Last Days of Montreal

by John Brooke

  Gentlemen, we’re communicators. You can’t say things like that when your people are in turmoil. It’s irresponsible. It’s wrong!

  Dan: That first night we went into extra innings but we lost again. Yes, we made some bad moves, myself included. This happens some nights. That’s baseball. You gentlemen all know that… After he’s done with the post-game scorecard, Harve looks to me. “Dan, the guys looked lost out there tonight. Very, very lost.”

  I said what you’re supposed to say. “It’s OK, Harvey, our guys know what it’s all about.”

  Harve says — he was kind of pleading, “Do they? Tell us about it. You’ve been there, Dan. The folks at home want to know what our guys are thinking. What they’re feeling. Especially now.”

  Yeah, I’ve been through it. I said, “They’re thinking: hang in, execute, contribute, it’s gonna turn around.” Obviously he didn’t believe me.

  Harve: Belief is something we should talk about. This kind of slump, exactly at the worst time: why does it have to happen? If you’re a true fan — and our fans are: true blue, deeply loyal — it can leave you feeling there’s no purpose to life. You want to die, then walk right up to God and spit…I was trying to serve our fans. Talk them through a hard time. The hardest time. Help them understand it. Help them come to terms with their belief in some fundamental things.

  Dan: Harvey seemed so sad, out of faith, like he forgot that anything can happen. Tell me, what kind of baseball man is that? And he wouldn’t leave it. He says, “Three one-run losses in a row, Danny. Could that be an omen? Is this the start of our nightmare?” The fans at home would never know it from the voice, but I’m sitting there with him and I can see disaster in his eyes.

  Omen? Nightmare? Richard and Harve have both said I should try to be spontaneous. So I told him, “Roll over and go back to sleep, Harvey. This team’s dream season is far from over. Where I come from, omens are reserved for knuckleball specialists.”

  It’s true. Some people back there in Dixon, Illinois still believe in things like that. Too much of the Cubs, I guess. But Harve’s looking like a Doomsday guy who just got in from the desert. He takes hold of my arm and says, kind of prayerful, “So a knuckleballer might be the answer?”

  I said, “You’re talking like a rookie manager there, Mr. Doody. What we have here is a contending team heading into September. That means pressure, pure and simple. Depending on what happens on the coast tonight, we’re either a game or a game-and-a-half back. But we still have forty-four games to play. That’s a lot of baseball, Harve…one heck of a lot of baseball.”

  He backs off and finishes up, tells the people good night and see you tomorrow from the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. He waits for the wrap sign from Richard — he’s at the board behind us with Ralph. Then Harve’s right there in my face, grabbing my necktie like some gangster. He asked me, “Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing, Danny?”

  Harvey Doody rarely curses, let alone threatens violence. But this was mean, like I’d never seen him. And he’s got the big voice, so everyone heard it. Richard and Ralph, Gary and Rachel, they were all there. Even the guys in the booth beside us who do the game in French were suddenly quiet. You’re damn right I pushed him away. I said, “You got a problem, Harve?”

  Yes, I laughed at him. In a situation like that I don’t take guff. It’s one reason they call me the Dart.

  Harve: Dan has this tight smile that gets fixed along the edges of his teeth. It’s hard to like him when you see it. We all know if he makes it to the Hall, the hot glove’ll be less than half the story. Try most guys dinged on the head en route to first, most umps threatened in the history of either league. I think Dan Wirnooski has trouble admitting he’s wrong. Two failed marriages to prove it, too… My problem was obvious: He made me sound stupid on-air!

  Dan: Well he was being stupid. I told him, “You’re blowing this thing way out of proportion, Harvey.”

  Harve roars, “I am the Voice of this team!” I mean, he announces it like he’s Moses or somebody. “Do you know what that means? The Voice! And you screwed me right in the ear! Why?” Richard came over. “Cool it, Harve.”

  “No!” He was hot. He tells me, “I bet there’ll be more murders than usual back home tonight, Danny! On top of the anger, our fans are going to feel betrayed by what you said!”

  “Harvey,” I said, “It was just a knuckleball joke.”

