Charlie Hamilton and the blues

Some fiction drafting from this weekend

We pick up the story of 17-year-old Charlie Hamilton several chapters into the novel. Nearly a year has passed since Thanksgiving Weekend 1957, when Charlie’s parents split up over his father Pete’s affair. Within one month, his schoolteacher mother Heidi moved herself and Charlie across the country from Brooklyn to restart life in Los Angeles. The only saving grace for Charlie is that the Dodgers are relocating to Los Angeles as well — but even that is upset by the January 1958 car accident that paralyzes and ends the career of Charlie’s hero, Roy Campanella. Having struggled to assimilate as a midyear transfer into 11th grade at Hollywood High School, Charlie faces even more disruption heading into his senior year.

Since sharing the first chapter, I have switched from first-person to third-person narration. Our unnamed storyteller is a character in the novel himself. You learn earlier that the narrator is speaking to us, which creates a unique challenge for delivering dialogue.

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Monday, September 1, 1958

By September, the Dodgers fell out of the pennant race completely. After their little four-game winning streak in July, they tumbled down the National League mountain like the boulder from the grasp of Sisyphus, 11 games out of first place by the end of the month and 15½ at the end of August. On Sunday the 31st, Koufax didn’t make it out of the first inning in a 14-2 drubbing by the Giants.

Heidi salvaged the day by taking Charlie to the Chinese to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor. The theater was packed. Charlie needed no introduction to the smoldering actress, but Newman was a 1958 revelation. It’s probably no exaggeration to say that The Long, Hot Summer left a great many of us quaking, and now this. At certain moments in the darkness, Charlie could dare say he saw himself in Newman’s gaze.

The next morning, Labor Day morning, Charlie woke to news about Campy from what the newspaper said was “his first open press conference following four months of treatment.” Let me read to you from the story.

He still is paralyzed from the neck down with only partial used of his hands and arms.

Those once-burly arms which rifled the ball all the way to second base are shrunken to the pipe-stem thinness of an undernourished 14-year-old. 

But nothing had been able to wipe away the smile or the optimism. 

“Sure, I had it tough before,” he said. “but nothing like this. The toughest moment was when my car slid off the road and hit that pole. My first thought was to turn off the engine — and then I found out I was paralyzed.

“The second toughest thing was the second day, in the hospital. They had to slit my throat and put in a tracheotomy tube.

“To be paralyzed and not able to breathe is a pretty tough feeling. I didn’t think I’d make it. I really prayed that night,” he said slowly. 

Then he waved one of those thin arms and the old smile was back.

The story served as a meditation for Charlie, clearing his mind of all else, from the neglect of his high school classmates — no Labor Day beach party invitations, certainly — to the allure of Miss Taylor. As far as Charlie’s disappointment with the Dodgers, those concerns resituated themselves in the wake of the Campy interview, if you’ll forgive me, from being to nothingness.

With that modest transformation, Charlie settled in front of his television screen at 10 a.m. for a day-long doubleheader. The Dodgers promptly lost the morning affair, 8-6. Mays terrorized the Dodgers yet again: 5 for 5 with a home run and two doubles. Come the second game, the Dodgers and rookie starter Fred Kipp held a 4-2 lead with two out in the bottom of the ninth inning — only for another rookie, the Giants’ catcher Bob Schmidt, to hit a two-run home run to tie the game.

Seven hours into a day of baseball, and it wasn’t over. Heidi served a Labor Night dinner of her special steak frites, Charlie’s favorite, and they had time to finish the entire meal on trays in front of the TV, with some French vanilla ice cream to boot, before the Dodgers and Giants could even think about dinner for themselves. Neither team scored again until the top of the 16th, when Carl Furillo finally broke the 4-4 tie with a double off the 19-year-old southpaw from Southern California, Ray McCormick.

But boy oh boy, the Dodgers will always be the Dodgers, and they let the Giants tie the game again on the very first pitch of the bottom of the 16th, Johnny Podres surrendering a tying home run to Whitey Lockman. Next, the itinerant Jabo Jablonski, playing in his fourth city over the past five seasons, hit a slow roller to third base like a pebble skipping across a pond, dying midway before Don Zimmer could rescue it. That put the winning run on first base.

And now, let us present the 1958 Dodger season in a nutshell. With the Giants out of pinch-hitters at the end of the marathon, up came Rubén Gómez, a decent hitter for a pitcher but nevertheless a pitcher. Surprising no one in the Bay Area, Gómez bunted. As Jabo ran to second, John Roseboro nearly crab-walked to the ball and threw from his knees — past Hodges into right field. As Jabo ran to third, Furillo threw home — past Roseboro to the backstop. As Jabo ran home, Podres retrieved the ball and threw back to Roseboro. Not even close. Nine hours after the first pitch of the day., the Dodgers are swept.

Charlie shut off the television, exhausted even though he hadn’t left the house.

Heidi looked at him and said, “I’m sorry, Charlie. I was hoping that would go better for you.”

Charlie stood up and stretched. “Four losses in three days,” he said. “What a weekend.”

Heidi remained on the couch, a pensive expression on her face. Charlie brought his arms to his sides. “What?” he asked.

Heidi looked up. She said, “I have some news. It’s not bad news, really. I think it’s good news for us, actually. But it’s going to require an adjustment.”

Charlie looked wary. “What is it?” he asked.