Butterfly Winter
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‘Call me whatever you like,’ Sandor said to his multitudes, which, on the prairies, consisted often of a single farm family, dirt farmers living in soddies, some living in virtual caves built into the sides of hills. Sandor would thump at the gunnysack-reinforced door of a soddy. The pale face that answered would shade its eyes from the sudden glare of the prairie. He was often mistaken for a preacher, for he dressed in black broadcloth, wore a wide-brimmed hat and, as soon as he was able, grew a bushy black beard.
After introducing himself, though not always his mission, for the tough pioneer women tended to frown on sport of any kind as frivolity, Sandor would find his way to where the men were working. He would pitch in and work side by side with the farmer and his sons, picking roots, or pulling stumps, perhaps carrying rocks to a homemade stoneboat, or walking behind an ox as it pulled a plow.
At the end of the day, by the fading rays of a low sun, or as the plains horizon flamed like prairie fire, Sandor would open his magical sack and toss a ball to a burly farm boy in work pants too short and clodhopper boots awkward as wood blocks. The three or four or five of them would lay out a rough diamond, perhaps using a barn wall as a backstop, if the homesteaders were fortunate enough to have built a barn. Sometimes there would be stumps for bases, with stringy trees in the outfield.
Often the only clear land would take in a slough, full of frog grass and cattails, where inches of water lay hidden under seemingly innocent greenery. But no matter the obstacles, Sandor’s enthusiasm would shine through, and the big, lumbering boys would get word to their neighbors, and by the second evening of his visit there would be almost enough players for a side of baseball.
Then Sandor would spring the trap. He would mention the last area that he had visited, five, or ten, or fifteen miles away, and he would mention how they had taken to the game, and how they had formed a team and were waiting only for a challenge.
When he moved on he would leave behind a precious ball, after painstakingly demonstrating to his converts how to re-cover it. He might also leave behind a bat, or he might simply show them how to hew a bat from a sturdy piece of timber. On rare occasions he would actually see the competition through, choosing a site, scheduling the contest, acting as umpire.
He learned early on that the main objections to his mission would be on religious grounds. Sandor was quick to realize that pioneers, facing unbelievable hardships, often clinging to life and sanity by the thinnest of threads, needed not only to believe in the supernatural, but to believe the supernatural was on their side. Sandor realized too, that these primitive peoples lacked the sophistication to realize that there were many and various manifestations of the supernatural, Sandor Boatly himself being one.
Since he was often mistaken, on first contact, for a circuit rider, Sandor took to carrying a heavy, leather-bound bible. He learned to quote the passages that urged the listeners to make a joyful noise and celebrate life. He never claimed to be a minister, but if his dress and demeanor intimated such, he found no reason to deny it.
If requested, he could conduct a brief nondenominational service of a Sunday morning, after which he would bring out his baseball equipment and retire to the nearest meadow with the men and boys. Even the most pinched and pious farm women could find no fault with a hard-working pastor who regarded baseball as a sinless pastime for a sunny summer Sunday afternoon.
Occasionally, Sandor stumbled into a situation where a minister was clearly needed. He was known to pray with vigor over the terminally ill, preparing them for passage to the next world, easing that passage. When called upon he conducted funerals, baptisms, even an occasional marriage, though he loathed the intolerance of most Christians. ‘Christianity is the only army that shoots its own wounded,’ he said in one of his last letters to his sister, Evita.
As a boy he had heard or read that it matters not what qualifications one possesses, but only that one look the part, words that would have a profound effect on the many lives of Sandor Boatly. For instead of planting trees as a legacy, he planted the joy of baseball in several thousand hearts, and, as a seed grew into a sapling, then a tree, and eventually into a forest, so his own efforts multiplied over the years until baseball was everywhere in America, like the trees and the rain.
Sandor worked his way as far west as Wyoming, before heading south, touring Colorado, New Mexico and Texas, crossing several Southern states before finding himself in Florida – Miami to be specific.
Though he had never lived in a truly warm climate he always sensed deep in his bones that the natural state of the universe was endless summer, though he had only heard rumors of its existence. He had heard of places where the grass was eternally green, where snow was spoken of with nostalgia by people who had not endured it for years. But Miami, and Florida, that tropical green finger with the angelic aura of white sand, was so perfect, so magical, the possibilities of baseball so endless, that its mere existence almost caused Sandor to acknowledge the possibility of a God.
What he discovered, something that disappointed him to no end, was that in Florida he was not a pioneer, for baseball was well known, played in every park, school yard and vacant lot. Only in the furthest backwaters of the Everglades could he practice his calling, and then with only limited success, due to the lack of arable land.
THREE
The Wizard
His journey to the island of Hispaniola came about after he became acquainted with a group of Pentecostal missionaries on the Miami docks. They mistook him for a man of the cloth.
‘We are off to spread the word of the Lord to the heathen,’ they confided in him.
‘I share your dedication,’ he said obliquely.
Over his shoulder was slung a lumpy sack that might have been full of a many-armed invention. ‘Where might you be bound?’ Sandor asked.
