Wise Men: A Novel by Stuart Nadler

Author:Stuart Nadler
Language: eng
Format: MOBI, mobi, epub
Tags: Coming of Age, Literary, Family Life, Fiction
ISBN: 9780316126489
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 2013-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

Charles arrived at Gaithersburg Grounds in a rusting Dodge Dart, honking his horn, playing the ham, tipping his cap. He’d dressed himself in a Braves uniform that looked, to my eyes at least, like the real deal, the tomahawk across the chest, the cursive lettering. We were close enough to Milwaukee that the sight of the uniform brought out some genuine cheers. The memories were still fresh. The team had moved to Atlanta only six years earlier. Now the Brewers were in Milwaukee, with a better name for a town built on the back of Miller. The Braves had come to Milwaukee from Boston, just the way I’d come to Iowa. A part of me had expected Charles to be driving the old Packard: the headrest on the front seat, the bench inside where Savannah had sat, her hands tugging me. I like being with you. Anyone ever say that to you? But there was no way a guy like Charles would still have that car. By now, I was sure, he’d gambled it away.

Far out in center field, playing from a wooden park gazebo, a brass band started up, New Orleans–style, the trombone woozy, loose, sliding up to every note, the trumpet chirping, a guy on a four-string banjo banging out some sloppy chords. It was “Sweet Georgia Brown,” the Globetrotters song. It wasn’t a bad comparison, I thought. Whatever this was that we were about to see, it wasn’t a baseball game. As Charles crossed the base paths. he jumped the chalk—that old superstition of never touching a crack. The crowd hollered for him. In my notebook, I wrote: Slim = hero? He seemed unfazed. A second tip of his cap was out of the question. Ballplayers acquire this certain frozen determination early in their career and never lose it. Retired ballplayers have to find someplace to put it, and if you don’t like to golf, it just lives in you, revealing itself at the worst moments. This was why I always hated interviewing old pitchers for the Spectator. If I’d challenged them somehow by saying that maybe there were young pitchers doing something better than they themselves used to do it, invariably they’d get a cold, locked-in, sniperish glaze in their eyes. And then, of course, I’d have ruined the interview. But in Charles, this coldness was different. In him, it seemed desperate. Like trying to fit together two pieces of a broken fishing rod. The ovation here was more an act of appreciation, of solidarity, maybe even pity. How had he ended up here, of all places? A thousand white faces. Maybe fifteen hundred. Had he always been their big-leaguer? Had he told his customers from the start that he’d pitched in the big show? Serving coffee, flapjacks, waffles fresh from the hot iron, had he leaned in, giving them their forks, their syrup: I see you’re looking at the sports page. Wanna know something? I used to pitch for the Braves. Yep. The Braves.

Charles had become an old man.

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