Читать книгу Keeping The Record - Travis Richardson - Страница 6

It was already a miserable day when Roy got the call. It was like the world had gone crazy all around him. The stoners in the apartment next to his living room had their stereo pumping, the eight children that lived above him had been doing jumping jacks for the past hour, and the passionate couple on the bedroom side were having one of their nasty, drawn out shouting matches that was so loud he barely heard the phone.

Roy reached for the handset but hesitated. Who could it be? If only he hadn’t smashed his answering machine the other day. They make them so cheap and fragile these days. Once upon a time, he had people answering phones for him. Hell, the telephone company offered him millions to endorse them. And he had turned them down, laughing at their offer. But now, he’d put his smiling mug next to any product for a thousand bucks. Maybe even five hundred, but they’d have to negotiate a few things. Was it another creditor on the line, or was it an opportunity from somebody who didn’t hate him… yet? He grabbed the phone.

“Hello,” Roy said in a high-pitched squeak.

“Hello ma’am, could I please speak to Mr. Roy Brands,” a young man on the line asked.

Roy cringed. People always said ma’am when they heard his voice. At least it gave him cover. “Where’d you get this number?”

“It took a lot of research, but I think I finally found it. Could you please confirm this is the number for Mr. Roy B. Brands, miss?”

“What is this about?” He was sure it was a creditor, although the kid was nicer than they usually were.

“Is this the right number?”

“Tell me what you’re calling about, and I’ll tell you if this is the right number.”

“I’m calling with the United Sports Press, and we want a comment from Mr. Brands regarding Jose Morales and whether he thinks he’ll break his single season home run record.”

“Say what?”

“Jose is only four home runs away from breaking Mr. Brands’ record, and there’s still three and a half weeks left in the season.”

Roy felt like the earth was opening up from under him and swallowing him whole. “Who the hell is this Jose fella?”

“The second baseman for St. Louis.”

“Bullshit. There ain’t no way a scrawny second baseman is breaking my record.”

“It’s true ma’am, he’s on the verge of breaking… did you say my record?”

“You ain’t nothing but a liar. Everybody knows that only outfielders, first basemen, and maybe, and I mean the slightest maybe, a third basemen can hit enough home runs to even come close to my record.”

He slammed the phone down. Probably some shock jock radio host trying to get a rise out of him so he could air it all over the nation. Another humiliation. Everybody couldn’t get enough of tearing him down.

Roy glanced at the empty wall, recalling a time when gold gloves, MVP trophies, and silver slugger awards were mounted all over his house. But then he had to sell all of them, along with his World Series rings. All he had left was his name in the record books for most home runs in a single season and the home run trophy he’d hidden from the collection agencies. Of course, there was an asterisk by his name, accused of doping and all that malarkey, but fuck ’em. Even with that damned asterisk, Roy’s name was still at the top of the list. Nobody had more home runs in a single season than he did.

Up until a few years ago, he had made sure of it too. If any hitter hinted at breaking his record, he would contact his agent, back when he still took his calls, and arrange for some middle relief pitcher with a piss-poor minor league contract to toss an inside fastball right on the knuckles. Broke a slugger’s fingers, but the others got deep bruises on their hands and fear of inside pitches for the rest of the season. For a million a pop, he could afford it… back then. Now, he could barely afford rent or even a dollar taco. Times had changed and not for the best.

He shook his head. What if it was true about that Jose guy? A second baseman? For real? That’s either bullshit or some new designer juice. The question burned through Roy’s brain, and it was too much. He had to find out. Too bad he didn’t have cable any more. It meant he’d have to go outside. He hated that almost as much as he hated the asterisk and the changes… those motherfucking changes.

Roy grabbed his wig, a black curly mess, and pulled an oversized muumuu over his sweatpants and t-shirt. It was just easier this way. He caught his reflection in the mirror.

“You are one ugly woman.”

He stepped outside in the cold September breeze that blew in from the bay. Where to start?

