The Show by Jacob William Cox

The Show

By Jacob William Cox
 
           
            The glasses shook. The bar wobbled. The record skipped in the jukebox. Don lay positioned as he fell, sprawled on the beerstained floor.
            A man said, “You shouldnta kept servin him.”
            “He looked all right,” said the bartender. “Heck.”
            “How much that sonabitch drink?”
            “Somethin near a bottle.”
            “Of liquor?”
            “Whiskey. That a licker?”
            One or two of the men laughed. All of them were facing the bartender.
            “Someone wants a drink, I give it to them,” she said. “It don’t need explainin.”
            “It ain’t her fault.”
            “Nope.”
            “He wasn’t shittin himself,” another said, before looking at her. “Pardon my french.”
            “That’s not french,” the bartender said. “Bonejur. Or revorr. That’s french.”
            She was Franky Hope’s daughter. Franky owned one of the three bars in town, along with the creamery and a bit of farmland. Putting his daughter behind the bar was an idea that struck him one morning while he regarded her from across the breakfast table. Three months north of eighteen, she was for this small town a great beauty. Big blue eyes and cherry cheeks. Though Franky’s wife complained it was the same as pimping out their daughter, she quieted up some when she saw the new figures.
            The men at the bar, at least all those not passed out on the floor, were quietly in love with her. They tipped so well Aly might skip off to Hollywood in a year, maybe less. Meanwhile the bar patrons’ wives had been stretching the broths a bit thinner, buying the cheaper cuts, stewing morosely as they watched their husbands come back later and later, drunker and drunker.
            “Well,” she said, leaning over the bar for a better look at Don. Unaware of the men feeding on the smooth arc of her neck, her bare clavicles, the firm shapes of her breasts beneath her blouse. The moment she pushed herself back up, they snapped their eyes away. To look at the signs, the bar surface, out the window at the evening.
            Her next words gave them an honest excuse to look back.
            “Can’t just leave him lyin there,” she said.
            It took two men and a few slaps to rouse Don and sit him up, but he promptly passed back out. After some discussion they decided to carry him, which took four strong men, because Don was such a large man, out the door and onto the porch, where the young Hope had laid out a bedroll and a blanket. Though the brutal heat of summer had edged away, the nights remained warm. Though Don would have slept regardless. The men, a few of whom were smoking, kicked him in the legs and wondered who the hell he was. How even a man gets to be that big. There was talk of calling the sheriff. Then talk against it. They decided to go back in and drink and a few hours later Aly closed the bar up.
            Through all this Don leBeau slept. He would have slept through a fire and never woken, if the devil had presented the offer right then.
 
             A primal thirst, that was how the world began. As a tremendous thirst and nothing more. But eventually he registered the dawn, crawling into the eastern sky. It came back to him then. Who he was, where he was. A clean image in his mind, a moment suspended in time. Where it might have gone either way.
            For a while he lay there suffering.
            Then he got up.
            He tried the door to the tavern, but it was locked. He went carefully down the stairs and found a spigot beneath the porch and drank deeply and sloppily, splashed some water on his face. He drew the back of his arm across his mouth and ran his hand through his hair and repeated to himself a few things he no longer believed in, had never really believed in, but which he held on to owing to superstition. He looked at the sky.
            He drank once more and gathered himself, as much as he could, before starting along the asphalt road to the motel. It was right near the ballpark. Don could see the scoreboard above the single storied homes and the path he followed led him straight to the third base grandstands. There he stood, looking at them. As if they had some secret to reveal. But there was no sign of it, no tape or anything. He tried to find his way in, to get a better look at it, at the railing and the ground below, but the gates were locked. It was still very early and he had not woken entirely and for a time Don leaned against the fence, eyes closed, almost asleep.
            Birdsong roused him. He knew where he was. Right away it was very clear to him.
            He gave it all a last look before walking to the motel. In the lobby he sat down on the couch. Drank coffee and waited. Looked out the window blankly at the morning, at the muted reflection of himself. He couldn’t remember having ever felt so low and tired. But he told himself to wait till he was on the bus. If he fell asleep now he might not be able to get back up; Balocci would know he had been out drinking. But hell, hadn’t he had every right to get drunk?
