“I could go for a little Chinese.”
Marvin wants to be a comedian and practices his jokes when we sit on the bench.
“That’s good Marvin, you should keep that one.”
“You should be laughing if it’s funny.”
“I can’t laugh during a game. Coach will want to know what is so funny.”
“Tell him the joke.”
“Coach doesn’t like jokes.”
Marvin bats likes he tells jokes; he just flails away until he hits something. He even runs funny. He looks like he is swimming, but he is running on dry land with his legs kicking and his arms churning through the air like the paddlewheels on an old steamboat.
I don’t know why it is so difficult for some people to run and jump. Not that I am so good at it, it just seems that other people are so bad at it. It is something you can work on and develop. Marvin spends more time being funny than he does running. Some times the coaches try not to watch when Marvin is running because they’ll start laughing and we all know what a bad impression that will bring.
Marvin never strikes out even when he strikes out. He’s already on to the next thing, flailing away like a windmill.
I glad we have most of the team together for the summer league. We won’t get to see Marvin run much after July.
CHAPTER 34
The Cubs will win the World Series. I tell Sligo that when he doesn’t seem so cheery. He gives me a ‘you’re a good kid but you’ve got a lot to learn’ look. The Cubs will win the World Series, if baseball survives long enough and they don’t change the name to the Lakeland Chubs and they don’t rename Wrigley Field Preparation H Park, yes the Cubs will win the World Series. I think, I think. The odds are if you just show up you’re going to win something once in a while. The 1984 Cubs almost went to the World Series. St. Sligo said: “They were the opposite of the 1919 Black Sox, who lost games to spite their owner, the 1984 Cubs tried to win to throw it in the owners face, “Don’t make us out to be losers you bean counting masters of the also-rans and never-rans.”
I heard that one a few times and I’ve tried to tell it to other people, but most people don’t remember why the Black Sox were called the Black Sox and they think I’m trying slip a racist comment into the conversation. That’s the problem with losing, only your Mother remembers and even she will try to change the subject to something a little more exciting.
Winning isn’t everything, but it is a hell of a lot more fun than losing.
CHAPTER 35
Mom might be a terrorist. She seems so mad at me sometimes I’m afraid she’ll pack me with explosives and use me as an incendiary device to take out someone she’s feuded with for decades. Otherwise I’m of no use to her in the day to day combat of deadly daily life. I’m a team player. Hopefully I won’t think too much to be a good bomb. Just light the fuse and point me in the right direction.
She isn’t always mad at me. I just don’t think I’m what she expected in a son. I won’t be running for President any time soon. What does she expect?
Dad smokes. He smokes at least one pack of Marlboros a day, sometimes a pack and half. Mom says it is killing him slowly, day to day, as it runs down his health. I can’t really see it that clearly although he does look a lot older that Mom even though they are close together in age. He tries to stay young by dressing all wrong for his age, but it just makes him look like an old guy in young kids clothing.
CHAPTER 36
Sex, of course, can be a distraction since at my age you spend more time thinking about the sex playing field than the baseball playing field and there are a lot more sex games going on than there are baseball games. Everyone is in a frenzy. People get worked up about lot of things besides sex although S-E-X is at the top of the list. People who don’t get sexed up a lot tend to get all worked up about things that no one else cares about. Sex always feels like it means something, but when you try to explain it you end up sounding like a pervert.
When you’re my age nothing else is quite so interesting. And we think we are so fascinating like no one else in the universe had ever discovered sex before – Morons! We’ll probably save the universe by letting everyone have sex. I mean, not everyone. I’ll just take what I want. What are you looking at? Freak! Maybe sex isn’t for everybody. It’s weird how parents try to look like they don’t know anything about sex, maybe they forgot about it because they are too old to do it, wouldn’t their stuff just fall apart? And wouldn’t they look in a mirror and see how unyoung and unsexy they are in relation to the young sexiness of the young sexy things.
