Black Betsy by Dean Wesley Smith

Author:Dean Wesley Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, baseball, time travel, shoeless joe jackson, science fiction short story, wmg publishing, dean wesley smith, jukebox, jukebox story, time travel story, baseball story, garden lounge
Publisher: WMG Publishing

Five

Big band music played softly from an old record player in the cluttered dining room. The house smelled musty and closed in, with a faint medicine-smell that seemed to coat everything. A big, overstuffed couch with doilies on the arms filled one wall. Glass cabinets with old trophies and pictures filled another. Outside, it was a cold December day in South Carolina.

In front of the glass case was a round umbrella stand. In that stand were five baseball bats, including a black one. Edward stared at that bat for a moment, not really understanding what it was, then glanced around the living room.

“Wow, Stout. You can really pull off an illusion.” As he said it he realized his voice didn’t sound right. It seemed too high and a different pitch to his ears. He glanced down at his younger body, the heavy coat, the boots, and the memories came flooding back. The memories of coming into Shoeless Joe’s house with Coach and Dave and Johnny just a few minutes before. Yet those memories were overlaid by the forty years of the future and the very real memory of just getting fired from a job he really loved.

“Stout! How...”

The sound of laughing came from the back room over the top of the music. Stout had been right. Somehow he was here, yet he wasn’t. He couldn’t be. He was married, with two kids forty years in the future. He reached out and touched the arm of the couch. It felt real.

He looked around again, then moved over and pulled out the black bat. It was heavy and a little cold to his touch. The grip was rough with the old tape and felt almost sticky. Black Betsy. Joe’s favorite bat.

He remembered looking at it forty years ago and then slipping it up inside his big coat and going out the front door. He had stashed the bat in a large bush and then waited for Coach and the others to come out. They had ribbed him a little about not going in to see Shoeless Joe, but not much. Mostly they just talked about how exciting it was to meet Shoeless Joe and how he couldn’t have really thrown the series. He had gone back that night and picked up the bat. He still had it up in the attic forty years later.

Young Edward turned the bat over in his hands and looked at the initials S.J. carved in the handle. Many a night over the next few years he would hold that bat and run his fingers over those initials. He did so again, his young self treasuring the feel, his older self hating it. The two emotions battling inside his head and stomach.

The fight lasted for only a moment, but it seemed much longer. Finally the forty year-old memories won and he dropped the bat back into the umbrella stand.

It was as if the weight of an entire life lifted from his shoulders. “Thanks, Stout,” he said to the air.

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