The Pentecostals explained that they were headed for Courteguay, on the island of Hispaniola, a tiny landlocked country nestled like a snail between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, bordered by both, the shape of the moon of a fingernail, and not much larger.
‘We sent a team of missionaries to Courteguay a few years ago,’ one of the tall pale men explained. ‘At first they sent back enthusiastic reports, then we didn’t hear from them for a few months. Neither they, nor the follow-up team we sent have ever been heard from at all.’
‘Beyond there be dragons …’ said Sandor, quoting from a medieval map he had seen in a museum. The phrase described the unknown, everything beyond the explored world.
‘Haiti is full of dark visions and strange deaths,’ said a wiry-looking woman with bony, red-knuckled hands.
‘And the Dominican Republic?’ asked Sandor, willing to risk a good deal for baseball, but not anxious to be eaten by savages, or burned alive as a sacrifice to some primitive god.
‘We are led to believe the Dominican is much more civilized than Haiti, though it is said to be heavily Catholic,’ a short rotund man said.
‘And Courteguay?’
‘Unknown territory,’ said the leader of the Pentecostals, a red-cheeked man with a perpetual smile. ‘One of the newest and smallest countries in the world. Reportedly, a piece of useless mountain slope and swampy valley, given to a fierce old soldier, who so terrorized the governments of both Haiti and the Dominican Republic, so disrupted their attempts at civilization, that they gave him his own country just to be rid of him. His name – he was given the land some forty years ago and was an old man then, so he must certainly be dead – is said to be Octavio Court, though he was known to one and all as the Old Dictator.’
‘The trouble with an island is that it is the end of the world,’ said Sandor. ‘One cannot run and hide well on an island. People left with only themselves, with nowhere to hide, have to look inward, have to face the reality that they are trapped within their own skins forever. Sometimes they do not like what they see.’
Sandor Boatly for some reason felt no fear at the idea of setting off for Courteguay. Perhaps they did not play baseball there, he thought, he hoped. He knew the Pentecostals would relish suffering, even death. They were fundamentalists so narrow they could look through a keyhole with both eyes. Martyrs have always been well regarded in religious circles.
‘What do you think of baseball?’ he asked the missionaries, tossing an ermine-white ball in the air and catching it in his large, calloused hands.
‘A relatively sinless game,’ replied their leader, ‘as long as it is not played on Sunday.’
‘How little you know,’ whispered Sandor Boatly, smiling mysteriously, as he boarded the boat for the island of Hispaniola.
No one on the mainland ever heard from Sandor Boatly again.
He has become a legend, of course. You newsmen, journalists, writers, or whatever you call yourselves, must know all about that. By the time he departed America, Sandor Boatly was already a folk hero, tales were told, songs were sung about his spreading the gospel of baseball across the continent. But because of his mysterious disappearance the legends grew, multiplied and prospered out of proportion to his actual deeds. Several books were written about him, the most famous, which I am told is still in print, titled The Evangelist and the Ball. In it is recounted how, when he stepped off the train in San Barnabas, the capital of Courteguay, he was met by two hyenas. They had been washed and perfumed and dressed in formal porter’s uniforms. They walked upright and spoke enough Spanish to conduct their business.
‘May we carry your bags, sir,’ the tallest hyena said, bowing slightly. Sandor Boatly stared around. The station was bustling. No one seemed upset by the domesticated, talking hyenas.
‘Certainly,’ he replied. One hyena carried his suitcases, the second managed a trunk and his mysterious bag full of bats, balls and magic.
‘You will have to help us with the station door,’ the tallest hyena said, ‘while we have evolved considerably we still have not mastered the doorknob.’
As a famous missing person Sandor Boatly was a favorite subject for journalists. His followers organized expeditions to Hispaniola, though for some reason they concentrated on Haiti, where, one persistent rumor had it, he was buried under two baseball bats joined in the shape of a cross, while a dozen vanda orchids danced in a circle on his grave.
But as you must know, in Haiti they do not play baseball. They speak French in Haiti, a language not conducive to baseball. There they play soccer. I spit! Soccer is slower than watching stagnant water find its own level. A game for those totally devoid of imagination. Next to Ambrose Bierce and Amelia Earhart, Sandor Boatly is America’s most popular and mysterious folk hero.
How do I know so much about him? I am Courteguayan. That is a sufficient answer.
Later that day, more of the interview finished, if not satisfactorily (at least the Gringo Journalist had extracted enough information to continue to pique his curiosity and was alternately amazed, baffled and annoyed with the elderly and capricious Wizard), something happened that made the Gringo Journalist a believer. After being given a drink from the hospital water glass with its crimped straw, the Wizard raised his head from the pillow and sniffed like an animal, a scavenger testing the air for carrion.
‘I need your help,’ croaked the Wizard, reaching for the Gringo Journalist with a skeletal hand. ‘Help me out of bed.’ The Gringo Journalist aided the old man, who was light as a kite, from the bed, assisted him into a threadbare hospital robe and terrycloth slippers. The Wizard’s talon hands fastened like intravenous needles to the young reporter’s arm as he led the way down the hall of the hospital to the emergency ward.