  He wasn’t in a mood to listen. He’s yelling, “It’s not a joke! You say things like that, you’re going to drive them to distraction! The folks back home trust me. Me, Harvey Doody, the Voice — they go with me! The pennant was in sight. Now, watching them, the way they screwed it up tonight? Our fans are angry, confused — and they are going to be heartbroken!”

  I said, “You don’t know that, Harvey.”

  But Harve was already sure we were dead. He said, “Dan, this is going be no fun at all, but I can talk our fans through it. And you have to help me! You got that? Help me. I need truth, Danny — truth!”

  Richard said, “Danny’s right — no one wants to hear negativity. We have to stay up. No matter what, that’s our job. It’s only baseball, Harvey…it’s not like we’re doing the play-by-play of Desert Storm for heaven’s sake!”

  Harve comes back at him: “Don’t be such a damn whore, Richard. It’s serious!”

  Then he walked out and we didn’t see him till the next night.

  Harve: I had to try to get a handle on it. I was walking around and thinking about self-destruction. I knew it was affecting us. I walked around outside the stadium. The Big O. You know it fell apart a few seasons back — concrete slabs dropping on the public terrace, and that roof is always ripped and never works. How could Montreal let that happen? Baseball is supposed to be beautiful and the ball park’s a shrine to that fact. I couldn’t understand the way they think there. It seemed un-American. I felt I might see it in the cracks in the walls… Not many people here care too much about what goes on in Canada. But I felt I was looking into the heart of baseball darkness.

  Dan: They think the same as everybody else.

  Harve: Well, I found a man who taught me otherwise.

  Dan: Yeah, what a guy. Next night Harvey brought him up to the booth before the game. Talk about a total bum: Grease all over his beard, stuff in his teeth, hadn’t had a bath since last year, stunk the place right out.

  Harve: Last Days is no bum. He’s another Voice. He has a role to play in Montreal and it’s not an easy one. I admire the man.

  Dan: He’s a bum!…with serious psychological problems.

  Harve: Usually Dan and Richard and I share a cab back to the hotel. We talk about the game and how our show went. I was heading back to join them, coming down the ramp to the player’s entrance where we get the car when I saw Danny walking away from the stadium with a woman on his arm. That ball girl. You think I’m going to say, What a horny little prick! Well I’m not. I don’t pass judgement. Dan’s got no wife at the moment. He can do what he wants, what he feels he needs to do. But there’s my point: Dan was just not where he was supposed to be. In his head, I mean. Baseball was irrelevant. You could hear it in his voice, see it in his face, and the ball girl proved it.

  Dan: He keeps bringing my private life into this! So I went out and had some fun? For me, it’s always been the best way to beat the pressure. I met a great woman and I was happy like my director wanted me to be. Harve’s the one who blew it. He even followed us. I mean, it kind of makes you sick.

  Harve: Yes, I followed them. Our fans place so much hope in the men down there on the field. Those men are rich, talented, some would say they’re blessed! And they’ve been chosen to fight for our fans and win! Danny Wirnooski is my connection to the men on the field and it was clear that Dan’s distracted mind was right in sync with the team’s. I thought Dan and his Montreal ball girl might lead me to some answers. I’m sorry about what happened, but everything I did, I did for our fans. So they would know. And I remain deeply disappointed tha
t Dan will not share responsibility.

  Dan: Please! When Richard wraps it, I’m off duty.

  Harve: The stadium’s in the east end. It’s poor and ramshackle — cracking, potholed, streets, far worse than anything I’d ever seen in Philly or St. Louis…and never-ending stairs and railings, far too many doors, my eyes could not adjust to it…and the tangy reek of a tobacco factory hanging over everything, I tell you the humid air was gross. There were people sprawled on balconies and stairs with babies and dogs, staring like the dead into the awful heat, but laughing too, enjoying it, God knows how. I followed Dan and the ball girl till she took him through a door, then I kept walking. There were women for sale all along Ontario Street. Two of them were smiling at me like Tweedledee and Tweedledum, druggy eyes lit up like there was a twilight double-header going on inside their heads. I said, “Having fun?”

  One said, “Toujours le fun.”

  The other, who was English, said, “What d’ya need?”

