The Promise of Jesse Woods (8 page)

I put the glove away and hopped on my bike, riding toward Jesse’s. I could hear Daisy through an open window, crying and fussing, but I didn’t see Jesse. I kept going up the road until I came to the scene of the crime, the pasture, and there in a lump was the horse in the same spot she had fallen. I felt just like the horse.

My father was on the front step when I returned, sitting in a lawn chair and smoking his pipe in the twilight. Whether it was the surgeon general’s warning or his own inner sense of caring for “the temple of the Holy Spirit,” my father had given up his Camels. But every evening after Walter Cronkite said, “And that’s the way it is,” my father would knock out the ashes against the bottom of his shoe and dip the pipe his father had given him in a tin of Borkum Riff and pack it tight. Sometimes he’d let me put the tobacco in and I’d hold the can up and smell the moist, sweet aroma. These are the smells of my childhood: fresh tobacco, cowhide leather, percolating coffee, sizzling bacon, and freshly mowed grass.

I sat on the porch and stared at my glove. Not only had I written every player’s name from the 1971 season, it had an autograph I cherished.
To Matt, from Ben.
The glove had been given to me as a Christmas present. I could hold that glove to my face and take in the leather and see my brother through the webbing, tossing the ball.

“You go riding with your friends today?” my dad said.

“Yeah.”

“You know what your grandmother says about friends.”

I stood and took the position of my grandmother, with one hand on my hip and the other in the air, maintaining my balance. “‘As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.’” I said it in the same pitch and twang as Mawmaw.

“No, that’s not what I was thinking.” My father stifled a grin. “Now, Matthew, you’re going to have to keep those imitations just among us, you understand?”

“Yes, sir. But what does Mawmaw say about friends?”

He took a breath. “You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.”

I tried not to smile, but my father could deliver a line like that and puff on his pipe and it was impossible not to laugh.

“Is there something wrong with my new friends?”

He dipped his head to one side and glanced at the field near the house. When he spoke without looking at me, he was trying to say something important. He’d do the same thing in the car, staring out the windshield. Somehow it was easier for him to speak truth looking away.

“Life is about making good choices, Matt. One after another. They pile up day after day. It’s only when you look back that you can see what the choices led to. What you’re able to stand on.”

His words hung like smoke rings. He took another draw and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “You should invite them to the picnic Sunday.”

“Who?”

“You know who.”

“I haven’t heard about a picnic.”

“There’s a potluck after the service—to welcome us. The whole community’s invited.”

I thought of Jesse and Dickie trying to fit in and seeing Old Man Blake. In a flash of unbound honesty, I said, “Dad, do we have to stay here?”

“No, the parsonage will be—”

“I don’t mean at Mawmaw’s. I mean here in Dogwood. I don’t like it.”

He crossed his legs and puffed a sweet plume in the air. “Matt, you know what we’ve decided. This is what we feel God wants. It won’t be easy. And I know this is not at the top of your list of places to plant. The trick of life isn’t getting everything you want. It’s making the most of what you’re given. You understand?”

It felt like an episode of
Andy Griffith
with me as Opie and him as Andy. “Yes, sir,” I said. But I didn’t understand. I got what he was saying, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around this place and these people.

“Why don’t you get the radio and we’ll listen to a game,” he said.

“We can’t hear the Pirates. I’ve tried.”

“We could listen to the Reds.” My father had begrudgingly rooted for the Pirates, but his heart was with the Reds. It was the team he had grown up with, so I couldn’t fault him.

I brought the transistor outside but couldn’t find any play-by-play. The newscaster said the Reds had beaten Tom Seaver and the Mets for their ninth win in ten games and were headed to Montreal. He said nothing about the Pirates.

Fireflies rose from the earth like prayers. Locals called them lightning bugs. When we used to come here on vacation, we’d poke holes in mason jar lids and use the jars as lanterns. We’d put in grass to keep the bugs comfy, but they would be dead in a day or two. Living in Dogwood took all the fun out of lightning bugs.

“I miss Ben,” I said.

“I do too.” He puffed his pipe again and watched the smoke rise. “Life is changing. The whole world is spinning faster than I can keep up with. But we’re going to be all right.”

