Twice Retired (6 page)

He’d just been benched in an
old-timer’s game.

He finished his speech with a muddled
blob of fanatical fan appreciation and psycho-babble, then handed
the mic over to the next in line. Before he sat back down, he and
his son were ushered off the stage by the Phillie’s
manager.

He didn’t believe what he was told in
the locker room. Couldn’t believe what he heard. He upended the
Gatorade and broke a bat against the wall. He scared his
son.

The morning of April 12 was dreary
throughout Ohio, although for most it was stiffly redolent with the
comforting smells of the advancing spring. For Philip, it was the
lingering scent of early morning rain and fresh cut flowers, and
the calming whiffs of the lilacs that rimmed the Dregger’s yard.
Philip was raised in a somewhat settled home. The odd scuffle
between father and son, father and mother and sisters fit into the
scheme at various degrees. They were cooped up together, trapped
into six months of cabin fever like every family north of the
Carolinas. But love was abound in the Dregger household. They were
a family disgustingly fertile with the traditional spirit of the
nuclear unit, although they were slightly overstaffed with
children. Their life was led as one cohesive entity, each feeling
the pain of the others. While Philip was subject to the misery of
his title at school, he was well-loved at home. His mom hadn’t even
called him Plug since October. Because of the stability of his
background and the settled nature of his homelife, he was a child
easily able to appreciate the only natural gifts, like the scent of
a fresh cut flower in the crystal vase on his mother’s Hepeau-White
table.

For Jacob Camden, springtime meant one
thing. Rather than be ensconced in it’s pleasant olfactory
collection, Jake would spread goodwill among his schoolmates with
revelations of the Indians early season record, a true sign that
all was well in Ohio. They were deeply seeded in Reds territory but
most wore the true colors of Cleveland and bowed to Chief Wahoo.
Another Cleveland victory meant more to him than the hovering scent
of a wild orchid. Springtime was baseball.

The changing of seasons had meant
nothing to Kenny Gilbride. He loved the winter, treated it as
though it was meant to be life’s short-lasting purgatory. Chilled
bones and numb toes were the punishment that each of us receive as
atonement for the sins that we commit the whole year round, and he
accepted the winter months as vindication for any guilt he might
have riddled inside him- guilt over an unacted defense in the name
of his sister or perhaps in defense of Philip. Kenny had bloodied
the noses of four other kids throughout the winter- one kid got it
twice, the second time only yesterday. Each was in violation of the
No-Plug legislation implemented by Kenny throughout the
school-yard. Perhaps because nature’s forces couldn’t punish him
for standing up in defense of the weak, the pain Kenny had
unleashed on the four boys was castigated by the fear that Kenny
suffered on New Years Day, when he was sure he had frostbite when
he and his two best friends had shared a six pack of light beer on
the roof of their school. There was pain. He’d forgotten his
gloves. His skin hadn’t frozen, but winter had slapped him with a
slight judgment. He hit the kids and he had to be served by some
form of justice. He was fine. And each of the other seasons offered
their own pros and their cons.

Summer was sometimes so humid and so
preposterous in its arid decay of the landscape, but overall it was
the best of the gifts that nature had to offer. Cool breezes in the
evening. A sky splattered by every spectral boundary on its
earth-wide canvas of poetic beauty- the beautiful skyhigh crimson
tide of a sailor’s sunset was as easily appreciated as the euphoric
pallet of azure that spreads over the land on the clearest summer
day. Even the angry gun-metal background of an imminent
thunderstorm was a beauty in its own way. It meant nature was
coming after Kenny Gilbride with the best she had to offer. He
wouldn’t be hurt- his punishment came in winter- but he was ordered
in line to watch and to understand what she could do should he take
his steps in error.

Autumn, too, came with faults but
offered more gifts instead. There is no wordly beauty that can
match a forest as it is carved clean of its foliage. The colors of
the springtime rainbow number only eight whereas there is a
limitless array of shades and tones available to Mother Nature when
she prepares her deciduous masses for the coming months of her
harshest offering. The autumn stripping of the trees inspired the
term fall, it is said, and that is perhaps why throughout the
recent ages, when fall is mentioned the image of a winding country
road enters the minds-eye. It is the only autumnscape we paint in
our imagination. Summer, winter and spring can offer us a thousand
images. Autumn offers us that beautiful winding country road. That
road, however, leads us into winter. Kenny understood this as well
as any man who’d lived a life in this world that offers adversity
and hatred. Autumn once had meant something to Kenny, when his life
was stably lived with mother and father and sister, but for years
now it had just meant a cold season of evenings alone in his room
or playing with his sister’s dolls. While Kenny had his friends,
Jenny had only her imagination and a mother that was never sober
enough to drive her to a birthday party.

Springtime was perhaps the only season
that offered no dread. Perhaps the April morning rains darken the
sky and dampen the moods of those who dare to peel back the
curtains, but the showers are only Mother Nature nurturing her
kingdom back to its vibrancy. Kenny loved the spring, for the smell
of the rain and the flowers and for baseball. It all meant so much
to him, although he loved each season for its management of the
soul’s rights and wrongs. He was still a child, being propelled
prematurely into problems and situations that should wait at least
until high-school. But he was enough of a man to read the seasons,
appreciate and fear them. In that regard, he was more a man that
most who were.

So when the morning of April 16 came to
town, he meant to spend it as any other. He traveled to the woods
with only a quick playground invitation to Jake and Philip. It was
time for the first springtime gathering at their cabin.

Kenny was the first on-scene. As he
stared down the ruins of the cabin, he wondered only momentarily if
Ron Webster was perhaps buried under the wreckage. He doubted the
man would have been in the cabin during the winter, and he was sure
it had been during or as a result of the winter storms that the
cabin had collapsed.

