The Brothers K (82 page)

But on May 29, 1971, one nonvicarious contributor to the Pirates’ success had managed to trickle his way down to Portland for a visit. His name was Dr. David Hockenberry, or, as he preferred, “plain Doctor Dave,” and he was one of the first men in history to call himself a “sports psychologist”—a discipline which, in those days, was being invented by its practitioners as they went along. But a lot of respectable artists operate in this manner. “Plain Doctor Dave’s” work with the Pirates was said by the players themselves to have been instrumental in creating the “great family feeling” that was now leading the team on to success. So as the team bus rolled down along the Columbia River heading home from Spokane, and Papa drowsed by a window, trying not to think of Irwin, Tug skipper Howie Bowen herded his starting lineup into the front few seats, announced that Doctor Dave of the Pirates was about to generate some great family feeling among them, and added that they’d damn well better not make a joke out of it or he’d fine their butts good. That said, Bowen parked his own butt on the dash to the right of the driver and proceeded to scrutinize his starters for taxable signs of levity. “Okay,” was Doctor Dave’s reaction to this. “I want you guys to relax while I load my rifle, stick the barrel down your throats, and ask you a few playful family questions.”

While some of the players chuckled at this, and Bowen looked confused, Papa opened one eye and peeked out at Hockenberry, wondering whether he might be about to witness a fellow baseball Kentuckian in action. “I’m teasing,” the psychologist told Coach Bowen. “But we
are
about to play a game the Bucs call Round Table. And it really does have one rule, Howie. No manager or coaches within earshot.”

The glower deepened. “You’re makin’ that up,” Bowen growled.

Doctor Dave looked surprised. “You’re a manager yourself, Howie. You must’ve heard why the Pirates fired Grammas and rehired Danny Murtaugh last year.”

Bowen was not at all happy to have to admit that he hadn’t.

“Well,” said Doctor Dave. “We’d been rained out in Frisco, and had some hours to kill before the plane to LA. So down in the locker room the starters and me got deep into a game of Round Table. And they were just laying their hearts on the table, Howie—honesty like you wouldn’t believe, several men in tears, one unashamedly sucking his thumb—when Willie Stargell stepped out to take a leak. And there was Coach Grammas hiding amongst the urinals, spying on us!”

Bowen snorted in disbelief.

“I know,” said Doctor Dave. “I didn’t think Grammas’d try a wormy stunt like that either.”

That wasn’t what Bowen’s snort had meant. But he was bewildered enough by now to shake his head and trudge muttering off down the aisle.

“Howie wants ‘family feeling,’” Doctor Dave said the instant he was out of earshot. “He’s ready to play Dad—if it’ll win him some games. But you guys must know that though some of you will leave here to move up, others of you will be moving sideways, or down, or just plain out. And who decides which way you move?” He jerked a thumb toward the back of the bus. “Ol’ Dad. Now imagine a family with a father who occasionally declares to one of his sons, ‘You’re cut!’ or ‘You’re traded!’ and ships the little guy off forever on the next bus or plane. Imagine it good. Because
that
, me would-be Buckos, is the only kind of dad Howie or Danny Murtaugh or any other manager will ever be to you. So let me share a Big League Baseball Psychology Secret with you:
screw dads!
Ballplayers should be like brothers to each other, and that’s it. That’s all the family feeling we’re gonna shoot for. If that seems harsh, if you wanna feel as if you’re working with Dad, Mom or Sis, you better find yourself a different job.”

Seeing the majority of the men staring incredulously, and the rest looking a little glum, Doctor Dave added, “Hey. Don’t you worry. Playing ball with loyal brothers is a very fine thing. Didn’t it give you a brotherly rush of feeling, for instance, when I lied my head off to Howie just now to get his dadly ass outta here?”

Hearing the men roar and wondering what brought it on, Coach Bowen leaned into the aisle to glare up at them. “Family feeling!” Doctor Dave called out, giving him a thumbs-up sign. “It’s already working—Dad!” The men roared again.

R
ound Table turned out to be nothing but a verbal pepper game, with Doctor Dave firing random questions and the Tugs all answering in turn. The only rule was that the players had to answer quickly, and the only purpose, according to Dave, was to allow the players to prove to one another that they had interesting minds. But this last assertion was greeted with visible skepticism by some of the men, and Round Table was slow to get rolling. If Hockenberry hadn’t been a master at putting people at ease it could have gotten downright grim. As it was, the game soon reminded Papa of something that Bet and Freddy might have enjoyed during their Famous Science days. “What I’d like to know first—and
names will slow us down, so permit me to point” (Dave pulled a silver ballpoint from his pocket)—“is where we’re going, where this bus is headed. Your answer can be as simple or as complicated as you like, long as it’s quick.” The ballpoint pointed.

