Surprise for Slummings

[Arroyos]

Surprise for Slummings


The taxi pulled up to the Camarillo Amtrak station, which was more a platform than a station, and two old geezers grunted their way out of the back seat of the Prius, moaning about their aching joints and sore backs. Mayberry gestured to Slummings to pay the driver, but Taffy just shrugged and opened his empty hands.

Mayberry turned to apologize, “Uh, sorry, it seems …”

“All tooken care of,” the driver said, smiling.

“What? Who?”

“The guy who called for the cab. Paid by phone.”

“Sean?”

“Uh,” the driver said, stalling while he looked at his daily receipts on his phone. “Sean … yup, that’s him. Tip and everything.”

“Great. Thanks,” Mayberry said and looked at Slummings. “Seems like Sean took care of everything.”

Slummings was looking at the people lined up at the ticket machine. “Even the tickets?”

“Tickets? Shit,” Mayberry said, checking his pockets. But all he found were baseball cards. Three of them: Eddie Mathews, Luke Easter, and Johnny Antonelli. He held them up for Slummings to see. “I only got three of them.”

Slummings looked at the sad face of Yuma’s General Manager, his employee and fellow escaped inmate. He didn’t know what to say. “So?” he finally decided was a tactful response. “What dif does it make?”

“No, we need four of them. That was the whole point. The four gospellers: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Three won’t do.”

“Do what?”

“Do IT—the thing, the magic, the spell, whatever.”

Slummings looked at the old GM and for the first time saw not a fellow baseball fanatic but an old man losing his wits. Slummings felt sorry for him. “It’s okay,” he said, “it’ll be okay. We’ll get the fourth. After we get back to Yuma.”

“No,” Mayberry said quietly, “you don’t understand.” Mayberry took a deep breath, “We won’t get to Yuma.”

Slummings was growing impatient with this nonsense. “Listen, I don’t know exactly what those cards mean to you, but all we need to get on this train is a couple tickets and then we can sort things out in Yuma. And though I got no cash on me, a phone call or two ought to get us some tickets.”

“Won’t work.”

Slummings shook Mayberry’s shoulder. “I’m a millionaire, right? Money’s no problem. Just give me a couple minutes.” Slummings turned to step away from Mayberry in search of someone with a phone he could borrow.

“There’s no escape without all four cards,” Mayberry insisted.

“What?”

“Takes all four to escape.”

Slummings looked at his crazy partner, then turned back and took Mayberry’s arm and squeezed it, hard. “Cut it out. No more crazy talk.”

“Ow,” Mayberry pulled his arm away.

“Focus on train tickets. I’ll get some … somehow.”

“Tickets aren’t the problem.”

“Tickets are the ONLY problem,” Slummings insisted. “Once we’re on the train and—”

“You can just get on the train,” Mayberry said.

“Whadda you mean ‘just get on the train’? You’re talking crazy again.”

“Climb aboard. When they come to collect, hide in the john. By the time they find you, you’ll be in Union Station, in LA, where you change trains.”

“Really? Just hide? Then what? Huh? Even if—and it’s a big ‘if’—we get to LA, what do we do then? Hide on another train?”

“Yup.”

“Hide in the john all the way to Yuma?”

“Not all the way, no, man, that’d be like crazy!”

“Crazy,” Slummings muttered to himself, “yeah.”

“You just wait til the conductor is done collecting tickets in one car, then sit down and enjoy the ride. Someone will get off and you can grab their seat checks.”

“Seat checks?”

“You know, those little stubs the conducters stick up above each seat.”

“You want us to steal someone’s stubs?”

“Not steal,” Mayberry said.

“Borrow, maybe?” Slummings suggested sarcastically.

“Recycle,” Mayberry said smugly. “And not me, just you.”

“Whadda you mean?”

“I’m not going. I can’t.” He held up the three baseball cards again. “Gotta find the fourth first.”

Slummings looked at his partner. He wondered how the hell this guy could ever run an entire baseball club. Maybe he should fire him, maybe that’s exactly what the Yuma Arroyos needed to get their sorry asses out of the basement. A good kick in the butt. Specifically, this butt—the flabby old ass of his General Manager.

It occurred to Slummings, and not for the first time, that maybe, just maybe, Mayberry belonged in the Camarillo State Hospital. Yeah, he thought, it might have been wiser to leave the poor old sod there.

The distant sound of an approaching train startled Slummings out of his reverie.

“Look,” he said to Mayberry, “maybe your hide-and-seek game would work. Maybe not, but there’s an easier way. If I can just make a phone call.” He looked around at the passengers gathering on the platform. Several were on their phones, so he searched for a young traveler who wasn’t on their phone at the moment.

Before he could find one, Mayberry took his arm, held him in place, and said stoically, “It won’t matter.”

“What won’t?”

“Tickets won’t save us. Without all four cards, we can’t get back to Yuma. Well, you might, but I won’t.”

“That’s just crazy, you know. They’re just cards. They’re not … magical or anything.”

“The cards?” Mayberry guffawed. “No, there’s no magic in the cards. Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not the one,” Slummings objected. “You said—”

“I won’t get to Yuma without all four cards. I know what I said.”

