The Second Season

CHAPTER ONE
Laying the Ground Rules

Im not sure that God always knows who are his great men: he
is so very careless of what happens to them while they live.
Mary Hunter Austin

He lost his virginity at the age of twenty-one in Chicago. At least, thats what I could gather from what Sonny Wilson told me during his last years. While I initially thought that affair might have been the beginning of his troubles, I later realized that it was merely another symptom of his otherwise troubled journey through life. Up to that point in his voyage, Sonny had lived anything but an innocent life.
I spent four years during the mid 60s in Viet Nam as a war correspondent attached to the Marines M Company, traipsing through rice paddies in places such as the Bo Ban area of the Hieu Duc district. I did a little photographic work there as well. It was quite a learning experience, but awful nevertheless. However, as terrible as those events were, I dont think they were as personally damaging to me as when I lost the close friendship I had with Sonny. And I lost it twice. The casualties in Southeast Asia werent people I ever knew or got to know. They were just a collection of nameless individuals I happened to cross paths with, sometimes literally. Collateral damage, I think they were referred to by those in charge.
Sonny was another matter altogether. I knew him, grew up with him. So I found myself in this predicament; do I betray a friendship by telling his story, or do I use this forum in an attempt to clear the air.
Sonny and I were the best of friends, like the brothers we each never had. Actually I did have a brother, but he was much older and left home just before I entered high school, but thats another story.
Sonny stayed with our family for a while because of problems at home. True friends stick together no matter what, they say, and that rule applied to no one more than Sonny and me. We played ball together, laughed together; we were simply cut from the same cloth. At least I thought so at the time.
Sonnys gone now, and despite a legendary season in Major League Baseball, the memory of his accomplishments in the sports world has all but faded. The prison where he spent the last six years of his life has been mothballed as well.
It was five years into his sentence before I was finally able to get him to open up about what had happened. Perhaps he wanted to unload his spirit. His health wasnt that good, and while Sonny never was completely forthcoming with many of the whys and wherefores, Im guessing there are details in everyones lives that they will take to their graves. Perhaps the loss was due to the fact that he never completely healed from his injury, but where Sonnys memory failed him, I was able to fill in many of the factual details.
I dont know how else to explain what became of him other than to say that the writer in me would attempt to describe it thusly: in each persons life, the living winds move through our souls, and push us in one direction, then back in another. Life does this to strengthen us, just as the winds of nature do to the tree. While causing mild damage to the plant, this natural event also brings about a more robust root system and a tougher outer rind so that the tree might withstand the harsh punishment that nature brings as the days pass by.
In Sonny Wilsons life, the evil winds grew too strong, too early, and snapped this poor saplings soul at the base leaving it to grow at an uneven and somewhat ugly angle. Spiritualist Ram Dass could have described Sonnys situation best when he stated, Something dies when you bear the unbearable.
I never had any problem with him, but a number of people said that Sonny, in their words, never was quite right. Some said that it was because his father, Bill Wilson, was a heavy drinker before and after Sonnys conception. I suppose, even back then, they were thinking of some form of what we now call fetal alcohol syndrome. Others theorized that it was Sonnys difficult delivery as he made his way into the world. I personally feel that it was a case of the nut not falling far from the tree.
You have to remember, it was a far different time back in the mid fifties. The interstate highway system was in its infancy, segregation was still in place, and President Kennedy had yet to be assassinated.
Statesman Benjamin Franklin once observed, The things which hurt, instruct. Obviously Mr. Franklin never met Sonny Wilsons father. He was a tough old man.
William Wilson, Sr., was from an earlier era, and given the time and place where we grew up, Seniors idea of becoming a man wasnt much different from many other mens notion of that rite of passage. Drinking, wars, and fist fighting seemed to fall into Bill Wilsons mix of becoming a forthright male.
I never liked Sonnys dad, to be honest. Not many people did, least amongst them his son. I noted the first indication of trouble in Sonnys home life when he entered his teenage years. Senior felt that Sonny had been coddled by his mother, Gladys, long enough, and now it was time for Sonny to grow up and become a man. As in many dysfunctional homes, Sonny had been able to cover for his abusive father for some time, but things have a way of catching up with a person.
