JOHN HILDEBIDLE
57
He didn't need that. He just didn't
need
that. He fell back to sleep
once a breeze came up, and since they weren't working out until two
he slept right through breakfast and looked over the papers at lunch.
The local rag didn't even have a box score and only wanted to talk
about this kid pitcher Kelly would have had three hits off of if his bat
hadn't broken once and if the shortstop'hadn't gotten lucky one other
time. He found a day-old New York paper too. The big club was
there, and there was lots of ink about it, the rivalry and all. He read
the stories his own way, looking for pulled muscles or maybe some–
body was 0-for-20 and just what they could use was a right-hand bat.
But the big club was winning and healthy and it was like being locked
up. One goddamn groin pull was all he needed, somewhere up the
line so they called somebody up and he moved to triple-A where he
ought to be anyway, and goodbye tanktown eat my dust.
It
was god–
damn well time.
He had a good day in batting practice even though Manny kept
bitching at him about keep your hands back - Manny who spent
maybe four days in the bigs once and ifhe was lucky could hit his hat
size in a slow-pitch league. The Skip said maybe Kelly should get in
some work at third, so he spent half an hour taking ground balls that
went every which way off the rocks. One caught him over the ear
and he'd had enough; now he had a headache of his own, right? And
Caldwell opened his big mouth and said, "What time you get in last
night?" right in front of the Skip, who gave Kelly a look like maybe
he'd been out catting all night. By four o'clock the air was heavy as
peanut butter and they all went back to the hotel for a nap. Kelly
tossed around dreaming of baseballs that bounced and hopped with
a mad life of their own.
The Skip sat him down that night even though he'd eaten this
pitcher like Wheaties the last time through. They wanted to get a
good look at the college boy they'd just signed, who had a pretty swing
and already smiled all the time like he was posing for the gum cards.
By the bottom of the third they were down six and the college kid
kept smiling while he struck out on a pitch that was more charity
than fast ball. Kelly remembered the phone call and told the Skip he
had to pee, which meant a walk back across the parking lot to a Citgo
station. There was no phone there so he went down the block to a
booth. Nobody answered at home or at her sister's either, and Kelly
could see them all out somewhere eating hot fudge sundaes and who
the hell cared about him now? On the way back to the park some old
lady passed, walking her dog, and stared at him as if his fly were
