Stealing First and Other Stories

By Cynthia Drew and Joan Golden

In the American deep south in 1957, the Redbirds battle the Bayou Braves for the championship. Ronnie LeBlanc, the Redbirds’ pitcher, believes that winning the regional title is his ticket out of a dead-end job at the local sugar mill. When the Redbirds suffer a series of losses, the team’s coach quits, and the sole person willing to take the job is a former Negro League pitcher—the only African-American in a still-segregated game.

Ronnie begins to suspect external forces are the cause of his team’s unlucky streak. As he digs for answers, he stumbles upon a secret: Bo Brasseux, the town’s bigoted banker, is scheming to kill the Redbirds’ new coach, throw the championship game, and ruin Ronnie’s family financially. A scout for the Chicago Cubs could be the answer, but will being tapped by the Cubs be enough to thwart Brasseux’s despicable plans against the coach and Ronnie’s family?

Based on a true story, “Stealing First” is only one tale in this collection that offers glimpses of small-town politics, snake-handlers, nosey house-hunters, and the making of a murderer. Each story looks at our prejudices and conceits, our loves in all their variations, and the worst and best of us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Mar 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781480886797

Cynthia Drew

Cynthia Drew has garnered several awards for her novels, among them the 2018 INDIE Gold for Best Mystery, a 2012 INDIE for Best Historical Fiction, and the 2013 Mom’s Choice Award for Best Inspirational and Motivational Literature for Children. She is a practicing private investigator. Joan Golden is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. Sisters, Cynthia Drew and Joan Golden have also published several mysteries under the pen name, Drew Golden.

Book preview

Stealing First

and Other Stories

CYNTHIA DREW

and

JOAN GOLDEN

54871.png

Copyright © 2020 Cynthia Drew and Joan Golden.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Archway Publishing

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-8680-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-8678-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-8679-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020903637

Archway Publishing rev. date: 3/4/2020

Contents

Stealing First

Southpaw

First Inning

Second Inning

Third Inning

Fourth Inning

Fifth Inning

Sixth Inning

Top of the Seventh

Bottom of the Seventh

Eighth Inning

Ninth Inning

Cleanup

Other Stories

Dying for a Faith

Help around the House

Living Can Scare You to Death

Beauty Rise

A Joyful Noise

These Good and Tolerable Days

Notes and Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Stealing First

CYNTHIA DREW and JOAN GOLDEN

STEALING FIRST IS DEDICATED TO

everyone who has ever played America’s game—professional and amateur, young and old, male and female, and of every race.

Our sincere thanks to Ron Eddy, whose tale of an American Legion baseball team on which he had played sparked the story for Stealing First, although Stealing First became far larger than a story about baseball.

Appreciation too to Miss Charlotte Jeffers at the Acadia Parish Tourist Commission in Crowley, Louisiana, for her help and encouragement; to the management and staff of Cora-Texas Manufacturing Company and particularly to Skeeter Engolio at that sugar mill, all of whom gave their time so that the sugar mill scenes in Stealing First would be correct; and to Richard Coach Pizz Pizzolato, A. J. Jones, Alvy James, and the rest of Miller Field’s boys of summer.

And to the American Legion baseball team from Acadia Post 15, go, Crowley Millers!

Southpaw

A WORM-BURNER DOWN LEFT CENTER alley, bottom of the ninth. Only the second crack of a bat against a baseball in the game T-Bo Brasseux watched from behind the backstop.

The runner, batting for the team T-Bo had intended to scout, rounded first at a trot, held up, and crouched well off the base, ready to spring for a steal on second.

But a different player absorbed more of Brasseux’s attention: the pitcher for the opposing team, a left-hander with a sometime knuckleball, throwing this near-perfect game. Could shave his corners. Control his speed. Seemed unaware of anything outside the fence.

Brasseux made notes on his pad, recording stats and observations on the player feinting toward second. The pitcher stepped off the mound, turned, and stared the runner back to first.

Good. This kid was good. Maybe great with a touch of work. His team sucked, but sweet Jesus, he had an arm—and a face women would love. The kind of player who filled seats.