Sex, sex, sex, make your dirty joke here. Sex, sex, sex, say the words you think they want to hear. Time to move on.
CHAPTER 37
ST. SLIGO’S BASEBALL QUARTERLY CHRONICLE
Ode To The Losers:
Back off you virus inducing wannabes.
Don’t get near me.
And stop watching the Cubs.
Find another team.
Branch Rickey once said, “luck is the residue of design.”
By luck he meant good luck.
Cubs luck is the residue of the never-never ran.
CHAPTER 38
ST. SLIGO’S NEXT BASEBALL QUARTERLY CHRONICLE
Waiting for October. I am waiting for October, Indian Summer, when the leaves, brown, yellow and red conjure in the evening haze the spirit of seasons past burnt to ash. October. I’ll save money on World Series tickets this year. There is always a positive. No running around trying to find a scalper who will be glad to rip me off because I need to be in the bleachers at Wrigley when the Cubs are in the World Series.
Again they’ve found a way to lose. Again they’ve played like they are cursed. I can’t drive a stake through their hearts, they’re still alive and cursed or not it is still only a game. They are only human and humans are no match for the curse.
An old song comes on the soul classic station, drifting through the evening, “Sitting in the park, waiting for youuuu,…,”. Other songs, “waiting for a moment that just won’t come.”, or a rave up rocker from the sixties, “So tired, tired of waiting, tired of waiting for you”.
Waiting for the end of this game.
Waiting. Where is the end to this waiting?
October. Wait until next year. I’ll sit a dark room and with sunglasses on I’ll listen to sad, slow blues for an hour or so just to lay the season to rest. Requiem for the season. Last rites for the stats page. Off to the tavern. It’s football season.
CHAPTER 39
The ball doesn’t care if you win or lose or how you play the game, so it isn’t worth getting mad at it no matter how mad you get at the dumb ass piece of cowhide.
I was mad at the ball a few years ago, so I took a bunch of scruffy, tattered hardballs into the backyard and beat them into the ground to the point that you would need a shovel to dig them out. I realized it was a pointless exercise when my bat snapped and I had to buy a new one. Dad mowed the lawn a couple of days later and was baffled why the lawn was sprouting up baseballs.
The four seamed monster rules my life. The sun rises, the sun sets and the ball spins round. To everything there is a baseball season. How many cows must die for this game? How many trees must fall? This game will drive me crazy. Sorry about all the nutso talk. I’ve been in English class too long. We call it Shane damage.
I watched one of those science shows where they demonstrate why sometimes one thing happens and why sometimes another thing happens and they did all these crazy experiments and showed that the movement of the ball is changed by the seams and the rotation of the ball. All I have to do is figure out how to control that and make it work for me when I want it to work. The game is simple and that is what makes it so hard.
CHAPTER 40
I forgot to mention that I have two sisters, brats, 8 and 14, who I always forget to mention. The 14 year old wants my room and the 8 year old wants the 14 year olds room.
I avoid them by staying out too late and everytime I see them they ask, “When are you going to move out?” Don’t ask me their names, we’re feuding and they don’t really want to talk to me or act like I exist, so I just don’t exist for them unless they want a favor.
CHAPTER 41
No remembers that I was a champion. The college people are telling me to try Junior College for a year, then transfer when I get my grades into a respectable neighborhood.
The scouts who came to check out Lloyd Fleming wrote down my name. Lloyd gets a big money contract and skips college and he gone out east playing AA ball. He’s got baseball money and a shoe contract in case he makes it super-big, then he has to figure out if he is a ball player or a shoe salesman.
A couple of semi-pro teams want me to play for them, if I can juggle the schedules. I’m getting a rep as a ringer, but I’m going to have do a lot better than that if I’m going to go pro.
J.P. is going Ivy League. She’s probably the only one from Dada High School that could make that leap and not get dizzy. The San Pedro Hillbillies will miss her, but not too much. Maybe she’ll come back and get into politics, because a lot of times people who do well in politics are smart people who know how to talk to not so smart people without insulting their lack of intelligence.