  I thought, finally, someone in English. I was thinking, How are you going to find out useful baseball information when everyone speaks French? I said, “I don’t understand why I’m here — me and my baseball team.”

  She asked, “You have a baseball team?”

  I said, “Yes — but we’re lost.”

  The French one said, “What place you stand at — one, two, t’ree?”

  I said, “No, I’m the guy who talks. I need to communicate this thing that’s going on.”

  The English one — her name’s Carolyn — asked, “What thing?”

  “This Montreal thing. It’s affecting us.” I told them, “We would’ve won it all if we’d gone back home after Pittsburgh. But we came to Montreal instead.”

  The French one, Josée, said, “You sure you don’ want a blow job?”

  Carolyn seemed to catch my drift. She said, “I think he needs to talk to Last Days.”

  “Ah, bon,” said Josée. “Ça peut aider.”

  Call it what you will… Call it major league stigmata, the baseball gods all laughing… I’m a spiritual type of fellow, our fans are spiritual people, and I sensed a spiritual thing. I followed Josée and Carolyn, two lost souls if ever there were, looking for a guy called Last Days, and with each step I took, I was feeling more and more outlandish, increasingly in thrall to the glittery tinge. The brighter it glowed, the more it gave me to feel I understood.

  Dan: You see? He flipped. He’s admitting it.

  Harve: You see, baseball has its rituals, but at heart it’s a Protestant pursuit.

  Dan: Listen to this. This is the best part. We heard it all the way home.

  Harve: You work and work and you strive to perfect; but when it arrives, that state of perfection is no state of grace. It’s a dry thing. I’ve heard Danny call it a groove. But it’s more like a vacuum where the spirit sits, quiet, numb. Concentration. Execution. You generate power. Change a hair in the emotional lineup and it’s gone. Our guys had started making predictions of greatness when they should’ve stayed silent: silent souls, flirting with first. World Champions — it’s the American dream. And so now they were falling, past the zero point of absolute Methodist baseball and into the purgatory of a Catholic city where baseball shouldn’t be at all. The guys down on the field will never admit it — that’s not how our great game works. We hear clichés and meaningless sound-bites. They say they’re sticking to the fundamentals. They say their faith will do the rest, while they disengage, go into a floating state of suspension that ushers in the end. Now I knew what our guys were feeling. I could feel it all around me — a sense of sliding under, submerging. I saw why Dan was going blank in the booth. I could see where he was headed with this ball girl and her blueberry eyes.

  Dan: She’s a completely normal woman who knows how to enjoy herself.

  Harve: Let me tell you about enjoyment. At Ontario and de Lorimier my two guides turned south toward the bridge. There was music blaring from around the next corner, so we went to see. It was a parking lot full of bikers. They were out in the heat, maybe fifty of them, bikes and beer, clouds of pot, lolling, ugly, music blasting. In the middle of it all was this woman, stark naked, balancing on the back of a Harley, doing a sort of slow dance — languid, mean, utterly uninterested in anything but herself. Carolyn and Josée were greeted. Without a word, they left me and began to mingle. I moved toward the dancing woman and stood there. Totally empty. And she ignored me. But one biker points his beer bottle at me and says something like, “Descends tes pantalons.” I didn’t have a clue till another one growls, “Down wit’ your Calvin Kleins, ass’ole!”

  I understood that. Down they went. Then I danced myself around that woman, and when I tried to think what my wife would say…well, nothing! She wasn’t there! My own wife, and she just wasn’t in my head. I figured this is what the inside of a ball player’s head is like when he starts running the wrong way for routine pop-ups. Or when he tosses an easy out to first ten feet high and into the crowd. Or on a pickoff to second that ends up on the warning track. All these things had happened during the game that night. It’s actually a nice feeling. A release. I mean, if you’re falling apart, this is a better way to fall.

  Dan: These are mental errors. Nothing more, nothing less.

  Harve: When a whole team is doing it? When there is everything to be gained by toeing the line and staying straight? These are the actions of the damned!

  Dan: He’s raving. He went for a walk in their toughest neighbourhood on his worst night.

  Harve: My nose was an inch away from her silky diamond. A perfect diamond, trimmed, shifting, lazy, wafting. I could hear her singing to herself in French. I thought of you, Danny. I imagined I was you.

