by Mike Murphey
“Oh, my God,” the kid said. “No. No. This can’t be happening.”
Conor slid into full view, waddled to the kid’s side, and said, “Still got the keys to the go-kart?”
“Aaaaagggghhhhh!” the kid screamed. He turned and ran.
Calgary first-base coach John Majors typically presented the Cannons’ lineup card to umpires at home plate. Bodie made out a lineup and put it on the top shelf of Majors’ locker.
Knowing his routine, the players waited until a few moments before the plate meeting, when Majors disappeared into the bathroom for his pre-game dump. They grabbed the lineup card and smuggled it to Conor, still waiting in the darkened walkway.
“Shit,” Majors said. “Shit, shit, shit!”
“What’s wrong, Johnny?”
“I can’t find the fuckin’ lineup card. Bodie’s gonna kill me.”
“No sweat, Johnny. I got you covered.” Resplendent and glowing as a five-pointed star, Conor waved the lineup card from across the clubhouse, briefly beheld Bodie’s shock, and dashed onto the field.
The umpires initially flinched at Starman!’s charge. Being minor league umps, though, they were inured to all manner of pre-game weirdness.
Most of Calgary’s roster hung on the dugout rail and began to chant. Instantly, a bored mid-week crowd joined them, and the stadium rocked once again with Starman!, Starman!, Starman!
Conor handed over the card, flapped his hands in acknowledgment, and performed a jogging, waddling tour of the bases. He touched home plate, then veered into the Cannon’s dugout, carefully avoiding eye contact with his manager.
Midway through the game, the bullpen phone rang.
“Conman!” barked the bullpen coach.
Uh, oh. This was too early for the closer to get up. Conor leaned forward and pointed to himself.
“He wants you!”
Oh, crap.
Conor shuffled along the dugout steps and began an apology he’d composed during his walk from the bullpen.
“Listen, Skip, I’m sorry. I thought the guys needed a little—”
“Hey, don’t sweat it. I laughed pretty hard. Cassidy didn’t cut it. Pack your stuff. They need you in Seattle tomorrow.”
forty-one
Seattle Mariners
1991
The Mariners finally were playing for something. For fifteen years, Seattle had wallowed in mediocrity while its expansion twin, the Toronto Blue Jays, became a legitimate contender.
The 1991 Mariners, though, finally had a chance to finish above .500—an ignoble goal that might seem superfluous compared to ambitions of playoffs and World Series crowns. The players had completely invested themselves in this pursuit of respectability, though, and they would achieve their goal, laying a foundation for genuine success.
Conor loved the atmosphere he’d stepped into.
The third night of the home stand, the call came to protect a four-run sixth-inning lead.
He felt his back pinch as he quickly warmed. His shoulder ached. Nothing unusual. He’d see about an injection after the game. The happy home crowd, appreciative of last year’s performance by the Conman, cheered his walk from the bullpen. He ignored both back and shoulder through his warmup tosses.
The first hitter he faced dumped an awkward, opposite field bleeder over Vizquel’s head at shortstop. He walked the next hitter on a full count, his shoulder complaining a little more with each delivery. The runners advanced on a double steal.
Conor knew just by feel his next fastball had nothing on it. The ball withered at the plate, then leapt from the bat like a bullet. Vizquel speared the ball, spoiling its deep-gap destiny, leaving runners at second and third.
Conor shook his left arm and cursed his shoulder.
“Fuck. Not now!”
As he began his windup, Conor somehow knew everything turned on this pitch. The struggle, the disappointment, the labor, the fleeting moments of success—indeed, his very identity—were all at stake. So many times, with no options left, a single game, a single performance, a single pitch, had dictated his fate. Time after time he’d risen to that challenge. As this fastball limped from his hand, though, he understood this night would not produce another miracle. He knew the truth the instant the ball rolled off his fingers—before a searing strip of pain stabbed his shoulder, before the tingling of his hand, before a wave of limp utter uselessness yanked at his left arm.
