Original Sins (48 page)

Jed was paralyzed. “It ain't time for your break yet, Raymond,” he finally murmured.

Raymond looked at him and smiled. “I feel like a smoke.”

Home Office and Expert exchanged looks.

Jed felt his fists tightening. “This man needs you to do your job so's he can time you.”

Raymond exhaled. “I know yall'd like me to be a machine, but I'm afraid I ain't. Sometimes I want a smoke. Sometimes I get tired. Sometimes I'm sad or hung over. How do you time that?”

“Look, Raymond, this here man's got him his job to do. And so do you. Now unload them goddam bobbins.”

Raymond blew out a steady stream of smoke and gazed at Jed through it. “Baby brother, why don't you just go get yourself stuffed? And then enroll yourself in some kind of industrial museum, like the anachronism that you are.”

Jed felt his face go red. He didn't have no idea what Raymond was talking about. This was what Raymond had always done in high school—started using big words nobody could understand. But in high school Jed could just punch him out. They'd trained him in foreman school to handle such situations. Expert was watching him, but he didn't have a clue what to do.

Expert spotted another machine that was about to switch off and walked toward it. Jed followed, glaring over his shoulder at Raymond. He saw Home Office make a note in his book and wondered if it was about his unsuitability to be foreman. Goddam Raymond anyhow. Always trying to make him look bad.

In the locker room he changed from his coveralls and shirt and tie into his softball shirt. Grey with red lettering: Benson Mills I. They had them their own mill league, half a dozen teams. And the best players from each, of whom Jed was one, were on the Benson Mill team that played in the city league. The Princes had always supplied the shirts, and awarded trophies at a banquet at the season's end. He'd like to ask those union people how many companies had presidents that would of did this. Gingerly he touched the roll of fat that was beginning to hang out over his belt. Sally spent her days trying to cook his favorite foods. Even if he wasn't hungry, he ate them, so he wouldn't hurt her feelings. Frankly she couldn't cook as good as his mother. But she was trying hard and improving fast. He better start doing some regular exercises.

The one bad thing about being foreman, Jed reflected as he stood in center field poised for the next pitch, was that then he'd have to play on the supervisors' team. They usually lost 23-1, or something pitiful like that. They was mostly too old and too fat. And what your workers couldn't do on the shop floor, they did on the ball field, so that they was really out to get you. If they was one thing Jed hated, it was losing. Coach Clancy used to say, “I don't hold with none of this ‘it's how you play the game' fairy crap. I don't want nobody on this team who ain't going out on that field to
win.
If you lose, you've failed, is how I see it. You're a disgrace to your school, a disgrace to your town, a disgrace to your coach, and a disgrace to yourself.”

The carding room foreman popped a fly to left field. Jed caught it on the run and shot it to second for a double play. As he trotted in to bat, he caught sight of Sally sitting on a blanket in the grass, to one side of the bleachers. The kids toddled and tumbled around her, while she smiled at them lovingly. He grinned and waved, and she waved back. She was a good girl. A wonderful mother. A devoted wife. As his teammates got on base, or failed to, he sneaked glances at his family. Joey was walking underneath the bleachers; squatting and playing with candy wrappers; crawling up on the seats from below, startling and charming their occupants. He could remember doing the exact same thing. And here he was a big huge man now, who could no more fit between those bleachers … It was a funny thing thinking that one day your little baby son was going to be a big man just like you. And you, you'd be …

He hit a line drive past the shortstop and got on first.

Back in the left field he took off his cap and put it back on the way he liked it, with the bill just above his eyebrows. He had to jut out his chin to see out from under it, but it kept the sun out of his eyes when he was trying to follow a fly. The sun was setting behind the hill in back of the bleachers, where several players stood in the bushes with their backs to the field taking leaks.

Mr. Meaker hit a low line drive toward left field. Mr. Meaker was his boss this month. Whatever Mr. Meaker wanted was fine. If he wanted to run around those bases, wonderful. As Jed thought and dismissed this, he was automatically running in on the ball. He put down his glove to scoop it up—and it shot past him. He stared at it. He never missed this catch. The crowd roared as Meaker rounded second. Jed retrieved the ball and stopped him at third.

