THE DISTANCE
Chapter One
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The ball scurried over the dry grass like fleeing white fur and burrowed into the warm leather pocket. Then with a loose and sinewy motion, it was snapped back into the air. Across from the younger man, the ball was scooped up and sent for a ride with an economy of movement and power rising in the batter's hips and extending upward into the shoulders and arms and out into the air.
The ball howled across the yard and was plucked in flight and returned to the batter. Muscles stretched in their strength and focused on the seamed white sphere and again sent it slicing through the pale blue sky.
The younger man let his mind be stilled by concentrating on the white missile launching towards him in the air. He marvelled at the flight, the sheer energy let loose, the jolly spiralling of the stitches on the ball, and finally, the descending line that he intercepted. He dropped his right shoulder, let his arm dangle loosely and corkscrewing his waist, he thrust his left leg into the air like a springloaded catapault and sent the ball rollicking back to the batter. The next hit popped up off the bat and flew upward like a streaking star. The fielder rocked to the balls of his feet with sure athletic poise and then ignited into a full run as the ball descended. The wind screamed into his ears. The blades of grass below his feet were laid down in a path. His breathing and heart ran suspended as his limbs cut through space. Diligently, his eyes mirrored the shadowed speck. Then, with the speed of a hawk stealing an egg, the young man's glove swooped under the ball and cradled it from the fall.
He flipped the ball to the batter and trotted to his
place in the field. The batter read the satisfaction in the gait of the young man, the affirmation that the physics in the universe could be both controlled and countered. The man tossed the ball into the air where it hung for a moment and then dropped. Quicker than sight the bat brought the man's weight to bear on the hide of the ball and with an exhilarating exhale of breath sent a crashing drive deep into the young man's territory.
Before the batter looked up to review the flight of the ball, the fielder had swept his left leg over his right, dug his pivot foot into the turf and proceeded at speed back towards where he supposed the ball might land. In the quiet of the chase he fled towards the circle of flight as the ball leaned into its arc carrying out into the sky. At each moment, the runner extrapolated the circle looking for the outer edge. He sensed the ball straining to escape him as he looked over his left shoulder on the dead blind run. His arms pummelled in front of him. Almost stealthily the hand with the glove moved upward. And in full sprint, back to the batter, glove twisted away from the body, the ball settled in.
"Nice grab."
The fielder tossed the ball lightly in the air as he walked towards the batter. "I'd lost sight of how much fun it is to chase a baseball. I guess I spent so much time on the slope, I'd forgotten the other games." The man beside him said nothing and the young man wondered what games the man had forgotten and what games he had chosen to remember.
As the two headed for the house, the young man followed the man beside him with the corner of his eye. He supposed he hadn't recognized the gnawing inside initially because it was an old hunger brought into a new arena. Before, it had appeared on the slope as a need to understand movement. A skier might race downhill with a grace or a style or a technique that was distinct from others and he'd follow. Dog him all day if need be until he discerned the bend of the knee or the slide of the edge that set the skier apart. But the man next to him owned nothing to be emulated. He had been a quitter. He had manipulated the circumstances well enough to achieve a place among the best but he had not possessed the character to maintain that level. So the young man felt the need to understand him, to trace his path so that he could be certain that their strides were of different lengths. He wasn't exactly certain what he was looking for but like all things worth learning, he'd know it when he saw it.
The visit was the first important task that had been asked of the young man in his new position as a representative of the company and he was keenly aware of the responsibility. He felt obligated to make known some sign of his usefulness to show them that their assessment of his abilities was not incorrct when they hired him and to prove his worth to them for the future. Four of them were to make the trip. By way of preparation someone had dug up an old tape from a metropolitan TV crew that had been sent on assignment to a town that hosted a minor league baseball team, and probably little else. While the others complained about the poor production quality, the grainy texture of the picture and the constant crackling behind the voices, he had sat rivetted watching the images. Something in the tape had planted the seeds of his desire to apprehend the qualities of the man.
The interviewer had just gotten the best of a bandy-legged old guy in a baggy baseball uniform with a cap comically cocked to one side, "... In the tradition of Socrates, we have our own Mr. Chips turning out crops of fine young men equipped with the knowledge to handle any problems life might throw at them, as long as its only 3" in diameter and they're wearing a fielder's glove."
The interviewer called a player aside. "Aren't you a little uncomfortable playing a game made for boys? Churchill suggested that the great men of tomorrow would leave the playing fields."
"Churchill? You mean the second baseman played here last year. I heard tell a lot of things about him but not that there saying, though I s'pose he could of said it."
"Let me ask you again so that you can comprehend. Aren't you a little ashamed of setting foot on a little league playfield?"
His reply was still slow and amiable in tone but the words seemed to stick in the clear air and take a good look around like they were Gary Cooper in spurs before they made way for the next.
