After the Great Kerplooey, everything was worth about a penny. If that. The Stock Exchange had become a Mausoleum, precious metals became superfluous, and the word entrepreneur got 86ed out of the collective lexicon. Real estate moguls dedicated themselves exclusively to marathon-running, but nobody really cared about their cheap sweat. Coffee consumption plummeted. It was worse than the 18th Great Depression, we were on the verge of the Second Great Ennui, and the bumberclotters weren’t helping, believe me, they kept bitching about having nothing to do so the Grand Poo-Bah made a bold speech, declaring that his planet wasn’t going couch potato on his watch. Everybody had to do something, even if it meant we’d all become light bulb installers.
Filled with a sense of civic duty and overzealousness that can only be rivaled from a return to classes after a long recess, I plunged into my new vocation. I chose it the way most college freshmen pick an elective, eenie, meenie, minie. Moe. Eye closed, I landed my scrawny index finger on Dust Buster and the rest is history. Nothing is more therapeutic. And, for a recovering agnostic, there’s no better way to scrub your soul. I still couldn’t say the G-word, but when I got into a cleansing flow, sucking up dustballs under the couch— hey now. Hadn’t been so jazzed since my punchball days.
One of the consequences of the Great Kerplooey was that baseball took a nosedive. All the prima donnas bugged out when the American Pastime became a boys’ game again. They were only doing it for the money. Without a celebrity lifestyle, they decided to play video games. So the scrubs took over the diamond. A .279 batting average became a viable contender for the batting crown. It wasn’t pretty, but at least folks still had a reason to drown themselves in stale beer in the middle of the week, bulbous red nose to bulbous red nose, listening for the ump to vent his lungs.
Then there was Marty Pilbeam who had enormous zeal and the skill set of a toothpick. He spent eight hours a day shagging flies and grounders off the schoolyard wall. The slapdash arrangement of bricks redirected most of his tosses so it virtually impossible to predict where the ball would go. As a result, Marty got one heck of a workout.
In the mornings, I passed him on my way to fetching my paper. He always had the crazed puss of somebody embroiled in a life and death tryout. Sometimes he even looked respectable out there, but who had the heart to trample on his one pipedream.
Wayne Piscatotle, our neighborhood yutz, almost did numerous times, but I told him not to hassle the poor sap. I gave Wayne chocolate bars so he’d stop being a killjoy. He first recognized Marty’s schoolyard antics and kept me posted. He assured me Marty would be straightjacketed by mid-June. I passed by the schoolyard in the mornings to see for myself. It all seemed a little pathetic, but harmless until Marty stopped bringing the ball. He still had the glove, cap, and the same mealy uniform, one yellow stirrup, shimmying down his ankle like a shriveled corn husk, but he kept shagging ghost flies. Without the ball, I got a little worried. His intensity had always been a bit unsettling for most people though it never bothered me much. I saw him as a big, wad-chewing kid, even at thirty-seven.
When I saw him punching his mitt and screaming, “We want a pitcher not a belly-itcher” to a flummoxed pigeon, I knew I had to step to the plate.
I walked over to Marty and he threw his arms up. “Whoa, Nap,” Marty said. “Where you going?”
“Just wanted to talk.”
“With runners on the corners?”
“My bad,” I said and pretended, I too, could see the invisible players, taking their leads.
Right then, I was in over my helmet. I had to figure out the ground rules pronto or else I’d get beaned by a screwball.
“What inning?” I asked.
“Top of the sixth,” he said.
“Cool. Maybe we’ll catch up later.”
The next day Marty was chasing down a runner when I showed up. He lunged with his gloved hand, finally nabbing the guy. I felt like clapping, but didn’t want to encourage him. Then he thumbed me over.
“Would you mind throwing a little B.P?” Marty said. “We’re shorthanded.”
Besides the two of us, there was only a scrawny tabby in the schoolyard and she didn’t even have a glove.
I went over to the makeshift mound and warmed up while Marty took cuts with his invisible bat. I must say, he looked ferocious at the point of contact. After a couple of minutes, he yelled “Batter up” and I heeled the rubber.
From a half-stretch, I tossed a few meatballs till Marty got his groove. “Boy, you roped that last one,” I said.
It all seemed harmless enough until Wayne budinskied. He was surprised to see me messing around with Marty so early in the day, but after I tossed the imaginary meatballs for Marty to smash off the fence, Wayne’s jaw dropped.
As I was loping to the fence, fetching the phantom balls, Wayne tugged my shirt sleeve.
“How long you going to play this charade?” Wayne said.
“As long as necessary,” I said.
“Well, I want you to know that I think it’s wrong.”
“I know.”
“You know what I think or you know it’s wrong?”
“Both.”
“What you plan to do about it?”
“Don’t know.”
“You can’t keep it up forever.”
And I knew I couldn’t, but I was a very good procrastinator and equally adept at sweeping the metaphorical under the rug. My vacuuming, you know, was unparalleled.
Marty’s enthusiasm was contagious. He kept digging in his back heel. You’d swear we were on a dirt field rather than a crummy schoolyard. So animated were his rally cries I started doing the wave.
Folks started to come by to watch our miming routine. At first, just a dog-walker or two; the labs didn’t make a big fuss, but their leash-yokers were stoked. Then hedge-clippers, plumbers, and even a few suits took in our matinee. Soon fathers and sons garbed with their own gloves filled the out field. Not my boys. They were too busy with their string theory experiments. Fortunately, they had their mom’s brain and weren’t going to catch me in the act. I don’t think I could’ve lived down the ridicule.
