The Wine of Youth (21 page)

“Yes, Father.”

“Good. Fine. More cake?”

“No thanks, Father.”

He pushed back his chair and stood up.

“You may go now.”

He put his hand on my shoulder and walked to the door with me. “I'll check with the Bureau of Power and Light, and see about the damage. But promise me you won't do it again.”

“I promise.”

He shook hands with me just like I was a man. “Good night, Jim.”

“Good night, Father. Thanks for the cake.”

 

It was almost six o'clock. The nuns lived in the west wing of the school building. I still had to see Sister Agnes, so I decided to go to the back door. At that hour it was most unusual to be seen knocking at the front door of the convent. It could only mean that a fellow was in some kind of mess. Besides, Sister Mary Thomas was in the convent kitchen. She did the cooking for the nuns. She was always good for a cooky or a piece of pie.

After I knocked, Sister Thomas opened the back door. She was the oldest nun in the convent. Some people said she was almost seventy. Her face was red and shining from the hot stove and her hands were covered with flour. The kitchen smelled like heaven, of apples and cinnamon.

“I have to see Sister Agnes,” I said.

“You always have to see Sister Mary Agnes. Little man, what now?”

“Nothing much.”

“Of course not. Just some trifle like bank robbery or something. And you probably wouldn't like a piece of apple pie, either.”

“Just a very small piece.”

“I know,” she said, “just a very small piece.”

I sat down at the end of the long table that ran the length of the room. On the table were six hot steaming French apple pies. Sister Thomas cut me almost half a pie.

“We have some strawberry ice cream,” she said, “but I don't suppose you want any; not very much, at any rate.”

“Just a bit.”

She laid three scoops of strawberry ice cream on the pie.

“That's plenty,” I said.

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

The pie was so hot that the ice cream melted and the pink cream filtered through the cinnamon and apples. It was wonderful. It was even better than Father Cooney's cake. Sister Mary Thomas waited until I was almost finished before she called Sister Agnes on the house telephone. All the nuns were plenty scared of Sister Agnes. Being Sister Superior, she gave the orders around there.

I put the last bite of pie in my mouth just as Sister Agnes came into the kitchen.

“What's the meaning of this?” she said.

“He looked hungry,” Sister Thomas said.

“Hungry? He always looks hungry—the scoundrel.”

I stood up and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Sister Agnes was so angry she stamped her foot. She walked to my empty dish and banged it with a fork.

“Sister Mary Thomas,” she said, “I've forbidden you to feed these boys. I've told you repeatedly: Stop—feeding—the boys. How in heaven's name can I hope to have any discipline in this school if they're rewarded instead of punished? I repeat it for the last, the very last time: Stop—feeding—the boys!”

Poor old Sister Mary Thomas shriveled up her shoulders, looked down at the floor and wiped her flour-covered hands on her apron. Sister Agnes swung around and faced me. She took off her glasses and scowled.

“You,” she said. “You scoundrel. You reprobate. After all the disgrace you've heaped upon your immortal soul—after all the humiliation you've brought down upon your church and your city—you have the sheer unmitigated audacity to stand there facing me, gorged with chocolate cake and apple pie.” She looked down at my plate. “And strawberry ice cream.”

I moved my feet a little but I didn't talk.

“Well—what have you to say for yourself?”

“Nothing, I guess.” I figured I'd better do something quick. So I hung my head and began to sob.

“What did Father Cooney say to you?” she asked.

I didn't say anything. I just stood there looking down at my shoes and crying softly. Old Sister Mary Thomas' face began to pucker up and I knew she felt terribly sorry for me. But Sister Agnes was hard as stone.

“So now you're crying,” she said.

I threw myself into a chair and buried my face and sobbed. I could hear my own big sobs filling the kitchen. For some time nothing was said.

Then Sister Agnes spoke. “At least there appears to be some scrap of human decency left in him.”

I howled.

“You'd better go home now,” she said.

I kept my face covered and dragged myself toward the door. “Good night, Sister Thomas,” I said.

“Good night, James.”

“Thanks for the pie,” I choked.

As I opened the door Sister Agnes came toward me. “One moment,” she said. She put her hand on my shoulder and she was smiling—a sweet beautiful smile. “I really believe you're sorry for what happened today.”

“I feel terrible,” I said keeping my head down. “All those street lights. All that pie and cake. I feel awful.”