I looked at the Junior Colleges and I don’t like the idea. I like a college where you get the full package university town life style. A community commuter college sounds boring. I wouldn’t do that well because I couldn’t get into the deal.
J.P. will find we don’t have much in common when she leaves for school in the fall. We could talk about it, but we won’t because we are both afraid that it wouldn’t do any good. We’re busy at not talking about it right now. Once she said we’ll have to try ‘Abstencia in abstract’ and see what happens. Future, future, future. Always talking about the future these days and the future is a fantasy.
CHAPTER 42
The last days of August. Sad school feeling is in the air, but I’m not going to school. That high school group has scattered all out of San Pedro, like they all had a small town fear that if they didn’t get out this year they would never get out and they would have to sit around listening to the same old stories until they turned into skeletons. Got to have plans. I help Marvin drive to UC Santa Barbara. If he doesn’t party too much he could graduate in five or six years. I’m missing a party or falling out of place in a race or whatever is happening isn’t good.
I need to get away from home. Here are some of the conversation fragments I’ve had with my parents in the past couple of weeks:
“Any schools lined up for next semester?”
“Do you have a job yet?”
“I talked to the manager at the super market. They’re looking for baggers.”
“Is it too late to sign up for Junior College?”
“So do want to be like your Uncle Sligo. You’d better win the lottery soon. Have you been drinking?”
“When are you moving out?”
“Maybe we’ll put the house up for sale and move. Without you.”
CHAPTER 43
Sligo offers me the use of his in-law apartment, then he tries to talk me out of moving into the unit.
“I’m suspicious and I’ve been consorting.”
He is intoxicated.
“With who,” I ask.
“With people who go to the racetrack.”
“So?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be around such people.”
“Why?”
“I think Homeland Security is spying on me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m an American and I’m a danger to myself.”
“So they’re going to arrest you to keep you safe from your dangerous lifestyle.”
“If they don’t execute me first.”
“Let’s look at your pro-American traits.”
“Okay.”
“You drink beer like you’re in a TV commercial.”
“Guilty.”
“You spend all of your free time watching sports.”
“American sports. Guilty.”
“You judge a woman by the size of her breasts.”
“Mostly guilty.”
“You’ve had gay thoughts about George W. Bush.”
“Not guilty. Good trick question.”
“Almost gotcha by-golly.”
“Who is golly and why is he bi?”
“Don’t go there.”
“You’re darn tootin pilgrim.”
“All you’re guilty of is winning the Irish Sweepstakes and retiring wealthy at an early age. You’ve done little work in your adult life. Why would Homeland Security be afraid of that?”
“They’re afraid I might run for President.”
“You can’t, you were born in Ireland.”
“I don’t want to piss off your Mother. Please don’t move in here.”
“She’s already mad. This could be a good thing. After eighteen years I think she needs a break from me. Is it okay if my girlfriend stays here?”
“You really want to me to get in trouble with your Mom.”
“Who needs to know? She’s going away to school soon anyway.”
“She won’t be your girlfriend for long.”
“You sound like my mother.”
“Don’t worry about your parents. I’ve got a job I’m going to hire you for.”
I knew this was a bad idea.
“Don’t panic yet. Let me tell you the idea and then you can panic. I’m going to build a web site and I need a website administrator.”
“It has to be earn while you learn. I’ve never done a website before.”
“Don’t worry. Everybody is new at it.”
I bought a how to book from some build a web site Buddha who declared his supremacy over his small field of digitized ideas. I’m not one to put my faith in supreme edens or any one thing of great faith. The planet moves along without faith or belief. I said that to J.P. once and it was the only time she looked at me like I was trying to feed her a line.
Sligo had all the material for the site. I just had to put it together.
