Defensive Indifference
Bill Carr
Allison is the smartest person we know. Now sixty-six, she’s a handsome woman, tall and blonde, and speaks with a slightly clipped enunciation that’s probably the influence of her British father. She can put on weight occasionally, but seems to have the ability to suddenly lose it when so inclined.
She has not been lucky with husbands. There have been four of them. We liked the first one, Glen, the best. He was the father of her two children. Early in their marriage, he was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. That was before hospice care came to our area. The hospital sent him home with Allison, essentially saying, “There’s nothing more we can do. He’s your problem now.” I don’t like to even think about what she went through.
After Glen’s death, she became a registered nurse, and a good one. She’s never really had any financial worries. We never knew the second husband. She met him when she was a nurse in Birmingham, Alabama. We heard he was an alcoholic. We did meet the third husband and went to their wedding. It was evident from the start he abused her psychologically. I don’t know about the physical. That marriage lasted about a year.
The current husband, Jerry Branscomb, is an enigma. She met him in Florida, where he was popular as an ex-Major League Baseball player. I kind of like the guy. My wife, Marilyn, does not. “Á little rough around the edges,” she says.
Jerry has the muscular build of a law enforcement officer, which is fitting, because he says his post-baseball career job was with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. He tells colorful stories about both careers.
When Allison told Marilyn of her return to the Atlanta area, we first got together at a restaurant in Marietta. Marilyn then invited them to our home for a pre-Rosh Hashanah dinner. Allison is Jewish, Jerry is not. Marilyn also invited our longtime friends Dave and Beth Silverman. Jerry told a lot of stories about his six years in the major leagues, the three teams he played with, his teammates, and the managers he played under. Dave was unusually quiet.
I stopped playing baseball a long time ago, but I still follow the pennant races. After everyone left, I got on the computer. It would be interesting to see Jerry’s stats—his career, right in print. The Internet contains records of everyone who ever played in the major leagues. Nothing on Jerry Branscomb. There was a pitcher with the Cubs in the 1973–79 period named Chip Branscomb, but he was left-handed. Jerry is definitely right-handed.
After the morning Rosh Hashanah services, the Silvermans traditionally invite us to their townhouse for an afternoon snack. Right on the coffee table in their living room was the very thick Major League Baseball players almanac. I wasn’t the only one looking at stats.
I kept thinking there’s something I’m missing in my search—a nickname or a misspelling. That is, until the night at a restaurant when Jerry described how in 1975, pitching against the Yankees, he struck out Tommy Tresh, Joe Pepitone, and Bobby Murcer all in one inning.
“There’s a problem with that,” I told Marilyn after we got home. “Tommy Tresh retired in 1969, Joe Pepitone was out of Major League Baseball in 1973, and Bobby Murcer spent the 1975 season with the Houston Astros.”
“Do you think Jerry might just have gotten the year wrong?”
“I think the guy never spent a day of his life in the major leagues.”
“Should we tell Allison?” Marilyn asked.
“I don’t know.”
* * *
We’re invited to the Branscombs’ home for a Sunday dinner. They’re renting a small two-bedroom house in Cartersville. We have a little trouble finding the place. It’s a nice development. The Branscombs’ lawn is immaculate, not like ours, with their grass cut and hedges trimmed. Jerry greets us from the front porch.
“Good news,” he says. “I got my first Major League Baseball pension check Friday.”
I know he turned sixty-five a few days ago. I’m tempted to ask to see the check. Hey, I’ve never seen an MLB pension check before. Too obvious. Guests don’t normally request to see the host’s pension check.
The house is a front-to-back ranch. The kitchen, dining room, and living room are all open. There’s a master bedroom off the kitchen, and another small bedroom in the front which they use as an office.
Allison is an excellent cook. She’s prepared roast duck, which is one of my favorites. She and Jerry seem to have a really good life together. He does all the outside work and the indoor cleaning. She does the cooking. He colors her hair. They enjoy shopping together. He gets out from underfoot by occasionally playing golf and poker.