"Shamed. No, I warn't never shamed. Each time I steps onto a diamond I can sees and hears the men I've admired my whole life long. I sees them standing there some skinny and wiry, some thick and stocky, in their striped uniforms and leather cleats. Their hands gloved and their bats tarred. I can sees them hitchin up their pants and deliverin a fastball in low roun the knees. I can hears them talkin and spittin and jivin while theys plays pepper. I can see Cobb slidin into second, cleats wantin blood, to break up a double play. Ruth callin his shot. I can sense Gherig on first, his hands cracked, a finger broken, but not keepin him from playin. I can see Stengel liftin his cap and that bird takin right off from his head like he had bats in the belfry or somethin. I can see Paige lookin like he was 200 years old, crafty like movin the ball around on a hitter and then delightin like a lil chile in foolin him. I sees Robinson dancin off third then takin home on the pitch, Durocher kickin dirt on spit-shined ump shoes. I ain't shamed. I don't consider it nothin but lucky stars to be playin ball."
The tape ended there.
The young man had wanted to see it again but he was conscious of his position and didn't dare express his wish. His superiors had pulled at their shirt cuffs and brushed their lapels, and said, "Good English," and then told him what they expected. He was to go along as the youngest member of the contingent so that he could gain some experience working for the company. The expedition was officially labeled a site survey but it was an odd group to make such a look-about. Only Hardon, heading the delegation, knew a site when he was standing on it. The two ballplayers; Greenscart who had retired some years earlier and Tudley who was in the prime of his playing days, were on the payroll as PR men. Kidd was the youngest, just out of the blocks. It seemed only coincidental that he was from the man's hometown. Together, except for Kidd, they had formidable accomplishments but there was not a wit of engineering knowledge between them.
The meeting had proceeded. "We're very close to a big-time score on this project," Hardon was quarterbacking the team. "The acquisition of this property is the last hurdle before us," he continued. "It's still short yardage but we have to find his weakness and exploit it." Hardon knew things about the way people played their games that he was more than happy to share. "Everyone knows that if someone is in your debt, they develop a sudden disinclination towards you. But there's a corrolary. If someone picks you up off the mat, dusts you off, and helps you out, he tends to keep looking out for you." They knew the man was a lineman for the regional telephone company and he liked to work on cars. "He hasn't gone for any of the pitches that his neighbors took. Maybe he's waiting for a fat one, we don't know, our reps have all reported that he seems amenable but they can't get his signature on anything. They say he's playing by different rules.
"That's where we come in. It so happens we're going to be passing by his place with a car in badly need of repair and he's going to help us out. We don't want to fumble on this one. We want to subtly remind him how the other half lives. We're offering serious money and to a guy like him you'd think it'd be a godsend. We want to make him see that he can get the things he only dreamed about, that he can finally be counted as a winner."
The man had reached the major leagues only to fall to the position of a telephone pole climber. The young man refrained from viewing him as simply a person "down on his luck". As Hardon had said, a person makes his own luck. If things go bad, you whomp on your luck till it gets back into shape.
The young man gathered up the baseball equipment
and he and the older man moved from their field towards the house. The young man wanted to ask about the termination of the relationship. Just who jilts whom is always a significant issue in the termination of a love. Had the man walked out on baseball or had baseball deserted him? The young man thought the answer self-evident, after all, baseball survived quite nicely without his services. So if he posed the question in the future, it would be to gauge the man's response.
"Here, let me help you," she opened the door from the inside for the young man who had his hands full with the glove and bat and ball. The man and he stepped inside the door. "Just in time for supper." She set down their plates. "I looked out the window there and saw you two running around and thought you were chasing after birds."
"Now wouldn't we look silly chasing birds?"
She let her reply go unsaid but it passed between them nonetheless to the delight of all.
They finished their meal quickly but only Connie rose from the table. She lifted the lid on a pot of something steaming on the stove. A large apron was strung across her chest and she had covered her hands with hot plate mitts that gave her the look of a catcher without a throwing hand free.
"Tomorrow's the pie-baking contest and I've got a good 'un here."
"Smell's good. What does the winner get?"
She seemed to search the ceiling for an answer. "I guess they get to share their recipe."
The two at the table stayed transfixed as she put down her pots, picked up her paring knife and deftly skinned the object in her hand at a speed she contested with herself. From what the young man could observe, the individual ingredients didn't amount to much in particular. He supposed it was she who gave significance to their proportions. Her pursed lips told him that she took her endeavors seriously.
The man leaned close and whispered, "Last year she had a crop of very sweet tomatoes so she made tomato jelly. You know, like peanut butter and jelly, but tomato jelly. It wasn't half bad. More like all bad."
When her tins were all in the oven or properly covered, the three washed the supper dishes and her cooking pots. The young man felt good that he was included and with three pairs of hands the chore was completed quickly.
"Rap, how's the car doing?" Connie asked.
"Still waiting on the pump. The parts man said he
was coming this way tomorrow and he'd drop it off in the morning. That'll save them a day. They're probably going stir-crazy by now."
"Have you been to the river yet, Kidd?"
"River, what river?" Rap intercepted the question.
"Oh, what river, huh? As if it had completely flowed out of your mind, as if no one could notice the kayaks stacked against the side of the house. Don't let Rap fool you. He'd spend every waking hour over at the river if he had the opportunity."
As the screen door slammed behind them, Rap asked, "How'd you come to look me up?"