CHAPTER 44
CUBBIEPHRENIA.COM
Cubbiephrenia – a mental condition brought on by excessive exposure to a professional baseball team on the North side of Chicago, commonly known as the Chicago Cubs. Symptoms include, believing in the impossible; losing in a situation that you should win; finding an inexplicably stupid way to screw up a good situation; not learning from past failures and repeating symptoms one, two and three in an obsessive manner.
Cubbiephrenia is distinguished from another form a mental anguish called the Cub Fan Syndrome. The Cub Fan Syndrome affects the casual observer of Wrigley Field mayhem. Although the symptoms are similar to Cubbiephrenia they are less intense and will wear off several hours after the traumatic incident, better known as a Cubs game.
The Wrigley tourist will sometimes try to mimic the symptoms in an attempt to fit in with his or her fellow Wrigley inebriants, but they do not fool anyone and are generally relieved to find that they did not suffer any permanent damage.
SIGNS YOU MIGHT BE A CUB FAN
1.On the day you were born your parents looked at you and said, “Wait until next year.”
2.When you were twelve your parents tried to trade you for Joe Pepitone.
3.When playing hardball you injure yourself, out for the season, during warm ups in spring training.
4.You learned the game by dropping pop flies, letting ground balls go through your legs and striking out in key situations.
5.You’ve heard the song ‘Hit The Road Jack’ so many times you think all Cub pitchers are named Jack.
6.You think you are multitasking when you drink a shot and a beer.
7.You play a video game called, ‘Are You Smarter Than Sammy Sosa?’ and lose.
SIGNS THAT THE CUBS ARE CURSED:
Mark Cuban wants to buy the t
eam.
You sacrifice a goat and your wife starts to look like one.
Your star player hits over sixty home runs and still does not win the home run title.
You think one of the Cub players would be a good quarterback for the Bears.
CHAPTER
Now I’m playing way too little baseball and I’m drinking way too much. I’m turning into St. Sligo O’Shaunessey! Ahhhh! I’m not him. I’m Sergeant Mickey O’Really.
I miss Jasmine Pepper at times like these, she’s the best one to understand the crazy talk I talk.
Mom is worried about me, but then again that seems to be the purpose in her life. If I was normal she would worry that I was too normal and that maybe I should get more fun out of life. I’m living at St. Sligo’s house of sin and she should worry about me as I crash and burn my way through the days.
CHAPTER 45
Sligo did a trip to the old country and comes back from Ireland flush. He says he made some investments before the Irish economic turnaround and got out before the economic fall down and now it is like he has won the Irish Sweepstakes twice. For Christmas he bought a week at the Cubs fantasy camp in Arizona for Dad and himself. I don’t know much about fantasy camps, but I don’t think they have to dress up like goats even if it is the Cubs.
Mom is glad we’ll be away annoying someone else. She said she was going to find her own fantasy camps and live her dreams, but I didn’t have the nerve to ask what her dreams were despite the implication that having a son like me was not exactly how she planned to spend her days. Love you Mom. What kind of camp would you go to?
Please don’t tell me.
CHAPTER 46
On the first day of fantasy camp the baseball field lit up with a gilded blaze of shimmering white light. I didn’t imagine the light. Dad and I were hit by lightning.
I wake up. Dad and a group of camp people are standing over me and the trainers are reviving me, which they do, but they study me in a silent serious stare that makes me wonder if I’m okay or just dead and having an out of body observance of my death scene. I just want to go to sleep, but they keep trying to wake me up.
Mom is upset when she finds out. She told us that this was a bad idea. It feels like a bad idea because I hurt everywhere. I got a jolt. Dad got a light shock.
Cubs luck. Sligo says that. The first words I hear when I come to are ‘Cubs luck’ followed by a bunch of people telling him to shut up.
Sligo and Dad play ball on the second day of camp and I watch from the stands since I can’t play anyway, I’m too young. Randy Hundley comes over to see how I’m doing and I lie to him and tell him I’m feeling great even though I’m not, but I can’t let a tough old catcher like Randy Hundley know that I can’t handle a little lightning blast from the sky. He slaps me on the back and I try not to wince.