The House of Daniel Read Online Free Page B

bread or anything else to fill up your empty.
    I went down to the room at the end of the hall and took a bath after the folks there who had regular jobs headed off to do ’em. Didn’t have to hustle so much that way. Other people weren’t pounding on the door and yelling for me to hurry up in the name of the Lord.
    I was slicking down my hair and combing a part into it at the mirror on the chest of drawers in my room when I heard a commotion in the front entryway. I knew what that had to be, and it was. The rest of the Enid Eagles had made it to Ponca City.
    They all whooped when I came out to say hello. Ace McGinty must’ve been running his mouth but good. “Hope you’re not too tuckered out to play today!” he called to me.
    â€œAh, stick it,” I told him.
    Which was the wrong thing to say, of course. “I thought that’s what you were doing,” Mudfoot Williams said. He was our third baseman. His name was Zebulon, but he’d been Mudfoot since he was a kid. He hated shoes more’n anything, and went barefoot whenever he could.
    Him and Lightning Bug Kelly (who always had a smoke going, even when he was catching) and Don Patterson, our top pitcher, threw their bags into the room with me. The other guys got their rooms. Nobody stayed in ’em long, though. We put on our baseball togs, grabbed our gloves and shillelaghs, and headed on over to Conoco Ball Park.
    It’s on the southwest edge of town, over by US 60. The diamond in Blaine Park is better kept up, but all of the Greasemen except a couple of ringers work in the oilfields, so they play on the company field. We got there a couple of hours before game time, but a few people were already in the stands. Not one whole hell of a lot to do in Ponca City. Well, Enid’s the same way.
    Rod Graver played short for us, and managed, too. He was about thirty then, not slick, but steady, which you need if you’re gonna ride herd on a bunch of ballplayers. He’d got up to B ball in the pros. He might’ve gone further, but his brother hurt himself and he had to come back and take over the farm work.
    Him and me, we threw a ball back and forth to loosen up. After a few minutes, he came over and asked, “You do what you needed to yesterday?” He talked low, but he knew I hadn’t come to Ponca City early so I could dip my wick. That meant he talked to Big Stu. It meant Big Stu talked to him, too.
    I’ve always made a lousy liar. I shrugged back at him. “You tend to your business and I’ll tend to mine,” I answered, not sharp—I didn’t want to quarrel before the game—but giving away as little as I could.
    He got a double furrow, up and down, above his nose. His eyebrows pulled down and together. “Big Stu won’t fancy that,” he said, his voice as flat as you wish infield dirt would be.
    â€œBig Stu’ll just have to lump it,” I said. “I’ll pay back the down payment—he doesn’t need to fret over that.” I hoped I’d get ten bucks from my share of the gate today. If I didn’t, well, I’d come up with the rest some way or the other.
    Not that that’d do me much good, not with Big Stu. I didn’t do what he told me to, so I was dirt to him from then on out. Not dirt—manure. I knew it. So did Rod. He clicked his tongue between his teeth. “Jack—” he started, and stopped right there.
    â€œIt’s done. I mean, it’s not done. The hell with it. The hell with everything,” I said. “Let’s play ball.”
    He turned away. Let’s play ball would do for that day, and maybe for the next one. It sure wouldn’t do once I got back to Enid. Like the Mitch Carstairs who hadn’t been there, I’d be an accident waiting to happen, and I wouldn’t wait long. I hoped the Mich Carstairs who had been there was somewhere a long ways away by then. I wondered what I