The Sweet Bird of Paradise

by Roger P. Watts

The ballpark was like a concrete kettle, but this day it held the cold wind of late October. The ocean sent the wind smelling of kelp and dead fish, and it came over the high walls of the ballpark and swirled the dust on top of the clay of the infield. It was red dust, fine and dry, and it often tasted of copper on slides into second base.

There were 37,000 people for the game. They could make a roar like the sea itself when it was rough and breaking against the rocks, a constant soaring that rose and fell with the flight of the ball. Collectively, the fans smelled of roasted peanuts and stale beer that had dripped on the named and numbered jerseys of their heroes. They were worried, but not too much, for it was the seventh game of the World Series and the home team was a good team that had brought them deep into the fall classic. It was the end of it all though. After this there was only the certain snow of winter and the waiting for spring.

Anthony “Sully” Sullivan was the catcher behind home plate. He was the team’s backup catcher, and he had so far played in all six of the previous games. He was a big man as catchers go, built solid like a square of homespun Vermont marble where he was from. He was not a great catcher, but he had guts. He took wild pitch blocks and crashes at home plate with his body and he did not complain. He had been in a catcher’s crouch three hours in this game and his knees hurt him. They always hurt him these days. He was watching his pitcher, the one they called The Kid and saw the raw energy of a young rookie new to the Big Leagues.

The Kid's name was Will Young, but no one called him that. He was 21 years old and he came from the high plains of South Dakota where the wind blew even harder than it did here. He had a face that was smooth and unlined with eyes that were wide and blue and empty of everything except the strike zone. He had been raised by a cruel father who believed that a baseball was a weapon. The father had put up an old tire swing in the backyard and made The Kid throw rocks through it until his arm hung like a dead rope. Consequently, The Kid grew to not love the game. He respected it the way a man respects a violent storm and saw the game as a way for a man to stand his ground. He had a long-left arm that moved like a whip. He threw so hard that the ball looked like a peach when it left his hand, and then gradually shriveled up until it was a 95-mile-per-hour pit at your knees, before it vanished into the catcher's mitt.

Sully signaled The Kid to throw a curve ball, and he threw a pitch that would change lives forever.

He knew it broke as soon as it hit.

There was a sharp sound that crackled like cold birch wood in a hot fire when that pitch hit the long finger of his right hand. Sully went down in the red dirt around home plate, refused to scream, but pulled his body into a coiled spring of agony. The dead ball rolled along and came to rest in the opponent’s batter's box.

The curve ball dove in fast, looking first as straight as an arrow, and Sully moved up to catch it just as it dropped, as it should, toward the batter's feet. But this one wasn't straight down, and it broke really hard, a bad break for either catching or hitting that fooled the hitter and Sully at the same time. Sully missed it in the web of the left catcher’s mitt, and it grazed the heel where the thumb joins the palm. The right finger, so important for throwing, stood outside the mitt like a lightning rod.

Warren “Mac” Michelson, the manager, rushed out of the dugout on old legs that were bad and slow but gave the impression they were moving fast. His intention was to fix whatever it was that caused his backup catcher to bite the dirt. The trainer followed closely with a bag full of supplies and hope.

They looked at Sully's hand carefully and saw the finger was unnaturally bent as if hiding behind the index finger. It was swollen already and turning bluish yellow, almost the green of the, “Players Only,” signs Fenway Park used.

"I’m done," Sully grimaced, the grit of infield dirt smearing his mouth, "She's snapped off at the knuckle."

The trainer insisted on looking at it and even tugged a bit, to Sully's loud cries, just in case it was only dislocated.

"No!" Sully yelled so loud the dugout heard the cry, "The knuckle’s hot as coal and I can't feel the end of it"

"Ya can't throw with a busted knuckle," Mac said in a matter-of-fact way, “a catcher with no throwing hand is no catcher at all. No… go sit down. You've earned your pay today."

When he got to his feet there was applause from the crowd and he walked slowly to the dugout with his arm folded across his chest. He didn't look at the crowd; he stared away into the infinite outfield as so many embarrassed ball players do when they are ashamed of what happened to them. The crowd knew a bad thing when they saw it, and they could only muster a respectful applause as he hit the dugout steps.

