Deadball
a story by Charles Holdefer
This story originally appeared in issue number 14 of King Ludd’s Rag.
Deadball
Charles Holdefer
Buford County, 1899
I.
Harlan Atkins walked down the street with his heart full of love for all creation. The smell of summer air, the glistening flank of a passing horse. How noble everything appeared! A dog trotted by, ears erect, busy dogging, and Harlan thought: Magnificent! The very incarnation of dogness.
Harlan was on his way to the Morgantown baseball field, and now he looked down into his hand and imagined the face of Jennie Kloster. Her dark eyes and light red hair, the finest strands of copper. Whenever he wanted to admire her, all he had to do was study his palm and watch her image take form there. Look: there she was! Better, more real than a photograph.
He whispered, “My darling, we’ll take our love into the world.” He brought his hand to his lips.
Johnny Wales saw him. Loitering in front of the tavern and wearing a ripped shirt and cast-off boots without laces, he watched with curiosity. Harlan noticed Johnny and jerked his hand back, for this was personal. He flicked his wrist, tried to turn his gesture into a wave.
Johnny Wales smiled and blew Harlan a kiss, too.
“Spare change?” he asked.
Johnny could be mean and obscene, Harlan knew, or utterly abject and obsequious. He’d sniffed a lot of turpentine and sometimes slept in the rail yard under a coal car. Most of his teeth were gone, his pants stank, and the skin on the backs of his hands peeled off in bright pink flecks. He was a Legion of distress.
Harlan realized that he couldn’t give him a penny or a nickel. Today, all he had on his person was a silver dollar, a gift from his parents, Stephen and Eunice Atkins, the town doctor and the organist for the Methodist Church. So when he approached Johnny—his blotched face, his blackened gums—Harlan pressed the heavy coin in his hand.
Johnny looked up, bewildered.
“Bless you,” said Harlan.
II.
Jennie was worried about Harlan. Last night he’d spoken to her in a state of exaltation. He was happy, positively aglow, and she was glad for him, but his attitude made her nervous, too. They’d been kissing in the narrow alley behind the store when he pulled away.
“We’re embraced by a greater love,” he said. “Can’t you feel it?”
She liked his arms around her; now she blinked. “I feel lots of things.”
“But this is the most important, Jennie.”
Ever since he’d heard a preacher a few days ago, he couldn’t stop talking this way. He was very sweet and kind but he seemed jumpy and his mind was elsewhere.
She was aware of much unsaid between them, of the fact that Harlan knew little of Jennie’s life before her lucky break of landing a job at Thompson’s Variety Store. Jennie had drudged on her father’s farm, cooked for her brothers, walked the pastures, pulling cockleburs: the work was endless. Now, in town, life was finer. She stood behind a counter and sold fabric by the yard, salt toffee and lemon drops.
Best of all, on the wall facing the counter, there was a shelf of books. Jennie eyed them hungrily. She’d resolved to read every one. Simply looking at their spines, the different colors, gave Jennie a shiver of pleasure.
Her employer, Mrs. Thompson, let her borrow these volumes after business hours as long as she brought them back in pristine condition. In her room at night Jennie copied out verses so she could memorize them and recite them to herself at work the following day.
What is it men in women do require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.
What is it women do in men require?
The lineaments of Gratified DesireIII.
Doctor Stephen and Eunice Atkins were worried about Harlan. They’d discussed their son at breakfast. “He’ll get through it,” she said. “Won’t he?
“Of course,” said the Doctor. “It’s just a passing stage. Come September, he’ll move on to other things.”
It wasn’t the first time they’d reassured each other with the prospect of Harlan leaving Morgantown. Recently, the young man had professed feelings for a local shop girl. She was in no way appropriate. Their son was supposed to start university in the fall. He was in no position for attachments—especially with that sort of girl.
“I’ve never seen him in such a state,” Eunice said.
“He’s discovering life. He has to learn.”
