‘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?’
‘Besides you?’
My tone eludes him. I’ve always known that politicians, clergymen, academics and accountants had no senses of humor. Perhaps I will have to add criminals and retired baseball players to the list.
‘Will you meet me?’ His voice rises in agitation.
‘All right. Pearson’s in an hour, then.’
I turn to Missy.
‘I have to go into Iowa City. Is there anything you want?’
Missy asks me to rent a video. She likes the movies about a little red-haired girl named Pippi Longstocking.
It will be interesting to meet Ray Kinsella. In the final days of my quest I considered contacting him. In my frustration at not being able to repeat my journey to the past I’ve considered visiting his farm. I’ve heard his baseball field has healing properties.
I’m glad Joe Mccoy has chosen Pearson’s as a meeting place. It is my favorite indoor spot in Iowa City. I discovered it soon after I arrived as a student, more years ago than I care to remember. Pearson’s is a drug store; but at the back, dark and heavily air-conditioned, is a soda fountain, smelling deliciously of chocolate and lime, of cherry Cokes and malt.
From one of the dozen stools at the soda fountain one can watch a devilled-egg sandwich being prepared or see a chocolate malt—there are none better anywhere—being created by a waitress, one of whom, Doreen, has been working at the soda fountain for all the years I’ve been going there.
I have a habit of being early for every appointment: I arrive half an hour early to watch batting practice of a summer evening or to have a tooth filled on a depressing January afternoon. I order only coffee, but my resolve disappears quickly enough. Even though it is barely 9:30 in the morning, I order a half-sized chocolate malt, which at Pearson’s is called a pony malt, a term I’ve encountered nowhere else.
I eat my malt slowly, dipping the straw in and licking the stiff, cement-like mixture off the end. That’s the way I taught Karin, and later the twins Shannon and Crystal to love chocolate malts. When each was just old enough to