Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Mordecai Brown

Page 26

That night in a St. Louis boarding house after the rough outing, Brown rests quietly. The room is small, wallpaper peeling in the corners, the gas lamp flickering with a faint hiss. Brown sits on the edge of the narrow bed, still in his undershirt, his pitching arm wrapped in a towel soaked with cold water from the hall sink.

Outside, a streetcar rattles past, its bell echoing down the block. Someone in the next room coughs; the deep, wet cough of a man who’s been smoking cheap tobacco for too many years.

Brown’s outing that afternoon had been a mess. In the ninth his curve wouldn’t bite, his fastball drifted over the plate, and the Cardinals’ infield had played like they were wearing lead boots. The crowd had been restless, and he could still hear a few jeers drifting down from the bleachers.

He leans back against the iron headboard and closes his eyes.

“You’ve worked fields harder than this. You’ve dug fence posts with that hand. One bad game doesn’t break you.”

He reaches into his valise and pulls out a letter from home; his mother’s handwriting, neat and looping. He doesn’t read it; he just holds it for a moment, grounding himself.