The place was packed, the moon was full, and the grass looked like it had …I really did forget her. Scout’s honor. Like I’ve said too often, in my
been sent FedEx special from Emerald City by the Wizard himself. Every vendor
was a Pavarotti, and each time ash smacked cowhide it sounded like Bogie putting
a slug into a slimeball. You know that line – ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst
of times...’? Well, lose the last part and you get the picture. And to boot – the ump
had a strike zone wide enough to park my old Pontiac in, and our boys scored
more times than a good-looking janitor at Mt.Holyoke. Billy and I wolfed down
so many pups with the works that if it had gone into extra innings the head of
concessions might have had to put in a call to the Kaiser for more sauerkraut.
In between innings I had plenty of time to sit back and ask myself just
what the hell did I think I was doing? I’d had a lot of those little chats. They’re
always the same. The grass could grow high as the Green Monster and those
tete-a-tetes wouldn’t change. They usually started with me saying something like –
“In the long run, what exactly do you think this is gonna get us besides
another hole in our soul and a memory or two we end up stashing away in that
drawer in our head marked 'DO NOT OPEN'"?
- and then myself usually cracks back wise with something like -
"Yeah? Well if we're so smart, then what're we doing here?"
- and then I come back with something really clever, like -
“That’s the whole point, chump. We’re not smart. We’re an idiot!”
And, of course, both of me is right. Some guys are allergic to cats, some
guys are tone-deaf, some are color-blind. Just born that way. When it comes to
me and dolls – I might as well keep a bottle of stupid pills in my pocket and pop
a few any time I get within two weeks of a dame, cause they might actually make
me smarter.
So, sure… I could’ve held a personal Q & A during stretch time in the
seventh, but so far I’d been a good boy – I hadn’t put a paw on her except to
wipe some mustard off her terrific chin – so I didn’t. I figured I’d wait until I made
a complete fool of myself, so I’d have more stuff for a heart-to-heart later on –
when it was me and Jack instead of me and her.
Billy hardly said a word all game. The spectacle had paralyzed those perfect
lips. She wasn’t getting rich from counter tips at the diner, so until that night it had
always been the cheap seats for her. She’d never seen a ballgame from a perch like
that, and spent the whole game leaning forward, those lovely arms resting on the
railing, fingers laced together, chin resting on them. Every once in a while she’d
turn and stare at me for a few secs, but I couldn’t read the story in those Black
Lagoon eyes. Not that I’ve ever been a whiz at knowing what a doll is thinking. If I
had a grain of sand for every time I’ve guessed wrong I’d be catching some rays on
my own private beach right now.
Watching her, you’d never have known the game was over when it was.
After the faithful had gone, and the hawkers had taken off their aprons, and the
slightest sound sent echoes tiptoeing around the place, she sat as she had, drinking
in the air, nursing it like a barfly with empty pockets and one sip left in the glass. I
didn’t mind. It gave me more time to stare at her. If she knew I had my eyes all over
her, it didn’t seem to bother her. Maybe she liked it. Or maybe she was being
generous. But it didn’t matter. Either way, you couldn’t have found a Swiss rat with
a chunk of cheese happier than I was.
Finally, she raised her head and brought those eyes around at me like twin
barrels of a shotgun. Her voice was so smooth she made Nina Simone sound like
Tom Waits with the flu.
“So… Do you like cartoons?” she said.
“Why?”
“Because right about now Mom is home on the couch with a couple of
Narragansetts watching Cartoon Network, and unless you like Deputy Dawg and
loud burps we should probably go to your place.”
I secretly slid a finger to my wrist and checked for a pulse, and when I was
pretty sure I hadn’t died and gone to heaven, I nodded.
“Okay,” I said.
My ‘place’ then is still my place now – three rooms small enough to vacuum
while microwaving a Stauffer’s pizza but big enough to take the edge off the
claustrophobia when the walls start closing in on you. The sink’s always empty, and
in those days I used to change my sheets every three days – the bachelor’s version
of Mom telling her kid to always wear clean underwear in case you got hit by a car.
Back then, I used to get in a lot of accidents, if you know what I mean. If you’d taken
the tour you’d have seen the framed, mint Procol Harum poster from the Filmore,
the autographed copy of The Boys Of Summer (‘To Jock, who just plain gets it.
