The Nightcrawler (20 page)

“Yer kinda quiet there, Scott, you sure you’re alright?”

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I said, you sure yer okay?”

“I’m good,” he said. “Gwen, what’s that light up ahead?”

“Oh, that’s Heritage Park. Most likely a little league game’s goin’ on. Usually three or four at a time every night. They also got some old farts playin’ slow pitch. I stop and watch sometimes. The kids are fun, I call slow pitch ‘toss and giggle’. It’s a pale comparison to baseball.”

This brought a chuckle to Scott’s lips that he didn’t bother to hide. He had played on the company slow pitch team in the past. It was just an excuse to go out on a weeknight and swill beers with the boys. With the exception of a few guys, the talent pool on the team was weak, but the after-game libation made the embarrassing losses on the field tolerable. He quit playing the year Tad McKinney took a bad hop off the side of the head that turned him into an idiot for the rest of his life. Tad was his best friend and an up and coming star player in the company, but now he needed help tying his shoes.

“Hey Scott, there’s always a weenie wagon at the park when there’s a ball game. You up for ballparks and a Coke?”

“Now that, my friend, sounds like a winning plan.”

“Great, then I won’t need to go home and change.”

They walked the rest of the way without talking. The sounds of the ballgames at the park ahead gradually broke the silence. A car full of teenage boys sped by, first honking then one of them yelled, “Fuck her, I did.” Gwen flipped him the bird but didn’t say anything. Scott just shook his head; he figured he was probably just as obnoxious when he was as young as those kids are now. They watched the car’s taillights disappear around the next corner, and their attention focused on the sound of the kids’ voices at the park. A light breeze carried the mouth-watering smell of hotdogs and sausages.

When they got to the corner of Partington and Ashland, there were no more trees to obscure their view of the park. It was clear that all the games were little leaguers’. The hotdog vendor set up between the backstops of diamond’s two and three. The park, illuminated by large lights mounted on fifty-foot high poles, gave the whole place the glow of midday. It was like sitting at Dodger Stadium for a night game. Swarms of flying insects hovered around the lights giving the effect of living halos. The air was filled with the drone of young boys, chatting it up in the field, “um batter, batter”, “give him the heat”, “he ain’t got nothing”, the sounds of kids who play a game because they love it.

Scott began to think about some of the spoiled millionaire athletes he’s dealt with at Cobra, and then looked back to the kids. There were four games going on, fifteen, maybe twenty kids per team. Eight teams in all, which meant there were as many as one hundred-fifty kids out on those fields. Maybe, not very likely, but just maybe one of those kids was going to be a star on a pro team. When that happened, the fun will have left the game for that kid. Some of these kids will play ball and enjoy it until they can’t find the time, or they can’t swing a bat because age has taken away their ability, but the kid who makes the pro’s will lose the fun when the game becomes a business and not a game. What a shame that will be; taking the fun out of a child’s game should be against the law.

Scott and Gwen crossed Ashland and went directly toward the gap between field two and field three. When they arrived at the hotdog wagon a boy about ten, wearing a Kansas City Royals jersey and hat was just walking away with a Cherry Coke in hand. A young woman, wearing a Cardinals shirt and a Royals hat was tending the weenie wagon. She was a pretty girl with a smile that glowed as bright as the lights surrounding the park.
 

“What can I getcha?” She asked, her smile not waning as she patiently waited for an answer.
 

“What’ll it be, Gwen, dogs or sausages?” Scott asked.

“Sausages, absolutely sausages, and Dr. Pepper, if you have it.”

“Same thing for you, sir?” the girl asked Scott.

“That sounds about perfect,” Scott replied smiling back at her. He wondered if she ever worked at McDonalds, where they used to have “Smiles are free,” up on the menu. “You are quite a fence sitter aren’t you?” Scott said as she handed him two sausages.

“I’m sorry,” she said her smile fading a bit, not understanding what he meant.

“Royals hat and Cardinals shirt. You couldn’t make up your mind?”

