Chapter 22: Dave

I was absolutely certain I had done the right thing. Our enormous future dependence on Emmy still bothered me, but the "pre-nup" helped. It helped a lot. Perhaps Emmy was merely indulging me. Perhaps she thought that nobody would ever actually enforce the agreement -- that my ever-growing debt to her would never be repaid. After all, unless she sued for performance, nobody would or could ever force me to make good on this running tab, this long-term debt.

But I felt the obligation, and regarded it as very real, because I knew I'd rather die than fail to honor it. Even if I never made it to the Majors, I intended to pay it back,

even if I ended up doing so as manager of the appliance department at a Sears store, somewhere.

Emmy's offer on the house was accepted three days later. Closing was less than three weeks away. The season -- even the playoffs -- would be over by at least two days before closing -- even if the two-stage playoffs ran their maximum number of games.

Eddie was enrolled as a freshman at Washington Lee High School in Arlington, and he was there, right on time, when school started. Knowing that he would likely finish the entire year there, and possibly more than one year, was an enormous relief for me. It made me appreciate Emmy even more than I had already.

Eddie had to take buses to school from Emmy's apartment until we could close and move into the house. But he was ready to extend himself to accommodate all the temporary inconveniences. He was a happy kid. Living with Emmy and Patsy in their cramped apartment wasn't the height of comfort, but I was gone most of the time, playing ball, so it was really just the three of them. I knew Eddie was enjoying being the lone male with those two young, lovely women.

Despite our being the Northern Division's regular season champs, Frederick lost to Wilmington in the first round of the Carolina League playoffs, leaving it to the Blue Rocks to play the home-and-home final series with Kinston, North Carolina for the League championship.

I can't say that missing out on one last bus trip to Kinston was all that heart-breaking. Kinston won the championship. No surprise there.

I finished the season at .319 -- second-best average on the Keys -- and the sportswriters from the towns around the league selected me as the Carolina League All-Star catcher.

When I went into his office to say a final good-bye to Stu Little, he shook my hand and told me he thought I had a great future. I thanked him, but didn't take his words too seriously. I figured it was something he said to all his players as they left him -- most of them for good -- at the end of every season.

But, maybe I was wrong. As I was leaving, Little said, "You're almost certain to be in Ottawa next spring."

I stopped. "Not... Bowie?"

"Ottawa. Crenshaw is moving up, for certain, to the Orioles. He'll be the Big Club's backup, without much doubt. Ottawa's number two catcher this year is quitting the game. He's been trying for eight years to make the Show, and he's giving up. The Bowie guy, Burleson? You figured he'd move up to the Lynx, right? Only I just found out he's the "player to be named later" in that trade Baltimore made last month with the Rockies."

"So then, both Ottawa and Bowie will need a new starting catcher -- right?" I said.

"Sure. But the Bowie back-up catcher this year is still there. The way I hear it, you've made a bigger impression, playing every day here in single-A, than he's made, playing part-time in double-A ball, and not hitting his weight. He's likely to spend another year in Bowie. They'll want to see if you can hit in triple-A."

All of a sudden, I was more convinced than ever that Emmy Shreve and her red brick house in Arlington had saved my life. What would I have done with Eddie, while I lived in Canada for six months?

On the other hand, Ottawa was hundreds of miles away. Our Bowie-inspired plans, most definitely, had changed radically, and negatively.

It felt good, coming home to Emmy's apartment in Arlington -- only days before our move-in date at the house -- and knowing I could sit down, take a deep breath, and stay awhile. I needed to find work for the winter, but it could wait for a day or two. Maybe I'd rebuild the garage, first.

That night, at dinner, I took the floor while we were drinking our after-dinner coffees. "I have very good news, and very bad news, and it's the same news," I said.

That got their attention.

"Now, none of this is absolutely certain, but according to Stu..."

"Who?" Patsy Fischer said.

"Stu Little, Patsy -- my manager at Frederick."

"Oh. Sorry."

"... According to Stu, it's very likely I'll be sent to Ottawa next season, as their starting catcher."

"Holy shit!" Eddie said. "... Whoops! Sorry, Emily!"

"That's... wonderful, Dave," Emmy said. She didn't sound exactly thrilled. I knew why. It was one thing to have me running around the Eastern League next year, coming home from Bowie whenever the Baysox played at home.

Now, with Ottawa, in the International League, I'd be gone for virtually the entire season. Emmy and Patsy wouldn't be helping me raise Eddie. They'd be raising him in my place.

And my side of the bed in our new bedroom was going to be empty, almost full-time, from mid-February to September.

"... What cities... are in the League with Ottawa?" Emmy asked, finally.

"Well, there are lots of clubs... Let's check it out on the Internet."

We did. "... Hey! Scranton, Pennsylvania -- that's not so far away," I said. "They're in the Northern Division, with Ottawa. "Also Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse. It's a pretty good ways from here, to any of those."

"We're never going to see you!" Emmy cried. "This is going to be... awful!"

I kept looking at the teams in the far-flung Triple-A league. "Durham's in it," I said. "They used to be in the Carolina League! Heck, Durham's closer to here than Winston-Salem or Kinston or Myrtle Beach are, in the Carolina League."

"Yes, and how many times did we travel all the way to Kinston or Winston-Salem to see you play?" Emmy said. "... Exactly none."

"But you might have," I said, trying to sound positive. "If you'd had Eddie here, full-time, and it was the only way you could visit me."

