall hillsides.

  How about a calendar showing the Allens burning their house and barn for stove wood to boil sap? E.A. wondered. Gypsy entertaining her gentlemen callers? Gran reading Nostradamus’s latest prophecy in the Weekly World News, with an out-of-season buck hanging in the otherwise empty woodshed to get them through until May, when they could shoot woodchucks, catch trout, forage for cowslips and watercress and leeks?

  Now they were burning boards from the big bays in the hayloft. “If Davis is going to dozer down our place, he better do it soon,” Gran said. “Otherwise, we’ll have it all burned up.”

  11

  “TYPICAL APRIL DAY in the Kingdom,” Judge Charlie K remarked, looking past his portable radio on the windowsill at the monstrous snowflakes drifting down onto the village green. The radio was broadcasting an early-season Yankees-Sox game. The reception was terrible, but E.A. had been able to make out just enough of the play-by-play to know that the Sox were ahead 5–2 in the sixth.