Although the Doctor didn’t say so to his wife, he privately accused his son of a lack of imagination. What was the matter with him? He should show some spark. The Doctor remembered his own college days, which had included drunkenness and frivolous reading. He’d gambled at cards, consorted with rabble, and conducted what he now thought of as “venereal research.” He’d never discussed these matters with his wife and certainly felt no compunction to mention them to his son, for he’d assumed that the boy would, as boys did, seek out such things for himself. All this was part of the seasoning process to become a man, a man who could return to Morgantown and be trusted as a guarantor to the community, a man whose virtue was informed by experience, not by callow enthusiasm. Getting Harlan out of the clutches of some country wench was one thing; but this latest problem, which arose after a religious revival meeting, was more slippery, since it involved not the flesh but the spirit.
“Anyway,” he continued, “our family has never gone in for that kind of soul butter.”
“You think so?”
He could see that she was not convinced. He stood up and excused himself.
“I’m going out to the garden.”
“Good luck,” she told him.
The Doctor assumed a brave face. Each morning before reporting to his office he went behind the house and tended his rows of tomatoes and peas. He enjoyed hoeing in the coolness of the day, a pleasant time in the company of himself. But lately—this had never happened before—he’d been plagued by uninvited visitors: an invasion of moles. Burrowing and digging, they left his garden and nearby orchard pocked with craters. They had cursed what was his.
“Foolish creatures. You can’t hide from me.”
To his dismay, conventional solutions—poisons and traps—had failed; the moles continued their blind destruction. Then, reading up on the subject, the Doctor discovered that moles were hemophiliacs. If you pricked one, it would bleed to death.
So now the Doctor experimented with sharp objects, seeding the holes in his property with nails and broken glass. He walked with a bucket, sprinkling liberally. Each opening gaped like a mouth which he fed. Then he returned to close it up again, patting the surface smooth with the back of a spade.
IV.
Harlan had visited the Love Tabernacle out of boredom. There wasn’t much distraction in Morgantown, so you took what you could get. Previously, he’d attended lectures on The Future of Electricity and the Wonders of the Amazon; he’d seen tent shows with turbaned magicians and, of course, traveling circuses. Generally he’d avoided revival meetings because his parents, as solid Methodists, disapproved of shouting and writhing and babbling tongues. If some locals took interest in these displays (generally people on the north side who worked the coal mines alongside Italians and Bohemians and other papists), well, that was their affair. But the Atkins need not dignify these occasions with their presence.
Harlan went to the Love Tabernacle with his buddy Cornelius. They’d walked along with their hands in their pockets, discussing baseball. Next week the town team, for which they both played, would face a visiting squad called the Mungo Clowns. It promised to be fun but it was also a source of pressure, since these traveling shows, in addition to antics and costumes, always included players of real talent, ex-professionals who would do their best to create a laugh at your expense. It was important that the local team make a respectable showing in front of the home folks. The Love Tabernacle had pitched its tent on the baseball field, where the grass was still wet and spongy from an afternoon thunderstorm. As they drew near Harlan could see that this event was a paltry affair: a primitive set-up, just a canvas roof on poles. A handful of attendees sat on backless benches in the open air.
“I dunno,” said Cornelius doubtfully. “Should we go back?”
Before Harlan could reply, a voice called out, “Come, friends! Come!”
Sheepishly they approached and claimed seats on a rear bench.
The proceedings were not what Harlan expected. The preacher introduced himself as Wilbur Wilson, and he also presented his wife, Rosalie, and his son Davey, who moved on crutches and took a place on a wooden chair. Both Cornelius and Harlan eyed Davey closely, wondering if later in the evening they would witness his healing. Would he throw away his crutches and dance? If Davey was faking his infirmity for the sake of the show, he was pretty good at it, because in addition to his hobble he displayed a twisting twitch in his face and a fishlike wriggle in his shoulders, so you had to wonder how much he was controlling it.
“Are you ready for the love?”
Wilbur Wilson didn’t shout, he didn’t gesticulate. Pressing his hands together, he spoke in a steady voice about his belief in the Love Tabernacle. He began by describing his past. His father had volunteered for the Union in the Twenty-Third Infantry, in whose service he had died. His mother, beset by mental woes and penury, had sent Wilbur and his brother to the Orphan Home in Glenwood. “That was the loneliest place. Seven years I was there. On a cold February morning of my first year, my brother fell through pond ice and drowned. After that I had nobody. Words cannot describe the solitary desperation of my soul. When I finally left the Orphan Home, I was full of anger and my life had no purpose, and I committed bad acts. Criminal acts. Surely I would’ve ended up in prison—another very lonely place—if I hadn’t met Rosalie, who pulled me out of emptiness and wrath, and revealed to me the Love Tabernacle.”