“You think they have some sort of … I don’t know—if not ‘magical,’ then ‘special’ powers, that they determine—”

“The cards determine nothing,” Mayberry said, pulling the cards from his pocket again.

“So what—”

“They got no more magic than those tickets you want to buy.”

“Tickets aren’t magical,” Slummings objected, “but they’re a sign, a receipt, for moneys paid and admission purchased.”

“Exactly,” Mayberry said.

Slummings’ brow furrowed. “Exactly what?”

“Paper tickets like paper cards are just a sign, like you said. All depends on who’s reading the signs.”

Slummings looked closely at his traveling companion. He was convinced the time had come to sever the relationship between this confused old man and the ballclub Slummings owned. He started to say something when the loud blare of the train horn silenced him. The train thundered into the station, bells clanging and brakes squeeling, and when it finally shuddered to a stop everyone on the platform moved toward the open doors.

Slummings started forward with the other passengers but Mayberry was rooted to the platform.

“C’mon,” Slummings called to him, “we’ll sort this out on board.”

Mayberry just shook his head slowly. “No point in going forward if we’re just going to have to go back.”

“Back?” Slummings shouted.

Mayberry nodded solemnly. “Back to the hospital. To get the fourth card.”

“We’re not going back,” Slummings said, tugging on Mayberry’s arm.

“I am,” Mayberry said. “There’ll be another train tomorrow.”

“If I’m not going back to that hell hole, you aren’t either,” Slummings said, pulling on Mayberry. “C’mon!”

“A bit reluctant to board, I see,” a voice behind Slummings said. He turned to see a distinguished looking man in an expensive suit.

“What’d you say?” Slummings asked.

“The train’s here, gentlemen,” the fancy suited man said. He waved something at them. “And I have your tickets. Join me, won’t you?”

“We don’t need your tickets,” Mayberry said, reluctant to move.

“Yes, we do!” Slummings said, frowning at his partner. “How’d you know?” he asked the man in the suit.

“I’m happy to explain,” the stranger said as the train blew its horn, “but we’d better board first and talk later.” He headed for where the conductor stood at the open door of the nearest train car.

Slummings started to follow, noticed Mayberry wasn’t moving, and shouted at him, “It’s the train or back to the hospital. Nurse Peters is waiting for you.” With that, Slummings shuffled as quickly as he could toward the open coach door.

Mayberry wanted to say something, to protest blindly following some stranger onto the train, but there was no one left to listen. The platform was empty, except for one old man in a white beard and hospital slippers. He was about to turn around and find a taxi to return him to the hospital when the man in the tailored suit called back to him. “I got what you need,” he said, patting his breast pocket. “C’mon, I’ll show you.”

Mayberry knew he was being conned, but still … if, just if, the man had the fourth card … Reluctantly, Mayberry headed for the train.

The engineer pulled the whistle to hurry the elderly passenger on board, then blew a long mornful note of farewell on the train horn and engaged the engine. The conducter waved for Mayberry to hurry up and the old man stumbled through the coach door just as the train made its first labored movements down the track, heading north and east out of Camarillo before the tracks bent south toward Los Angeles, Union Station and the waiting 3:10 train to Yuma.

On board at last, the stranger in the suit directed his two new companions to a quartet of seats facing each other across a fold-up table. When the old men had finally, noisily, eased their ancient carcasses into their seats, the well dressed man spread their tickets out on the table before him along with an envelope addressed to Slummings. He gestured for Taffy to open it.

Cautious with suspicion, Slummings opened the envelope and pulled out a card that had the image of a huge cake with hundreds of candles on it. Slummings said, “What’s this?”

“Look inside,” the stranger said.

Inside Slummings read: “Happy birthday, Mr. Slummings! There will always be a bed here for you when you want to come and visit!” It was signed by Nurse Mary, Sean the Orderly, and Head Nurse Peters.

Mayberry read the card over Slummings’ shoulder. “It’s your birthday?”

Slummings shrugged. “I guess so.”

“You guess so?”

“Today or tomorrow or … well, what’s the date?”

“The twentieth,” the stranger said.

“Yeah, must be today.”

Mayberry leaned over and gave his traveling companion a kiss on his bearded cheek. Slummings pushed him away and muttered something.

“Whadja say?” Mayberry asked, smiling.

“Fuck you,” Slummings said.

Mayberry just laughed.

Then the man in the very expensive suit—and polished shoes, Slummings noticed—pulled a small card from the breast pocket of his suit. “And this,” he said, “is for you.”

He placed the card on the foldable table.

Mayberry stared at it. There it was, the fourth card, the marked card, the final gospeler, the key to their future, the assurance of their journey. Johnny Mathew Markham, pitcher for the Negro League’s Birmingham Black Barons in 1943.

Eddie Mathews, Luke Easter, John Antonelli and now … Johnny Markham. Mayberry’s four gospelers.

4 gospelers.png

The old man smiled a grin as wide as the Sonoran desert. A tear came to his eye. For the first time in more years than he could recall, he believed he was headed home.

[Borealis]

Yay!! Yuma Bob heading home... sort of!!

[Arroyos]

Yay!! Yuma Bob heading home... sort of!!

It’s a long train ride—won’t arrive in Yuma until 3:10 am—much can happen.