The Death of Baseball

by Orlando Ortega-Medina

  Ralph sneers and lights up the joint again. “Nice man my ass. He’s a certifiable pervert. He used to feel me up when I was under hypnosis; it went on for weeks. I can’t believe he’s still out there getting away with it.”

  “Doctor Menner is not a pervert. He’s never laid a finger on me.”

  “How would you know what he’s doing if you’re under hypnosis?”

  “How would you know?”

  “Because the hypnosis didn’t work for me.”

  “You mean you were conscious the whole time?”

  “Yep, that’s right.”

  “So then you were letting him feel you up.”

  Ralph blinks. “I—”

  “If it went on for weeks, and you were fully conscious, why didn’t you stop him?”

  “I did stop him. That time I saw you there; that’s the day I stopped it.” Ralph pulls out his strongbox and digs around in it, then hands Clyde a few faded photos from his sessions with Doctor Menner. “That’s the proof.”

  Clyde shuffles through the photographs. “How did you get these?”

  “I had a secret camera in my book bag.”

  Clyde’s head jerks up, and he casts about the room.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Do you have a secret camera in here?”

  “What? No!”

  “Are you sure? Maybe you were taking pictures of us when we were having sex. It wouldn’t surprise me, the way you videotape everything.”

  “Hey! I told you I was making a movie.”

  “Movie, shmoovie. There’s something wrong with you, Jimmy.” Clyde shoves the photographs back at Ralph. “Did you at least report him to the police?”

  Ralph puts the photographs back into the strongbox and shakes his head, a dark expression clouding his face.

  “Why not? And why were you seeing Doctor Menner anyway?”

  “It was for a court-ordered assessment too, at first. For the time I got caught stealing the silver. When Menner reported back that I was suffering from some kind of OCD-related kleptomania, the judge ordered long-term therapy that was meant to continue until Menner reported improvement in the condition. Three years on, I wasn’t getting any better, and there was no end in sight. So when I discovered what he was doing to me, I used the pictures to get him to release me from therapy.”

  “You mean you blackmailed him.”

  Ralph stands and steps back into the shadows. “Why are you taking that tone with me? I’m the victim here. I was only a kid; he was my therapist. There’s no excuse for what he did.”

  “No, there’s not. But there’s also no excuse for what you did either. Each of you is guilty of your own crime. Can’t you see that, an intelligent guy like you?”

  Silence descends over the room, and Clyde pulls a blanket over his shoulders to shield himself from the cold radiating off the brick wall. He scoots back on the bed and reclines against the pillow and peers at Ralph, who is standing in the dark, unmoving.

  After a moment, Ralph speaks, his voice hoarse with emotion, “Haven’t you ever dreamt of revenge?” He steps forward into the soft glow coming through the skylight. It cuts across his face, lending a jagged appearance to his features. One of his eyes glows red. “Against the people who have hurt you? Your father, for instance.”

  Clyde creeps forward to the edge of the bed on his hands and knees. “We were talking about blackmail, not revenge.”

  “Answer me.”

  “Of course I’ve dreamt of revenge. Who hasn’t? What’s your point?”

  “My blackmail, as you call it, was a form of delayed revenge. It helped me get what I needed, which was a release from the pretextual therapy that wasn’t working anyway, and at the same time, it held a threat over the head of the person who was abusing me. It was a righteous exercise of power against evil.”

  “But by not reporting him, you allowed him to continue abusing his patients. Patients like me. Did you ever think of that? No, you didn’t. Because at the end of the day you’re just a stuck-up, selfish prick who only thinks of himself. ‘I’m a klepto’, boo hoo hoo; ‘God doesn’t listen to me’, boo hoo hoo; ‘I have victims’, boo hoo fucking hoo!”

  Ralph moves toward the bed, his eyes wide and bloodshot, his nostrils flaring, his forehead deeply furrowed. “Why are you attacking me? I’ve been nothing but understanding and gracious with you.”

  “You said we were friends.”

  “We are. Or at least I thought we were.”

