Nobody Bats a Thousand (34 page)

“Sure, sure.”

“I’ll be right back.”

“Hey,
” Bob stopped him. “Is he going to be okay?”

“I’d just be speculating, maybe it’s something serious, maybe he just fainted. He looks like a frail old guy, but some of them can really surprise you. But don’t ta
k
e off, okay? I’ll be right back.” H
e walked toward his fire truck.

“Don’t sweat it so much.” T
he hate man had moved off the curb and next to Bob.  “You know Freud said ‘the goal of all life is death’
.” T
he hate man smiled. “O
f course the old goat had one foot in the grave when he came up with that one.”

Bob took one step back. The look from his eyes began to burn, the fire growing, but he was spee
chless for a time.
“You bastard.”
H
e was shaking. “This old guy almost dies in my arms and you got to keep at it with this silly crap? What’s your problem? What do you think this
is
just some silly game?”

“It’s not?”

“You bastard, you son of a bitch!”
Bob’s jaw tightened. He clenched his fists and shook them over his head. “I DO HATE YOU! I HATE YOU, YOU SON OF A BITCH!  I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU,
I
HATE YOU!” Bob screamed. The passing crowd on the sidewalk pulled away.

“Now you got it, now you get it! That was sincere, that was bold.
That
was from the heart. Now we’re cooking.” The bum stood tall and straight, soiled and suddenly solemn.  “My name is Gary.  Maybe we could get together and talk again some other time?” Gary extended his filthy open hand; earnestly anticipating a congenial reply.

The End

AT
THE
TURNSTILE

Lenny Decker sat and stared like a mesmerized rat as two attractive housewives debated the effects of cold water washing on hard ground-in dirt. Just minutes before he had come across the definitive cure for annoying static cling, and now this gave him something else to worry about. The debate ended with a time-lapsed display of efficiency; one woman was astounded with the results as her counterpart stood knowingly by, then, with their task completed and the pressure off, one cracked a stupid joke and they both began to laugh like a pair of lunatics who had taken a little shot of something extra in their morning tea. But their laughter, acting like a smoke screen to mask their contentions, failed to divert Decker who had watched closely, had seen and heard all the evidence, and remained unconvinced. Sure, little Johnnie’s crusty play pants were now spotless but there had nary been a mention of new improved whiteners or brighteners, no talk of fierce stain-fighters or active enzymes. Who were these broads trying to shuck?

Lenny downed his beer, crushed the empty and tossed it ten feet, hitting the TV screen. He lifted himself from the couch then slid his socks across the smooth wooden floor with short staggered steps into the bathroom where he splashed his face with cold water. Pausing, gripping the sides of the sink, he battled to focus on t
he mirror and his wavering hung-over
reflection wearing a three-day beard. Naked except for a pair of baby-blue boxer shorts, his thick hair pointed in seventeen different directions on a head that felt as if it had been smacked on each side with a piece of a two-by-four. Decker’s sinuses throbbed, and the thought of vomiting actually seemed appealing to him. Mindful that he held the ingredient to escape the pain of reality, Decker slipped back into the TV room to roll a joint, and then out to the back porch to smoke it.

A rain the night before had cleaned the air leaving puffy, white clouds suspended in a sky bluer than Paul Newman’s eyes. Decker leaned against the railing, inhaled and studied the ocean. The back porch was his sequestered paradise with a grand view. The surf was forty yards away, virtually straight down, the waves below slapping against the rocks in a small horseshoe cove. To his right, north, eighty yards beyond the rocky extension shaping one side of the cove, sat a broad public beach, half of it visible before the coastline receded around the small village and relinquished the open vista to the ocean, green and sedate,
stretching
out to meet the horizon.

He had no neighbors to speak of. The house to the south, a vacation rental, was occupied rarely except during the summer, and the house to the north had made a getaway down the cliff during a violent rainstorm two winters before, leaving behind barely a trace—a few tainted scraps of concrete long since engulfed by
the hill’s natural brutal vegetation.

After several minutes of discursive meditation, Decker, without warning, suddenly felt joyful and full of thought. He felt vibrant and alive. He was virtually incoherent. The television again beckoned. A cluster of colors, sounds and shapes, a two-dimensional electromagnetic charge full blown into tiny, full-faced images which stood, talked, and looked like the real thing.

Decker paid homage to mid-morning programming.
Drinking beer while he lay across the couch dutifully soaking in the radiation.
First
came
Vanna White, international celebrity, bestselling author, actress and game show hostess, wearing a hideous red dress with gold stripes which hung on her like a worn, wrinkled blanket. The thing looked like cheap curtains ripped down from the window of some Mexican pimp and hastily wrapped around Vanna just before she was pushed out on stage to do her thing.

But her wardrobe created the least of Decker’s discontent. It was her attitude that was the problem. There she was, dressed like a simple-minded, yard sale queen in that trashy frock, and she stood, oblivious and unaware, clapping her hands and wearing that charming moronic smile which reassured all the folks out there that life was swell.

Decker wondered what was next. Did they lead her off stage to a windowless room, feed her
Thorazine
and let her play on a set of swings until it was time to dress her up in some other ridiculous costume and lead her out to do her thing?  He simultaneously crossed her off his party list and changed channels with a touch of the remote control.

On came a daytime drama filmed like most in pure realistic video, which put the audience right there with the characters lying on the floor of the simulated living room in front of the phony fire glowing in the fake fireplace. The young, handsome, well-groomed, pimple-
less
couple were pinching, giggling, frolicking and drinking bottled water while the camera rolled.