Kidd supposed the question was not directed towards revealing specifically how he'd found him. After all, he'd seen them all limp into the drive. The four of them had piled out of the car and Rap had pulled his head out from under the opened hood with a diagnosis as he wiped his hands with a red rag. No one riding in the car had been surprised at Rap's evaluation. The damned car had been leaking water since they'd left the airport. Hardon had specially ordered the auto with the bad water pump and it had degenerated into a steaming, squealing, hemorrhage of coolant and water. Rap's prognosis for recovery was optimistic but he had to find the part. After a call to a supplier he relayed that there was a slim chance that the pump happened to be aboard the delivery truck that was making its rounds and might be arriving at any time although precisely when wasn't known. If it was on the truck, then Rap could install it and the four would be on their way but if it wasn't, they'd have to wait until the truck came around again the next day. Hardon opted to have the group check into a hotel. Twenty minutes away was a woman who had a couple of small cabins that she rented. Rap offered to drive but someone had to stay and wait for the parts' man. Kidd was still sitting against the front of the garage in a tilted chair and still without the pump when Rap returned from dropping the other three off. As he removed the damaged water pump, Rap had informed Kidd that the three took the only rooms available. Later, Constance had told him the guest room was made up. But that short history was known to Rap so his query was designed to bore deeper than the presence of a broken water pump.
If Kidd had wandered up Rap's drive alone, perhaps his response to Rap could have been direct. They'd both come from the same small town and while not close enough in age to be boyhood pals, it was certainly not difficult to locate a former resident who had left behind friends and relatives. And it would not be out of the question to drop by if one was on the way to somewhere else. But the particulars of Kidd's circumstances were entirely different. He'd arrived as part of a contingent that had an agenda of pursuasion and he wasn't sure how much of that agenda he could reveal. Since he hadn't been with the group during the twenty minute ride to where they were spending the night, he didn't know what had been already said. He doubted the wisdom of coming right out and telling Rap that if he had agreed to sell his land earlier, he would have saved everyone a good deal of trouble. So Kidd might speculate on the pressure exerted on Rap as he was driving the three towards the cabin but he knew his guess could be entirely wrong. Perhaps the trip was truly only a fact-finding tour and they rode with Rap to try to ascertain information from him. He certainly didn't look harried or squeezed when he returned. All things considered, Kidd felt it safest to be prudent and not tip anyone's hand. To that end, Kidd trusted Rap's general politeness to see to it that an unwanted inquiry would not go too far. Kidd was proud of himself as he formulated a response that barely grazed the surface of Rap's question, "My mother knew you in school. She said you were a real, 'cut-up', I think was the word she used, liked to fool around. You and the guy you used to run with. She wondered what became of him. Figured you'd probably know. His family moved away and she lost track of him."
They had stepped off several yards in their journey towards the river before Rap answered. He then let go a much fuller explanation than Kidd had anticipated. It was as though Kidd had pulled back a branch while standing on a well-worn trail to reveal a great vista. "He never came back from the army, missing in action was how they recorded it."
Rap was out in front and Kidd had to keep pace so that he could hear. "He was always lots of fun, of course there were some things we probably shouldn't have done, but mostly I remember the fun. He was the kind of guy who was constantly trying to do right by everyone but it seemed the more he tried the less he succeeded. He always thought he was one step up but it just wasn't in his nature to really understand where everyone else was climbing to. And he had this funny way about tilting his head when he'd make up a lie like he was holding in the truth with one ear plugged and if he staightened it would all pour out the open ear. Everyone always knew when he was trying to pull a fast one because it came across so painfully slow."
Rap held a tree branch from swinging back into Kidd's face and then he began again, "I'll never forget what he told this one teacher when he failed to turn in a report. He said that his family all had typhoid fever and the authorities were forced to put a torch to his house and he just wasn't able to pull his report out of the resulting conflagration." Rap paused to laugh. "I liked him the way he was, but others thought the army might straighten him out. I've still got his last letter somewhere. Told me it was 'hardball time' and he couldn't even figure the direction of the pitch."
Kidd thought Rap was so absorbed in the distant past that he might forget where he was going and although he had no idea where he was, Kidd looked around trying to make note of the trail and stuck his hand in his pocket looking for bread crumbs.
"'Hardball time', something we used to call the point at which a pitcher knows he's losin it and begins to throw inside, not so much to set the batter up for the next pitch, or to define the area of the plate, but out of frustration. When our guys would be sent sprawling in the dirt we'd look at each other and stupidly say 'I guess they're playing hardball'. It was hardball time for him and no one was there to pick him up and dust him off, or to jump on the pitcher, or to even keep track of the count." Rap's voice trailed off, "I'm glad your mother remembers him."
Kidd looked at the back of Rap's shirt unable to see his face. He hoped he hadn't thrown a morose rope around his mood, yet he also couldn't help wondering what else might be revealed by peeling back the coppice that grew over Rap's memories.
