“This shouldn’t take too long,” he said. “We’ve got a vote to take.”
“I vote no,” Hoey said. “Whatever it is.”
“ ‘Be it resolved,’ ” Dunnagin said, “ ‘that we refrain from castrating Buck Hoey the next time he fans with men on base.’ ”
Even Hoey laughed. (Henry only smiled, but, given it was Henry, count it a laugh.)
“This shouldn’t take long unless every one of yall insists on auditioning for The Grape Nuts Hour.” Mister JayMac said.
We ditched our smirks. Darius, I noticed, leaned exactly where he’d leaned during the all-star game.
“This morning, the business manager of a barnstorming club of Negro ballplayers, the Splendid Dominican Touristers, and an Army major from the-”
“Whoa,” Hoey said. “The who?”
“The Splendid Dominican Touristers. Some Negro leaguers under a rubric de guerre, so to speak.”
“Sounds like an order of stuck-up traveling monks,” Turkey Sloan said.
“Shut up, Sloan,” Vito Mariani said.
Before an argument could break out, Mister JayMac said, “Hush.” Everybody hushed. “The Negro American League-the Black Barons from over to Birmingham, the Memphis Red Sox, the Cincinnati Clowns, and so on-well, gas rationing’s hit these clubs hard. They’ve done finished a full split season. Their teams only had to play thirty games to qualify for the Negro World Series. Anyway, Mr Cozy Bissonette of Kansas City, Missouri, has assembled a group from some of the NAL’s better players, and he’s seeking exhibition opponents in advance of the club’s official formation in Atlanta early next week.”
“And the coon wants to play us?” Jerry Wayne Sosebee said.
Darius had his arms folded and his gaze fixed on a knot-hole in the floor’s oak planking. Sosebee didn’t see him, though; Darius was invisible to Sosebee.
“What about this Army major?” Muscles asked Mister JayMac.
“Major Dexter. First Battalion, Camp Penticuff Special Training Regiment. He wants to sponsor a contest between Mr Bissonette’s all-stars and us, a morale booster to kick off the club’s barnstorming tour.”
“Sir, Georgia law doesn’t allow whites and coloreds to play pro ball against each other in public,” Sloan said.
“That’s why, if yall vote to do it, we’d do it out to Camp Penticuff, where it wouldn’t be so public. For the biggest part, our spectators would be the Negro GIs of the two Special Training battalions out there.”
“Jesus,” Sosebee said.
“What’s in it for us?” That was Reese Curriden. Sometimes you could hear pocket change in his chuckles.
“The Army, Major Dexter says, has offered a payment of five hundred dollars to each club, to divvy however we choose.”
“Twenty-five bucks apiece!” Quip Parris cried happily.
“I vote yes,” Hoey said. “Whichever way we divvy it.”
“I’d recommend returning the money as a contribution to the war effort,” Mister JayMac said.
“Except like that,” Hoey said. “What are we anyway, a pack of no-account field hands?”
“Tote that bat, lift that base,” Sloan said.
“What will the Dominican Jigaboos-sorry, Touristers-do with their five hundred?” Sosebee asked.
“I don’t know,” Mister JayMac said. “Keep it, I imagine. They’ve got big expenses, their players need the money.”
“I need the money,” Hoey said. “Ever try to feed four house apes on a hundred-plus a month?”
“Hoey’s making a hundred-plus a month?” Musselwhite’s eyes went round, like such a salary staggered him.
“Hold it,” Sosebee said. “You want us to play a bunch of jigs-uh, coloreds-in front of a bunch of coloreds, and to do it for nuthin?”
“For the morale of the recruits,” Mister JayMac said. “For the joy of it. To face a squad of unknown players as good as, if not a smidgen better than, ourselves.”
Trapdoor Evans said, “They could ever one of em out-play me from here to Timbuctoo, sir, but they’s still no way-no way in hell-it’d make a one of em bettern me.”
“You said it,” Sudikoff said.
“Who plans to suit up for this Mr Bossy Nut fella on his Splendid Dominican so-and-so’s?” Curriden asked. “A whole club of Negro League all-stars?”
“No,” Mister JayMac said. “Jes better-than-most journeymen players. Yall won’t have to face the likes of Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, or Cool Papa Bell.”
“Who?” Fadeaway Ankers said.
“But never you fear, these barnstormers’ll make LaGrange’s Gendarmes look like beginning Little Leaguers.”
Henry spoke up from the back of the room. “When would we play them, if we played?”
“Good question,” Mister JayMac said. “Two Tuesdays from now, the twenty-seventh of July. The only time our schedule permits.”
“No peace for the pooped,” Muscles said. “Couldn’t this screw our shot at the pennant, Mister JayMac?”
“One game? Maybe. But only if Mr Clerval has a heart attack walloping one to the Canary Islands.”
“Let’s v-v-vote,” I said.
“I don’t play coloreds,” Fadeaway said. “Teams of em.”
“Me either,” Evans said.
“Ditto,” Sloan said. “To do great on a jig hunt, / Wear chocolate pigment / Exactly like your prey’s. / Thank God I’ve never gone through that phase.”
“Thank you, Mr Longfellow,” Mister JayMac said. “That’s three outright nays, I take it. Any more?”
“Here,” Sudikoff said. “No!”
“And here,” Sosebee said. “No!”
“Last chance,” Mister JayMac said. “Five nays to what I guess is fifteen unvoiced ayes.”
“I abstain,” Pete Hay said.
“What a pussy,” Mariani said.
“What do you mean, a pussy?” Hay said.
“A fence sitter’s got no balls,” Mariani said.
“Hush,” Mister JayMac said. “I’d hoped for unanimity in this vote. Virtual unanimity. But when a quarter of you have reservations about the appropriateness of this game, it gives me pause. I wonder about the commitment of the nay-sayers to play their hardest.”
“Cripes, sir,” Sloan said. “Don’t try to blackmail an aye out of us with this commitment guff. I mean, we-”
“Yall’re scairt you’ll git whupped,” Darius said.
Every head in the room turned towards him. He lifted his gaze from the floor and drilled Sloan with it.