The Mighty Roman
The First and Only Most Glorious Season
of the Cal–Hairy Baseball League
Welcome to this page of excerpts from The Mighty Roman—a fast, funny, dark novel about baseball and the modern American man. Mexican immigration is one of the hot–button themes in this book—as shown below.
*********
"This is a real-life novel, packed with personalities and filled with beautiful language and true emotion. Huck's raft becomes a team bus, and it is a ride worth taking." ~ Tony Press, riverbabble.
*********
***********
"I will hold this story up against any contemporary fiction that I've read."
"Like many great works of fiction, this tale works on more than one level. It ... illustrates the cultural divide that has polarized our country as our hero takes us on a humorous and personal journey of discovery."
"Jon Sindell's voice is what makes this book."
"In ... The Mighty Roman, baseball is much more than just a sport."
"The language of the book was the best part for me, it was often like poetry."
"Fun, fear-inducing, poignant, it's a book that seamlessly merges the often disparate worlds of parents (especially fathers) and sons, masculinity, race and racism, life in all its glory and misery, both on and off the sports pages.'
"Throw in some off-field adventures, teenage romance, racism and homophobia, and you are pulled into a baseball world that is present day and is pure summer fun reading."
***********
The Mighty Roman is available in paperback on Amazon, as an ebook on Amazon, or as an ebook on Smashwords ... or ask your local indie bookstore to order it for you.
*********
Border Ball
Roman Meister, Border Vigilante
vs.
Rex Hirsch, Rebel Defender
and
Manny Reyes, Catcher/Receptor
One of the hot–button issues in The Mighty Roman is immigration. And there are reasons why Manny Reyes of East L.A. chooses to play summer ball for the indie league Coyotes of San Carlos, a six–inning drive from the Mexican border. Reasons his manager, Roman Meister, would not approve of. SPOILER ALERT: The following scene gives away stuff ...
Border Ball
Manny jostled my thigh and I rejoined the waking in the
dreamlike darkness of an empty dirt road. “Keep it quiet now, hombres.” No one
had asked where we were going because it didn’t matter—this was Manny’s show,
and we were in for whatever. And no one asked now, though Rex did quip, “Here
to save coyotes, jefe?” Manny replied with an amused grunt and wheeled off the
road down a slight grade for thirty bumpy feet; then parked in the midst of a
tall clump of shrubs and cut the lights. “Ah, you can smell Mexico
here!" he cholo-spoke. "Ah, hombres, the air
is so sweet!
Let us step out into it!” So Manny stepped out into the still
desert air and filled his great lungs. “Man, it is so peaceful
here!” I nodded dumbly; I think the others did too—it was hard to tell, for the
night was moonless and their expressions were faint. “Guys—I need your help big
time.” I could dimly discern a roguish smile. “I’ve gotta pee real bad!”
“Then you are not wanting Matt’s help,” joked Sasha. “He
will help you too much.”
“I need all of your help,” he said with standard English
diction. “I need teamwork, Coyotes.” He opened the trunk and pointed a
flashlight into a large sports bag from which he pulled a two–way radio, a
flashlight, and a whistle. He gave these to Sasha, then gave the same to Rex
and me and led us back up to the road.
“This is cool,” Sasha said nervously.
“What’s it for?” I asked.
“I told you, Matty, I’ve gotta go pee! And I like privacy.
And that’s where the teamwork comes in. Like the relay play, homes. I’m going
through the brush down there, where it’s nice and private—about fifty yards.
And that's home plate. And Matty, I need you to stay right up here–you’re the
relay man, see? And Sasha, you set yourself about a hundred yards back up the
road that way. Bugsy, you set yourself a hundred yards that way. Everyone set
your handset to Channel 2. Now Bugs, if anyone comes from that direction—jeep,
ATV, anything—you give Matty the ol’ Coyote howl fast, nice and loud—and he’ll
relay it to me. Sasha, anyone comes your way, you do the same. Now set
yourselves men, and remember—teamwork always gets the job done!”
Before I could ask any dispiriting questions, Manny
clambered back down into the gully as adroitly as he scrambled after bunts in
front of home, and Rex hopped off down the road as if springing onto the field
for the first game of spring, and Sasha loped up the road the other way,
melding with the moonless black night. The urge to urinate suddenly gripped my
bladder, stimulated, perhaps, by Manny’s talk of peeing and the three milks I'd
drunk—and, I admitted, by the fear of arrest, and god forbid if it was for
drug–smuggling! I squeezed the flow back into my bladder—the miserable boyhood
years when I couldn't!—and tried to raise my handset for a test, but my
pitching elbow was too stiff to straighten. So I worked the controls with my
left hand. “Can you hear me now?” I said with strained bravado that came out as
a nervous burbling instead of the intended nonchalant chuckle. “Ja!” Rex
crackled. “Da!” said Sasha. “Now radio silence!” commanded Manny in an urgent
hush as he snaked through a gap in the brush and vanished.
... a little later ...