            The receptionist, who had sat behind that desk for so many years she seemed to have become part of it, smoked cigarettes and stared at the television, which was muted. It was very quiet for another hour or so. Quiet and empty, and that suited both of them.
 
            The rest of the road trip took the club through three different towns. Over the next seven games Don went 1 for 22 with three walks and a dozen strike outs. His lone hit came on a fluky bloop that landed in no-man’s land in shallow right, and even that hit disgusted him. The team went 2 and 5.
            He had plenty of time to think. A ballplayer has plenty of time to think. Except when he has none, and it is in these moments where he must distinguish himself. In these moments thought becomes a barrier and though Don understood this he could not shake it. An obsession, when it has gathered steam, has all the inertia of a freight train. Standing in the box he would tell himself to clear his mind, but even that counted as a thought, and that thought chugged along until it arrived at a thought about thinking about not thinking, and before long it would return, more a feeling than any concrete memory. But regardless a handcuffing weight. Thinking, Don flailed at breaking balls and watched fastballs blow by him.
            His teammates treated him as they always had. Now things had changed, it felt disingenuous. Nobody, not even Balocci, said a word to him about what happened in Heppner. It was best that way, Don figured. But he knew they were talking about it. Of course they were talking about it. In the motels, in the dugouts, in the diners—everywhere he heard snippets of condemnations, isolated punchlines to gallows humor. Imagined them, at least. Either way it amounted to the same thing. During the hot days and warm early evenings he would play ball, as he had always done. He would step in and out of his uniform and in the uniform, though his name was stitched on the jersey, he was a nobody. And at night he would find a quiet place to drink and there he was a nobody, too, but it was softer. In an empty field, in a bar where no music played. Somewhere sheltered from the life he was leading, the man he was, what he had done. Half of him didn’t want the road trip to end.
 
            After the bus returned to Blithesdale and Don had put bats and gloves away in his locker; as he was about to leave, Balocci pulled him aside. Sitting in the office, whose windows were always blinded, Balocci looked Don over. It was hard to believe he was pushing thirty. All at once here they were, ten years later. As if all the time had stretched out and come curling back like one of those awful party horns. Balocci remembered, better than most. He’d scouted the 17 year old leBeau. In high school the kid was already a giant. Clubs were were licking their chops to sign him in the draft. Don had a short, powerful stroke, like dropping a sledgehammer on a rail spike. Heaps of natural power. Since Don’s rise to AAA Balocci had seen more than a hundred of his homers over the years. If leBeau connected, it didn’t matter how big the park was. His shots cleared the fences with yards to spare. But all the strike outs. Too many and very little speed on the base paths. Not quite enough defensive prowess at third base and not quite enough average to be an effective DH. For years Don had been on the cusp of getting the call. And when he did get it… Well, he had deserved to get it. But that was three years ago now. Still, you never knew who might need a big bat. Somebody that can run into one. Don was trade bait, Balocci had heard as much, though if word got around it might hurt even those chances.
            Balocci thought all this and said, “You’re slumpin, kid.”
            “I’m pressing,” Don replied. He opened his mouth to say something more, but held it.
            There was a silence. Balocci rummaged around in his desk drawer and pulled out a tin, fingered the dip, rolled a pinch into a wad and stuffed the mass under his lip. The whole time he looked at Don.
            He spat in a paper cup and said, “Not sure how to say it. It’s eating you up, I can tell. That… you know. Look.” He spat again. “I know you’re a tough kid. I’ve seen it. Just. You know, shit. It’s not your fault. Donmyboy. That kind of thing… I mean, hell. You were hittin so well before and… That kind of thing, Don, it’s a freak accident, you know? That kind of thing… well, there just isn’t anything you can do about that kind of thing.”
            Don, who had been trying to meet Balocci’s eyes, gave it up. To their mutual relief.