Roger’), and the Fred Lynn and Jim Rice ’75 rookie cards kept in those Lucite
blocks. There was always a bowl of SnoCaps on the coffee table – I used to eat
them with a shovel before my cholesterol decided it hated my guts – and a pack of
Bicycles for post-midnight solitaire. I still buy a fresh deck every week. The games
go longer as I get older.
Walking home Billy slid her arm inside mine, as easy and cool as Henderson
stealing second, and at that moment all over the world there were a million people
doing somebody wrong – dames cheating, guys lying, kids crying, dogs getting
kicked – and I just didn’t care. My sister could’ve called to tell me her ex-con
boyfriend was beating her to a pulp with a tire iron and I would’ve said “Thanks.
I’ll get back to you, Betty.” I was so far past dumb a turkey could have beaten me
on Jeopardy. For instance:
1) Billy told me to watch out and not step on the cracks in the sidewalk –
and I did.
2) She pointed at a manikin in a store window decked out in a gown louder
than Ethel Merman and said she liked it – and I said so did I.
3) She said she thought Prince was sexy – and I smiled.
I was pathetic. I felt fantastic.
Now any private D worth his Morton’s always thinks a step or two ahead.
That’s 1-0-1 stuff, and I’m a stickler for detail from a mile before ‘go.’ Hell, I think
about how I’m going to spit before I get up to brush my teeth. But there I was, flying
down the street by the seat of my Wranglers, a ‘DO NOT DISTURB’ sign hanging on
my brain. You know that line – ‘I’ve got you under my skin’? Call me Mr. Gangrene.
Then, once we got inside my apartment, there were more clear signs that aliens had
stolen my brain and replaced it with about two and half pounds of soggy Maypo.
For instance:
1) She sat down on the couch – and I sat down in the chair.
2) I didn’t offer her a drink – until she asked for one.
3) She told me her life story – and I listened.
There was a dead father who liked rotgut and hitting females with his fists, a
pet parakeet named Nomar who used to sit on the edge of the plate and share her
scrambled eggs every morning, a scumbag high school boyfriend who told everybody
she liked to do it all night because she wouldn’t at all, a passion for carnivals and a
prized collection of stuffed animals that she won at the shooting galleries, third place
in an upstate beauty pageant because she told two of the judges the same thing she
told her ex-boyfriend…
We popped SnoCaps and she talked and I caught every silky word. I hadn’t
listened to somebody talk that long since Eddie the Lip held a Beretta on me inside
the warehouse on White Street while the cops hung around outside taking bets on
how many times he’d shoot me before they could get to him and yelled “You don’t
have a chance, Eddie!” and other brilliant quips through a megaphone in between
their Dunkin' Donuts breaks. Finally, she yawned.
“One of these days I’ve gotta learn how to drink,” she said. “It always
makes me sleepy.” She patted the couch. “Come over here and tell me who you
are.”
I did as I was told. She nudged up nice and snug against me and put her
head on my shoulder.
“So… What’s the worst thing you ever did?” she asked.
“The worst, huh? That depends.”
“On what?”
“Is shooting someone in the head a bad thing?”
“You shot somebody in the head?”
“Well… Technically, no. I was trying to – but I only got his ear. Took it
right off.”
“C’mon,” she said. “I mean really bad.”
“I broke somebody’s heart once.”
“Did you mean to?”
“Sure did – but only cuz she broke mine first.”
“Then that doesn’t count either. Fair’s fair.”
She yawned again, a big jaw-stretching, tired little kitten yawn, then
brought her legs up and stretched out with her head on my lap.
“Mmmm,” she purred. “You make a nice pillow.”
“Yeah, that’s me. I’m in the Pillow Hall Of Fame.”
I almost chuckled, because it just so happened that at that particular
moment, in that particular physical configuration, my Maypo brain was working
overtime to keep myself soft, if you get my meaning.
“Jock…?”
I think it was the first time she’d said my name. It sounded like ‘Darling’
to me.
“What?” I said.
“How many women have you slept with?”
“Jesus, Billy…”
“C’mon. Tell me.”
“Enough to know what women like – but not enough to know what they
want.”
