Kid Comes Back (11 page)

The surgeon pressed a button. “Miss Gallagher, get me Dr. Rittenbusch’s address. No, hold on a minute; I’d like to talk to him. Get him for me on the telephone. He lives somewhere outside the city, I think.”

So, on the day the Brooks opened the season in Boston, Roy journeyed to Mount Vernon to see Dr. Rittenbusch. Without much hope, either.

T
HE HOUSE IN
the suburbs was a small, unpretentious dwelling with a tiny waiting room and office attached to one side. Roy’s heart, buoyed by hope, sank as he saw it. After the hospitals and waiting rooms and glistening doctor’s offices he had seen in his long journey through pain, this place was unimpressive and disappointing. The doctor himself came briskly from within, and led him inside. The workroom contained a desk, a filing cabinet, the long, high table to which Roy was now so accustomed, and nothing else.

There were surprises in store. For one thing, the doctor was impressive by the confidence he had in himself. He was a man with graying hair, huge shoulders, a big torso, and a slim waist. Whatever his age, he was an advertisement for himself.

“Now then.” He sat at his desk, beaming through horn-rimmed glasses. “You are Mr. ... Mr. ...?”

“Tucker. Roy Tucker.”

He nodded. “So, so. How did your injury occur, please?” He leaned over, attentive.

For perhaps the sixtieth time Roy explained briefly the crash in France, the ensuing pain, the operations, the crackup in Florida. The old chap sat listening with attention, quite evidently concentrating, nodding yet saying not a word. Finally he twisted his lips together. “Ah, I see. Now, will you please sit here on the edge of this table. So.”

“Take my clothes off?”

“Not necessary. Just your jacket.” He walked with quick, short steps around the table, and began running his fingers ever so gently up and down Roy’s spine, slowly probing. “H’m... h’m... so... I see... ah... there... ah, so... no wonder you suffer... how long did you say you have this?” Those fingers were moving skillfully up and down the Kid’s backbone, yet curiously causing him no pain whatever. There was a frown on the face of the doctor as he worked.

“Almost two years now.”

“So! Yes, I see. Now please, lie down flat, on your back.” For a minute or two he continued to feel along his backbone, up and down. Then he straightened up. “That’s all.”

Roy sat up. “You mean that’s all? All for today?”

“Yes. Your nerve is still too inflamed for me to treat you now. Next week, perhaps.”

“Well, do you think... Can you help me any? Get me on my feet again?” By now Roy hated the word cure quite as much as most doctors did. He was somewhat disappointed by the man’s actions.

“I think I can. You’re young yet. Last fall I have a case even worse than yours, some other baseball player. Let me see, what
was
that chap’s name?”

“You don’t maybe mean Ray Tonelli of the Giants, do you?”

A warm smile brightened the doctor’s face. “That’s it. Tonelli.”

Roy smiled also. Imagine forgetting Tonelli, the leading Giant hitter, the man who always batted in more runs than anyone in either league. Names, he later discovered, meant nothing whatever to this amazing character.

“Yes, I fix him up, get him back playing, and he was in a worse condition than you are at present. There is a partial dislocation of the hip and the sacrum, like this, so, and that dislocation is the base of your trouble.”

It meant nothing to Roy, nothing save for one sentence. “You say mine isn’t as bad as Ray Tonelli’s?”

“Goodness no, nothing like. Yours hadn’t gone as far as his. I believe I can straighten you out in time. You see that bone there is partially dislocated; it’s pressing on a nerve and naturally causing you pain. Now let’s see, how about Tuesday, that’s a week from tomorrow? If you rest carefully, take things easy, some of the inflammation should be gone from that nerve and I think I can treat you then.”

“Tuesday next, that’s the 25th, isn’t it? What time?”

He consulted an appointment book. Roy observed that it was completely full for the following week. Whatever else the man needed, he certainly didn’t need new patients.

“Let’s see now, say ten in the morning. All right, then, Tuesday next, at ten.”

Roy climbed clumsily into the parked taxi at the curb. A funny old geezer. Looks as if he knew what he was about. But imagine anyone forgetting Ray Tonelli of the Giants.

“N
OW THEN. LIE
down, please. H’m... h’m... there. I think I can do something today.” The doctor’s big hands were moving up and down Roy’s spine as he leaned over. “Yes. I think I can... today... do something.” There was a moment’s silence. “There!”

