Chapter 3

It was after our return home from another road trip before I again even considered Rollie’s stupid plan for meeting women. Going to church had never been something I chose to do with my Sunday mornings. Staying in bed, maybe nursing the previous night’s mild hangover, was more my speed.

But it was getting lonely, living in a strange town like Lawrenceville, not knowing any of my neighbors, not really being part of a community when I was in town, and then being out of town half the damned time. The International League was spread out all over the eastern U.S., with fourteen clubs in all. In my short time with the Braves, I’d already found out that it was still awfully cold in Syracuse and Rochester in May, and that the Red Sox fans in Pawtucket, Rhode Island were almost as obnoxious as their big-league cousins in Boston. Or so I had heard. I only knew the Boston versions by reputation.

Anyway, I was getting desperate, and very horny, so Sunday morning I found a Methodist Church close to home with nine o’clock services, and I dressed up and went.

No joy. The minister was a droner, the congregation looked like it had an average age of eighty, and nobody -- old, young or middle-aged -- approached me after the service with an invitation to Sunday dinner.

Concluding that Rollie Perkins was delusional, I had an early dinner, alone, at a Cracker Barrel just outside of town.

“Give it time,” Rollie told me in the dugout during that afternoon’s game with Charlotte. “I never claimed you’d hit it every time. It’s just like being a hitter, Marty – three out of ten and you’re headed for the Big Leagues.”

“I’m hitting .343 and the Atlanta Braves don’t even know I’m alive,” I told him.

“Bullshit!” Rollie said. “Listen, if I could hit like you, I wouldn’t be sitting around cryin’ in my beer.”

“At least they let you out on the field with leather on your hand,” I said. (I was thinking, “Not that you’re anything to write home about as a catcher,” but I didn’t say anything like that, because Rollie was my friend.) It was true, though. It was best not to think about it too hard, but the fact was that Rollie Perkins wasn’t likely to get that call to join the Atlanta Braves anytime soon. I knew it, and, probably Rollie knew it too.

“Anyways,” he said, “you gotta give my system another shot. You’re a good-looking dude. Not quite as good-looking as me, maybe, but, y’know -- good-looking enough. You just find you a nine o’clock church service, and dress up nice. And stand up tall when they’re singin’ the hymns and shit.” Rollie’s confidence was limitless. “Somebody’s mama gonna notice you, your big ol’ hairy head stickin’ way up above all them bald old men. Some nice lady with a steamin’ hot daughter waitin’ at home, just dreamin’ about meeting some tall, dark and handsome young ath-a-lete.”

I shook my head. “You’re so full of shit, Rollie. After you’re through with ballplaying, you’re a sure thing to be an executive – maybe a CEO -- in the fertilizer industry!”

By the end of May we were a game over .500 and in first place in the four-team Southern Division of the league. Gwinnett’s club wasn’t that great, but we were, for the moment at least, the class of our pitiful little Southern Division. I was finding International League pitchers to be friendly fellows for the most part, and I was second in the league on OBP, fourth in homers (despite my late start in the IL) and third in runs batted in. I was playing every day and keeping my nose clean, working at being as good a hitter as I could make myself be. I hated sitting in the dugout between innings, but it wasn’t news to me that I was a crummy defensive player. I knew that I deserved it.

My personal life was, meanwhile, a disaster in the making. Back in Jackson, Mississippi, I had experienced no particular problem getting acquainted with young women. There had been no shortage of gorgeous women in Jackson, and I thought I’d done pretty well for a country boy from New Mexico.

Lawrenceville seemed to be a different story. Despite being part of the Greater Atlanta Metro area, it was essentially a small southern town. A lot smaller than Jackson. There was nothing particularly wrong with the women I saw in Lawrenceville, but somehow they all seemed to be taken. Married, or settled, or in some way inappropriate as objects of my lustful attentions. Quite a few of my teammates were married guys themselves.

Maybe in a more normal line of endeavor, my fellow workers would be introducing me to young women that their wives knew; but we were all relative strangers to the city and the area. We were less likely than most people to have an established a network of local friends and acquaintances to introduce to our teammates.

Not for the first time, I wished I had been thinking about this kind of thing when I’d looked for an apartment in Lawrenceville. It would have been smart to find a bigger, busier place with multiple units, a swimming pool – a place where young unmarried women were living while pursuing their working careers.

Young women who were maybe looking for young men.

Each time I began to focus on this possibility – finding a better place to live – boom, the club was off on another road trip and the whole question got put on hold again.

So, okay, we’re back home for a three-game weekend series with the visiting Toledo Mudhens, and Sunday morning rolls around and I decide, what the hell? I’ll give it another try. Forward with The Famous Rollie Perkins Church-Haunting Experiment. This time, I get adventurous and try the Unitarian-Universalists. They’re close-by, they have a nine-o’clock service and I’m thinking maybe that, unlike the Methodists, their average age might be a little under eighty. I don’t know that much about the Unitarians but I hear they’re on the liberal side. Maybe their preacher won’t be quite as sleep-inducing as the local Methodist guy had been a few weeks back.

So I find a place close to the front -- I’m in the fourth row -- and sure enough, their pastor is a youngish looking guy, partially balding but sturdy, and he’s telling us about how God shouldn’t be thought of as this “anthropomorphic being,” but rather simply as a “creative force” in the universe.

I thought that sounded pretty sensible and modern, but a little while later, after the guy quit sermonizing, he says, “Let us pray,” and everybody bows their heads and he starts out, “Oh, Great Creative Force...” and I kind of sputter a little bit to keep from just laughing out loud, because, to me, Old GCF sounded pretty anthropomorphic at that point. But I don’t embarrass myself and pretty soon everybody is picking up their stuff and preparing to file out and shake hands with the young balding guy out at the door.

That’s when I see her for the first time. She’s a young woman – clearly not with a husband, and, far as I can see, alone in the church. She’s dressed in a light-colored suit, very stylish, with a darker, well-coordinated blouse buttoned closed at the neck with some kind of little tassel-looking thing. Despite the modesty of her outfit, it’s impossible not to notice that she’s got a body that is the stuff that dreams are made of. Tall, long blonde hair, clear, creamy complexion. Her restrained lipstick and makeup and understated, buttoned-up look is being strongly resisted and contradicted by breasts that seem to want to burst free from their fabric enclosure. The skirt of her suit is entirely modest and suitably long for church wear, but it fails miserably to disguise the fact that this woman’s legs and ass belong in the smallest possible thong – or better yet, in absolutely nothing at all.