Sportsmans

By Bob Bing Craig

The key to Steve’s liberation was buried in a local backyard for more than 150 years.

Garrison, Indiana was a prominent stop on the Underground Railroad and home to a small Quaker college. Once filled with prosperity and local industry, it has slowly decayed into a stagnant rustbelt town filled with vacant storefronts and dead-end jobs.

Professor Steve Fears is tired of it, and he wants out, but his crumbling hometown seems to do everything in its power to keep him from reaching his potential.

Steve and his friends, Doc and Sally, have grown up together with front row seats to the decline of Garrison along with their own dreams.

Now, facing late adulthood, the friends question whether they have accomplished anything worthwhile with their lives as they waste their days.

When a mysterious discovery is unearthed in the backyard of a powerful local family, Steve and his friends are propelled into a journey of discovery and awareness that will alter the trajectory of their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781387670161

Book preview

Part I

Chapter one

Ned sat at the end of the bar, nursing his fourth beer of the afternoon.

Hunched over, his crack exposed from under his quilted undershirt, gray hair spilling out of his camo ball cap, matching his scraggly mustache, he watched ESPN with the sound off on the TV mounted behind the bar.

I stared at Ned. I’d known him since junior high school.

Back then, Ned was just another kid. In seventh grade everyone had equal potential. We could all still go to college or end up in the navy or maybe in jail. It was the last time that we were just kids, and it seemed like we were closer to equal. High school was the end of that. We would be forever separate from that point.

And now there was Ned, curled and leaning against the cinder block wall under a neon Coors Light sign, and here I was, staring at him.

If you’d have asked me in junior high where I’d be when I was fifty, I think I would have laughed in your face. Who thinks about that age when you’re fourteen? It’s a million years in the future. But if you’d have persisted, I would have certainly not said sitting in Sportsmans Bar and Grill looking at Ned Masterson on a Tuesday afternoon.

But here I was.

It’s not like I hadn’t made something of myself. I’d gone to college. I was Steve Fears, an upwardly mobile professor of history at Fairview College.

Despite all of that, I wouldn’t have imagined that I’d still be here in Garrison, Indiana.

I’ve got to get out of here, I said.

What? Doc said.

Doc and I had been close friends as long as I could remember. He’d gone to junior high with Ned too.

I said someday I’m leaving this town.

Yeah, right. You’ve been trying to leave here your entire life, and it just keeps sucking you back in, Doc said.

We sat in a booth with the red Naugahyde-covered seats and the chipped red-and-white checkered tabletop. Sportsmans hadn’t had an update in years. It was nostalgic, antique, retro, and disgusting.

I know, and it pisses me off, I said.

Cleo, the waitress, came by. You guys ready for another round?

We ordered another round of beers and returned to normal topics of conversation: the Cincinnati Reds’ chances in the Central Division, the economy, and the trip we were planning to the Indiana Dunes at the end of the month.

Should we invite Ned this year just to mix things up? Doc said.

That’s a negative, I said. And besides, he’ll be working, I’m sure. Dude has to work all the time to pay his damn bar tab.

Ned was the janitor at the YMCA, and I was pretty sure he’d shown up for work drunk every single night of his career. How sober do you have to be to wax floors and disinfect shower rooms?

The door opened, and sunlight flooded in, temporarily blinding everyone in the process. It was another regular, Buddy Jackson. Buddy’s real name was Bill, and he always sat by Ned, and the two of them would drink from when Buddy got off work at the Alcoa plant until Ned needed to go in at the Y.

They greeted each other like two strangers: barely acknowledging each other yet comfortable, like an old married couple where the guy won’t even stand up for the wife anymore. This was their intimate time, and they didn’t say a word.

I don’t want to turn into Ned and Buddy, I said.

Too late for that, Doc said. We’re already Ned and Buddy. We just don’t sit at the bar.

Thanks for that. That’s making me feel a whole lot better. Now I really want to get out of Dodge.

Doc had a point. We were just like them, but we were college-educated, so we felt superior. They knew it; we knew it. The fact was that they were really stuck here and Doc and I weren’t. We had chosen to stay. Chosen to stay over and over again.

Cleo returned with our drinks.

Steve says he’s leaving Garrison, Doc told her.

