The game was a rout, like playing canasta with a bunch of old ladies instead
of seven innings with old men. Jake was a strike machine, Jack hit two off the right
field fence, and Jinx outran a shot up the alley and finished it off with a pirouette that
would’ve made Nureyev hang up his tutu. I stunk up the joint – two pops to short
and a whiff on a pitch so ugly the ump should’ve taken it out of play and put a bag
over its head. The doll had put me off my feed. She’d left with two outs in the top of
the first. I didn’t see her go, but I heard her put the hammer down on the Audi like
a carpenter working on a hot roof at noon. You know the phrase ‘chomping at the
bit’? Well, that one look at her made me chew right through mine, and I was spitting
teeth the rest of the game.
After we cleaned those biddies’ clocks, the fellas headed for Ruby’s – nectar
of the keg as cold as a miser and twice as cheap – but I begged off and went home. I
hurt so bad I made Little Anthony sound happy, so I washed down three Celebrex
with some Jack and laid down faster than a palooka throwing a fight.
Wihelmina. That was her name. I was in that three A.M. elevator in my head
that always gets trapped between sleep and a lobby full of regrets when the name
came at me out of left field like a screaming line drive on a foggy night. Wilhelmina
Mamboquette. She liked being called Billy. You know – like the club. Then I started
remembering why I'd tried to forget her - and it all came floating up to the surface
like a waterlogged corpse…
…It was ten years ago. Maybe eleven, or twelve. Like I said, in my line of
work you like to forget some things. I’d been staked out on a peep and click job,
getting eight by tens of a break-your-heart, bottle-blonde with more curves than
Koufax. She was cheating on her megabucks hubbie, playing hide-the-salami with a
guy nicknamed ‘Dozen’ – and it wasn’t because he worked in a bakery, if you catch
my drift. Four times a week she was all over this guy like Lou Piniella on a bad call.
There was a diner across the street from the love nest, and one day I went
in for a cup of Joe and a little private self-loathing. In my line of work it gets that
way sometimes, and it’s best to just sit back and let it come and then let it go. If you
don’t, it’ll eat up your insides like a mean dog after red meat.
The place was almost empty, but I’ve never been a booth kind of guy, so
I sat at the counter. There was a waitress nearby, with the sports page up in front
of her face. I said “Coffee, black” and she lowered the paper.
My old man used to say there are certain things you just never see coming,
and they’re always the ones you wish you had. And he didn’t mean the good stuff.
He meant Herb Score stuff. Tony Conigliaro stuff. But most of my life I’ve been
doing a pretty good impression of Stevie Wonder without the chops, so…
She made Helen of Troy look like Hilda of Hackensack.
“Gotcha,” she said, and no one in the long, sorry history of this sad little
rock had ever spoken a truer word. When she turned round to pour a cup the world
was a peachy-keen place.
square of the Times Saturday crossword. Bogie talking about gin joints. Coming in
standing up on a triple up the gap. Like our third baseman Josh says if it isn’t raining
at game time – “Does it get any better than this?”
She put the Java down in front of me. It tasted like something that came out
of Krakatoa the last time it blew, but it could’ve been molten lava and I wouldn’t
have noticed. Back then she had wavy hair the color of a butterscotch sundae and
slightly-parted lips that could have sunk a whole fleet. She was wearing baggy painter’s
pants and a loose-fitting sweatshirt that hid all the other best parts, and it was probably
a good thing cause my ticker might not have been able to take it.
“Want anything else?” she said, and I almost turned a double play – choking
on the sludge and pissing myself – as I tried not to grin. She leaned against the rinse
sink and brought the paper back up to her puss.
Since the first time somebody noticed Jacks and Jills weren’t built the same,
people have been trying to figure out the differences in how we tick and tock.
They’ve made lists, given speeches, written books. They’ve put out more ink than
all the octopuses in the deep blue sea since Noah invented the all-expenses-paid
cruise.
Now… If you look at my life and do the math, it might seem like I’m not
the sharpest tack in the corkboard, but I’ve spent enough nights cursing God and
courting the devil to know that outside of the indoor plumbing there’s only one real
difference between G – U – Y’s and D – O – double L’s: S – M – A – R – T – S.
They don’t call them foxes for nothing. And while I’m at it – did you ever hear
somebody call a dame a ‘big ape’? If there was ever a point worth making, then
here’s the sharp end: She couldn’t have been much more than twenty, and I was
way past old enough to know I should know better. And I knew the door was still
right where I left it when I came in, so it wouldn’t be a problem walking out into a
world where the sun was still stuck in the sky and brother was still killing brother
and umps still yelled ‘Yer out!’ and the Jack was still on the shelf above the sink.