It might not hurt to ask the stoners next door. Idiot white kids who probably had all the breaks and threw them all away. Whatever money they had seemed to go up in smoke, literally. If it wasn’t for the loud music and reek of pot, they might not be bad neighbors. He tapped his huge knuckles on the door, and it creaked open. The first thing Roy noticed was that the apartment didn’t smell like pot. A burnt scent of chemicals and metal contained the stench of evil. Upon entering he understood. The stoners had graduated from the wacky tabbacky to the harder stuff. On the floor, Jason, Eric, and Punkass – it was what he answered to – lay with their heads propped up on a filthy sectional couch. Their mouths were open, eyes vacant, staring off into unknown horizons.

Were they dead? Looking at a syringe, Roy remembered his own dates with the needle. But the results were so very different. If anything, after juicing, Roy wanted to not sit. He wanted to knock the Rawlins off of a fastball or knock the head off of the opposing pitcher with his fists or even one of his own teammates if they were too obnoxious or fuck his woman or anybody else’s, hard, like he was running for a triple. Of course, that last part, his sexual drive, diminished along with the girth and length of his other bat. It had shrunk almost to the point that the only thing left for it to do was invert itself and become a vagina.

He shook his head. He needed to think of something besides the past. Just focus on the future and see if this Jose character was for real or not. These guys were useless, but maybe he could watch their TV while they hibernated in their medicated slumber.

He turned off the music so he could think. It was some sort of electronic space bullshit. The thought crossed his mind to smash the stereo, but he let it be. If these guys OD’d at least he could pawn the unit for a few bucks. Looking at the TV, he tried to figure out how to turn it on.

“Wha ja do that fooor,” Punkass said with drool running down his mouth.

“How do you turn this thing on?” Roy asked, ignoring his question and running his hands over the flat screen. How could junkies afford this?

“Button, bottom right side.”

Roy turned it on, a blue screen lighting up the room.

“Okay, where’s the remote? I need to watch ESPN.”

“We don’t got cable no more, Ms. Brands,” Jason said from behind Roy.

Roy jumped. “I thought you was dead.”

“Naw, just trippin.’”

“Uh huh. How about Eric. He don’t look too good.”

Still on the floor, Jason hit Eric with all the power of a deflated balloon. Eric didn’t react, his eyes wide staring at the ceiling. Roy kicked Eric with his size 14 shoe.

“Are you alive or are you dead, man?”

Eric blinked, but nothing else moved. Good enough.

“I gotta question for the three of you. Any of you guys keep up with baseball?”

Punkass had faded out, and Eric continued to stare into the nothingness before him.

“Used to collect cards back in the day,” Jason said. “You… look a lot like your brother, Roy, Ms. Brands. I swear it. Perfect match. I had your brother’s rookie card but only sold it after it wasn’t worth much. You know, after the scandal hit. Stupid me.”

“Do you all know Jose Morales?”

“Is that the dealer on Mission?” Punkass slurred.

“No that’s the cross-dresser Josie Moore, Punkass.”

“Right, right.” Punkass started to nod off.

“Jose Morales. None of you have heard of him?”

“No ma’am,” Jason said.

Roy flexed his fingers. He hated being called ma’am. “Okay then. I’ll leave you all alone, just keep that volume down.”

“You got it,” Eric said, catching Roy off guard.

Crazy these fellas shooting tar into their veins. Nothing good would come of that. Roy heard his phone ring through the paper-thin walls. He hoped the boys didn’t hear him crying sometimes when his estrogen levels went out of whack and everything seemed so rotten and awful. Besides, it felt good to have a good cry every now and then, but what he did behind closed doors should be his own private business. The telephone ringing brought Roy back to the present. It could be that reporter. It had to be.

Roy tore out of the stoners’ room and entered his apartment, grabbing the phone on the third ring.

“Tell me more about this Jose character.”

“Is this Roy B. Brands?” The caller had a deeper, harsher voice than the kid who had called earlier.

“Yes it is. So who is this guy who has the nerve to think he can break my record?” Roy said. This had to be that cub reporter’s boss.