“That was pretty pathetic, Tatro,” Hank said, grinning as they trotted in to bat.

“Jesus, I don't know what happened. Must of taken a bad bounce.”

Hank laughed. “It didn't take no bounce, Tatro. You just lost your interest in killing the bastards is all.” “What you talking about?”

“Well, you're about to join up with them, ain't you?”

“Yeah, but I don't see what that's got to do with playing ball.”

“You don't?”

“No, I don't.”

In the bottom of the sixth the score was 27-3. The supervisors couldn't get three outs. Everyone's supper was getting cold. Finally they forfeited good-humoredly, as they usually ended up doing. Jed wasn't sure he'd be able to stand it. Was it worth the extra salary and prestige to forfeit ball games with a smile? He guessed it probably was. Like Coach Clancy used to say, you had to pick your fights careful-like. “You got only so much fight in you, right? You fight with your girl, you got no fight left for the ball field. But which is most important?” Well, this situation here was the opposite. All right, sure, you lost softball games, but you was winning at the really important game.

He flopped down on the blanket and kissed Sally. She was laying out fried chicken. He stuffed half a deviled
egg
in his mouth and said as he chewed, “Lord, woman, I could eat me a horse. What you got for us here?” He rolled over and knocked over a Coke bottle with a jonquil in it.

“Hey, honey, you're squashing my flower!” He sat up while Sally stuck it back in the bottle and set it off to one side.

Jed was gnawing a chicken thigh. “Hey, Sal! Remember this blanket?”

She studied the olive army blanket with the dark wet splotch in the middle. “Sure. We've always had this blanket. You carry it around in the back of the Chevy.”

“Don't you remember? We used to keep it down in the powder magazine. We was lying on it that night when … uh …”

“Oh yeah.”

“Those were wild times.”

“Yeah, they sure were.”

They had never talked about it, not even while it was going on. Did she know about his struggle over whether to marry her or leave town? He'd never told her about the talk with Mr. Marsh. What had it been like for her? “Are you sorry it happened?”

She hesitated. “How could I be sorry, silly?” She leaned over and kissed him. “Look at all the nice things that have happened to me because of it.” She gestured to Jed and the children, who were scuffling in the grass over the jonquil. “Are you sorry, darling?”

“Oh hell, no. I mean it's too bad we was rushed. But it's what I would of wanted anyway.” He was recalling how good it felt that evening to run in on flies and pluck them out of the air and shoot them like bullets to the basemen, to connect with a pitch and send the ball hurtling beyond the outfield. He remembered the thrill of placing a block just right, so that the back could move through the hole for a first down. He remembered feeling and hearing the crowd rise as one to cheer his tackles. He never had this now. He could of had four more years of it at college. Then pro ball? Had he been good enough? He'd never know. Sometimes he'd imagine Joey playing halfback for the Rams or something. You'd have to be tough, though—either not want the girls, or not feel responsible if you knocked them up. Like that cowboy in
Beyond the Rio Grande
, which he'd read last week. Fuck them and then ride off into the sunset, never looking back, while they fell to their knees and wept and pleaded with you to stay. Not care about being away from your parents and family most of the year. Living in hotels, picking up strange girls, eating in restaurants, flying all around the country … He sighed.

“Are you sad, honey?” Sally asked, playing with his damp hair.

“I don't know.” He sat up, picked up Joey's large inflated ball, and threw it at him. Joey had been stumbling around holding the jonquil in both hands, his nose stuck it in like a giant besotted bee. The ball hit him in the forehead. He looked up, startled.

“Hey, Joey! Don't cry, son. Boys don't cry. Be Daddy's little man.”

Unconvinced, Joey began to shudder, preparing to wail.

“Come here, son!”

Joey edged closer, fearfully. Jed took the jonquil. “Flowers are for girls. Let's you and me play ball.” He handed the battered jonquil to Sally, who handed it to the baby, who shoved it in her mouth.

