Confessions of a Transylvanian (34 page)

As inspirational speeches go, lemme tell ya: It was a beauty.

We arrived at the ball field early the following week. Not to limber up. Not to chuck the old pill around. Not even to take a few drives off the fungo bat.

No sir. We came to get
knee-walking stoned
. And then we aimed to play some quality softball.

Marshall and his gang showed up about a half hour before game time looking fresh and ready. By then, our team looked like a collection of Jeff Spicoli impersonators. Red-eyed and barely coherent, we staggered into the dugout.

The Hollywood cast had proposed a bet: They should be allowed to play the Ultravision if we lost. We had declined this offer. The Ultravision was our shrine and we did
n’
t want it defiled. Instead, we made the wager more personal:

The losing tea
m’
s players would wash the car belonging to the winning tea
m’
s cast manager. And everyone on the losing team had to participate, no exceptions.

Knowing that the outcome of this game could potentially mean Andrea and Sunday polishing Marshal
l’
s back bumper gave us all the added inspiration we needed.

It was game on.

Until that day, I had never laid eyes on the Hollywooders (Hollywoodians?) that I heard so much about but, all of a sudden, there they were. Tony ticked off each of their names to me as they stepped onto the field. There was Robby, the Twi
n’
s legendarily selfish Riff. Becky, their notoriously slutty Columbia. Fred, Lee, Alphonse...all names I had heard thrown about with disgust at various cast gatherings, and here they were at last, in the flesh.

And then, I saw her: Shelly.

There was no mistaking her. Besides Marshall, Shelly was the most talked-about member of the Twin cast. She was also the one and only member of the Hollywood group who was spoken of with anything but contempt. Shelly, I had heard many times, was a knockout. And now that
I’
d laid eyes on her, I could see what all the fuss was about.

She had blonde hair that she wore to the shoulder and it hovered around her face like an aura. It was
n’
t feathered, in the fashion of the day, but was curly and lush, like the girls on the magazine covers. Farrah Fawcett would have knifed a nun for this hair.

Shelly was slim, but curvy. Short, but not tiny. And had skin so smooth and lustrous that it looked as if she were glowing with an inner...

...ahem.

Yeah, okay. I was a little smitten. So sue me. The girl was gorgeous.

And cut me a break. I was kinda high at the time.

Doc had been chosen to be the umpire, as it was universally acknowledged that he would be fair to both teams. He motioned for the coaches and both Marshall and Russ stepped forward ceremoniously. They met at home plate, shook hands and tossed a coin to start things off. Marshall won the toss and the Hollywood cast took the field.

According to the rules Marshall and Russ had established, we would
n’
t be playing for nine innings. For one thing, this was softball, not baseball and, for another, it was hotter than an afternoon spent picnicking on the sun. After some debate, they decided on six innings of play. That was about all they figured we would tolerate before our enthusiasm waned.

Also, while there would be nine players on the field playing defense, everyone in both casts would get a chance to bat. So instead of batting ninth, for example, there was a chance that you batted eighteenth. What was important was to know the person who came up before you. In our current condition, the Deerfield cast members would be lucky to remember that the gloves did
n’
t go on our
feet
.

Ron batted lead-off, which was perfect since he had a deep familiarity with our rivals and could match their taunts with his own patented brand of smartassery. They immediately tried to get under his skin, calling him a traitor for turning his back on them and suggesting that the day would arrive when he would come crawling back.

Ron was unfazed. “What, you did
n’
t hear?” He unleashed his patented ladykiller smile. “You guys are over. Done. W
e’
re the best cast in Florida, motherfuckers. And do
n’
t you forget it.”

And to fully make his point, Ron spanked a double into right field. Just like that.

Tony was up next, followed by the heart of our order: Tom, Donny and Billy. Each of them managed to get a hit, completely stunning the Hollywood team. By the time I came to bat (I was up eighth), the score was six to nothing and Andrea was standing on second base, having smacked a double in the previous at-bat and scoring two runs.

I’
m sorry to report that I got the first out of the inning, but I did manage to move Andrea along to third. Russ, batting behind me, also hit into a groundout, but brought her home. By the time Felicia struck out, two batters later, the score was already seven to zip.

It was Hollywoo
d’
s turn at the plate. And our theory (that bong hits + softball = victory) was about to be put to the test.

The Hollywood lead-off batter was a wiry-looking Transylvanian-type named Carl. I had never heard of him before but he looked fast. He came up to the plate and faced off against Tony who stood glaring at him from the mound.

Carl stepped into the batte
r’
s box cocky and sure-footed, looking as if he invented the game, his confident attitude making us hate him all the more. He propped his bat on his shoulder and did
n’
t even square off against Tony for the first pitch, allowing it to drop in for a strike without seeming to care. He was taunting Tony and, in my opinion, that did
n’
t seem like a bright thing to do.

Ton
y’
s next pitch was a brush-back and Carl had to jump out of the way to avoid it. It was called a ball and Carl clearly got the message: Stop fucking around. He finally choked up on the bat and leaned in, ready to tee off on the next pitch.