Like a good soldier I race down into the gully, raise my
good arm, cup my mouth and howl into the darkness that shelters Manny: “Ai–yoo!
Yip–yip–yip! Ai–yoo!” Then I do it again to be sure. “Trouble, Matt!” comes in
an urgent hush from Rex on the handset, so I bound up the embankment to the
road and sprint towards Rex. I stumble in a rut, but my distance–runner’s legs
bear me quickly to a shadowy cluster of figures set in a semicircle like a
crab's claw around Rex, who stands with hands clasped in the judo stance he
assumed when he lifted and tossed the giant Jackson Crane in The Rhubarb On The
Range. It’s a three–man claw. The man in the center, though late middle–aged,
is lean, feral, and vital, with a voice like crusted acid on a battery
terminal. I slacken my pace to present less of a threat and ease myself on
shaky legs beside Rex. Night-vision goggles hang from the men’s necks. The two
men who flank the leader are scarcely older than we. One is shaggy, sullen, and
broad as a bear. The other, much thinner, has a long pointed nose, a shaved
head with a bony crest, and metal–grey eyes that glow in a crazed, almost radioactive
way. Both stand alert for a cue from their leader, who up close appears to be
in his sixties, with a long, thin face curved at the chin, a beaked nose like a
bird of prey, and blue–gray eyes that glint at me.
“You a coyote, too?” His corrosive voice has a bit of a
twang as he pronounces “kiyote” in the Western way.
I admit that I am a Coyote. This jerks the young ones' heads
to their leader as if I’ve uttered fighting words, and the leader studies his
feet as if he is both disgusted and thrilled by what I’ve said. I notice a big
black sidearm in a holster at his waist, and my heart slams against the wall of
my chest. He leans closer to me and screws his face up into a prune: “You’re a
coyote?” he says with sour whiskey–breath. “You admit it?”
I nod because, first, we are Coyotes, and second, my throat
is too parched to say anything else.
In response to a sharp nod from the leader, the two young
ones step to the wings like defensive ends pinching off a sweep.
“We’re Patriots, kid. Do you know what that means?”
I think I do and I know I don’t, and I glance in confusion
at the enormous black pick-up truck on the side of the road. In the driver’s
seat sits a fourth man, indistinct in the dark cabin. I notice the American
flag on the antenna and add, sincerely: “I love my country.”
“Then why the hell are you helping wetbacks in!” screams the
skinhead, leaning into me like a punk–rock drill sergeant.
“Doing what?” I consciously inflate the note of surprise in
my voice while praying that Manny stays put in the brush.
“You heard me!” A bubble of spit lands on my nose.
“Let’s take `em in, Dan,” the bear–sized guy grunts.
"Give `em to the Border Patrol.”
“You’ve got no right to arrest us,” Rex says flatly, with
mystical faith in the power of truth. I pray silently for Rex to shut up.
"If you try, we’ll resist.” We? His eyes lock onto the eyes of the leader.
Anger floods Dan’s eyes, then gives way to sporting glee. I
check his gun. Still holstered. “Now,” he says in the tone of a high school
vice–principal using elementary psychology on student miscreants, “you seem
like two nice normal American boys. Why are you disrespecting your country?
Helping illegals sneak in!”
“What illegals?” says Rex. "I said we’re Coyotes.”
“Which means you’re smuggling aliens in! If not drugs!” Dan
turns back in disgust to the driver of the pickup. “Rollie, start her up. We’re
taking these god damned traitors in!” But the driver hurls a glob of some kind
that hits Rex in the chest and falls to the ground—wet, disgusting, and brown.
A Tootsie Roll chaw.
Roman steps from the pickup with his rifle resting on his
shoulder. “They’re not smuggling coyotes, they’re baseball Coyotes—a couple of
knuckleheaded fools from my team. San Carlos Coyotes.” The young guys part to
let him through, and Dan yields with shocked disgust. Roman sets himself within
pummeling distance of Rex, his eyebrows quivering like iron filings pulled by
magnets in opposite directions. “That’s right, Rex—isn’t it? Celebrating our
win, our move closer to first?” Roman glances quickly at Dan. He seems halfway
to want the whole thing to blow over, and halfway to want Rex to admit to
smuggling so he can crack his chin with the butt of his rifle.
Rex tilts his head back and looks up into Roman's eyes. “You
know, Coach,” he says with an innocent smile, “I never realized your eyes were
so blue.” Like a character in a spaghetti Western in the climactic gun–duel
scene, I look quickly from Roman, who’s mortified, to Dan, who stares at Roman
in disbelief that the behemoth hasn't stoved Rex’s head in, to the two young
guys, who stare with clenched fists at Dan awaiting the "go" sign. I
look last to Rex, who has glissaded through a gap in their phalanx and is
slackening his pace fifteen yards up the road towards the car. Roman's jaw
muscles tighten like steel cables as he watches Rex walk into the darkness, and
I sprint into the dark brush by the side of the road and emerge next to Rex.