Wilbur began to recite the Beatitudes, which Harlan had heard many times in Sunday school. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Tonight, as fireflies popped here and there in the early evening air, the words sounded less mysterious than usual. They were matter-of-fact, in this man’s soothing voice.
Next came the music. Rosalie sang in a soft contralto, Wilbur backed her hoarsely, clapping to keep rhythm, while Davey blew into a wooden flute. One of the boy’s wrists curled awkwardly inward but he used it to press the instrument against his breast while his able hand managed to finger the holes. The notes came out true and fine.
“Count your blessings,
Name them one by one…”
Suddenly Harlan felt himself breathing faster. He’d never cared for the music at the Methodist church, which was no reflection on his mother’s organ playing, but somehow the hymns and the instrument sounded distant and grandiose and as thick as gravy. Whereas this music—Harlan’s throat involuntarily tightened—felt vital. Watching Davey play, he thought how tough it must be to be trapped in his body, while maybe the boy possessed a brilliant brain; or was it the opposite, Davey was slow, on top of his other troubles, which would be awfully tough, too, wouldn’t it? But before Harlan could speculate about which predicament was worse, the music carried him along with its beauty, and he felt himself blinking back tears.
After the song, Wilbur Wilson resumed talking. He described how the Love Tabernacle had transformed his life, and how, as he and Rosalie and Davey traveled from town to town, they’d had the joy of sharing it with others. “It’s my personal hope that one day I might also find my mother. Since she left me at the Orphan Home, I’ve had no news, no trace. But she might still be alive and residing in your town. I do not know. But she might come to see our Tabernacle, and I could meet her again and embrace her, and comfort her, because everything is going to be all right. Yes, everything is going to be all right.” Wilbur paused and slowly passed his eyes over the people present. “I don’t think she’s here tonight. But I still know joy. Because we are each other’s family.”
Then he repeated, one more time, the Beatitudes. Harlan felt a clenching in his chest. On this second occasion, the phrases seemed transformed beyond the newly matter-of-fact. Now the words were luminous.
“‘Blessed are the poor in spirit.’ You know, sometimes folks think those words are intended for somebody else. They say to themselves, ‘that’s for people in distress. Lucky for me, I’m doing fine.’ But you know what I think, friends? There are people who are poor in spirit and they don’t even know it. They don’t realize what they’re missing. They, too, need to live in the Love Tabernacle.”
And then came the part that Harlan had been dreading with all his heart. Oh, he’d known it was coming! Although Wilbur Wilson hadn’t thundered at his listeners or threatened hellfire, or struck his fist on his breast or pointed his finger, there had been moments (Harlan was certain!) when Wilbur was sneaking glances at him. Why is he looking at me? he wondered. What does he see? In these glances there was something like recognition. Now Wilbur extended a public invitation:
“Maybe you, too, want to live in the Love Tabernacle. Do you feel it in your heart? Are you ready to accept, in its fullness, this gift of grace?”
Harlan’s knees began to shake. He couldn’t stop them, though he longed to. It was embarrassing, but something gripped him and his desire was undeniable. It would be a lie to pretend otherwise. If he pretended, then whatever else followed would fall short of honesty. I would not be me.
“The Love Tabernacle is free to everyone. Its arms are open.”
No longer trembling, Harlan found his feet and walked boldly to the front, where he received Wilbur’s blessing. Though he was the first to come forward, he was soon joined by a sniffling old woman and a red-faced farm boy. After another song from Rosalie, the meeting came to an end and Wilbur passed the hat. Harlan turned out his pocket and found 15 cents. It was all he had; his other money was at home. The collection this evening, from this small audience, was meagre—instead of coin, one woman offered two eggs—but Wilbur and Rosalie and Davey thanked everyone graciously.
Then it was over and time to leave.
“You all right?” Cornelius asked as they walked across the baseball field.
His friend looked at him askance, but Harlan didn’t care.
“You know, these people are serious. They’re the real thing.”
“Well, they’re different, I’ll give you that much.” Cornelius glanced over his shoulder. “You think they really live on that wagon?”