The two crossed the treeline in silence and began to wind through the tall trunks, Kidd following Rap's heels down the narrow path. The filtered light dropped tentatively and the horizon was obscured by the foliage so that a pedestrian was forced to expend his energy concentrating on what should have been a thoughtless process, vision. Kidd's eyes moved from the snaking damp ground to the patches of moss clinging to the bark. Below the trees, the leaves and needles lay deteriorating into a dank musty mulch from where small saplings popped their heads. Kidd looked up into the deep canopy. He let his uncomfort crawl across his skin. Rap stepped lightly and unhurriedly ahead of him. Kidd wondered why paths that led to natural attractions seemed to meander rather than speed via a direct route. The ambling pace grated on his uneasiness. He looked around him again at the thriving and the rotting. No proof was offered that the two were separate forces and he knew why he found the place disagreeable. It confronted him with a picture that he could not get outside to frame.
When they finally broke free of the trees they emerged before a small rise. Kidd could hear the commotion but not quite see the water wrestling with itself. He quickened his step but it was Rap who hung back. Although somewhat annoyed, he was not particularly surprised. Kidd recalled his sister who loved the ocean. Nothing pushed her voice up an octave like a trip to the surf. She talked and fidgeted the whole drive. But then while everyone piled out of the car screaming and burned their feet running on the hot sand, she moved like she was doing Tai Chi. Kidd had asked her what her problem was and she had replied, "I'm just taking it in." So Kidd let Rap "take it in" while he made a walking dash to the river.
Kidd turned back to direct a comment at Rap but was stopped short before he could utter a word. Rap was running the river. Not that he was head high in white water or dodging a boulder, no, he stood slightly behind Kidd. But when Kidd looked at his eyes he could see him shooting the rapids. Kidd knew the look, he had done it himself; hit an ice patch or dug into a soft turn on a course before his number was even called to the gate. He knew that the river was to Rap what the slope was to him.
"There's somebody home," Kidd said to himself. Still, kayaking was a fairly tame passion. Rap didn't have to worry about being humiliated by the competition because there was no competition. Who could name the world champion white water runner? Who could name any kayak champion? Rap was safe running the river. Of course, Kidd thought, he could drown but natural hazards were part of the game, not part of the competition.
Kidd was going to ski against the best, that was his goal. He knew that when he wore his sponsor's name across his back the other skiers had to read it. It was an announcement that said he was a contender. That's not to say some local yokel without a contract won't occasionly manage to catch a chair to the top. But along with Kidd's spot on the team came a ticket to the front of the line.
Rap broke the silence, "Tomorrow should be decent. Not quite enough water today."
"Will it rise?"
"It will when they let more water out of the dam in the morning."
Kidd didn't say anything for a while but the silence made him uncomfortable so he formulated a supposition more to feign interest than because he cared about the answer. "The dam must make it better to control the river and give you more rapids."
Rap gave serious consideration to his statement, "After a wet winter, before there was a dam, the river might bully past its banks and do some damage across the shore. Then it would go quiet and purr down its path. Since the dam, I've seen a couple seasons of class rapids but mostly the river is kept in check. The banks have remained relatively secure. Of course like most everything, it depends where you sit, everything directly upstream of the dam has been permanently wiped out."
Class rapid. Kidd didn't know what that meant but he liked the sound. He noted that Rap hadn't mentioned if he ventured into a river boasting that nomenclature. Kidd certainly didn't know it from first hand experience but he'd heard that some things can't be carried out of youth and that athletic adroitness was on the list. He wondered if the trip out was still worth it when the only paddling was over still water.
The two turned back the way they had come. Kidd had seen enough of the river and while it was certainly scenic he was ready for something else and he sprung into step. As they neared the treeline Rap stopped and watched two starlings dogfight a much larger bird. The little birds dove and fiercely rolled into the bigger bird until it was chased away. Rap moved on and Kidd did not let his excitement escape but he was repeating to himself, "That was alright!"
Their meandering took them through the trees and this time Kidd didn't find the pace annoying. The colors, the smells, and the strange silent sounds seemed to sink into his skin so that when the path expired he did not readily welcome the bright daylight exploding through the hole in the green leaves that led to the clearing.
They headed into the garage, Rap explaining that he had junk to sort. Kidd offered his assistance but Rap told his guest to have a seat and relax, "It takes an experienced eye devoid of aesthetic taste." Kidd, in an attempt to occupy his time, looked around at the odd and mundane articles perching on the work bench and lining the walls. Because he had assumed their worth could not extend beyond their use as an auto part and that had long passed, he had missed what was now becoming easily apparent under closer examination. In the welded groupings of metal he saw the faces of clowns and cowboys and athletes; bears and lions and horses and reptiles and birds, robins, jays, starlings; trains and planes; and an old glove and ball. Some of the former auto parts he recognized but most he couldn't guess at, not that it mattered, the character of the work had become greater until it had eclipsed the original impressions.
"Did you do these?" Maybe it was a question with an obvious answer but it was sent out as a compliment.
Rap looked up and focused on where Kidd stood before he answered, "Yeh." Certainly Rap knew his garage well enough to realize Kidd could only have been speaking about the set of objects on the bench, so the routine was designed to efface the work.
Kidd eyed Rap bent over his scrap pieces of metal. Kidd had experienced a kind of letdown when he had first climbed out of the car and met the unassuming figure of Rap Gloverman. He had expected some style of braggadocio pretense and although he realized he had no particular foundation for the expectation, he was nonetheless disappointed.
