SoMa Literary Review - Take Me Out of the Ball Game

Take Me Out of the Ball Game

By Ray Rose

My parents came to pick me up in my filthy Mission District apartment. My parents are filthy too. Filthy rich, that is. They indulged me by coming up from Malibu for the weekend. Dad said he'd buy me a new car if I'd go to the ball game with them today. I agreed and choose a new tan Dodge Caravan. This big van could carry around my synthesizer and my party buddies when we drove up to my parent's cabin at Lake Kalahoosa for the weekends-bond fires and bong hits and all night jam sessions!

Mom was the first to gingerly enter my apartment. She came in ducking, as if something were going to fall from the ceiling. Like a baboon or something. Mom secretly called my apartment a sodden drug den. To me it was home.

This home. This home served as a great party place. Just last night I had taken Quaaludes, ten waxy, vitamin-like pills that made me slobber with droopy eyes. Afterwards, at 2 a.m., I took Ecstasy, which kept me awake and happy…violently happy. The whole mix provided quite a mind buffet. The head ache was so sharp and awful. My spine was all limp like a rope. Some Tully's coffee, a bong hit and a greasy hamburger with hash browns at the Pork Store cured that though.

So we're driving in my father's new Lexus Sedan and we're taking about important, ritualistic, life-threatening or enhancing topics: What will the parking be like? Will there be those good sandwiches at the game? I'm glad we parked here; it will be easier to leave.

Inside we bought the sandwiches: formed and processed chicken.

"Oh, these sandwiches are delicious," Dad said.

"I'm sure glad we found that parking place," Mom said.

It was a beautiful day: cobalt blue sky, 80 degrees. Everything was so bright and white, the lawn looked waxy. This depressed me. I put on my sunglasses, sharpening the view in green tint and hiding myself. But I was so low that I couldn't even hide behind my sunglasses. A paper bag over my bulb head would have been nice.

In the stands were beefy construction workers, shirtless, wearing Giants caps. Cups of beer foam and "Park dogs.” Most everyone seemed married and to have a place, in the stands, and in this society.

Except me.

Out on the field efficient grounds men, dressed in white mechanics’ suits, putted around on tractors. Baseball meant jobs for some, entertainment for others. A man next to me, a basketball-gutted man who smelled like Sunday bacon, eagerly wrote on his stat card. He would record all the stats of the game and then tell his friends…that is, if he had any.

Mike Nelson, West Coast Marketing Manager for Mother's Cookies, threw out the first ball of the ball game. And Jack Golbert, Customer Service Representative for INTEC, was awarded the MCI Giants Fan of the Month Award: dinner for two at the Rusty Pelican.

After the national anthem, Al Yokamura, third base coach, sprinted to third base, his stubby legs clicking across the green like a Minotaur. He stood there firm, legs in a V, and made funny signals, even though no one was on base. Everybody needs to have a place, to feel important, to exist.

The game went on.

Baseball is like the opera for the poor: slow and boring, for the most part, and then exciting in others. This game, for the most part, was boring. Seldom was it exciting and if it was, the excitement was short-lived. The innings dragged on with a slow, boring hum. It was like sitting in a giant outdoor waiting room. Baseball games did, however, offer one advantage: the ability to fart unnoticed. I farted loudly, holding back nothing. No one noticed, except maybe for the fat man taking stats. He scratched his nose as the smell drifted to him.

A batter came up to the plate. The scoreboard flashed his statistics: 86 homers, 130 RBIs and a DGI of .90. He was aged, so the board said: 26.

"How old are you now, Steve?" Dad asked.

"26."

"I'm sure glad we bought those sandwiches," Mom said.

I got up to go to the men's room. It’s always such a discomfort to scoot along sideways in front of people sitting in the bleachers, like at the movies or on a plane. In the restroom I found my spot at a urinal and did my thing. I thought of all the sewage produced at one ball game, thought of all the un-recyclable garbage, thought about those players earning $40 million a year and compared it to my salary as a singer/songwriter, which to date was exactly zero dollars and zero cents.

I caught a foul ball from the urinal. I cleaned it off and then, from the third tier, chucked it down to the parking lot, and without looking as to which windshield it shattered, I walked away coolly.

I looked over at the concession stand, panned left and saw the condiments table: a stainless steel table with big plastic jars of catsup and mustard and relish. Then I spotted the girl. The woman. The strange girl who was sitting in the seat next to my father. She was a pretty girl who did aerobics and wore tight cut-offs. She was there with her husband, who was a successful songwriter. Her husband was talking to my dad about the possibility of my father representing him in a copyright case. I cavorted over to her and asked her if I could help her.

"Allow me to be of assistance. I am quite capable of putting mustard on your park dog. Like relish?"

“Sure,” she said, as she dropped the hot dog and it bounced on the cement floor. We went into a locked door next to the concession stand. I had a key. Inside was a big screen TV with the game. And a bed. I used the remote control to stop time. The screen froze and so did the fans in the park. We took off our clothes and walked around the ballpark naked, holding hands. Park dogs. We went down to where her husband was sitting. "See this, Joey!” she yelled in his blank face, “Now I'm cheating on you!"

We walked back to the third tier, still naked, still hand in hand. Suddenly time began again (perhaps someone had switched the remote back on) and we found ourselves naked in the midst of the crowd. We were helpless. But then I clicked the remote control and time stopped again. We made sex on the bleacher floor, peanut shells sticking to her buttocks. I'll never forget that turquoise headband she wore.

Back in my plastic seat, it was the fifth inning and I noticed a wrinkly old man dressed in nothing but a Speedo and bathing cap. He was standing in the stands, down behind third base. He then jumped from the stands and onto the field. He proclaimed his liberation with his arms high in the air, like Jesus Christ. And then, in a flash, he pulled down his Speedos, exposing his gray pubic hair. He tore off, running the bases. The ball players moved out of his way as the crowd cheered. Rounding second, he caught his foot and whammed face first to the dirt. The umpires calmly escorted him from the field, his floppy cheeks yellow in the sun.

After that episode, a foul ball was hit. Up high it went. Going to the VIP seats. Going, going...A red-faced man reached out from the window to grab it. He caught it and the weight of the ball tipped him out and over the ledge. Down he fell, three stories, into the sea of fans’ skulls that cushioned his fall.

"I'm sure glad we bought those sandwiches," Mom commented.
And then it was the bottom of the ninth. Two out, bases loaded. The batter came up to the plate. Strike one, strike two...ball one, ball two, ball three. It was a tense moment. Here's the pitch, the swing and...yes! He connected. A high fly to center field. It's going, it's going, it's...

Exploded.

The ball exploded. A giant orange and black cloud tumbled, fluffy. A nuclear explosion. Kids were ripped from their seats by the hot wind, old men's faces were melted like wax. Everyone was fried to charcoal skeletons. Except Mom, Dad and me. It was great that everyone had died because we got out of the parking place with no traffic. Dad raved about it for hours.

I'm sure glad we ate those sandwiches.

Ray Rose is a writer living in San Francisco. His novel, CARTOON, is expected to be published next year. His writing has appeared in SOMA, The San Francisco Review of Books, Mademoiselle, CUPS, The San Jose Mercury News, The Contra Costa Times, Conde Nast Traveler, The China Post, Good Housekeeping, CBS Market Watch, and the Passenger Train Journal.