People who had been coming here regularly for a decade or two called the place Gwen’s II. No one remembers the original Gwen’s, if there ever was one. The place was owned and run now by a woman named Sheila and her two daughters, one of whom, Jesse, was eighteen and about to graduate a year late at Sarasota High School a block away. She was a year late because she had taken time out to have her second baby. The other daughter, Jean, had graduated a year ago. They were all natural blonds and all able to deflect a sharp or heavy innuendo with the skill of a seasoned and well-armed gladiator.
Digger and I took a booth in the no-smoking section. The no-smoking section was four booths against one wall with smokers surrounding it.
Gwen’s was busy, and the three women were scurrying around but making it look easy, taking care of the counter-sitters and going from a table of roofers, to a single car salesman reading his newspaper, to three women who looked as if they were just going to or coming from the fitness center Digger and I had passed on our way here.
“Coffee?” asked Sheila, looking down at us.
All three women wore whatever they felt like wearing, which was generally tight jeans, when they weren’t pregnant, and various brightly colored T-shirts.
“Yes. Waffles and an egg over easy with bacon for me,” I said.
“Fueling up for the day, Fonesca?” she asked with a smile. “And you?”
She looked at Digger with a businesslike smile.
“The same,” he said, looking at me to be sure it was all right.
I nodded to Sheila, who scribbled on her pad.
“How are the kids?” I asked.
“You mean my girls or their little ones?” she asked.
“Everyone.”
“Dancing through life,” Sheila said, turned, and moved toward the kitchen.
“That’s it. That’s it. It’s the dancing,” Digger said, leaning toward me across the table. “I don’t trust my knees. I stopped dancing through life ten years ago and started to walk slow and for maybe the last two, three years I’ve been, to tell you the truth, crawling.”
Sheila came back with two mugs of coffee.
“Big Cheese Omelet up,” a woman’s voice came from the kitchen out of sight from where we sat.
Help arrived in the form of Tim from Steubenville, who moved from the counter and sat next to me, facing Digger. Tim lived in an assisted-living home a short walk away at the end of Brother Geenen Way. He spent as much time as he could at Gwen’s, reading the newspaper and telling those who’d listen that drugs, which he had never used, should be legalized, that there should be no income tax, that gays should do whatever they wanted including getting married, that anyone who wanted a gun and wasn’t insane should have one. Since there was very little left of Tim, who was eighty-nine years old, the regulars at Gwen’s tolerated him, a few even agreeing with him from time to time, which he appreciated, or argued with him, which he appreciated even more.
Tim had brought his coffee and newspaper with him. He looked at Digger.
“Seen you around,” Tim said.
Digger nodded.
“You’re looking better than I seen you before.”
Digger nodded again.
“Off the bottle?” Tim asked.
“I don’t drink,” a melancholy Digger said. “No drinking. No drugs. Haven’t smoked in twenty years or more.”
“Nothing to give up,” said Tim, nodding in sympathy.
Sheila looked over at me from the table of the three women and made a nod, which I took to mean that she would ease Tim back to the counter if I wanted him gone. I shook my head once to let her know Tim’s presence was all right with me. I preferred Tim talking to Digger than my talking to either one of them.
I tuned them out, hearing only voices, not words, until Sheila came with our platters and a flip-top pitcher of syrup.
“I never thought of it that way,” Digger was saying when I came back to earth.
“Well, what the hell you have to lose?” said Tim. “What the hell?”
Having accomplished his mission, Tim folded his newspaper, picked up his mug of coffee, and went back to his place at the counter, where he immediately engaged a burly trucker in animated conversation.
Digger dug into his food and finished long before I did, a determined look on his face. I was about halfway through when Digger said, “You mind if I get going? I’ve got stuff to do to get ready for work tonight.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Thanks for your help,” Digger said, getting up.
“Sure,” I said again, wondering for only a beat what Tim had said to him that had brought Digger back to the first small step of self-confidence.
I left a tip on the table and paid Jesse at the cash register with Elvis in midgyration a few feet to my right.
Less than fifteen minutes later I pulled onto the driveway at Seventeenth Street Park. I passed a big open field on my left, where about a dozen people and the same number of dogs were running and barking. The parking lot a little farther down on the left was almost full, but there were spaces open if I was willing to step into shallow puddles left by the rain.
I could see ball games going on beyond the mesh fence, and I went through an open gate and down a concrete path. Voices were traveling in the heavy air. The sound of an aluminum bat hitting a ball clanked clearly, followed by shouts of encouragement.
Hoffmann was waiting for me at the first field on my right. He was wearing jeans, a New York Yankees cap, softball shoes, and an orange T-shirt with “Double Tiger Productions” printed on the front. The men on the bench behind more meshed metal were wearing the same Double Tiger shirts.
“Glad you could make it,” Hoffmann said cheerfully. “I’m up this inning if we get a man on base.”
The men out in the field were wearing blue shirts. I couldn’t make out what was written on them. Both the men in the field and the ones on the bench ranged in age from not young to decidedly old.
“They know you’re only thirty-five?” I asked.
Hoffmann laughed. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t authentic either.
“Watch this next batter,” he said.
A heavyset man came off the bench, two bats in his large hands. He wore shorts, and both knees were reinforced with white elastic bands. He moved slowly, swinging the bats, handed one of the bats to a wiry man who had to be seventy, adjusted his glasses, and moved to the plate.
“That’s Alan Roberts,” Hoffmann said. “The Boomer. No knees. Has to hit it deep off the fence to make it to first. Then he gets a pinch runner.”
I watched. The pitcher was a lean man with a dirty white cap. He put his feet on the rubber, stepped off, and delivered the ball. The ball arced. Roberts swung and missed.
“Harder to hit a slow-pitch softball than a fast pitch,” he said. “Fast pitch, the ball comes straight at you. You swing even, make contact, and that’s it. Slow pitch, you have to hit up into the ball, time your swing perfectly, and supply your own power. It’s an art.”
There was supportive chatter on the field, encouraging the pitcher, whose name seemed to be Winston. There was also supportive chatter from the bench for Boomer, who took a couple of practice swings and cocked his bat back. Winston delivered. The arc was low. The ball was about to cross the plate chest-high when the batter swung. The ball sailed up and out about twenty feet in the air and rocketed toward the fence and over it. The bench cheered.
“That’s more than two hundred feet,” Hoffmann said happily as Boomer shuffled around the bases. “A lot of these guys played college ball, minor leagues, even a few made it to the majors. The hitting stays with you. The fielding, too. The body goes. Legs, back, arms.”
Boomer crossed the plate and accepted high fives from the bench and Hoffmann, who moved over to meet him and then came back to me.
“I’ll get up this inning,” Hoffmann said. “I’ll make this quick and straight, Fonesca. See that gym bag at the end of the bench, the red one with the white handles?”