Chapter 4

The Fourth of July was bright and clear, and the heat wasn't that bad, either. Bluefield is up in the mountains a ways, and that keeps the breeze blowing through the hot summer somewhat more comfortably than in the towns down in the valley.

We had a nice holiday crowd, and the owners had sprung for overnight laundry service, so my kids' home uniforms were bright-white and clean -- for a change. I think everybody put a little extra into the effort, and once again we won, 8-3.

The crowd, and the ballplayers, went away happy. Tomorrow was the rarest of gems in baseball -- a day off with no game, and, for once, no makeup game. No obligations of any kind. Our next ballgame was 56 hours away, the night after next in Johnson City. I gave the tean my standard "don't kill yourselves" speech and let them loose -- telling myself they were responsible adult males.

Yeah, right.

Just over the thirty minutes I'd allowed myself, I came out of the cinder block shower palace, clean, dressed in an actual suit and tie, and looking civilized.

Orlie and Gloria were in casual clothes appropriate for the game, so I stood out some. "Oh, my!" Orlie said, "You're lookin' pretty sharp, there, Mr. Warren!"

"I didn't think you three beautiful ladies would want to be seen in public with some disreputable-looking ex-ballplayer. I think this suit will fool most of 'em."

Orlie looked over the suit with some care. "That's a thousand-dollar suit, I'd estimate," she said. "They'll think you're a big-shot out-of-town lawyer when you show up in that!"

Well -- it was a pretty decent suit. I had never been a clotheshorse, but most of the guys who played for awhile in the Bigs learned how to dress. Don't forget, I might now be a broken-down has-been ballplayer, relegated to rookie manager in the Apple League, but just one year ago, the Orioles had paid me $450,000 to decorate their bench for the season.

So what if that put me in the bottom quarter of the team's salary structure? It wasn't exactly pushing the poverty line!

Even now -- by Bluefield standards, at least, I made a nice dollar.

I wasn't embarrassed about the suit because I knew that the women would have the three hours before dinner to get their own sartorial acts together. I knew they had planned all along to jazz up their outfits a bit for an evening dinner out.

Orlie Martinez' house turned out to be an attractive three-bedroom detached structure in one of Bluefield's better neighborhoods. It was far from showy, but I have to admit I was a little surprised. I guess I had this picture in my mind of Orlie as single-parent with economic woes. Probably I was stereotyping her somewhat as some kind of underprivileged immigrant.

Maybe her economic woes weren't so great as all that.

Or maybe I was wrong about the single-parent part. I guess I'd better start asking a few questions.

They got me all settled down in the softest easy chair their living room had to offer, and all three of them hit the kitchen. Soon Maria came back, carrying a little tray with a glass and a bottle of Carta Blanca, dripping cold from the fridge.

How did they know I loved Mexican beer?

"Orlie's got some Budweiser, if you prefer it," Gloria called from the kitchen, "but I told Orlie you looked like you could go for a Mexican!" She giggled at her little double entendre, and I answered, just as lustily, "I've always had a thing for Mexicans!"

Orlie and Gloria came in, carrying their own beers, and Maria had what I assumed was a Coke on ice. "Maria and I aren't Mexicans," Orlie said.

"Oh, you're Americans?" I asked, assuming she meant they were native to the U.S.

"Well, I'm a naturalized citizen, yes," Orlie said, "and Maria was born here. But I am from Costa Rica. I was six years old when my parents brought me to the U.S. -- to Bluefield! We've lived here ever since."

"I'm sorry that I just assumed you were Mexican-Americans," I said. "Outside of Florida, most Hispanic people I've met have been."

"Nothing to apologize about," Orlie said. "Anyway, Gloria is a True Mexican."

"I've only been in the States for about eight years," Gloria said. "I married an Anglo man from here -- in Bluefield. I met him in Texas, after coming up from Mexico. We moved here, and then after a couple of years, we got a divorce!

"Now he's back in Texas," Gloria said, laughing, "and I'm still here!"

"So," I asked, "how many Hispanic people do you know in this little city?"

"There aren't many," Gloria said, "but maybe more than you would think! I guess I've met a couple of dozen people -- mostly Mexicans -- who are here full-time, and a few transients who come in to find work. But agriculture isn't a big thing here in the mountains, so the number of migrant workers who come through is small."