Nobody Gets Hurt

The body lay on its back. Its head was on the third riser. It had been hit in the face with a baseball bat and blood spewed up the steps and into the darkness. I didn't want to look anymore, but I bent over the body and leaned on the wall that also formed the left side of the stairwell. I looked hard through the blood and broken flesh to the man who once inhabited it. It was Maxie Moore. He had been hit in the face with a baseball bat. I thought the idea of a sportswriter being sent to his just reward with a baseball bat a fine joke. The Maxie I knew before the war in Kansas City would have thought it a fine joke too.

I was in New York City for no particular reason. I had been sick for a while, then got better, then got worse. Since I got worse in a hospital and better outside one, I figured it didn't matter where I was so long as it was not in a hospital. I don't remember how I got to New York City. My head hurt then. I know why I went to Yankee Stadium. In Spain, you go to the bullfights. That summer in New York City, I went to Yankee Stadium.

I picked up the bat and wiped down the handle with a rag. I kept the handle up and tried to keep the business end away from my legs. I left the bat by the body and opened the door and walked down the hallway to the locker room. No one had seen me.

The boys gathered around Mantle and Maris. They were close to each other, but sitting on separate benches. The boys moved back and forth to ask their questions. It was a crowded room and the noise hurt my ears, but I stayed. I had watched Maris at batting practice. Most of the time it was dull. The reporters and photographers stood in clumps with the ballplayers. The players talked to them, or each other, or said nothing and chewed and spat. They looked like bums on the street corner. Even Maris did, and I was beginning to feel that this was a wash.

Then Maris wiped his hands on his pants, picked up his bat and stepped into the box. The reporters stopped their talking and looked. The photographers picked up their cameras and focused on the man in the box. Maris nodded at the pitcher, who fired a series of balls that Maris swung at and sent them into the outfield and over the fence. He swung easily. His moves reminded me of some of the bullfighters I had seen, like Montoya. The reporters took notes. The photographers snapped pictures.

In the locker room, they gathered around Maris and Mantle. They wanted to know how they felt about batting practice, about their chances of breaking Ruth's record, about each other and about the pitcher they'll face in an hour. Did they think a new record should be marked with an asterisk like the commissioner suggested? What about the ball? Is it livelier?

"The ball isn't livelier, the players are," Mantle said. He grinned at them like it was the funniest joke in the world. The boys grinned back. They liked the joke too.

Maris sat on his bench across the aisle. He wasn't having any of it. His uniform shirt was unbuttoned and his hands dangled between his knees. The boys pressed on him from all sides. The boys asked him many questions, sometimes repeating them until they had their answers they liked. Maris answered their questions but they did not like his answers. They liked Mantle's answers better. They thought Maris' answers were at fault when it was really the questions.

Maris lit a cigarette. His hand was shaking. The boys looked at Roger Maris smoking a cigarette. Some still took notes, their heads hunched over their notebooks.

"Maxie Moore is dead," I said.

"Heart attack?" one of the boys said.

"Baseball bat," I said. "He's in the trainer's room."

The locker room emptied. Mantle looked puzzled. He hadn't heard about Maxie. It got quiet in a hurry. Then they saw the body. The boys shouted for air, for a doctor, for the police.

Maris hadn't moved except to smoke his cigarette.

"Let's go," I said.

He looked up at me.

"Come on. You need to get out of here."

He nodded. He dropped his cigarette and stood up. He slipped off his uniform shirt, slipped on a jacket and a pair of loafers and we walked out of the locker room.

We caught a cab outside the stadium.

"Where to," the driver said.

"Costello's," Maris said.

The driver grunted and put the cab in gear. He said nothing else. I stared hard at him. Did he know who we were? His hair was cut tight. Was he a cab driver or one of Hoover's boys? One can't be too careful, so I didn't say anything. My head began hurting.

At Costello's, Maris got out. He had on his uniform pants, so I paid the cab driver.

"Say hello to J. Edgar for me," I said.

We went into Costello's. It was a dark joint. We sat in the pool of sunlight by the window that looked out over Jerome Avenue. I ordered a Jameson's and drank it. My head hurt worse, so I ordered a beer to chase it. Maris ordered a Rolling Rock.

"Are you a reporter too?" Maris said. He was hunched over his drink, like a leopard at a water hole.

I told him who I was.

"The hell you are," he said.

I insisted. We shook hands. "Anyway, thanks for getting me away from those reporters. Is Maxie really dead?"

"As a mackerel. As a doorknob. As a fishknob."

"Good," he said. "He was a nasty man."

"I knew him in Kansas City before the war."

"Was he nasty then?"

I thought about that. "No, he wasn't nasty. He was young. A police reporter. He was a police reporter for a long time."

"Still was. For the Herald-Tribune. He was a jock sniffer too. That's what he was doing around there. Another jock sniffer. Locker room's full of them."

We thought about that for a while. I remember a talk Maxie and I had just before I left for Toronto. I had been writing some stories on my own. He had read them and didn't like them.

"You can train a mule and he still won't win the Kentucky Derby," he said.

"What's that crack supposed to mean?"

He tapped a finger hard on my chest. "You're a mule, that's what. You're a reporter, not a pansy writer. Don't be a pansy. Stick with the newspaper. That's what I'm going to do."

