If Wishes Were Horses

Stan has been at it for several years and is as happy as it’s possible for him to be. His wife, Gloria, has supplied him with a square-built replica of himself, Stan Jr., now a toddler, and Gloria is pregnant again.

Just as children become guardians to aging parents, Stan and I, in the past year or so, have reversed roles. It is now Stan who assures me that I have something to live for, that my long-lost wife, Sunny, will return again someday. Or that I will be able to return to 1908, to Big Inning, Iowa, where Sarah will be waiting for me, and where I will be able to alter history by saving Sarah from the accidental death I know awaits her.

As the phone begins its sixth ring both Missy and I leap for it. I beat Missy by a stride and put the white receiver to my ear. Not many people phone us. We’ve calculated that for every call for me, there are two telephone solicitors. Missy and I have learned how to torture telephone solicitors with silence.

No matter what they are selling—magazines, travel opportunities, insurance, cookies, or cuckoo clocks—the seller’s spiel can only be successful if the sellee co-operates by making acknowledging sounds at the proper moments. Missy and I listen to whatever pitch the salesperson is making, then, when they pause in their presentation for us to comment or grunt or answer a direct question, we simply stay silent.

After a long pause in which we can sometimes hear the heartbeat of the caller, the salesperson invariably says, ‘Are you there?’

We answer with the single word, ‘Yes.’

The sales pitch then continues until the next pregnant pause. Followed by the next query. Followed by the next, ‘Yes.’

Four or five pauses into the presentation the sweating, frustrated, suffering telephone solicitor succumbs to our silence, and forlornly hangs up the phone. Missy holds the record—she’s kept a strangling solicitor going through seven pauses. Five is the best I’ve ever managed.

When the defeated sales representative hangs up, Missy and I give each other a high five, as if one of us has hit a home run. It is so much more fun than getting angry and hanging up.

I place the receiver to my ear. Missy is disappointed when I speak to the caller, and goes quickly back to her sausage and eggs.

‘My name is Joe McCoy. Are you familiar with who I am?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I reply honestly, though the name vaguely rings a bell, a local politician or school board member, perhaps.

‘I didn’t think there was anyone who didn’t know me,’ McCoy said, with what I detect as disappointment, ‘I’ve been in the news a lot lately.’

‘In what way?’

‘I’m a criminal.’

‘Really?’ Maybe this was a telephone solicitation after all. I could picture being victim of the first telephone armed robbery. The stranger saying, ‘I’m covering you through your window with a high-powered rifle. Take all your money, your credit cards, and your cat, and drive to …’

‘What kind of criminal?’

‘Let me get to the point. I understand that you’re a baseball historian. In fact I know you are. I was raised at Lone Tree. I used to play against Onamata High, though I’m quite a bit younger than you …’

‘This is getting to the point?’

‘I’m afraid I’m expressing myself very badly … I need to talk to you. Don’t you watch television or read newspapers? If you did you’d know who I am.’

‘I don’t, actually. I’m not much interested in the present.’

I’ve let my subscriptions lapse. Missy watches Wheel of Fortune, and it’s on at the same time as the national news. I’ve always avoided local news: trivial happenings presented in such detail and delivered with such sincerity, as if someone actually cared.

Missy loves Wheel of Fortune. There is something about its simplicity that appeals to her nature. She takes a folding chair and moves it closer to the television than it ought to be so she can stare right into the faces of the contestants. She laughs, and talks to them and the little man and girl who host the show. She loves the dinging sound whenever a contestant guesses a correct letter.

I don’t know how much of the show Missy understands, and it doesn’t really matter because it gives her pleasure. Since she came to live with me I’ve enrolled her in a life skills course up at Iowa City. Missy has learned to read at about a third-grade level, she can add figures, she has her own bank account. She helps me buy groceries.

‘I understand if you’re reluctant,’ McCoy continues. ‘I made this call in desperation. I’ve always thought of you as someone I could trust. I played major-league baseball for several years,’ he adds, hoping to hew out some common ground.

‘I don’t loan money to friends, let alone strangers,’ I say, putting distance in my voice.

‘I’m not that kind of criminal. Well, actually I am. I held up a McDonald’s in Los Angeles, but there was a good reason. Oh, I’m sorry. I sound crazy. I probably am.’

I do recognize his name. I remember some controversy several years ago, ten or more, in which his name got yelled aloud at the local convenience store. Perhaps he threw a game or something.

‘Just what is it you think I can do for you?’

‘Will you meet with me?’

This was a telephone solicitation. It was my turn to answer a question, to acknowledge that I was still on the line. I remained silent.

‘Are you still there?’ asks Joe McCoy.

‘Yes,’ I say, after another lengthy pause. Then he says the words that crack my telephone-solicitor-hating heart.

‘I need to tell my story to someone who might believe me.’

How many long years were there when that was exactly what I needed? Someone somewhere who would believe that the Iowa Baseball Confederacy existed, as I had always known it had. If it hadn’t been for Stan’s childlike belief in me … but suspicion toward Joe McCoy lingers like a thief.

‘What do you know about me? Just tell me what you know about me,’ I say, a little too loudly.

‘I know you weren’t always considered an authority on baseball history. I remember when you were considered an oddball.’

‘You do?’

Now it was my turn to be surprised. In recent years I’ve been the only one who remembered that. Since I returned from the past, it’s like the whole world has had part of its memory erased.

‘Will you please meet with me? An hour is all I ask. Pearson’s Drug Store in Iowa City, the soda fountain, in an hour?’

‘I can be there,’ I say.

‘I’ve invited someone else.’

‘Who?’

‘Ray Kinsella.’

‘The fellow who built the baseball diamond that attracts tourists?’

‘It’s just that I feel you two have a lot in common. I’m surprised you’re not close friends.’

‘Is he surprised I’m not his friend?’ I say, but Joe McCoy doesn’t catch the irony in my voice.

‘I didn’t tell him who you were.’

‘If you’re a criminal, how can you meet me at a public place?’

‘That’s part of the story I want to tell you. Have you ever heard someone say their luck was so bad they couldn’t get arrested?’