In the bullpen behind the tire company advertising sign in the outfield, Tommy Gillis sat quietly on the bench. It was the waiting room of the major leagues where he, a bullpen catcher along with the relief pitchers, sat alert to Mac’s call to get into the game. It was cold on the sunless fall bench there and he squeezed his hands to keep them from getting stiff. He had a towel slung around his neck. He was 30 years old with a face as bronzed as the minor leagues Florida sun could make it. He had tired green eyes that had seen a string of cheap motels on bus rides through many unremarkable countrysides.

He's hurt, Gillis thought when he saw Sully go down holding his hand like he was cradling a baby.

"Yea," the relief pitcher, Donnie “Knuckler” Thibodeaux, sitting next to Gillis said, "He's hurt bad and sumthin’ musta snapped."

Suddenly, Tommy Gillis felt an ancient stirring deep down in his stomach. It was cold and scary when it came upon him so soon. It was not the cold of the bench, nor the wind that chilled his fingers. It was the cold of fear. He was never supposed to play but was only on the 40-man roster because he knew there was no one on the team other than Sully and him who could catch The Kid’s “stuff.”  “If Sully’s out,” he thought, “then I’m in,” and suddenly a mixture of feelings spilled out through his veins.

Truth be told, he was on the roster because Harold “Landy” Landscom was a drunk. He was the first-string catcher now in his 12th floor hotel room sleeping one off with the curtains drawn and the smell of gin like some old sickness wafting through the dead air. Landy had been the best catcher in the American League three years ago, before Jack Daniels took over his life, and Jack didn’t have Landy’s velvet hands or an arm like a cannon. Both suddenly stopped working when Jack stepped in.

Mac always knew of Landy’s problem, but until recently he had always been able to keep it together. Mac also had hope that he would be sober for the playoffs. But it turned out that by the time a manager has to decide who the 40 men on his roster might be for the playoffs, Mac’s hope had loosened and he knew he had to have a plan to cope with the inevitable.

Mac weighed his options. It was the ballpark noise that got to Landy first. The crowd at a game can be roaring or still, but, like a dart thrown from the box seats, one or two biting comments about his catching performance could reach his ears, and they became the noise of his own father yelling at him because he was just not perfect enough. Landy found that Jack helped him deaden the noise at first, but it eventually cost him an arm and a leg. He could no longer throw out base stealers at second base, and his stiffened legs, that were once the source of his home run hitting power, failed him. Mac knew it would only get worse in the playoffs.

It was Jack who called Mac that morning crying and repeating over and over how Landy again got trapped in the whirlpool of the whiskey making it impossible for him to play the game. He told Mac that there were scorpions in his brain and that spiders came out of the air conditioning vent. That was it…Mac had enough.

Being in the league for more than 30 years served Mac well when he knew his starting catcher might drink himself into oblivion at least once during the playoffs. He had an insurance plan. First, Sully would be his catcher for the playoffs, and second, he would follow the rules. He appealed to the Baseball Commissioner's Office to allow him to replace one man on the 40-man post-season roster, Landy, with another player of his choice from within the organization. Everyone, including the Commissioner and Frank Stallings, the opposing manager, knew of Landy's problem, and replacing him that late in the season was the same as if Landy had been in a car crash. It being the World Series, the Commissioner gladly allowed him to replace Landy. Frank agreed.

That insurance plan included Tommy Gillis, his bullpen catcher.

Tommy looked down at his hands that were thick and worn with the left one being slightly larger than the right after dozens of years of catching 96 mile per hour fastballs. His hands and his mind were both calloused after years of catching relief pitcher warmups. But, when he remembered that his once-young hands from Jimmy's Barber Shop days were old but could be useful again, both his hands and his mind seemed to soften and become smooth.

He was 10 years old when he first strapped on a catcher’s suit. His uniform was wool and it scratched his soft young skin when the shin pads were snapped on. The uniform was purple and gold and his number 13 was blazoned on his back like a brand. Jimmy, the Jimmy's Barber Shop manager, made him the catcher because he was the only one on the team who was not afraid of the ball. He loved The Suit with its shin guards, chest protector and mask because he felt like a knight. He slept in his jersey the night before the first game and, as he lay in his bed and smelled the wool with its dirt and the sweat, he knew he would be a baseball player someday. He hit a home run over the fence into the creek that year, and as he ran around the bases he felt like he was flying. He felt like a bird.

He played in college for the state university and hit .378 his junior year, which was not close to a perfect 1.0, but way above the average .261 for college students. The scouts even came to watch him in the Cape Cod League games with their radar guns and notebooks that clocked his "pop throws," the 127-foot throws to second base to catch base stealers, at a phenomenal 1.88 seconds which was just below the 2.0 seconds which was the average of major league catchers.

