American Pastime

I live near Dodger’s stadium, close enough that I can see the big lights, close enough that I can hear the announcers voice, and even though it makes no sense, close enough that I can hear the sound of the leather ball against the bat. This could be a great and magical thing, I suppose, but it rarely is. All the things to love about it are too close to the things to hate and sometimes they blur. There's the history of the sport, there's Joe D'Maggio and Jackie Robinson, the green diamond, the come-back, the stolen catch. But then there's also the endless tedium, the three up/three down, the mullets, the $9 hotdogs, the chaw. The same fans who are hopeful and positive and filled with cheer, will whack you in the head with a cro-bar if you root for the other team. There's disappointment and heartbreak and the long drive home.
Still.
You never know which way it will go. 

**

Once I heard part of a game from my desk. It was late, maybe close to 10 at night. How long could this go on?  I heard the organ: badabadabada: CHARGE! And then again. It wasn’t the usual half hearted, beer- soaked chant, there was something building, something was about to happen. And then there was a hush and Crack. I really heard it. The fans erupted and there was a roar. There were horns and trumpets and loud church organs. I stood up at my desk and it's like I was there. I was in the middle of a crowd. Someone spilled a beer on me. We laughed. He hugged. We screamed. We jumped up and down together. We vowed to protect and honor each other forever and ever for the rest of our lives amen. Then we eased ourselves back into our seats, wiping tears from our eyes, unable to close our mouths.

And then the same thing happened FOUR MORE TIMES.

I had no idea what was going on but I was overjoyed. I was laughing by myself. Those jackasses who parked on my street, the same ones I swore at earlier, beeped their horns for 30 minutes. WOOHOO!!! We were all friends. Nevermind that I couldn't name a single player on the team: Go Dodgers! I love you guys! And then, WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?

*

The first person I thought to ask about that night was my brother Pete. He would know. In my head he will always be the twelve year old dork that brings his mitt to a game with the hopes of catching a fly ball; someone with unlimited energy and enthusiasm; someone who believes in miracles.

So I called Pete, but before I had a chance to ask about the game, he started to tell me that he didn't feel well, that a few nights before, he lay awake in bed at 4 am, unable to sleep, worrying about things. It got to the point, he said, that his heart started pounding in his chest and he actually thought he was having a heart attack. So he drove himself to the emergency room.  “A heart attack?” I said, dumbfounded. In my head, I was thinking: this is the guy that jumped off bridges on a dare, who doesn’t eat sugar or meat, who has never had even a puff of a cigarette.“That’s crazy!” I said.

“I know,” he said after a long pause. “That’s what the doctor said too”.

“So what did you do?”

“I went to another doctor”.

*

Four o’clock in the morning is a time of horrific doom. Everything is large. Sometimes I go to my desk at this time. Instead of wanting to quiet the voices in my head, I want to listen to them. I am usually surrounded by a crowd: an old love, my grandparents, dead people.  If there is a problem, we can work on it together; if it's a big problem, everyone leaves: "Later. Good luck with that. Be back in a sec".

The only one who stays is the guy I'm trying to avoid. He stands behind me and talks into my ear. "Hmm, where to begin? Fuck ups, failures and abandonments, things forgotten, messed up or  avoided. Illness, suffering, death--

Ok here we go. I have to get up again, walk away, down the hall, shake a leg, shake my hands, my head. I have seen insane people walk down the street in the exact same way.

“Just go,” I say finally, my forehead pressed against the wall. “Please.”

I don’t want to think about all my troubles, and yet at a certain time of night, there they are, popping to the surface like corks in the water. It’s strange how automatic it is to focus on what is wrong rather than what is right. Any solution seems implausible or out of reach, desperate.
Where's my third-base coach tapping a peace sign on his sleeve and clapping three times to move me forward.

*

I called Pete a few weeks after that. He was still low, still concerned about his health, still not sleeping well.
"Let's talk about something else," I said.
"Why?" he laughed.
I asked him about the night of the Dodger’s game and of course he knew what had happened:

The Dodgers were down 9-5 in the ninth inning with two outs when a batter stepped in and hit a home run. Then the next batter did the same! And the two after that! It was 9 to 9! FOUR BACK-TO-BACK HOME-RUNS WITH TWO OUTS.  If I hadn’t heard it myself from ½ mile away, I wouldn’t have believed it. "They went into extra innings," Pete said, "bing-bang-boom, Dodgers won".

“That never happens in baseball”, I said.

We were both quiet for a long time.
“Sometimes it does”, he said.

*

Most people have a hard time at 4 in the morning. In your room in the dark, all signs point to Misery and Death. Even babies, with their perfect little bodies, uncomplicated lives and sweet smell, wake up crying, needing to be soothed. Who is the person that wakes up singing, “Oh wonderous joy and heavenly world, I am so happy with everything about myself and my life, I am so thankful for all that I have. I am not afraid to die.” Let’s put him and his bed in the middle of Dodger’s Stadium. Let’s watch him and see what happens. We can sit in the blazing sun eating $9 hotdogs. We can wait.