So he stayed a reporter while I went off to do other things. I never saw him again until today, but I had heard from friends that he had turned nasty. I don't know why or when. Perhaps he was wrong. About me and about himself. Maybe that's what turned him nasty.

"So, Maxie's dead," Maris said.

"Killed with your bat," I said.

"The hell you say," he said. "Well what do you know about that."

I finished my beer and the headache faded. I ordered another.

"Well, well, so Maxie's dead." Maris seemed happy about it. "He threatened me, you know. Just before batting practice. Said he had the goods on me and wanted money or else he'd tell the commissioner. Get me banned from baseball."

"Could he?" I said.

"Sure, but Maxie was just blowing smoke. I didn't do what he said I did. But anyone can raise a stink in this damn world. Doesn't have to be true."

"He squealed to Hoover's boys every time he saw a socialist. Even when he didn't," I said.

"The hell you say," he said.

"He even informed on me, back during the Spanish Civil War. Caused me no end of trouble with the FBI."

He looked out the window. Above the building, a plane rose into the sky. Sunlight caught the sides and it glowed as it climbed.

"I hate this game," he said. "I loved it once, you know, but now I hate it. I feel like the lead elephant in the circus, being poked and prodded and made to do headstands. Sometimes I get so mad ," he flexed his hands, heavy with callouses.

His hands reminded me of the bat in the trainer's room and of Maxie's face. I didn't want to think about that, so I watched the plane.
Maris and I drank our drinks and watched the plane.

He stood up. "Well, what the hell. I still got a job. I got to get back."
In the cab, he said, "Thanks for the drink. Never mind what I said about the game. That was the beer talking."

"That's OK."

"It's not true, you know. When I'm out there playing, everything else goes away. The game is still fun. It's just the circus around it I hate."

"I know. I watched you take batting practice. You always bat right-handed?"

He looked at me funny. "Sure. I'm not Mantle."

At the stadium, Maris and I walked in at the players' entrance and into the dressing room. The boys were still there. In fact, there seemed to be more of them. They attached themselves to Maris, pushing me aside.

A cop came up to me and said the chief wanted to talk. He was a big man with a worried look on his face. We shook hands and after taking down my name, asked me what I had seen. I told him, forgetting about the part where I wiped the bat.

"Who do you think did it?" he said.

I shrugged in the French way.

"You think Maris could have done it? He and Maxie were talking. He may have been the last one to see him alive."

"You have to consider me a suspect then. I knew Maxie." I told him about us working together in Kansas City.

He shook his head as if he had expected that. A chill hit me and my head started to hurt. Was I being set up?

"Some people said you two were talking during batting practice," he said.

I didn't say anything.

"Here's the way we figure it. You went back to the dressing room. Maxie went to meet someone in the trainer's room. Maris and Mantle were in the dressing room. The reporters weren't here. They were let in after practice was over. So who met Maxie in the trainer's room, and who killed him with Maris' bat?"

I couldn't tell if this was something cooked up with J. Edgar's boys, or maybe the IRS. I didn't want to go to jail, but then I remembered Maris swinging his bat, and his pursuit of a finer thing.

I scratched my head and closed my eyes for a moment. "I can't remember exactly what happened."

"What were you doing in the trainer's room?"

I shrugged. "My head was hurting. I wanted aspirin. My memory must be going. But I don't think Maris did it."

"Why?" he said softly.

"Maris bats right-handed. From where Maxie stood, only a left-handed batter could have nailed him. The wall's in the way."

He took out a card and wrote something on it. "If you get more of your memory back, give me a call."

Sitting in right field, the game reminded me of bullfighting. The crowd cheered and groaned at every pitch. When they disagreed with the umpire, they threw things.

My headache was gone. Maris came to bat. There was no one on base. No one had scored. The crowd clapped and whistled at Maris, who seemed alone on the field. He swung his bat low, keeping it away from his legs, like it was heavy and live.

I remembered something Teddy Roosevelt said about being in the ring and how good it was, how it made life worth living. Maxie told it to me. It was the kind of saying that could inspire a young man to do great things and destroy an old man who had no more time left to do great things. Maybe Maxie knew he hadn't done anything with his life and that he never would. Whether you believed in reincarnation, heaven or the Elysium Fields, it's still only one lifetime to a customer. So he tried to destroy someone who was doing great things. Who was in the ring.

And while you're in the arena, you're golden, and you don't think about what happens when you have to leave it. That's when you realize that the end is the same. Plato the Greek or Rin-Tin-Tin. Who's more famous to the millions?

Maris took two strikes, kept his cool, let two balls pass, then hit a shot up the middle that rose and glinted in the sun. It curved toward right field. The fielder sprinted for the fence. The crowd leaped for the ball. It struck one pair of hands, bounced, was batted by another hand, and I reached up and the ball settled softly into my palm like a gift from heaven.

It was warm from the pitcher's hand. There was a black scuff mark from the bat. Maris trotted around the bases. The crowd cheered and clapped. I looked at the ball. I could buy its twin at Woolworth's.

The headache returned, stronger than before. No need to run anymore. Hoover's boys were close now. They'll run me to earth soon, just like they got Maxie and just like they're trying to get Maris. Time to go home.

I shut my eyes and flipped the ball away. I didn't see where it landed or who picked it up.

"That was a valuable ball you threw away, old man," I heard someone say.

"Not to me," I said.