I knew what was goddamn what. And it did me about as much good as fire
extinguishers on the Hindenburg.
“You like sports?” I said. Just call me Mr. Gorilla.
She lowered the paper again. It was like Da Vinci pulling the sheet off the
Mona Lisa to let folks have a gander for the first time.
“Just baseball,” she said. “I love baseball.”
“Yeah? So do I.”
“And I love reading the stats.” She waved the paper at me.
“Me too.” I was staring at her outfit and trying to read her stats. I had a
feeling she might lead the league in most categories. At least in doubles, if you catch
my drift.
She tossed the paper onto the counter in front of me.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Try me.”
I wanted to excuse myself for a minute so I could go call up God and say
“You gotta be kidding me.” That little grin flashed at the corner of her lips like a
guillotine catches the light on its way down.
“Go on,” she said, pointing at the paper. “Ask me something.”
The Top Ten in every category were right there – and she hit every question
out of the park. Batted a thousand. Ask her what so-and-so was hitting – she knew.
Who was third in the senior circuit in four-baggers? Bingo. How about
record on the road? A-plus. Who led the majors in striking out (a subject dear to
my heart)? She got that one, too. Halfway through the quiz, the only thing that still
surprised me about this babe was that her name wasn’t Ruth. With every answer,
she did this thing with her left eyebrow, curling it up like a caterpillar stretching after
a nap, and I realized that it said everything about her – that maybe, just maybe, you
can get me…but you can never have me. But remember – I had that orangutan thing
going on, so I went ahead and asked her anyway:
“When do you get off?”
The caterpillar made its move.
“Why?”
“Whaddaya mean – why?”
“Why do you wanna know when I finish work?”
“I’m a concerned citizen,” I said. “There are child labor laws in this state.
I wanna make sure you’re not getting taken advantage of. That’s why.”
“Good one,” she said. She came and leaned to me, and refilled my cup.
It was about to runneth over.
“How old’re you?” she asked.
“Why?”
“Cuz you look old enough to be my father. That’s why.”
“Me? Nah. I couldn’t be anybody’s father. I don’t like kids.”
She leaned in some more, almost close enough to make us amorous Eskimos.
She smelled like everything delicious in the world. I was as dizzy as a Wallenda
falling off a high wire. I wanted to eat her with a spoon.
“What do you like?” she asked.
I considered asking her to pinch me, to see if I was dreaming, but I thought
she might take it as a come-on.
“Baseball, like I said,” I said.
“Yeah, I remember. So… Do you play – or just watch?”
Go ahead. Call me Duncan. I was a yoyo in her hands, and I hated that I
liked it just fine.
“I won’t lie to you,” I said. “My hardball days are behind me. I play
softball now. Slow pitch. And that’s basically life in a nutshell, doll: We get a little
older, we get a little softer, we get a little slower. But I’m still pretty good with the
stick.”
That one got me a two-fer – a blinding smile, eight angel-white teeth’s worth,
and a throaty laugh so sweet and rich it would’ve put weight on a cadaver. Now it
just so happens that I knew a guy who owed me a favor, and he knew a guy who
owed him one – and that guy had box seats behind the dugout.
“I got one more question for you,” I said.
“I’ll bet you do.”
“You like hot dogs?”
“Does a catcher wear a cup?”
“You wanna go to the game tonight?”
“That’s two questions.”
“I flunked math. Twice.”
“My mama always told me – ‘Don’t hang around with idiots.’”
“Einstein flunked math too. Didn’t you know that?”
“Is that right?”
“Yup. And he won the Nobel Prize – and to boot, most folks said he was
a really swell guy.”
“Yeah. I heard that too.” She leaned back, cocked her head like a birddog,
and gave me a real good once-over. “And you’re better-looking than he was. Sort
of.”
Sucker, big ape, yoyo, chucklehead, numbnuts… Oh yeah – and for all
those
“Box seats,” I said. “Third base line.”
She stopped smiling. This was serious business now. She crossed her arms
over her chest and locked me in her sights so tightly I felt like I should have been
wearing a blindfold and smoking my last cigarette.
“So…” she said, “I guess that gets us back to your first question, doesn’t
it?”
My first question? I couldn’t remember a word I’d said since ‘box.’ My
brain was as useless as a hooker at High Mass. If you’d asked me who Rocky
Colavito was, I might have answered – “Bullwinkle’s buddy?”
“I get off at six,” she said.
Like the tour guide at the Botanical Gardens likes to say: Here we go
round the mulberry bush.