  “Well then, guess what, Jimmy. Friends tell each other the truth.”

  Ralph arches an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then shall I tell you the truth?”

  “As long as you’re not doing it to hurt me for calling you out, then be my guest.”

  Ralph stares open-mouthed at Clyde for a moment, then closes his eyes and shakes his head.

  “I thought so,” Clyde says, scooting back on the bed.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Ralph whispers. “Maybe I am a selfish prick.”

  “There’s no maybe about it, Jimmy. You are. The question is, what are you going to do about it?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question.”

  “Well, if you ask me, the first thing you have to do is admit you have a problem.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then do stuff to help other people instead of only yourself, I guess. Jeez! Do I have to think of everything?”

  “I took you in when you were homeless. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  “Not really, because that might have been mixed up with your wanting me to be in your dumb movie, and maybe some other stuff too, like what we just did.”

  Ralph’s mouth pulls back into a half-smile. “It was good, wasn’t it?”

  “Best sex I’ve ever had, Jimmy. But not the point.”

  “OK, I got it. So then let me really help you, with no benefit to myself. Let me help you get that revenge you’ve always dreamt of.”

  “Nice try.”

  “What?”

  “Helping me get revenge would be of benefit to you, Jimmy. You get off on revenge. It’s like a drug for you. Think of something else.”

  “So I get off on revenge, whatever. Nobody does anything for purely selfless motives, Marilyn. That’s a myth. Everyone does what they think is ultimately in their best interest. So come down off your high horse and either accept what I’m offering or not. If you want to get back at your father, say the word, and I’ll help you. You can finally confront him from a position of power. Then you can help me do the same with Doctor Menner. Let’s get closure with these two freaks so we can move on with our lives.”

  At the mention of the word closure, Clyde flashes on his telephone call with Yoshi earlier that day.

  “How exactly do you propose to help me?”

  Ralph shrugs. “I don’t know enough about the situation to say yet. I’m sure we can come up with something.”

  Clyde screws up his face for a moment and looks back at Ralph.

  “Cars…”

  “Say what?”

  “He’s an auto mechanic. Has his own garage. He specialises in Japanese cars…”

  “Right. And I have a Nissan.”

  “You could drop in on him to sort out some problem with your transmission…”

  “And then…”

  Clyde rises up on his knees. “Yes.”

  Ralph nods.

  “Nobody gets hurt, right?” Clyde says.

  “We’ll scare the living shit out of both those bastards. But nobody gets hurt. I promise.”

  * * *

  Yoshi Koba checks the door to the tool room to make sure the junior mechanics have locked it up properly, then drags himself to the office, grabs a beer out of the refrigerator, and pries off the cap with his teeth. He stares at the papers strewn over the top of his desk and swears under his breath, thinking again, as he does at the end of each workday, that he needs to replace the secretary who quit on him and
his partner Sam Higashi the day he returned from prison.

  Taking a long swig of beer, he looks out the window. The streetlights blink to life in the darkening evening as the rush hour traffic on this stretch of Fair Oaks thins out. Just as he is about to suck down another mouthful, his attention is drawn to a shiny, black Nissan 300ZX cruising past the shop at a reduced speed. The driver, a young Middle Eastern-looking man dressed in black, cranes his neck in the direction of the garage and squints at the building. Yoshi flips over the sign on the door to indicate the shop is closed, then he moves back to the fridge, drains the bottle, and grabs another one. A moment later a rapping on the door startles him.

  “We’re closed,” he roars, not bothering to turn around.

  Yoshi feels the blood rise to his face as the rapping continues. Slamming the bottle onto his desk, he strides to the door, throws it open, and finds himself facing the Middle Eastern man from earlier.

  “Can’t you read English?” Yoshi jerks his thumb at the sign. “It says we’re closed.”

  “You specialise in Japanese cars, right?” The young man nods at his 300ZX idling behind him. “I need something checked.”

  Yoshi squints at the car and back at the young man. “But we’re closed.”

  “But I have money.” The young man smiles broadly. “Lots of it.”

