“Thanks, man,” I said.
“Okay, Kurt, see you,” said Abdul.
I came out a few minutes later and saw Harley sitting in his tow truck, engine idling, listening to the game.
“Hey,” he said, “where do you live? I’ll drop you off.”
“It’s pretty far. Belmont.”
“Grab your stuff out of the car and jump in.”
“You don’t mind?”
“I get paid by the hour, buddy. Not by the job.”
I got my CDs off the floor of the car and my briefcase and baseball glove off the backseat.
“You used to work in a body shop?” I said when I’d gotten back into the truck.
The walkie-talkie started blaring, and he switched it off. “I’ve done everything.”
“How do you like towing?”
He turned and gave me an Are you out of your mind? look. “I take whatever work I can get.”
“People don’t like to hire soldiers anymore?”
“People love to hire soldiers,” he said. “Just not ones with DDs.”
“What’s a DD?”
“Dishonorable discharge. You gotta put it down on the application, and as soon as they see that, you’re out the door.”
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry I asked. None of my business.”
“No big deal. It just pisses me off. You get a DD, you don’t get any VA benefits or pension. Sucks big-time.”
“How’d it happen?” I said. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
Another long silence. He hit the turn signal, changed lanes. “Nah, I don’t mind.” He paused again, and I wasn’t sure he was going to answer. Then he said: “The CO of my Special Forces A-team ordered half of us to go on this suicide mission, this broke-dick reconnaissance mission in Tikrit. I told the CO there was a ninety-nine percent chance they’d get ambushed, and guess what? The guys got ambushed. Attacked with rocket-propelled grenades. And my buddy Jimmy Donadio was killed.”
He fell silent. Stared straight ahead at the road as he drove. Then: “A good kid, just about finished with his tour, had a baby he’d never even seen. I loved that guy. So I just lost it. Went after the CO-head-butted the bastard. Broke his nose.”
“Wow,” I said. “Jesus. I can’t blame you. So you got court-martialed or something?”
He shrugged. “I’m lucky they didn’t send me to Leavenworth. But nobody in the command wanted to draw any attention to what went down that night, and they sure as hell didn’t want CID looking into it. Bad for army morale. More important, bad PR. So the deal was, dishonorable discharge, no time.”
“Wow,” I said again. I wasn’t sure what CID was, but I wasn’t going to ask.
“So are you, like, a lawyer or something?”
“Salesman.”
“Where?”
“Entronics. In Framingham.”
“Cool. Can you get me a deal on a plasma TV?”
I hesitated. “I don’t sell the consumer line, but I might be able to do something.”
He smiled. “I’m kidding. I couldn’t afford one of those anyway, even wholesale. So, I noticed the glove you got back there. Sweet. Rawlings Gold Glove, Heart of the Hide. Same as the pros use. Looks brand-new. Right out of the box. Just get it?”
“Um, about two years,” I said. “Gift from my wife.”
“Oh. You play?”
“Not much. Mostly on my company’s team. Softball, not baseball, but my wife didn’t know the difference.” Our team sucked. We were on a losing streak that resembled the Baltimore Orioles’ historically pathetic 1988 season. “You play?”
He shrugged. “Used to.”
A long beat of silence.
“In school or something?” I said.
“Got drafted by the Detroit Tigers, but never signed.”
“Seriously?”
“My pitch speed was clocked at ninety-four, ninety-five miles an hour.”
“No way. Jesus!” I turned to look at him.
“But that wasn’t where my head was, at that point. Enlisted instead. I’m Kurt, by the way.” He took his right hand off the wheel and gave me a firm handshake. “Kurt Semko.”
“Jason Steadman.”
There was another long silence, and then I had an idea.
“We could use a pitcher,” I said.
“Who?”
“My company’s team. We’ve got a game tomorrow night, and we sure could use a decent pitcher. How would you like to play on our team tomorrow?”
Another long pause. Then: “Don’t you have to work for the company?”
“Guys we play have no idea who works for us and who doesn’t.”
Kurt went quiet again.
After a minute, I said, “So what do you think?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.” He was staring at the road, a half smile on his face.
At the time it seemed like a fun idea.
2
I love my wife.
Sometimes I can’t believe that a woman as intelligent and sophisticated and, oh yeah, unbelievably beautiful, settled for a guy like me. She likes to joke that our courtship was the greatest job of salesmanship I ever pulled off. I don’t disagree. I did close the deal, after all.
When I walked in, Kate was sitting on the couch watching TV. There was a bowl of popcorn in her lap and a glass of white wine on the coffee table in front of her. She was wearing faded old gym shorts from her prep school, which nicely set off her long, toned legs. As soon as she saw me come in, she got up from the couch, ran over to hug me. I winced, but she didn’t notice. “Oh, my God,” she said. “I’ve been so worried.”
“I’m fine, I told you. The only thing that got hurt was my pride. Though the tow truck driver thought I was an idiot.”
“You’re totally okay, Jase? Were you wearing a seat belt and everything?” She pulled back to look at me. Her eyes were a great shade of hazel green, and her hair was full and black, and she had a sharp jawline and high cheekbones. She reminded me of a young, dark-haired Katharine Hepburn. Endearingly enough, she considered herself plain, her features too sharp and exaggerated. Tonight, though, her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. She’d obviously been crying a lot.
“The car just went off the side of the road,” I said. “I’m fine, but the car got messed up.”
“The car,” she said with an airy wave, as if my Acura TL were a wad of toilet paper. I assume she inherited these aristocratic gestures from her parents. You see, Kate comes from money, sort of. That is, her family was once very rich, but the money never made it to her generation. The Spencer fortune took a big hit in 1929, when her great-grandfather made some really dumb investment decisions around the time of the Crash, and finally got finished off by her father, who was an alcoholic and only knew how to spend money, not manage it.
All Kate got was part of an expensive education, a cultivated voice, a lot of rich family friends who now felt sorry for her, and a houseful of antiques. Many of which she’d jammed into our three-bedroom colonial house on a quarter acre in Belmont.
“How’d you get back?” she said.
“Tow truck driver. Interesting guy-ex-Special Forces.”
“Hmm,” she said, that not-interested-but-trying-to-fake-it noise I knew so well.
“Is that dinner?” I said, pointing to the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table.
“Sweetie, I’m sorry. I just didn’t feel like cooking tonight. You want me to make you something?”
I could visualize the brick of tofu lurking in the refrigerator, and I almost shuddered. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll just grab something. Come here.” I hugged her again. Braved the pain without wincing this time. “Forget about the car. I’m worried about you.”
All of a sudden she started crying as I held her. She kind of crumpled. I felt her chest heave and her hot tears dampen my shirt. I squeezed her tight. “It’s just that I really thought…this one was going to work,” she said.
“Next time, maybe. We just have to be patient, huh?”
“Do you not worry about anything?”