The chili dog and curly fries T-Bo had inhaled at the stretch churned in his stomach like rats in a wool sock. He gulped an industrial-strength antacid tablet and focused on the pitcher.

The kid popped a jiggler. Strike three.

T-Bo’d come across this kind of talent only twice before. In ’57 he’d played on a team with a southpaw whose fluttering knuckler was almost impossible to hit—or catch. And ten years later as a scout, he’d first seen Vida Blue’s breaking curveball. This boy had that same manner—his windup or his kick—something that promised the stuff of legend.

He wondered how the kid might hold up in the minors and, if he kept his arm healthy and got a couple breaks, up in the Big Show. In forty years as a major league scout, he’d seen others—a few of them gifted—come out of the Louisiana swamps with a chance to make it, only to fade in the clutches. These small bayou towns often bred ball players who had too little self-assurance to withstand big-city notoriety and the stress to compete, were too pigheaded to really be part of a team, or were unable to resist squandering their newfound fortunes on Rolexes and drugs.

And hell, if it happened to Vida Blue, it could happen to any of them. It happened plenty, but sometimes it didn’t. Now and then, above all that field chatter, one of them heard the rock maple music of baseball.

First Inning

Friday, June 21, 1957

HOUMA SUGAR’S SUNSET MILL HUNKERED on the boggy western edge of Louisiana’s Atchafalaya basin. A weather-beaten sign at the plant entrance read, Sweet Success: 21 Days without an Accident.

Lyn Angell stroked his downy, new goatee, set a red baseball cap to the back of his head, and cocked it off-center. He heard Alonzo Castille whistle him up to move a freight car across the yard. Angell ignored him and clocked out early. He had a ball game.

Winded from climbing the rickety stairs, Erasté Bernard swung his bulk onto the catwalk near the top of the centrifugals. Next time, he’d leave this job to younger men, and dear Lord, it was hot as a two dollar pistol up here. Hands on his hips, he watched Ronnie LeBlanc work below. The kid thunked a hundred-pound sugar bag onto a flatbed railcar just as a steam whistle blew. Two o’clock. End of first shift.

Ronnie wiped sweat from his eyes with the hem of his T-shirt. It was still June, the first month of a summer job he knew would seem to stretch forever. The molasses smell of raw sugar trailed him back to the shipping bay doors. Limed sugar crystals clung in his hair, hung in his T-shirt and jeans, and caked in his nostrils. A glaze of sugar and sweat coated his skin.

The sultry air was no cooler near the doors than in the warehouse, and outside a breeze from the south carried the acrid odor of rotting cane slurry. He gazed out on a green sea of sugarcane. West and east, more cane shimmered in the heat beyond dusty roads, rail tracks, and piles of scrap metal.

He shook off a passing fright swelling in his chest and turned toward the clock.

Crip Cormier closed a bag of sugar just as the whistle blew. He hoped Cherie Landry would be at the game. He felt an itch in his groin. Oh God, how he hoped she would be there.

The Magee brothers stood shoulder to shoulder on the upper deck of the mill’s walkway, paintbrushes in hand. Bill applied dull, gray paint to a railing while Butch painted Bill’s left arm the same flat shade. Bill pretended not to notice.

From across the floor, Alonzo Castille pondered the two of them. They were seldom serious. It was a marvel to him they’d made it to high school. Hey, he yelled. Finish up.

The steam whistle blew, marking two o’clock. Butch and Bill laid their brushes across the open paint can and clambered down to the mill floor.

Castille shook his head. Finish up, I said, or I’ll put you in the fields.

I ain’t doing nothing coloreds do, Bill said over his shoulder at Castille.

Butch socked Bill’s grayish arm. Careful. Alonzo started out in the fields.

Knock it off. Bill rubbed his arm. Alonzo ain’t colored.

Butch glanced up at Alonzo. Might have been, a ways back.

At least change the safety number on the sign on your way out, Castille said. And good luck this afternoon.