Jerry clears away the dishes, and Allison brings out the strawberry rhubarb pie Marilyn and I brought for dessert.
“Don’t you think baseball should have included in that pension something for those years Jerry spent as a POW?” Allison asks.
“No, hon,” Jerry says. “The Cards were really straight up with me. I wasn’t even in the majors yet, but they honored the contract they’d offered me.”
“Wait a minute,” I say. “You were a POW?”
“Yep. Hanoi Hilton. Spent three years in prison. When I was liberated, my weight had gone down from 180 to 105.”
His upper lip quivers and his left arm starts to shake. Allison puts her hand on his arm. “You see,” Jerry goes on, his voice breaking, “before I enlisted, I was just out of high school when the Cardinals offered me a contract and a small bonus. But my mother needed money to live on, and I knew I could make more in the service. So I enlisted, went to officer candidate school, and became a helicopter pilot. Then my chopper was shot down. The gooks captured me and threw me in prison. Three years. Somehow, during my rehabilitation, the Cardinals found out about my situation, and the general manager visited me in the hospital in Germany. They offered to honor the original contract, and even sweetened it by a few bucks. I spent two years in the minors, and then was up in the bigs.”
Jerry and I adjourn to the living room to watch the football game, while Allison and Marilyn remain talking at the dining room table.
“Hey,” he says during a commercial break, “want to see my medals?”
“Sure.”
He goes into the office and brings out a small display box. The medals are arranged on a black cloth. I recognize the captain’s bars, Purple Heart, sharpshooter medal, and the good conduct medal. There are a few others that I don’t recognize.
Marilyn comes in from the dining room and looks over my shoulder.
“You went through a lot for these,” I say to Jerry.
“I sure did.”
* * *
It’s dusk when Marilyn and I start our drive home.
“What do you think?” Marilyn asks.
“The roast duck was excellent.”
“You know what I mean,” she says. “About Jerry.”
“I have a new theory.”
“You know, I’ve seen medal displays like that for sale in flea markets.”
“I have too,” I agree. “Here’s my theory. I think he hallucinated this whole baseball experience when he was a POW, and now really believes it to be true. You know, when I was in the hospital with pneumonia and that 106-degree fever that the doctors couldn’t get down, I couldn’t distinguish between dreams and reality. I dreamt I got that promotion I wanted at work, and then couldn’t figure out whether I really got it or not. It was all academic because I got the promotion three months later, but until that happened the not knowing was scary. I kept on thinking I could figure it out. I should have requested psychological help. I think Jerry really believes that this baseball thing actually occurred.”
“I suppose it’s possible,” Marilyn says.
* * *
We knew Allison and Jerry had this dream of returning to Florida, but were surprised to learn that they’ve taken steps to fulfill it. They’ve already gone on a house-hunting trip, and decided on the condo they want. It’s on the Atlantic side, outside of Boca Raton. Allison says she’s tired of paying rent and making mortgage payments, and wants to buy the place outright. Marilyn suggests that they make a large down payment and carry a small mortgage, but Jerry agrees with Allison. They’re each going to put up half of the purchase price.
The closing is in a week. It’s hard to believe that in the future we may not see them that often. I’m less inclined than ever to say anything to Allison about Jerry. She seems really happy these days.
* * *
I remember the date: August 5, 1956. I’m coming up the dirt road that leads from the waterfront to the campground. I see this guy in street clothes talking to Earl, my junior counselor, in front of cabin six. For a moment I think that Alton Brand, the old white-haired owner of the camps, has hired someone to forcibly remove Earl from my camp. I know Brand is pissed that I refused his order to transfer Earl to Seneca, the younger kids’ camp. It’s a job Earl doesn’t want.