Harlan observed the silhouettes of a long wagon and two horses nibbling on the outfield grass. Wilbur was taking down the Tabernacle with a special hooked stick, detaching the canvas roof from the poles. A kerosene lamp cast a circle of light. Rosalie moved in and out of the periphery. Davey sat on his chair while a small white dog, which must’ve been tied up during the meeting, frisked at his feet.
“I’m going to talk to them,” Harlan said.
“You sure?”
“Come along, if you like.”
Cornelius walked on. “See you tomorrow.”
When Harlan returned to the Wilsons, Wilbur was rolling up the canvas while Rosalie put out plates on a rickety wooden table. They hadn’t had their supper yet.
“I just want to thank you,” Harlan said.
Rosalie turned to him and smiled; Davey leaned forward in his chair. Wilbur straightened, rubbing his hands on his back. For a moment he was silent, then he nodded as if they shared an understanding. “That’s not necessary, son. You know where gratitude belongs. It’s bigger than any of us, right?”
“Right.”
He came forward and squeezed Harlan’s shoulder. “I’m glad for you. Tonight you entered the Love Tabernacle. And tomorrow? And the day after? You know where to find it.”
With a sudden movement Wilbur lifted his arm and seemed to be pointing at a spot beyond the ballfield, maybe the buildings of Morganville, or to somewhere further on the horizon. Harlan wasn’t sure.
V.
The Doctor fussed with his spade, commenting grimly to the moles, while his wife spied on him from an upstairs window. Eunice was anxious because she knew their son better than her husband did. And there were facts from the past that she hadn’t shared.
Leaving the window, she went to a bureau and opened the bottom drawer and extracted a rectangular object wrapped in cheesecloth. Carefully she unfolded the cloth. Here was her commonplace book, a scrap album and accidental diary containing poems she’d written as a child, pressed violets and signed dance cards and a love letter (the others she had destroyed) from a young man whose name she never mentioned. There was a lock of hair from little Ruth, Harlan’s elder sister, who’d died of diphtheria at the age of three. (The powers of the Doctor had failed utterly and not a day passed that Eunice didn’t ache to hold Ruthie, one more time, in her arms.) She turned the pages to the back of the book which was stuffed with early family photographs and daguerreotypes.
There—that one.
Her great-uncle Jakob. The eyes, the nose, even the cast of mouth—the resemblance was astonishing. Exactly like Harlan. You could say it was Harlan, but for the wide-bow cravat which was out of style nowadays, the hair swept back from his temples.
According to family accounts, Jakob had been a man of childlike qualities, a mystic, not interested, upon his arrival in America, in helping his brothers at their sawmill. Instead he pursued his inner lights and was remembered chiefly for a single incident: one day, without so much as a goodbye or a word advising the family about his intentions, he’d wandered off into the woods and disappeared. Days passed. Everyone worried, fearing an accident had befallen him. Had he stumbled into a crevasse, or crossed paths with an angry bear? Search parties found no traces, and when everyone was ready to give up, a rumor drifted back to the family about a strange white man who lived with the local Keokuk Indians. One of Jakob’s brothers set out with an extra horse to go and fetch him, and upon arriving in the Keokuk village and making inquiries, he was pointed to a particular dwelling, out of which Jakob emerged, chin in the air, belligerent. He steadfastly refused to go home; he said he preferred to live where he was. (Peering out of the dim entrance to the dwelling was the small round face of a young Keokuk woman.) So the brother turned his horses around and went home, his mission a failure. The family grieved the loss of Jakob but went on with their lives, reminding themselves that Jakob had never been much use around the sawmill, anyway. Then, about a year later, early one morning there was a pounding at the door. When they opened, there stood two Keokuk men, with a long-haired Jakob between them. Please, they asked, would the family take him back?
They told Jakob’s father that they were tired of him, tired of his talk about his God and of the bad luck that they were convinced Jakob had brought them, for half their village had died of coughing sickness since his arrival. These emissaries, thin and haggard, didn’t look too well themselves.