Cal King wrestled a boiler door into place and dropped pins on the hinges shortly before the two o’clock whistle. His was among the hottest jobs at the mill on a day when all jobs were hot. He knew Castille had singled him out for this crummy detail because he was heavy and didn’t talk much, but Cal didn’t mind. The sweaty heat and dog’s-body work helped hold his weight down, and he was better off out of the way of other folks. Working alone gave him time to contemplate the brimstone of Sodom and Gomorrah in the boiler fire.

Pink Bellew stopped short and lowered his cart of scrap metal to study Lyn Angell’s black eye. "Yeow. He got you good."

Lyn filed his card at the time clock. Yeah, but this time, I got him back.

You okay? You feel like playing this afternoon?

Fine, man, I’m fine. C’mon. Clock out. Let’s go.

LeBlanc, Erasté Bernard bawled from the catwalk, you owe me another hour for being late this morning.

Ronnie reached for his time card. I was only five minutes late this morning, Coach, and I can make it up on Monday. We’ve got a game this afternoon, remember? Playing the Braves today? C’mon. Let’s go.

Don’t you clock out yet, mister. I want that hour, and I want it now.

Ronnie smiled up at Erasté and pushed his card into the slot on the time clock.

Erasté Bernard made for the stairs, his eyes popping. You little shit, you ain’t seeing that ball field until— He clambered down, minding where he stepped to avoid holes rusted through the stair treads. You worthless nobody, he panted at the first landing. Whole damn lot of you. Nobodies. Losers. You hear me? My own team—I’m coaching a bunch of— He hustled around the platform while shaking his fist and started down to the floor where Ronnie stood. "Coaching a bunch of losers."

You’re wrong, man. Ain’t lost a game this season if you recall. Won four, lost none of them. I’d say we’re winners.

Don’t you sass me. Erasté looked over the railing to shake a finger at Ronnie. I know lo— Erasté’s foot broke through a rusted hole in a stair tread. He tumbled the last three steps to the concrete, his big body twisting as he fell.

Too late, Ronnie reached to break his boss’s fall.

Erasté Bernard hit the floor hard on a three-pointed landing—both hands and one foot, his other foot still tangled behind the corroded stair tread.

Ronnie stood frozen, five yards away from his coach. You okay?

Bernard lay still, gasping. My God, Ronnie, I believe my leg’s broke, and it’s all your fault. I’ll make sure you never play baseball again, I have my way. You hadn’t got impudent with me, I wouldn’t be laying here right now. Sure as hell I’m not going anywhere but up to the hospital this afternoon, thanks to you.

Ronnie and Pink sat at the edge of the loading platform while waiting for the others to collect in the gravel yard beyond the freight docks.

Says it was my fault, Ronnie said. So what do we do now he’s hurt his leg?

Play without him, I say.

Can we?

Sure. Why not? What’s he told us we couldn’t figure out for ourselves? Pink chuckled. Besides, think anyone will really notice he isn’t there?

Alonzo Castille gave Erasté Bernard a nudge with his toe. Get up, Coach. The LeBlanc kid is gone and the only thing hurt’s your pride. I’m not going to louse up my safety record because you want to play hooky this afternoon.

They all gathered around Ronnie and Pink after clocking out: Lyn, Crip, Cal, and the Magee brothers.

Pink jumped to the ground. Ready?

Dad’ll be here in a minute. Ronnie craned his neck to check the far parking lot for his father’s work truck.

Pink held aloft a shabby baseball bat clutched in both fists. I say, are we ready?

The boys reached in to grip the bat, their hands aligned up its shaft. Ready!

A rusty white pickup bearing the Houma Sugar logo turned a wide U in the gravel lot, stopping in front of the boys. Guy LeBlanc ducked his head out the driver’s window. He studied them, gathered around the truck: young men’s faces not yet set with worry, their hair clumped with sweat and the mill chaff called bagasse. Their jaws fuzzy with the beginning of stubble. Good boys, and scrappy even now at the end of a hard day’s work.

But LeBlanc was in no mood to concern himself with whether they might be sent off to war or marry too young. Alonzo Castille had been on a tear all day. Just before the whistle, he’d chewed on Guy about maintenance schedules. Castille was always preaching, always riding his ass.