Oh, fuck. This again, Cleo said, looking at her watch. Oh, yeah, it’s July. Time for Steve’s ‘I’m leaving Garrison’ talk.

Christ, am I that predictable?

Like this freaking heat in August, Steve. She set the beers down on the table. Anything else for you guys right now?

Could we get an order of wings with the barbeque sauce? Doc said.

She nodded and moved on to the other table with people. It was an elderly couple who were here sometimes and sometimes not. I’d usually see them at Smiley’s instead of here.

They didn’t have a car and rode the limited bus service available in town. They had to drink early because the buses stopped at 9:00 p.m. on weeknights. Another reminder of why I needed to escape from this hellhole. It was depressing, and I was starting to feel sorry for myself.

Doc and I ate the wings and finished our beers, and I felt a bit better. My buzz was starting to kick in, and Doc was way ahead of me. I couldn’t even tell anymore whether Doc was drunk because he was always drinking. Every day.

It was midsummer. Early August in Indiana. Ned had left to go to work, and we watched the Reds game against the Dodgers.

It’s been too long since we’ve had a really good team, Doc said. 1990 is too long ago. We need to build off of Votto and get a run going.

You missed your calling, Doc, I said. You should have bought the Reds!

There’s two kinds of owners, Doc said. The ones who run it like a business and the ones who build a team to win. We’ve got the money grabbers now, and it shows.

So, we should just buy a team, like the Yankees and Dodgers? I think I’d rather just play what we’ve got, I said.

We watched and drank our beers.

Is Sally meeting us? Doc said.

Yeah, she said she’d be here after the library closes.

We’d only known Sally since high school. In our lifetimes that was a short difference, but it seemed huge sometimes. She’d gone to a different junior high, but we’d gotten to know each other over music back then. She’d worked at the record store in the mall and was a librarian now.

You make it sound like it’s impossible. Look at the Cardinals. They’re in the same size market as the Reds, and they win, or at least they almost always put up a good team that is in contention in September. The Reds are already out of it this year.

It’s all tilting at windmills, Doc, I said. We’re the fans, and we get to watch and cheer them on and find our victories where we can. You think about it too much; that’s your problem.

I am a serious baseball fan. I take it all very, very seriously when I’m drinking and watching the game in a bar.

It’s true. The more you drink, the more seriously you take the games. It’s kind of annoying, to be honest.

Yeah, just like your bitching about leaving Garrison. It’s like a broken record. But do you know what the difference is?

No, what? I said.

I can’t do anything about the Reds, or the Bengals, or the Pacers, or the Colts for that matter. But you can leave, but you don’t. You choose to stay here, and then you bitch about it. It’s a choice that you make year after year. I’m just unlucky and am surrounded by you and a bunch of shitty teams in every sport.

He was right, of course. It was a prison of my own construction, and I had no one to blame but myself.

Sally showed up at 9:15 p.m. Sportsmans was only a short walk from the library.

What’s up, Sally? Doc said loudly across the room before she even reached the table.

I see you guys are sober and responsible like always.

She slid in the booth next to Doc and across from me. Cleo came over to the table quickly.

Finally, someone with some sense to calm these two down, Cleo said. What can I get you?

I’ll take a cheeseburger, no pickles, and fries. Just a Dr Pepper tonight.

You got it. Steve’s telling everybody that he’s leaving town again, Cleo said.

It must be that time of year, Sally said.

Goddamn it. A guy can dream, can’t he? I said.

Doc noticed the Dr Pepper order and gave Sally a look of disgust at not drinking with us tonight.

I can’t drink every day like you, Doc. Sorry, some of us have lives that require some occasional sobriety.

Sally had not been particularly attractive as a teenager, and she was not someone you would notice in a crowd, but she got prettier as we got older, plus she had a wicked sense of humor and fantastic taste in music. She could hold her own with Doc in both wit and drink.

I laughed at Sally giving Doc a hard time. We sat in the booth and watched the Reds bullpen blow another game.

I’ve got to get home early tonight. We have a long day of training tomorrow, Sally said.

Yeah, I should get going too, I said. No particular reason, but watching you drink Dr Pepper is making me feel guilty about drinking.

Screw both of you lightweights, Doc said. Can you give me a ride, Steve?

Of course, I said.

I had no business driving but dropped Doc off at his house on my way home.