He caught himself recalling a former boyhood idol. He was the town's best athlete and among his entourage was Kidd, who was a couple of years younger than his hero. They were all at the local high school one Saturday. The entourage had stacked the foam rubber from the jumping pits into a pile beside the football bleachers and were taking turns jumping into them. As usual, the athlete was leading his tribe in stunts and vociferousness.
"You little turds jump off like you were girls in a fashion show. I want to see some real dives." The athlete was on the ground calling up to the others when the cops pulled up, and with bullhorns blaring terror, ordered everyone down and lined up against the car.
Kidd stepped down first and overheard, "Yes sir. I tried to tell them, sir." The voice was almost unrecognizable to Kidd. He had never heard the subservient obsequious tone. It stunned him into silence. The cops didn't even ask them their names, they didn't have to, they were told.
After a lecture, and a brief period of intimidating
questions, the police cars pulled away. All were pretty shaken except one, whose voice had returned to its normal brash tone, "Didja see how I fooled 'em. Jeez, talk about your dumb cops. They thought I was just another helpful citizen." And everyone agreed. Kidd couldn't help silently questioning why.
As he watched Rap, the judgements of others came back to filter his vision. Those who had sent him had called Rap a quitter. They said he couldn't take the pressure of the big leagues, that he had cracked. And they felt if they applied the right pressure in the right location he would break again, this time leaving his land. And Kidd supposed that was why they had presented their broken down vehicle at Rap's doorstep, so they could finger the pressure areas. Kidd had learned that being labeled a quitter was about the worst thing an athlete could have hung around his neck. That, and the words, 'has potential', which to Kidd was in actuality the same label. A guy with an athlete's heart won't quit, he'll keep coming until he can't no more. Kidd had ventured a look at enough people to know that most had the light go out in their eyes. He had seen enough who had settled. Settled, like Rap seemed to have, into breaking apart automobile parts into good and bad junk.
Two men appeared in the door and by the look of their sweat-stained collars and soiled sleeves they had come from a day of muscle-bending labor.
"Good afternoon."
"Hello neighbors."
Kidd was introduced to the two and as they grasped him with their hard caloused hands he became self-conscious of his soft palms and tried to put an extra squeeze into his handshake. After a period of joking and general commenting their motive for the visit took off its coat.
"I don't see how we can refuse. I've worked all my life and this is the first chance I have to see clear. And we both figure our wives deserve to see more than this here county. And Wil's got kids aren't all growed yet."
"That's right. I've got a girl comin' up who does right well in school and who's gonna want to continue on to college."
Rap was silent but sympathetically nodded his head.
"All the others for their own reasons see things pretty much as we do. If we can tell them that the corn is high and you'll be husking right along with us, it'll make our work this year a little lighter on the shoulders."
Rap's response was not immediate, "I appreciate your position and I'm doing some mighty hard figuring."
"I don't think you'll find a better offer."
"Oh, its adequate alright."
"Adequate, hell. It's damn generous. And this here land will be put to good use. I like the idea of an Olympic-style village. We can show the world what America stands for. I wish I was just a little younger so I could appreciate a Winter Disneyland a little more."
Rap took to nodding again.
"With the money they offer, you can quit sweating over at the phone company and retire wherever you want. You maybe want to buy a little farm or ranch somewheres, you can. Maybe even a place with a lake or large pond."
"I don't have to tell you, you're never gonna see money like what's being offered again. You may be able to be one of the lucky ones that survives all this renovation and cut-backs we hear about but even so you'd be facing more work for less and if the park people come in, they're going to bring their own phone service."
To Kidd, the company's offer was Rap's big chance to blow away his servitude. Without access to that kind of wealth, Rap would never be free to take the wrecking ball to his dead-end job, he'd be trapped for the rest of his life checking cable or whatever it was he did to make a living. Kidd fixed his eyes on Rap. But it was worse than that. It wasn't good, he thought, to go down yourself, but to bring everyone around you down was just plain evil. Without Rap's acquiesence to selling, deals with the other owners might be worthless. Kidd wondered what presumptions Gloverman had made to be so selfish.
The two neighbors pressured Rap a little more and then sent their regards to Constance as they backtracked out the door.
When they'd gone Rap took up his work again. Kidd looked for the shape in Rap's shoulders that would reflect the stress he knew must be present. To his surprise, Rap was humming a melody under his breath and his voice showed no sign of strain when he said, "That should do it for today. The sun is setting like a just-baked pie crust, which reminds me of dessert."
She greeted them as they came in. "Was that our neighbors, the flight brothers, over for a brief chat?"
"Yeh, ole Orville and Wilbur."
Nothing more was said. Kidd was not sure of the reason, was it because the discussion was too well known and the two were in concordance or was there a festering point of contention that neither wanted to bring to a head when company was present? Kidd cast a glance at Constance. He believed, as did his employers, that no will existed apart from Rap. He realized that it was a practical way of viewing the couple. If she was of the mind to take the company's money and relinquish the property, then she added one more turn of the screw. But if she wanted to stay, it was still incumbent upon them to first take on Rap. They could then let Rap deal with her, assuming their arguments with Rap hadn't worked on her. Kidd, however, foresaw another possibility but continued to believe in the practical aspects of the plan.