Let’s go. Hop in the back. Ronnie, you’re up here with me.

Dad …

Don’t ‘Dad’ me, son. Up front. We need to talk.

About what? Ronnie stood his ground, Pink at his side while the others climbed into the truck bed.

Guy LeBlanc sighed. He had to get the truck out of this lot before Castille saw him using it.

Dad, Ronnie tried again, I need to be in back with—

Ronnie, Guy said as he leaned over and flung open the passenger door, get in this goddamn truck.

Yeow, Pink whispered. Jeez, maybe it’s a good thing my old man’s dead and gone.

It isn’t always this way, Ronnie mumbled over his shoulder to Pink as he climbed into the cab. Sometimes he gives in.

Lyn hoisted Pink into the truck bed, and Guy LeBlanc hit the gas. He paused at the mill entrance long enough for Butch to swap the numbers so the sign read, 12 Days This Month without an Accident.

In the passenger seat, Ronnie strained toward the back window when he heard a collective laugh come from his teammates in the truck bed.

Guy twisted the radio tuner to the top end of the dial, looking for KMOX out of St. Louis. The Cards played the Brooklyn Dodgers this afternoon and damn it—he could usually find the signal. He pounded the dashboard once, fiddled the dial, pounded again, and then swung onto Highway 90 west as he listened for the voice of Joe Garagiola, the Cards’ play-by-play man. Doris Day crooned Que Sera, Sera instead.

It figured.

Eggh. You like that music? Ronnie turned the radio down.

Yes, I do. Guy turned the radio up again. I like that music just fine. That music there is good music, not the kind Father Lusk says makes you young people fornicate.

Ronnie shot a sideways look at his father and rolled his eyes. Whyn’t you find some of that fornicating music, a good jiggly one like ‘Hound Dog.’ Go ahead. See if I touch myself.

Whyn’t you just sit there and enjoy a few minutes with your old man? Listen, before you get caught with your pecker in your hand, I think it’s time I told you— He paused. Cocked an ear in the direction of the radio. Shook his head. By the time I was your age—

You don’t think I know already? Ronnie made a face in his father’s direction. Dad, it’s a little late now. Pink’s told me plenty. We should have talked about this stuff years ago.

You know all about it then? Pink told you, has he? How’d he come to know?

Don’t know. Guess his mother told him.

LeBlanc turned off the highway to pick up a narrow farm road lined on both sides with oaks hung in long fingers of Spanish moss. Humidity thickened the late afternoon air. Cicadas sang. Between the ten-foot walls of sugarcane, scruffy shanties and shotgun houses—one room wide, five rooms long—dotted the roadsides.

He tweaked the radio dial once more. No luck. So what do you think? You like that job you got?

Ronnie watched the passing sea of cane. Without thinking, he said, No, sir. He sighed. No, sir, I do not like that job. Isn’t there something else I can do to make money?

Such as?

Such as I don’t know. Something outside.

Like pumping gas, you mean?

No. Something outside that keeps me from working with, uh, bossy people. Big ol’ bossy people.

That’s farming, what you just described. We’re not farmers, you and me, Ron. We’re sugar mill workers.

I don’t like being a sugar mill worker, Dad. Keeps me cooped up too much. I can’t breathe in that place.

Ain’t a matter of where you do your breathing, son. This is real life. Time to start acting like a man now. I think you need to quit high school and help your family by earning some extra money. Why don’t I see if you can get on full time at the mill?

Forget it, Dad. I’m not quitting school now. I’ve only got one year left.

Dust plumed in the wake of the pickup truck. Guy lit a cigarette from the truck’s dashboard lighter. That game you boys played against Abbeville last week—that was a squeaker. Nearly lost that one.

But we didn’t. We won.

You play Breaux Bridge today, then who?

Ronnie fished a printed schedule from his back pocket. Um, we’re over in Crowley on Monday next, at Perry on Tuesday, and then Breaux Bridge at Cecilia again on Thursday. Then the quarterfinals, semis, and the championship. And the Redbirds will be there, I guarantee.