  Dan: Look, my Bernadette is decent, hardworking. She doesn’t have a shaved —

  Harve: Danny, Danny — still in denial. But then I found a man who explained the darkness of it all.

  Dan (Standing): Do you gentlemen really need me for the rest of this?

  Harve: Gentlemen, Dan Wirnooski has been misunderstood in his time, both on the field and off, if I’ve heard right. He should stay. He might learn something.

  Dan: About what? I refuse to let this be about my personal life. And it has nothing to do with goddamn baseball!

  Harve: About communicating. About our stock-in-trade. About our responsibility to our fans.

  Dan: About things that have no place in our national game!

  Harve: When the music ended I was kneeling, my head resting on leather, staring up at this woman. I heard a voice say in no uncertain terms, “Get your fat face off my bike, modit tabernack!”

  No problem. I picked up my coat and pants and backed away from the party with six bikers escorting me to the street. Behind me, cars were honking. One biker pulled a knife. I turned and ran — and smashed into a legless guy in one of those electric wheelchairs. The bikers fell over themselves laughing. So did Carolyn and Josée. There was a rise in the honking as the traffic passed. This gnarled little half a human was lying by his toppled chair, beady eyes staring up at me like an injured animal. I was still without clothing on my private parts. I asked, “Are you all right?”

  He lay there. His eyes were so grey. Maybe he didn’t know English. I bent closer. “All right?”

  Suddenly he grabs me by the testicles — uses them as a handle as he pulls himself up to meet my eyes. When he was within biting range, he screamed, “You’re a damn idiot!”

  Dan: That I would’ve liked to see.

  Harve: He wouldn’t let go till I’d picked him up, righted his chair and placed him in it. As I was pulling on my pants, he puttered off without a word. Carolyn had stepped out of the crowd. She was pointing, gesturing as if I should follow him. I wasn’t sure. I took some steps. He passed under a streetlight. There was this sign on the back of his chair: Last Days of Montreal…

  I was gripped by a frantic need to know him. As surely as his scabby hand had clasped my family jewels, the night, the heat, the game, the team, Danny and Richa
rd — everything had brought me to this terrible Montreal man. I ran after him, south for a block or two, and managed to grab hold of one of his handles in front of an Esso station. He spun around and around, waving fists at me, spitting through the most disgusting teeth I’ve ever seen, but I wouldn’t let go. Gentlemen, if you’ve ever been seized by a sense of fate, you’ll know what I mean.

  He finally stopped his motor and we stood there with an all-night Esso man watching from his glassed-in booth. The Esso man looked like Danny when he’s doing the game. Kind of toothy, intent, that ferret face hanging over the edge of the table.

  Dan: So is that what I’m supposed to learn? Great.

  Harve: I pleaded, “Let me give you something!” and I shoved a fifty between his grimy fingers. Canadian money. It’s pink. He took it and ripped it in four pieces and ate them. Where I come from, even crazy people have respect for money. I shook him. “Let me do something for you!”

  He said, “Dancing,” and stuck out this cankered tongue.

  Dancing? My mind was caught in a squeeze.

  It turned out we were close to lots of places. We finally rolled into one called kox. No, no, no: that’s K-O-X. Noisiest place I’ve ever been — all these Montreal guys going all-out, going straight to hell some people would say, doing pretty much everything you’re not supposed to. We had some drinks and danced. Slow dances: this way, then that way, in an arc, Last Days locks his back wheels…then a couple of pirouettes on his part, under my arm. He has a burnt-in passion — what I mean is, it’s ugly but it shines — and we wowed ’em at kox. Someone sent us martinis and I was proud to clink glasses with him. When we left, it was coming on 3:00 a.m. but the boys at kox showed no signs of slowing down.

  There’s a City shelter where he can go, but in summer he stays on the street till his battery needs a boost. We headed back toward the Cartier Bridge. Last Days had a bottle of rye stashed behind a pylon. We passed it back and forth. He took a wheezy breath and sighed. “I love this weather. This air can make anyone as neurotic as me. Now all I need is Claudia.” And Last Days told me about the love of his life, his ongoing search for a perfect gal called Claudia.