He was good, and the Red Sox knew it. He signed with the team after graduating, bought a car, and thought his future in baseball would last forever. He started in the minor league with the Single A Sea Dogs but moved up fast to the Triple-A Worcester team and became, "Big Bird," because he hit 26 home runs, threw out 31 base stealers and hit .324...way above the minor league average of .258. He knew he was going to The Show in the big leagues, and he had the taste of steamed hotdogs and stale beer in his mouth just about all the time.

He sat for the routine physical exam all new players got. The doctor was a small man with cold hands. He listened to Tommy's chest and frowned. He listened once more and frowned again. An x-ray and scan were next.

The team doctor snapped the x-ray into the lightbox and pointed to a shape in his chest.

"This is your ascending aorta," the doctor calmly explained, “and it's the main river of blood for your life."

"I know what it is," Tommy snapped trying bravado to hide his fear and anxiety about what this probably meant.

"Then you must also know that this here is a ballooning of that aorta," the doctor calmly explained, "it’s an aneurysm because the aorta wall is thin. It's like an old tire. It will eventually blow without much warning.

"Fix it."

"We can fix it," the doctor calmly explained, "But you'll never play baseball again. If you slide, get hit by a pitch, or run too hard, the pressure could burst it like a grape in the hot sun and you'll bleed out in minutes."

"I feel fine. I feel strong as a bull."

"You're a water balloon waiting to break…literally a walking bomb."

Even though he said he would refuse the surgery to stay in professional baseball, the Red Sox kept him in the organization because he knew how to work with pitchers to get the best out of them. He could calm them down. He could wind them up. He would talk to The Kid when he was crying because he missed the strike zone by a fraction of an inch. He could talk to Landy to keep him in the game when he was shaking for want of a drink. And, he was not a threat to Sully, the regular backup catcher, because everyone knew - bullpen catchers never play the real game.

"Hey, Gilley," the bullpen coach, Smitty, yelled that snapped him out of his memories, "get dressed. You're goin' in."

These were the words he had both longed to take in but feared to hear for so many years. They came after the bullpen phone rang and Mac exercised his managerial prowess by cashing in the life insurance policy that Tommy Gillis was.

Smitty looked down at Gillis again, spit a huge glob of tobacco onto the cement floor and yelled, "Yea...YOU! Get y’urself ready, they need ya NOW.”

Tommy Gillis stood up, shook his cold hands to get the blood running, and strapped on the shin guards pulling the straps tightly. He felt the plastic mold to his adult legs. He put on an old chest protector that was heavy and smelled of sweat and dirt. It all felt like Jimmy's Barber Shop, and he felt the body armor and he suddenly felt it deep in his bones, he was about to do that which he was born to do and thought, as Yogi Berra once said, "It's de ja vu all over again."

He picked up his mitt and headed for the bullpen gate.

"Go get'em kid," Smitty smiled, "don’t let this wicked big moment pass you by."

The gates opened and Tommy Gillis ran out onto a Major League baseball field to catch in the seventh game of a tied World Series.

The crowd didn't know what to say or do. There was no roar, only a few gasps, and a catcher no one ever heard of ran to home to save the inning. Collectively, 37,000 people scrounged around for programs to see who #13 was. It was a long run, so Tommy Gillis had time to soak it up, and the crowd had time to get to know him.  The grass was green and short and looked cool. The red infield dirt was raked perfectly smooth. The crowd saw a man running into the game who should not be running at all.

He ran straight to home plate. Mac and all the infield players were there to greet him.

Mac looked at him and with tired eyes said, "Ya know the sitch-ah-a-tion," in his best Boston drawl.

"Yea, Top o' the 9th. Tie game. Two outs. Man on first. He's a jack rabbit who runs like he's scared."

Tommy Gillis had been paying attention while sitting on that bench in the bullpen waiting room.

"Don't let'm steal second," Mac warned, "but don't knock y’urself out eetha. We just need the out.

"I'll get'er done,” Tommy Gillis said with a confident grin.

He went up to the pitcher’s mound to check in with The Kid about the pitch signs and then pulled on the mask and his world became a wire mesh grid when he squatted down behind home plate

"Play ball," the umpire chortled with a big voice and smile.

