To talk about Keats, see some art, and eat some delicious deli food at my favorite L.A. eatery…
Before I head out, I wanted to post a longish excerpt from the novel I’m working on as part of National Novel Writing Month. I know, I don’t already have enough on my plate. But I figured I’m here to write, and I’ve always wanted to do this. My concept for the novel — since I could never develop and sustain a long narrative thread over the course of 50,000+ words — was to come up with six separate story threads, corresponding roughly to six different genres, which will perhaps intertwine at some point, although I have no idea how. Now that six days have gone by and I’ve started each one, I simply roll the dice each day to determine which one I work on. The excerpts below represent the first of the threads to have more than one part written. (Another excerpt from a different part is available here, though their site is rather slow.) Enjoy — it’s rough and raw, so keep that in mind, but I’d be happy to hear what you think…
Little’s Riddle
Little banked the small aircraft around the tower and shot into the calmer airspace over the East River, his plane a dazzling silver dragonfly reflected in thousands of windows as he glided back along the city’s skyline. One more pass and then he’d bring her down on the small airstrip in New Jersey where he kept the plane. He checked his instruments and his altitude and prepared to swoop back into the concrete canyon for that last run.
So they’d lost. Well, they’d lost. He had lost one game and Ramirez had lost another and Estanza, the true ace of the staff, had pitched a great game through eight innings only to see their usually reliable bullpen come in and blow the slim lead. So the Royals – the Royals! – were already prepping for the World Series while the Yankees had quietly flown back on the team charter late last night and were now quietly dispersing. Some of them, the big stars, like Phillips, with his million-dollar smile and deft shortstop hands, would more or less meld into the glittering city, just another ordinary, young, multi-million dollar bachelor on the hoof in Manhattan. Others, like Jorgenson, an aging free agent who had faded badly down the stretch and had been ominously inactive for the championship series, would further fade into retirement or an ignoble tryout with a lesser club next spring. Little, a good friend of Jorgenson’s from way back in the Expos days, happened to know that he, Jorgenson, had been playing hurt since at least mid-August. His shoulder was sore and he couldn’t feel the middle two fingers on his right hand during some at-bats. Didn’t matter. Nobody cared.
Little had been a late-season acquisition. Had been rescued from the torpor of a Texas team that stumbled out of the gate, made a half-assed run just prior to the all-star break, then fallen completely out of the picture in a tough division and dumped his salary (along with several others) to the all-consuming Yanks for prospects and cash. He had done well. Won some tough games when the division title was still in doubt and the rest of the staff scuffling with injuries. Little was a pro. Not the best stuff in the world, but he knew how to get guys out. A crafty veteran, was Little. Not a junk-baller, could still bring a decent heater in the mid-90s range when it was needed, give you six or seven solid innings a start, leave you a fair chance to win most games.
He was perfect for the Yankees, with their deep, if not as stellar as during the dynasty years, bullpen, their modern day Murderer’s Row lineup, and their above-average defense. Little was the very definition of a middle-of-the-rotation major league pitcher, a guy who could, on the right team with the right staff and the right breaks, win you 12-15 games in a given year. He got along well with Capricci, the salty manager of the Yanks who had a reputation for liking veteran pros. Of course, Capricci’s status with the team, if you believed what they wrote in the Post, was in a bit of doubt at the moment. The Boss had waited six long years since the last ticker-tape parade, and the Boss was not a patient man. Still, Little’s agent had given him to know that the Yankees’ braintrust had already made certain overtures, the gist and thrust of which were that they wanted to lock him up for the next couple years at least, with the option for a third, which would more or less take Little all the way to the end of his solid, if not glorious, career. In other words, after six teams in 12 years with a brief sojourn to Japan (when he had been left dangling without a contract during the last lockout), he may have found a real home.
The feeling was… nice. Little ought to have been happy. He was – but there was a strange thread of some other feeling, not quite apathy but perhaps a cynical aloofness, running through the whole thing. It was a business. But it wasn’t exactly that, either.
He tapped the throttle and the plane swooped around a steel spire that jutted up from one of the shorter giant buildings, a spire that must once have been visible from Brooklyn but now stood dwarfed by taller skyscrapers all around. Immediately an odd gust blasted the slightly tilted wings and he squeezed the throttle to make the minute adjustments necessary to get the plane back level. The engine revved and whined till the craft settled into its usual smooth glide. Otherwise it was so quiet up here. That was the amazing thing. In a city full of noise and strife, to be up here viewing it all as serenely as if he was flying over the African veldt. He wanted to make one more pass but his fuel was running low. He shot back out over the river and banked south towards home.