She lifted my face with the tip of her finger. “I'm sorry it happened too,” she said. “But since you've shown such sincere sorrow, we'll all try to forget it.” She smiled again. “About your father, you won't have to worry. I won't telephone him.”

I said, “Gee, Sister. Thanks!”

“And now, go home as fast as you can. And don't throw any rocks—at anything.”

I hurried away and cut across the lawn. Except that I had eaten too much, I felt pretty good. The long cool shadows from the maple trees fell across the lawn. The rim of the big gold sun was sagging behind the mountains and the mountains were a dark blue. I walked very fast for a couple of blocks and when I thought of what would have happened if my father had found out, it made me stop and take a deep breath.

Then I remembered my little prayer to God, asking Him not to let my father know. It filled me up. I leaned against one of the maple trees on Tenth Street and started to cry. Not the same kind of a cry I had in Sister Thomas' kitchen. This was a real cry that shook me all over, until I thought I would break into pieces. I couldn't stop. I peeled some bark from the tree and cried for a long time. Then I started for home again.

W
E WERE EATING
dessert when Burton whistled. The old man gave me one of his looks.

“There's your no-good friend,” he said.

“No good?” I stopped eating. “Look, mister. You don't know what you're talking about. Ralph Burton happens to be the finest first baseman this town ever developed.”

“Excuse me, but I still say he's no good.”

“That's because you don't know what's going on in the world.”

Burton whistled again. I left the table and hurried outside. The old man just sat there, staring at his apple cobbler. He was almost forty-three, getting on in years, and out of touch with important things.

It was nearly seven o'clock, but not dark. Burton was hiding behind the elm tree in the front yard.

“Want to toss a few?”

“Nah,” he said. “Let's talk.”

We walked two blocks to the creek that ran through Boulder. Burton pulled out a new pack of cigarettes, and we sat on the bank. Burton was very lucky: his old man bought them by the carton. Mine smoked cigars.

“I sure hate this town,” Burton said.

“It's strictly for hicks,” I said. “Not even big enough for Class C baseball.”

Burton looked up at the sky. “Why did I have to be born here?” he asked. “Why couldn't I have been born in some major-league city? Even Kansas City, or some other American Association town? Even some town in the East Texas League? Even Terre
Haute, in the Three-Eye League? Why did I have to be born in Boulder, Colorado?”

It was good to dream. I took a drag and let the smoke come sighing out. “If I had it to do over again,” I said, “I'd be born in a house right across the street from the Yankee Stadium. It could be just a plain old shack with a leaky roof and no paint. What's money? I wouldn't care.”

“Money don't count,” Burton said. “And it don't matter what the place looks like. What counts is have you got the stuff? Can you hit that ball?”

We listened to the trickle of water through the rocks in the creek.

“Jake,” Burton said, “I want to ask you a question. A very personal question. But don't pull your punches. Tell me the truth.”

“Let's have it, Burt. You know me.”

“What I want to know is this: Am I good enough, right now, for the big time?”

You don't just rattle off an answer to that kind of a question. I thought about it for a long time. Then I said: “Burton, in my honest opinion, you're good enough right now to hold down first base for any major-league club in the country. I seen you in action, kid. You're like a snake around that bag. As for hitting, you got the sharpest pair of eyes I ever seen.”

“Aw. I wouldn't go that far.”

“You're just too modest, Burt. I say you're ready for major-league ball. Right now.”

“Thanks, Jake. I appreciate you being so honest.”

Now it was dark and cold. To the west, the mountains began to disappear behind thick white clouds. There was a feeling of spring snow in the air. Our breaths came out in small white puffs. We built a fire between two stones and fed it pieces of drifwood from a muskrat dam. We watched the fire. It scorched our faces and left our backs cold. The heat cracked the stones and they popped open. With warm eyes we stared at the flames.

“Burt,” I said, “it's my turn to ask you a question.”

“Shoot.”

“The truth, Burt. I can take it.”

“I never lie, Jake.”

“Am I good enough for major-league ball?”

“Absolutely. You're the greatest pitching prospect I ever saw.”

“No, Burt. Think about it carefully. Don't just flatter me. Give it some thought.”

“Okay.”

