Free The Brothers K by David James Duncan Page A

postcard. It’s a picture of a cougar. It says:
    Dear All, Here’s the cat that ate me. Nice of it to mail this cute pix of us, huh? I’m the one on the inside. I’m healthy as ever, just a bit dead and chewed up is all. Miss you guys, specially the babies.
    XOOX, Winnie
    Mudcat tips his hat a few times to try and shut the fans up, which makes them scream all the louder. “Patience, folks,” Dizzy mutters. “There’s not much else to cheer about in lovely downtown Cleveland.”
    Mudcat gets so fidgety he finally steps onto the rubber despite the noise, winds up, throws as hard as he can—and almost takes Howard Elston’s head off. The fans cheer even louder, thinking it was a knockdown, but Papa says the pitch got away from him. The TV screen flashes from Mudcat looking jittery to Howard Elston getting up, his face furious, his big white pinstriped butt all filthy.
    “Nice camera work,” says Dizzy.
    “Takes you right on down there,” says Pee Wee.
    Then Howard Elston grabs his crotch in his hand and pulls on it like he’s trying to yank it clear off. The camera veers wildly up into the fans. “No stoppin’ them Yanks,” says Dizzy in a perfect deadpan.
    The screen flashes to Pee Wee, who’s covering his eyes with one hand, struggling not to laugh. “This is some kinda ballgame we got goin’ here in sunny Ohio,” he says, I think by accident.
    Howard Elston takes a big blooping change-up for a strike. Mudcat calms down and throws the wicked slider next, for strike two. Then heshakes off his catcher’s signal, shakes him off again, throws a fastball, and Howard takes one of those big angry swings that look like the ball somehow goes right through the bat. All it hits is mitt, though. Strike three. Out number two.
    “Nobody left,” says Pee Wee, “but Mr. William Skowron.”
    And here he comes. Moose Skowron. Hefting four bats, then three, then two, then one, overworking the poor fat batboy traipsing along behind him. Kubek hops up and down on second base, looking like he’s got to piss bad. The fans start giving Mudcat another endless ovation.
“Home, home on the range,”
Dizzy croons,
“where the Mooses and the Indians play …”
    Pee Wee groans.
    “Where seldom is heard an encouragin’ word, but them Yanks just won’t give up no way.”
    “Very nice,” sighs Pee Wee.
    “In-prom-two,” drawls the Diz. “In-prom-two’s my four-tay.”
    “That and French,” Pee Wee says.
    Moose Skowron looks nothing like a Moose. He’s just big, like Irwin. He’s also a lefty like Irwin, and Irwin’s usually lucky, so maybe Moose will be too. Then again, Papa is a lefty … I decide to beef up my prediction. I reach in my pocket, pull out the roll of lucky Bazooka, nip off a chaw—and
yum!
I can taste it clear down in my toes:
yak butter!
    “It’s the Moose!” I tell Papa. “He’s gonna tie it up, right
now!”
    Papa scowls. “Home run?”
    “Nope! No, it won’t be a homer!” And for an instant I can see it: a cloud of dust, a swarm of sprawled bodies … No, it can’t be. I’m going nuts. Let’s go fishing.
    Mudcat throws Skowron the same low slider Papa keeps calling a strike. Once again the ump agrees. Kubek takes a gigantic lead off second, but the Indian shortstop and second baseman ignore him and stay deep, figuring to make Moose the final out.
    Mudcat throws the slider again, Moose takes it again, the ump calls it a strike again, and Stengel charges out of the dugout, showing the ump in jerky, violent sign language that the pitch didn’t reach Moose’s knees, which is true. But the ump pays no attention, and the fans all scream at Stengel. He scrinches up his face, sticks his middle finger in his ear, starts cleaning things furiously, and strolls back to his burrow. The count stands at 0 and 2. Skowron’s face is grim. But I
still
taste the yak butter—and the next pitch (Papa says it was that same good slider) Moose smashes so low and hard you can’t even see the ball till