House.
“Okay,” Mister JayMac said. “Who’s rooming with whom?”
The boardinghouse had two rooms for ballplayer-lodgers on the first floor, four on the second story, and a sort of garret nook on the third. Us rookies would settle in faster, the theory went, if we each had an old hand for a roommate.
“Sir, don’t we need to see who’s gonna get cut before we start assigning roommates?” Sweet Gus Pettus said.
Mister JayMac studied Pettus sorrowfully, his head cocked. “To be fair, yes. But I already know who I think’ll be gone by tomorrow noon. You, Mr. Pettus. Also, Charlie Jorgensen, Rick Roper, and Bobby Collum. Mr. Collum rents from me over in Cotton Creek, but all four of yall should be thinking about finding other work and moving out.”
“What?” Rick Roper cried. “ What? Spot challenges tomorrow and you’re not even waiting to see how we do?”
“Mr. Roper, you’ve played seventeen innings at shortstop this year,” Mister JayMac said, “but you have three times as many errors as Mr. Hoey, who’s played over a hundred. You’ve fanned every time you’ve come up to bat.”
Roper shut up. You could tell Pettus, Jorgensen, and Collum because they sat like glum statues. Roper went into a pathetic hangdog hunker of his own.
“For room-assignment purposes,” Mister JayMac said, “I’m going to assume that tomorrow at this time the four men whose surnames I’ve called will no longer be around. If any of yall want a head start on a new life, I’ll give you your pay and a small severance check. I’m no heartless monster, gentlemen.”
“No he aint,” Hoey said. “Ask Jumbo. The boss loant him his car.”
Mister JayMac looked at Jumbo. “And you, Mr. Clerval, why did I have to send Euclid to fetch you?”
“Sir, I fell asleep. My errand earlier today fatigued me.”
“What errand was that?” Hoey asked Jumbo.
“A personal errand. A private matter.”
“He got his ashes hauled!” somebody shouted.
“If he did,” Hoey said, “it took a dump truck to do it.”
“Hush,” Mister JayMac said. Nobody did. “Knock it off! We have room assignments to make and swapping out to do.”
Heggie, Dobbs, and Ankers got picked for roomies right away, by Knowles, Curriden, and Musselwhite, and the guys identified as culls were thrown out on their ears. No one, though, jumped to take me.
“Dumbo with Jumbo,” Buck Hoey said. “A perfect match.”
Dumbo . The nickname the smart-alecks back in Tenkiller had hung on me. Hoey was just like the jerk back home who’d offered to buy me a ticket to Dumbo because it’s “a good idea to stay in touch with your fambly, kid.”
Jumbo studied me with his custardy eyes. “Okay,” he said. “I agree to take Mr. Boles into my roost.”
Jumbo’s apartment was the only third-floor room set aside for boarders. If you could trust Mister JayMac’s wall chart, roost was a great name for it. Every guy at the meeting looked back and forth between Jumbo and me. Cripes. He was the kind of joker you have bad dreams about, and Mister JayMac was going to let him take me upstairs to his . . . roost .
8
I ’d left my duffel and my bat in the kitchen. When I went to get them, Curriden and Parris, on KP that week, followed me in and said I should start scrubbing dishes. I glared. Pro ballplayers, scrubbing dishes? Why couldn’t Kizzy do them? Getting thrown into Jumbo Clerval’s dutches had soured my mood, but I still couldn’t see why Mister JayMac’d pay a skinny old female shine just to cook and slouch around. Hadn’t he also hired her as a housekeeper? Why have colored help if your paid white ballplayers had to pitch in to help the help?
Kizzy read my mind. “Danl Bowes, I cooks and cooks. Aint nobody in this house goes hongry. You hongry?”
Nowhere like. If I’d taken another crumb, I’d’ve burst like a ripened pimple. I shook my head.
“Then you best git it in yo head to hep. Else I’m gone, off to do fo folks what’ll
“Okay,” Mister JayMac said. “Who’s rooming with whom?”