The runner on first was Reilly. He was lean and had a sprinter’s legs and flew through the air like a deer. He danced off the first base bag. Tommy Gillis knew he would be tested on the first pitch by Reilly trying to steal second base. He knew Tommy was backup insurance, cold, and nervous.

Tommy signaled for The Kid to throw a pitchout, intentionally just out of the strike zone, so he could make a clean throw to second base, and Reilly broke for second base like a greyhound out of the starting gate. He stood to throw. He cocked his arm and it felt heavy. The memory of throwing was there but the muscle was old and cold. And he was nervous. He was scared, and afraid of the strain on the throw, but he did it anyway and it was not a good throw and Reilly safely hit the dirt well before the ball arrived.

The crowd groaned. Their worst fears were coming true. It was a low sound, a heavy sound, almost a wail. It was the sound of collective disappointment.

Tommy Gillis felt the slump of shame from it and pounded his mitt to re-awaken his confidence. "It's alright," he told himself, “Shake it off. Get the batter out.”

The batter was a big man named Hector “Spider” Ruiz who swung a hitter’s bat more like a caveman’s club. He had forearms like tree limbs. The pitching count went to two balls and two strikes.

Tommy watched The Kid on the pitcher’s mound. He was breathing hard. He was looking at the ground, not Tommy, and he was thinking of his father, the rocks, and tire swing and failure.

Tommy called time out and trotted to the mound. The Kid's eyes were wet.

"I can't hit the spot," he said, "My arm feels dead and home plate looks like a saucer."

"Y’ur arm's fine. The plate’s the same size it's always been. Just breathe the air like your back in Oklahoma and spit out y’ur best pitch.”

"He's big...like a moun’in."

"He's just meat ‘n bones like you and me. Throw the curve, your best pitch, the one you threw to Sully.

"I'll hit'm. I'll might even kill'm.."

"No, you won't. I won't let cha. Throw at my mask. Hit me right in the face. Make the curve break hard like you're throwing a rock at a tire," Tommy Gillis said just before going back behind home plate.

The Kid threw the pitch. It did not break down as it should have, but hung in mid air over home plate, spinning slow and fat. It was a mistake, a hanging curve ball...the worst pitch in baseball.

.

Spider Ruiz hacked at it. There was a crack like a rifle shot. The ball launched to the outfield low and hard.

Reilly also ran hard from second base, around third, and barreled for home plate. He was charging in to score the tie-breaking run that could win the game, so he lowered his shoulder and plowed into Tommy Gillis like a runaway train.

Tommy Gillis did not step out of the way. He planted his feet. He had a flashing recall of Jimmy's Barber Shop scenes because he had seen all this happen before.

He caught the ball, then swung his arm back toward home plate in an attempt to catch the runner sliding in headfirst.

Right after he caught it Reilly hit him as he dove for home plate.

"Out!" the umpire screamed as he jutted a thumb into the air, and screamed again with, "Y’ur outta heeeeya!"

The crowd roared. It was the sound of relief, a savage life-saving force, capped off with total joy that eclipsed the sad despondency of only a few minutes before.

Tommy Gillis rolled over on the ground. He closed his eyes and mentally checked his physical condition. He felt no broken bones, but he felt the weight of the blow when Reilly hit him. His chest was pulsating and he was breathing hard. There was pain, but it was the expected kind you get when you bump a knee.

The wall of his aorta held. He was alive.

He stood up, rolled the ball back to the pitcher’s mound and went into the dugout to the ass-slapping so familiar to athletes signifying their approval. He sat on the bench. The trainer came over to check him out. His hands were shaking as he drank some water. It tasted of nothing, no hotdogs or stale beer. Mac drifted over, slapped him on the back and said, "Great job Gilley...I'll betcha that nev'ah happened in the bullpen b’fore."

It was the bottom of the ninth inning, and the score was still tied, but it was the time in this game when scoring one run would win it all for Sox Nation. The sun was going down along the rim of the ballpark and shadows from the upper tier seats of the Green Monster wall were cast over half the playing field. The air was getting colder. If ever there was a time to get a hit, it was now.

The first batter hit an infield ball and grounded out. The second batter popped the ball up to the right fielder. The crowd was quiet again. They were afraid that a tied game in this inning would mean extra innings and that was terribly unpredictable. Moreover, they were afraid that winter was coming and, “wait until next year,” would again be the slogan for talk radio fans. The crowd wanted to go home, but they could not leave…the end was in sight, and it was a tradition for the Fenway crowd to go down to the last out with the team.