He didn't speak for five minutes. Then he said: “In my opinion, you have the greatest knuckle ball in the United States of America. I never been up against Vic Raschi or Allie Reynolds, but I faced you many times, Jake. I know pitching. It's my business, because I'm a hitter. I say you're as good as anything up there, and maybe better.”

All the time he talked, I watched his face. He wasn't lying. I felt it in my bones.

“Burt,” I said, “thanks for your honest opinion.”

“Trouble is,” he said, “we're too young for the big time.”

“Too young? Ye gods, Burt! In ten years we'll be twenty-four. Think of it—twenty-four! Old men. They're crying for young blood up there. Mickey Mantle, look at him. What is he—six years older than us?”

The wind came up, and we huddled closer to the fire. Beyond the creek the street lights went on. I warmed my hands and thought about a headline in the Denver Post:
Colorado Boy Pitches No-Hit Game In Majors
.

Then I thought about myself in another way—the way my father wanted it. The years had passed and I was a structural engineer, working in an office, studying blueprints. I paced the office floor restlessly. I stood at the window in misery because now I was too old to play baseball. I was married now, with a potbelly, tied down to a wife and a lot of kids. And as I looked out that window I cursed my father for ruining my natural-born talent as a pitcher who might have been a major-league immortal, with his name in the Hall of Fame. But I had been an obedient son. I had gone to college like the old man wanted. I had forgotten baseball. Now I was old and it was too late. Brokenhearted, I opened the window and jumped—a suicide.

“Burt,” I said, “my father gives me a pain in the neck. He don't understand me at all.”

“He's like my old man.”

“He wants me to be an engineer, Burt.”

“You kidding?” Burton laughed. “You—the sweetest knuckle-ball artist in the Rocky Mountains? You can't let him do that, Jake. It's criminal.”

“Tell that to my father.”

Burton dropped his chin and was silent.

“What's wrong?”

“My folks want me to be a preacher.”

It was my turn to laugh.

“You—a preacher? They must be nuts. Ain't any of your family ever see you run down a bunt? Or throw to third base? You got the makings of another Lou Gehrig. Don't let 'em do it to you, Burt. Fight back!”

“They don't understand me, Jake.”

“Me neither.”

Now it was very cold. Tonight the water would freeze in little puddles and spring would never be here.

“Another thing about this town is the weather,” I said. “It stinks.”

“You said it.”

“Nice and warm down South, down in Arizona. The Giants are training there this year, in Phoenix.”

“Ah, the hot sun, the blue sky, green grass, batting practice, pitchers limbering up.”

“After practice, a nice warm shower, then supper in a ritzy hotel, and gabbing with guys like Bobby Thomson and Leo Durocher…”

“And tomorrow, a nice big breakfast, more sunshine, and nothing to do all day but play ball.”

It was so sweet to think about that it hurt. We put out the fire and walked back to the street. Burton lived six blocks away. He went ambling down the sidewalk, a big kid, six feet tall, with long fingers and feet. He was a southpaw, and he walked like a southpaw, favoring his left shoulder. He could really slam that ball around the infield. Nothing got through him, ever. He covered first base like a lanky gorilla.

Now he was going home to a little white house in Boulder, Colorado, where he lived with his folks and his two brothers. He would go to bed beside his brother Eddie. Tomorrow he would
get up and go to school. The next day would be the same, and the next, and the next, day after day, the same monotony in the same jerkwater town.

I was just like Burton. I slept with a brother too. Tomorrow I'd wake up and eat breakfast and go to school, and just sit there, listening, dreaming, and this would go on, day after day, month after month, clear through high school, clear through college, years and years of the same grind. And for what? To be an engineer, trapped in an office. The more I thought about it, the more I hated my father for crushing my life and wrecking my best years.

I walked into the house. The old man was sitting under the lamp, reading the paper. I slammed the front door.

“What's the big idea?” he said.

“That's my business.”

He shrugged and went back to his paper. I looked at the place, the same old walls, the same old ceiling, the same old floor. Here was the place I lived. This was the cage where they fed me and let me sleep.

“Trapped,” I said, “like an animal. Trapped in this dump.”

The old man sniffed the air and put down his paper.

“You. Come here.”

“Go jump in the lake.”

He swept the paper aside and put his hands on the arms of the chair.

“You've been smoking cigarettes.”

“The old boy's pretty clever. Figured it all out by himself.”

“I told you before. No smoking.”

“So you told me. So what?”