Emotions meshed through Kenny, the
dominating one being anger. He didn’t speculate that the cabin had
been vandalized, so he was not angry at society or his community.
But he was mad that his sanctuary had been demolished. The one
place where he could sit on a throne. Where he was revered. Where
he had nothing but the soothing din of nature and the companionship
of his friends.

The shed still stood stiff. Kenny
ticked away a half hour pelting the shed with the waterlogged
baseballs he had dug from the ruins of the cabin. When he didn’t
ring the bell, the ball slammed into the shed with soggy thumps. He
was dejected and still angry. When he detected movement in the
forest, he met Jake with a dull frown.

“Holy cow.” Jake said. “What happened
to our cabin, Kenny?”

“Winter, man.” Kenny
answered.

“Wow. Now what are we going to
do?”

“Ah, we can put together a roof and
four walls from this mess. We can still come here.”

Jake seemed quiet, and oddly
uncomfortable. Kenny knew why.

“Are you still mad at me for hitting
you?” He asked.

“Damn, Kenny, you hit me two different
times and wrecked two of my shirts. It was just a habit. I didn’t
mean anything by it.”

“I told you to stop calling him that.
Both times, I warned you to stop.” Kenny said matter-of-factly.
“You asked for it.”

“Yeah.” Jake muttered. “Where is he
anyway?”

“He’ll be here.”

They walked in an obtuse circle around
the fallen cabin, pulling out various artifacts. An old cigarette
pack with a few soaked smokes remaining. A cushion from Philip’s
couch- actually two. They laid them by the firepit for furniture.
They also found another baseball, in the back of a drawer that had
been smashed by the roof.

Kenny stared at it. “Oh my…”

“What?” Jake asked.

“It’s signed by Pete Rose. And … um…
Johnny Bench. And Mr. Webster. It’s even got a date…”

“What is it?”

“August 25, 1973. I think.”

“Wow.” Jake said dully, then he took
the ball from Kenny. “You don’t think…”

“Ah, he probably just went to a game
and got it autographed, then put his own name on it one lonely
night when he was depressed about not making it to the
bigs.”

“Probably.”

Philip could be heard slopping through
the forest, and when he appeared he looked like he was about to
cry, or that he had been already. He didn’t say a word about the
state of the cabin. He was carrying a knapsack, and he pulled from
it a crinkled newspaper. He laid the paper over the grill on the
firepit while Kenny lit a cigarette. Kenny and Jake read the
circled article.

-

One-time Indian Takes Own
Life

Ron Webster, a career player
in the Cleveland Indians’ minor-league system, died early yesterday
in an apparent suicide at his home in Dayton.

A neighbor had alerted
police after seeing exhaust billow out of Webster’s garage just
past six a.m. The neighbor reportedly tried to open the garage
door, but access was denied as the door was locked from the
inside.

Upon entry, police and
paramedics discovered Webster unconscious in the driver’s seat of
his car. En route to hospital, Webster’s heart stopped and attempts
to revive him failed. He was pronounced dead in hospital a short
time later.

Webster was a pitcher who
mired in the minor leagues for his entire career, but his claim to
fame took place on a major league field. In a 1973 exhibition game,
Webster pitched a no-hitter versus the Reds at Riverfront Stadium
(now Cinergy Field) in Cincinnati. While Webster’s game will never
be seen in the record books, the Reds’ game-day roster was
comprised of the powerful lineup employed throughout the regular
season- a cast of characters which included Pete Rose, Johnny Bench
and Joe Morgan. Incidentally, Webster was named as the Indians’
starter due only to an illness and hadn’t thrown a pitch since
being called up to take a roster spot to for the duration of an
injury to infielder Don Randle. He was sent back down to the minors
later that week, and any hope of a full-time promotion to the major
leagues was dashed by a career-ending injury later in the
season.

Webster’s son, Gene, played
for the Indians and the Pittsburgh Pirates and was inducted into
baseball’s Hall-Of-Fame in Cooperstown, NY this past summer. Gene
was in Pittsburgh at the time of his father’s death, in town for a
ceremony honoring the Pirate’s World Series teams of the 1970’s, of
which he was a member. Ron Webster had been expected to attend the
ceremony.

Police are still
investigating the possibility of death due to extenuating
circumstances, but speculate this was in fact a suicide.

Ron Webster was 59 years
old.
.

Kenny crumpled up the newspaper and
threw it into the firepit. He set it aflame in three places with
his cigarette. They cursed their autumn hero.

As it would with these three kids,
mystery carried Ron Webster’s legacy with disgrace all the way to
the unknown. Perhaps nobody would ever know the truth or even seek
it.

Perhaps if Gene Webster knew of his
father’s sleeping disorder, the ailment that sent him to slumber
unannounced, he might have known his father had nodded off before
getting the car in gear that morning. Before he even got the
automatic door opened. He’d gotten up early. He’d made the mistake
of waiting until the road for his first coffee and hadn’t really
come fully awake. This had stopped him from making his trip to
Pittsburgh and all trips in the future. If Gene Webster had known
about this, he might have attended the funeral.

Instead, their lifelong feud would
stretch deep into eternity. Gene would grimly expect never to see
his father again, as he assumed as most do that confirmed suicides
cannot see heaven.

When they met again, there would be
lots to discuss. If Gene could get past the gates
himself.

And perhaps the three kids that stood
beside the crumbled cabin on the floor of the forest might have
remembered the old man on the devastated red patent-leather sofa,
the morning they found him asleep. That morning he
had
told
them
about the disorder. But they couldn’t
remember. Blindly, they cursed him in memory. They read his demise
as the final jab in the emotional battle with his son. Taking away
the glory of a day in the spotlight and replacing it with grief-
and lots of guilt. They cursed him.