“Mr. or Ms. Brands or whoever the fuck you are, I have a piece of paper in front of me sayin’ you owe me one-hundred and eighty-one thousand bucks, fucko. I’m intendin’ to collect—”

Roy slammed the phone onto the cradle. It rang again immediately, and he ripped the cord out off the wall, sending bits of plastic and wire across the apartment. Good Lord, he had been trying to stay on the down low, and he’d gone low down to do it. But now it looked like they’d found him again. That asshole creditor was just one of many who were trying to track him down. Was the whole home-run-record-breaking-Jose-thing a lark, a motherfucking hoax used to get gullible Roy Brands to admit he was living in a dump in the deepest, darkest wasteland in Richmond, California?

“Yeah, that’s it,” he said aloud. “You just got yourself found, Roy.”

He hated to hear his high pitch squeal of a voice that he now carried. It reminded him of his mother’s. That booming big baritone Roy once had was long-long gone, as were his testicles. No, no, no. He couldn’t go down that road of heartache and regret. It would only end up in a long crying session and a box of tissue ain’t as cheap as it used to be.

He had to think of something else. Looking at the cardboard folding table littered with unpaid bills, he stared at the last remaining artifact from his former life that hadn’t been seized, the trophy given to him by the baseball commissioner himself when he hit 78 home runs. Bud had been so happy to present it to him, only to have the nerve to ask for it back when those steroid allegations started hitting the fan. Fuck him. He gave it away, and he couldn’t take it back. If he thought steroids were a problem, then he should have done something about it when Canseco and McGwire were juicing like crazy. He hadn’t done anything different than they did, except take a more potent version of the juice. One that still had crazy aftereffects.

Then the question re-emerged. What if his record was in danger? The record that he owned, the record that he earned. Juice or no juice, Roy had smashed ball after ball over outfield walls across America. He had to hit a flying sphere thrown anywhere between 80 to 100 miles an hour with a wooden cylinder. Making contact wasn’t easy. It’s even harder to hit the ball straight. And home runs, well, that was the hardest thing to do, and he had hit them. Seventy-eight of them in one season. And there ain’t no way in hell a Spanish-speaking second baseman was going to take that record away… if that rumor was true.

He heard his other neighbors, Carlos and Maria, shouting back and forth in Spanglish. Words like fuckhead, shit-for-brains, cunt, and several over English profanities always got mixed into their heated arguments. And if they weren’t arguing, they were doing the nasty, and everybody in the apartment complex and probably the entire block could hear them. Crazy mothers, to be sure, but maybe they knew about the Jose guy. He was one of their own, right?

Roy trudged back outside and knocked on their door. The couple kept arguing, so he knocked harder.

“Who’s that, your novio?” Carlos shouted inside the apartment.

“Fuck you, pendejo!” Maria responded as she opened the door. Roy looked down at this little Latina lady. Even though it was the middle of the morning, she was decked out to the nines from her hair done up down to her stiletto high heels and in between, a tight red dress showing off her immense curves. Roy wondered if he should get some tips from her if he was going to continue this cross-dressing business.

“Hello there, I was wondering if…”

Maria’s eyes widened. She turned back to Carlos, who wore a tight tank top displaying an arm full of tats.

“It’s the black lady next door. Why don’t you bang her too?”

“I just might. Her ta-tas are bigger than yours,” Carlos said with a laugh.

Maria’s face flushed. She yanked a picture of the Virgin Mary and child from the wall and flung it at Carlos. He ducked, and it smashed against an overturned chair. Bits of glass scattered on the messy carpet.

“You did not just throw that.” His eyes were wide in disbelief.

Roy noticed that it might have been the last unbroken object in the apartment until a few seconds ago.

Maria crossed herself. “You made me do it. I can’t help myself sometimes, Carlos.”

Roy cleared his voice. “Look, um. I was wondering if either of you might know of a Jose Morales. He plays baseball.”

Carlos turned and picked up the broken picture, holding it gingerly in his fingers. Maria walked over and put her arm around him. He looked over at her as if forgetting she was there. “Madre Santa Maria y bebé Jesús…”

Maria put her finger to his lips, stopping him from speaking. “I want your bebé, Carlos. Quiero tu bebé.”

He turned, wrapping his arms around her. “Really?”

“Absolutamente.”