I’m working this summer at a children’s camp in Connecticut. I’ve wanted this job, but it’s not my dream job—too temporary. After the summer, I’m going to enlist in the army. Over the years, I’ve experienced every phase of summer camp—from a camper in Seneca, to Mohawk, for older kids, and on to being a dishwasher, junior counselor, athletics counselor, and now head counselor of Mohawk. Head counselor, I know, is a misnomer. It’s more like being a group leader in larger camps. The population of the camps has gone down steadily since a kid in Seneca died following a boxing match. Mohawk has been the hardest hit, mainly because it never had too many kids in the first place. We can’t afford to have any kid leave because he’s not having a good time. We only have eighteen this year, barely enough for a ball game.
I think I know what kids want from a summer camp. I also realize that I’m young and headstrong—I just turned twenty-one—and probably have a bit of an “I don’t give a shit” attitude because I’m going in the army in the fall.
My main problem is that the camp is really understaffed. It’s just the swimming counselor, Earl, and myself. Two of the cabins have no counselor at all.
The campground is picturesque, but its shape is like a golf fairway. As you come up the dirt road by the waterfront, there’s a small lodge to the left, four green cabins straight ahead, a long expanse of open area ending in a rise, and three more cabins at the top of the hill. As a baseball field, it’s got a few problems, so we only practice there. Left field is enormous, there’s a large tree in right center, and right field is very short. Unlike the other camps, which have bigger, two-story lodges, ours is used only as the camp nurse’s station when she makes her morning rounds.
Earl points in my direction as he sees me approaching. The visitor walks over and extends his hand.
“Hi,” he says. “Are you Jon? I’m Dennis Hale, the new counselor.”
Really? I’m dumbfounded. Instead of one less counselor, I’m plus one. Only one counselor-less cabin left now. There’s a fourteen-year-old in that one who’s probably going to be a junior counselor next year anyway.
Dennis Hale is a big guy, around six-two, muscular, with sandy hair, rugged features, and a friendly smile.
“Well, that’s great,” I say. “Where are you from?”
“Originally from Norwich, but I just got in from Port Arthur, Texas. Pitched in the Texas League. Developed a dead arm, so they sent me back home to recuperate.”
“Sorry to hear that, but glad you’re here. Let’s get you set up in cabin five.”
The cabins are primitive, with metal cots, thin mattresses, screens instead of windows, and no bathrooms. The bathrooms are in an outbuilding shared by the two boys’ camps.
Dennis helps me make up the cot. “Where are the kids?” he asks.
“Swimming. Rest hour is 1:30 to 2:30, afternoon activity is 2:30 to 4:30, and swim time is 4:30 to 5:30.”
“Want to have a catch?” he asks.
“Uh, sure.”
* * *
The fastball and slider are good, but not exceptional. Maybe he’s being careful with that arm. The curveball is amazing. It’s just like a ball rolling off a table. If that’s a dead arm, I’d hate to bat against it when it’s alive.
After fifteen minutes I walk over to him. “Maybe you’d better take it easy with that arm.”
“I feel okay.”
“That curveball is something.”
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s my best pitch. Here’s the way I grip it.”
His fingers dance over the ball. “Here’s the slider. And the four-seam fastball. And the two-seamer. I even experimented with the knuckler,” he smiles. “My old-age pitch. You just grab it by the fingertips, like this.”
I place my fingers on the ball like he shows me. “I once struck out Mickey Mantle when he was in the minors,” Dennis says.
“With that curveball, I can believe it.”
Over the next week there’s plenty of baseball: drills, practice games, and batting practice. I take a few swings during batting practice.
“Hey, you can hit,” Dennis observes.
“You know, I grew up in Brooklyn, where the national pastime is not baseball but stickball. If you can hit that little pink Spaldeen with a broomstick, you develop a pretty good eye.”
I don’t say anything about field positions, and Dennis doesn’t pursue it.
* * *
I have a car at camp. It’s an ancient 1935 Chevy, and the first one I’ve owned. My father found an ad for it in the Norwich Bulletin. The upside of the car is that it runs. It kind of putt-putts along, but the engine doesn’t die. The downside is that it has four completely bald tires. I don’t have the money to buy new ones. Since I have no intention of keeping the car beyond the summer, I may not buy new tires at all. Until Dennis arrived, I used the car only for transportation to Norwich or Colchester on my day off.
