May the Road Rise Up to Meet You: A Novel (18 page)

Sir, the Umpire says to Harry, let’s remember that we are gentlemen here—and that there are ladies present.

And as Smitty throws the ball back to Harry, the pitcher lifts his cap and bows slightly toward the batter, who nods back at the apparent apology. Harry then places his cap under one arm and turns toward Finny at shortstop, as he rubs some dirt into the ball.

Steady there, Harry, Finny says with a knowing smile.

Right-oh, Fin, Harry replies in a mock English accent. Jolly good.

Then he returns to the pitcher’s box and fires another pitch every
bit as fast as the first one, only this time a little closer to the batter’s chin. The batter takes three steps backward to get out of the way, then slams his bat down on the ground. And the crowd is mixed once again between the
oohhs
and
aahhs
and hisses, as if some of them are holding on to the gentler past while others cheer the approach of the future. Of course, Smitty does what he does best by adding a little fuel to the matter, walking up to the batter and picking up his discarded bat, flipping it once in his hand end to end, and handing it to him.

Let’s remember there are ladies present, laddy, he says, and winks one eye at him.

Smitty stands nearly six feet with shoulders almost as broad as Harry’s, and the batter, a full six inches shorter and forty pounds lighter, accepts his bat back without much more of a protest. The Umpire can just mutter the same nonsense about being gentlemen, but there’s nothing in the rules to tell Harry to do otherwise. The next pitch follows the pattern, only this time splitting home base and crossing at the batter’s waist, and the Umpire, reluctantly, issues the warning to the batter that the next good pitch will be “called” a strike. And the Excelsiors, by way of Terrance Harrison, Harry to be precise, have just done a little bit of their own innovating of the game. The next pitch is thrown with the same authority, and the batter swings late at it, hitting it feebly to the first-base side of the infield, where he is easily retired. And so on it goes, through the rest of that inning, the Knickerbockers retired in order and with similar ease, the last one even striking out!

The full measure of the moment isn’t truly seen until the top half of the second, as the Knickerbocker pitcher delivers his first pitch under the intent gaze of everyone in attendance. He kicks his front leg almost as high as Harry did, driving his weight forward and bending at the waist as his arm propels the ball forward, overhanded, toward Smitty, the Excelsiors’ batter. It sails high, even over the catcher’s head, and the next one bounces five feet before home base. But eventually he settles into this new delivery, and the game has now become anything
but
a pleasant Sunday afternoon’s activity where gentlemen may recreate and exercise all at once. This is something much more than that, with neither side willing to yield.

By the end of the fourth inning, the crowd has swelled to such a
size that they now are stretched in a line two or three deep across the entire outfield, and though the game is still scoreless, the Umpire has been a more regular participant in this game than any contest anyone can recall having seen before. Already he has called out three batters on strikes, issued multiple warnings for failure to swing at fairly pitched balls, been the final arbiter on several close plays on the base paths, and fined Harry twenty-five cents for saying the word
damn
when he fouled a pitched ball off his foot. Since no one was quite sure to whom the fine should be paid, the Umpire rescinded it and Harry got off with a warning, until he said it again just a minute later, and the Umpire demanded half a dollar from him, to be given to one of the orphanages in town.

Ethan comes to bat in the top half of the fifth inning with one out and Finny on second base. Taking his familiar left-handed hitting stance, flexing his wrists and forearms made strong by years of fishing, he swings at the second pitch and sends the ball screaming back past the pitcher and out into center field. Finny races home with the Excelsiors’ first run, and the less finely dressed amongst the spectators cheer loudly enough to betray their Brooklyn roots, though they don’t seem to care just then. And for the first time since the inception of the Knickerbockers Ball Club, it seems that the Elysian Fields have been invaded by a hostile throng, some of them, worst of all,
immigrants
.

The score remains the same until the bottom half of the seventh inning, when a Knickerbocker batter slams a foul ball down the third-base line, scattering several spectators and striking one of them on the forehead. The victim hadn’t been paying attention to the action on the field, too busy looking through his wooden box camera, and several people in the crowd laugh when they see him go down. But as he lies there, dazed on the ground, concern for him grows. Ethan’s among the people and players who walk over to tend to him, until finally a physician steps forward and reassures everyone that he’ll be all right. Still, at the end of the inning, Ethan walks past him on his way in from the field.

