TUESDAY, AUGUST 19:
Bottom of the Fourteenth
So the Mets have won four straight, but I’m not getting caught up in that anymore. They just let you down. The Padres are even worse than they are, so beating them four times isn’t saying much.
We got chewed out by my father pretty good this weekend for staying out all night at the Woodstock concert, but even he had to admit we had no choice.
“Of course, you could have chosen not to go,” he said. “But that would have taken some common sense, which you two seem to lack rather badly.”
Hey, Dad, I was just along for the ride. And you told us it was okay. It was Mom who was against it.
So I lie on my bed and listen to WMCA all evening. They play “Honky Tonk Women” every thirty-seven seconds.
I’m not looking forward to summer ending. I’ve spent seven years at Euclid School around the corner; now I’ll have to walk another six blocks to Franklin. That school’s just for the seventh and eighth grades, so we’ll be the little kids again. Plus we’ll be joining up with the kids who went to Lincoln Elementary. I know a few of them from football and the swim club, and they seem weird and dumber than the people on this side of town.
I doze off and probably sleep for an hour before Ryan opens my door and turns the light on. “Spinning Wheel” is just ending, and Ryan says, “Switch to the Mets. You won’t believe this game!”
So I turn the dial and hear Ralph Kiner saying, “Top of the fourteenth.”
“Fourteenth inning?” I say.
“Yeah. And it’s scoreless,” Ryan says. “Marichal has pitched every inning for the Giants.”
“Who’s in for the Mets?”
“McGraw. Gentry pitched the first ten.”
I’ve never heard of such a thing. Thirteen innings without any runs? When I played Little League, people were scoring constantly.
Ryan sits on the floor with his back against the wall, knees up. “The Mets are totally happening all of a sudden.”
I shrug. They’ve flattened my enthusiasm too many times before. “Dad stop yelling at you?” I ask.
He waves his hand sort of disgustedly. “He never really yelled. Just acted like I’m stupid and irresponsible.”
“Acted?” I remember Dad saying those things pretty directly.
He strokes his chin, where the soft, thin hairs are about a half-inch long and curling under, and lets out a sigh. We listen to the game for a couple of minutes before he speaks again. “Big changes coming, Brody.”
“A pinch hitter?”
He laughs. “In the world.” He takes a sheet of paper out of his pocket; it’s the flyer we picked up at the concert. “We’ve had it with this war, the establishment—everything. Woodstock was just the start.”
“What can you do about it?”
“Stick it to ’em,” he says. “Protest.”
Dad pushes the door open; Ryan didn’t shut it tight like I always do. He steps into the room but doesn’t say anything.
Ryan ignores him. “Our brothers are dying over there, Brody. Forty thousand dead, and Nixon would double that if he had his way.”
Dad clears his throat. He and Ryan look at each other, not exactly glaring, but not too friendly, either.
“Ryan,” Dad says, “you are so full of crap it’s coming out your ears.”
“It’s an unjust war, Dad.”
“It’s our war,” he says sharply.
Ryan shakes his head and looks at the ceiling.
McGraw has retired the Giants, so it’s still scoreless going into the bottom of the fourteenth.
Dad picks up a stack of baseball cards from my dresser and looks at the top one. “It’ll be your war if you don’t smarten up,” he says.
Ryan will turn eighteen on September 9. Mom’s been worried sick. He’ll be eligible for the draft.
“You didn’t go,” Ryan says, staring at the radio.
“I’m forty-two years old, bub.”
“You know what I mean.”
Dad got excused from military service. Asthma or something like that; the heart trouble came later. He sets down the cards and stares at Ryan. “College students get deferments.”
“I’ll go to Canada.”
“Oh yeah, that’s a great answer. Freeze your nuts off in an igloo when you could be getting an education.”
We went to Canada a couple of summers ago for the World’s Fair: Expo 67 in Montreal. It wasn’t cold at all. Then again, it was the middle of the summer. We pitched a tent in a giant field in the city with a thousand other tents and trailers. Everything was wet and the entire area smelled from the portable toilets.
“The war is immoral,” Ryan says.
“You’re so full of—”
“You said that already.”
“Yeah, well you never listen anyway.” Dad sits on the edge of my bed and looks at the radio. The Mets already have one out, but Agee is up. Marichal is still pitching.
Dad turns to me. “So what’s your excuse, Lucifire?”
“For what?”
“For living.” He’s joking around now. That’s his way—cut into Ryan, then try to take the pressure off through me.
I start to speak, but the radio catches our attention. “Well hit and deep. This could be—that ball is gone! Tommie Agee with a walk-off homer in the bottom of the fourteenth, and the Mets win their fifth in a row!”
“Amazing!” Dad says, standing up.
Ryan raises a fist. “Freaking out!”
“Who are these guys?” Dad says, grinning broadly. “It can’t be our Mets.” He holds out one palm and Ryan slaps it, then Ryan holds out his own palm for Dad.
“We gotta get to a game,” Ryan says. “No more talking about it. We gotta go.”
“Well . . . we’ll see,” Dad says. “Where’s a schedule?”
I go over to my dresser and take a schedule out of the top drawer. “They got a few more home games, then a long road trip,” I say. “They’ll be in California until September.”
Dad slowly rolls his head from side to side. “Brody will be in school by then,” he says. “But there’s always the radio and TV.”
“Can’t we say maybe in September we’ll go?” Ryan says.
“Maybe. But not likely.”
“Of course, by then they might lose ten in a row,” I say.
Dad laughs. “I got a good feeling this season, buddy. Agee, Seaver, Koosman—these guys are the real thing.” He raises his voice and it gets kind of squeaky. “That ball is gone!”
He leaves a few seconds later—whistling “Meet the Mets”—and Ryan pushes the door shut. He looks at me and shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “What was that all about?” he whispers.
“I don’t know.” But I kind of do. Dad’s been riding Ryan hard all summer, but I know it’s because he’s worried about him. Every morning on the radio we hear about the bombings and the invasions while Dad eats his stale pound cake for breakfast. We all know the days before Ryan’s birthday are ticking like a time bomb. He hasn’t done anything about applying to college.
We listen to the post-game, then I switch back to music. We catch the end of Stevie Wonder, then they play “Honky Tonk Women” again.
“I’m getting a little tired of that one,” I say as it ends. Ryan gives a half smile and nods. He hasn’t said anything for a while, just sitting there. I don’t envy him.
The Youngbloods come on. My favorite song this week.
Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now
Vietnam. He could be there by Halloween.
Hell, he could be dead by then.
He wouldn’t be the first.
And we all know it.