The ball reversed its course, streaking toward right centerfield, sinking too quickly for even Griffey to save him. Both runs scored. When Vizquel flipped him the return throw from the outfield, Conor left it nestling deep in his glove.
He waited for Latham’s arrival.
Conor offered the baseball. Latham received it without comment.
To a smattering of polite applause, the journey ended.
Conor tilted the bottle high and allowed a few last drops to trickle down his throat. Flowing yellow and red snakes of headlights and taillights below him had been dissected into individual dots. Stars peppered the sky, their strength boosted by absence of a moon.
Who is Conor Nash if he can’t pitch?
I really didn’t expect to find the answer on a mountain. The only way that will happen is if this bottle has a genie at the bottom, so I can wish myself young and whole. He laughed. Then again, why not? After all, this whole thing started with a wish in a tunnel.
Boys, though, can believe in things that men can’t. Conor’s confessor wasn’t real. Rita the baseball angel was only his personification of blind happenstance, wafting him here and there across the baseball landscape like the swirling winds at Candlestick.
If I was the captain of my fate, how would the story end? Pitching into my forties? The left-hand relief specialist who hangs on and hangs on, being passed from team-to-team like an aging harlot, while Kate continued to wait her turn?
Conor wanted to believe he was a better man.
But, to thine own self be true. Sure. I’d have settled for that. And what then? Would the end taste any less bitter because the champagne was a few years older?
They paid me to play baseball for sixteen years. Some players were fated to be the game’s knights or kings. Others were pawns, sacrificed time and again for some nebulous greater good. I could compete with any of them, though. That’s what gnawed at me. I proved it during a glorious season and a half when I was a decade too old.
Nine months out of sixteen years isn’t enough, especially when excellence afforded me neither security nor justice.
This was the source of anger which turned me sullen and humorless for months. I could pick out men who’d manipulated me over the years and blame them, but they were too vague, too distant. Where was the satisfaction in being pissed off at people to whom my anger made no difference?
Conor needed to give voice to this visceral rage welling from his gut. What about Kate and her assertion she’d looked forward to this day as much as he dreaded it? His resentment slunk away as Conor searched his soul to find he couldn’t be angry at Kate. Not that way.
But . . . Fat Brad. The fucking voice of reason?
Conor stood, wobbling a little with the effort, and screamed to the stars, “So you couldn’t wait to put a gun in your mouth until I’d at least dealt with this shit! Fuck you, you coward! What was the hurry? Why couldn’t you wait one more minute? And a minute after that. And then the minute after that? All you had to do was get past that moment when you felt you had to pull the trigger. No matter how bad it was, you had friends who loved you. You don’t think we would have taken care of you? You think we’d have walked away? Life’s not over because you can’t be a fucking judge. A.J. would have made you a partner in a sports agency. You guys would have owned the world. Basil would’ve done anything for you.”
Now tears streaked Conor’s cheeks. “I would’ve . . . I would’ve . . . Fuck. You only had to get past that moment—”
“Are you talking about me, Connie, or are you talking about yourself?”
The voice came from be
hind him.
Conor turned with a start and there was Fat Brad, looking only a little wavy and ethereal. “My God!” Conor gasped. “I had no idea I was this drunk.”
“You’re pretty drunk,” Brad agreed. “So, you’re gonna quit, too, huh?”
“I don’t have any choice. Unlike you. I’m not deciding to—”
“Were you screaming incoherently, or did you hear what you said? No matter how bad it seems? People who love you? Life’s not over just because you can’t be a judge—or a pitcher? Getting past that moment?”
“Fuck you. I wouldn’t even consider killing myself.”
“You’re too literal for your own good,” the ghost said. “Your precious standards. All that failure and quit crap. Don’t you understand your life philosophy should apply to a broader context than a pitching mound? There’s all kinds of quit. Emotional suicide is every bit as devastating as any other kind. This is your moment, Connie. Sometimes, only the worst things can make the best things possible. Don’t repeat my mistake. A bit clichéd, I grant you, but count your fucking blessings. Look at my wife, look at A.J.’s divorce. Look at all of Basil’s women.” The ghost paused briefly. “Kate is a gem, and you’re pushing her away.”
