You're a rookie jist once
And kin beat outcher bunts
While yer years still number few;
But the day will come
When yer legs won't run,
And you'll bid this League a-huh-dieu!
Oh, the happy sunny da-hays of old!
(Oh, the happy happy sunny sunny glorious days of old!)
When our feet were fleet and our
hearts were bold!
(When our cleated feet were fleet and true
hearts were ever bold!)
There's nothin — nn' so fine in the world
to behold
(There is nothin' quite so fine in the wide world
ever told)
As the happy hours of youth!
(As the happy sunny hours of youth!)
"Heh-hey!"
"Ya-hoo!"
"Oh, that was beautiful, Sandy!"
"Brings back the old days!"
"The happy hours of youth!" Tim Shadwell exclaimed and blew his nose, and there were melancholic mutterings of assent around the barroom, and then a soft silence. The moment was ripe, and Sandy probably had a new song ready, McCaffree supposed, for the occasion. Rooney's retching seemed to have stopped. Maybe the old sonuvabitch was dead…? Not likely. Even old Gus Maloney, stogie stuffed defiantly in his fat jowls, derby tipped down his bald pate toward his nose, seemed to have a tear in his eye, though one could never be sure, the old bastard may have worked it up for a vote or two.
The UBA Chancellor Fennimore McCaffree sat alone in his darkened and gloomy office staring morosely at the barroom scene on one of his television sets. Jake Bradley was a loyal Legalist and his bar was a popular hangout, so the installation of a camera there had been a natural for the party. He'd noticed that gatherings like this one always did something to the ones who came. Changed their politics, altered their view of reality, transformed them in subtle but often surprising and upsetting ways, and it was something F «nn had to keep an eye on. Especially since he himself functioned poorly in groups. He was a Legalist, the social construct was his central concern, group behavior was his favorite study, but he was, paradoxically, more of a loner even than Rag Rooney. He'd been lucky after all to get a gregarious son-in-law. Long Lew took on Fenn's public role.
So, he'd watched them gather, watched Pappy Rooney mix them up, watched Gus Maloney and Patrick Monday politick, seen Monday leave early (tailed, of course), watched Maloney's henchman Jaybird Wall — dentures fastened to the seat of his own pants — play his usual run of practical jokes, eavesdropping for Maloney on the side, had watched them drink and sing and wax sentimental, wondering what it was all going to come to.
Right now, Sandy Shaw was fingering his guitar lightly, tuning up. One of the old Bridegrooms, back in the days of Winthrop and Flynn and Gallagher. Fenn remembered the first time he had to swing against Sandy, his rookie year. Sandy was the ace of that championship Bridegroom team of XIX. Twenty-two wins that year, best season Sandy ever had. He looked harmless: freckled boyish face, light frame, graceful delivery, mild soft-spoken manner. But Sanford Shaw could really mix them up. Fenn had never seen so many different pitches as he looked at that day. Got called out on strikes three times, before he finally hit Shaw: double against the center-field wall. But by then, the Grooms had the game in the bag, and maybe Sandy was letting up. His major weakness. It was never Fenn's. Sandy started making up folk songs in the XX's to cheer up his teammates, those being grim letdown years for the Grooms… "Cellar Dweller Blues"… "Where Have All the Base Hits Gone?"… "Benchwarmer's Lament". . "Just A-longin' for Home". . "The Day They Fired Verne Mackenzie". . "No-Hit Nealy". . "Gone Down Swingin' Blues". . "When Toothbrush Dusted Gus in the Third". . fifty or sixty different songs. In his sixties now. No one like him. It'll be a great loss, when he's gone.
Sandy looked up now at the boys. They were all watching him. Hushed. They all seemed to sense he had a special number, had been waiting for it. Fenn knew, of course, what it would be, and it troubled him. On the other hand, he reasoned, maybe that was the solution: turn it into folklore. Wouldn't be in the way then. Sandy tucked his chin down into soft neck folds, going over the words once in his head maybe, and a kind of shadow passed over his face; then he looked up, and in his soft mellow tenor commenced — slowly, plaintively, syllable by drawn-out syllable — to sing…
Hang down your heads, brave men, and weep!
Young Damon has come to harm!
They have carried him off to a grave dark
and deep:
The boy with the magic arm!
We had gathered there to celebrate
His daddy's great career,
When an ill-fated pitch struck him down at
the plate:
The end of a brave Pioneer!
Hang down your heads, brave men. .
Fenn watched their faces. There they were, men turned into boys, whelmed by awe and adolescent wistfulness. In a way, Sandy did them a disservice, provided them with dreams and legends that blocked off their perception of the truth. But what was the truth? Men needed these rituals, after all, that was part of the truth, too, and certainly the Association benefited by them. Men's minds being what they generally were, it was the only way to get to most of them…
Oh, who has it been, brought to such grief,
While pitching a perfect game?
Whose life has been so bright, so brief?
Damon Rutherford is his name!
Hang down your heads, brave men, and weep!
Young Damon—
McCaffree switched off the volume, paced the floor, one eye on the screen. This killing couldn't have come at a worse time. Just when things were looking up. Not his fault, nothing he could have done to prevent it, yet it was bound to have an effect on elections this winter. Damon had been a wonderful league tonic. The whole process had been slowing down, the structure had lost its luster, there'd been rising complaints about meaninglessness and lack of league purpose. His Legalists, for no other reason except that they were the incumbents, had been dropping in popularity polls. And then Damon Rutherford had come along. He'd captured all their hearts, Fenn's included. Brock Rutherford Day had been Fenn's own idea. The whole UBA was suddenly bathed in light and excitement and enthusiasm. Fenn had foreseen an election sweep. Maloney and his Bogglers didn't have a single new issue. Patrick Monday was a rising threat, but at least four years off. The Guildsmen couldn't find a candidate. Total mandate. And then that pitch. He wasn't sure what he could do about it. Investigate the incident, of course. But what if he uncovered the worst possible fact: that Casey had thrown the bean ball on purpose? All pitchers threw one from time to time. All right, a new law maybe, lower the strike zone an inch or two or something, stiffer penalties, but nobody really wanted that. The only conceivable forms of meaningful action at a time like this were all illegal. Which meant, no matter what happened, he'd have to be on the wrong side, so to speak. Of course, he might be able to pressure Sycamore Flynn and the Knickerbocker management into getting rid of Casey. But then what? Monday or Maloney or somebody would probably make an issue of that. Yes, that's right, Monday didn't have to wait four years now. Boggle, boggle. And the empty Guildsmen candidacy was starting to look pretty attractive, too. Gatherings such as this one tonight in Jake's, he saw, were dangerous. He scanned the familiar faces. Gallagher. O'Leary. Stanford. Any one of them could suddenly emerge tonight as a new political figure.