A gunshot like a thundercrack buckles my knee and a whizzing
sound passes well overhead. A gang of cruel laughter mocks our flight.
“Don’t look back,” Rex instructs.
“No way, Bugs,” is my needless reply.
... later still ...
Upon hearing the gunshot, Sasha took up a position behind
Manny’s car and crouched like a commando tensed to leap at an assailant. And he
did leap, at us—but like a Loony Tunes character he recognized us mid–flight,
twisted his body and missed us by inches, rolling on the ground the way he did
when executing a “sacred catch.” “Holy Christ! Who is shooting damn gun!”
“Your coach,” grimaced Rex. "Your gun–crazy Americanski
shit.”
“For this,” Sasha heaved, “we will fixing his wagon.”
His wagon was the black pickup, and it rumbled in our
direction as our gaping gobs filled with gnats and dust. The road before the
truck was lit like a runway by ultra-high beams. A jack–rabbit froze halfway
across, then sprinted in terror the rest of the way. The truck stopped abreast
of us with an angry exhalation, and we stood there in the shallow gully and
looked up at a death–ship from an alien–invasion flick. Harsh beams from
high–powered flashlights assaulted our eyes. Two pinned us in place while a
third swept the ground around and beneath Manny’s car before sweeping the scrub
brush behind us.
“You’re lucky you’re Rollie’s little friends,” said Dan in a
sour-mash drawl.
“Little fags,” snarled the skinhead. Roman gunned the
engine, and the skinhead tumbled back against the tailgate as the truck rumbled
off. Moments later a rifle–shot thundered, sending chunks of road flying into
the air. My throat was so dry that I couldn’t speak; incredibly, Sasha couldn’t
either. Rex charged up onto the road and faced the sky with a “Yip–yip–yoo!” as
the red tail–lights of the truck disappeared down a hill, reappeared, dimmed,
and then faded into blackness like a red–eyed sea creature retreating into the
depths of the sea.
“Oh, man, amigos—I must have peed twenty gallons!” Manny’s
luminous smile emerged from the brush before he did. “Thanks for standing
guard, homies. Oh man, I’m so hungry! Let’s have some pepitas.” We watched
dumbly as he opened the trunk and dug into his bat-bag. A two–legged form
bounded swiftly from the brush and with a leap rolled into the trunk. “Pepito!”
grinned Manny, gesturing at a Mexican boy of twelve or thirteen, dressed in
black and already lying hidden behind the black bags that filled Manny’s trunk.
Manny clicked the trunk shut, and we slammed the doors with the flow of a drill
team.
There was no conversation as we rolled along, just the scent
of hay and the savor of a dangerous mission. My head dizzied in contemplation
of the desert and the gunshots, my mound masterpiece and my aching elbow, and
the contraband in the trunk; I thought of the limited air in the trunk. As if
reading my mind, Manny told Rex to dig at the junction of the seat–bottom and
the back of the seat. Rex’s hands were as strong as badger claws, and it took
him just an instant to remove a one–square–foot chunk of upholstery from an
opening to the trunk.
“Breathe, Pepito,” Manny instructed, and Pepito stuck his
head through the opening like a criminal in the pillory—except he wore an
electric smile. Rex held the straw from a sport bottle to Pepito’s lips and the
boy smiled sweetly. “Pepito is the niño of my aunt,” Manny said, deeming this,
and no more, as our due. Sasha suggested that Pepito might like to hear some
Americanski music on the radio, so we channel–surfed and listened to Tejano and
mariachi, hip hop and soul, death metal, classic rock, and lots of CW, for this
land was still well–populated by the descendants of Dust Bowl migrants and
retired Navy men. The irony of the mariachi blasts was not lost on Pepito, who
tooted through pursed lips in the fruited tone of the Mexican trumpet. Sasha
palmed Pepito’s disembodied head and cried “Pelota!”, a word he’d learned from
an outfield compay.
Two country and three mariachi tunes later, Manny turned off
from the desolate back road on which we had been driving onto a dirt road
passing unseen fields redolent of hay. He stopped the car and tromped back to
the trunk and brought forward Pepito, whose eyebrows were engulfed by a faded
red Coyotes cap embroidered with that beautiful sharp white “C.” Pepito nestled
into the back seat between Sasha and Rex as Manny put his own cap on and
gestured at us to do likewise. It was rare for us Coyotes to wear our caps away
from the ballpark, rarer still to do so as a group—but Manny wanted Pepito to
blend in. Sasha turned his cap backward: it looked good on him.
*********
Thank you for visiting, Reader! You can read many more excerpts from The Mighty Roman here.
And you can buy the book in paperback on Amazon, as an ebook on Amazon, or as an ebook on Smashwords—or ask your local indie bookstore to order it for you.
San Francisco readers: autographed copies are available by arrangement. Write jsind@sbcglobal.net to find out more, or to learn about readings and other appearances.
Yours in the love of baseball and lit,
Jon
 |
Look! A dog!
|
