Continued from page 3 Stage 4: House on Fire Listen to excerpt NARRATOR: THEY'D COME LATE AT NIGHT...ALL THROUGH THE LATE 40'S AND EARLY 50'S. THEY'D COME SCRATCHING ON THE SCREEN, POUNDING ON THE DOOR...SHOOTING FIREWORKS OFF IN THE YARD. OLD BALLPLAYERS AND OLD MUSICIAN S...COME TO TELL THEIR STORIES. SHE WOULD COOK AND GIGGLE AND PLAY THE PIANO LIKE A HOUSE ON FIRE AND THEY WOULD ALL SING AND DRINK...AND TALK LOUD AND COLORFUL AROUND THE GREAT DEEP GAPS INSIDE OF THEIR LIVES. AND WHEN IT WAS OVER THEY WOULD ALL HUG EACH OTHER AND CRY...THEN GET IN THEIR CARS AND DRIVE AWAY. THEY'D COME LATE AT NIGHT, TURNING THEIR MEMORY INTO A STORY. UNTIL 1955. AFTER THAT, MOST OF THEM WERE DEAD. She stands in the only chair. Her collection of bird plates hangs high across the walls of the dining room. "These and the Gibson Girls are my favorites, kid." Odd painted creatures on porcelain plates. After the fire, they are all that is left. She reaches up to take them down. But as she touches each one, it crumbles. The birds collapse and turn to ash. The ash falls across her face down the tops of her arms to her feet and on to the floor. She shivers. This will happen in 1960. One year to the day after he would be put in the ground. Figure 4A: Stage 4: Abstract Listen to excerpt MAN VOICE: A Baseball Diamond. The game is abstract. There are no foul lines. The invention of foul lines will change the game. Men who can hit only extreme left or extreme right will be eliminated for those who can hit within the confines. Foul lines are the last great change...much more than lights. Figure 4B: Stage 4: Graves This is before that. The newest invention on this day are two narrow rectangles cut into the ground...one approximately 20' off the first base side one approximately 20' off the third base side. Each are about three feet deep and have a flat wooden bench running the length of the trench down inside. They have been invented for the players comfort and safety while they are not on the field of play. They look like graves...and for several years will be called just that. When the game is over, they will be deep with blood, spit, whiskey, tobacco and mud. Figure 4D: Stage 4: Happiest Day Inside He is sitting on the bench. The year is 1903 and he has just grounded out to short. He is in Enid, oklahoma catching his first game with the farm club for the great St. Louis Browns. He is 17 years old and it is probably the happiest day of his whole life. In the grave...his first dugout. Figure 4C: Stage 4: Full Swing Listen to excerpt WOMAN VOICE: Colorado and Prohibition are in full swing. She is 28 years old at the piano. She has long black hair and a red sequin dress. The speakeasy is full of ballplayers. Her band is long gone. She is smoking a cigarette and plays alone in the lounge. Figure 4E: Stage 4: Big Storm She doesn't care much for sports, but the players are nice. Some of them are kind of dumb, but they tip good. Her day job is playing an old ragtime upright a the last silent movie house in Denver. Sound has taken the world by storm. She isn't licensed to do hair in Colorado. She is trying to get home to Texas. Figure 4F: Stage 4: The Ball MAN VOICE: They only had one baseball in Enid. It was a cheap club. If somebody hit a long one out over the outfield, they had to stop the game and both teams go hunt for the ball. There weren't any fences in Oklahoma...just weeds. He'd been a Busher now going on six years. Figure 4G: Stage 4: For Blood All his fingers were broke a hundred times, but he stayed in the game. He had seen the great Ty Cobb once...saw him take out a second baseman with high spikes in the face. The whole infield was covered with blood. It impressed him. That's the only way the game is played...with heart and for blood. Nobody made any money. Figure 4H: Stage 4: Now and Then WOMAN VOICE: She is on the rebound from her second husband...a drunk newspaper man who swept her off her feet in Dallas and took her to California. It went straight downhill for five years. She didn't mind the liquor, even tolerated a black eye now and then...but she had despised the jealousy and left. Her first husband is dead. She drinks some now herself. She misses her band. Figure 5 Stage 5: The Sea of Amarillo Listen to excerpt NARRATOR: PEARL Inside He had a dream. He held no stock in dreams, but in it he fell. Down some stairs that didn't belong where they were placed. He stood rigid and fell forward and made a mark inside a strange boy. A boy he'd never seen before, but one he dreamed saw it and would never forget. THAT HE FELL. He didn't remember where he was that day. It was one of the few times he had ever been hopelessly drunk. He came to somewhere in Texas in the backseat of a car. Moving. He raised up, his face dead. The driver saw him in the mirror and said "We're at War." He laid back down. "Shit. Now who?" He thought he'd almost heard Roosevelt on the radio, but he wasn't sure if there even was a radio. Even such a thing as one. THEY MEET AT THE RAILROAD STATION. HE'S A LOT OLDER, BUT SHE LIKES HIS BIG OPEN GRIN. "HI THERE SUNSHINE" SHE SAYS. INSTEAD OF GOING ON WHERE THEY WERE GOING, THEY GO TO SUPPER. THEY LIKE EACH OTHER'S HANDS. She tells him "Hands are lights" SHE IS RECENTLY DIVORCED AND HIS FIRST WIFE RECENTLY DEAD. IT IS THE SUMMER OF 1942 AND, AS USUAL, AMERICA IS AT WAR. THEY ARE MARRIED SIX WEEKS LATER. He tells her "The bible should have a train in it" HE GIVES HER A SMALL RING WITH TINY DIAMONDS. SHE GIVES HIM ONE SON. THEY WILL LIVE TOGETHER 15 YEARS. BOTH OF THEIR LIVES WILL NEVER BE WHAT THEY ARE AGAIN Outside She hadn't seen or heard a car since noon. Just sirens in the distance that made your skin crawl. A submarine had been spotted in the bay. Some cops shot at it from the bridge, but it dove out of sight. The whole state was under Martial Law. Anyone caught with a light on without the windows blacked out was arrested. Some had been shot on the spot. Mostly Japs. It was the first night of the end of the world. They said it would happen but no one paid any attention. Now it was too late. All day the radio announced invasion was imminent. Then war was declared and suddenly radios mysteriously went off the air. So the whole city seemed to take to the streets...sitting on steps and lighting cigarettes...watching the sky. Armed to the teeth. In the darkness, buildings stacked up like Jazz. All those black windows look like crazy sheet music, she thought. Then from a building across the street, an old black man with a saxophone steps out on a fire escape and begins to play. Black HUMMINGBIRDS flutter across her stomach. Mr. Night Mood. He plays for over an hour, soft sad and beautiful. No one speaks...just smoke and listen. Then, when he's finished, he looks out at the ocean of tiny red dots glowing in the street. "Ladies an Gentlemen, them was the Pearl Harbor Blues" Figure 5A: Stage 5: Bacon MAN VOICE: When the season was over he had to find work. Mostly he did carpentry or sold hardware. One winter he worked in a slaughter house. He hated the pigs screaming and quit aft er three days. He never ate bacon again. Figures 5B: Stage 5: Breath Figure 5D: Stage 5: Blues WOMAN VOICE: The Denver Post Tournament is in it's third day. She has a date to the game with a sax player. From the bleachers, she watches a woman in a black dress down in the money seats lean over the wire and kiss a big rough looking catcher. It's her old piano teacher. "God I hope he's holding his breath" She gets so tickled she pees her pants. Figure 5C: Stage 5: Better Listen to excerpt MAN VOICE: He started collecting spoons as souvenirs from all the towns he played in. They had little pictures of famous landmarks on them. At night, he'd lay them out on the bed in the hotel and look at them. It always made him feel better. WOMAN VOICE: That night in the lounge, she sees the two of them again. She is playing and they are dancing. For some reason the moment is so perfect...she just tears up the goddamn ST. LOUIS BLUES. Figure 5F: Stage 5: Stick MAN VOICE: He saw the first electricity light, the first horseless car and the first aeroplane...and many other first time gadgets. He thought they were all just play-prettys. "None of em'l stick" he said. Figure 5E: Stage 5: Foul WOMAN VOICE: The name of the speakeasy is on the wall behind her. In glittery letters it says THE SATIN DUGOUT. But the Denver cops, naturally, call it THE FOUL LINE. Figure 5G: Stage 5: Meanest Listen to excerpt MAN VOICE: He was 32 years old when he finally went up to the Majors. The summer of the Great War of 1918. He could still catch like a wall and throw like fire, but he couldn't hit. It was the damn foul lines. He was up for only one year then shipped down to Houston. They made him a Player/Manager because of his age...so he ended up making a name in the Texas League. During the 1920's and 30's, it was the meanest one. Figure 5H: Stage 5: Something Else He married a Catholic woman. He was mystified by the religion, but seldom saw her. When he wasn't playing or managing ball, he hopped freights. He said it was to find work, but mostly it was just to go see something else. She died of cancer of the throat in 1940. Figure 6: Stage 6: Infinite Listen to excerpt NARRATOR: Once he told a young Busher with a promising arm... "Your life just turns into a bucket full of stories...with a little bitty hole in in the bottom" "Or a bucket full of holes...with a little bitty story in the bottom" She told him years later. Giggling. HE IS CUSSING THE YANKEES. IT'S THE FINAL GAME OF THE WORLD SERIES. HE IS CUSSING THE TELEVISION. BASEBALL SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN PUT ON TELEVISION. HE CUSSES THE PLAYERS. ALL THEY CARE ABOUT IS THE MONEY. THE PITCHERS TAKE FOREVER TO THROW THE DAMN BALL. SHE CAN HEAR HIM FROM THE KITCHEN. HIS BROTHER IS WITH HIM. HE SAYS HE HAS COME TO SAY GOODBYE...BUT SHE DOESN'T LIKE HIS EYES OR THE WAY THEY LOOK AT HER. SHE POURS A SMALL WHISKEY. THE YANKEES WIN. THE TELEVISION IS OFF. THE GAME IS OVER. HE IS 73 YEARS OLD. HE TALKS TWO HOURS WITH HIS BROTHER. THE BROTHER WILL NEVER MENTION WHAT WAS SAID. SHE COMES IN AND TAKES HIS HAND. IT'S TIME. HER FINGERS MOVE LIGHTLY OVER HIS BIG KNUCKLES LIKE SHE IS PLAYING THE PIANO. HE FEELS HIMSELF SUDDENLY COME LOOSE...AND FLY OUT IN A GREAT HIGH AND FAMILIAR ARC. AND IN SOME INFINITE AND SECRET PLACE, SHE FLIES AWAY WITH HIM. Back to beginning