I sat at an angle that offered a view of his face. In the opening segment, a hairy hand repeatedly stabbed a woman’s chest; the camera closed in on her heart as the knife torpedoed it. The hand tugged a noose around the woman’s throat; tossed her through stained glass. Neil stared at the screen. His expression was identical to the one he’d worn during Rawhide.
“Defenestration,” I said. “‘The act of throwing someone through a window.’” I knew a lot of words like that.
Neil stretched out, his foot brushing my hand. I wondered what he would do if I said, “I want to move to New York, too.” If I said, “I’m falling into uncontrollable love with you.” Save it for your journal, I told myself.
We got stoned, and half an hour passed. More murders and mayhem. I glanced back at Neil and discovered he’d fallen asleep. A feeble red vein branched across his eyelid. Behind it, his eyeballs darted and wobbled, surveying the details of a dream I doubted would feature me. I concentrated, attempting to psychically drive a message into Neil’s brain: Hi. Although I’ve known you nearly four months, a large chunk of your life remains as strange and enigmatic as one of those unidentified people the authorities found in that circus fire I recently read about, their faces burned beyond recognition. The mystery that surrounds you only makes me love you more. Oh well, what can I do? I leaned over Neil’s ear, wanting to kiss it, but instead whispering against the skin, “Sweet dreams.”
In the film, an hysterical woman crawled through an open window, only to drop headfirst into a roomful of twisted barbed wire. That’s precisely how I feel right now, I thought. When her screams grew too loud, I muted the volume and watched him sleep.
I arrived at Sun Center to find Neil positioned in his press box. He wore white, his shirt wounded with gray sweat stains. On a table in front of him were pencils, a score pad, and a microphone, its mouthpiece covered with a red foam ball that made it look obscene. He listened to a portable stereo playing music from a tape I’d made him, one I’d labeled “Depressing Shit.” Genuine pain racked the singer’s voice. “Ooh, you’re still standing in my shadow.”
“Hello, hello,” Neil said. He revealed a bottle he’d been concealing beneath his chair. Vodka. I wondered if his mom would notice it missing, or if she would care. “Now shut that door behind you before someone spies this.”
I sat beside him. From the press box vantage point, I could see nearly all of Sun Center. There was the gleaming white of the powdered chalk, its straight lines trailing to first and third base, its batter’s box rectangles and on-deck circles. The dugouts, each tagged with a sign displaying the team’s name, each with a mammoth orange cooler filled with water. The rubber of home plate and the pitcher’s mound, the base paths scarred by players’ cleats; the outfield that shone with a green so vibrant I wished I could view it on acid.
The night’s opening game was about to start. The teams took their places on the diamond. The players’ wives and friends sat on the bleachers, most drinking from beer cans, shoving burgers or hot dogs into their mouths.
Neil took a swig from the vodka bottle, then clicked on the microphone. He lowered his voice to sound “official,” “professional,” or some other adjective he assigned to his expected job performance. I, however, could see right through it: he thought it all a big joke. “Welcome to Sun Center,” he said. Some softball-adoring morons glanced up at us, and I scooted my seat back so I wouldn’t be seen. Neil continued. “The first game of the Men’s Class C Divisional Tournament features First National Bank, out of McPherson, against Auto-Electric, from Hutchinson.”
The umpire, a man wearing a light blue shirt over his beer gut, turned and gave the okay signal. “Play ball,” said Neil.
The first inning dragged by. In seconds I was bored. Neil and I passed the bottle between us, waiting for something hilarious to happen. “Watch this.” He clicked the mike. “Ward is the batter, with Knackstedt on deck,” he said, giving extra emphasis on the K in the latter name.
A man in the bleachers’ top row shot up from his seat. He was the typical softball moron, dressed in his straw hat, his yellow-framed sunglasses, his black socks with jogging shoes. He turned, glaring at Neil. “It’s Nock-Shtitt,” the man pronounced. He shook a noisemaker at us, one he’d brought in case his chosen team won the game. Neil gave the okay sign, and the man sat back down.
Nock-Shtitt flied out to left field. End of inning. I felt like saying, He couldn’t hit worth shtitt, but just as I opened my mouth, Neil’s mike clicked again. “No runs, no hits, no errors,” he said. “After one full inning of play, the score is First National Bank zero, Auto-Electric zero.” He reached for the keyboard to the electronic scoring device and punched a button. I looked toward the left field fence; on the scoreboard, the inning changed from one to two.
While I sipped from the bottle, Neil pointed out men he thought handsome. During game number two, he said, “Look at that one,” indicating the third baseman. “Oh, baby.” At first I thought he was kidding. The guy had huge sideburns, a toast-colored mustache, and a bald spot the circumference of a hubcap. “I’d have him for free,” Neil said.
A player hit a foul ball. I watched it loop over the fence, bounce into the parking lot, and disappear beneath a Jeep. “Please bring all foul balls to the press box,” Neil said into the mike.
Seconds later, there was a knock on the door behind us. “Enter.” The door opened, and a boy stepped into the box, his hair cropped short, sweatbands cuffing his wrists. He presented the grass-stained ball to Neil, cupping it in both hands like something sacred. “My daddy hit this,” he said.
Neil reached into a box beside the scoreboard buttons. Inside were wrapped pieces of bubble gum and some shiny dimes. “What do you prefer, little man?” I’d never seen Neil around a kid before. He’d seemed the type who would ignore or torture them, but that wasn’t the case. He shifted his eyes from the game and scrubbed at the boy’s hair. “Will it be the money or the bubbles?” The boy shuffled forward to get a better look at his choices, and Neil patted his shoulder. “I’ll decide for you,” he said. He held out three dimes and five pieces of gum. The boy took them, the smile practically cracking his tiny face, and scampered out.
“When kids do well, you’ve got to reward them.” Neil looked back to the game. “Jesus, look at that catcher’s ass.”
The second game was ending, and Neil and I were drunk. His fingers drummed the vodka bottle in time to the music. I wanted to kiss him, but that part of our relationship was over. In the sky, a low-flying plane trailed a banner that advertised something, its letters unreadable in the waning light.
On the drive home, I could only think about Neil. If what I felt was love, it had happened unexpectedly, like a slap from a stranger or a hailstorm of cherries from a cloudless sky. We’re supposed to be just friends, I told myself. He likes only older men. I stepped on the Gremlin’s accelerator, figuring the best thing to do was get home and write some really fucked-up, drunken lines of poetry in my journal. I was contemplating moronic possible poem titles-“Raining Tears of Blood”; “The Bottomless Pit Called Me”-when I zoomed through a red light. I didn’t see the pickup. I slammed into its back end.
I sat there, dazed. I took a breath, paused, breathed again. I carefully rearranged my thoughts. A picture of my mom and dad took shape in my mind, and I forced it back into some far, neglected corner. I’m alive, I thought. They weren’t so lucky.
The pickup was illegally parked alongside Fourth Street, in front of an apartment complex. In the apartment’s lot, partygoers whooped it up, speakers blaring an old Led Zeppelin tune at top volume. I picked out the words “woman,” “baby,” and “shake that thing.” I waited, but the music didn’t cease. No one came cussing or flailing out. Gradually, the fact dawned on me that I’d hit the windshield. The glass had spiderwebbed.