MicroHorror

He was the greatest player to play the game. Period. I don’t want any of what I’m about to tell you to color that. I’m only telling you because this time next week, I’ll be gone, and it’s important that someone knows. You can tell whoever you want; just don’t expect them to believe you. In fact, they’ll likely hate you for it. You’d be pissing on a legend. It’s the truth, though, and that’s enough for me.

He had a phenomenal arm. He earned his way into the bigs pitching. Son of a bitch had a curve that shook worse’n my hands do now. The hitting is another thing. He could drop a single into the slot with the best of them, but back then, he couldn’t clear that fence but once or twice a season. It’s a fact.

We were two years in the minors, then he was traded, and I didn’t run into him again until we were both wearing pinstripes. By then he was slugging them into the parking lot twice a night. I wish you could have seen it. Three years on, I asked him about it. We were roommates, and during a particularly awful stretch in the middle of August, we got drinking, and then we got talking.

“What in hell happened to you, anyway?” I asked. “Back on the farm, you’d get one out the back a handful of times at best.”

He looked at me a long time then. His eyes cleared right up, like we hadn’t touched a drop. This next thing, I’m not proud of, but it’s part of the story, so I’ve got to tell it. All I’ll say in my defense was that times were tough, and I was weak.

“Okay, Pete,” he started in that booming voice he had, even when he whispered. “I know for a fact you took dough to shave some points during this trip, so if I tell you this, it all stays you and me, correct?”

I had, and I said it did.

He took a deep breath, lifted his shirt up, and I had to stifle a shout. On his gut was a spider web of thin white scars. “This game needed something. You know that as well as I do. It was good, but it needed to be great. I knew I could be the one to do it. But I needed help.”

“What kind of help?” I knew then that I didn’t want the answer.

“I sold my soul, Pete. There was a shady character I used to know–Mr. Jesse. He got me this book, and with the book I talked to this thing.

“I was specific. I wanted to hit the long ball. The demon agreed; the little bastard drove a hard bargain too. He said he didn’t want no ‘deathbed welsher.’ Instead, each time I bang one out, he takes his cut. Feels like something’s raking my gut with a dull fork each time I connect. But it worked. Look at the game, Pete. It’s never been better. Baseball is what it should be.”

I could only stare. “It ain’t so. That stuff, magic… demons… it’s not real.”

“Real enough, Pete. Take a look. It’s not just the scratches either. It’s making me different. I’m meaner now than I used to be, colder.”

I thought of the grim look he always got at bat, face screwed up in determination, or pain. I was terrified for him. “So one day, you’ll hit one out, and that’ll be it?”

“I thought so. But remember back to the ’26 series, that thing with the kid? Well, after that game, I felt better. I realized then that being selfless, maybe, maybe there’s hope for me. I’m tired now, Pete. There ain’t no more to tell.”

I watched the rest of his career on tenterhooks. Every homer, I felt it. Every good thing he did, I wondered, “Is it enough?”

For his sake, I hoped so.