"So, OK, Durham and Scranton," Emmy said. "And, look! Richmond, too! We could come to those places, at least, to see you."

"You probably won't get to play very often in Durham or Richmond," Eddie said. "They're in a different Division, from Ottawa."

"Well, we'll just have to consult the schedule for next season -- when it comes out. Hey, it's not a certainty yet. Who knows what kind of trades the Orioles might make, during the off-season? It's possible I'll still end up in Bowie."

Maybe Bowie was only double-A, but I found myself wishing the Orioles would send me there.

Ottawa wasn't even in the fucking country!

Maybe the Orioles could trade me to Atlanta. The Braves' AAA affiliate was Richmond -- less than one hundred miles from Arlington, right down I-95! On night-game days, I could drive home for a nooner.

Emmy was morose for the next three days. I wasn't accustomed to anything except sunshine from her, and it was hard, seeing her this way. She treated me fine. She treated all of us with her usual consideration and kindness. But she seemed on the edge of tears, all the same.

I wondered if I should just propose that all three of us move to Ottawa for the duration. Emmy was graduating in January. Even if she was accepted into a law school for next year, the academic year wouldn't begin until almost time for the International League season to be over.

But moving -- again -- would play havoc with Eddie's education.

Late in September, after we were in the new house, I got a telephone call from Paul Warren, the Orioles' manager. He confirmed what Stu had told me at season's end: In all likelihood, I would be assigned to the Ottawa Lynx next year. "I've heard some great things about you, Dave," Warren said. "I'm hoping you'll be up here, with us, real soon."

It was, of course, just the usual kind words, well-intentioned but probably meaningless. Paul Warren was known to be a good man and great with players. He had been a player himself, and a minor-league manager. His own daughter was married to a ballplayer.

Still, nice man or not, I knew his words were mostly speculative. It was a courtesy call. If I ever got invited to Orioles' camp, it would be a year from next February, after a full year of seasoning in the International League. That was a given.

I thought about telling Warren my troubles. How Ottawa -- Triple A or not -- was going to hugely disrupt my family life. But what could he say? How could I complain about jumping all the way to Triple A after only one full season in the minors?

I couldn't. Warren might listen. He might even express some sympathy. But what could he say? Or do? He would just think I must be a nut case.

I should have been looking for work for the winter, but the Ottawa news had kind of cut me down at the knees. Emmy and I were both walking around in a little haze of unhappiness. This whole house-purchase thing, our agreement to support -- and raise -- Eddie together, had been premised on my spending the next year in Bowie.

You couldn't take the DC Metro line to get close to Ottawa.

So I spent the next week tearing down that unsightly garage in our back yard and (from prefabricated parts) building us a new one. There wasn't room for a two-car garage without invading and despoiling our small-but-pleasant back yard, but I did make the new garage bigger than the old one, and deeper, so that we could have a workshop in the far back end.

I wasn't exactly Mr. Handyman, but the garage project was successful and relatively problem-free, and the week of physical effort did wonders for my psyche.

Pounding stuff with a hammer felt really right!

Gradually, Emmy got a little sunnier. She came to me at our kitchen table one day in early October, carrying a handful of printouts from the Internet.

"Your season opens the first week in April," she said. "The schedule hasn't even been drawn up yet, but evidently they always open around the same time. Eddie has spring break at school the first week in April. Whether you open at home or away, Eddie and I will come and see you play, first week in April -- somewhere."

"Sounds nice," I said. "They'll probably schedule those early games in the warmer cities. Maybe we'll draw Richmond, or Durham, right out of the box." Yeah, I thought to myself -- give the ice floes an extra week to break up, there in Ottawa.

"I've applied to three law schools for next fall," she said next. "All of them in the Metro area. But I'm not going to work, next summer. Maybe I'll work for a short while, after I graduate in January. But at least from April on, I'm going to be unemployed. Eddie gets out of school on June 20 next year. During July and August, Eddie and I are going to be traveling a lot. We're going to be camp followers. Maybe when you go far away -- to Louisville and Toledo and those places -- or Pawtucket... Maybe then, we'll come back home for awhile. But, mostly, we'll be following the Lynx around, those times."

"Can you... can we... afford it?" I asked her.

She smiled. "How else am I going to get sexual satisfaction?" she said.

"Maybe I'll play like a demon possessed," I told her. "Maybe I'll be so damned good that the Orioles will call me up in the middle of the season."

"At least play good enough, they'll take a look at you in September," she said. "I want you in Baltimore -- in Camden Yards, permanently -- by at least a year from next April!"

"Sounds like a plan," I said. "And seeing you -- frequently -- in July and August will definitely help."

"Eddie says that I'm the whole cause of the Orioles' sending you to Triple-A."

"That was an awful thing for him to say!"

"Not really. You know what he means. I know, too. He means you started playing well when we... got together."

"It's true. Without you, I was nose-diving."

"You won't do it again -- nose-dive -- in Ottawa, will you?"

"Because you're not around, you mean? Could be! Maybe then, they'd send me down to Bowie!"

"Don't you dare fail, just so you can get laid more often!" she said. "Anyway, from now on, I only sleep with Triple-A ball players -- and up."

"I only sleep with Major League All-Star Mamas like you," I told her. "No bushers for me."

"Bushers?... Is that some sort of reference to my... bush?"

"No, no! 'Busher' is an old, somewhat disparaging term applied to minor league ballplayers. Especially those -- like me -- grinding it out in the low minors. Nothing to do with your sweet-tasting little, not-very-bushy, bush."