            “Look.” He spat. “We got the day off tomorrow. But I’m gonna give you a couple more. I shoulda given you one the game after. Give you a chance to clear your head…”
            Don bent forward. “I need to be on the field,” he said. His eyes, Balocci had noted, were bloodshot. He knew he’d been drinking. Droplets of sweat formed on his brow though the air conditioning was blasting.
            “The thing is,” Don said, “I need to stop thinking about it. That’s the problem. I don’t need time to think. I need to not think, do you understand? I can’t fucking hit and think at the same time and I can’t quit thinking so, so you understand.”
            Balocci spat. “Talked to anybody?”
            Don shook his head. “Those reporters, I guess. Everybody else knows, anyway. They were there.” And in a way more muted Don added, “What can you say about it, anyway.”
            “I don’t mean the boys, Don. Somebody, I don’t know. Somebody close to you. Your mother or your father, shit. A girlfriend. You got a girlfriend, don’t you? I seen you with her.”
            “Yeah.”
            “That pretty one does herself all up? That one came to the wedding?”
            “Yeah.”
            “Good. I want you to talk to her. She a good listener?”
            “I don’t know. I’ve never talked to her,” Don grinned; Balocci laughed, but it did little to leaven the mood.
            “All right,” Don said. After a while he rose. Balocci followed him to the door.
            “Don’t let it eat you up.”
            “No.”
            “Tomorrow’s a new day,” Balocci said after him. He hadn’t closed the door. “You have to turn the page.”
            Don paused, but he didn’t turn back around. He finished the twenty paces and stepped out through the fire door to the parking lot. The world outside simplified into dull asphalt and yellow streetlights, accentuated shadows. Cars droning by on the freeway out of sight. Don leBeau got in his truck and turned the key in the ignition, but the engine wouldn’t turn over. He tried again. Don tried again, chuckling. It was all perfect. Just fucking perfect. And though he tried to laugh it off, he got a slow feeling like his balls were being pinched. Harder, and harder, so that the sensation rose into his gut and abdomen and then through his chest into his throat and before he knew what was happening, he was slamming his hand against the steering wheel. Cursing and yelling, he gripped the wheel and tried to tear it from the dash in desperate yanks.
            But as quickly as it had come, it left him. He just felt tired. Don took the keys and got out, all very tamely, not bothering to lock the door.
            It was a long walk home, something like four miles, and Don almost made it. Jenine would be expecting him. He had called her from Morgan and told her they’d be back tonight. He hadn’t elaborated, on that or anything else. And he didn’t want to think of how to say it, or how she would look at him after he said it. Rooty’s was on the way home. The pulsing neon sign beckoned, offering Miller High Life but promising something more.
            Don hesitated at the door, but only for a moment. He went in telling himself he would have a beer, maybe two, something to take the edge off. But after the first High Life he ordered the second with a shot of whiskey. And by then it had been decided. Without any hurry, he got drunk, and the hours eased their gentle course toward midnight, past midnight, and the bar grew quiet. Quiet enough that Don, exhausted, finally nodded off. When Jimmy roused him, the bar all but closed up, Don paid his tab and left. He found his way home as if in a dream. Streets shimmering cruelly. A warm breeze whispering of morning. Inside the dark apartment they shared, dizzy, swaying slightly on size sixteens, he could feel Jenine’s presence but he could not face her. He passed out on the couch in the tidy living room, unaware that during the road trip she had adopted a cat. The cat, a black tom, paced around the living room and finally found the best place to sleep: atop Don’s face.
 
            Don came-to to a blurred vision of a woman with a towel wrapped around her head. She was poking him roughly, saying, “…nearly scared the bejesus out of me! Why are you sleeping on the couch? Where were you? Don’t you know I was worried sick about you?”
            But she eased up when she saw Don’s eyes. His face, handsome enough, worn down with something. Right away she felt compassion for him. It was in her nature.
            “Don, babe. You were out drinking?”
            “Just a few beers.” He swung his legs out and sat upright on the couch. Jenine sat down next to him, looking very fragile by comparison.