Hector Harris, the shortstop and leadoff hitter, didn’t hesitate, but didn’t exactly scintillate either. “We’re headed for Portland, Oregon,” he said.

Doctor Dave’s ballpoint moved. “Same question.”

Jim McGeorge, the second baseman, shrugged. “I’d say ol’ Hector hit the nail smack on the head.”

“Keystone cooperation,” said Dave. “That’s good. But now bunt back some other answer, no matter how nuts. Where are we headed?”

McGeorge glanced out at the Columbia, shrugged again, and said, “Downriver.”

Ty Daniels, the starting pitcher: “Due west.”

Gil Jarrel, the cowboy first baseman: “Down that long lonesome highway.”

B. G. Anderson, the hippie left fielder: “T’find my baby on the magic bus.”

Dwight “No Last Name” Darrel, the center fielder and resident sci-fi buff: “We are heading toward a geometrical configuration of inorganic material called a stadium, with its foundation sunk in an immense globular unit called earth, and its roof sticking up into a more nebulous substance called sky.”

“New question,” said Doctor Dave. “What the hell’s Darrel talkin’ about? Like what does he mean, for starters, by a ‘globular unit called earth’?”

His pen pointed. Jaime Ramos, the Costa Rican rookie third baseman, looked panic-stricken. “Doort?” he piped. Jaime and English weren’t on real close terms.

Gil Jarrel snickered. Dave’s pen jumped. The starting catcher, Wilson “No First Name” Walker, said, “Our planet, Dave. The man meant our planet.”

“Yes,” said Doctor Dave. “Planet Doort. Now quick. Gil. What is
suelo?”

Gil Jarrel: “Heck if I know.”

“Basura?”

Gil: “Dunno.”

“How ’bout
tierra?”

Gil: “Beats me.”

Doctor Dave: “Jaime?”

Ramos gave Gil an apologetic look, as if the intricacies of his language were all his fault, then explained,
“Suelo
ees thay soil doort.
Basura
ees feelth, or doort.
Tierra
, she ees thay planet Doort.”

“Hey, Gil,” said Jim McGeorge. “What is
tequila?”

“What is a
señorita
, hombre?” Ty Daniels chimed in.

“What is
beisbol
, Gil?” McGeorge asked.

“I get the point, assholes,” Jarrel muttered.

“So where would you say our fine planet is located?” asked Doctor Dave.

The right fielder, Jimmy Sims, gave it some thought, then answered, “Space.”

“Astute,” Dave said. “And where do you suppose this ‘space’ is located?”

No First Name Walker: “Everywhere. Nowhere. Fuck if I know.”

“Help him out, Jaime,” said Doctor Dave. “Where is space?”

The third baseman sucked his cheeks, bugged his eyes, then pointed at the sky.

Doctor Dave smiled, then pointed his pen at Gil Jarrel.

“Hey, Ramos,” Gil said. “How do you say ‘nail’?”

“Clavo.”

“How ’bout ‘head’?”

“Cabeza,”
Jaime said.

“Well,” said Gil. “I’d say our man Ramos hit the ol’
clavo
smack on the
cabeza.”

Jaime smiled. The men laughed. Doctor Dave said, “So what
is
space, anyhow?” And his ballpoint started bouncing.

Jim McGeorge: “What I don’t know about space’d pretty well fill it.”

Jimmy Sims: “Space? Hard to say what space is, Dave. But don’t you worry. They’s plenty of it.”

Ty Daniels: “Space is space, Dave. It fills the universe.”

No Last Name Darrel: “But space is empty, Ty.”

Ty Daniels: “Hey, man. If you’ve got everything there is floatin’ in you, I’d say you’re
full
, not empty.”

Doctor Dave: “New question. Who’s right?” His pen pointed.

B. G. Anderson: “I’d say they both are. I’d say space is the full emptiness that keeps all the stars and planets and other pieces of universe from getting hideously mangled together into an unthinkably thick glob.”

“I’m gettin’ a fuckin’ headache,” groaned No First Name Walker.

“New question, then,” said Dave. “World’s easiest. Name one of the somethings that float in the nothing called space.”

Jim McGeorge shrugged. “Planet Doort.”

Dave nodded. “Name another.” The pen pointed.

Jaime Ramos, still a little stage-frightened, piped,
“El sol?”