I remember an incident Sonny mentioned when we were in our freshman year of high school or thereabouts. It was four A.M on a cold October morning when his father hobbled into his bedroom.
Come on, get up. You were supposed to wake me, remember? We have to get going if we want to get over to the Ellis farm and bag your first squirrel.
Im up, Im up, Sonny grumbled. Why do we have to get there so early? Them squirrels aint going nowhere.
Youre fifteen years old and havent even killed a damn squirrel yet. Hell, I shot my first deer when I was twelve.
I know I know, Ive heard that story about a million times, Sonny said as he righted himself on the edge of the bed. It was a twelve-pointer---right through the heart. Why do we have to do this anyway? You know that I dont give a damn about hunting.
Watch your mouth, boy, Bill said in a hushed voice. What the hell do you want to do today, stay home with your little friends and play all day? Its about time you grew up and became a man.
Oh, and I do that by blowing away a little squirrel?
Bill stood and looked at his son with ire in his eyes and replied tersely, Just get your clothes on and meet me downstairs. Dumb ass.
Sonny, still in a sleepy funk, pulled his pants from the back of the chair and stabbed one leg at the opening, missing the first time, then succeeding the second. He belted them over his pajama bottoms and grabbed a flannel shirt from the arm of the chair. Taking the shirt with him, he made his way down the stairs and met his father, who was tying his hunting boots at the bottom of the stairs. Sonny stepped around him and went into the kitchen.
You aint got time for no brains and eggs for breakfast, although God knows you could use both.
Sonny grabbed a loaf of bread from the box. After rummaging around in the refrigerator, he retrieved a stick of butter from the Crosley and made a butter sandwich.
Take that with you. Grab the ammo, and youd better wear your heavy jacket. Theres frost out there this morning, he said after glancing out of the kitchen window.
Sonny went into the living room and took his tattered winter coat from the hook. He put the sandwich in his mouth while pulling his coat over his untucked flannel shirt. When he neared the kitchen door, he picked up the Army surplus cartridge box from the counter.
Sonny met his dad out at the car. The .22 rifles were already in the backseat, and Bill was trying to start the vehicle. The starter wouldnt catch, resulting in a loud humming noise each time he turned the key.
Dammit! Mr. Wilson shouted after each turn of the key. Sonny just stood next to the car, watching his frozen breath as it fogged his view of the Ohio River. The smell of gasoline drifted upward as Bill continued to try to start the twenty-year-old Auburn.
Bill got out of the car and cursed under his breath. I think Ive got the damn thing flooded now. He popped the hood and unscrewed the air filter.
Here, be useful, for once in your life. Hold this rag over the carburetor. Keep it there until it catches.
Bill got back in the car and continued trying to start the car. After the fourth malfunction, the starter caught hold and began to crank the engine. The starter continued its revolutions until the engine fired up. Sonny jumped back. Mr. Wilson, even at that early hour, punched the accelerator to the floor, causing the car to emit a huge cloud of smoke and an even louder roar.
Sonny stepped back to the engine compartment, reattached the air cleaner, then slammed the cars hood. He threw the cartridge boxes into the back with the rifles, then crawled in on the passenger side.
Damn piece of junk. Im going to have to take it down to Likins Service Station Tuesday to have Jimmy see what he can do with it. Auction days Monday so itll have to last until then. I cant keep monkeying with this damn thing to get to work every day. Youll have to do without lunch next week if it turns out to be anything extensive. Jimmys good but expensive.
Yes, sir, Sonny answered.
The Wilsons were of meager means and generally lived from hand to mouth. Bill Wilson worked at the Maysville Stock Yards in town as a livestock handler, but was limited in his activity because of a bullet wound to the hip he received during WWI. He had to swing and drag his right leg when walking.
Gladys Wilson, Sonnys mother, was a housewife and frequently ill. It was suspected that her chronic tiredness was due to heart problems, but the family never had the money to have her hospitalized to find the true cause.
Bill put the car into gear and drove slowly down East Sixth Street, trying to avoid the icy patches that had formed over night. East Sixth Street was one of the highest points in Maysville, Kentucky, and the only way to town was down. They didnt want to hurry the process any more than necessary.
Because of the extent of his war injury, during his younger years with the ladies, Bill had fallen from favorable status as a prize catch. He met and married Gladys Baker, ten years his junior, in 1936 when he was thirty-eight years old. Due to their imperfections, they were a matched but sympathetic couple. During their nuptials a year after their first meeting, Bill had to drag himself down the aisle of the Trinity Methodist Church to the