Bottom of the Ninth

Standing on the mound, I wipe the sweat from my brow and wonder how in the hell am I going to get through this. This is my first game in the majors and it couldn’t be going any worse. The stadium echoes the restlessness of the fans and I can’t but think that my heart is going to explode if it gets any louder. With every player and fan’s eyes transfixed on the heap of red clay I occupy, I can’t help but feel seemingly alone, desperate for anything or anyone to come help me. Deep breath; calm down, focus. All that stands between my shaking legs and glory is sixty feet six inches. One more strike and I can walk off this field victorious. One more strike. The catcher calls my bread and butter pitch, inside fastball. I try to remember the tens of thousands of times I had toed the rubber, stared at the batter with ice water running through my veins, and blown him away. This is your destiny, you’re a warrior; you’re a winner. Ninety percent of winning is believing that no matter what happens after you release the ball, you will come out on top. The other ten percent is forgetting that there’s a possibility of fucking up, that in a matter of seconds you could be walking off the field feeling so small that Simon Birch would have to kneel down to look at you. I look at the batter and start rehearsing apologies to my teammates. Where did everything go wrong? At what point did I accept the fact that I wasn’t invincible? My heart skips a beat, knowing the answer to that question is resting under six feet of earth in a cherry oak coffin. As chills run down my spine, I step on the rubber and close my eyes, letting the familiarity of gripping the laces take over. With one last effort I windup and release the pitch, sending a baseball towards home plate with all of my hopes and dreams left hanging in the wake…

- - - - - -

Growing up we all had heroes, some of us idolized rock stars or our favorite athletes. I was one of the millions that I looked up at our fathers in awe, our prepubescent brains thinking that the world revolved around the man who brought us into the world and occasionally told us he could take us out of it. I can remember him taking me to Wrigley Field one summer a couple hours before the game started, lifting my scrawny six year old ass onto his shoulders and telling me with misty eyes that one of the greatest thing a man could do in his life was to follow his dream. Looking out from the outfield at perfectly manicured grass, the crack of the bat against the ball reverberating in my ears, and feeling the energy this sanctuary exuded, I knew why he was crying. He had a chance to follow his dream, to play this game, but opted against it when he found out my mom was pregnant with yours truly. I was the proverbial curve ball that life always seems to throw when you least expect it. I hold that day close to my heart, sharing peanuts with my old man in the center field bleachers, soaking in every anecdote about the game and life that he told me. At some point between Ryan Sandburg hitting a game winning home run and walking through the crowded streets hand in hand with my pops, I decided that baseball was my calling, my dream. I wanted to grow up sharing my success with a man that had his chance at it taken away, and nothing was going to stop me.

Eventually I was drafted by the Boston Red Sox, signing for little more than a bus ticket to rookie ball and enough money to buy my parents dinner. I didn’t care how big the contract was, I had an opportunity to capitalize on a dream and to make good on a promise I had made to myself. I was, in my mind, destined for greatness. Upon arriving in Gulf Port, Mississippi at the start of the minor league season, I was clued in that greatness started in a shitty three bedroom apartment filled with cockroaches the size of dip cans and a stench that soaked into every pore of your body. I shared the place with three other players: a shortstop from the Dominican Republic named Miguel who spent his paychecks on new Nikes and weed, a lumbering giant named Tex who was from of all places Sandusky, Ohio, and a catcher named Andy who spent his days waxing poetically about whatever foul piece of trailer trash he picked up the night before. After games we would venture downtown to drown the misery of “living the dream” at the bottom of countless Bud longnecks, making absurd accusations about the sexual prowess of each other’s mothers and talking about making the big league roster with a ethanol gleam in our eyes. That gleam wore off rather quickly as I didn’t win a game my first six starts. The hitters were stronger, more selective, and crushed every mistake I offered up into the cheap seats. I spent countless nights on the phone with my dad, listening to him offer encouragement and tell me that I had to get over it all, that I was a ballplayer, a winner. More importantly I was his son. Losing was out of the question. One particular night while nursing a glass of lukewarm beer, replaying that the memories of all the women I had struck out with the past month and a half, I noticed a petite blonde waitress in the corner smiling at me. She had piercing blue eyes and an ass that made me wish I had been born a piece of Charmin toilet paper. I approached her with as much confidence as a beaten man could, mustering out a meek hello.