"Any word from El?" she called as the two washed up.
"None."
"What?"
He had shut off the water. "I haven't heard a thing. I was thinking he might have talked to you." Rap told Kidd, "We've got a neighbor over towards the west, Elbo Boone. He must be, oh, 88 or 90 and a cantankerous SOB. Been here longer than dirt and as he puts it, 'knows the land pricnear as much as sky knows blue.' Didn't like me a bit but tolerated my presence when Connie was with me."
"That's not true." she interjected, "I don't think he could stand you even when I was around."
"Is his ranch up for sale?" Kidd asked as he sat down. "No. He's said that when his place goes it will be because he's went first. He's got his plot already picked out. I even volunteered to dig the hole and then cover it back up with him in it but Connie insists I wait until he dies."
"I don't understand, isn't the compensation generous enough? Those two neighbors seemed to think so. From how they talked a person could buy a much bigger place somewhere else." Kidd kept his eyes focused on his plate so as not to appear too interested in what was being said.
"Well, it ain't so much what they offer as it is what we sell. It's just my opinion, but it seems to me you don't sell your home unless you don't want to live there anymore. And if the land and town were so worthless, then why is it they want to buy it, to do us a favor?"
Kidd was conscious of the pause between his questions. He didn't want to appear to be too deep in contemplation but he wanted to make sure he phrased the appropriate question in a correct format. "Why do they want all of the land? I mean some of the area makes sense but maybe you could keep your house."
It was Constance who answered, "No, they want to develop the entire region. The way we hear it, your employers acquired sizeable chunks of land in a lawsuit with another large conglomerate. Smart money, and even not so smart and not so monied, might take a look at the property and say your company got snookered. I know when I first took a look, it didn't seem to be fit for anything but mountain goats and painters. Again, just relaying what we hear, but this whole idea of a winter theme park and site of a future winter Olympics may have cropped up as a way to make a beanstalk out of a poor trade. It would be great for corporate business if your people could end up with the hen that lays the golden eggs."
Kidd considered this point of view speculative at best, scurrilous in all probability, and at the least hearsay of unknown origin. He had seen the research graphs and analyses and he was convinced that his employers had painstakingly balanced the options. The company had carefully considered which area to develop. Connie made it sound as if the decision was based on some kind of personal vendetta and Kidd knew business just wasn't done that way.
"Those in town who don't own something in the path of the development pretty much figure they can do alright after it's in. We happen to own one side of the ski slope. Boone owns the other. The road will have to be widened into a highway to accomodate the traffic and that takes care of our house and just about everyone elses."
Certainty had fattened in a feeding pen, but if he raised his head and dared to peek through the slats, Kidd could see past it to a world full of opposing views. He tried to take strength from his colleagues. He doubted if they would spend a fitful night, unless of course their mattresses were disagreeable. Tudley, was the big leaguer, he had learned to grab sleep anywhere at anytime. Kidd did not suspect that Rap's career had spanned enough days on bumpy buses and lumpy beds to become that kind of a professional. As a former ballplayer, Greenscart probably thought he'd left the days on the road and the strange beds behind. He had retired after a career of achievement. A career that must haunt the dreams of a guy like Rap. Hardon wouldn't lose any sleep over anything that happened to Rap or Constance. They weren't even real people to him. Anyway, he probably thought he was doing them a favor. To Kidd, Rap was like an old horse being led to the dog food factory. His best days were behind him and he was just taking up valuable space in the pasture. Still, Kidd couldn't help feeling tinges of regret. Connie, he supposed, although he had no base on which to stack his supposition, felt trapped in her life. Perhaps she had never wanted to move to the little town but had felt compelled to follow Rap and in so doing had abandoned her tastes for richness. Kidd's food no longer fell into an empty stomach and he picked at it and spread it around on his plate so it looked as if he was finished. He hoped he hadn't eaten more than his share. For that matter, he couldn't be sure that any portion he ate wasn't too much. He couldn't be sure that what he ate was not the next day's rations. He decided to also end partaking of the helpings of information they were feeding him. Though they heaped his plate with good spirit, Kidd supposed that too was probably in short supply.
After dessert they moved to the living room. Rap picked up the newspapaer and a part of it fell to the floor. From its bulk, it was either the main section containing the headline news or the sports pages. He plucked the paper off the floor and was content to settle in with the familiar jargon of the sports pages. He'd grown up with the images the words provoked. One of his first memories was sitting in the center of a university campus and staring up at a monument to a football hero. In the midst of the turmoil that defines the search for learning, the bronzed grip never fumbled, the bronzed legs never faltered, and the bronzed eyes never let go of downfield.
Later, Kidd would find inspiration in the visit of a well-known sports personality to his town. It was an off-season appearance tour sponsored by the player's team. The man travelled in a chauffered limousine with a secretary who made the proper arrangements so he didn't have to be burdened. He was ushered from one sponge dinner to the next and from one zombie hotel room to the next without ever having to do much more than lift his own fork and clean his own teeth. In the midst of the crowd, Kidd stood in open-mouthed admiration of the athlete as he answered the queries ranging from child-rearing to international affairs. Kidd watched without hearing the answers he wanted. Without hearing that greatness always came walking in the very same shoes as he wore.
