Slide - Kyle Beachy [82]
“Four of us?” I said.
“Including Marianne. As an independent observer and moderator. She's already agreed.”
Soon a group of fans above left field threw their hands to the sky and stood from their seats, the first lame tries for a wave. This attempt spread clockwise twenty or thirty degrees and the faithful wavers tried again, again, until they scrapped through a very thin but full first revolution. With this success came more faith and energy, and I watched the cheer gather momentum as it swept rotations across the ocean of Cardinals loyal, dual-action source and signifier of their joy.
While those around me rose and cheered, I remained seated, clenching the photographs. For the sons among us, it was simple: admire the fathers, watch and ape the ways they sat and moved their hands. We sons of these men, these factories of pride and shame, these creators, bar-setters, and judges. These fathers. And they likewise were to watch us back, see reflections in our shapes and behaviors, echoes of how they defined themselves. We boys of theirs, emulating traits they once emulated in their own fathers. These ties.
People around me stood and waved.
But what of the aberrations? We half-mirror sons, smudged, foreign. These deviations from values. We who survived only to tarnish the men we admire. We failures, broken models. We gauche wardens of history, entrusted with treasure, carrying hopes inside clumsy shaking hands while our fathers kept watch, appraising, eyes falling shut under the weight of shame. We who managed to crumble beneath pressure's absence. Crying aloud, here!, Father, here is what I do with our name. Here, here, now call me son and love me until you die.
Once the wave died down, Stuart said he was going for a bratwurst and did I want one.
“Take some money. Let me pay.”
He didn't take the money. Later, we saw the Mets score seven runs on a series of roped base hits and embarrassing fielding mis-cues and one astoundingly bad curveball that hung like a butchered cow before it was launched into the center-field bleachers. As hope dwindled, I stood to let Midwesterners squeeze past. At some point I had slipped the pictures into my pocket. We sat among increasingly vacant red seats until we were more or less alone in the stadium, today's loss now finalized into the records. It seemed Stuart was waiting for me to make the first move into this new era of looming photographic evidence. I thought, Stand up and move, navigate the situation you've made here, with your mixture of pathetic neediness and nostalgic sexuality, you small dumb little excuse for a grown man. Eventually an usher came by and told us she was going to have to call security.
I could not believe how many silver Volkswagen Jettas there were in this city. As if I required reminding. Each one I saw belonged to Zoe until proven otherwise, which gave the day's work a sense of pursuit, though I couldn't decide if I was chasing or running away. Most turned out to be driven by people who looked not unlike myself, sensible white males in their twenties who were probably not rapists.
When I ended up behind her silver Jetta moving eastbound on Highway 40, I found her number in my phone's list of recent incoming calls.
“Raise your hand and wave,” I said.
“Weirdo,” she said.
“Yeah. In the van behind you.”
“That's odd, because I'm at my friend's house.” People or a TV in the background laughed. “But I was going to call you. Meet for coffee in an hour?”
I arrived at our closest branch of the giant coffee chain early so I could case the joint and see what advantage might be gained by positioning. These plush chairs and pleasant lighting and pockets of conversation. What lighthearted words were the law-abiding men and women sharing over afternoon beverages?
I secured a chair with my hat and went to the counter for an iced coffee, which I took into the bathroom, only to remember that you weren't supposed to take drinks into the bathroom, so I quickly put my lips around the straw to protect it from the floating bits of pee and shit.
Zoe