He sprang out of the chair and grabbed my shoulders with his big hands. But I braced myself. I wasn't backing down. From now on it was a fight for life, before he crushed my spirit, before it was too late and I was old and fat and working in an office. He shook me up quite a bit, and I kept glaring at him.

“Sir,” I said, “I advise you to take your mitts off of me. Either that, or you'll never see your son again.”

He let go and folded his arms.

“What's ailing you, kid?”

“Don't ‘kid' me,” I said. “I don't think I care for it.”

“Why, you miserable little worm!”

He whirled me around and booted me in the seat of the pants. It wasn't painful but it was plenty insulting, the very last straw. We had come to the parting of the ways.

“That did it, sir,” I said. “You'll regret this as long as you live.”

“I may have regrets, kid, but this isn't one. Matter of fact, this is the best I've felt in two weeks.”

He went back to his chair, lit a cigar, and picked up the paper.

I went outside and sat on the porch. So it had come at last—the great decision. It had been on my mind since last August, when I mastered the knuckle ball and realized my true vocation. Of all the people in the world, only Burton understood this. Burton would go along, for now I had it all figured out, and there was only one thing to do: run away from home, run away to Arizona and try out with the New York Giants.

 

I didn't have to whistle for Burton. He was sitting on the front porch of his house, feeling low, chewing his nails.

“I'm through,” he said. “I've had all a man can stand.”

“What's wrong?”

“See that garden? Fifty feet long, twenty-five feet wide. And I got to spade it tomorrow.”

“The whole thing?”

“That's what he says, the jerk.”

“Why can't your brother Eddie do it?”

“Because he's the favorite around here. He takes piano lessons. He's a genius.”

“What about you? Suppose you get hurt like Cecil Beame?”

“Cecil Beame?”

“Ruptured. Shoveling snow off the sidewalk.”

“Is that bad?”

“He'll never play ball again.”

The thought burned a hole in Burton's brain. He gritted his teeth. “They won't rupture me,” he said. “They can
try
, but they'll never get away with it.”

“Listen, Burt.”

I told him about hitchhiking down to Arizona and joining the New York Giants.

“Okay. I'll go.”

We made plans to leave next morning.

My last night at home. I cried in bed, remembering things: my brothers and sisters, Christmas Eve, my dog Rex, my rabbits, my mother, my school days, the smell of hot bread. It was good-by to all those things, to Mom and Dad and Colorado.

They would find me gone in the morning. I was probably ruining my mother's life, but it didn't matter so much with my father. He would have regrets, of course. I could see him there, as the years passed, holding my picture, tears in his eyes, saying: “Come back, son; all is forgiven. Play ball if you like.”

I watched the clock on the dresser. Burton and I had agreed to meet at six. At two in the morning I was still awake, listening to the old man's snores from the next room.

Now was the time. I slipped out of bed and crawled on my stomach across the floor to the chair where my father's pants were folded. My hand found his wallet in the back pocket, and I examined it in the moonlight. There were two bills—a five and a ten. It was ten more than I'd expected. I put the wallet back, crawled out of the room, and waited for the new day.

Burton was waiting in front of the First National Bank. It was six o'clock and very cold. White clouds smothered the mountains, and the wind came from the north. It meant snow.

“We sure picked a great day,” Burton said.

He hadn't had much luck. There was nothing at all in his father's pockets, so he had been forced to steal seven dollars from under his grandma's mattress. “We got twenty-two bucks,” I said. “We'll make it easy.”

We were on the highway. Traffic was so scarce that it was fifteen minutes before we even saw a car. Then a milk truck passed. Burton's teeth chattered, and he said his feet were cold.

“We'll never make it to Phoenix, Jake. We won't get out of Boulder, even.”

It began to snow—light and fluffy at first. By six thirty it was roaring down as if the sky had caved in. A few more cars passed, none going our way. We weren't dressed for snow. We wore our red baseball sweaters with the white block B woven on the chest.

“Well, here we are,” Burton said. “Still in Boulder, Colorado. Let's go down to the school and sit in the furnace room. We'll never make Arizona in this blizzard.”

“So you're yellow,” I said.

“I ain't yellow.”

“Then what are you?”

“Just cold.”

We heard a truck coming. It was barely visible in the storm. I ran out and waved. The truck stopped. Two men were in the cab. They were driving to Fort Collins, twenty-five miles away.