Even in school the only lessons he could remember from year to year seemed to be connected with athletics. He couldn't do a percentage math problem but he could figure a batting average in his head. He couldn't find Greece on a map but he could tell you how far Athens was from Marathon. He didn't know much about their rise and fall but he knew what the Romans prized; entertainment and freedom. They gave freedom to their best entertainers, the gladiators. And the plain's Indian's game of 'coup' was designed to rob their opponent of his spirit because that was the part of their foe that they feared the most. But the stories he liked the best were about the Aztecs. Those that had studied their ruins and their art said they played a court game that resembled basketball except with very high stakes on the outcome. The Aztecs prized victory so the losers were put to death. At least that was the theory of the historians. But Kidd had formulated his own hypothesis. The losers weren't put to death, they died in the course of the game. Their basketball-like game hadn't developed a time clock so the competition continued until one team relented. And Kidd supposed, the magnitude of the contest was so great that a game was only played once a generation. No athlete ever gives up a last chance. Athletes are like gambling addicts, there's always one more bet, one more turn of fate, one more play that might change the outcome, no matter what the score. So no Aztec player worth his maize would concede. They went all the way with what they had and they expired trying to make that last play. At least that was the way Kidd saw it.
Connie came out of the hall with a large multi-colored quilt and as she unfolded it she explained to Kidd, "I started this bedspread for our guest bed with the idea of having all our visitors fill in a square. When it's completed it will have all these individual patches sewn together to create one big work. Then our future visitors will be covered by the personal touches of the guests that went before. So Kidd, start thinking of a pattern."
Kidd felt his lungs catch. If it wasn't for the honor of being considered a guest, he'd just as soon use his hotel allowance to try to buy his way out of doing a square. He had no artistic abilities. On a good day, when the moon had the right pull on his pen, he could legibly write his name. He scanned the quilt. Some were pretty good but none were destined to be museum pieces and some took a stretch of imagination to come up with their identity. This did nothing to improve his spirits. He looked at the most unappealing work and knew that his would be worse, a horrendous blemish. Well, he thought, he probably wouldn't be back this way again anyway.
"Don't worry," she continued, "it's not as difficult as it seems and I'll help you."
Kidd looked over at Rap, "Do you have one of these?"
"Yeh, the ol' boomerang wrench."
Connie pointed to what was meant to be a wrench and at least one of the ends kind of resembled one. But the handle looked like Superman had put the bend to it. "Some say it's just like the cars he fixes."
As Rap brought out his special record collection and fired up the stereo, Kidd regarded him and Constance. He'd been around enough couples to perceive varying degrees of warmth emanating from them. Perhaps, he thought, they knew how to make an artificial glow. Kidd braced himself against the onslaught of country and western sounds but what he heard weren't lullabyes to skittish cows.
Connie winked at Kidd and said in a hushed voice, "Don't feel bad if you don't like this, you're one among many."
Rap was in bliss humming and jitterbugging from his chair, "Do you know who this is?"
Kidd recognized the genre as bluesy jazz of some kind but beyond that recognition he could have been told just about anything and he'd have believed it.
Connie looked to be intensely listening, "Sounds to me like Suffrin' Pete Piles better known as 'The Hem'."
"Very funny. I can't help it if you don't recognize art."
"Or that I do and don't hear it here."
Their good-natured ribbing eased his reluctance to test their humor and Kidd decided to step over one of the lines towards Connie's side, "It kind of sounds like a primitive mating call of sorts."
Connie picked up the beat, "Yeh, it's the song of a caveman in heat. I can see the guy dressed in animal skins and humming this tune while he goes to the back of the cave to paint his bison pictures for the first time."
Rap shook his head in the negative, "No, no, the first time he draws, it's out on the pampas in the dirt. He draws the bison and he and his buddies chuck their spears at it in preparation for the hunt. By the time he moves into the back of the cave he knows he's not going to be throwing spears at the picture. And when he and his pals are out making their spear shots, they're betting glasses of sabre-tooth cat sweat on the longest throw with no intention of actually bringing down the bison with that kind of a toss. So he comes back with dinner bragging about his win at the spear tournament and after a meal, ready to paint his exploits."
"That figures. If he wanted to be of some use, he'd come home after a day of tough evolving and clean up the cave instead of painting?"
"But cleaning the cave reminds him that he's been out evolving all day. He wants to go back to standing toe-to-toe, or toe-to-hoof as the case may be, with the bison. So he loses himself painting by torchlight."
"I know you're an authority on cavemen, you played
on the Cro-Magnon Nine, but what makes you the art expert?"
"I studied under the great master artist, K.O. Kablooey."
"Oh no, not Kablooey I remember him and his obnoxious boasting too well." She did a scratch across her stomach and armpits and shifted her weight from leg to leg while moving her head and pretending to chew gum, "Jut gib me da ball coach and clear da indfielt."
Rap was visibly delighted at watching the voice she made but he threw his hand at her in mock disdain, "He wasn't anything like that."
