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. Animals rights and vegetarianism are among the hot–button themes in this book.
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| The leading animal–defending vegetarian second baseman in the Cal–Hairy League |
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"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.
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Readers say~
"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."
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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.
*****
The meat–loving manager checks his charges' food choices ...
... Roman strolled among us sipping his Big Gulp and checking
our eatables. “Gut check, little brothers, if you get the pun: whatchyoo boys
stuffin’ into your gobs?” He picked my sandwich up off the paper bag place mat.
“Chicken sandwich,” he murmured, “that's a good choice, Matty, plenty of
protein to build up your arm, and all you guys note, it’s a nice lean meat to
keep off the weight." M.C. bruffed furtively for our attention and emitted
a small comic gulp
while slyly eyeing Roman's 48–ounce soda. Rex smiled at the humor but refrained
from laughing, and Roman strolled on unaware of the gibe. "Roast beef for
Manny, always a good choice. Good ol' American turkey for our Russkie friend,
Sasha, and that's good too—and why the hell we have Mexican crud at our
ballpark’s beyond me! No it’s not, it’s to appraise the invaders,” a remark
which Manny ignored. Roman picked up one of the coins of sushi on which Rex
lunched and squinted at its center like a jeweler discerning a flaw in a gem.
“For the love of god, Wonder Dog, what the hell’s this?”
“It’s sushi,” Rex said.
“I know it’s damn sushi, I lived in Japan—but where’s the
damn fish?”
“In the water.” Rex grinned subversively at Sasha and me.
“Yeah well, when we get back home, I’m gonna get you out
onto The
Splendid Splinter and get one of them bad boys out of
the water and into your belly, son, where it belongs. Gotta get some meat on
those Dog–bones!”
“Not likely,” murmured Rex, whose dad had raised him
vegetarian from birth. “I’m not too hungry anyway, Skip,” and he glided off to
join a few guys shooting baskets at a netless hoop.
***
Roman makes good on his pledge to catch some fish for Rex in this scene, much to Rex's dismay. Warning: this scene gives away a crucial dramatic event in the story.
... The fish pulsated and Rhino hesitated, then on an
encouraging nod from Roman dipped the barbed hook into the water next to the fish
and brought it up under the fish's belly—but the hook didn't engage. Rhino
reddened with embarrassment and angrily plunged the gaff into the water next to
the tuna again, then with a grimace thrust the hook up hard into the fish’s
belly. "Now let's bring her aboard," said Roman approvingly,
"must be two–hundred pounds." He and Sasha reached out to help Rhino
raise the fish like the Marines in the Iwo Jima flag–raising photo, and the
impaled fish shuddered in mid–air. I was mildly appalled and checked Rex's
reaction. Rex was staring at the fish with the anguish of seeing a brother
tortured. The fishermen lobbed the fish onto the deck with the thud of a tire
landing flat on concrete.
Roman rested a foot on its heaving flank. “She’s a beauty,
boys! Two–fifty at least!” Sweat coursed down his cheeks, and a drop clung
stubbornly to the tip of the pendent lump on his lip. Like a chieftain newly
returned from the hunt, Roman looked pridefully at his young warriors in turn.
“Crazy cool!” said Sasha. “Very cool,” agreed Stan. I smiled blandly, for
though it was quite a feat, the sight of the fish’s pulsating flanks unsettled
me even as I admired its turquoise and seashell–pink beauty. Rex did not try to
hide his horror and revulsion, which Roman registered with a guillotine smile.
“See, Dawg,” he said with rising sarcasm, “I told you I’d get you some fresh
tuna fish.” Rex looked into Roman’s crazed eyes with undisguised loathing, then
looked down at the fish’s staring black eyes. “Cheer up, Rex, this is dolphin safe
tuna! Didn’t use no net!” Rex them mumbled a hopeless prayer: “Catch and
release?”
“You’re worried about the fish, Dawg?”
Rex nodded demurely without looking up, and Roman nodded as
if he, too, had just realized something profound and elemental about his
opposite number. "You believe in the humane treatment of animals," he
affirmed, jerking a hard, clever look at Rhino, who held the gaff like a spear,
and Sasha, who gaped in suspense. Yes, Rex nodded with downcast eyes, he cared
for animals.
“Me too,” said Roman. He reached behind his fishing chair
for the bat THOR and raised it high and crashed it down on the head of the tuna
with a blow that resounded like a muffled gunshot. A ripple travelled down the
fish’s slick body. “Mercy killing,” Roman grinned, “that’s kosher,
you know, kill the animal quickly.” He raised the bat a second time and
whistled it down like an axe on the tuna’s head. Then he did so again and he
did so again, splattering blood and brain and white bits of cartilage `til an
eyeball hung by a cord from its socket and deep red blood gushed from the hole.