“I only smiled because you look like hell” she said.

She had one of those sweet southern accents that made you think it was possible for her to tell Jesus Christ himself to go fellate the devil and get away with it.

“Well aren’t you just the next Mother Teresa?” I shot back, simultaneously pissed and smitten.

“No, I’m even better. I serve beer. Mother Teresa never did that, did she?”

I’m going to fall for this one.

“Probably not, but then again she never wore a mini skirt so high the Pope had to question his vow of celibacy.”

“Does looking at me make you questions yours?”

“I’m not on one.”

“Oh, just figured that was the case since you’re in here every night and always leave alone” she said with a smile that conveyed with a sense of satisfaction, knowing she had just figuratively kicked me in the nuts with a size 16 steel toed boot.

A couple beers later we had progressed from insulting one another’s existence to ripping our clothes off each other in the foyer of her house. Drunk, softer than Elton John in the girls’ locker room, and perfectly content to stare at her curves for the remainder of the night, I rolled over to fall asleep with a smile on my face. I was back in the game

Eventually I found my rut, and shot through the minor leagues. Every level was home to a new city that offered nothing but motivation to play well enough to get out there. I was no longer content with staying in third rate motels, sharing my bed with vermin (insect and human alike), and waited impatiently for The Call. Every fall the big league team calls up a select few prospects, some for the proverbial “cup of coffee” and others to see if they can handle the pressure of having forty five thousand sets of eyes locked firmly on their every move. At the end of a long road trip that had seen our team bus break down four times, a player get deported, and an entertaining double dildo show from two chicks in our Richmond hotel, I was called into the manager’s office. This was it, it’s going to happen. With my sphincter pinched so tight you couldn’t fit a penny nail up it with a sledgehammer, I closed the door and sat down.

“My bags are already packed, where the am I going?” I asked our manager, smiling from ear to ear as the words left my mouth.

“That depends on what you decide. I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news. I’m not going to ask what you want to hear first, because the good news is going to turn into a nugget of shit after I tell you this. Your dad has had a heart attack. Your family wants you to come home right away. The big club called earlier today and wanted you to hop a flight to Boston for this home stand, but the choice is yours.”

He continued talking, but in that moment in time he could have been telling me where Jimmy Hoffa was buried and the secret to making a girl orgasm through telekinesis and I wouldn’t have heard a word. All I could think about was getting home. My dad was a pillar of strength, the type of man who earned instant respect in a room just by looking at him. He was the end all be all to what a son looks for in a role model, inspiring you to reach for greatness simply because you want to be half the man you thought he was. He couldn’t possibly die; he hadn’t sat in a big league stadium and told the little kid sitting next to him that his son was out on the mound and that if he wanted to he could do the same exact thing when he grew up. He hadn’t sat in a church pew, watching his son’s eyes light up when his bride walked down the aisle. He hadn’t held his grandson in his arms, telling anyone within ear shot that even though he was so ugly it was like looking in a mirror, he would love him anyway. He hadn’t sat with his wife on my back porch in the off season as grandchildren played in the yard, content with how his life has turned out. He hadn’t seen or done any of these things yet, and as I rushed to the airport I said a prayer to whatever god that was listening to keep him around long enough to be able to.