“So how many more times you think it’ll take before you figure that out?”
“I think it’ll fall off before I get there.”
A fuzzy laugh slipped out of her like a sleepy baby when its toes are tickled.
I could hear her breathing, a velvet hiss coming out of her wonderful nose every
three seconds or so. It was a Saturday night in the big city and the windows were
wide open, but I couldn’t hear anything else. It seems God was nice enough to
have turned the noise off everywhere, just for me.
“Did you…ever ask them?” she said.
“Did I ever ask who what?”
“Did you ever…ask a woman…what she wanted?”
Not in a very long time I hadn’t. It’d been years since I’d even asked
myself what I really wanted. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t necessarily believe
ignorance is bliss, but it sure as hell beats feeling like a damn fool. So I sat there,
quiet as a Carthusian monk at Vespers, certain she was waiting for the question
and just as sure she had an answer ready for me. She might’ve looked twenty-
something, she might’ve still had dreams that didn’t have a ‘No Exit/Road Closed’
sign at the end, maybe she even believed ‘saving herself’ for Mr. Right still made
some kind of sense in a world where nobody was ever wrong anymore and people
paid five bucks for a bottle of water with a dumb name. Maybe all of that was true
and she was just a kid – but as sure as I knew a curveball actually does break I knew
that if I asked her the question her answer would be so wise and straight-up and
day-long honest that I might have to ask her to get up off my lap so I could get down
on my knees and beg her to be forever mine.
“Okay then…” I said, “what do you want?”
She didn’t say anything. So maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe she didn’t have
an answer. Maybe she didn’t even want the question or anything else from me. As
dead-on an impression of an idiot as I can sometimes do, I'm sharp enough to
know you're going to get it wrong more than right. I've seen the best guess low and
inside and look at a slider on the outside corner. I've barged in on a bruiser and
ducked for a roundhouse I'd laid even odds was coming...and taken a knee in my
crown jewels. I bet a couple of C-notes that Dubbya would lose - twice. Hell,
Cooperstown is crawling with guys who hit three-hundred, and they took the pipe
seven out of ten times. So I sat there on my sofa with her incredible cheek nestled
against my bat, not caring a sou if all the cows in Kansas came home and fell asleep
in the barn before she said moo.
She was fast asleep – and it didn’t take long for me to follow her there.
Next morning the phone woke me at about seven. I sat up to find Billy
gone, and when I answered the phone I found her again - on the other end of
the line.
“I wanted you to hear my voice before anyone else’s,” she said. “I wanted
you to know that last night was perfect. You’re one sweet guy, Jock – and I had
a wonderful time.”
She hung up without a goodbye. That and the phrase 'sweet guy' made the
back of my neck tighten up like a noose’s knot, so I looked around and discovered
she had more than a wonderful time. She also had my Rolex, the mint Filmore poster,
and Fred and Jim in their little plastic condos. All told, ballpark on the street back
then - about eight G’s. Today – who the hell cares? If it’s a shock to anyone to hear
that she never came back, then somebody hasn’t been paying attention. And if you
think I let myself miss her for a single second longer than one, endless, miserable,
Jack-soaked, goddamn day and night, then I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.
business sometimes it helps to have a hole in your head where the memories drop
out of. I don’t know where she lived and I never went looking. I don’t know if
Wilhelmina Mamboquette was her real name and I never tried to find out. I don’t
know if she quit her job at the diner because I never walked in there again – not
for her or payback or a BLT on rye. I don’t know if she had a gassy souse for a
mother or if any other single sentence she spoke besides "I love baseball" was true.
And I don’t know if she took one look at me when she lowered the sports section
and said to herself “Here’s my new ATM card for the night” – or if there was a little
of this or that about me that made her think an evening together of hardball and suds
and pups with the works might be interesting and then woke up on my couch in the
morning possessed by the spirit of an evil kleptomaniac. But lying in bed a dozen
years and a thousand shot-glasses later, I did know one thing: I had another softball
game in two nights, and she’d be there. It was a sure thing – as sure as Ted Williams’
coffin is short a head. There wasn't a tout alive who wouldn’t put his last fin down
on it.
Like the baker said after he added the yeast: Batter up!