* * *
“You on duty tonight?” Dennis asks during the kids’ rest hour.
“No. I think Skip has it tonight.” Skip is the swimming counselor. He handles only the waterfront activities, but does take a turn for night duty.
“Listen to this. I got this note from the office today. There are two women here from Romania, and they’re looking for male companionship. Can you double-date with me tonight?”
I’m aware that Dennis knows a lot of women in Norwich, but the staff in the camp office doesn’t usually do things like that. Maybe it’s because he’s a local and a star ballplayer.
“I don’t think I can,” I reply. “Sara and I usually see each other when I’m not on duty.”
“The camp nurse? I didn’t know you were going together.”
Normally, the camp nurse is motherly, universally loved by the kids, and about twice the age of the average counselor. This year the camp nurse is motherly, young, and pretty. Maybe it’s part of this year’s youth movement for staff.
“I mean, do you think you’ll get engaged?” Dennis asks.
“Well, we’ve just started seeing each other.”
“Come on, man. It’s the chance of a lifetime. Help me out here.”
At dusk we meet the women in front of the camp office. They’re pleasant and speak virtually no English. Dennis has selected the tall one for his date. She’s obviously the instigator for this venture. Her friend is short, stocky, and painfully shy. Dennis suggests we explore the camp grounds separately and meet back in an hour and a half.
Flashlight in hand, I feel more like a tour guide than a date. Fortunately, my companion is very interested in the stone houses on the campgrounds, as am I. There are two of them: the camp office and the one-room craft shop. We start with the camp office. It’s a fairly elaborate stone building, with an administrative area, an archival room, a one-room infirmary, and a bedroom upstairs. As a fourteen-year-old camper, I spent a whole week in that infirmary with a severe case of poison ivy on my face. There was no TV or radio there, and I’m not sure how I survived the boredom of that week. I remember looking forward to visitors, meals, and the once-per-day visit of the camp nurse who removed the calamine lotion on my face and put on a fresh layer.
In the dark, we push on to the craft shop. The area is very hilly, with thick brush on both sides of the dirt road. The camps are not doing well, and it occurs to me that this whole camping era, in existence for so many years, could come crashing down -- literally crashing down, with drastic changes to the topography. But, I remind myself, those stone buildings would survive – like vestiges of a bygone culture.
The four of us meet back in front of the office. Dennis and I say goodnight to the women.
“How did you make out?” Dennis asks on our way back to our campground.
“Never even got in the game. How about you?”
“Struck out completely.”
* * *
When he doesn’t have night duty, Dennis has been borrowing my car to go into Norwich to pitch in night games for the Norwich Tigers, a Class A affiliate of Detroit. I think it’s great. From what he tells me, the dead arm is coming back to life.
Going up the hill to lunch one Tuesday, Dennis asks if I want to go into Norwich that evening to play with the Tigers. “Their center fielder is sick and they need an outfielder real badly.”
It’s confession time. “I have to tell you,” I say, “I go to the batting cages at home, but I’ve actually never played a single game of hardball in my life.”
He’s undeterred. “Big deal,” he says. “I see guys make the transition from softball to hardball all the time.”
It’s worse than that. There’s no position I can play on a hardball team. As a kid, my curving throw from the infield drove first basemen nuts. I’ve always loved to play the outfield, dashing back to make an over-the-shoulder catch, or racing in to make a shoestring catch. Unfortunately, more often than not, while racing in I noticed the ball was ten feet over my head. By a process of elimination, I became a softball pitcher.
I know that playing center field at night in a Class A professional hardball game is going to be a complete disaster.
“Can’t do it,” I tell him.
* * *
Can you believe there’s only seven days of camp? The next day it’s down to six. I hear the kids say that a lot. They’re saying it wistfully, and that’s good. It means they’ve had a good time at camp this year.