So that was how Jakob returned to the family fold. He still wasn’t much of a worker; he retreated to a little white shed and remained a bachelor for the rest of his life. He took a vow of silence which he often broke, because he had many opinions (yet he always renewed the vow, because he believed what he said). The surviving daguerreotype showed a gaunt man in black Sunday dress; in his hands he’s clasping a kitten. Jakob’s fixed gaze and expression appeared peaceful, though maybe a little distracted. The kitten’s eyes were bugging out: probably Jakob was squeezing it too hard.
VI.
Was Jennie Kloster in love with Harlan? She felt she ought to be, she knew that people believed she was lucky to have attracted the attentions of such a prominent young man in the community. Other girls might envy her. But everything was happening so fast.
Her employer, Mrs. Thompson, had advised her, “You have to watch every step you make, you can’t compromise, girl. Fact is, most folks is vicious.” She nodded at the jar of lemon drops on the counter. “And never forget: every child will steal.”
Mrs. Thompson also counselled Jennie on her appearance, how to pin instead of braid her hair, how to knot her smock at the bust. She looked Jennie up and down. “Oh, you’ll do just fine.”
Her employer kept a close eye on everyone who crossed the threshold. When a local loafer called Catfish came in the store and tried on all the used eyeglasses in the basket (he never bought anything but he wanted to sidle up to Jennie), Mrs. Thompson was curt and got rid of him.
But when Harlan Atkins walked in, the reception was different. The first time, he’d come to inquire about mustard seed for his mother. “It’s for pickling spice.” Mrs. Thompson introduced him to Jennie and kept the conversation going for twenty minutes. Harlan was nice-looking, with solid shoulders, and very well-spoken. His manners were irreproachable, and when he left, Mrs. Thompson remarked, “the Atkins are very good customers.”
Soon Harlan’s visits to the store became frequent. There was always some errand for shaving soap or shoelaces, gunpowder tea and sugar, too. He seemed to have taken over his mother’s affairs. Lately, when he walked through the door, Mrs. Thompson greeted him and then excused herself and pretended to be busy in the back room, in order to leave them alone.
VII.
Baseball practice started with playing catch, loosening up while waiting for everyone to arrive. Harlan tossed a ball with Tommy Briggs, while his friend Cornelius threw with another teammate. Harlan had the impression that Cornelius was avoiding him. Why? Cornelius had said little since the night at the Love Tabernacle. As if he was embarrassed.
What was it about joy that people found unsettling? Harlan wondered. Was Cornelius actually frightened?
The Morgantown team was a mix of grown men and teenagers, centering on a few players of natural ability, such as the captain, Big John Dobbs, a railroad man who knew how to pitch, and Harlan, who was the best shortstop in the county. Some of the older fellows should’ve left long ago to make room for new faces, but it was impossible to force them to quit. Morris Meadows, the right-fielder, was 60 years old, painfully slow, and still insisted on playing bare-handed. He scorned gloves as a foolish and unmanly innovation. The second baseman Nathaniel Rhodes, known to everyone as The Gnat, was a problem, too. Barely five feet tall, he’d been spry in his youth but over the years he’d acquired a sagging belly which hung over his belt and impeded his ability to bend over for ground balls. He was a fat Gnat.
“Mind if I join you?
Reverend Stillhouse, pastor of the Methodist church, stepped up to throw with Harlan and Tommy Briggs. Nothing wrong with a three-way warm-up, of course, but Harlan found the man’s presence rather strange. The Reverend occasionally umpired or filled in if they were short-handed, but he didn’t attend practices. Why had he shown up early today?
Is he checking up on me? Harlan wondered. Perhaps he’d got wind of the Love Tabernacle. This notion was a trifle annoying but it also amused him. Well, so be it. A Methodist stuffed-shirt could enter the Love Tabernacle, too.
“You missed an interesting sermon last Friday,” Harlan said, tossing the ball to Stillhouse.
“That so?” Stillhouse threw to Briggs.
“Yes. The promise of love is everywhere.”
As the ball made another round, Stillhouse added, “We need to know where to look.”
A lingering glance—yes, thought Harlan. It’s not my imagination. He hasn’t come to play. He’s here to sniff around.
“Love in action speaks for itself.” Harlan threw the ball with an extra zing, and Reverend Stillhouse winced when it smacked his glove. “It’s not just a show for Sundays.”
“I was gonna go Friday night,” interjected Briggs, “but we had trouble at home.”
They turned to him.