            “What’s wrong, babe. Bad trip?”
            “You could say that.”
            “It don’t matter. The season’s nearly up. And when it is we can drive up to Montana, like you’ve been talkin about. Go fishing, like you said. That sounds good, don’t it?”
            Don nodded.
            “Get away for a while. Just you and me. Maybe we’ll see a grizzly bear. Or a moose or somethin.”       
            Don tried to smile but it came off poorly.
            “Poor baby. Now you just relax. I’ll cook you up some eggs.”
            From the couch he watched her. How domestic she was. How full of faith in him she was and he knew right then he wouldn’t ever tell her. How could he possibly make her understand? That it involved a few inches. A lack of a few inches. And the man’s son standing there in the aftermath, grasping the metal railing with a hollow look on his face. Looking first down and then at Don and… no, there wasn’t anything to say about it. Even that was too much. Don put his arm over his eyes and lay back down and while the tinny noise of pans moving over the stovetop played, while his eggs were frying up, he thought again of that night… how long ago was it now. A September evening in St. Louis. The first cool night of the fall. His night. The big call-up he had been waiting for, the one he was ready for. Don saw the crowd file in, the tens of thousands in red. The arch, everything. The roar. The starting lineups on the jumbotron. leBeau among the names and his picture, his face, his .000 denoting he had never had a major league hit. Which would remain unchanged that night. leBeau would go 0-4 with a key error that allowed a run to score. And in the bottom of the 9th, down by one run, he would come to the plate with two out and nobody on. The crowd, gazing from the heights down at leBeau, lit up under the lights, understood what his bulk represented. What sinewy forearms suggested, what broad shoulders implied, and when he put that swing on a 2-0 fastball the whole crowd rose to its feet. Don didn’t think he got all of it but for a moment, seeing the baseball soar tiny against the vast night sky, he felt everything in him rise. There it was, it was happening. This was the reward for all his struggle. The baseball’s arc carried it to the deepest part of the park, straight-away center, 400 feet to a waiting center fielder, glove raised, back against the fence.
            There was a loud hush. All at once it rushed out of him. The crowd filed toward the exits. Don stood there on the diamond, helmet in his hands. The season ended two days later and that was it. A few inches.
            While he sat at the table eating his eggs he looked across at Jenine, around at their simple, clean apartment in a simple, clean town. She had bought flowers. They stood on the windowsill and through the window he could see the brittle yellow grass of the shared lawn. Stretching on the couch, on the warm spot where Don had been, was the cat. He had been so close.
            “What’s with the cat?”
            “Oh, I don’t know. He was comin around so I started feedin him. He’s a cutey, don’t you think?”
            “Sure.”
            “I haven’t picked a name yet. What should we name him?”
            “Anything will do.”
            “Don,” she said, her tone playful. “It’s our cat. We have to name him.”
            “You name him whatever you want and I’m fine with that.”
            “Anything?”
            Don chewed and regarded her.
            “Fine. We’ll name him Lucky.” She smiled. “Lucky!”
            The cat, head on its paws, opened one eye and looked at her. Then it closed it and went back to sleep.
            Jenine beamed. “He already knows his name!”
            Don finished his breakfast and put the plate in the sink. He showered and shaved and when he came back into the living room Jenine was all done up for the day, looking very pretty as she stroked the purring cat’s stomach.
            “Feelin better?”
            “Yes.”
            “I’m goin out shopping with Katie. Just for a few hours or so.” She stood and walked over to him, put her hands on his waist and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. “You’ll be makin millions next year, right babe? Cause I took your credit card.”
            He looked at her.
            “Don’t be so serious, Don. You know I’m only teasin. And don’t worry. I won’t buy anythin unless it’s real cute.”
            “Fair enough.”
            “You’re okay, really?”
            “Yes. I’m fine.”
            “Somethin happened, but you’re not tellin me.”
            “No, baby. It was just a rough trip.”
            “Did you hit well at least?”
            “No.”
            “Well that’s okay. You’ve always been streaky. That’s what your coach told me. At the wedding.”