Conor sagged to the bench. The ghost sat beside him.
“Do you know,” Conor asked, his voice a hard whisper, “how pissed off we are at you?”
“Yeah.” The ghost sighed. “One day, though, you’ll get over it. One day, my memory will be a comfort, not a torment. At least, that’s what they tell me.”
“They?”
“It’s complicated. Don’t draw any conclusions. And by the way, go easy on Val, would you? She does the best she can.”
“Val? Who the fuck is Val?”
“Oh . . . right. You don’t know. She’s your baseball angel.”
“My baseball angel is named Val? I thought her name was Rita.”
“I don’t know any Rita.”
“So, there’s a Saint Val?”
“Saint . . . No, you’ve been misinformed. Valarie certainly doesn’t run with that crowd.”
Conor turned with the shock of realization. “Valarie?”
“Yeah. Like your Dad always said, the Nashes look out for their own.”
“Okay,” Conor said, “we both know this is some sort of weird drunken dream. The baseball angel is something I made up. And I’ve assigned it a high degree of incompetence. If my sister is my baseball angel, why wouldn’t she have done a little better job?”
“It’s not like she had a lot of training,” the ghost said. “It’s sort of a learn-as-you-go thing. Like an angel internship.”
“All the frustration?” Conor said. “All the releases? Wilbur Fucking Spalding? A shredded shoulder?”
“Your dad told you it wouldn’t be easy. He didn’t want it to be easy. He knew you better than anyone. You had to walk a crooked path to become the man you are. You’d be someone else entirely had it been easier. And I’m not sure you’d like that guy very much.”
Conor shook his head. “The man I am? I don’t even know who that is. I don’t understand where that crooked path leads . . .”
“Yes, you do,” the ghost answered. “It leads home. It leads to tomorrow, and the day after that. It leads to the privilege of embracing people who love and need you. And honestly, was it so bad? It’s been quite a ride. Even knowing it all—A.J., me, Baze—we’d still give our left nut if Val had chosen us. So, suck it up, you little snotweasel. Quit feeling sorry for yourself. And give Al Rosen a call. Val might not be done yet.”
The weight of chin on chest startled Conor awake. Standing, he turned a slow, complete circle. He was alone.
“See. I told you. A dream. Like in the movies . . .”
Lights sparkled below. Vague shadows of clouds above him began to mask what light was cast by the stars. He could barely make out his own cowboy boots.
“. . . but, God, that was weird, and . . . and . . . it’s darker than fuck. How the hell am I supposed to get down from here?”
Kate paced the living room, trying to focus on television rather than her concern over Conor’s whereabouts. He sometimes saw a movie or went out with Basil—which always worried her a little. Not that she worried about the women who flocked to Basil. She trusted Conor to hold that phenomenon at a bemused arms’ length.
No, the problem was that Basil still liked his scotch.
She thought of the last time she and Conor had met Basil at Swannie’s—a downtown Seattle bar popular among Mariners players—after a game.
One Month Earlier
“Um . . . hi, Kate,” Basil said as he gave Conor a sideways look.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Why would anything be wrong?”
“You don’t seem particularly thrilled to see me,” Kate said.
“No . . . no . . . it’s just . . .” He turned to Conor and mouthed a couple of words Kate didn’t understand.
“Tonight?” Conor asked him.
“I think so, and . . .”
“What?” Kate demanded.
“Circus Girl,” Conor said. “Baze is worried that Circus Girl might be working tonight.”
“Circus Girl?” Kate said. “Can the two of you be any more demeaning?”
“It’s not like that,” Basil said. “I don’t know her name . . .”
Conor told Kate a waitress had developed a fixation concerning Basil. He wasn’t interested in a continuing relationship.