Are you all right there, sir? he asks.

Embarrassed more than hurt, he replies, though his voice sounds weak. That was some ball you struck a few innings ago, he adds

Ethan nods his appreciation, then turns toward the camera. He’s
seen them before, even once up close, but he’s never seen the view from under the small black curtain draped over it. The man notices Ethan’s interest and lifts up the curtain for Ethan to take a look. It’s a wooden box about eighteen inches square in front and connected to a smaller wooden board in back by six inches of accordion bellows, and Ethan wears a boyish smile as he leans toward it and the man drapes the curtain over his head. All goes dark until he presses an eye to the viewfinder and sees the field and the buildings across the river just as they’d been all along, only now defined by the frame the lens provides. It’s as if he’s taking a piece of the moment, trimming out the less important surroundings, and telling the story from his own view. He watches for several minutes as the Excelsiors are retired in order.

I’d better get back out there, he says, pulling his head out from under the curtain to see Finny trotting out toward shortstop. Thanks for the view, Mr.…

Hadley, the man says. Come back next inning if you’d like.

Of all the lads on the team, Ethan’s interests have always cast the largest net. He’d once insisted that Finny take him up to the tower of Brooklyn City Hall, where Finny worked as a doorman, so he could see the large clock from behind with all its inner workings exposed. He’s placed Harry on permanent alert to let him know when ships from exotic places come into port and spend the night. So it’s this kind of interest, this curiosity, that shares an equal part of his focus when he takes the field for the bottom half of the eighth inning. The Knickerbockers get two men aboard and Mr. Hadley begins moving his camera closer and closer to the foul line to get a picture of the batter. Ethan watches him adjust the tripod and focus the lens and is so engrossed that it takes the sound of the bat hitting the ball to snap his attention fully back to the game. From the look of Finny in front of him, he can tell the ball is hit in his direction, but when he looks into the sky, he sees nothing but sunshine.

Back Perfessor, back! Finny shouts from shortstop.

And Ethan turns over his left shoulder and begins drifting back, a few slow strides at first, until he finally catches sight of the ball and sees how far over his head it is. By the time he reaches it, he’s at the edge of the crowd gathered in left field and it’s still rolling slowly away from
him. He finally picks it up and hurls it back toward the infield, but not before the two Knickerbockers score and the batter stands safely on third. Harry retires the next batter, but the damage has been done, and Ethan feels the disappointment of having let his team down. The Excelsiors trail two to one.

Nobody says anything to Ethan about the lapse. In fact, it becomes clear that nobody even saw the delay in Ethan’s break on the ball, just that it was hit well over his head and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. But it hangs on Ethan’s mind as Harry picks up another half dollar in fines for foul language as the Excelsiors prepare to take their final turn at bat. Smitty hits a ball high and far to lead off the inning, but the center fielder catches up to it, lets it bounce once, and catches it with ease to record the first out. Then it’s Finny, and he becomes the first man in the entire contest to reach base safely two times, this one the product of a cleanly struck single over the shortstop’s head. And then it’s Ethan’s turn again.

He takes the first pitch and the Umpire warns him that the next one like it will be a called strike. The second delivery is almost exactly the same as the first, and he launches his weight forward off his back foot, uncoiling his body as he always does, with his wrists, shoulders, and hips opening at the point of contact, driving the ball in the air toward right field. It takes off, gaining height as it travels, while the stunned Knickerbocker fielder turns and gives chase. At first the spectators, lined up along the outfield nearly three hundred feet from home base, are stunned as well and stand still as the ball approaches them. Then a lady screams and the crowd suddenly begins to scramble out of the way, with only a few of them stopping to watch with open mouths as the ball sails over their heads and lands with a splash at the edge of the Hudson River. The right fielder races through the crowd and to the end of the short bluff at the river’s edge, but by the time the ball bobs up to the surface, it’s twenty feet downstream and headed out quickly to the bay. He runs back through the outfield crowd and shouts toward the infield, throwing his arms above his head in disgust.