Roy didn’t know what was going on, but they didn’t seem to know or care that he was there as they started making out. Carlos dropped the picture as he worked his hands all over Maria’s body. Roy had no idea what to do. He felt a stirring in his loins, something that had been absent for quite a while, as he watched Carlos manhandle Maria. Carlos began kissing Maria’s neck, working his way down to her cleavage, while Maria stepped on the picture, tearing a hole in it with the heel. Roy entered the room.

“You… wait…”

The couple didn’t notice him or the picture. Maria was busy working on Carlos’s belt while he was pulling the top of her dress down. Roy quietly took steps back.

“I think I’ll just come back another time.”

He couldn’t help himself and stole one more look. Carlos’s pants were around his ankles, and Maria had her legs wrapped around him, her mouth open and eyes closed, ready to belt out a powerful scream. Roy shut the door as she uttered her first, “Ooh yeah, baby!” There would be many more of these exclamations in the next several minutes.

Standing outside with his hand on the doorknob, Roy wanted to take another peak. They wouldn’t even know if he watched them the entire time, would they? He started to turn the handle.

“Ms. Brands.”

A yelp escaped Roy’s lips. He turned to see one of those dozen kids from upstairs who only wanted to jump up and down all day and night. Maria wailed, “Harder, harder.” Roy felt blood rising to face.

“What’d you want? You shouldn’t be hearing stuff like this.”

“Oh, I hear stuff all the time,” the boy said. “The walls are too thin.” He was an Asian kid, Pilipino, Roy thought he’d heard once. Probably first or second grade, but he didn’t know how to judge anything like that.

“Well there’s lots of things you shouldn’t be listening too.”

Maria grunted loud. Roy kicked the door.

“Keep it down, don’t you know there are children around,” he shouted. It sounded a lot like his grandmother. He turned back to the boy. “You run on upstairs and put in some earplugs or iPod headphones or whatever else it is that you kids do these days. Now get.”

Good Lord, he was becoming his grandmother. This was scary. Roy needed to go back inside in his apartment and figure out a way to get his identity back. The old Roy B. Brands who was a certain shoe-in for the Hall of Fame until he wasn’t. He was walking back to his apartment when the kid said something that stopped him cold.

“What was that, son?”

“Jose Morales, you were asking about him, right?”

“Do you know him?”

“Do I? He’s my favorite second baseman!”

Roy squinted, looking the kid up and down, making sure the squirt wasn’t putting him on. It seemed like everybody else was.

“What team does he play for?”

“The St. Louis Cardinals.”

“How many home runs does he have?”

“One hundred and three lifetime as of this morning.”

“How many this season?”

“So far he’s got seventy-five. Only three more to tie Roy Brands’ record,” the kid said, lowering his voice when he said Roy’s name as if it were dirty.

“You got a problem with Roy Brands?”

“Yea, he’s a… Hey, your name is Brands. Is he like a brother or something?”

“Or something.”

“Really?” The kid’s eyes widened.

“So you think the Jose character can break m… Roy’s record.”

“Of course he can. There’s twenty more games left in the season, and Jose’s been known to hit a couple of homers in a single game.”

“How long has this Jose been playin’?”

“Six years. Four as a starter.”

“What was his home run average before that?”

“Before when?”

“This season, punk.”

“I dunno, like five or six a year. Until the end of last year, when he started nailing them.”

“So a second baseman who doesn’t even hit ten home runs in a single season starts hitting sixty the next year and nobody thinks he’s juicing. He’s gotta be.”

“He’s not, no way.” The kid shook his head, giving a confident smile. “Says he figured out a new way to hit the ball in the off season. He even does blood tests on TV in front of everybody. He’s one hundred percent clean.”

A rage flowed through Roy. “Blood tests my ass. You know he’s using some new formula they don’t know how to test for yet.”

“No, he ain’t a cheater like your brother was.”

“Say what?”

“Roy B. Brands is the biggest cheater in baseball ever.”

“Why you…”

Roy reached for the kid, but he was too quick. He ducked under Roy’s large fingers and shot up the stairs. Roy was behind him, his breasts bouncing as his feet banged on the steps, shaking the entire apartment complex. He was going to teach that brat a thing or two about respecting your elders.