But then Little went back. There was something in there he needed to figure out, couldn’t do it back home, on the ground. This feeling. They had lost. He didn’t so much care about that. A professional athlete, by nature, has to become about 80% Zen warrior, a stoic priest who takes the blown saves and dink hits and dropped outs with a sort of equanimity that ordinary people would find incomprehensible. You work yourself up, you show emotion, sure – you need emotion to play the game, pump that little bit extra into the fastball down 3-1 to a guy putting up MVP numbers, the bases juiced – but that’s just it; over the course of a four-month, 162-game season, you save that emotion for those instants you really need it. You don’t get too far down over the losses or too ecstatic over the wins. Last pitch, next pitch. The great pitching guru of the Expos – back when they had had a team and it was any good – Leo Proserpine had drilled that into his head. As in, you’re only as good as… Little had learned it. Believed it. It had brought him through numerous seasons in various cities, dry spells when the ball felt big and slow as a melon coming out of his hand, hot streaks when every pitch was sniper fire. He wouldn’t have lasted without it.
Little gave the craft a little extra throttle as it dipped back into the forest of buildings, concrete and steel rising majestically to swallow the plane. He felt the familiar jolt in his belly and grinned. God, this was it! Really. He liked to play guitar. Poker. Pool. He had taken advantage of his financial situation, natural dexterity, and competitiveness to learn and somewhat master all these things. But until he’d bought the plane a couple years ago and learned how to fly it, he hadn’t found anything to match the rush of those early major league years. He roared through a tight space and lifted the nose to bank up on a tough current above the wind’s corridor.
Care about winning? Sure. Little had played on some of those teams where a strange malaise had taken root, creeped down from an incompetent front office to infect even the ballboys and ticket-takers, the peanut venders and Veepees of Whosis and Whatsit and of course, the players and fans. He had seen players who might have had Hall of Fame careers wasting away in some corner of nowhere, unwilling to fight through the little injuries and slumps and crises of confidence that a player like Phillips, nurtured on championships and media attention, ate for breakfast and spat out before every game. Phillips had that glow. Yeah. Like Kirby Puckett. You just had that confidence with him out in the field, up at the plate. Intangibles, they called it. Bullshit. It was that, sure, but it was something more. A state of baseball beatitude, like Billy Budd on his ship, certain players became almost totemic, a good luck charm that everyone wanted to rub. Little had never inspired that kind of excitement, never would. But he loved the game. He wanted to win. He knew that if they’d made it to the World Series, if they gave him the ball in the right place at the right time, if the rest of the team didn’t drop into the most horrible slump…
Just then the cross-current hit. Little felt the delicate craft shudder and toss about 100 feet up and to the left. Luckily there was nothing – wait – he glanced from his instruments to the view through the windshield, calculating quickly, trying to haul the plane back on course. He bent over the throttle with a sort of interested grin, the same concentrated look that he had, not on the mound, actually, but in the video room or the bullpen, practicing, studying, doing all the small things he had to do as an average guy with an average arm trying to compete against fire-ballers and superstars. In a moment he’d levelled out and was coasting over the river again. But going the wrong way. Well, he’d have to come up a little ways to where he knew there was a good place to make the slow bank, turn and head back.That was about enough for one day.
Tomorrow he planned to gas up and fly with Lafcadio back to California. Begin the off-season. Lafcadio, the young instructor who’d taken him up hundreds of times, till he’d put in enough hours to get his pilot’s license. They’d become friends and Little had pitched him on the journey a month or so ago, come out to the coast, stay in the guest house, relax and take in the ocean. Well, the offseason had come. No point sticking around. There’d be contract offers and counter-offers, and eventually Little would sign, but he didn’t need to be around for that. It would take a while, anyway, while they straightened out the situation with Capricci and a half-dozen other, more important free agents. Little had not yet figured out what was bothering him but there would be time for that, too. Time to loosen the piano wires, let the instrument breathe, go fishing, get drunk, put on 10 pounds – well, maybe five or so anyway – before tapping into the passion and cranking it back up again.
He made the turn. When he saw the building, there was no time to adjust.
It just hadn’t been there a moment before, and then there it was. Black skyscraper, 70 stories of it, coming right at him. He saw the plane reflected in the dark glass and thought for an instant that another plane had somehow gotten right in his path. In the next flicker he knew what was coming and didn’t have time to so much as touch the throttle before it hit. The plane hit oddly silently at the first impact and then everything was screaming steel and orange light and he actually watched the metal fold and crumple and –
Before anyone knew what had happened, there it was, again, black smoke pouring out of a hole in a big building far above the streets, fire chasing smoke out into the sky. People screaming. Cars screeching. Shoes scraping pavement, carrying panicked bodies away from the scene.
