If Wishes Were Horses

About the Publisher

SECTION ONE HEARTLAND (#u6a28ed83-e680-5f83-87bd-9a2c11b5458c)

They say it can’t be done,

but sometimes it doesn’t always work.

—Casey Stengel

ONE (#u6a28ed83-e680-5f83-87bd-9a2c11b5458c)

RAY KINSELLA (#u6a28ed83-e680-5f83-87bd-9a2c11b5458c)

This morning I received a telephone call from a man on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List. Annie handed me the phone as I walked in the back door of our farmhouse, my shoes covered in early morning dew. The odors of morning trailed me into the kitchen, which is warm as a comforter and exudes its own odors: coffee, toast, cinnamon, frying bacon.

‘This is Joe McCoy,’ the thin, rather nervous voice said. ‘Do you know who I am?’

‘Everyone with a television set knows who you are,’ I replied.

‘I’m not far away,’ McCoy said.

‘I’m not sure I want to hear this …’

‘Listen, don’t believe everything you see on television or read in the newspapers. Events don’t always happen the way they’re reported. Especially not the way they’re reported.’

‘I understand that. But what do you want from me?’

‘I’ve heard rumors about unusual goings-on at your farm, that you have a complete baseball field in your back yard, that all kinds of people from all over the world visit your farm every summer. I’ve heard that weird things happen out there at night, that there are long-dead ballplayers …’

‘Mostly true,’ I said. ‘It’s no secret from anyone who wants to know. I didn’t know you’d kept in touch with events in this part of the world.’

‘I’m calling you as a sort of last resort. I was hoping we might have something in common.’

‘If you want to know the truth,’ I said, choosing my words carefully, ‘though I know you only by reputation, I’ve always thought you were …’ and I fumble for the exact words I want, ‘kind of irresponsible. And in light of your recent exploits I honestly can’t see any reason to change my opinion.’

‘Then you don’t know anything about my other life?’

There was a note of desperation in his voice.

‘Other life?’

‘My other life is one of the things I was hoping I could discuss with you. I know this sounds weird, but I think I may never have left this part of the world. I haven’t had a byline in the Iowa City Press Citizen recently, have I?’

I could sense his confusion. I could see him tucked into an aluminum-and-glass telephone booth at a truck stop out on I-80. He would have had to get my number from Information, for there isn’t a phone booth in America that has a phone book in it.

I laughed off his question, though I could tell it was asked seriously. I was slightly taken aback to find that Joe McCoy had, in a very few seconds, made me identify with him. Though it’s been several years, it seems like only moments since I was going through some very mystifying times myself. I have a long memory where mystifying events are concerned.

‘Some people who visit my baseball field see more than others,’ I said. ‘But I have nothing to do with bringing people here. Those who come are like pilgrims, they’ve been drawn by something within themselves.’

‘I see. Look, if you’ll give me a minute, I’m going to try to explain a couple of things, because you’re the only person who might not think I’m crazy. Have you ever heard the expression, “Things are out of kilter in Johnson County”? It’s something my mother used to say.’

‘My wife uses it, her family have been here for generations. I actually looked it up once, kilter means in good condition. So out of kilter means that things are not in good condition, though there are more sinister interpretations having to do with death and otherworldliness.’

He took a deep breath. I could hear a rumbling behind him, like eighteen-wheelers groaning into traffic.

‘I think someone—something—is playing a really nasty trick on me. I believe things are out of kilter in Johnson County, and, for whatever reasons, that out-of-kilterness has followed me like tin cans behind a wedding car.’

Across the room, Annie used one hand to pass our daughter Karin a brown-bagged lunch, while she poured coffee for us with the other. I could hear the twins, smaller versions of Karin and Annie, rattling about in the dining room. I stretched the cord from the wall phone, pulling its whiteness taut as a baseline, until I was able to sit at the kitchen table. If I let go of the receiver it would slam against the wall as if propelled from a slingshot.

‘Did you hear me?’ asked Joe McCoy.

‘I’m thinking,’ I replied.

And I was. Joe McCoy’s words struck a very strong chord with me. I remembered how I had felt when, during one sweet, soft Iowa sunset, a voice said to me, ‘If you build it, he will come,’ and I knew instinctively that I was meant to build a baseball diamond in my cornfield.

‘Did someone tell you to do all the things you’ve done in the past few weeks?’ I asked. ‘Have you been following instructions?’

‘Not exactly. But no one’s told me not to do what I’ve done. The thing is, no matter what the newspapers, especially the tabloids, say about me, nothing I’ve done has been in character.’

I had never acted irresponsibly until I heard the voice. I had been unsuccessful, yes, but not deliberately irresponsible. If inexplicable events could happen to me they could happen to someone else whose roots were in Johnson County, Iowa.

‘Are you telling me you’re innocent? You didn’t kidnap a baby? You’re not on the run? You didn’t hijack …?’

‘Not exactly. It’s a long story.’

‘And you want to tell it to me?’

‘I’d like to.’

Karin, smelling like fresh ironing, kisses me on the cheek and bounds out the door, the screen slamming like a shot after her. Karin has her mother’s red hair, green eyes, and ten million freckles.

‘I don’t think you should come out here,’ I said, not wanting the perfection of my life threatened.

‘I don’t intend to. I’m … I’m grasping at straws. I heard that unusual things happened with time out there … at your farm. Things concerning baseball … I played baseball, you know. Major-league baseball.’

‘I know.’

‘Will you meet me in town? In Iowa City?’

I watched Karin skip off toward the road and the school bus. Yogi Berra, her brindle cat, walked after her in stately procession, his tail raised straight in the air like a beacon, knowing that his advanced age wouldn’t permit him to keep up with her, but if the bus were even a half-minute late, Yogi would arrive at the road in time to be petted before Karin left for the day.

‘Where?’

‘Pearson’s Drug Store. The soda fountain.’

‘That’s an awfully public place. You’re a fugitive. You’re known in this area. You come from Lone Tree, don’t you?’

‘Ray, one of the reasons I know something is out of sync, is that even though I’m at the top of the Most Wanted List, even though there are rewards for my capture that must total a half-million dollars, even though my picture has been on TV at least once a day for weeks and weeks, I don’t think I could get arrested if I walked into a police station with a sign around my neck saying, “Check the 10 Most Wanted List! I’m Joe McCoy!” If I did, someone at the police station would create a diversion, and eventually I’d get thrown out for loitering. I get the impression that either I’m invisible or every cop in the United States is dumber than a duffel bag.’