A final left and the cane fields gave onto a wide, dry plain amply large enough to allow for a good-sized baseball stadium. Cars and trucks sat outside the ball field, parked at odd angles. Guy wheeled his work truck behind a small cinderblock concession stand and parked.

He smiled at his son. Knock them dead.

Ronnie tugged off his sweaty T-shirt and pulled on a patched and faded red and white baseball jersey lettered only with the word Redbirds. No name or number distinguished the uniform shirts one from another. That’s the idea. Knock them dead this afternoon and keep my hands off my pecker tonight, right?’ He flipped on a red cap. Thanks for the advice. He knocked his old man on the arm. See you after the game."

At 2 p.m. on the opposite shore of the bayou, closer to the town of Cecilia than to Nina, Vernon Huval put down his wrench. Bud, he called.

Buddy was submerged up to his elbows, pulling a Hydra-Matic tranny from a wrecked Pontiac. The boy was deaf as an adder when he worked on a car.

Vernon nudged his son’s foot. Game time, boy. Get your jersey. Let’s go.

Andy Guidry’s father showed him little special treatment at his business, Coal Tar Babies. He’d worked there every summer since he was ten, roofing houses, paving roads, waterproofing boats, some of the hottest work in the delta. And every summer, Andy worked shoulder to shoulder with the hired men his father called the tar babies—called them that to their faces—in hundred-degree heat until game time, when Andy was permitted to leave work early. Covered in tar.

Two trucks waited, blocked on the far side of a long train snaking out of the Houma Sugar freight yard: the black Coal Tar Babies flatbed and a blue pickup, a hand-lettered sign reading, Huval and Son Gerage, on its driver’s side door. Scant minutes before game time, the two trucks blew into the ball field’s parking lot.

Out of the truck bed, the boys from the mill flexed muscles, squatted, and stretched, enjoying a cool moment before donning their own Redbirds shirts. Butch Magee put his jersey on inside out. His brother giggled and put his on backward.

Crip Cormier struggled into a jersey too small in the shoulders. Man, damn sugar sticks to everything.

Hey, Andy Guidry said, be glad it’s not tar.

I hear a scout’s coming sometime soon to see Aypee Dupuis play.

Lyn Angell’s head snapped around. You’re kidding.

Nuh uh, I ain’t. Heard it from my uncle. Wouldn’t that be great? Something like that could be your lifetime ticket out of here. Crip studied Lyn’s face and frowned. Wow, Angell, that’s some helluva shiner you got.

Lyn turned away. Ah, somebody’s coming to see Aypee because his granddaddy donated a bunch of money to build this field. You ever watch Aypee when he runs? Runs like a girl. Angell held his pinky fingers out like ailerons and minced around.

Crip removed his cap and combed his hair, preening in the truck’s side mirror. Yeah, money runs to money.

And unto them that hath, it shall be given, Cal said.

Yeah, well, don’t be surprised when Aypee gets tapped to play big league ball. Crip filed his comb in his shoe and covered it with a knee sock. Still, wouldn’t it be great to play in the majors?

Cherie Landry crossed the dusty lot, heading for the clutch of Redbirds behind the concession stand. She gave Crip a playful swat on his rear as she passed. Crip, honey, you are wasting your time on that hair. You couldn’t get any cuter. She put her arms around Ronnie’s neck and rubbed her breasts against him. Hey, Ron. Let’s go for a walk.

The players gawked.

Woohoo, Butch whispered.

Yeow, Bill echoed.

Ronnie pulled her arms away. Can’t, Cherie. I get in and warm up.

She wrapped his arm around her waist. I could get you warm.

Lyn Angell strolled toward the entrance. I’ll bet you could, Cherie. C’mon, Ron. Let’s play ball.

For luck then. Cherie kissed Ronnie on his cheek. See you after the game?

Uh, yeah. After the game, sure.

Crip studied Cherie as she sashayed into the stadium. Mmm, mmm. That one is hot to trot. You’re a lucky man, LeBlanc.

Ronnie cocked an eyebrow at him. Don’t have to be lucky when you’re good, Crip. Comes natural.

Bill Magee choked