The next day my father took me to Heck’s and bought a pitch-back net I set up in the front yard. No more throwing at the side of the house. If you hit the center of the target, the ball would fly right back, but more often than not I missed the center and the ball veered away or went through the springs and rolled to the barn.

That night he got out another glove and we pitched to each other, listening to Al Michaels and Joe Nuxhall. The Pirates were just getting underway in Los Angeles when the game ended, the Reds winning again.

“There’s a place in Huntington where you can buy tickets to Cincinnati games,” my father said.

“I’m not becoming a Reds fan,” I said. “That’s one thing I refuse to do.”

“I thought you’d say that. But in July, about a month from now, the Pirates are coming to Riverfront. We could go for a couple of games. Stay overnight.”

“Really? You mean it?”

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

“How long of a drive is it?”

“A little more than three hours.”

My mind spun with the prospect of getting out of Dogwood. “When can we get the tickets?”

“I’ll talk with your mother. But don’t count on it.”

I went to sleep that night with my glove on the nightstand, going around the field starting with Stargell at first and ending with Clemente in right. They had won the World Series the year before and I believed it was because of me. When the Pirates were up to bat, I held a bat and imitated each player’s swing. When they were in the field, I grabbed my glove and bent and looked in for the sign like Dock Ellis or Steve Blass. When Gene Garber pitched, I threw submarine. When Bob Moose stood on the mound, I gave the high leg kick. It was my prayers for the team that had propelled them to the championship, and even at this distance it felt like I could make it happen again. Back-to-back World Series titles. The Pirates would become a baseball dynasty just like the Yankees, a team my father and I loathed.

Just as I drifted off, I thought of Jesse. I pictured her little house and her sister holding daisies. The snapping turtle and Jesse’s bare feet and her thin behind in the crook of my handlebars. I wondered if I’d ever see her again.

Saturday morning came, and Mawmaw suggested I watch cartoons after breakfast. I didn’t want to seem interested because cartoons were for little kids, but something about
them brought comfort to me. Her house sat in a spot on the hill where you could get only two channels. I pretended to endure
Scooby-Doo
and
Underdog
reruns. Just as
The Jetsons
started, I heard a knock at the door.

I opened it to see Dickie. Jesse was at the end of the driveway pacing.

“Hey, how you doing?”

“Lookin’ for a breakthrough,” Dickie said. “You want to ride bikes? Jesse said there’s a garage sale on Third Street. She’s on the hunt.”

Without thinking, I said, “Yeah.” I ran to the living room and turned off the TV, yelling at my mom that I was going bike riding.

“Watch out for snakes,” she yelled back.

I walked my bike down the driveway and waited for Dickie to speak. I had rehearsed an apology, but he wasn’t talkative.

When we reached Jesse, she said, “Hey, Matt.” She turned and hopped on my handlebars like nothing had happened. I wondered if I had imagined the whole thing.

I was becoming used to the temperature and climate, and Jesse’s weight didn’t add much struggle to the pedaling, just the turning of the handlebars around curves. I avoided the pothole from the previous ride and we made our way through town, taking a series of turns along a paved part of the road and through an alley by the volunteer fire department. Dickie pointed west and said his house was in that direction.

“Timing is everything,” Jesse said. “If you get there too
soon, they won’t take what you’re offering. By this time of day they’re itching for lunch and just want to get the driveway cleared.”

Three houses in a row had tables on their driveways with rusted lawn mowers and tools on display. There was a kiddie pool Jesse thought Daisy would like, but she set her face toward the third house and a bike with two flat tires. It had a rusty basket on the front and a flat piece of metal above the back tire.

“I could strap a backseat here for Daisy and put groceries in the basket,” Jesse whispered.

I looked for a price but didn’t see one.

“Needs some work,” Dickie said. “But I got a couple of tires at the house. A little oil for the chain. It’s not a girl’s bike.”

“You think I care?” Jesse said.

The owner of the house approached, an older man in work boots and a white T-shirt that didn’t quite cover his generous, hairy stomach. Later, Dickie would refer to him as Hairy Bellyfonte, though Jesse and I didn’t understand the reference.

