by Craig Birk
Interlude Nine
Gary (25)
August 13th, 1999 was a beautiful day at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. The sun was out, it was seventy-two degrees, and the Padres were about to begin a double-header with the Giants. Gary’s boss had given him sixth-row seats behind first base. He and Roger were trying to find said seats, each carrying the maximum allowed sale of two large beers.
They found row F and headed inward. The ticket Roger held was for seat nine, while the ticket in Gary’s pocket was seat eight. Even so, Roger led the way and sat in seat eight while Gary made himself and his beers comfortable in seat nine. It would prove to be a crucial detail.
The Village People were scheduled to perform after both games were over. Before game one, the Construction Worker came out to sing the national anthem. He stepped up to the microphone stationed near home plate and took off his yellow hard-hat, placing it over his heart. Gary and Roger rolled their eyes at each other, but both refrained from making any derogatory comments. In the end, they both admitted the guy did a pretty good job, though they were soon to be disappointed by the Military Man who came up five feet short on his attempt at the ceremonial first pitch.
Roger: “That was fucking weak. They should have gone with the Indian Chief.”
Gary: “I don’t know. That cowboy looks like he is hiding a pretty good fastball behind that mustache.”
Either may have been more effective than the Padres starting pitcher. In the first inning, he walked the first two Giants hitters and then fell behind Barry Bonds three and one. The next pitch was a fastball. He was not the first and would not be the last pitcher to make the mistake of throwing Bonds a pitch over the middle of the plate. Bonds hitched his right elbow in, lightly lifted his right leg, and then almost unnoticeably opened his right hip and extended his arms in front of him in one fluid motion.
Roger was inserting a Kodiak at the time of contact, but the implication from the crack of the bat was unmistakable. He was able to look up in time to see the ball sailing out toward the right center field seats. It landed in the twelfth row. Shortly after the ball completed its flight path, Bonds slowly began to circle the bases. It was, for any baseball fan, truly a thing of beauty, almost a religious experience.
Gary, despite his appreciation for the talent, was a Padres fan and was not happy. “Retards. Why would you let Barry beat you in that situation?” he asked no one in particular.
Roger answered. “Oooohhh, I don’t know, but it is helping my over.”
The over came in easily, with the Padres ultimately losing 12-4. Roger was happy and, as it turned out, Gary would have something to be happy about as well. In the top of the third inning two young women carrying Mike’s Hard Lemonades bounced down the aisle giddily. They turned into row F and made themselves at home in seats ten and eleven.
In seat ten was Blair Davis. She wore a green Marc Jacobs sundress with leather Gucci sandals she got at an outlet shop for ninety dollars. Her long brown hair flowed out of a pink Giants cap which clashed terribly with the sundress. Gary thought she was gorgeous. It was not until the fifth inning, and another large beer later, that he worked up the courage to start talking to her. By now, the Giants were already ahead 6-1 so he was conciliatory and asked her how she became a Giants fan.
Blair explained her family was from Larkspur, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, and she had grown up in a family of Giants fans. While accurate, the truth was she never cared for baseball whatsoever until, when she was twelve, Will Clark burst on to the scene as the Giants first baseman. Blair developed a huge crush on Mr. Clark, becoming a lifelong Giants fan in the process. She still remembered the day her family went to the game at Candlestick Park and she first saw Will. Her dad, who was a VP at Wells Fargo, had scored very good tickets and the family was seated four rows behind the Giants’ dugout. Clark came to bat in the bottom of the first inning and the crowd erupted in cheers because he had hit a game-winning home run the night before. Of course he had a cute face, but it was something about the way he waved his bat around and wiggled his ass in the batter’s box that really caught Blair’s attention. A girl sitting across the field behind third base felt similarly. She was a blond in her early twenties wearing jean shorts and a white tank top that tightly gripped a pair of very large boobs. This girl stood up, yelled “Go Will,” and held up a sign that read,
I’d Take the Pill
For a Thrill
With Will!!!
Blair did not know exactly what this meant, but she had a feeling she agreed. Her dad, Jim, also noticed the sign. He did know what it meant and spent much of the game admiring its owner.
By 1999, J. T. Snow was the Giants’ first baseman, but Blair was not interested in him at the moment. Like her first feelings for Will Clark, she had an instant crush on the person seated next to her in seat nine.
Gary remembered advice Alex had told him about how to pick up girls: always say something somewhat negative about them, but avoid actually being mean. At first Gary thought this was ridiculous, but after years of going out with Alex and seeing him repeat this procedure with tremendous success, he had learned to try to replicate it wherever possible.
“Are all Giants fans so color-coordinated?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” Blair wanted to know.
“Nothing, just the hat with the dress. It kind of looks like what a gay frog would wear to a wedding,” was his reply. Somehow, he was never as good at this as Alex and immediately regretted the comment, wondering how something so stupid had come out of his mouth. He took another large sip of beer and averted his eyes back toward the game.
Blair thought this was a pretty stupid thing to say as well, but somehow she found herself a little bit more interested in continuing to talk to him anyway. Still, she was not about to let him get the upper hand in the conversation. “Interesting observation,” she replied, adding, “It must take a gay Padres fan to notice such a thing. You know, queer eye for the yuppie baseball fan or something like that.”
There was a brief awkward pause and then they both started laughing. Nearly twelve hours later, he kissed her goodnight outside of The Shack bar in La Jolla and programmed her number into his Motorola StarTAC phone.
Both had the very alive feeling you get when you meet someone you like and know that you will see them again. For Blair, it was the first time she had this sensation since meeting her last boyfriend, who ultimately turned out to be married in another state. She had a feeling that Gary, unlike that scumbag, was at heart a really good guy. Gary was pretty sure he was going to get laid sometime in the next few weeks.
Gary hopped in a cab heading toward University City and Blair began the half-mile walk to her apartment in La Jolla. As they moved in different directions, neither fully appreciated that their lives had just merged onto the same path, that their future joys and pains would be shared, or that new life would be created as a result.