Tony delivered and Carl let
‘
er rip.

I wo
n’
t speculate about how hard he hit the ball. All I can tell you is that, in the moment after it smacked into my glove, I would not have been surprised to look down and see my arm flopping about helplessly about on the ground like a dying fish. He had lined it right at me and, under normal conditions, I might have had the reflexes to leap out of the way in an instinctive move of self-preservation. Dulled as my senses were, however, I only had time to open up my mitt and snag the line drive as it zipped toward me, nailing down the first defensive out for the team.

The Ultravision cast cheered and Car
l’
s eyes shot daggers at me as he trudged back to the bench. We had drawn first blood. But the game was still young.

The Hollywood cast was no less interested than we were in bringing defeat crashing down upon their enemies and they gave as good as they got. Unfortunately for them, our team...

...well, we were under the thrall of that badass Mary Jane and, for reasons we could not begin to explain, it had somehow transformed us into The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings. (Look it up.)

Tha
t’
s not to say they did
n’
t get their licks in. They surely did. In the first inning, they managed to push across three runs before we retired the side. But they were both thoroughly disconcerted by their comparative lack of offense and
completely
shocked by our level of defensive play. On the latter point, they were
n’
t the only ones.

At the end of one, the score stood Deerfield 7, Hollywood 3.

We did not fare nearly as well in the second inning as we had in the first and only pushed across two more runs before they sat us down. Unfortunately for Hollywood, the bottom of their batting order was due up in the second and we had the top of ours coming up in the third.

They needed a big inning. We refused to give it to them. They only scored one run in their next round of at-bats and our defense sparkled even more brightly. Russ snapped up a hot bouncing ball to third and nailed the runner at first by ten feet. Felicia made a running catch in left that sent a chorus of “Oooohs!” through even the Hollywood bench. And Andrea was rock-solid at first, snagging anything that came near her.

Things began to unravel in the third inning, though. Despite the heavy hitters coming to the plate for Deerfield, the Hollywood team somehow blanked us. Ron, Tony and Tom all smacked the ball, but the Hollywood outfielders appeared to have been tipped off in advance as to where the balls would drop. One, two, three, we were done.

Still, there was a healthy five-run lead heading into the bottom of the third. All we had to do was hold them.

It did
n’
t take long for us to realize that our magic softball fairy dust was, to our rising horror, wearing off.

The leadoff man for Hollywood made it to first on an error by Ron. A routine grounder to Russ got mishandled and when I scooped it up, I dropped the throw to second, putting two men on. With three unforced errors in a row, our confidence level dipped for the first time and, as we all know, paranoia and pot do not mix. Once we began to think that we were unable to play stellar defense, our self-fulfilling prophecies began to come true.

One after another, the Hollywood batters punched line drives through our infield. Runner after runner crossed the plate. Tony finally managed to strike out one of the Hollywooders and Andrea snagged a foul ball for the second out, but we were still in a lot of trouble. By the time Robby hit a hopper to Tony, who flipped it to Andrea to end the inning, the tables had turned.

The score, heading into the fourth inning, was Hollywood 14, Deerfield 10.

We huddled together in the dugout, looking to Russ for inspiration.

“Stay here,” he said. “Do
n’
t grab a bat. Do
n’
t do anything.
I’
ll be right back.”

He whipped around and strode purposefully toward the Hollywood dugout, waving over Doc as he went. The two coaches and the umpire met together on the field.

“We want a halftime,” said Russ.

Doc and Marshall exchanged incredulous looks.

“This is
n’
t football, Russ,” said Marshall. “Ther
e’
s no
‘
halftim
e’
in softball.”

Doc nodded his head. It sounded right to him.

“No, I know,” said Russ casually. “But i
t’
s a hot day, w
e’
re halfway through the game. I thought we could take a beer break or something. Nothing wrong with that, right?”

At this suggestion, Do
c’
s eyes widened a bit. He had been on the field for three full innings and a beer sounded awfully good to him. He turned to Marshall.

“Any objection?”

Marshall shrugged. “Fine by me.”

Doc grinned. “Okay then,” he said, and called out to everyone, “Halftime! We start the fourth inning in ten minutes.” Russ walked Doc back to the Deerfield dugout, tossed him a beer and motioned for the rest of the cast to follow him.

We all trudged out to the parking lot and gathered by the parked cars. “Time for a pick-me-up. Smoke
‘
em if you got
‘
em.” He got out a lighter and slipped into his own car.

The entire cast quickly followed suit. Within seconds, five different vehicles in the parking lot looked as if they had caught fire.

Minutes later, we were back on the field and there was
n’
t a white pair of eyes in the bunch.

“Le
t’
s do this,” said Ron, looking ready for action.

And so we did.

By the time the dust settled three innings later, the Hollywood cast was toast. We scored runs in each of the last three innings and culminated our offensive attack with a spectacular seven-run sixth. In the meantime, we had regained our defensive flair and not only held them to two runs in the fourth, but somehow managed to keep them from scoring a single run in the last two innings.