She continued explaining to Kidd, "It was after a game and we were supping at an all-you-can-eat diner. Fine cuisine, good atmosphere, plenty of food, just what caters to a ballplayer's discriminating palate. It was no surprise then that we would find two members of the fourth estate sitting in the booth behind us. Neither was it astonishing that the entertainment reporter hadn't recognized Rap, it wasn't his beat."
"Although it was somewhat disconcerting that the sportswriter hadn't recognized me since he was assigned to the team. Maybe I should have been wearing a cap. KO had just pitched a shutout and he was holding court. He sidled up to the sportswriter and said, 'You ever seen such poetry in motion as mine?'"
Connie picked up the writer's side of the conversation. She prefaced, "It was the culture editor who answered," and then she took on the voice of the writer, "'you're not really suggesting that your pitches are as expressive of the human form in movement as a finely trained ballerina. I review the ballet tomorrow night. There I'll witness true grace and style.'"
Rap was up off the couch acting out the part of the pitcher.
"You must not have been watching closely then or you would have seen the drama played out on the mound. Their runner danced off the bag. I eyeballs him back.
"He leads off again. Again I look him back. He shuffles out again. Only this time I fix my stare towards home. I knows the runner's moving out towards second. I sense it through eyes in the back of my head. I goes into my motion. The runner's leaning way out showing plenty of dirt between him and the bag. And then smooth and deadly I turns and guns him down."
"I don't see how you can imply that baseball can be compared with drama. Where's the tragic fall? Where's the heroic consequences of choice? Even you've heard of Hamlet? Where's the fine training and study of a dramatic artist or ballerina?"
"Your Shakespeare's a safe refuge. It's play acting. Nothing's on the line. Maybe you didn't see number 6 go out of the game today. He's being replaced by a rookie who promises to be maybe as big a slugger as he was. That's a real life situation. In with the new, out with the old. No wimpy Hamlet stuff for us. We are the play.
"And finely trained? All spring I worked on my move to first and today I threw a pickoff that was perfectly timed and so subtle in its narration of form that I caught their little speed-demon three steps off the bag. And just like any delivery it's a personal trademark. Some guys are quirky, some fast, mine is smooth and flowing like no other in the league.
"Let me tell you when I'm on the mound it's beautiful music we're playing. That ball carries my tune even if I let in an occasional solo by one of the gang in the band. Man, it's like a bebop artist playing within the confines of a popular song and if it ain't recorded, well that's okay with me, we heard it, we felt it."
Connie was shaking her head, "He didn't say that."
"Well he could of."
"Yeh, but he didn't. Nothing like it."
Kidd was listening, intent not so much upon the exact words as the repartee and the mood. He was still looking for style, the cut of the edge, so he wasn't concerned with the substance of the argument. Not that he wasn't familiar with its general tenets. His teachers had tried to pump into his head respect for those who had dedicated their lives to his cultural enrichment. The arts were to be regarded as the epitome of human behavior. Mostly it just meant more things to memorize and be tested on. Nevermind, thought Kidd, that artists were often mean, cantankerous, sometimes plain crazy, and usually not the kind of person someone would want to pal around with. But he also knew there was something else going on. That a guy could devote his whole life to something that no one else would pay twenty-five bucks for and then die and it be worth millions and that person would be called one of the great ones. Kidd couldn't help wondering why the title was deserved, was it because of his devotion or the pay-off later to those who could afford it. He was well aware that you could waste your young years in the ring or on a field out of public view and end up with nothing to show for it, bitter and broke-down like a man cheated out of a birthright. Still, that was the real object wasn't it, to get someone to pay you for doing something you liked to do. To run or ski or throw or kick your way up to the teller window. To get packaged in such a way as to make your living at it. And if the liner notes or the PR shots or the luncheon speeches or the media interviews or the gild on the frame or the amount of the deal sometimes takes precedence over what's inside, well everybody pays some kind of price.
Kidd focused again on his reason for being with Rap and he wondered again just where Rap fell into place in the scheme of things. Perhaps, thought Kidd, it was the background music or because it was the end of the day, but he had not heard Rap string so many animated sentences together as when he teased with Connie. He sensed that once the reticence slipped into the shadows, his loquaciousness would scramble into the light.
"Is that how you felt? Like that pitcher?" Kidd asked.
"Well pitcher's have to think that way, that's why they're pitchers."
"How did you think?"
"I thought like a shortstop. We take the field and wait for the ball to be hit towards us and then we make our play and then take the field and wait again."
Kidd let his questions slide out hoping it would be enough to prime the telling, "How'd you get to be a shortstop? I mean how'd you get so far from our town. Into the big leagues. Here?"
"So far?..." Rap scrunched his eyes down but Kidd got the feeling that the pupils were pointed right at him.
"I'm not sure my story is relevant to you. I wasn't exactly the best example."
"You were a complete screw-off," Connie was quick to note.
"If you're going to be listening, it's going to severely limit the range of my story."
"Don't you worry. I've got two ears, one for the truth and the other for your tale."
"Okay. I was a complete screw-off, the guy in the back of the class, running laps after practice, the object of the organization's threats. I'm not sure if my story about baseball can be of any meaning to you."
Kidd leaned forward on the end of his chair. "I read somewhere or heard somewhere that to understand baseball was to understand America."
"That must have been said by someone who neither understood baseball nor America."