* * *
New York, October 12— A single-engine plane crashed into a Manhattan apartment tower last night, killing at least one person, as yet unidentified…
fuselage jellied by flame, tail piece cracking off swinging like finger on broken hinge, metal groaning in wind, closeup of skin on skin burning cracking to bone beneath, the wreckage melting on impact, glass spraying for hundreds of yards
October 14—The plane, a Cirrus SR20, was owned by Sam Little, starting pitcher of the New York Yankees… has not yet been confirmed as the pilot at the time of the crash
woman washing glass out of hair, blood freckling palm… palm the last place of his resting, perhaps in the eyes of a boy, boy he wanted to be or wanted to be him, saw for an instant the place and the plane underneath
October 15—It has now been confirmed that Samuel Mark Little, major league pitcher, was on board the plane that crashed last week into the Frost Tower in Manhattan… sole person killed in the crash
“As we begin the World Series this evening in Kansas City, let us now observe a moment of silence for one of our own who was just taken from us tragically last week…â€
October 28—The plane began its U-turn over Rivet Island, in the middle of the East River, rather than from the eastern bank of the river, a safer spot… may have been concerned about a stall… still trying to recover additional data from computer chips in two portable global positioning units… flying in a narrow corridor of uncontrolled airspace where many recreational pilots fear… would have had a hard time making such a tight turn
“Oh my god I thought of that, too… So you’re supposed to be Sam Little, right? I just couldn’t find a baseball uniform that fit me. The goggles are a nice touch. Well, trick or treat, man. Cheers…â€
There is no more Little. Little is no more. Little came from nothing, and thence has he returned. Little became something, but now he has been given back to the nothing from whence he sprang. Little lived as he died. Held nothing back. Had he lived, to see how he died, would have laughed. Little is gone. Vanished. Through a hole in a mirror, a puff of smoke. A spray of metal and glass. Forgotten Little. Little remembered.
Here’s Little:
On a nameless diamond some lazy afternoon in Michigan. The umpire’s late, the few players’ parents who stayed for the game shuffle around behind the home plate fence, smoking cigarettes, cursing. The boys take turns warming up in the field, shagging flies and playing pepper, one kid smacks grounders and line drives at fielders who dive and prance in the dirt to glove them, whirl and toss over to first. The air is heavy and crisp, the light rich and new, but it’s getting on towards late afternoon and shadows begin to creep across the infield; a cross-hatch shadow from the fence backing checkers the players who roll and romp and run on the grass. The scene is vaguely annoying, waiting for something to bring it to order, thick with the urge to commence, like a crowded theater growing restless for the curtains to rise.
But there is one boy who stands out; one boy, even in this malaise of agitated parents and kids growing ever more restless and goofy, who continues to focus and practice his craft with utmost attention, almost a scowling attention, his elfin face beneath dirty ballcap scowling like the Old Man of the Sea. No, it’s not Little. The blonde boy stands erect on the pitcher’s mound, cleats toeing the rubber. Concentrates on a spot somewhere in the mitt held stiff and still as a camera in the catcher’s hands. Rears back and throws – throws, and in one incredible motion flips his own glove out from under his armpit and slips it onto the hand that just flung the ball.
The boy has no left arm. One hadn’t noticed this at first, so natural and deft were his movements. There is a short stump where the arm should be, a stump that ends in a pathetic row of tiny, useless fingers, balls of flesh that approximate a hand. The stump is just long enough to clamp the glove under the pit while the other arm throws. The pitches are sharp, angry, buzzing things – there’s a fastball heavy with movement, a whip-like slider, a knee-buckling curve that the boy uses sparingly, because it’s not easy getting it over the plate. Also the follow-through throws him off-balance, causing him to miss sometimes getting the glove on his other hand.
Perhaps even more amazing are his at-bats. For these the boy wears a hook arm, attached to his shoulder by a system of straps to open and close the hook. Clutches the bat in his right hand but also puts the hook on the handle. Bats from the right side, of course. Is essentially swinging with one arm, but nevertheless gets the barrel on the ball more often than not, and hits with power. His swing containing the same pissed off energy as his pitches. Powerful. Each one a dart, a fuck you to the world that took his arm away. But, controlled. And in one motion, the bat twirls around smacking the ball and flies back into the dirt as he’s off and running to first base. Taking the turn, scowling out at the fielder, dusting the dirt off his uniform…
The umpire is late. Little is there. Watching. Learning.