Chapter two

I’d made some big statements the night before, and lying in bed with the sun rising and starting to come in the window, I felt angry about what I had said.

They’d heard all of this before, and I was still here. This time probably wouldn’t be any different. I was the only one who wanted to leave. Everyone else seemed content, or maybe just afraid to say it out loud.

My presence gave everyone else someone to use as an excuse for being here too. Some people didn’t care. Some felt trapped. I felt trapped, but my problem was fear or laziness. I never knew which one it was, but laziness was easier to claim than fear. I didn’t want to be afraid.

I got up and let Fred, my dog, out into the backyard. I popped a Keurig cup into the maker and made a cup of coffee, filled up Fred’s bowls with food and water, and sat down at the computer to read the news, check Facebook, and see what was going on in the world today.

There was an article in the local paper, the Palladium-Item, about a wealthy family finding a human skull in their backyard garden. It baffled the local police, who had sent the skull to the state police for examination and didn’t know much more about it at this point. It was interesting; not much happened in Garrison, especially a decent mystery.

The summer pace gave hardly any reason to get up on any given day. School was out, and I was free to screw around most days. I looked out the window at Fred in the backyard. He was sniffing around the rabbit fence that I had built around the garden, so I was pretty sure it was working and keeping them out of my veggies.

My dissertation was always on my mind, and maybe it scared me to finish that too. Or maybe I was just too lazy to get it done. They really didn’t give you a deadline. They’d take my money as long as I was willing to pay and pretend to work on it.

I went into the bathroom to take a shower. The hot water felt good on my semi hungover brain. I wanted to go back to sleep but didn’t.

I’d never bought into the American dream. I’d wouldn’t let myself. My job was good, and I didn’t have to go to an office every day.

I don’t need a better car or house. I have Fred. I have my Subaru, and I have this old house, I thought. I’ve avoided marriage as well.

There had been a couple of close calls, but they had moved on from Garrison, and I had stayed. I’d used my career at the college as an excuse and the idea that someday I expected to be the department chair. It was not something guaranteed, but I had convinced myself that it was inevitable for me and that it was my path.

I had a few credit card bills and a couple grand in the bank. I was stable. I was steady. I was comfortable. That’s when life could feel the most dangerous.

Where would I go anyway? I’d thought about chucking it all and moving to California or a Buddhist monastery where I could just disappear and not have anything anymore. But I hadn’t done that either.

I took a shower with the window open and watched Fred lying in the sun in the tall grass. I need to mow, I thought.

I was almost out of shampoo, and my washcloth smelled like mildew. I’d go to Walmart later and get more shampoo and dog food. Make a mental note—don’t forget.

Oh, man, why did you say don’t forget? Now I was going to forget for sure.

My bath towel smelled too. I was going to stink like an old T-shirt all day. I needed to do laundry more often or do something different. All my towels stank. Maybe some new Walmart towels. Don’t forget.

I put on extra deodorant and some baby powder to help hide the stench from the towel. Smelling like a mix between Speed Stick, mildew, and a baby’s ass was super awesome. I needed to stop by my office on campus today.

I’d stop in the office for about half a day every week or so just to keep up on things. I’d fiddle with the syllabus. I changed things up every year for my own sanity. Teaching the exact same thing every semester sucked and got really boring. I had to make it interesting for me, if no one else.

My life was a series of choices that felt like the easiest way, following what felt good, what felt unshackled. It seemed like the only way to live. I liked it.

Maybe if I’d finish up my doctorate, then I could leave town and the college with my head held high. Even when I was teaching, I feel like a fraud. The students were probably farther from home to come to college in Garrison than I’d ever moved away from where I’d grown up. I was a sham, and I knew it.

The truth was that I had faked a lot of things in my life. I faked that I was smart. I knew a bunch of useless trivia, but that wasn’t being smart. What good was all of the knowledge and writing and research when it was just to keep my job at the place of least resistance?

I faked that I was an athlete in high school and college. Running cross country and swimming were just larks, and I’d never really tried that hard. I mean, even on my best day, I wasn’t going to beat too many guys in either sport. I was average at best, and that was good enough for high school and a Division III college.

I faked caring about other people too. I didn’t care about anyone, really. Doc, I guess, maybe. I’d help Sally if