            “Balocci?”
            Jenine nodded. “Funny name, isn’t it?”
            “I guess. But I don’t like that word.”
            “What word? Funny?”
            “Streaky.”
            “Smart we named him Lucky, then.” She looked over at the cat. Then she looked back at Don. “You don’t like him?”
            “What’s not to like? It’s a cat.”
            “What happened, babe?” She wrapped her arms around his stomach. “Tell me.”
            “Nothing. I told you, it was just a bad trip. And you know I don’t like days off.”
            As close as she was to him, she could not see his eyes. Just the underside of a strong jaw and the tip of a nose.
            “All right then,” Jenine said, pulling away. “I gotta go.”
            “Drop me off, could you? I have to jump the truck.”
            “What?”
            “The engine wouldn’t turn over.”
            “You caught a cab home?”
            “No, I walked.”
            “But that’s a long walk, isn’t it Don?”
            “Not so long.”
            They went out of the apartment together.
            “You know, I stayed up for you,” she said. “But then it got to be real late. I was worried about you, Don. I thought somethin horrible happened.”
            “Mmm.”
           
            Don sat in his truck. The hemi V8 idling. He waved and watched Jenine pull out of the lot and turn onto the street and long after she was out of sight he was still waiting there. Looking at the low buildings. The half abandoned textile factory, the boarded up warehouse. A portion of the field and the stadium lights over wooden bleachers. The engine idling. “Hell,” he muttered.
            He put the truck in gear and drove out of town and got onto the highway. At speed he turned off the AC, put the windows down and leaned the seat back slightly, resting his arm on the window frame, flurries of wind sending the air freshener spinning. The pages of one of Jenine’s paperbacks ruffled on the passenger floor mat. He drove past fields and strip malls and a whole lot of nothing and a few hours west he stopped at a diner and ate a large steak. He looked around at the few people there, people between places, people like him, and while paying Don asked for a cup of coffee to go. He tried to pay for that, too, but the waitress waved him off. And at the liquor store in that same little town he bought a flask of Wild Turkey. He poured the cup of coffee full and the remainder of the flask he put in the glovebox. After a sip he felt a bit better.
            Back on the highway again he rolled the windows down. And for the first time in a while, he felt his mind go to zero. The blue sky and prairies were wide open with nothing in them, and eighty miles per hour left them unaltered. The buffalo, the Native Americans, an entire way of life: absent. Just a hint of blur at the edges and the idea of continuing on, driving on through this purgatory and not stopping, heading west until the land ran out—the thought creeped into his head. And just like that he was thinking again.
            Don drank the rest of the cold coffee and reached into the glovebox. Holding the wheel with his knees, he poured the rest of the flask into the styrofoam cup. He checked the rear view mirror and then tossed the flask out the window with his left hand, in an arc over the roof of the truck. His was practically the only car on the road. Now and again he’d pass an 18 wheeler but even when he did he felt alone, like all this road was for him. Don ate up the rest of the miles thinking of the best way. The best way to come clean, to wash his hands of it and the hope, which he tried to keep from himself, was that this would turn everything around. Put him back on the path he had strayed from.
            Don didn’t recognize the town at first. There was nothing remarkable about it. Under the noon sun it boiled. Shadows drowned in a flood of light. The flattop bubbled and steamed, everything was in quiet mutiny. Don rolled the windows up and drove slowly along the main strip, past the creamery, a bar, the grocery, the theater, the post office. Looking for he didn’t exactly know what. The little strip ended and back of a few homes with brown lawns he saw the scoreboard of the stadium. It was taller, he realized, than anything else around.
            And the town was quiet. It was a Sunday. They must all be in church. And in his mind’s eye Don saw the congregation assembled, chanting back and forth in Latin. He wasn’t sure he had that right, if they spoke Latin or not. But he saw the heads and shoulders in pew after pew. Presences directed at a backlit priest at the podium, stained glass windows bright behind him. A gatekeeper. Spreading word of how God punishes the sinners and how we are all sinners and how only God can forgive those he punishes. It was all a bunch of malarkey to Don. It was superstition. And everybody knows only their own superstitions matter. They are yours to appease, yours to pray to, yours to sacrifice to.