She handed him two cans of Dr. Pepper and said, “That’s eight dollars.” Scott handed her a ten and told her to keep the change. She thanked him then said, “It’s the people around here, some like the Cards, and some the Royals. Me, I like the Yankees but if I wore a Yankees cap or shirt I would never get any tips. Her smile returned bigger than ever as she stuffed Scott’s change into the back pocket of her jeans in a deliberate motion as if to accentuate her point.

When Scott returned his attention to Gwen she was handing him one of the sausages. “I hope you like mustard and onions.”

“A woman who knows what I like.” He took a sausage and handed her a soda. “Shall we take a seat in the nose bleeds?” he joked as he motioned to the bleacher seats behind field three.

“Lead the way, sir,” she answered.

Scott made his way to the top row of bleacher seats. They sat in the middle of the last row, having the whole thing to themselves.
 

After settling into their seats, Scott took a bite from his sausage, and with cheeks bulging like a chipmunk announced, “Now thas a goo thauthage.” Gwen was chewing her food and just made an appreciative, “Hmmm.”

Scott hadn’t realized how hungry he was and finished eating without another word. He opened his Dr. Pepper with a snap and drank it down without taking a breath. Gwen was not quite half done her sausage, so while she was finishing, he looked around the park. There was a well-lit parking lot behind field four filled with minivans and SUV’s. Opposite the parking lot was a municipal swimming pool. The only sign of life near the pool was a young man dressed in a T-shirt and swim trunks vacuuming it. Behind the pool was a playground, swings, slides, climbers, all the usual public park fodder.

He brought his focus to the people in the seats, men and women, mostly in their thirties. Moms and dads watching their kids play ball. Some had other kids in tow, some quietly sitting with their parents, others not so quiet, and still others annoyingly running up and down the aluminum benches. It was amazing how such small people could make such loud footfalls.
 

They all seemed too polite. There were no raucous catcalls aimed at the umpire, no dads chewing out the boys for not stretching singles into doubles. This was not the kind of little league crowd he knew as a boy. If the bleacher throng were better dressed Scott would have thought he was in Stepford.
 

Out on field three a chubby boy hit a sharp ground ball to a scrawny kid at second who scooped it up with the grace of a cheetah and fired it over to first beating the chubby kid easily. The game ended and the polite parents gathered their kids and headed out to the diamond to collect their budding stars.
 

Scott checked his watch it was nine o’clock. He hadn’t noticed the other games had already ended and out on field two the beer bellied slow pitch players were already doing their warm ups. They were a sad looking bunch, soft middles, knees braced and elbows wrapped. A few were out in the field with cigarettes hanging loosely from the corners of their mouths. A short, round man with a salt and pepper beard was fielding balls at first, an open can of Bud on the ground next to the bag.
 

“This is where the real comedy starts,” Gwen said, nudging Scott with her elbow.

“I have no doubt,” he said as he motioned to the hotdog girl. “I’m going to get another Dr. Pepper. Would you like one?” She shook her head and he was down and back before she had time to think of a reason to take her leave.

“Scott, what were you doing on the lawn in front of the nursing home?”

“Nursing home? Oh is that what that was? I’ve been under a lot of stress lately and I had a pounding headache.” He didn’t think it wise to tell her he was trying to block out a chorus of crickets chirping, “Okie-dokie.”
 

“It was a little creepy. I was going to walk by. To see a grown man sitting on the ground chanting “Okie-dokie” and rocking back and forth was a bit unsettling.”

A chill went through Scott when he heard that. It wasn’t the crickets. It was him. Shit he was cracking up, he’d be in a rubber room before the end of the week if this kept up. In an attempt to divert some of the attention from his nutty behavior he said, “So you work in a nursing home?”

“Well, I used to work in a burn unit but that was just too heartbreaking. People in so much pain and not too much you could do. They just had to endure while the healing came slowly.” She shuddered a bit and took a sip of her Dr. Pepper. “What do you do, Scott?”

“I sell exotic cars.”

“What’s an exotic car? Some kind of limo with Hula Dancers in the back?”

They both had a hearty laugh at that then he explained why he was driving through Kansas and about Cobra Exotics, about the customer waiting for the Aston Martin. She had some trouble believing that people needed help finding a car. Even if it was a quarter of a million dollar English sports car.

