Slide - Kyle Beachy [61]
“You've got to jump on this Ortiz early,” he said. “Take a strike and he's got you. That slider is vicious.”
There was comfort to be found in the alternative time of a ball game. However many seconds and minutes our silences, it all remained relative. A pitch, a foul ball, a brief mound conference before the umpire breaks it up. The formal absence of schedule, something I missed horribly. Even a seven-inning game could drag into darkness, somewhere from two to four hours. Sun setting beyond left field, we held up bullhorn fingers, two down. Play's to first.
I watched my father out of the corner of my eye. He rested one foot on the extra chair, both hands on his elevated knee. His beer was already empty The color guy said, Sometimes as a pitcher you'll do that, step off the rubber and give that base runner something to think about. Richard ordered us two more, even though I hadn't yet finished my first.
“You've got to guess first-pitch heater. Don't let him settle into a groove.”
The waitress pretended not to know who I was. My father was drinking at three times his normal rate. My mother had denied it, but I knew some sort of conversation was supposed to happen. Here we were, an occasion, and there was no reason this had to be so difficult. Again I glanced sideways at the primary genetic source of whoever I was, not three feet away. Piece of cake. Here's how it would go. Dad? Son. I could use some answers, Dad. Of course you could, son.
“You ever have a beard, Pop?”
“Beard? No. Never.”
“Were you in Vietnam?”
“I can't tell if this is one of your jokes. Your mother and I are always saying how funny you are.”
“Sadly, no. Sort of wish it was.”
“My son doesn't know if I was in Vietnam. I can't decide whether to blame you or myself. Probably more my fault than yours.”
“We could always blame Mom.”
“Your mother.” He sipped from his beer, so I quickly sipped from my own. After a few pitches of silence, he continued. “Conscientious objector. As a Mennonite, I never registered. The government never came after me.”
“Wait. We're Mennonite?”
“Currently we can't claim to be much of anything. Your grandparents were. So were their parents.”
I waited for three pitches to be thrown on-screen. “But you were born in 1948. Please tell me I have that much right.”
“I turn fifty-three this year. Fifty-three. Your mother is fifty-one. We've been married thirty-three years. We were twenty and eighteen. You're twenty-two.”
Richard leaned back and finished his second beer. Atlanta's second baseman missed a drag-bunt attempt.
“That's actually not true, sport.”
“Mennonite.”
“About the beard. It's important to understand that a lot of things changed after your brother passed away. Your mother and I struggled. Neither of us slept. We argued. I stopped shaving, I suppose in a sort of protest of the world. Your mother hated it. I ended up making two major concessions that year. One was moving from the city to the county the other was shaving off my beard. I don't think there are any pictures of me with it. Any pictures we took during that period were of you alone. We would sit you on the couch or in the grass and move away. It was one of the few things we