“Is he ever?” Kate asked. “So . . . why Circus Girl?”
Basil started to answer. Conor cut him off. “He says she’s clingy and . . . acrobatic. I’ve never met her. Sometimes Baze exaggerates . . .”
“Baaaaazzzzeee!” Her scream came from across the bar, the woman a blur as she charged at a full run.
Kate ducked as, a good ten feet from Basil, Circus Girl took flight.
Basil had only an instant to brace himself before they collided. He looked over the shoulder of this person, who clung like Velcro—arms wrapped around his neck, legs around his waist, her feet crossed and locked behind his ass—and shrugged.
Conor, Kate and Basil sat as Circus Girl resumed her waitress duties, her leering glances finding Basil time and again.
“Just tell her,” Kate said. “Tell her you’re not interested and . . .”
“I can’t. I might hurt her feelings.”
“So, what do you do? Eventually, I mean.”
“I go to Alaska.”
Kate shook her head. “I can’t believe . . .”
“Kate, please. It’s not my fault—”
“Basil,” she said with exasperation, “has it ever been your fault?”
Basil adopted a look of genuine concern. He said nothing for several long minutes, finally breaking the silence with, “Well . . . maybe one time in . . . in . . . no. No, that wasn’t my fault either.”
Even Basil, for all his eccentricities, wouldn’t allow Conor out this late without at least calling.
The funk Conor had experienced over the past few months added to Kate’s concern. She’d never underestimated how difficult retirement would be for Conor. She’d steeled herself for repercussions. She hadn’t expected, though, his depression to run so long and so deep. Still, she clung to her faith that a day would come when something characteristically bizarre happened and Conor found humor in his life again.
She knew he wouldn’t do something . . . something . . . well, anything irreconcilable.
Still, her heart pounded as she grabbed the phone before it rang a second time.
“Yes?”
“Mrs. Nash?”
The voice sounded grave and official. Kate felt her knees tremble. “Yes.”
“This is Officer Gerard of the Phoenix Police Department. I’m calling about your husband—”
“Oh, my God,” Kate gasped. “Please, please tell me he’s okay.”
“Well, yeah. For the most part. He’s drunk, and he’s pretty scratched up. He’s sitti
ng in a pickup truck. And he’s naked. Mostly. He’s wearing boxer shorts and cowboy boots, and . . . normally, ma’am, we’d charge him with DUI and book him. But . . . um . . . if you’ll come and get him . . .”
Kate closed her eyes and breathed a prayer of thanks. She knew now that Conor would be all right.
forty-two
He more or less fell down the mountain. When he managed to find a path, he couldn’t see the switchbacks in the dark. After a couple of tentative, shaky steps, he’d walk off into some sort of prickly oblivion and go sliding and tumbling over cacti, rock and sand.
He’d meant to keep the empty Champagne bottle for his trophy case. Now it belonged to the mountain.
His final tumble brought him to rest on the parking lot’s asphalt surface where his truck waited. Under the spill of the dome light, he assessed his damage. He had a cut across his forehead and a row of scratches along the left side of his face. One knee throbbed. Cacti spines and thorns posed the most immediate issue. His shirt and slacks were pincushions, nearly every inch of him pricked and needled.
He pulled his shirt painfully over his head, then slid gingerly out of his pants. His underwear had been spared the brunt of the assault, so he kept his boxers on, but his boots and socks were full of pebbles and goat heads.
He threw his shirt, pants and socks into the truck bed, then pulled his boots over bare feet. He slid carefully into the cab, gasping to catch his breath, and with everything tilting first one way, then the other, watched as a police car, its red and blue strobes flashing, pulled slowly to a stop.
A flashlight beam stabbed at his eyes.
“Sir, I want you to place your hands on the steering wheel.”
“Sir, why are you naked?”
“I’m not naked. I’m wearing boxers and cowboy boots.”
“Sir, have you been drinking?”
“Yes. Quite a lot.”
“Do you have a drivers’ license?”
“Yes.”
