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early so you could let me know where you’d located for me to room this season?”
    â€œYeah, that’s right,” Dutch said. “I do have a list of old ladies in Rayne dying to rent you boys rooms this year, like always. Who’s this with you? The man that owns the car?”
    Dutch was a little stooped in the shoulders, and like Dynamite Dunn, his eyes were a pale shade of blue like they’d been bleached out by looking into the sun too much. Too long in the infield.
    â€œNo, I don’t expect he even owns a car,” Dunn said. “Do you, Gemar?”
    I shook my head no, and he went on. “He does own a bat like you’ve never seen before, though, Dutch. Keeps it in a big old cloth sack and won’t let me use it.”
    â€œThat ain’t nothing new, Dynamite,” Dutch said. “I’ve seen you not use a lot of bats a lot of times.”
    â€œTell Dutch what you told me, Gemar,” Dunn said. “See can you get Mr. Bernson’s attention.”
    â€œMy name is Gemar Batiste,” I said to Dutch. “From the Alabama-Coushatta Nation in Texas. A man called Leonard Piquet saw me play baseball and said he would send you a telegram about me. He claimed you would let me try out to play for the Rayne Rice Birds.”
    â€œI don’t get many telegrams from Piquet,” Dutch Bernson said, “but I did get that one all right. Damn if you didn’t show up like he said you would.”
    Dutch was looking at me, starting down at my feet and then moving his gaze up my body to my neck. “You ain’t near as big a fellow as I would expect from reading that telegram from Piquet,” he said. “He said you could pitch. He said you could hit the ball a ways, too. Can you do that, Gemar?”
    â€œSometimes,” I said. “If I get enough of it. Sometimes I die.”
    â€œYou die?” Dutch said, looking me in the face now.
    â€œShit,” Dynamite Dunn said. “I never heard it said like that before.”
    â€œSo you want to try out for us, huh? How do you propose you do that? No offense intended, but I ain’t never seen you play no baseball. All I got is a telegram from Leonard Piquet, a man that’s always hoping to cash in some way somehow if something pans out right for him. I ain’t saying Leonard lies on purpose, now. Don’t get me wrong. But he does live in hope, and living like that will cause a man to believe in what he’s had no opportunity to see yet. You follow what I’m saying?”
    â€œYes, manager,” I said.
    â€œListen, Gemar,” Dutch said. “Come on in here and we’ll see if we can find you a set of cleats back in the locker room that’ll fit you. Bring your bat and your stuff.”
    â€œHe ain’t going to use his own bat yet, I don’t imagine,” Dynamite Dunn said. “Are you, Gemar?”
    â€œNot if y’all got some other bats I could use. I don’t want to use my red oak bat right now, unless I just have to.”
    â€œAsk him why not,” Dunn said to Dutch Bernson as I followed him inside into the little room that was his office. “Ask him why he won’t use his own bat now.”
    â€œI’ll do that later, Dynamite,” Dutch said. “You show Gemar where the locker room is and find him some cleats. I’m fixing to warm Hookey Irwin up a little bit so he can make a few pitches to Gemar.”
    â€œIs Hookey here already?” Dynamite Dunn said. “I ain’t seen him yet.”
    â€œHe slept on a cot in the locker room last night. He didn’t know nobody with an empty back seat in his automobile behind the icehouse, I reckon. He ain’t that lucky.”
    â€œI’d a lot rather been on a cot in the stadium,” Dynamite said. “I didn’t know I had that option.”
    â€œYou don’t have that option,” Dutch said. “You ain’t a pitcher. Go put on a