There, even the reporter could smell blood, the coppery, electric odor of liquid death. Doctors were just turning away from, drawing a sheet over the face of an auto accident victim they had been unable to save. The Wizard detached himself from the young reporter, slipped both hands under the sheet and gripped the still warm chest of the deceased. The Wizard stood stock still in that position for several minutes. The reporter expected to be rousted by doctors or nurses or orderlies, but it was as if he and the Wizard were invisible.
Eventually, the Wizard produced his hands from under the sheet, and as he turned toward him the Gringo Journalist could see an amazing change had taken place. For one thing, the Wizard had gained probably ten pounds, his hands that had been the claws of the very old, were younger, healthier looking, as was the Wizard in general. On the way back to his room he walked unaided, keeping up a steady one-sided conversation.
‘A delightful twenty-two years,’ said the Wizard, smiling with both warmth and cunning, as he climbed, with a good deal of agility, back into his bed. ‘I expect I’ll leave this hospital in a day or two. We’ll continue this interview at my home.’
FOUR
The Wizard
‘You ask too many questions,’ says the Wizard to the Gringo Journalist. ‘Make up your mind. Do you want to hear about the old days politically, or the birth of the twins, or about Milan Garza, or the nefarious Dr Noir?’
They are in an ice cream parlor in San Cristóbel, the Wizard eating a concoction he has dictated to the wide-eyed boy in a white trough-like hat, who appears to be the only employee. It contains many kinds of ice cream and syrups, but also hibiscus blossoms.
‘You’re right, I have been asking too many questions at once,’ says the Gringo Journalist. ‘Tell me about the birth of the twins.’
‘El Presidente!’ rasps the Wizard, ‘now there was a name that used to mean something in the old days.’
‘Did you hear my question …?’
‘The good times are all gone. The civil wars, the guerrillas, the government soldiers. The insurgents! I always liked being referred to as the Insurgent Leader. The tabloid newspapers manned by the only true journalists in the world, used to write about Courteguay’s civil war. The tabloids have a feel for Courteguay; they understand the shifting time and space, and no matter how outrageous their claims, those claims never approach reality. For instance, they claimed that both sides in our ongoing civil war practised cannibalism, and that both sides had pygmy warriors who fired poisoned darts from blowguns.’
‘Did you?’
‘Which? What?’
‘Were you cannibals? Were there pygmies?’
‘Of course not.’ The Wizard pauses. ‘Did you know that roast soldier tastes a little like chicken? Or maybe frog. No, rabbit, I think rabbit.’
‘You just said …’
‘Being government wasn’t bad either. The poison from the pygmies’ blow guns paralyzed their victims, turned them to granite. If you were to hack your way through the jungle today you would find statues. Some anthropologist uncovered one a few years ago. They claimed the statue was from some ancient civilization, and they shipped him off to Great Britain. The anthropologist’s name was Mordechi Cruz and he grew up in San Cristóbel, and he was no older than you are now.
‘Revolution gets in the blood. General Bravura and I would trade places every few months.’
‘Excuse me,’ cries the Gringo Journalist. ‘None of this makes any sense. If what you say is true you are the Old Dictator, but from what I have researched you did not become El Presidente until after the passing of Dr Noir. Which is it?’
‘There is nothing like an unstable government to keep people on their toes,’ the Wizard goes on as if he didn’t hear the question. ‘General Bravura was not without access to what some would call magic. I remember once, I was leading perhaps a thousand men and we were creeping up on General Bravura’s camp at dawn. As we stood on a hill looking down on the small encampment, readying for the attack, at least twenty thousand soldiers rose from the banana grass like tule fog. We stared at them for a moment. General Bravura’s army was supposed to be smaller than my own. There had to be some illusion involved. But what if there wasn’t? If they were real and we attacked we faced certain defeat. In prudence we retreated quietly and waited for the sunrise.
‘And a government, any government, must take good care of its own. In politics one rewards one’s friends and punishes one’s enemies. For instance, I know that a retired President of the United States receives a tidy pension, the Secret Service, CIA, FBI, and the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders guard him constantly. In his retirement, he becomes President of a college where he has his choice of concubines from each year’s freshman class.
‘Where did you ever hear such things?’
‘The infallible tabloids of course. The fearless press who publish what the people want to hear.’
‘They also tend to exaggerate.’
‘There is no such thing as exaggeration.’
‘I might disagree with that.’
‘Today’s El Presidente! I spit! Today’s El Presidente has an image consultant. When he visits the United States he is brown. There are senators and congressmen with darker tans. When he speaks to the guava plantation workers here in Courteguay he is black as onyx, his skin glistens. His consultants spray his face with black dye. They have to burn his black-collared shirts after every appearance.
‘The magic of leadership is gone. The public need to see coins pulled from ears, snakes curled from every orifice, they want to see beautiful girls disappear from before their very eyes. And can I help it if the beautiful girls always reappear in my bed?’ The Wizard shrugs and smiles.
The Gringo Journalist throws up his hands.
‘I’m not sure this is very valuable for the book I’m writing. I want to write a true history of Courteguay.’
‘Nothing is true. The concept is unknown in Courteguay.’ The Wizard frowns, take a bite of vanilla ice cream and hibiscus flowers. He chews thoughtfully.
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