“Everything all right?” Stillhouse asked.
Briggs beckoned with his glove, inviting another throw, and Stillhouse tossed gently.
After the ball reached him, Briggs announced, “Our best cow, Warts, got struck by lightning.”
Silence. The ball went round again. Then Harlan and the Reverend told him it was too bad, a shame. After a respectful interval, Harlan flipped his wrist and sent the ball in the other direction, reversed the flow. He resumed speaking about the Love Tabernacle.
He described Wilbur Wilson and his family. “You know, Reverend, their simplicity is part of the message. I look at those people and think, if Jesus were here today, that’s how he’d be living. I believe that. He wouldn’t be cooped up. He’d be out spreading the love.”
The Reverend caught the ball and held onto it, stopping the activity. He obliged them to wait while he spoke. “Providence is at work in our congregation too,” he said firmly. “Love takes many forms, Harlan.”
Then he threw.
Harlan wasn’t impressed. “I suppose so. But what I experienced Friday was a different kind of power.”
Briggs said, “Didn’t do Warts no good.”
VIII.
That afternoon Jennie went out to the alley behind the store and dipped a pail into the basin below the rain spout. Mrs. Thompson collected rainwater for its softness, and used it to wash her bottles of tinctures and extract.
Jennie looked down into the pail and saw a face. Her reflection momentarily startled her—she’d performed this task many times without such a glimpse—it was no doubt a question of the angle, the light. Now she paused to look at this young woman who shimmered and faded then came back again. A view of herself from above, like God.
What next? she whispered.
Jennie felt a nervousness such as she’d never known. She had only one life and it was important that she use it well. And the truth was, it vexed her that people thought she should be grateful to Harlan. She was fond of him, but she didn’t understand his eager talk, especially lately.
She couldn’t shake a sense that when people like Harlan talked about God they could see only one thing, their own reflection, while God, if God was real, got stuck with witnessing everything.
Poor God, thought Jennie.
IX.
From the mound, Big John Dobbs threw batting practice. Each Morgantown player took a turn at the plate while the others fielded. The sun climbed high and the day grew hot. Big John bore down. Now he threw with full velocity, his shirt untucked, and the batters struggled. Finally Big John let his arm fall limp at his side and said he’d had enough.
“Think we can beat the Clowns?”
His teammates cheered. “We’ll destroy the Clowns! Destroy the Clowns!”
Big John laughed and went behind the backstop, where there was a well. He jacked the pump-handle furiously till water gushed, and then stuck his head under it. Players took turns drinking and slapping the cold water on their necks. Harlan hung back, letting others go first. Cornelius, he noticed, took his turn and left the ballfield without waiting for him.
After dousing his head and drinking his fill, Harlan started to walk home. Soon he came up behind The Gnat, who was limping along the road.
“You all right?”
“Damn blisters. Maybe I should just pop them and be done with it.”
Harlan adjusted his pace. “But today was fun, wasn’t it? Makes my heart rejoice in creation.”
The Gnat stopped and sat in the dirt. Mumbling to himself, he pulled off a shoe. Harlan tried not to stare at The Gnat’s big belly, so he focused instead on the bald spot on top of his head, which was sunburned a bright red. The Gnat pressed on a blister with his thumbnail. He let out a yip. He pressed again, another yip. Then he tied on his shoe, panting.
“Better?” said Harlan.
The Gnat snapped, “You want something, kid?”
This reaction surprised Harlan. “Well, no. I don’t want anything.” The Gnat lurched himself upright. “The gift has already been given.”
Harlan had never spoken at length with this man. Most encounters had been at the post office, where The Gnat, as Morgantown postmaster, sold him stamps. The Gnat moved away and Harlan wondered what Wilbur Wilson would say in these circumstances. He called, “The gift is yours, too.”
The Gnat kept going, so Harlan came up beside him and began to describe the Love Tabernacle. He didn’t get far. “I know all about it,” The Gnat interrupted. “We’re gonna be born again, like Judas.”
Harlan smiled. “Actually, that’s not how the story goes.”
“Oh, it’s not? Maybe you’re referring to Nicodemus, who came to visit Jesus at night. He got told to get born again.”
Harlan nodded. “Yes, that’s the one.”