I threw a fistful of bills at the cab driver, grabbed my bag, and opened the door to cab while it was still moving. The hospital where I had been born now looked dilapidated and depressing, a mirror image of the mood I was in as I walked through the sliding doors. As I opened the door to his room I choked back the knot in my throat and saw him lying there, helpless and seemingly alone in this battle. Desperate for anyone or anything to help him. I hugged my mom and sister, and turned to my hero who with eyes half open and his breath heavy, told me to come closer. I pulled up a chair, took his hand in mine and with the machines beeping and my mother crying in the background, and had what would turn out to be our final conversation. We talked until he could barely stay awake, sharing our love and respect for another through stories of years past, embracing the moment to tell one another the things that we regretted not saying enough while we had the chance. When I broke the news that I had been called up, he squeezed my hand hard, like he had when we were walking out of Wrigley Field. With tears of pride falling down his cheek, he told me that he wanted me to go. That night, as a family, we stayed at his bedside during his final moments on this earth until he passed silently in his sleep. A week later I was standing on the mound in Fenway Park, making my major league debut.

- - - - - -

As the pitch leaves my hand and makes a bee line to the catcher, everything slows down. It was as if someone pulled the plug on reality and I was left standing there, soaking in what should have been one of the most exciting moments of my life. In a slice of time that’s barely long enough to blink your eyes, I think about backyard barbeques. I think about the smell of a new glove, breaking it in with my dad in the backyard. I think about the bare white walls of his hospital room, the look of a defeated man. I think about the smile on my parents faces when we got the call I was drafted. I think about life, and love, and happiness. I think about my mom crying at the funeral. Reminiscing about beautiful days long gone and the open wounds of new memories I now carry, I think about him. The batter starts to swing at the pitch and I can almost picture the ball screaming off the bat and into night sky. He misses and it’s over. As the fans scream and my catcher comes out to hand over the ball from my first major league victory, I fall to my knees. In the middle of this modern day sanctuary, I celebrate by burying my face in my hands and crying. I cry for every man, woman, and child who has never gotten the chance to live their dream, and I cry for those who have. I cry for the times in life when you go into battle armed with only memories of loss and come out on top. I cry for my mother and my sister. When there isn't anything left to cry about I get off my knees and walk to the dugout, stopping only to watch a father put his smiling son on his shoulders and walk away.

Jim

My parents couldn’t have found a better house to buy. I was 4 when we finally moved into Portland from the wildlife reserve that my Dad was working on for the Nature Conservancy. My parents only had one requirement for a new home: Cheap. As they hit the market, they timidly moved from house to house with their fingers tipped in lint and their eyes on the asking price before the pattern of wallpaper. There wasn’t really any question when they finally found it. A two story house in the West Hills of Portland for $79,000 was like finding a thirty-five cent plane ticket to the French Riviera. The airplane just has a few problems.

The smell was the first and most noticable attribute of the house. The chain-smoking tenants had just fought a long and losing legal battle against the home’s owner (who, as it happened, was their father) who was trying to sell it out from underneath them. As such, they had done everything in their last few days of residency to make the home as inhospitable as was humanly possible. I, to this day, am not sure what caused the family feud that landed us our home. The elaborate and illegal drug manufacturing facilities in the basement and the fact that the home was the only one in the neighborhood that had actually seen devaluation over the past few years might have had something to do with it. My parents knew, as they picked through the knock-off wrestling tee-shirts and the exposed insulation, that they had found our home. The fine line between optimism and stupidity is often irrelevant

It wasn’t until after the move-in date and their first official payment that they drew back the dark green, mold-caked curtains over the windows in the living room. The windows, a glass wall for a huge section of the house, looked out on that perfectly clear, Pacific Northwest summer day, over the park below and onto the silhouette of Mount Hood in the distance. The view is as impressive today as it was then. They tore down those big green curtains and threw them off of the balcony into the dumpster they had in the driveway.

That window also provided my dad his first good view of the garden that he had purchased. Well, what would become a garden. The previous owners had had the presence of mild to elicit a restraining order against them from the local garbage collection agency. As such, it didn’t take much guess work to figure out what was beneath all of the mounds of displaced earth in the back yard.