“Oh Mark, I’m so proud of you for getting the National account.” The blonde subtly pursed her lips.

“Oh Ronda, darling, I couldn’t have done it without you.” Mark gently held her delicate hand.

For those two and all their friends life, in between shattered romances and sudden trips to the hospital, was all shits and giggles, and landing that important new account, and strategically shopping for just the right, hot, new car, and planning what outfit to wear to a trendy club on Saturday night; busy, busy, busy.

Finally, the two knocked off their useless chatter as they zeroed in with solid eye contact, embraced, and slowly and romantically entered into an awkward kiss that quickly built into a frothy lip-lock rated PG.

Mercifully, the scene faded and a commercial began. A thin, graceful model comes into a locker room after a workout. The camera, starting at her ankles, slowly moved upward and showed every vital, succulent inch of her in her skin-tight outfit before it closed in on her face so she could begin her sales pitch.

“I do what’s best for my body so I think my hair deserves the best too…”

“Sold!
  Sold!  Just show her body again and I’ll buy the damn shampoo, I swear it!” Decker is suddenly up on his feet, standing and yelling at the TV.

The gorgeous chick left the screen, a graphic commercial about earwax came on, and Decker quickly calmed. He wandered into the kitchen and looked into the refrigerator, empty except for three beers, a few condiments and an open package of turkey baloney.  After a little thought, he decided to have another beer, a little aperitif before his third successive baloney sandwich breakfast.

He walked out back onto the porch. A faint but cold wind hit him and opened his eyes. There was not a soul on the beach. Decker was alone with the ocean, one-on-one with the sea. He leaned on the railing and looked down at the waves breaking against the rocks in the cove. Five minutes later he had not moved. He stood still staring at the water, looking and thinking, as if he were anticipating some personal miracle.
Like he was feasibly waiting for the ocean’s vague
sounds to abruptly transform
into resonant words and sentences; the obsequious son eagerly awaiting the revelation of some ancient, wily secret from an
omnipotent source of fundamental truth.
A farfetched concept but one that was not completely foreign to Decker, who for some time now had felt on the verge of hearing voices—grand, clear voices of sense and reason—and intuitively he knew the communications would be more acceptable and seem more real if they originated from a source as grand and familiar and mysterious as the ocean. Directions or voices from a stray dog or a cartoon eunuch pictured on a box of cereal just would not be as convincing, no matter what they had to say.

But no voices came, at least not on that morning. There was nothing spectacular at all, just the sets of waves, calm and consistent, endlessly coming ashore.

He went back inside, fell down on the couch and hit the remote control several times, but all he could get was
Full House
and
One Day at a Time.
There was not enough pot in the entire hemisphere to numb him enough to be able to handle either show for even a few minutes. He suddenly felt alone, dejected, abandoned. What woeful torture. Was it too much to ask for a little entertainment? At that moment he was willing to give up twenty years of his life, liberty and pursuit of whatever for something good to watch, something moving, something with a little depth and purpose, something like maybe an old
Mannix
or a
Cannon
rerun. Nothing could get Decker excited quicker than watching three-hundred pound Frank Cannon chase some skinny hoodlum down an alley and tackle the poor punk before he could make a hundred yards. What an athlete Frank was, forget nose-guard or fullback, just get the fat bastard to drop fifty pounds to pick up just a bit of speed, and they could enter him in the feature race at Santa Anita.

Decker had another beer. He rolled another smoke. Channel 7 from San Jose came in with an Anthony Quinn movie, and Decker sat back to enjoy until, five minutes later, the TV Gods decided to intervene causing a snowy, faded kaleidoscopic cancer to grow and thicken, their whimsy weakening, melting and pulling apart poor Anthony as channel 7 from Santa Barbara fought to supersede and finally took over. Now the shadowy outline of Quinn’s face was filled with the bodies of Lucy, Lucy Arnaz and Wayne Newton, all in tuxedos, singing and dancing at full torque while they strummed fake miniature banjos, the spectacle lasted a full two minutes before both signals simultaneously drifted away, the screen becoming a noisy mixture of colored fuzz.  Decker sat motionless, staring in amazement. When he finally pulled out of it he noticed that the morning had slipped away, the sun was beginning its descent to the sea, and the TV room began to slowly darken as the kitchen pulled in the light, bringing life to the flowered wallpaper, the yellow Formica counters and the matching table and chairs.

Decker, knowing from experience that the television reception promised to be dire for the next few hours, put on his sneakers, got his ball and trotted down the hill to play basketball
to try to sweat out some of the poison from the previous night’s indulgence
.

The court down on the beach paralleled the short main street. A soft breeze came up from the ocean. Decker’s legs felt strong. He shot alone for about an hour then bought a cold beer and sat on the sidewalk outside of Frank’s Liquors, watching the people, watching the waves.

The winter sun was in full bloom but not intense enough to be a burden, and the air was fresh and cool. Three nineteen-year-old surfers hung around the sidewalk at the head of the wide concrete stairs that lead down to the bench. Two of them in shocking bright shorts were arguing while their friend, a wide-shouldered blonde wearing a two-inch ponytail and cheap dark glasses, sat near them on the short cement wall that bordered the sidewalk.

“All sports are contests, challenges. You either measure up or you don’t. Somebody wins. Somebody gets fucked,” said a skinny kid with short, straight black hair parted on the side.