Just then she grabbed his knee firmly to get his attention and said, “Oh watch this guy, I’ve seen these ol’ boys before.” Scott looked out at field two, where a guy who looked to be about fifty and carrying triplets, stood at the plate. He had a very muscular upper body that seemed to disappear into the bulbous growth hanging way over his belt.
 

“He hits the ball farther than any of them but if it don’t clear the fence he only gets to first and then they get him out at second when the next guy hits into a fielder’s choice.” True to what she said the guy hit a line shot that one hopped off the center field fence for a single. Gwen laughed as the guy stood at first, hands on his knees trying to catch his breath.

She looked over at Scott who was staring at the spot where the ball had bounced off the fence. “I told you he hits it far, didn’t I?” Scott didn’t answer; he just continued to stare at that spot in the outfield. “Hey Scott, are you okay?”

“What? Ya I guess, I mean did you see that guy in the outfield?”

“The one who threw the ball in, sure I saw him. Not much of a throw but you don’t need a great arm to send that mook back to first.”

“No not him, the guy behind the fence. He had long greasy hair, dirty clothes. Did you see him?”

“Didn’t see anyone like that, Scott. It’s kind of dark out there past the fence. Are you sure it wasn’t a shadow? Or maybe it was that crow on the outfield fence.”

“Maybe, I guess it could have been a shadow.” He hesitantly looked back, sure enough a huge crow sat perched on the center field fence. It seemed to be looking directly at Scott. When he was convinced that the bird was staring him down he looked away. When he looked back it was gone. Then that awful clicking sound was coming from overhead. Scott and Gwen both shifted their gaze to the noise and there it was, atop the chain-link backstop not twenty feet away. A crow, big and black, with a few feathers jutting out at differing angles that gave it a scruffy appearance looked down on them. It looked diseased. In the crow’s beak dangled a huge worm that moved only slightly with the night breeze. With a sudden quick motion the bird’s head tipped back and the worm disappeared. Scott was sure it was the same crow. The one he had seen back at the Best Western. Shit, if The Nightcrawler could be in the outfield then why couldn’t this same crow be here also? The clincher came when the bird flew off, making that same caw-caw-caw, that sounded more like mocking laughter than the meaningless nattering of a dumb bird.

Scott’s mood turned sullen, and his face lost all expression.

“Well that was a bit gross, eh Scott?” Gwen said not noticing that he had gone off to another place. “Scott, are you still with me?” She put her hand on his shoulder and tried again, “Earth to Scott, come in please.”

“What,” he answered, with a groggy, just got out of bed slur.

“You’re a bit of a flake sometimes, aren’t you? Where the hell were you just now?”

“I’m not sure, Gwen. It may have been hell. I’ve been in a real bad place the last few days, and it doesn’t look like I’ve gotten out yet.” He stood and gave another look out to center, no crow or vagrants to be seen. “I should get back to the hotel, thanks for the company, I wish I could say we’ll do it again sometime but I really don’t see myself dropping in on Salina, Kansas, again in this lifetime.”

“I’m not surprised, it’s not much of a tourist Mecca, is it?”

He didn’t reply, he just made a diagonal descent across the bleachers to ground level. Scott paused for a moment, turned to look up at Gwen. He forced a wave and what he hoped was a warm smile. She returned the wave but her face showed only concern. Gwen began to make her way to where Scott stood but he didn’t wait. He turned and faded into the shadows beyond the trees near the park’s edge. In the darkness he looked back one more time to see Gwen watching him go, concern never leaving her face. Scott plodded back along the same route he and Gwen had used to get to the park. As if on autopilot, he continued, barely aware of where he was or where he was going. His mind began to rewind to the bum, the crow and the worms. Then chirp, just a single chirp from a solitary cricket. He looked up to find himself in front of the same building, the nursing home that Gwen had emerged from. The grass in front of the stately two and a half story manor glistened, millions of little droplets from the sprinklers reflecting the lights from the street lamps giving the lawn an almost celestial brilliance.