The boardinghouse had two rooms for ballplayer-lodgers on the first floor, four on the second story, and a sort of garret nook on the third. Us rookies would settle in faster, the theory went, if we each had an old hand for a roommate.
“Sir, don’t we need to see who’s gonna get cut before we start assigning roommates?” Sweet Gus Pettus said.
Mister JayMac studied Pettus sorrowfully, his head cocked. “To be fair, yes. But I already know who I think’ll be gone by tomorrow noon. You, Mr. Pettus. Also, Charlie Jorgensen, Rick Roper, and Bobby Collum. Mr. Collum rents from me over in Cotton Creek, but all four of yall should be thinking about finding other work and moving out.”
“What?” Rick Roper cried. “ What? Spot challenges tomorrow and you’re not even waiting to see how we do?”
“Mr. Roper, you’ve played seventeen innings at shortstop this year,” Mister JayMac said, “but you have three times as many errors as Mr. Hoey, who’s played over a hundred. You’ve fanned every time you’ve come up to bat.”
Roper shut up. You could tell Pettus, Jorgensen, and Collum because they sat like glum statues. Roper went into a pathetic hangdog hunker of his own.
“For room-assignment purposes,” Mister JayMac said, “I’m going to assume that tomorrow at this time the four men whose surnames I’ve called will no longer be around. If any of yall want a head start on a new life, I’ll give you your pay and a small severance check. I’m no heartless monster, gentlemen.”
“No he aint,” Hoey said. “Ask Jumbo. The boss loant him his car.”
Mister JayMac looked at Jumbo. “And you, Mr. Clerval, why did I have to send Euclid to fetch you?”
“Sir, I fell asleep. My errand earlier today fatigued me.”
“What errand was that?” Hoey asked Jumbo.
“A personal errand. A private matter.”
“He got his ashes hauled!” somebody shouted.
“If he did,” Hoey said, “it took a dump truck to do it.”
“Hush,” Mister JayMac said. Nobody did. “Knock it off! We have room assignments to make and swapping out to do.”
Heggie, Dobbs, and Ankers got picked for roomies right away, by Knowles, Curriden, and Musselwhite, and the guys identified as culls were thrown out on their ears. No one, though, jumped to take me.
“Dumbo with Jumbo,” Buck Hoey said. “A perfect match.”
Dumbo . The nickname the smart-alecks back in Tenkiller had hung on me. Hoey was just like the jerk back home who’d offered to buy me a ticket to Dumbo because it’s “a good idea to stay in touch with your fambly, kid.”
Jumbo studied me with his custardy eyes. “Okay,” he said. “I agree to take Mr. Boles into my roost.”
Jumbo’s apartment was the only third-floor room set aside for boarders. If you could trust Mister JayMac’s wall chart, roost was a great name for it. Every guy at the meeting looked back and forth between Jumbo and me. Cripes. He was the kind of joker you have bad dreams about, and Mister JayMac was going to let him take me upstairs to his . . . roost .
8
I ’d left my duffel and my bat in the kitchen. When I went to get them, Curriden and Parris, on KP that week, followed me in and said I should start scrubbing dishes. I glared. Pro ballplayers, scrubbing dishes? Why couldn’t Kizzy do them? Getting thrown into Jumbo Clerval’s dutches had soured my mood, but I still couldn’t see why Mister JayMac’d pay a skinny old female shine just to cook and slouch around. Hadn’t he also hired her as a housekeeper? Why have colored help if your paid white ballplayers had to pitch in to help the help?
Kizzy read my mind. “Danl Bowes, I cooks and cooks. Aint nobody in this house goes hongry. You hongry?”
Nowhere like. If I’d taken another crumb, I’d’ve burst like a ripened pimple. I shook my head.
“Then you best git it in yo head to hep. Else I’m gone, off to do fo folks what’ll
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