The Complete Collection. William Wharton

against the walls with those tremendous leaps you can do. We’d need one of your greatest bird imitations. You finish off by leaping up and perching on the edge of the toilet.’

      Weiss is stunned. He’s standing there, leaning forward till he’s almost falling over. His hands are hanging at his side, pen in one hand, clipboard in the other. I give him a shove with the ball box to get him all the way into the room. Renaldi locks the door.

      I walk past Weiss toward Birdy. Birdy hops off the toilet and over to me. He starts giving me the feed-me signal. I put the box beside him.

      ‘Here, Birdy. These are the baseballs your mother took from all the baseball players. You don’t have to worry about them anymore.’

      I back off to where Weiss and Renaldi are standing. I know if I look at either one, I’ll break up.

      Birdy hops around the box. He keeps his hands at his sides like wings and sticks his head into the box. He starts moving the balls around with his nose. He starts sniffing as if he’s a dog. Then he makes the big move. He spreads his legs over the box and lowers his butt on top of them, just the way a hen would lower herself onto a nest. He settles himself in and a slow smile spreads over his face.

      Weiss is a little recovered, his forehead is sweating and he’s scribbling away. Birdy sits there. Then, he lifts himself slightly off the nest. He looks down. His legs are straddling the box, more the way a male hovers over a nest than the way a female sits. Birdy reaches into the box with one of his hands and pulls out a baseball. It’s one of the better ones with the stitching still intact and almost white.

      He holds this ball up against the light. He peers into the light, through the ball. After somewhere between five seconds and five minutes, he stands up straight, still straddling the box of balls. ‘Sterile!’ he yells.

      ‘And then, Birdy, you throw the ball straight at Weiss’s head!’

      It’s a perfect bean ball! His glasses go flying! He turns and looks at me bare-eyed. ‘My God, Sergeant, the patient’s turned violent! Let’s get out of here. Where are my glasses?!’

      I pick up his glasses and hand them to him. The lenses are OK but the frame is bent out of line so they sit cockeyed on his face. He’s trying to get them on right when we hear the yell again.

      ‘Sterile!’

      Weiss is bopped again right on the forehead. He goes down backwards like he’s been pole-axed. His glasses are hanging by one ear. He gets on his knees with his back to Birdy and looks at Renaldi. ‘Open the door and get me out of here!’

      Weiss’s struggling to his feet when Renaldi picks up one of the balls and throws it toward the toilet.

      ‘Pick-off play at first!’

      There’s another yell.

      ‘Sterile!’

      Weiss is hit on the right cheek of his ass this time. The ball bounces toward me. I throw it up at the window, the one Birdy’s been staring out of all these days.

      ‘Foul ball, strike two!’

      Weiss looks over at me. He’s still on his knees and trying to hook his glasses over his ears. Birdy has another ball out of the box. He doesn’t look at it this time. He just throws it.

      ‘Sterile!’

      At the word, Weiss gives up on the glasses and huddles close to the floor with his hands over his head. A fat man down on the floor like that would bring out the worst in anybody. I know how lions must feel when they’ve brought down a water buffalo or some other big, dangerous animal. Birdy misses with this one but gets another one off right away. Before Weiss can move, it nips him on the back. The ball rebounds and Renaldi catches it on the fly.

      ‘Pick-off play at second!’

      He throws the ball past Birdy’s head to the far corner. Balls are bouncing all over the room now. Weiss keeps down, hunched, trying to get his glasses hooked back onto his face. He’s yelling. He wants Renaldi to open the door; he wants me to get the keys from Renaldi. We’re ignoring him. He’s threatening me with a court-martial; he should know better than that. He’s yelling for somebody to come save him. Nobody can hear much of anything through the two doors. They’re designed that way.

      We’re having a great time throwing the balls. Sometimes we throw them to each other, sometimes up at the ceiling trying to break the light bulb, or sometimes at Weiss when he looks as if he might be trying to get up. Every time we throw a ball, we yell out something basebally.

      ‘Cut him off at home!’

      ‘Squeeze play! Run him down!’

      ‘Double him off at third!’

      ‘Watch out for the steal!’

      ‘Sacrifice!!!’

      ‘Texas leaguer!’

      ‘Cut down the lead-off man!’

      We’re throwing balls every which way. We’re running around the room now. The balls are bouncing off the padded walls. We’re completely out of hand. I keep trying to throw one through that high window. We’re all getting hit by baseballs now. It’s like a free-for-all snowball fight. I’m almost wishing Weiss would get up off the floor and join in.

      We start running around the bases. We’re throwing balls and catching them or picking them up as we run. We keep up our wild yelling. The toilet is first base, the back corner is second, Birdy’s sleeping mat is third, and Weiss is home. We’re running round and round. We’re tagging Weiss with our foot each time.

      Then the playing starts turning into a game. Each of us stops to throw when we’re at home plate, that is, Weiss. We’re all throwing up at that window now. The window has bars on it and must be fifteen feet high. The bars are set so there’s enough space for a ball to get through if it hits right. Three or four times we hit the bars and Renaldi yells, ‘Ground rule double!’

      We get going faster. I’m running out of breath and I’m afraid one of those balls is going to hit me on the jaw. I can see myself trying to explain to the doctor at Dix how I hurt it playing baseball in a padded cell.

      ‘Then, suddenly, you stop at home plate, Birdy. You put up both hands like an umpire calling time out and you walk forward a step. I almost expect you to take out a little whisk broom and brush off old Weiss.’

      Birdy says, ‘Pinch hitter!’

      ‘Two men on base!’

      ‘Two outs!’

      ‘We’re behind by two!’

      ‘Last of the ninth!’

      ‘Batter up!’

      We stop on the bases to watch. Birdy has three balls. The first misses the window to the right. The second is a little low. The third goes through the bars, there’s the sound of broken glass and the glass falls down the wall. Renaldi’s at third, standing on Birdy’s bed. I’m straddling the toilet at first. Renaldi yells. ‘It’s a home run, a case of Wheaties! Clear the bases!’

      He runs toward Weiss who’s stuck his head up at the sudden quiet and the sound of broken glass. Renaldi races home. He tags up, then goes over to the door and opens it. I’m rounding second. Weiss’s ducked his head back down as I come on home. Renaldi gets over in time to shake my hand. Birdy’s just behind me and we both shake his hand and pat him on the back as he goes by us. Weiss is pushing himself up and Birdy hurdles clear over him. The height he jumps, he could’ve gone over Weiss if he’d been standing full up.

      ‘Then, Birdy, we run out the door and lock Weiss in there.’

      Birdy’s been listening and laughing through the whole story. He even puts in some parts the way it always happens with us. We keep interrupting and correcting each other to make it better and then agreeing that’s the way it really is. I stop and Birdy stares at me. We’re winding down.

      ‘Honest,