He uttered a little grunt, at the same time giving Roy’s back a hug, a sort of tight squeeze, a gentle squeeze that was perceptible and nothing more. What Roy did feel was an immediate relaxation of the tightness up and down his spine. The pressure was disappearing, the pain also.

“There! Good, so far. I’ve put that sacroiliac of yours back in place. Now the thing to do is to keep it there. Oh, anyone can put it back—that’s simple.” His fingers like spiders roved up and down the back, so gently that Roy could hardly feel them, yet always loosening, relieving the pressure. He talked as he worked. “That articulation there... between the hip and the sacrum. I had a case like yours only last year, a baseball player he was, too... boy by the name of... by the name of...” He paused, straightened up, the frown on his face.

Roy glanced up sharply at the earnest, wrinkled face, at the blue eyes behind the horn-rimmed glasses. Was he kidding? Not at all. The puzzled expression was honest and direct.

“Couldn’t be Ray Tonelli of the Giants, could it?”

“Of course! You told me his name when you were in here ten days ago, didn’t you? It took time to straighten that lad out.”

With difficulty Roy kept silent. If it took time for Ray, how long would it take for himself? This was the 25th of April. Roy had learned the hard way that doctors never enjoy committing themselves on a patient’s recovery, and seldom do. So he said nothing.

The big hands, the powerful thumbs were working underneath his body now, running a tattoo along his spine, easing the pressure. All the while he conversed in a kind of monologue.

“You had pain all up and down your left side and your left leg, didn’t you? Yes, well, consequently you favored it, you leaned toward your right, you overworked your right side and neglected the muscles all up and down your left side, through here. They became soft through disuse. Now we must build these up again in order to regain normal equilibrium.”

“But how?”

“Partly by treatment, first; but mostly by exercise.”

“Exercise! You mean I can cure myself by exercise?”

“Certainly. If you do them faithfully.”

“Doc, I’ll walk on my head up and down Broadway if it’ll get me back on that ballclub. You see, I’ve been around quite some time, and I never ducked anything yet.” Hope surged up within him; for the first moment in long months his spirit rose.

The doctor straightened up, smiling. “Good. This is the stage when you must fight, when you can help yourself by fighting. If you will, you are cured.” Now he was working again on the hip, going down the leg, kneading the calf with the softest of touches, then suddenly unfastening the shoe.

“My foot’s O.K., Doc.”

The big man paid no attention, yanked off the shoe and removed the stocking. “Yes... h’m... you never get a hip out of place that you don’t affect the muscles and the ligaments. These you have to correct by working on the foot.” He was massaging the instep, then pulling and working on the bones round the toes, always gently, always slowly, and always competently. The stocking and shoe were replaced, and he got after the other foot. Again he replaced sock and shoe when finished.

“There! That about does it for today. I shall want to see you... let’s see... about Friday. Suppose we say Friday next, at the same time. Then perhaps twice next week, and maybe once more; maybe not. After that it’s up to you.”

“You mean the exercises?”

“Yes, let me show you now.” With the agility of a youngster, he flipped himself over on the table, upon his back, his hands flat along the surface.

“Only three of them; but you must do them correctly or they are of no value, and you must do them regularly, twice a day.”

Roy stood erect and comfortable for almost the first time since Fried Spratt came down upon the tiny airfield in the Dordogne. “You don’t need to worry about that. If I say I will, I will.”

“So, good. Now, here is the first one.” Carefully the doctor explained the exercises to Roy, demonstrating each one in slow motion, repeating them until he was certain he understood.

“D’you think, doctor, I might... maybe get back in there before the end of the summer?”

“It depends on you. You can run; you’ll probably be able to run as fast as you ever did in two months. But if you make sudden jerks or starts, you’re likely to throw that back of yours out again.”

“Then we start from the beginning?”

“That’s right. Watch yourself carefully; above all no sudden movements. And do those exercises.”

Roy stepped into the taxi. Bending over had ceased to be the incredible agony it formerly had been, and he got in almost with ease.

Will I take those exercises! Will I! If I’m not a fighter, I’m nothing.