All of the grass was dead. The ground jutted up at unnatural angles in various places. The entirety of the area slopped awkwardly to the West. There were almost as many rocks in the soil as there were bags of garbage. Squirrels would go out of their way to walk around the browned perimeter of the plot to get from one neighbor’s property to the other. My dad, despite his full-time job and responsibility of helping to raise two (soon to be three) children, had found a hobby.

He enlisted help, of course. The enormity of the property’s restoration requirements simply precluded its accomplishment by only one man. He recruited family friends, co-workers, and finally me and my sisters when we were old enough to wield shovels and paint rollers. And he hired Jim from around the block.

My dad met Jim when we first moved into the neighborhood and was doing the rounds and meeting the neighbors. I met Jim when I was no older than 8 and had just started putting real time in on the garden and the exterior of the house. Jim’s walk was what got me right away. Despite towering several heads above me, he had a limber, disjointed strut that is most common in children. He had lankily poor posture when he stood still and would move him arms with long, fluid motions whenever he worked. And he was always really nice to me, my sisters, my parents and my dog.

He usually showed up to work with a few snacks in his pockets that he would share with us kids and sometimes the dog when my mom wasn’t looking. He would spend long hours finding earth worms in the back yard so he and I could do experiments on them (most of which involved cutting them in half with hedge clippers and watching the halves wriggle off in different directions). And we’d swap jokes - the kind that only kids and guys in Jim’s situation can truly appreciate. Mine; the ones I learned on Saturday mornings from Nickelodeon and his; the ones he read from the library books that he borrowed.

Waiter! This coffee tastes like mud.
Yes sir, it’s fresh ground!

I wasn’t any older than 10 when I figured out that Jim was autistic, just like that kid down the street that we always made fun of in school. The autism was bad enough that Jim couldn’t get real work and he, nearly 50, certainly couldn’t move out of his elderly mother’s house. It’s probably also why my quasi-Jew mother only paid him 5 dollars an hour for long days of back breaking physical labor. She justified it by the fact that my father was always grumbling about what a slow worker Jim was.

He screwed things up sometimes, too. As comical as pruning the wrong tree or digging a hole in the wrong place can be, it tended to wear on my dad’s nerves. I’m sure the work that he did was well worth the 5 dollars an hour, but I know that firing him had crossed my parents minds on several occasions. But how in the hell do you fire the overly-friendly autistic guy from down the street? So he stayed around. I saw him every weekend until I was 13 years old, unless he had some trouble at home; which he would always diligently inform us of.

Why did the bee cross its legs?
Because it couldn’t find the BP station!

The guy would even stay for dinner sometimes. I would explain my school projects to him on Sunday afternoons and I would always say hi on my way to and from the bus stop.

Why do you always put bells on cows?
Because their horns don’t work!

I’m not sure what kind of problems Jim had with his sister, but he mentioned them to me from time to time. Mostly just that she was mean to and took advantage of his ailing mother. As much as he loved his mother, he would get frustrated with her sometimes for how she dealt with his sister. As much as he liked being around people, especially kids, he considered caring for his mother to be his most important job. He told me that a lot.

Where does a one-armed man shop?
The second hand store.

By the time I was 13, there was a rockwork terrace in our back yard that overlooked almost every species of flower and edible fruit that will grow in Oregon. Local classical and jazz bands threw parties and played gigs behind our house. I played out on the lawn every day that it didn’t rain. And I still saw Jim, a confidant and friend, every weekend.

One night in early spring, I asked to be excused from a particularly somber family dinner when my mother stopped me and asked me to sit back down with my sisters. She told me about a fight that Jim had had with his mother and sister. And she told me that when people are really hurt or sick, there are some problems that they just aren’t able to make it through. I didn’t understand why she was telling me this now or at all for that matter.

I never saw Jim again after that night. There was a peach tree in Jim’s yard like the one we had in ours. It was just outside his mother’s bedroom window. There is a small wooden cross under it that is painted white. His mother still lives there and places a fresh batch of flowers there every Wednesday.

My dad still works in the garden every weekend. And he still has my sisters and I mow the lawn and prune the trees when we’re home over break.