The third batter was Marcel “The Rookie” Mendoza. He was 21, fast and crazy with his courage, and he had an overdose of piss ‘n vinegar the hometown crowd had not seen in decades.

He hit a single to right field.

The crowd erupted with hope. Wilfred “Pops” Johnson, who had been in the league for 19 years, was old and fat for this team but, as a one-time league MVP and the designated hitter, he was expected to hit the ball. He did. The ball flew into the gap between the left and center fielders. Pops ran like he was dragging a piano but made it to first base. The Rookie made it to third.

Two outs. Runners were at the corners. The winning run, The Rookie, was 90 feet away from overflowing emotion and joy at a win for Sox Nation.

Tommy Gillis was next up with Sully’s bat kneeling in the on-deck circle near home plate.

Mac had looked down the dugout bench and saw there were no hitters he had confidence in who could hit the kind of fastball the pitcher was bound to throw. But he did remember the time Tommy Gillis won the minor league’s Home Run Derby in their All-Star Game.

He called time out and called Tommy Gillis back to the dugout.

“Gilley, can you hit this guy, Alvarez?”

“I could hit at one point,” he replied, thinking of all the reasons the Sox had signed him to a contract before the blown physical exam.

“Well…that was yesterday. Just get in they-ya, swing level, don’t be a hero, but be a pain in the ass to the pitcha,” Mac said.

Tommy Gillis walked into a major league batter’s box for the first time. The pitcher was a 6’7” giant named Hugo “The Heat” Alvarez, who came from the mountains of the Dominican Republic, had a beard like black wire, and threw a fastball more than 100 miles an hour. He had no other pitch really, and Tommy knew that. The Heat threw a pitch, dared you to hit it or get out of the way. They say he had killed a man back in San Pedro in a bar fight, and he looked like he could kill Tommy now.

Tommy Gillis dug his right foot into the now soft clay of the batter’s box to get a good launch pad. He looked at Alvarez…Alvarez glared at him, seeing a backup catcher with no heart, no skill, and no experience with his pitching. He saw an easy out.

The first pitch flew by Tommy’s head like a comet’s flash of a diving falcon.

“Ball,” the umpire shouted calmly.

Tommy Gillis had fallen to the dirt. He stood up, brushed off a little of the red clay. He was not angry because he knew that was Alvarez’s “welcome to the big leagues” greeting card.

The next pitch was a fast ball that was on the outside corner of home plate and he let it streak by.

“Strrr-eye-eeek,” the umpire called proudly.

One ball, two strikes. The crowd was standing and yelling because they knew that the team was down to their last out and Red Sox Nation might have to retreat to a Winter’s hot stove to keep the memory alive for next season.

Tommy Gillis squeezed the wood of Sully’s bat until his knuckles were white. He knew this was a way to relax his hands so that they were soft and responsive to the next pitch. He stepped out of the batter’s box with a time out and flashed on the fields of the minor leagues, the sugar cane fields of Florida, and the long bus rides at night when the only light was a manager’s cigar glow. He remembered the dream of being in The Show and suddenly, as if that image was a slap in the face, he snapped to the umpire call of, “Play Ball.”

The count went to three balls and two strikes because The Heat misjudged Tommy Gillis’s eye and wasted two pitches he did not chase. Now, he had to throw a strike or else the bases would be loaded for the Red Sox. Pops wasn’t the problem for them. He couldn’t win the game. The Rookie was the problem because he could score on a hit by Tommy Gillis.

The Heat wound up, raised his leg very high, and threw a fastball to Tommy Gillis, who was ready for anything, but knew it would come like this. He did not think of his aorta, or of the doctor’s warning, only the thought of hitting the ball.

Tommy Gillis swung the bat head out to hit the ball like it was a giant melon.

There was a heavy sound…Thwack!

It’s a solid sound, the sound of wood meeting cowhide perfectly, and it’s the best sound in the world for a ball player. The vibration of it drove up Tommy Gillis’s arms like a lightning bolt into his shoulders. It felt clean. It felt good. It felt like redemption. But it didn’t go very far.

The ball hit the dirt in front of home plate. It bounced high over Alvarez’s head toward the middle of the field. The shortstop, who had been playing deep onto the grass of the left field outfield, ran fast to his left, caught the ball on a high hop, and threw it while floating in mid-air to first base to make Tommy Gillis the last out of the inning.

