Generations in Agony...Texas: Chapter Seven

7)Over by the old Baseball field…

Coach Doug Bullock sat on the old wood bleachers and tried not to get a splinter in his ass. Morose, as usual, he watched the kids playing around out there and wondered how he had gone wrong enough to have ended up in Agony, Texas, coaching sports at a school so small that the local board could only afford a single coach for football, baseball and girl’s softball, the only organized sports played here.

Even the football was limited, the West Texas “Eight Man” version, played by a few handfuls of schools that could not field enough young men to play the game most people in America knew. Baseball gave Doug his best chance to make a name for himself, and perhaps, get offered a better job at a bigger school where he could get noticed by colleges before he became too old for anyone to care about.

The varsity boy’s team was decent enough; they had finished the 1968 season a respectable 18-13, loosing to Hondo in the first round of the playoffs. His varsity girl’s fast-pitch softball squad had gone all the way to a divisional championship, and lost at the regional final in a heartbreaker up in Midland.

For the last five years, he had been scouting the pick-up games here, where eleven and twelve year olds horsed around—since there was no little league to speak of for more than fifty miles. This was the only way he had to scout for potential talent. The sad truth was: kids came and went in Agony; few stayed long enough to become established, unless they were Indian, Mexican or a true local, of which there were few, and the talent pool shallow. The rest were Oil Patch; the sons of fathers that worked rigs for Onyx or Tuck Oil and dragged their families from patch to patch, pulling up stakes and leaving town without notice, often in the middle of the season.

The Indian kids at the reservation school had a lot of good ball-players, and there were more than a few kids of Mexican heritage that played lights-out ball. There were black kids that were as fast as lightning bolts, but the age-old political atmosphere throughout Texas—outside of Agony, anyhow—disallowed integrated play, for the time being. Still, ole Daryl Royal up at UT had put a few athletes of color on his current squad and was enjoying national championships and undefeated seasons on the college level. Surely, Doug hoped, integrated play would eventually establish itself within the state school system. And then things would really change.

As he watched and thought about his plight, Doug noticed a tall new kid walk out and take the ball off of the mound, where it rested beside the old, worn-out rubber. Doug figured the boy to be another Oil-Patcher, since he had never seen him before. This one carried himself well, though; he presented a particular swagger that Doug had not seen in a long time, certainly not in this age group.

The kid warmed up, tossing it in to the catcher: a Mexican kid named Julio who was fairly adept at the position. Another of the Mulligan boys—Tommy, Doug thought his name was, though it was hard to keep them all straight—leaned against a bat and taunted the new kid.

“That all you got, Speck?” Tommy quickly looked around to see how many chuckles he might have stirred up. The Speck kid fired another and it smacked into Julio’s mitt. “I’d a knocked that’n into next week, Charlie-boy!” Tommy said.

Doug could not help but smile. He watched the Speck kid closely. The boy paid Mulligan no mind; his eyes were zeroed in on Julio’s glove.

“Hell, you done warmed up, Charlie, let’s play ball before your momma calls you back home!” A few peels of laughter floated around the field.

Mulligan stepped into the batter’s box, or the spot where one would have been had anybody bothered to line the old field. He swung a couple times and then held the bat-head over the plate. “Put me one right there, Charlie-boy. I’m gonna knock it over the swamp.”

The first pitch the Speck kid threw went right to the spot Mulligan had asked for; a blur that left him swinging at it a second or two after it zipped by. A chorus of “Ohs” rang out from all nineteen of the other kids watching or playing the field. Speck did not flinch, smile or so much as crack a grin. He caught Julio’s return toss and as he turned back for the mound, Doug heard him speak for the first time: “That where you wanted it, Tommy?”

More guffaws trickled from around the diamond. Mulligan was beet red and fuming. He clinched his bat and drummed it on the battered old plate. “Show me that shit again, Speck! I’m gonna put it back down your throat!”

Doug leaned up over his knees and focused on Charlie Speck’s movements. He was fluid, graceful; his windup was without flourish; his kick high, with a bent knee that stepped long as he uncoiled and whipped another missile home. His follow-through was pure textbook. Somebody had taught this kid well.

“Hey, Tommy!” One of the Oil Patch kids yelled, Doug could not remember that one’s name as he spoke with an East Texas accent. “My feets are growin’ roots out here waitin’ on you to make a little contact.”

Tommy was frustrated. He leaned in and crowded the plate.

Charlie Speck threw a curve that first seemed destined to smack Tommy right in the eye before it swerved in over the inside corner. Mulligan dove out of the box and landed facedown in the dust. He jumped up quickly, rearing the bat one-handed, over his shoulder. “You son-of-a-bitch!” The bat flew at Charlie, who stepped calmly to one side as it wind-milled by; his eyes never left the irate Mulligan brother.

“Fuck baseball!” Tommy screamed and spun around. He saw the coach sitting there and stopped for a second.

Doug saw pure misery on the boy’s face. “You play baseball, Tommy. You don’t fuck it.” Some of the other kids turned away, holding snickers back. Everyone was quiet; the coach was talking.

“He’s throwin’ some sorta trick pitches, coach!”

“Fastballs and curves, Tommy. That’s all I saw.”

Tommy looked at his feet and said nothing else.

“I see you throw a bat at anybody else and you won’t be playing ball around here anymore—got that son?”

Although it did not seem possible, Tommy’s face got even more crimson. He fought back tears of frustration. “Yes, sir.”

Doug Bullock was the law when it came to the baseball field, and everybody knew it

*

When play began to break up due to the onset of darkness, Coach Bullock went after Charlie. “Hey, son! You, Speck! Hold up a second there!”

Charlie stopped and looked at the man coming down off of the bleachers. For a second, he wondered if he had done something wrong. “Me?” He pointed at his chest with the glove still on his left hand.

“Your name’s Charlie Speck?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m Coach Bullock. I…well, I’m the coach here at the school. How old are you?”

“I turn thirteen in October.”

Bullock nodded; his eyes were running up and down Charlie. “Who taught you to pitch that way?”

“My dad.”

The kid sounded Yankee.

“You ain’t from around here, huh?”

“Me and my mom moved here in June. I’m from Chicago.”

“Dang, son, what got you all the way down here?”

“My dad was killed.” Charlie looked at his shoes. “He was from here. We moved into his aunt’s old house.”

“Well, uh, sorry to hear that. Was your daddy a coach?”

“No, sir, he played pro ball. He signed with the Cubs. Played some minor league and got hurt just after he made it to the majors.”

“I’ll be…and you say he was from Agony?”

Charlie nodded.

“I never knew anybody from round here made it pro. Say he taught you to play?”

Charlie nodded again.

“You play much up there?”

“Little league, three years.”

“Well, I’d like to see you come out for the JV this next season. Might get a chance at varsity, I’m thin on pitching as it is.”

“Me?” Charlie looked at Bullock as if he just told him that he had won a new car.

“You the same kid I just watched pitching?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then yeah, son. I’m talking about you. See you round, Charlie Speck.”

“Yeah, see ya…Coach.”

Bullock had walked a few steps before he stopped short and turned back. “You and your momma ain’t planning on moving away any time soon, are ya?”

Charlie shrugged. “I don’t think so, sir.”

“Good…” Bullock turned and walked toward his old Plymouth. “That’s real good!”

*