  “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

  The young man swivels around and switches off his car with a remote, then pushes past Yoshi into the office.

  “Hey, what the fuck—” Yoshi follows the young man inside and finds him looking around the room.

  “Nice place you’ve got here, Mister. A bit disorganised; could do with a bit of dusting. But overall not bad.” He swings around on Yoshi. “How long have you been here?”

  “Get out before I call the cops.”

  “You’re the owner, right?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “I’m a potential customer with a problem who’s willing to pay a lot of money to have it fixed—even more than what’s customary, since you’re obviously closed. So if you’re the owner, I would think you’d be willing to stay a little longer to have a look-see and earn yourself some extra cash. I can come back tomorrow if it’s not something you can repair quickly. The way I see it, it’s a win-win. That is, unless you’re discriminating against me for some reason.”

  The young man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a few hundred-dollar bills and fans them out. Yoshi steps forward and stares at the bills. The young man raises them and passes them under Yoshi’s nose. A few minutes later, the young man’s 300ZX roars into a repair bay.

  “Maybe you’d better close the garage door so people don’t think you’re still open,” the young man says as he steps out of the car. “And you might want to turn off the lights of your office while you’re at it.”

  Yoshi sneers at the young man and pulls down the garage door, grumbling to himself. When he returns he finds the young man sitting on the hood of his car, his legs crossed Indian-style.

  “The engine’s making a funny sound. Tick, tick, tick. You know, usually when it’s idling, like when I’m waiting at a traffic light. But sometimes it happens when I’m cruising around town. It’s fine one minute, then tick, tick, tick for a few minutes more.”

  Yoshi runs his dirty fingernails through his unkempt grey and black hair and points at the hood.

  “Climb down off of there. I’ll need to take a look at the engine.”

  The young man hops off the hood and bows at the car with an exaggerated flourish. “She’s all yours.”

  Yoshi pops open the hood and stares at the engine for a moment, then checks a few of the connections.

  “Her name’s Marilyn,” the young man says.

  Yoshi freezes mid-motion, then lifts his head and stares at the young man.

  “The car,” the young man says, flashing a wide grin. “I call her Marilyn.”

  Yoshi straightens up, his fingers turning white as his hand tightens on his wrench.

  “She’s my baby.” The young man passes his hand over the roof of his car. “I’d be ever so grateful if you could fix her up.”

  “I think we’re done here,” Yoshi says.

  The young man pulls a pistol out of his waistband and holds it idly at his side. “I don’t think so.”

  Yoshi’s eyes go wide at the sight of the firearm and his hand twitches on the wrench.

  “I’d drop that if I were you.” The young man lifts his head at the wrench, and Yoshi lets it fall to the floor with a loud clang.

  “What do you want?”

  The young man points the pistol at a chair. “Sit there, Yoshi.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  The young man beams a broad smile and raises the gun at Yoshi’s chest. “I know a lot of things. We’ll talk about them in a moment. Right now, though, I need for you to shut the fuck up, metumtam, and sit in that chair.”

  Five minutes later Yoshi finds himself tied to the chair, bound arms and legs with a few lengths of rough twine and a canvas strap pulled tight across his mouth. The young man finds another chair and positions it in front of him, then takes the next few minutes to unload photographic equipment from his car and set it up—one camera on a tripod facing Yoshi and another facing the empty chair, and some open-faced lights to illuminate the area. Once it is all in place, the young man removes the canvas strap from Yoshi’s mouth and stuffs it into his back pocket and switches on the harsh lights and the cameras.

  “Who are you?” Yoshi croaks.

  The young man drops into the chair opposite Yoshi. “Today, I’m Raphael the Avenging Angel. And this is your day of reckoning.”

  “I don’t have any money, if that’s what you want.”

  “If only it were that easy, Yoshi. But first, before I get to the fun stuff, I’m going to turn this show over to a very special guest.” Ralph points his remote at his car and pops open the trunk, out of which climbs Clyde, dressed in jeans, a white chiffon blouse, and a pair of black pumps. He straightens his hair and struts over to where Yoshi is sitting with his mouth hanging open. Shielding his eyes against the lights with one hand, Clyde snaps his fingers at the cameras.

