Have Glove, Will Travel_ Adventures of a Baseball Vagabond - Bill Lee [13]
No games left to pitch. I spent much of my time in a seedy Montreal tavern, frequented by drinkers, drug users, and dealers. Some of the men who went to this establishment sported colorful nicknames such as the Joint, the Mustache, the Pelt, the Head, and the Skunk. Interesting characters, but not the sort you would ever find strolling with Big Bird down Sesame Street. For instance, the Pelt served as our mascot until he disappeared into a witness protection program. The Head no longer had one after the Russian Mafia repossessed his car. He was sitting in it at the time, so the mobsters wedged a dozen sticks of dynamite under the chassis to dislodge the vehicle from its parking space.
One of the regulars was a placid sort who hardly ever spoke above a whisper; his wife held the position of family hell-raiser. She once bought a used Chevy that turned out to be a lemon. Instead of taking it back for a refund or exchange, she drove the vehicle onto the dealer’s iced-over swimming pool one night and set the machine on fire. It sank through the melted ice just as the dealer pulled into his driveway. He thought someone had crashed into his yard, so he dived into the pool to save the driver. Poor bastard nearly froze to death. When he emerged from the water, she screamed, “You no-good fucking asshole, don’t you ever sell us a lemon again or I’ll be back.” The car dealer was her father-in-law.
The Joint cruised the local waterways every day in a high-powered speedboat equipped with camouflage and twin Gatling guns. He claimed to use the weapons for duck hunting. Given my state, his story sounded plausible.
On Thursday nights, some of the tavern regulars dumped their hashish on the bar so we could comparison-shop. They offered every grade of hash, from the dusty, light Lebanese blond that produced a speedy high to the rich, onyx Turkish blend that acted as a sedative. We closely examined each chunk to separate the pure grades from those dealers had stepped on with darkening agents or fillers such as grape jelly. Finally, we sampled the merchandise using “hot knives,” a piece of hash wedged between the blades of two steak knives heated over a flame until we could inhale the vapors. Whoever offered the best quality at the lowest price received our business that week.
The police never bothered us. Many of our friends worked for the force and they smoked with us on weekends. Cops apprehended dealers only when customers complained about being overcharged. You might say the police functioned as a Better Business Bureau for potheads.
That lifestyle could not continue for long. A friend called near the end of 1982 and invited me to a February tryout for a minor-league team in Phoenix. I gratefully accepted. Preparing for spring training would force me to lead a Spartan life, to get my body and brain back into peak condition. If scouts in Arizona discovered I could still get out professional hitters, they might offer me a chance to return to the majors. That was what I wanted. Yes, I know what I wrote about being fed up with the glitz and the greed and the disloyalty and how the right time had arrived for me to leave the Expos. That was me bullshitting me, providing a rationale to soften the pain. Hard on the ego, admitting just how much