I didn’t see or hear from Troy for months. I finally took a day off and drove down to the shore. Johnson Hardware was located in a large stand alone building that shared a parking lot with a cleaners, a Chinese restaurant and a bike shop. Out front was a display of new power mowers and bags of peat moss piled high.
I went right to the service desk. A middle-aged woman had her back to me while she talked on the telephone. “I demand to see the manager.” I pounded the counter. “Get me the manager.”
Without even looking at me, she spoke into the microphone and I heard the overhead page. “Mr. Johnson to the service desk. Mr. Johnson to the service desk.”
He came around the corner in his white shirt and tie and when he saw me his phony smile broke into the biggest grin. “Lee,” he said. “How the hell are you?”
We embraced fiercely.
“I’ve come to bust you out. We’re going to lunch.”
“But Mr. Johnson,” the woman said, as she hung up the phone. “Mr. Hamlish from the Stanley Tools is supposed to be in to meet with you in a half hour.”
“Tell him I’m out drinking.”
She looked unshocked, like she was used to those comments.
“You’ll think of something,” he said. “Tell him I had a meeting with Lee Jones. Yeah, that’s it.”
“Lee Jones?” she said.
“The legend himself.” He winked at me.
We talked for two hours over steak at the Ship’s Pub. Troy said he was making twice the salary he made on the street, but I could tell he missed the life. ounting widgets and reordering paint wasn’t the same adrenaline rush. His health was good though, and he was seeing a girl steady now, thinking about marriage. He showed me a picture of her -- I was jealous -- she was like someone out of a magazine – Clairol blonde hair, wide blue eyes, full lips, perfect complexion.
“Life is good,” he said, “I’ve got a little garden in the backyard. I’m growing beets, carrots, celery, radishes. Next year I might grow corn. I’m a damn good weeder. I get all my tools for free. Salesman samples. Can’t beat that. They want me back up in the city, they’re going to have to raise their pay scales, and even then I don’t think I’ll go back. Fuck them.”
“That’s telling them,” I said. But I didn’t believe him.
I saw his eyes move and he signaled to a man who had just come in the door. “Hey, there’s someone I want you to meet. ‘Yo, Dad.’” To me, “It’s my Dad.”
A tall broad shouldered man approached. He wore construction boots, denim overalls, and a cap that said Johnson Electric.
It took him awhile to get to us. Other diners hailed him, shook his hand, and cracked comments his way. There wasn’t an eye in the room that wasn’t on him.
“Pleasure to meet you, Lee,” he said, after Troy had introduced us. “I’ve heard a lot about you. You still working up in the city?”
“I am.”
“Good of you to come down.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the man either. It wasn’t just that he looked like Troy; he looked familiar in another way. I looked at his big hands and then I saw the World Series ring.
“My god,” I said. “You’re Pete Johnson.”
“I’ve been known by that name.”
“I saw you play in Fenway Park. I was in high school. It was in September. You hit three home runs that day, and the catch you made in center on Yastremski’s blast, I’ve never seen anything like it, the way you leapt and twisted your body. I thought the ball was in the bullpen, but you brought it back down into play.”
“I told you I had game,” he said to Troy, who slapped him a high-five.
“How come you didn’t tell me he was a Yankee?”
“Because you’re a Red Sox fan. Can you believe that, Dad? They actually made me work with this guy.”
“Troy doesn’t like to brag,” the father said. “He knows once he started talking about me, he wouldn’t stop, ain’t that right, son?”
“In your dreams maybe.”
“I bet he hasn’t told you about his own exploits.”
“No, he hasn’t.”
“He broke every record I ever set at Thorton High -- football, baseball, basketball, track. He might not have kissed as many girls as I did, but of course he doesn’t have his Dad’s looks.”
“Dream on, old man,” Troy said. “I got you on that record too.”
Pete Johnson – he was a sports legend. A local Connecticut kid. He’d signed with the Yankees out of high school, but had been drafted, did a tour in Korea, played a few years in the minors, then came up one year in September, hit .500, and helped the Yankees to the pennant. Hit seventeen homers in thirty games, including two in the World Series. He was the toast of the town. A handsome guy, he made the tabloids with his whirlwind romance with Marjorie Thetis, the actress. The papers said he was out-of-shape when he’d reported to camp the next spring, but I remember seeing pictures of him, and he’d looked great. The second week of training he tripped over a sprinkler head and wrenched his knee and was never the same. When he got off the injured list, he hit .230, a couple homers, and then suddenly retired.
Sitting at the restaurant table with Troy and his Dad, I was like a babbling fool. I recounted over and over again every memory from that day I’d seen him at Fenway. Troy’s dad I knew was flattered by my praise. And I could see how much it meant to him for Troy to hear as well. Troy clearly loved his father and I could tell he was proud as I gave my account.
“You didn’t want to come back?” I asked.
“I thought about it, but Troy was a baby then, and his mother, who was ill, wasn’t able to care for him. It wasn’t that important to me. And of course, they didn’t pay the millions then that they do now.”
“I can’t tell you how I respect that,” I said.
“Troy came out okay, nothing that a good beating every now and then didn’t fix.”
“That’s a good one,” Troy said. “Since when were you ever able to catch me with your gimpy leg. Even when I was three I was too fleet-footed for him.”
“Well, on those occasions, I didn’t catch him, he knew he had to spend the night out in the doghouse, which may explain his terrible manners.”
After Troy’s dad left – he had an appointment wiring a house -- we had a last beer, and then Troy insisted on paying the tab. In the parking lot, we shook hands goodbye. In the distance we heard the wail then yelp of an ambulance. I saw then the loss in his eyes.
“Good of you to come by,” he said.
“I’ll see you again soon.”
He looked like he doubted it. “You ever want paint,” he said. “I’ve got the best deal in town.”