“Well, that’s not what I’m talking about, you condescending little jackass.”
Harlan stopped in his tracks. “What?”
The Gnat stopped, too. He hitched up his pants and curled his lower lip. “How did Judas die?”
“Huh?” Harlan thought for a moment, retrieving what he’d learned at his Methodist Sunday School. “He hung himself. After he betrayed Jesus.”
“Yeah, one part of the New Testament refers to hanging. Read a bit further, and you get a different death. It says that Judas fell headlong and he burst open and his bowels gushed out. Look it up! Now, let me ask you: how can he die twice? Unless Judas was born again.”
“You’re twisting it around.”
“Am I? You’re just another one of those cherry-pickers. I betcha I’ve read that book more closely than you have, kid. So listen, this is the story: it’s always the same old thing for humanity, over and over. You might think you’re special, Buster, but you’re not. Go ahead, get born again. You're going to die again, anyway.”
The Gnat limped away.
“Wait a second!”
“Shut up and read your Bible.”
X.
“It’s not like I was attacking him,” Harlan told Jennie. Instead of meeting in the alley, today they’d picked raspberries along the road leading out of town and now sat on a bench under a catalpa tree. “But he didn’t want to listen. Nathaniel Rhodes must be an unhappy man.”
“We can’t know his story.”
Insects hummed, and grasshoppers jumped in the weeds of the ditch. Harlan reached up to a low-hanging branch and tore off a large catalpa leaf. He handed it to her so she could use it as a fan. A previous time when he’d done this, the gesture had felt romantic. But now Harlan seemed upset. The air was humid and still.
“It’s frustrating,” he said. “Why do people think so small? Like this baseball game, for instance. I’ve been practicing as hard as anybody but if you consider it for five seconds, it serves no purpose. Why bother? It doesn’t really mean anything.”
“Does it have to?” Jennie fanned herself. “Aren’t you taking this too seriously? Just the other night you saw the hand of God everywhere. So if it comes to that, why not in baseball?”
Harlan frowned. “I’m seeing so many other things now. It’s people, Jennie. They’re the challenge. Even the Reverend Stillhouse! I have this bad feeling like something precious is slipping away.” His arm slid over her shoulder, but it was too hot for that and she shrugged him off. She reached down to a knotted kerchief on the bench and selected a raspberry. She bit into it, her teeth working on the tiny seeds.
“So what are people supposed to do?”
“We can’t settle for something small, Jennie. Let’s talk about our plans.”
She sat up straighter. That tone of voice again, trying to convince her. Harlan had already spoken of getting formally engaged when he reached his last year at the university; they could marry after his graduation when he came back to Morgantown and settled down. Jennie was flattered by these speculations but they left her wondering. All that was years from now. Easy for Harlan to say. His ardor carried him away.
“What if I didn’t go to university?” he asked. “What if we got married right away? We could leave this place and see the world. The entire Love Tabernacle is spread out before us. We could share it with each other, and with all the interesting people we encounter along the way.”
Jennie stopped fanning herself.
“Not go to university? Are you serious?”
“Yes! Why not? That’s a useless delay. Honestly, what are we waiting for?”
She could see that he meant his words. But this possibility had never occurred to her. Earlier, when he’d spoken of leaving Morgantown for the university, she hadn’t questioned the premise. Given the chance, she’d do the same. She envied Harlan in this respect. It went without saying that she could never go to college. College was for other people, people with money: college was an inside joke. Anyone on the outside knew this. In the fall Harlan would say goodbye to this place, while she would stay with Mrs. Thompson and read her wall of books. Any plans beyond those were impossible to predict.
“What about your parents?” she asked. “I don’t think they would be too pleased with this idea.”
“Oh, they’ll get over it. Frankly, they lack imagination. But they’ll learn. Besides, the question isn’t them. It’s us.” He took her hand. “Jennie, we could go to Africa!”
She blinked. She was confused. “What? Africa?” Now he squeezed her hand, leaning in, and she tried to joke, her voice coming out scratchy: “Africa? In a wagon?”
He jumped up and began to pace.
“You don’t see, do you? You really don’t see? It’s not because of your folks at home, is it?”
They’d generally avoided the subject of her family, and now this allusion seemed ill-timed. Was he talking down to her? Implying that she was being limited? She pictured her brothers, seeding clover and butchering hogs; her father, worrying over crops. The perseverance of their lives.