He had to run 90 feet to first base before the throw. He ran fast. He ran to get to the base before The Rookie scored so they could win the game. He felt his legs pumping. He had not felt like this in years, He felt the wind on his face. He ran to win the game. He ran for the honor of it.

He saw the white canvas of the first base bag. It looked like the finish line of a lifetime.

The shortstop’s throw was strong, and the ball flew across the diamond. The race was man against ball and the heart against the clock.

Tommy Gillis ran hard, but at about 40 feet from the base he felt it happen.

There was no pain, at first. There was warmth flooding the center of his chest. There was some kind of release, like a damn breaking. The aorta aneurysm gave way as the weak spot burst and filled his chest with blood.

He continued to run because he knew he had to beat that ball. Then came the pain. It was searing pain. It stung like a burn, but it was distant to him as if it were happening to someone else.

The lights of Fenway Park got very bright. For Tommy Gillis, they turned to stars. The noise of the crowd went away, but there was a rushing sound in his ears like a river in a flood. It was the sound of his own blood.’

He would never remember why he never stopped running. He could not stop. The memory of Jimmy’s Barber Shop, and the WoSox “Big Bird,” carried him with momentum on their shoulders.

When he saw the first base bag, it was glowing white and he lunged face first for it.

His hand caught the bag with a slap.

The shortstop’s ball hit the first baseman’s mitt with a pop.

The umpire spread his arms like wings.

“Saaay-eee-fff,” he bellowed.

The Rookie crossed home plate with the winning run. The game was over. The championship was won.

Tommy Gillis actually ran so fast after touching the bag safely that he ended up rolling past the base into foul territory. His legs had given out, but his heart held strong. He hit the dirt with his hand, dragged his face along the dirt and came to rest.

He tasted the dirt. It tasted of copper and salt, history and glory. It was the dirt of the diamond, Fenway Park’s best.

The team ran out of the dugout toward Tommy Gillis on the ground. The Rookie was the first to reach him and the team was screaming for joy. They were a wave of red and white. The whole team wanted to pile onto Tommy Gillis, lift him up to their shoulders in a heroic parade worthy of an Italian opera.

“Gilley,” The Rookie yelled down at him, “Gilley ya did it! Ya did it! We won!”

Tommy Gillis didn’t move. He lay with his face pressed to the red dirt. The Rookie turned him over, and Tommy Gillis was loose and heavy.

His eyes were open and they looked to the sky, but they did not see. He was still.

“Gilley, Gilley” the Rookie yelled as the smile faded from his face.

The other players stopped. They stood in a circle. The stadium noise began to die down from a roar to a disquieting cocktail party, to a murmur, to silence. The silence spread throughout the ballpark where 37,000 people stood still, anxious, worried, uncertain and afraid. They knew that something had happened that was not part of the game.

Mac pushed through the circle. He knelt in the dust. He put his hand on Tommy Gillis’s chest. There was no movement. The chest was full.

Mac took off his cap and slowly the others followed. He looked at Tommy Gillis’s face. It was a peaceful face. It was the face of a man who had finished his work. It was the face of a man who had finally played in The Show.

“He’s a gonna,” Mac whispered, his voice so quiet in a silent Fenway Park it seemed that people in the cheap seats could hear it, “His heart was too big for the cage life had put him in.”

The wind blew across the infield. It picked up a white-hot dog wrapper from the stands and blew it across the grassy field. It tumbled and lifted. It caught the updraft from the heat of the lights.

It rose higher and higher. It twisted in the wind. To the dying eyes of Tommy Gillis, in that last fraction of a second before the darkness descended, it was not a wrapper.

It was a flower. It was a bird of paradise with orange and blue brilliance and a long neck and beak like a bird. It rose up past the light into the dark sky and flew out of the ballpark toward the stars.

Tommy Gillis was not there in the dirt. He was that flower. He was rising. He was free of the gravity that breaks fingers and arteries. He was free of the blood that demands a toll. He had done the job. He had blocked home plate. He had run the line. He had been safe.

Trainers came with a stretcher. The team covered him with their warmup jackets. The crowd kept standing, took off their hats, did not speak, but broke into applause as they watched the men carry Tommy Gillis from the field.

The game was won.

Winter could come now. The snow could fall on the red dust and cover the memory of the field. It was alright. It was finished. The sweet bird had flown away. 

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