            Don parked under a tree and shut his eyes. When he opened them, he saw somebody. A girl, a pretty girl on a bicycle. She came toward him through the heat distortion and at first, though he could see the details of her face, Don didn’t recognize her. Even when he did, it took him a moment to remember from where. There were so many towns. So many towns he had been to, one after the other for a decade, that you might forgive him.
            He got out and called hello and motioned for her to stop. She did. It was Franky Hope’s daughter and the first thing she said was, “It’s you!”
            Straddling the bike frame she couldn’t suppress a grin. “What are you doing back here?”
            “I’m not exactly sure.”
            “You’re that ball player, right? Tell me I ain’t crazy.”
            “I can’t tell you that.”
            “But you are. Couldn’t mistake you. Ain’t many people that big.”
            Don looked at her. He looked away at the sky. He couldn’t find the words.
            “You here to pay your respects or something? If so, you’re too late. Funeral was last week.”
            “You heard about it?”
            “Hell, small town. Whole county heard about it. Plus you were on the television.”
            He looked away again.
            “I can take you there, if you want.”
            “Take me where?”
            “To the family. The Murphys.”
            “Right. I know the name.”
            “You’re here to see them, ain’t you? Or maybe you just forgot something?” She grinned again.
            “Yeah. Yeah, I’m here to see them.” He looked around. There was nothing to look at. He looked back at the girl. “Hell, I could use a drink first though.”
            “Bars are closed. Sunday.”
            “This a religious town?”
            “Well, it ain’t really. People just pretend. Habits, you know.”
            In one of the trees a bird called, but briefly. As if it had wanted to say something but thought the better of it.
            “Is it close?”
            “Not too far. Nothing’s too far in this town. You probably want to drive though.”
            “Get in,” Don said. “I’ll put your bike in the bed.”
            She directed Don to the outskirts of town. Beyond the home outside of which they parked were the beginnings of wheat fields. The stalks tall as a man, the grain near harvest. In a breeze the golden grass, as if a hand were running over it, swayed, stretching over little knolls to the horizon. Something in him told him that wide field was the father’s land. That this summer would be a bumper crop and that only good things had lay ahead for the family. Then he told himself it wasn’t his fault. But he didn’t believe it, not really. Regarding him in profile, Aly could see the depths to which he was sinking.
            “Nobody thinks it’s your fault,” she offered. “It was a freak accident. What’s the word. Tragedy.”
            Don turned to her. “I don’t know what to say,” he muttered. “Maybe they aren’t even home.”
            “They’re home. There’s the television on.”
            Don was quiet. He was fighting back tears.
            “It don’t matter what you say. You just have to say it.”
            Don nodded, but he didn’t move.
            “Waiting ain’t gonna solve nothing.”
            “I know it.”
            “So get on with it.”
            He sighed and looked out the windshield. He put his hand on the door handle. All of this very slowly. Then he pushed the door open and got out and walked across the lawn to the front door. Without hesitating any further, he knocked. Three booming knocks. Aly watched all this from the truck. She saw the door open, she saw Mrs. Murphy in an apron clutch her hands to her breast. Before swelling, before bellowing, before going red in the face. She pointed her finger at Don; shrieking, wailing, she pounded his chest. And then like a feather falling she drifted slowly to her knees. She braced herself against the floor. Behind her, through the open doorway, in the semi gloom of the living room, Don could see the boy.
            Aly, very quietly, got out and pulled her bike out of the bed of the truck. She pedaled a good distance away and when she looked back, nobody had moved. It was like they were all frozen there.

 About the author: Jacob William Cox was born in San Francisco and raised in Hawaii. His travels have taken him through Europe, South America and Asia, and he reads insatiably. His work has appeared in The Basil O'Flaherty, Atticus Review, Belleville Park Pages and The Santa Clara Review. ​

---