When we got ourselves a full infield, and an opposing dugout of like-minded enthusiasts, we knew we had something. It was a soaring feeling. Must’ve been the same rush pioneer air guitar bands had. I found myself chest-bumping with the ump over a lousy call.
Eventually, I traded my favorite tweed jacket for a decent shortstop’s glove. Got a couple of cans of linseed oil and began smoothing it in. You couldn’t put a price on what we were doing. We were putting the fun back into the Great American Pastime or that’s how I saw it.
Marty crossed a different Rubicon. He had the hangdog face of a pennant-chasing manager. He blew a gasket whenever he suspected somebody wasn’t pulling his weight. His neck veins thick as glue sticks. Trotting was a big no-no. “Burn, baby burn” was his favorite chant. It became his mantra. Once he had to discipline me for not dropping a bunt to move the runners over. I took it to heart and it didn’t happen again.
He expected the guys to do laps and winds sprints before the game. I’ll admit it became less fun and more of a grind. Even Marty seemed to be stressing more and I wondered if it was all really worth it. Then, before I had the chance to say anything, he sidled up to me while we were in the middle of batting practice. I was smoothing the hitch from my swing when he said, “Hey Nap, this isn’t what I signed up for.”
“No, maybe not” I said.
“Don’t let it eatcha kid,” he said with a hand on my shoulder.
I could see his lid-heavy eyes roiling in disappointment, not in himself, but in the whole work-in-progress. He still had that hardnosed, extra-innings-mien, but walked with less bounce.
Just before I tossed the imaginary donut off the barrel of my invisible bat, he dropped a doozy on me. I pretended I didn’t hear him, but, of course, Marty asked me again, “Would Pops be proud of me?”
“Sure he would,” I lied.
“He always thought the world of you.”
“And you too,” I said, trying to sound convincing.
But the thing is, I’m not sure, at all, what Pops Pilbeam would’ve thought. He coached us mostly to get away from Mama Pilbeam. He never used hit and runs, never taught us the hook slide, never gave us signals to be a legitimate, midget-level ballclub. He struck me as somebody who was fully aware of his limitations and that his four-foot progeny wasn’t going to cut the mustard. I was grateful to him that he took an early interest in me, taught me how hit to the opposite field, but I wished he would’ve given his poor kid a little more attention, and didn’t call him pudge. I blame him for the reason I spoil my boys.
The next day Marty had disappeared like a foul ball gobbled into the stands. We waited for him, pushing back the game for as long as we could. I filled in as captain and we did the best under the circumstances. There was more kibitzing, but I let it slide because we all needed to blow off steam.
I blew up when Dunlap got a late jump off third on a flyout. We lost the game by a stinking run and I took it out on the water cooler, kicking its plastic rump. It felt great. Somebody from behind the fence clapped. For a nanosecond, I thought it was Wayne mocking me. Had it been, I would’ve gone water cooler on him. My admirer had a large pair of shades, cap pulled over his brows. I recognized that chew anywhere. It was Marty, grinning like a stolen base king ready to dash. He pssted me over. Much as I wanted to give him a big howdy, I didn’t blow his cover.
“You got a way with them,” Marty said.
“If you say so.”
“Sure you do and I’m not stepping on your toes. Not till we clinch.”
“Can’t do it.”
“You have to.”
“I’ve vacuuming to do.”
“Leave it to me.”
The idea of Marty taking care of my vacuuming duties had me worried, considering his soft spin on schoolyard baseball. Amazingly, he was a fill-in ace. Piscatotle had been tracking him. In fact, Marty had geometrically grown my business. He even picked up the slack of the garbage men. No more Snickers wrappers, blowing in the wind. No gum splotches, cigarette butts, or cheese doodle puff.
It had me curious. I checked up on Marty when I was done with practice. The suspense was killing me. Around seven o’clock, I saw him outside the window of Clifford’s deli. If any place needed a good sprucing up it was Clifford’s for sure. He hardly had a reason to clean. With so many going vegetarian, Clifford scaled back on his cold cuts, even removed the hanging pig from the window, but no matter what he did he couldn’t bring in traffic. Not that he needed to fill his till, nobody had to pay rent anymore anyway, but the dusty/dingy motif kept people from loping in to shoot the breeze. What else did we have to look forward to but a little chitchat?
I winced at the thought of those dusty boxes of crackers and filthy jars of jelly. It nearly gave me a sinus infection. No vacuum or push broom in sight. There was no bucket or cleaning product whatsoever. Marty was on his knees, wiping the floor barehanded. The door was open so I crept in for a closer inspection. He wasn’t even touching the floor with his hand. His palm raised, at least seven inches above the unvarnished wood, and everywhere his precious fingers roamed, a new sheen emerged. It was spooky. He didn’t notice me as I accidentally stubbed my toe on the edge of the counter. His laser focus moved to the jars of jelly, quinoa, and the fuzzy boxes of wheat thins. Again, he kept a finger-snap’s distance and as he passed each row the jelly jars and cracker boxes looked brand-spanking new. I wouldn’t disturb him, couldn’t disturb him, for Marty Pilbeam had found his great calling.