Striking the Balance

“Good weather for a game,” Ristin said, doing his best to tempt Sam. A lot of soldiers played ball when they were off duty, but Ristin and Ullhass were the only Lizards who joined in. With Yeager’s endless years of bush-league experience, everybody was glad to see him out there, and people had put up with his Lizard pals for his sake. Now Ullhass and Ristin were starting to get noticed for the way they played, not for their scaly hides.

“Maybe later,” Sam repeated. “Now I want to see my wife and son. If you don’t mind too much.” The Lizards sighed in resignation. They knew families mattered to Tosevites, but it didn’t feel real to them, any more than Yeager understood in his gut how much their precious Emperor meant to them. He headed for the stairs. Ristin and Ullhass started practicing phantom double plays. Ristin, who mostly played second, had a hell of a fast pivot.

Up on the fourth floor, Jonathan was telling the world in no uncertain terms that he didn’t care for something or other it had done to him. Listening to him yowl, Sam was glad the Lizards who lived up there weren’t around to hear the racket. It sometimes drove him a little squirrely, and he was a human being.

The crying stopped, very suddenly. Sam knew what that meant: Barbara had given the baby her breast. Sam smiled as he opened the door to their room. He was fond of his wife’s breasts, too, and figured the kid took after his old man.

Barbara looked up from the chair in which she was nursing Jonathan. She didn’t seem as badly beat up as she had just after he was born, but she wasn’t what you’d call perky, either. “Hello, honey,” she said. “Shut the door quietly, would you? He may fall asleep. He’s certainly been fussing as if he was tired.”

Sam noted the precise grammar there, as he often did when his wife talked. He sometimes envied her fancy education; he’d left high school to play ball, though an insatiable curiosity had kept him reading this and finding out little fragmented pieces of that ever since. Barbara never complained about his lack of formal schooling, but it bothered him anyhow.

Sure enough, Jonathan did go to sleep. The kid was growing; he took up more room in the cradle now than he had when he was first born. As soon as Sam saw he would stay down after Barbara put him in there, he touched her on the arm and said, “I got a present for you, hon. Well, really it’s a present for both of us, but you can go first with it. I’ve been saving it all morning long, so I figure I can last a little longer.”

The buildup intrigued her. “Whatdo you have?” she breathed.

“It’s not anything fancy,” he warned. “Not a diamond, not a convertible.” They both laughed, not quite comfortably. It would be a long time. If ever, before you could start thinking about driving a convertible. He dug in his pocket and pulled out a new corncob pipe and a leather pouch of tobacco, then handed them to her with a flourish. “Here you go.”

She stared as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. “Where did you get them?”

“This colored guy came around early this morning, selling ’em,” Sam answered. “He’s from up in the northern part of the state, where they grow some tobacco. Cost me fifty bucks, but what the heck? I don’t have a whole lot of things to spend money on, so why not?”

“It’s all right with me. It’s better than all right with me, as a matter of fact.” Barbara stuck the empty pipe in her mouth. “I never smoked one of these before. I probably look like a Southern granny.”

“Babe, you always look good to me,” Yeager said. Barbara’s expression softened. Keeping your wife happy was definitely worth doing-especially when you meant every word you said. He tapped at the tobacco pouch with his index finger. “You want me to load the pipe for you?”

“Would you, please?” she said, so he did. He had a Zippo, fueled now not by lighter fluid but by moonshine. He had no idea how he’d keep it going when he ran out of flints, but that hadn’t happened yet. He flicked the wheel with his thumb. A pale, almost invisible alcohol flame sprang into being. He held it over the bowl of the pipe.

Barbara’s cheeks hollowed as she inhaled. “Careful,” Sam warned. “Pipe tobacco’s a lot stronger than what you get in cigarettes, and-” Her eyes crossed. She coughed like somebody in the last throes of consumption. “-you haven’t smoked much of anything lately,” he finished unnecessarily.

“No kidding.” Her voice was a raspy wheeze. “Remember that bit inTom Sawyer? ‘First Pipes-“I’ve Lost My Knife,” ’ something like that. I know just how Tom felt. That stuff isstrong.”