The morning of that sixth day before the end of camp, I get a note from the camp office telling me to be up there at 2:00 in the afternoon. It doesn’t say why. My immediate guess is that Alton Brand is going to chew me out for my earlier insubordination regarding the junior counselor. Look, as long as he doesn’t try to dock part of my pay.
To my surprise, I’m ushered into the archive room. It’s a small room, maybe ten by ten, with a table and chairs in the middle. The walls all have bookcases filled with pictures, photos, books, and scrapbooks. By the table, with a scrapbook in front of him, is not Alton Brand but a sixtyish, red-faced guy named Clive. He’s one of a group I call the hangers-on—old friends of the owner who do various small tasks during the summer in return for room and board.
“I want you to take a look at this,” Clive says, with no fanfare at all. He opens the scrapbook to a short article from the Norwich Bulletin:
BALLPLAYER BANNED FROM TEXAS LEAGUE
Dennis Hale, a former star pitcher at Norwich High, was permanently banned from the Texas
League when an investigation showed a constant pattern of gambling on games in which he was
involved…
My first reaction is anger, like what you’d feel from hearing someone badmouthing your friend. But there’s something weird about this revelation. Obviously, Brand is behind it. I’ve seen Clive around, but I don’t know him from a hole in the head. Maybe some sort of misplaced paternalism on Brand’s part? I know you gave me a hard time this year, but you are a longtime part of the camping family, and I thought you should know about this.
I mumble a thanks to Clive and head back toward camp.
* * *
End of camp minus three. I’ve never said anything to Dennis about that article in the scrapbook. He and I are standing by the first base line, watching a practice game.
“I hear you’re not taking your car home,” he says.
“Right. I’m going to try to sell it here. When I get home, until I enlist, I can use my dad’s car.”
“How much do you want for it?”
“Fifty bucks,” I reply. “I got a real good deal on it, and I think I should get what I paid for it.”
“I’m not questioning that,” he says thoughtfully. “But you paid fifty for it, and you got at least ten dollars’ worth of use and enjoyment out of it. Now you should pass it on to someone else. I’ll give you forty for it.
Hmm. The bald-tired car as communal property. The guy may have a gambling problem, but he’s a pretty good negotiator.
I don’t counter. “It’s yours for forty,” I tell him.
* * *
The last day of the season. The trunks are stacked by second base, waiting for Railway Express to pick them up. The kids are all gone, having been picked up by the bus, after the handshakes, hugs, and vows of “see you next summer,” which I can’t say this year. I’m going to stay a few days in what they call post-season, help clean things up, and then get a ride to New London to catch a train home.
Dennis and I say good-bye. My last image of him is sitting very straight behind the wheel of his newly purchased car as it putt-putts down the dirt road leading out of the campground.
* * *
Allison is really excited about purchasing the condo. She’s called Marilyn twice from Florida to give a play-by-play account of the buying process. The third call is at 2:00 in the afternoon rather than the morning. Marilyn is at her exercise class. I answer the phone.
I can’t understand what she’s saying. She’s crying.
“Allison, take a deep breath. I can’t understand you. What happened?”
“He’s gone! Vanished.”
“What?”
“Disappeared. The real estate agent called us at the hotel early this morning and said there was a problem with the funds for the purchase. I figured there was some screwup with the account numbers. Jerry was still sleeping. ‘Jerry, get up,’ I said. ‘We have to get down to the agent’s office. They’re not postponing the closing date, but there’s some problem with the account numbers. I’m taking a shower and then we have to leave.’ When I got out of the shower, he was gone.”
“Are you sure he didn’t just go out for a quick breakfast?”
“I looked all over the hotel for him. Then I got in the car and drove around the hotel neighborhood. Absolutely no sign of him. The only thing he took from the room were the clothes he wore yesterday. He even left his teeth in the bathroom.”
So much for the breakfast theory. She called her kids and they gave her good advice. “Shut down all the joint accounts. And fast, Mom.” As it turned out, not fast enough. At a nearby ATM machine, he had withdrawn the maximum $500 from their joint account.