“It’s a nice one, idn’t it?” he said, putting his hand on the seat.

“It’s rusty,” Jesse said. “Does it work?”

“Works like a charm. Dust it off and put air in the tires and you’re good to go. You can ride from here to Charleston and back.”

I studied the cracked tires and wondered if it was even possible to push the thing home.

“How much you want for it?” Jesse said.

“It’s worth a lot more, but I’ll sell it to you for ten dollars.”

Jesse’s mouth dropped. “Ten?”

“That’s highway robbery,” Dickie said.

“It ain’t neither,” the man said, crossing his arms. “If you knew what I paid, you’d think different.”

“I don’t care what you paid for it,” Jesse said. “I’m looking at what it’s worth.”

“A thing is worth what somebody will pay. And ten is the price. So that’s what it’s worth.”

Jesse shook her head. “It ain’t worth ten dollars.”

The man put a hand to his stubbly cheek. “Then what are you willing to pay?”

“I got two dollars,” Jesse said.

The man laughed. “Well, there’s a big ditch between what you got and what I want.” He stared at Dickie’s hair, then back at Jesse. “You from back in the hollow?”

She nodded.

“I thought so. You’re a Woods, ain’t you?”

She raised her chin at him as if expecting a fight.

With a tenderness in his voice I didn’t expect, he said, “I was at the tracks the day your daddy lost his arm.”

I glanced at Jesse but she was inspecting the bike.

“How long ago did he run off?” the man said.

Jesse didn’t look at him. “It’s been a while.”

“I expect it has been.”

Jesse searched for words and came up with “You got a pump?”

“Excuse me?”

“You got something to pump up the tires?”

“Sure.” He went to his shed and came back with a black pump. Jesse took it and started on the front tire, pumping the handle up and down until the tire inflated.

“What did they do with it?” Jesse said to the man.

“What did they do with what?”

“His arm. I always wondered. Did they take it to the hospital with him? Just load it into the ambulance?”

“There wasn’t no ambulance. We tied the stump off with some sea grass off a bale of hay in the field across the tracks. Then we flagged down Shorty Childers, who was passing by, and loaded him onto Shorty’s flatbed. He drove him to Cabell Huntington. I was surprised he didn’t bleed out. It was bad.”

Jesse unhooked the pump from the tire and a slow hissing came from several spots. She looked at the man, then moved to the back tire and pumped. “But what happened to the arm? The bottom half?”

He scratched his chin. “Come to think of it, we never picked it up that I know of. The train had stopped by then and it was somewhere underneath, I guess. Buzzards likely got it.”

Jesse nodded and unhooked the pump. The front tire was flat again and the back tire was headed the same direction.

She handed back the pump. “Mister, I was taught that somebody’s word is about all he has. If you can’t count on a man’s word, you can’t count on nothing. Now you told
me I could pump this thing up and ride it to Charleston. I wouldn’t get to the feed store, and that’s downhill and around the corner.”

He looked surprised and a little apologetic. “Well, they were fine the last time I pumped them up. It appears I was wrong.”

Jesse shook her head, waved a hand, and walked toward the street.

The man raised his voice. “Look, I’m sorry about your daddy running out. How’s your mama ’n’ ’em doin’?”

She stopped and without turning said, “They’s all right.”

His eyes looked sad and he ran his tongue around his yellowing teeth. “You had a sister, didn’t you?”

“Her sister is Daisy Grace,” Dickie said.

“No, I mean an older sister. What was her name?”

“Eva,” Jesse said.

He thought a moment more and then put his hands on his hips like he had made a final decision about which door to take on
Let’s Make a Deal
. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll let it go for five dollars.”

“I told you, I only have two.”

Dickie shrugged, pulling out empty pockets.

“I’ve got three left,” I said.

Jesse looked at me, then pulled two crumpled dollar bills out and took mine. “Two and three make five. You got yourself a deal, mister.”

Jesse pushed the squeaky bike down the road like she had given cash to the Red Sox for Babe Ruth. Dickie and I rode slowly beside her, coasting on the rutted road.