“Lolo!” the kid screamed. “Lolo!”

The boy was just inches from Roy’s grasp when an apartment door opened and the kid dove in, head first, vintage Pete Rose style. A little gray haired man, not even five foot, stood in the doorway aiming a .44 Magnum.

Somehow, Roy found it within his power to stop. Like he’d ran to second and had planned to round it, but the third base coach told him to slam on the brakes.

The man rattled off a volley of words in Tagalog or whatever language he spoke. His eyes were wide, and his arms shook fiercely under the weight of the weapon. Roy held up his hands in self defense.

“Look, man. I don’t understand a word you’re sayin’. But I’ll just walk on down the stairs. Alright?”

The man kept on berating Roy, probably calling him every insult in the Pilipino language.

“Uh-huh. Sure, right. Ok. Well, I say you keep that opinion to yourself, hear,” he said, backing up with his hands in the air.

The diatribe continued, and Roy had had it. He didn’t have time for this shit. He waved the geezer off.

“Get some rest, old man.”

Roy turned to the staircase and took the first step down when a blast exploded behind him. The air pressure shifted as a bullet flew past his right ear.

“Shiiit!” Roy cried, leaping down the stairs. He turned to see nobody standing at the door. That revolver probably knocked the old man over, but Roy wasn’t going to double check.

As he made the final step to the ground floor, Carlos swung open his door. He held a sheet around his torso, but it didn’t hide his souvenir bat that was pushing through the material. In his other hand, he held a nine-millimeter. It was pointed at Roy.

“What’s going on, mamacita?”

“The old man upstairs is shooting a gun. He’s crazy.”

“Nothing to see, honey,” Maria said from the shadows. Her polished finger nailed hands grabbed Carlos from behind, pulling him back. He pushed her away while never taking his eyes off Roy.

“Is he shooting at the kids or at you?”

“Carlos, let’s get busy again,” Maria said.

“Back off, babe.” He glared back at Roy. “I have a feeling you’re causing trouble here.”

“Really, me?” Roy said, pointing at himself like a child with crumbs all over his mouth, denying he’d ever broke into a cookie jar.

“Yeah, something isn’t right about you, man. Know what I’m saying?”

Roy shrugged.

“I don’t know what it is, but I wanna find out.”

Maria came from behind and yanked off Carlos’s bed sheet. Roy turned away before he would see something that would cause him several months’ worth of self-esteem issues. Carlos chased Maria, butt naked.

“Come back here, perra!”

Roy ran into his apartment and shut the door, turning the lock and shoving the deadbolt. The couple was shouting again, building up for another passionate round of baby making.

“Mr. Brands, or have you completed your sex change operation yet?” a voice asked from behind.

Roy whipped around. There were two men standing in his living room. One was white and short in an ill-fitting suit. He was probably in his late forties. His voice sounded like that asshole creditor. Next to him was a big beefy black man full of muscles, wearing a T-shirt extended to its maximum stretching capacity. Roy was a little taller, but the guy pumped iron regularly and was a decade younger.

Roy was disturbed by what the bruiser carried in his hands. The Babe Ruth Home Run trophy. When all of Roy’s assets had been confiscated and auctioned off, that trophy was the one thing that he had managed to hide, claiming to have lost it. Nobody believed him, but so what? If they couldn’t find it, it was their loss. He’d only recently brought it out of hiding – under a bed in a Four Season’s Suite in San Francisco. He’d removed the mattress and punched in the middle of the box spring. Dropping the trophy inside, it had never occurred to him he’d never be able to afford a suite there again. How he got it back was a long messy story involving him impersonating a maid. It hadn’t been easy and standing in front of him were two men holding the one possession that proved he was the greatest baseball player ever.

“Hand me back my trophy,” Roy said in his most threatening voice.

“Oh really. I thought it was lost,” the slimy man in the suit said.

“Just like he didn’t take the juice,” the bruiser said.

“Looks like you take more than just vitamin supplements,” Roy said, mad dogging the younger guy.

“Yeah, well. I’m not testifying under oath or nothin’. And I don’t got no man tits either.”

