The Melancholy Fate of Capt. Lewis by Michael Pritchett

Author:Michael Pritchett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unbridled Books
Published: 2007-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

17. “…except a wife, with whom it is equal…”

After class on Thursday, Bill saw the message from Pablo in his box, and his heart sank. Then he was surprised at his reaction, then angry, because this was always the way it went, always and always.

But it turned out Pablo was only calling with a change: a third guy would join them, somebody named Derek. Bill didn’t like it. He could hold his own with one guy. But adding another, and at the last minute, that sounded like trouble. He wished he still had the good sense to cancel, or not show at all.

Leaving school late due to detentions, kids he’d had to chastise, he killed time just driving around town. Finally he made the turn that led to the highway, and then out to the minor-league park. New but not fancy, it was a period re-creation of a small, old, farm-team stadium. It seemed these strange rendezvous kept repeating in his life. He kept going to his own doom, lamb to the slaughter. He kept getting knocked down and not staying down, like in a fistfight where people are shrieking at you, Get up, Bill! Jesus, get up! And you did, until it got very bad, until at last it was just boring, and people were saying, All right, Jesus, stay down, Bill. Don’t show your agony. Stop crying, for Christ’s sake.

Yes, America could forgive you many things, but not a failure to entertain. Fall, yes, die, sure, but keep it interesting.

He met Pablo and Derek at the “will call” window. They were wearing their ball caps and baseball jackets, waiting flat-footed in tennis shoes and jeans. Pablo was his same self, heretic-skinny and tan, with that starved wild look, and Derek was heavy, a jowly face, vigilant, with ready, trouble-making eyes. They held programs already. Derek kept a folded mitt under his arm. “So you’re a Lincoln Cavalier?” Derek said. “You look familiar.”

“Sure. I went to Lincoln.”

“Derek didn’t go to Lincoln,” Pablo said. “But maybe you guys met someplace else.”

“Yeah, maybe you kicked my ass in junior high,” Bill said. “Just about everybody did.”

Soon they’d found their way inside, to seats, with Pablo in the middle, and Bill to his right. Now Bill sat looking out on a familiar landscape, of doubt and suffering and pain. It was plain dirt and grass, a diamond of chalk, making him think of masonic ritual and torture. The sacrifice fly. He’d gone out for all the teams, but it never worked out: he’d been run over at first, flattened at second, knocked ass-over-teakettle playing catcher at home. The diamond had not changed, and he hadn’t forgotten its paganish feel, its Druid-like lines drawn with pulverized stone. With bleachers surrounding it on three sides and a fence marked “400” painted green, ten feet high. A couple of guys in outfits, cap brims low, with just shadows where their eyes should be, loosened up out there.

Pablo lifted his glasses up from his chest and read the program soberly and carefully, wearing a bright-pink polo.

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