“I just don’t know what to do, Jon,” she sobs. “I can face the fact that he’s run out on me and I’ve lost the condo. I just can’t go back to the house in Cartersville, and yet I have to go back there. I’ve got to get my passport and my jewelry.”
“Look, why don’t you come back here and stay a while at our place. I’ll drive you tomorrow to your place to get your things.”
“That’s really nice of you and Marilyn,” she says. “But I’m scared, Jon. Maybe we should ask a police officer to go there with us.”
Theoretically, anyone who bolts from a marriage and forgets his teeth cannot present too much of a danger. But considering Jerry’s background, Allison’s idea is a good one.
Allison arrives at our place that afternoon, and emotionally she’s still in bad shape. We put her up in my middle son Josh’s old bedroom. The next day we drive out to Cartersville followed by a squad car from the local police station. The police are not necessary. There’s no one in the house.
That evening at dinner Allison says, “I found out what the problem was with the purchase funding. Care to guess what it was?”
I’m sure the problem was not with Allison’s half of the $70,000 purchase price. If Jerry’s account had been anything close, the agent would have tried to work something out.
“His account had only fifteen thousand” is my guess.
“Zero,” Marilyn says.
“Very close, Marilyn,” Allison says. “Fifty-seven dollars and twenty cents.”
Allison says Jerry again tried to withdraw the maximum $500 from their joint account, this time at an ATM near Tallahassee. The transaction was blocked.
“Tallahassee is good,” I say. “That means he’s headed west.”
The next evening Allison’s grief turns to outrage. Maybe, I think, this is therapeutic.
“I just called his sister,” Allison says. “I hadn’t spoken to her in about two years. Can you believe this? She was actually flippant. ‘Did he do that again? It’s all a bunch of lies. There was no baseball career, no Vietnam, no working for the ATF. He was a used-car salesman.’”
* * *
After two weeks at our place, Allison left to spend some time with her daughter.
“You know,” I said to Marilyn as Allison drove off, “I’m bothered by one thing. They had a pretty good life together.”
“Based on a pack of lies.”
“True. But if I ever meet him again, I’d like to ask him, ‘Was it worth it? Did you ever even consider that people might like you for what you are, not for what you claim to be?’”
“It wouldn’t work,” Marilyn replied. “Probably, as we speak, he’s going after his next victim.”
Allison said the only thing she ever heard about Jerry afterward was a bill she received from a doctor in Biloxi, Mississippi. After the divorce came through, she did return to Florida, buying a condo in Del Ray Beach by making a large down payment and taking out a small mortgage. She’s met a guy down there—a retired college professor. He’s on the level—according to Rate My Professors, his students gave him good grades. I don’t think Allison will marry again.
* * *
I’m getting to an age where I don’t like to look up old friends on the Internet, fearing what I might find. My fears are justified when I do a search on Dennis Hale. He died six years ago. The article in the Hartford Courant said he was survived by a wife of forty-seven years, two daughters, and five grandchildren. He had a successful career as a real estate developer in the Hartford area. Three years before his death, he was elected to the Connecticut Baseball Hall of Fame. And, the article added, in the minors he once struck out Mickey Mantle.
Bill Carr’s work has appeared in Scholars And Rogues, East Bay Review, The Furious Gazelle, Good Works Review, The Ham Free Press, Menda City Review, Oracle Fine Arts Review, The Penmen Review, and Riggwelter. He has had several articles published relative to online education and the computer industry. He has taken various courses with internationally known Shakespeare scholar Professor Bernard Grebanier, as well as Professors Marion Starling and Seymour Reiter. Many of Carr’s stories, including “Transcendental Tours,” published in Menda City Review, and “Exquisite Hoax,” are satiric; others contain athletic themes. He has been regionally ranked in senior divisions of the United States Tennis Association, and he played industrial-league basketball for thirty years, including three overseas. He received a master’s degree in English from Brooklyn College, and he currently serves as chairperson of the North Carolina B’nai B’rith Institute of Judaism.