  “Shut those things off.”

  “It’s best if we record it all,” Ralph says.

  Clyde spins on his heels and glares at him. “I said shut it off. All of it.”

  Ralph holds up his hands and quickly moves to shut off the equipment.

  “Leave me alone with him.” Clyde points at the office door. “I’ll let you know when we’re ready for you.”

  Ralph looks at Yoshi for a moment and back at Clyde, then lights a cigarette before exiting the work area.

  “Well, fuck me,” Yoshi says once he and Clyde are alone. “Don’t you look pretty.”

  Clyde sits opposite him and stares at him.

  “What are you looking at?” Yoshi says.

  “You tell me.”

  “I’m the man who raised you, you little shit. And this is how you repay me? By having your Arab boyfriend tie me to a chair and threaten me with a gun?”

  “He’s not an Arab. He’s Israeli. And he’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Israeli? That’s ten times worse. A fucking Jew.”

  “Leave him alone. This is about you and me.”

  Yoshi arches an eyebrow. “And who exactly are you?” He tosses a quick glance at the office door, then narrows his eyes at Clyde and says in an exaggerated whisper, “You don’t actually believe you’re Marilyn Monroe, do you?”

  Clyde puffs up his chest and touches his hand to it. “She’s inside here. Where cruel people like you can’t touch her.”

  Yoshi barks a bitter laugh. “You’re a delusional freak.”

  “You’re wrong. I’m a star.”

  Yoshi chuckles. “More like a black hole.”

  Clyde leans forward and hisses, “You’ll see soon enough; you’ll all see.”

  Yoshi cuts hate-filled eyes at Clyde. “Listen to me, K
imitake Koba, you’re destined for obscurity or worse if you don’t drop this ridiculous charade.”

  “Oh, so you’re giving me advice now, are you?”

  “Look at yourself. You’re an embarrassment to us all, your mother included. If you keep carrying on like this, you’ll end up in the kookoo house like your brother. And look at what happened to him. Is that what you want for yourself, you sick fuck?”

  Clyde lunges forward and punches Yoshi in the face hard, bloodying his nose.

  “Say it again, and I’ll crack you another one, you goddamned bully.”

  Yoshi spits blood at Clyde. “You’re a coward, hitting a guy when he’s tied to a chair. Cut me loose. Let’s make this a fair fight.”

  “Look at who’s calling who a coward. The guy who took a knife to a two-year-old. What was fair about that, eh?” Clyde punches him again, this time in the mouth, splitting Yoshi’s lip against his jagged front teeth. “What’s fair about you guzzling whiskey and terrorising Momma and me each time you got drunk?” Clyde snatches a crowbar off the ground and raises it over his head. “Answer me!”

  Ralph bursts out of the office and stays Clyde’s hand as Yoshi squeezes his eyes shut waiting for the final blow. “Steady there, Marilyn,” he says.

  Clyde tosses aside the crowbar with a ringing clatter that echoes throughout the garage and grabs Yoshi by the lapel. “Answer me, goddamn you! What did we do to deserve what you did to us? What did we fucking do?”

  Yoshi pries open his eyes and glares at Clyde. Then he spits blood on the floor and says, “Bring me some water.”

  Ralph exits the room and returns a moment later with a Styrofoam cup brimming with cold water. He hands it to Clyde, who dashes it in Yoshi’s face. “There’s your water. Now answer me.”

  Yoshi shakes his head to dislodge the water streaming down his face and peers at Clyde out of one eye. “What did I do to deserve being put into a fucking relocation camp when I was just a kid and all the shit that went along with that? What did I do to deserve a wife who always felt she was better than me? What did I do to deserve a firstborn son who lost his mind? The answer is nothing! Shit happens to everyone. To some more than others. It’s only stupid people who look for a reason. The truth is, there is no reason.”