Home Run by Paul Kropp

Author:Paul Kropp
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PRH Canada Young Readers
Published: 2010-04-23T04:00:00+00:00

15

True Love Doesn’t Always Wait

KIRK’S OUTBURST REFERRED, of course, to the world’s most perfect girlfriend and almost-fiancée, Kathy. My roommate did not immediately explain just what issue had come up between them, and that wasn’t the most pressing issue since his use of a five-letter expletive violated the family code of ethics. Despite Kirk’s obvious distress, his mom took the moment to remind him of proper language in the Chamberlain house.

Perhaps for that reason, Kirk was not very interested in filling in the family on details. Nor was he interested in the remains of our turkey dinner, or his father’s general comments to the effect that “She’s just a girl,” or his sister’s observation, “I never trusted that Kathy—she was too good to be true.” He was sunk into a despair so profound that it made his little dust-up with Kathy in September seem like a lover’s tiff.

“Al, let’s play pool,” was all he said.

I hesitated for a moment, and then I realized that my redeemer had, in fact, arrived. I shot Pug a look of reluctant acquiescence, a look that told her how awful it would be to postpone our Christmas festivities, but that the emotional needs of my friend had to come first.

When Kirk and I got to the billiards room, it was soon clear that the real attraction was not the pool, or my companionship, but the single malt in Mr. Chamberlain’s liquor cabinet.

We dealt with Kirk’s crisis the way men do—by pretending to ignore it. Under the male code, men talk about nothing emotional or personally important until we have exhausted a goodly supply of liquor and all the safe conversational topics: cars, sports, and politics. Since I know very little about cars, sports, or politics, our conversation was focused on the game in front of us and the drinks in our hands. It took two hours for Kirk to get back to the events that made him look like Oedipus after the bad news.

“It was the page turner,” he mumbled.

“Nine ball, corner pocket,” I replied and then took my shot. I missed. “The what?”

“The page turner,” Kirk repeated. He chalked his cue. “At the Christmas pageant, didn’t you see that geek turning pages while Kathy played? I should have been able to spot it right then.” There was a pause while he eyed the table. “Four ball, side.”

He sank the ball. Kirk was very good at this game, and he got better when he was angry.

“So it was another guy?” I asked.

“Yeah. Three ball, bank.” He sank that, too.

“She told you?”

“I said the page-turner guy was getting pretty close up on the piano bench. I mean, I wasn’t doing a big jealous thing, just observing.” He paused. “Six ball, combination.”

“Then she told you.”

The six ball went in. “Yeah. Had to confess the whole thing. Thank you, Kathy, I really needed all that on Christmas Eve. That’s what I should have said.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing,” he replied. “I choked.” He looked up at me for just a second.

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