Rex flopped over the side leaking puke and teardrops into
the gray water.
***
Rex was raised as a dog. In this scene, he communes with the coyotes who yelp in the fields across from the San Carlos Coyotes' edge–of–town digs~
My reverie was disrupted by Sasha’s shrill cry: "Those
damned coyotes again!” The coyotes’ yip–yip–yipping mocked Sasha’s rage.
“Chill, bro,” grinned Rex, “those are your brothers,
too.”
“Then I will kill my brothers, like guy in Bible!”
“I’ll talk to `em for you,” Rex said with concern, and slid
out the door. Moments later we saw his moon-glowing white tee rising up and
over the fence like a Halloween kid in a ghost–white sheet before flowing out
into the waist–high scrub. This minor disturbance silenced the yips for a
moment. Rex settled down on his haunches like a naturalist in a hide and waited
twenty, thirty, forty minutes for peace to settle over the land. When the time
was right, he drew from his waistband the Native American flute that had been
his father’s farewell gift and began to play his coyote–song, a hollow,
high–pitched wail that evoked train–whistles beneath lonely skies. And the
coyotes listened. I say this without doubt, although I'm a skeptic born and
bred, for I was listening on the fire escape with perfect attention: and the
coyotes listened. They listened, they waited until Rex had done saying his
piece, and then they commenced a yip-yip–yipping that you might call tender.
Rex replied with his own tender plea to the blackness. The coyotes answered
back: We
feel you, bro. This call–and–response went on for some time, then
the coyotes howled freedom with clarion calls, and Rex howled along like part
of the choir. Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip!
***
Rex gazed at Roman with earnest eyes while sending
feather–soft notes flowing towards Roman's ears. Roman cringed in confusion like
a child spinning wildly downstream in a coracle. He jerked free of Rex's gaze
with an effort and glared hard at me.
Roman seeks to protect his ballplayers' sleep by killing the howling coyotes. Rex protects the coyotes ~
“Roman," I said. "Rex is out there. Don’t shoot.”
"Don't shoot," he mocked with a disgusted
expression of the type provoked by a filthy men's room. “I know he’s
out there, and that’s the damn problem! Rex!” he bellowed.
From thirty yards out, where Roman’s beam faltered, the
human facsimile of a coyote yelp sounded.
“Get out of that brush! This is your manager
talking!”
Alarmed yelping resumed—it was Rex, I could tell—and two or
three dusky forms scampered off through the brush. Roman looked at me with
utter contempt, exchanged dark looks with Rhino. “You can come out now, Rex,
your little friends are gone. Ollie ollie oxen free.”
Roman’s gun was pointed straight at the ground, his hand
resting on the butt like the knob of his bat. Over the sound of my heart
knocking at my ribs, I heard the rustle of Rex leaping up out of the scrub like
a coyote leaping at prey. He landed within the beam of Roman’s flashlight, and
Roman aimed the harsh light at his eyes. Rex flinched, stepped forward, set
himself before Roman—but Roman kept the light on him for a long, taunting
moment. “What are you doing out here, Rex?”
“Talking to my friends,” Rex said in a steady voice.
Rhino tromped towards him. “Your f–friends!” Rhino's voice
rose high for a big man when he was agitated, and his stammer rose all the way
up to fire escapes crowded with a dozen Coyotes straining to hear. “Your friends are
your teammates—and
we
can’t sleep!”
"I bought you all ear–plugs," Rex reminded Rhino.
"We don't want your damn ear–plugs!"
“Well don’t blame the coyotes," said Rex. "Blame
the team, dude, for putting us out on the edge of town.” Rex pointed deep out
into the field. "That's their town," he said. Rhino was pumped up
for fighting, and he outweighed Rex by at least sixty pounds; even so, Rex did
not look afraid.
Suddenly Roman brightened. “Geez, I forgot—it's past curfew!
Time for everyone to get to bed.”
“Since when do we have curfew?” said Rex with alarm.
“Since little boys like you don’t know when to stay put. Now
up to bed, Rex. I’ll tuck you in later.”
But Rex didn’t move, but centered himself and locked eyes
with Roman. A sinew snaked across Roman's jaw, his brow buckled his forehead, and
he squeezed the butt of his downward-pointing rifle. Holding Roman’s gaze, Rex
reached into his belt, withdrew his flute, touched it to his lips and released
a flurry of wispy, flowing notes—silky, dark and deep. One coyote yipped, and
another yipped back. Roman bubbled sweat as an impulse twisted him towards the
sound in alarm. “They’re laughing at me!” he cried in shamed fury.
***
Many conflicts drive the culture clash between the young Rex Hirsch and the old–school Roman Meister, none more so than their differing views on animals' rights and vegetarianism. I hope to shed light on the humanity behind each man's views.
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
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Look! A dog!
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