“We searched your apartment, and it looks like you really don’t have shit, except for this little trinket,” the boss man said.

“It’s my home run trophy, and nobody gets it.”

“Au contraire, fucko. We have it. And you still owe us a hundred and eighty thou. If you step aside, we’ll be on our way.”

Roy felt his blood boil. He flexed his fingers in and out of fists. The squirt stepped forward. Roy decked him with his left, sending the man flying backward. The bruiser brought up the trophy like it was an axe. Roy charged him, head down like a bull, getting under his raised arms and ramming him against a wall. The bruiser’s breath burst out of his lungs.

Roy snatched the trophy in midair before it hit the floor. He’d been a four time Gold Glover. He hadn’t lost his fielding skills at all.

The runt was stumbling for the door.

“Oh no you don’t, punk.”

The little man tried to run, but Roy grabbed him by the collar and threw him to the ground. The bruiser stood, trying to catch his breath. Anger flooded Roy’s eyes. He needed to get them out, but then what? Go back into hiding? But where? And what about his record? Was he going let a little, scrawny second baseman take it?

The loan shark crawled past Roy, hoping to sneak away. Roy grabbed the loudmouth by his ankles and pulled his legs. The man shrieked like a baby stuck on a creepy Santa’s lap.

“How you like that, little man? You like being jerked around, do you?”

Roy swung him around once and then twice when the little man’s head smashed against the bruiser’s skull. The crack was louder than any fastball connecting to a home run swing.

Roy let go of his ankles. The body sailed across the living room, spewing a trail of blood and brain matter all over the apartment like his open head was a viscous sparkler. Roy’s stomach retched.

He looked down at the enforcer. Blood covered his face and the side of his head was concave. Roy ran to the bathroom, managing to vomit his digested Frosted Flakes into the sink. It was then that he saw the blood covering his body.

“Holy shit.”

He turned on the shower and stripped down, wondering how in hell he would get rid of the bodies with so many nosy neighbors around – if he could get them out, where would he dump them? The Bay, of course, though bodies didn’t always sink. And then there was clean up after that. There was a time when he could have paid people to do that for him, but then again, there was a time when the only people pestering him were reporters and autograph hounds.

When Roy stepped out of the shower, he heard sirens approach and then stop in the parking lot. He strapped on his double-D bra and threw on some sweats, freezing at the pounding knock on his front door.

“Open up, police.”

Roy ran to his living room, blood coated everything. Ain’t no way he would open that door. Not at all.

The knock persisted. “Ma’am are you home?”

Roy tiptoed back to his room, found a duffle bag and stuffed it with underwear, T-shirts, and socks. He went into the kitchen and took out the $100 bill he had hidden in the Rice-A-Roni box. Putting on the wig and muumuu dress, he was about ready to split. He grabbed the home run trophy, a Sultan of Swat bronzed and miniaturized, when a phone rang. It wasn’t his. It was a stupid hip-hop tune coming from inside of the bruiser’s jacket pocket. He didn’t know if he should answer it or ignore it. He opened up the kitchen window overlooking a junkyard. It was only then that he remembered the bars over the window.

“Oh hell no,” Roy muttered to himself.

“If you don’t answer, we will be forced to open this door,” the cop outside said.

The cell phone finally stopped ringing.

“She’s still there. She hasn’t left,” Roy heard the boy tell the cops.

Putting his hands on the rusted bars, Roy pushed. He felt some give. He inhaled again and pushed harder, spreading his feet apart and pressing his full body weight behind it. The screws in the stucco walls were giving way.

The bang on the door was different this time, like a foot was connecting with the cheap plywood. Crap. He’d have to hurry.

Roy doubled his efforts. The iron bars started moving. There was another kick to the door. Wood splintered. Roy, his muscles straining, shoved harder, and the iron grate tore free from the wall. He grabbed the trophy, stuffed the statuette into his bag, and tossed it out the window. He heaved his massive body through the tiny window just as heard the final kick. He fell, tits over ass – literally – to the trash strewn ground and heard an officer shout.

“Holy shit, we’ve gotta fucking homicide in here.”