Joey and Jed tossed the ball. Joey would gather in both arms when he saw it coming. If he happened to have the ball in them when he did so, it was strictly by coincidence. Eventually Jed took him by the hand and led him to the bushes on the hill behind the bleachers. They stood with their backs to the field and their hands in front of them. Joey's head was nearly hidden by the bushes.

“Daddy and Joey, we the men!” he announced as he swaggered back to Sally.

“That's right, darling,” she cooed, gathering him in her arms and planting a kiss on his pink cheek. He pushed her away, struggling to escape.

The next morning was brilliantly sunny. Jed and Hank were putting siding on the new room. Joey was stumbling around hitting things with a hammer.

“I really predate your help on this, Hank old buddy,” Jed said as he drove a nail.

“Hey, would you please stop telling me that? It's getting downright boring.”

“But I do.”

“Shit, I know you do. And I know you'll do the same for me when I need it.”

“You going to be needing you an extra room sometime soon?” Jed looked up with a grin. He took a long drink of beer.

“We're thinking on it.”

“Well, you won't never regret it. Children is a real blessing to a marriage.”

“Yeah, but we're worried that you can't just pick up and go out to a movie no more when you feel like it.”

“Well, yeah, that's true. But pretty soon you stop feeling like it. You get so you'd rather stay around-the-house with—the kids.”

“That's what we're afraid of.”

Jed looked at him indignantly. “It ain't so bad.”

“Not for some people. But we ain't sure we're that type.” He put down his hammer and took a gulp of beer and wiped his forehead with his forearm.

“Well, you just do what you do, buddy, and one day they's three of you where there used to be two.”

“That's what happened to
you.
After that, I swore it wouldn't never happen like that to me.”

“Goddam, I don't know how you can be so cold and calculating about it. Sally and me, we just couldn't help ourselves.”

Hank inquired unpleasantly, “You trying to say, Tatro, that you just so much more of a man than me? I do hear tell you're a pretty horny fella.”

“You do? Who from?” Jed grinned.

“Who do you think from?”

“What's your old lady been telling you?”

“Just that you never treated her like nothing but shit. Jumped on her and came and took her home.”

Jed was stunned. “That ain't so.”

“She said you never had no use for her whenever things was going good with Sally. Except to get laid. She said you wouldn't even say hi to her in the hall at school.”

“Ah, come on now. That ain't fair. She was putting out for ever boy in town.”

“That's what you used to spread around school. But it wasn't true. She loved you, Tatro. You're the only one she was putting out for. And you didn't treat her like nothing but dirt.”

“I never did. That's just a lie, pure and simple.” “You calling my woman a liar?”

“Yeah, if it comes to that.” They had raised their fists and were slowly circling, stepping over construction rubble.

“She says you all the time leering at her over at the mill, like you and tier's got some kind of dark secret or something. But I tell you what, buddy: From now on you keep your eyes offen her, and your filthy thoughts too. Cause she's
my
woman.”

Jed laughed. “You don't have to worry, Osborne. Why, I wouldn't screw that woman with a ten-foot pole!” He'd never speak to Betty Boobs again.

Hank laughed. “Dream on, Tatro. Ten-foot pole! Sally's lucky if she can even tell when you've put it in her!”

Jed's fist caught Hank in the stomach. They began exchanging blows. Joey dropped the hammer and watched with wide eyes and mouth. A couple of neighborhood dogs stopped by and began barking.

Locked in a clinch, each tried to push the other away and free up a hand to get in a punch. Sally came out the door in her apron with Laura on her hip. Joey was hopping up and down yelling, “Pow! Pow!” Sally sighed.

Jed heard her yelling, “All right, stop it right now, you two! And I mean it!”

She pushed them apart, them scowling but cooperative. “Now aren't you ashamed? A couple of big men acting like little boys!”

Jed's snarl began to feel ridiculous. He hung his head sheepishly. “Hank started it.”

“Oh, stop it!” Sally snapped. “For goodness sake, come and eat some lunch.”

They sat at the table in silence as Sally served up pot roast and mashed potatoes and gravy. On the TV David Niven was waltzing around. “What is this shit?” Jed muttered, switching to the Knicks-Celtics game.