Our whirlpool in Joplin was a big galvanized metal tub that a man could sit upright in. It was for the players. But after a tough day of sitting on his butt and spitting tobacco juice, Jiggs liked to relax by sitting in the whirlpool and reading those True Detective magazines you see on the shelf at 7-Eleven stuck between Monster Trucks Today and Real Inside Wrestling. He was humming along to the big old AM-FM radio, which was tuned to this country and western station from Neosho. I went into the whirlpool room. Jiggs was alone, his nose stuck in the magazine. I saw him spit into the water.
He looked up as I walked in. “Hey, Johnson,” he said, “how you doing?”
“Fine,” I said. I walked over to the radio.
“You got your bus ticket back to Hooterville yet? Way Mendoza is playing, you going to have a very short career. Ha, ha.”
“It is Eufaula,” I said, very slowly. “Eufaula, Alabama. That is were I am from. Not Hooterville.”
“Ha,” he said. “Same thing. You going to be back where you belong, performing unnatural acts with livestock and flipping burgers at the Dairy Queen.”
I picked up the radio and looked straight at him. I suppose he saw something in my eyes, for he started to look a little nervous.
“Jiggs Holloway,” I said, very slowly, “you have made my life miserable ever since I came to this club.”
“It’s not me who has not got a hit for two months,” he said. “That is what is miserable.”
“I done nothing to you, but you have rode me every chance you got.”
“I was only ragging you. You dumb-ass hicks can’t take a joke.”
“Maybe not. But I am going to kill you anyway.”
He saw the radio in my hand and he looked down at the water which was around his chest. “Oh my God,” he said and he jumped up, the fastest I ever saw Jiggs move, but it was too late. I flung the radio into the water. There was a great splash.
Nothing happened.
For a minute the room seemed to swim. Then Jiggs was just standing there in the water. The radio made this burbling sound and sank. Then I saw what happened. When I threw the radio, the plug came out.
Jiggs started to laugh. “Oh my, Johnson,” he said, “that was a good one, that was. You really had me there for a minute.”
He laughed and laughed. A crimson fog seemed to come down over my eyes.
“I did not think you had it in you,” he said. “You will have to pay for the radio, but it was worth it. It was a real good joke. I’ll have to tell the boys.”
Everything was dark and red. Over next to the wall I saw a couple of bats the equipment manager had not put away. I grabbed one and charged at him.
It was like everything was in slow motion. His head seemed to hang in front of me, eyes like raisins in a half-baked biscuit; it looked like a curveball that hadn’t broke, hanging right out over the middle of the plate.
I swung the bat with all my might.
He screamed.
That’s about all I remember. A second later a couple of guys ran in; they grabbed me and took the bat away, although I don’t think I resisted much. The last thing I remember seeing was Jiggs standing naked there in the tub, water still dripping off him. I heard him start to laugh.
“Missed me!” he was saying. “The stupid son of a bitch missed me! Went right over my head!” I never have seen anyone laugh that hard. “Missed me!”
It was the worst slump I have ever been in.
Out of Order
by Maude Miller
Someone had been in her flat. She knew this because the inlaid box on the telly had been turned. Instead of facing the armchair in front as it usually did, it now faced the bookshelves to the side. Miss Dewey had returned from the greengrocer’s to find it so. In an ordinary flat, it would have been a matter of little concern, even passed by unnoticed. But in Miss Dewey’s flat, well, nothing was ever out of order.
The items in her fridge were alphabetically organized, eggs and juice on the left, margarine and milk on the right. Her books were also shelved in alphabetical order by author, the tinned goods in the pantry likewise. She had an obsession for ABC order, the natural result of her many years as a schoolmistress in a primary school north of London. She hadn’t liked her profession, and it was a great humiliation to her that she never became headmistress, but she had endured it until she could retire and collect her pension.
Miss Dewey had spent the better part of her spinsterhood in the company of whiny, simpering children always begging for the attention she was loath to give them. Such disgusting, runny-nosed little creatures with no reverence at all for order and tidiness. They were always making a mess, a mess that she was expected to pick up. It was nothing less than a miracle that she had survived it.
But now matters were quite different. She no longer had to pretend she liked children, or anyone else for that matter. She had let this small but well-equipped flat in a quiet, safe section of London, and no children were allowed in the building. It was the perfect situation for her orderly life, and she was grateful that she would never have any reason to leave. She finally had a home of her own, and she would never have to worry about children coming to visit. In fact, no one at all ever came to Miss Dewey’s flat because she had no friends. Her appearance alone did not invite friendship, what with the steely gray hair pulled severely back into a tight bun, the hard, dark eyes, and the sharp-featured chin and nose that appeared hawkish because she was so thin. In combination with her sharp tongue and harsh criticisms of almost everyone she came in contact with, it was not surprising that Miss Dewey had not had a true friend for well on fifty years. But, that was just as well, she told herself reassuringly. Friends were wont to make messes and whine for attention, just like those annoying students had done for so many years. She had spent forty years teaching so that she could escape those grim responsibilities and do as she pleased, without the bother and inconvenience of having to live with someone else in order to cut expenses. Miss Dewey had been forced to earn a pension, and she had wisely done so. It never occurred to her that she had chosen a profession she was ill-equipped for.
She had carefully selected this quiet, orderly block of flats. There were only four tenants in the building, approved of because they kept to themselves and had no children. There was an elderly couple to the side of her flat, a young single man above them, and a thirtyish single woman above her who had just recently moved in (all remaining nameless to Miss Dewey). They were necessarily quiet; she would have it no other way. She hoped they were neat, but she couldn’t be sure of that because she had never entered their flats and didn’t plan to. Except for Mr. Trainor, the owner of the building, who also took charge of the maintenance and management.
He and his sister lived at the rear of the building, and circumstances had compelled her to become more familiar with him than she cared to. Eyeing the incongruously placed inlaid box (she was careful not to move it because it was evidence), she knew she would have to speak to Mr. Trainor directly. Miss Dewey had been to the door of his flat on several occasions out of sheer necessity. First of all, she had no telephone. There was simply no need to go to the expense of having one installed, since no one would ever ring her, but sometimes she did need to use it. Mr. Trainor allowed her to use his, as she felt he should. Second, there were sometimes other matters that she had to draw to his attention.
“Someone has been in my flat, Mr. Trainor. Nosing about, I expect.”
Mr. Trainor was a heavyset, fortyish man with a pleasant, ruddy face and a rapidly balding head. “And how do we know that, Miss Dewey?” He was by now painfully familiar with Miss Dewey’s complaints, ranging from the petty (I was disturbed by the phonograph upstairs last evening), to the ludicrous (must we allow pets in this building? I could smell cat dander through the vents). Cat dander can be dangerous, he had responded facetiously. But Miss Dewey had not smiled. He had never seen her smile.