Chapter 5

So anyhow, we won our division easy and got into the playoffs again. And almost everybody was happy. But me and my wife, we weren’t doing no better than we had been, and she still didn’t want to talk to me and hung up when I called. I drove out there after the season was over and before we got to play the Cubs, who won it all last year you know And there was a big, black Caddy in the driveway and since I really didn’t want to have another fist-fight on account of I might get to pitch in the playoffs, I just turned around and drove home and drank myself to sleep.

You know what happened: we lost - again. And in the fifth game, the deciding game, we played absolutely the worst baseball I have ever seen or heard about, ever, anywhere. We did everything wrong that you could do wrong, and I think we probably invented a few new things to do wrong. It was awful and me and the guy who was supposed to pitch but didn’t, we were the only ones that didn’t get in. Lucky us.

The locker room was very quiet except for some cussing, and I didn’t know whether or not Dusty is going to survive. Last I heard, he didn’t have a contact for next year. Damn shame, that’s what that is.

So I cleaned out my locker and threw my stuff in the trunk of my Mustang. Did I tell you I finally bought a new car? I did, a bright red convertible too, just what I always wanted.

But I still didn’t know what to do. I knew what I wanted to do, but my wife, she was mad at me and had been for more than a month. Seemed like a year.

So anyhow I drove out to her new house and hay farm in the country - well, sort of the country if you think that farmers are people who drive Bentleys and Jaguars. There wasn’t any black Cadillac around, just her electric car and her old pickup, the one that came with the place. And no orphans either.

I went to the back door and it was open so I just walked in and called for her. No answer. I went out back and over on the hillside I saw her tractor and mower sliding though the field of ripening hay. So I got myself a Coke and sat in the back steps and waited on account of it don’t make no sense to interrupt somebody’s who’s working and besides I didn’t know what I was going to say or do. Maybe ten minutes later I heard the tractor getting nearer and here she came with the mower turned up.

I watched her hop down and was immediately back in crazy love with her again. She saw me, waved, did something to her machinery and walked my way. I got up and waited. She was smiling.

“Hi Bean, “ she said shaking my hand like we was just old biddies, “I just made a couple of hundred dollars. How’d you do?”

“You know. We got beat something awful. Rather not talk about it.”

She nodded. “I watched some of it. Turned it off after that fourth or fifth inning, felt sorry for your catcher.”

“Yeah, it was awful. Made me sick at the stomach.”

She took my hand and led me into her house, and we sat on the side porch even though it was a cool day.

“Now what?” She asked, putting down her Coke bottle.

“I was thinking that maybe we ought to sell our house since you’ve got this nice place out here.”

She sniffed and nodded. “Where would you live, rent an apartment?”

“No, durn it, I’d live with you. Right here. This is a nice place, not so far from town. We are married you know.”

“And play baseball?” She wrinkled her nose and made a face like she tasted something bad. I nodded. “S’all I know how to do.”