Here’s Little:
“You got decent power, kid, but you’ll never be what I’d call the most graceful shortstop I ever seen. I don’t know what your uh aspirations are in this game, but if I were you I might think about something else… Heard you’re a mighty good basketball player… Yeah, we can try you at pitcher; have to learn a few more pitches of course, use you out of the bullpen at first…â€
Here’s Little:
“This is it, buddy. If Gibby hits one out here, we’re going Downtown.â€
“Kirk Gibson up to the plate. Gibson has not fared well against Gossage in the past. Two men on, Tigers leading the Padres, chance to open this game up. The pitch by Gossage –My goodness! It could be – it should be – GONE into the upper deck! Detroit, your Tigers are going to win the World Series!â€
And brother Ted takes him out to in the chill October evening to climb into his old beater, a 1978 LaSalle. In an instant they’re zooming up 12 mile road, Ernie Harwell’s voice crackling over the radio, brisk with excitement, counting down outs to the inevitable ending. On the freeway cars are honking and veering all over the road. The madness seems to intensify, an almost audible hum as they get closer to downtown. Little remembers the exits flashing by, he and Ted high-fiving with every Padres out, a hastily lit joint going back and forth in the front seat as the car seems to fly on a solid wave of air. Ted never taking his foot off the gas, the LaSalle shooting off sparks as they bounce over a pot hole exiting at Michigan Avenue, the high white walls of the Stadium lit up as they cruise closer.
Little remembers – but how could this be? – faces of people screaming from the top of the outfield wall, clearly visible to him as the car zooms towards Tiger Stadium on the old cobblestone surface streeets. They all have the same ecstatic expression – white faces, black faces, Latinos, old, young – waving hands and shouting down at the cars and the people on the streets. This Little remembers, but thinks it must have only been people on bridges or nearby building tops. Conflated now in the mind.
Ted suddenly makes use of the brakes and wrestles the car like a wild steer into a sort-of space out front of a party store just a block away from the park. One wheel on the curb, the LaSalle hanging awkwardly over the street, he yanks Little out of the passenger side, ass sliding over upholstered seats and onto the bustling sidewalk. People are already out in numbers. They’ve burst out of buildings and rooms and jobs, thick as fish flies that one or two evenings every fall when they’re spawning and you have to wipe them off your windshield, brush them out of your eyes. They all have the same yell on their lips, which seems to leap out of them raw and awkward, and demand the accompaniment of hands, hands gesturing, touching, making fists, smashing…
Very quickly Little loses all sense of his own body in the crowd. The crowd is a live thing, a hungry thing, a thing with no tolerance for boundaries, be they flesh, glass, cloth, steel. Windows crunch like candy in the crowd’s teeth. There is only a momentary hush when a small, tinny voice rises excitedly – “Fly ball out to left field – Herndon running – Herndon there – CATCHES the ball and the game is over! Tigers win! Tigers win!†Before the arc of the last-out call is completed the crowd has already ratcheted up its energy another notch or two, in an instant its numbers double, and now there are people pouring out of the main gates of the stadium, and it’s a mob now, one face flickers from one to the other, the eyes wild and vacant, the arms leaping out like flames from a single fire, and it’s fire the crowd wants to mirror its own destructive force, Little senses this even then, knows this and wants it, too…
A hurrah goes up as a cop car topples over. Already another excited murmur as actual flames break out.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.â€
Ted’s hands on his jacket, pulling him back through the waves of the crowd beating against them.
Here’s Little:
“Yes, I do understand, I mean, I understand as much as I’m able…â€
Lying in the timeless darkness a long while after making love, the love-making still reverberating in their bodies, their bodies still slick with connection, still hot at the core and shivering on the surface, comfortably absent.
“So beautiful.â€
“Yes. I feel I understand what it’s for,†she says, her voice a strange and wonderful thing in his ears, and that’s part of it, too; part of what’s perfect, what fits. She speaks slowly, the Russian accent giving her words a slurred, sultry sound, a sound he has to work to hear and catch the meaning of. Sharp in his ears.
“Our bodies.â€
“Love.â€
“Night.â€
“I feel like – I mean, I’ve always been vaguely religious. Not too much, but – you know. And I just feel really close to… something.â€
She laughs. “I’m glad you put it like that. That feels right.â€
“Not God, but…â€
“Time.â€
“Yes.â€
Here’s Little:
Standing atop the wreckage, looking back at everything. A lost plane. A lost boy. A lost game. A lost world.
Tags: Workbook by dhadbawnik
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