Leisel and Eric, lawyers in the same firm, have a beautiful new home, custom-built, state-of-the-consumable-art, a Spanish-style villa on an manmade lake within a gated community called Country Walk, upscale, opulent, wearing no visible scars that a decade ago Hurricane Andrew ravaged this Disney World landscape; like her neighborhood, Leisel seems unscathed by old storms. Alan lives nearby, across from the zoo, in a one-room efficiency he’s furnished with a pull-out couch for the kids to sleep on when they spend the night; his ex-wife has never been inside. No, he hasn’t looked Leisel directly in the eye since their split-up. He talks to her out the side of his mouth. And the first thing he does, when he gets to the ballfields tonight, is scan for her BMW—where is it? As he strides for the dugout, Coach Alan checks the team’s cheering section, bracing himself for Leisel and Eric; they’ll rub their married bliss right in his scruffy face. But they’re not there . . . nor is Abigail, his seven-year-old. The Peruvian nanny brought Jeff to the game. Good. Alan tips his cap to Immaculata.
As usual, it feels nice to be at a baseball field, soothing; the smell of wet grass and musty gloves, the feel of scuffed horsehide in his hands, sacred. The world’s aglitter, the outfield sparkling like a lake of gems. Alan loves the game, and hates it, having played college ball, then two years in the minors, two disappointing seasons, until they’d finally concluded he just wasn’t professional caliber. Not Quite Good Enough, the perfect epitaph. Carve it on my headstone. “What a day,” whispers the adjunct. “What a fucked-up day.”
On a ground-out, the little Phillies end the second inning and leave the field. Alan hugs Jeff, too hard, embarrasses the boy, and now Coach high-fives each one of his son’s overprivileged teammates, and exhorts them: “Awright, guys, let’s hit the ball! Score some runs!”
Before the new inning begins, Leisel and Eric make their inevitable appearance, with towheaded Abigail in tow. Alan nods to them, blows a kiss up to his little girl. Abby smiles brightly, takes a seat beside Eric, holds Eric’s hand. That bastard best keep his mouth off Jefferson tonight, goddamnit.
High-scoring, the ballgame goes long, and Coach Alan gets rather nasty with the teenage umps—he never used to get like this. When Jeff takes a called third strike for the second time in as many at-bats, the adjunct gives the homeplate umpire an earful, climaxing in a wisecrack: “Why the hell would anybody want to be an ump? Blue, you’ll probably grow up someday and be a ticket-writing policeman, by God.”
In the top of the sixth, two outs, bases loaded, the Phillies down 13-11, Jeff comes to the plate. After walking four consecutive batters, the Mets’ new pitcher has settled down, striking out two-in-a-row. “Be feisty up there,” father encourages son. “Take your cuts!” Aggressive, Jeff fouls off a pitch, and now he swings at high fastball, nose high, and Alan applauds . . . but Eric shouts out: “Jefferson, buddy, lay off the tall ones!”
Shut up, asshole! Alan doesn’t shout it at the new husband, opting instead for a menacing glower. Eric, you’re a bimbo, a bonehead. When you tell a kid to “lay off,” then he’ll never take a good cut at the next pitch, regardless how fat it is. Fool!
Sure enough, Jeff doesn’t swing, and strike three is called, and the game ends. “Oh, buddy, no!” moans Eric. “No-o-o! You gotta swing at that; always go down swinging. Swing the bat!”
“Shut the fuck up, Eric!” The words bounce off the concession stand, seem to echo for miles. “You lay off, goddamnit, or I’ll teach you something ‘bout going down swinging.”
“Oh, really?” Eric laughs.
“Try me!”
“Talk it up, pal. Keep talking. But you won’t do shit.”
Clang! The baseball Alan had in his pocket chinks against the chain-link fence separating the two men; it would’ve struck Eric’s head. Now Alan flings himself on the barrier, as if he’d climb it, and he has to be forcibly restrained by his assistant coaches, dragging them to the dugout door. Never one to shirk from a scrap, Eric confronts Alan there, and soon their hands on each other, Alan ripping the buttons off Eric’s replica Mark McGwire jersey, scratching the larger man’s neck up pretty badly. Never able to wrest himself free of his coaches, the adjunct doesn’t get to take that good swing, to land that right-cross, but damage is done.
“You’re both idiots!” scolds Leisel, shielding Abigail from the fray.
“Dad, stop,” sobs Jeff, from the dugout. “Daddy, stop it, please!”