“Damn betcha,” said Doctor Dave. “And how would you describe the relationship between planet Doort and
el sol?”

Gil Jarrel: “Warmly.”

Jim McGeorge: “Distant.”

No Last Name Darrel: “Essential.”

“Warm, distant, essential. Which is it?” asked Doctor Dave. The pen pointed.

“Boaf,” said Jimmy Sims. “Sun’s like a woman, Dave. Too close she’ll burn ya. ’Thout her you die.”

“That was poetry, Jimmy,” B.G. sighed.

“Wudn’t exactly math, though,” said Ty. “One ’n’ one ’n’ one makes boaf?”

Jimmy shrugged. “Woman do that to a man’s math.”

“Which is why he invented polygamy,” said Doctor Dave. “But what else? What else goes on around the sun?”

No Last Name Darrel: “Planets, Dave. Our particular planet, Doort, shares space with eight others, just like a ball team. And they all circle the sun, same as us.”

“So tell me more about the eight.” The pen pointed.

Hector Harris: “We’re the only one with life, except for bugs or lichen or something, on Mars, I think.”

No First Name Walker: “Venus. Thas a planet. An’ Saturn got rings.”

Jim McGeorge: “There’s one named Pluto, and one named Goofy.”

Ty Daniels: “How important planets are to us isn’t clear, exactly. Like there’s people, called astrologers, who think planets are so powerful they control the whole way we act and feel. And there’s normal folks who say things like ‘There’s the Evening Star,’ not worrying about how it’s really a planet. But then the astrologers turn around and say it’s their planets that allows ’em not to worry.”

Doctor Dave turned back to Jaime and pointed at the sky. “Anything else worth mentionin’ up there?”

Ramos, with his four-hundred-word English vocabulary, was looking almost scholarly now.
“La luna,”
he said, giving his head a jaunty wiggle. “Thay moon.”

Papa had been sitting quiet, eyes closed, basking in the friendly pointlessness
of the game. But at the words
Thay moon
he heard a high, piping echo:
Thay moon is lellow
… And saw Irwin. His face at age one and a half or so. Beaming up at him. One fat little finger pointing. And just that fast Papa was struggling not to sob.

“So what do we know about the moon?” asked Doctor Dave.

“Got a lost golf ball on it,” said Ty. “And an American flag.”

“An’ pro’ly a bag or two o’ astronaut shit,” said No Last Name Walker.

“So they best be watchin’ out,” said Jimmy Sims, “where they be takin’ the next giant step for mankind.”

The men roared. Dave’s pen pointed. “It’s round like a world, the ol’ moon is,” said Gil Jarrel. “But it’s lots different than Earth. Like it’s cold. Whereas we’ve got fire inside. And it’s got no water. We do. And no air, I don’t think. Does it?”

The pen pointed. “Nope,” said No Last Name Darrel. “No air, no water. Doesn’t spin on its axis either. Moon keeps its same face towards us all the time. Which is why, until that space capsule with the camera orbited, nobody knew what the back side even looked like. And it was better that way, didn’t you think? Didn’t you love, as a kid, to look up at the moon and wonder what might be hiding on the dark side?”

Lellow
… Papa couldn’t get a grip, couldn’t shake the little voice—or the shaved head, the scars, the jittering eyes.

“You can still wonder plenty,” B. G. Anderson said.

“Naw.” No Last Name shook his head. “The astronauts wrecked it, for me.”

“I knew an old guy,” B.G. said, “a damn strange, damn smart fella too, who told me the moon is really a dead world. I don’t know how he knew it, or even
if
he knew, really. But that’s what he said. And the way he said it, I believed him.”

“Thay moon,” said Jaime Ramos, “she’s fool tonight.”

“Theeeeere’s a dead world on the rise,”
sang Ty.

“There could be,” B.G. insisted. “There really could be. And if it
is
a dead world, then there’s still plenty to wonder about. Like maybe we all came, human beings I mean, from the moon. Like maybe it was
our
world once, in ancient times, and it was dying. So maybe we rode it here—you know, drifted here through space. Or even propelled it here, maybe, like if we were advanced then, and lost or forgot the advancements later. So maybe the first man and woman on Earth, or first non-cave-type man and woman, were just two people from that dying world who found some way to get down to this one. And once they got here, and got settled, maybe they would look back up, knowing that all the rest
of their people were still there. Maybe they’d have to hold each other when it rose, all orange and full and close. Maybe that’s where our romantic notions about the moon first came from. Two people holding each other to keep their hearts from breaking, because everybody they knew was dying in the cold rocks and dust piles a quarter million miles away …”