T
HERE WERE TIMES
when the loud-voiced president of the club bothered Roy; but Jack MacManus had one quality that endeared him to every man on the team—loyalty. If a man tried and tried hard, he was for him. He was especially loyal to those who had helped him win pennants. Some club owners might have released Roy outright, or at any rate taken him off the active list. As he sat in the boss’s outer office waiting for their first conference since his crackup, Roy had no fear of either event happening.

From within could be heard the booming voice of the big executive, and softer tones which Roy recognized as the voice of the pitcher, Bones Hathaway. Roy immediately guessed Bones was getting a call-down. Although MacManus had great loyalty for the players, if he felt one of them was not trying, he jumped him immediately. The fact was that the big pitcher had been in and out all spring. When the team left for their western trip two days previously, he had been kept in Brooklyn.

All this Roy knew. He did not, however, anticipate the sentence he heard from the adjoining room.

“So there you are! I don’t know whether you’ll be back or not. That’s entirely up to you, my boy, strictly up to you, as it is to everyone on this club. Truth is, you’re plain lazy. You’re trying to coast along on your reputation, and you just can’t do that in this post-war baseball. And you’ve developed one bad fault. You’re unable—or else you are afraid—to hit that strike zone with your first two pitches any more. Consequently you are behind the batter and always in trouble. I can’t tell whether you can correct this in Montreal or not. It’s up to you.”

Montreal! Sending Bones to Montreal. Say, that’s tough, that’s exile, that is.

“No pitcher can be behind the hitters and win. Bones, look, I believe in you. I know you have the stuff. I have faith in you or I’d give you an outright release here this morning. But whether we pick up your option depends entirely on you.”

There was a pause in his lecture, as the pitcher answered in despondent tones that Roy was unable to hear. Montreal! This must hurt. It’s hard on a man’s pride to be sent to the minors after three seasons in the big time, one on a championship club. To be going up river after three years in a Dodger uniform, with a one-way ticket in your pocket, isn’t funny.

Suddenly the similarity of their situations came to him. Bonesey must come back the hard way, just as I must do. He’s got to work things out for himself, same as I have, to prove himself all over again. And it won’t be so easy for either of us, with these kids coming along.

Then the door burst open, and a red-faced Hathaway flew out of the president’s sanctum. He was so agitated that he never even noticed Roy sitting quietly on a chair at one side.

“Come in, Roy, come right in, boy!” The handshake of the boss was warm and sincere. He glanced up under his thick eyebrows. “Got good news for me this morning?”

“Why, yes, sir. Yes, Mr. Mac, believe I have... at least I hope so. The doc thinks, he says now...”

The secretary was handing MacManus three or four letters, and he stood there reading them, issuing dictates, returning the letters to her, one by one; all the time paying not the slightest attention to his visitor, who slowed up, hesitated, stopped talking.

“Sit down, boy, sit down. Now tell me all about it. This man seems to have done you some good, doesn’t he?”

Roy would have liked nothing better than to talk about his doctor; but it was difficult. The phone clicked gently every few seconds, and often the secretary entered and laid a memorandum, or the name of some caller waiting outside, upon the desk before the president’s gaze. Only two things resulted definitely from the interview. One was that the boss still had faith in his ultimate recovery and still considered him a member of the club. The second was that he had arranged for Roy to work out each morning with the Yankees while the Dodgers were on their western trip, if he were well enough to try it.

Roy had finished his six treatments with Dr. Rittenbusch, and had been doing those exercises daily for weeks. The pain was gone, and he felt looser and freer in his movements from day to day, yet he dared put no pressure upon his leg. Indeed he was afraid to do so, because too much depended upon it. After a check-up in mid-June, the doctor told him he was ready to start training again if he would work into it gradually. He noticed Roy’s hesitation.

“See here now. This is where you must learn to help yourself. There’s nothing wrong with your leg now, but you’re afraid to use it. You’ve got to get over that. If you believe in yourself, I’m convinced you can do anything. It’s a problem of faith. This is something you must work out for yourself.”

So Roy began, gingerly, tenderly, each morning at the Yankee Stadium. At first just a gentle jog around the field; then after several days two laps, and next three laps, faster still. Ever so slowly his confidence returned. In a week he found himself shagging flies, yet all the while half expecting that agony to return. The pain had become too much a part of him to put aside easily. But he kept at it, meanwhile going through the doctor’s exercises twice each day with a fervor that was almost religious.