It’s gone … it’s gone down the river! he shouts.

By the time Ethan crosses home base, the crowd is as delirious as such a refined gathering can be, knowing that it’s only the second time
a batter has reached the river that year, and the first time anyone has
ever
reached it on a fly, so long as anyone can recall. Even Knickerbocker supporters are cheering him for the feat, and Ethan’s teammates swarm him, slapping him on the back and shouting
Perfessor!
as he waves to his Mam and Da and Aunt Em and Paddy standing not too far away. Even Seanny summons up a proud smile. But the elation of the moment fades not long afterward when they realize that, as was the case with most contests, they’d only brought one ball to the game. For a moment it looks like a brawl might break out as Harry yells that the Knickerbockers were the host team and they had to provide the ball, which they of course remind him they had until Ethan went and knocked it into the water
on purpose
!

The Umpire finally decides that they should play another game in two Sundays, playing this one to its rightful conclusion first. A reporter from the
Herald
is there, and he calls Mr. Hadley over to get a picture of Ethan. There are questions to be answered and folks who come up to offer congratulations, and even a few Knickerbockers who want to shake his hand. Mam and Da and Aunt Em and Paddy are soon headed home on the ferry, knowing Ethan’ll be a while here and then with the lads at Feeny’s. Seanny’s leaving too, but not until after he brings a few of his associates to meet Ethan and mentions that his kid brother is just now doing some work with him and the lads down at Tammany. Ethan begins to correct Seanny, wanting to tell the Wall Street–looking men that he’s still just a fisherman and a ballplayer and had only told Seanny that he’d reconsider the matter when the summer ball season was done. But his attention is quickly drawn away again as he sees Mr. Hadley begin to walk off with his camera. He joins the last of the crowd walking to the ferry but lingers a few feet behind most of his teammates while talking with Mr. Hadley the whole time, even carrying the camera for the old man. Mr. Hadley wants to talk about the home run Ethan hit, but Ethan’s the one peppering
him
with questions, wanting to learn everything he can about taking pictures.

You know lad, Mr. Hadley finally says as Ethan hands him back his camera to board the ferry. I’ve a small office in the Brooklyn Heights where I take portraits. Anytime you want to come by and learn more, I’d be glad to teach you what I know.

Oh, you can be sure he’ll be there, Harry says from nearby. Ol’ Perfessor won’t be happy ’til he knows everything there is t’know in this world.

He knows how to hit, Smitty adds, an’ that’s all I care.

The fishing was done by ten o’clock the very next day since it was just him without Da, and he washed as much of the smell off him as he could without taking a full-on bath. A couple of nice fluke would buy a few pints at Feeny’s, or a used book in pretty good condition, but Ethan had other ideas in mind for this day. He took the dollar and a half that was his share of three dollars’ worth of fish, stuffed the fifty cents in his pocket, and the dollar went in his top bureau drawer, the beginning, he decided that morning, of his own personal camera fund.

He still went out on the skiff six days a week, though Da, starting to feel the ache of arthritic bones, had begun to take regular days off. On the days when it was just Ethan, he’d generally stay out until well into the afternoon, doing the real fishing from six to noon or so, then drifting for a while without much more than a single line draped over the side and him with a book in his hands, of course. It might’ve been a glorious season but for the lingering question he’d managed to put off for one summer more. He was twenty-two by now, and it was time to step off the boat for real, as Seanny’d said just a few months before. But everything was all about to change today, Ethan figured, since he’d found what it was he wanted to do.

So he put on his best suit for the first time since the debacle with the Dean, and walked the three blocks to Fulton Street not far from City Hall, walking east until he found the small storefront window that read:
J. M. Hadley, Daguerreotypist
. And beneath it:
Portraits, $1.00
. Inside was a small waiting room, and there was a young man and woman seated in the corner, wearing their Sunday clothes, too. Ethan looked around for a moment, then at the young couple again.