THE
BALLAD OF
the
gospel of no forgiveness
Forgiveness
begins somewhere, maybe when
the sun
that pierces Sing Sing trims its heat
on the
Umbrellaed avenues of Our
Country
'tis of thee--great land of freedom.
Beginning
at one shore, forgiveness slides
like
the sun that offers no restraint.
But
fate works overtime under the skin
and
some of us never feel that star stir
the
first shadows of morning, the last flick
of dusk
and its hard curtain, the cosmic
curtain
of no forgiveness is all.
. . . .
. . . .
Edwin
Pitts, come from
then
robbery, Sing Sing--no more than a farm
boy,
found sports could scratch his itch
to
catch the light beyond the bars, outside
the
nation sprang from windows, then chopped roads
through
woods over mountains, working from camps
like
some kind of new soldiers, though fresh war
beckoned
from the future, today was bread
and
milk, the simple joy of sugar
or
Sunday chicken--the importance that
poverty
makes of food--
The
pride of Sing Sing, of open field runs
and
running catches, of track star glory,
parole,
and a horsehide contract promised
by
Evers, yes, second base Chicago Cub
Evers
who fought like he fought in his day
of play
for Pitts and his
International
League rehabilitation.
But a
cloud swept across the sky, as Judge
Branham
who ruled the circuit of the minors
pledged
his denial to the convict; then
papers
conscripted this "hero," hatched their spins--
and a
nation, starved for diversion
chose
quick sides, buzzed and rang with headstrong
versions
and reasons--Pitts now, not Pitts ball-
player,
but Pitts, cause celebre,
Pitts,
poster-boy for society's hopes,
Sing
Sing prison's greatest athlete felt
like a
knight unarmored--yet enamored.
That
coast to coast cry rang for justice,
for a
second chance that
back to
the full boat of its pilgrim roots--
and the
pages dripped with give-the-boy
a-chance
ink, when sports writers wrought art from
the
occasion of their stories, broad-stroked
descriptions
and heart string arguments made--
while
Negroes played on in cold shadows, the
papers
raised Pitts to their shoulders.
Football
teams made gridiron proposals,
Dizzy
Dean wrote, Pepper Martin sent word--
Warden Lawes
of Sing Sing worked endlessly
till
finally the mountain moved, Judge Landis
of
major league commission, overruled,
canceling
the lesser Branham, president
of mere
minor leagues, and Pitts, ball player-
pawn
regained a spot at
"Restrictions."
Irony
it seemed would rule the bright day
when
Pitts, who five years 'fore held a gun
in a
grocery store, now held the eyes
of
seven thousand happy fans and moved them
when he
moved, but the waters of
were
deep, and the hero faltered in the
field
and at the plate--over his head, the
newsmen
said. Football and another year
were
the same, no Sing Sing success outside
the
walls, his, the fate of almost greatness.
The
money running low, attention spent,
Pitts,
the ex-con became Pitts the outlaw,
a star
player in the Carolina League,
he tore
it up for
became
a regular guy as well
working
as a textile knitter, marrying,
starting
a family while the games played on,
the
money not bad, he settled in
Valdese,
the Waldensian haven in tough
When
the league went under, Pitts scrambled
to
play, a shot here, a shot there,
never
the glare of that spotlight again
till
fate found him at a Valdese tavern
in '41,
tapping the shoulder of a dancer
to cut in,
a certain Lefevres who
took
offense and a blade to Pitts,
the
artery in his strong shoulder
spewing
life out at thirty-one,
Sing
Sing's greatest athlete gone.
who played without underwear
and slid hard on packed
Piedmont dirt,
soaked strawberries with
toilet paper
and spoiled the home team’s
rally
with a running catch;
who preferred Ed over his
celebrity convict nickname
but answered to anything
and took it from the wolves
like the Negroes would in ten
years;
who tried it in the northeast
but
landed in the south when he
couldn’t hit the curve,
couldn’t throw from the
fence,
couldn’t be the next Speaker;
who couldn’t shake his
mother,
even when he settled in
Valdese,
married, coached the high
school;
she was always lurking,
scaring
his wife, his baby daughter;
who liked to party, liked the
women;
nice, they said, though dark
and brooding
when the big time never
happened,
and outlaws and mill ball
were
the Depression’s solution.
who fought with management
and fought with destiny,
lived in the fish bowl
and worked in the hosiery
mill--
and still ball playered the
evenings.
Who robbed and was stabbed,
was put away in Sing-Sing
and put his mother away in
Broughton,
who drew the great crowds
and drove them away.
In Another Country
The “paupers cemetery” at
I’m looking for a depression-era
ball player’s mother’s grave.
Most of them are unmarked or marked
by weather-worn granite posts,
washed clean of names or numbers.
Some graves are fixed with metal plaques,
a project that stops in the 20’s—
occasionally there’s a regular stone;
one declares its occupant was
a “fine artist and musician.”
I move slowly over thick trimmed grass,
looking for the right camera angle
through unbearable August heat
and thoughts of Erma Pitts Rudd
who stepped through Sing-Sing’s iron gate
with her celebrity convict son
into a New York Times flash so that
the world knew he was her boy
then somehow ended up here
with the demon-haunted and broken,
the utterly forgotten, where shadows
mark a little more earth each day.
What did you learn in Sing Sing?
the open field run, the stiff arm,
how to break the 220 down—
your dark little mother came up
from
iron door with her famous son,
the world for one moment
at your feet, a young TIMES stringer
flashing the image with caught breath
forward nearly seventy glossy years.
Where did you think you were going?
the next Sisler, the next Wagner,
the second coming of the peach—
smoke, all, when the curves began
to drop in
was coffin tight with best players
every boy wanted to be somehow,
and Dizzy and Paul were re-talking
the language in
resolve in your face, or the hardness
of steel bars in gray eyes six years
up the river of missed women and
running catches that stopped
at concertina wire, contracts and
crowds always waiting just
beyond the robbery sentence,
and mother come to get her boy
in her best dress wearing a hat
she could hardly afford.
what did you learn in Sing Sing?
REBELS 10
Alabama Pitts had lost his shine
By 1940 when he signed with Hickory,
And though he batted well
The wolves were never quelled.
He said little, never caroused
With teammates after the games
And he kept a room twenty miles
From his wife and child.
Everybody knew he’d not make it
But women love a bad man
And saw their chance and took it.
When the team released him in August,
He was just a mill hand
Playing mill ball
One step closer to the stabbing
That always awaited.
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