“Harlan,” she said, “you’re talking like a little boy.”
He froze.
“That’s how Nathaniel Rhodes spoke to me. Is that what you really think? I would’ve never have put you two on the same page.”
“I speak only for myself.”
“But look at you!” he said. “I can’t believe it. You’re already resigned. You don’t want the Tabernacle? You’d settle for being another Judas?”
“Judas?” she said. “What on earth? My goodness!”
Now Jennie was angry. Harlan began to explain about The Gnat and dying a second time but she could make no sense of it.
“I don’t care about him!” she said. “This has nothing to do with him. But I do know this much, Harlan. You don’t get to talk to me that way. No one does!”
Jennie rose from the bench.
“Wait!”
“I can find my own way home.”
XI.
On the day of the game against the Mungo Clowns, Harlan stayed in his bedroom and refused to come downstairs. The Doctor and Eunice Atkins called up to him, but to no avail. A message went out. This was a very awkward development.
Big John Dobbs arrived at the house on a bicycle and was admitted into Harlan’s bedroom where he attempted to change his mind, but Dobbs left without success. Morgantown would have to find another shortstop.
“Won’t you at least come down for a cup of coffee?” his mother called. “I’ve got plum cake.”
“I’m studying!” he shouted.
The Doctor and his wife looked at each other.
“What do we do?” she asked. “It makes me nervous. He’s so quiet.”
The Doctor was irritated at this juvenile display. “We’re not going to humor him. We’re stepping out.”
“Out? Where?”
“To the baseball game, of course! He’ll see us from his window and will know where we’re going. He’ll see how ridiculously he’s behaving.”
He selected a hat while Eunice prepared a jar of lemonade. They left via the front porch and headed down the street.
“There’s a silver lining in all this,” the Doctor said, pressing his lips together.
“What’s that?”
“We’re rid of that shop girl.”
Up in his bedroom, Harlan bent over his Bible. He wanted to dig his way out of this mess, out of this darkness, and to do that, he needed to retreat. If people would just leave him alone, maybe he could sort it out.
But it was hard to focus. It was hard to make sense.
Why had the Love Tabernacle moved on without him? That was how he felt, as if he’d been granted a vision only to have it snatched away by the pettiness of others. He was bereft. Why couldn’t he recapture that insight? He looked up from his Bible, rubbing the side of his face. Was this a test?
What he’d experienced had been real, he would swear with all the force of his being. But a veil had fallen over the luster of life. Why? Why? And now he was supposed to settle for baseball?
He brought his palms together and closed his eyes and tried to pray. Bring me back what I have seen. Oh please. But his mind faltered. He felt he was falling forward into something unknown.
Harlan opened his eyes and turned up his right palm. He wanted to speak to Jennie. He imagined her face. “I do love you, you know.” Oh, look at her. Those serious eyes, that mouth. She was beautiful. A breeze a moved wisp of hair on her forehead. Wait—was there someone next to her? Yes, it was Mrs. Thompson from the store. But they weren’t at the store, there was a crowd—more people—was that Reverend Stillhouse, too? Harlan turned up his left palm and brought his hands together, and spread before him he saw his parents, with other spectators, his old high school teachers and Johnny Wales talking to Catfish who patted the head of a flop-eared dog, and on the field, The Gnat at second base and Big John pitching and look, Cornelius had replaced him at shortstop! The Mungo Clowns stood along the third base line, cheering on their batter, a tall man in a ridiculous green top hat, while out in right field, old Morris Meadows watched in wonder as a spot of earth trembled in front of his feet. The soil crumbled. The ground opened. Emerging from below into the light, a mole crawled out shakily, bleeding, and then before his eyes, the creature expired. Harlan looked down at them all in his cupped hands, and his heart ached.
CHARLES HOLDEFER lives in Brussels. His short fiction has appeared in many magazines, including New England Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, North American Review, Los Angeles Review, Slice, and Yellow Silk. His latest novel is Don’t Look at Me. “Deadball” is collected in his latest book, Ivan the Terrible Goes on a Family Picnic, published by Sagging Meniscus. Visit Charles at http://www.charlesholdefer.com.