white flag

some dreams are destined for the cutting floor | short fiction

Sep 03, 2024

It's the sixth inning, and I'm perched in the rusty bleachers, scanning the field for Todd.

The sneaky sonofabitch found out I'm in town. He buzzed me at sun up with one of those Hey bud! It's been too long...yarns. He made me promise I'd show up for old times' sake.

He knows I've always been a pushover who'd sooner eat glass than break his word, so even though I don't give two shits about the Kenosha Kodiaks or the Waukegan Whirlwinds, here I am, perched in the bleachers, weathering the waters of Midwestern swamp ass to watch a gaggle of bright-eyed minor league weirdos run around in their too-small uniforms, praying today's the day some deus ex machina recruiter offers them the hallowed major league contract that'll save them from another night masturbating themselves to sleep in their parent's basement—it's all too fucking sad.

Don't get me wrong, I know what it's like to dream. Hell, I was infected with the same dream that made these sad sacks squeeze into their shrunk uniforms this morning, but—and I'm thankful for this every damn day—I'm one of the lucky ones who nipped its bud before it metastasized.

I've fought myself into remission, and when you're in remission, why in god's name would you spend your weekends putzing around the cancer ward?

The only reason I can think of is to visit someone. So here I am, back in the ward visiting good ol' Todd.

Todd is the Kodiaks' shortstop and my best pal since seventh grade. Like most lifelong friendships, we met in detention. I sat playing a game of Strat-O-Matic baseball. He caught a glimpse and bounded up like a Golden Retriever, showing off his menagerie of baseball cards. He pulled up a chair, and we started a fresh game. That night, he came over to my place to watch the Brewers and eat Wheaties for dinner.

We became attached at the hip—trading cards at recess and watching old World Series games my dad had on VHS. On weekends, Todd's dad took us to the cages and helped us with our stances—Toddy, it looks like you're fixing to drop a deuce…knock those knees in…put your weight in the balls of your feet…

Come freshman year, we both made the JV team. After one of our first games, Coach Wallace pulled us aside after the other boys left the locker room and told us we had "it"—he said if we worked hard—real, real hard—there was no doubt in his mind we were shoo-ins for the show.

That day, we biked home sweaty and smiling, our bellies vibrating with the warm assurance that it was only a matter of time until we'd be shattering stadium lights like Redford. We were invincible heir apparents, convinced we could stroll into McDonalds, order a goddamn Boeuf Bourguignon and get what we asked for.

Thinking about it all makes me queasy. Was I really that gullible and naive and self-centered?

As I sit here, watching the game, it's hard not to wonder if I'm still that gullible, naive, and self-centered.

Do people ever change?

A phantom part of me wants to rush the field and play. I pinch myself—remembering I left it all behind.

I was twenty-one, approaching the sayonara of graduation when I put down the glove and opened my mouth wide, performing the ritual ahhhhhh of adulthood, letting the nine-to-five crawl in and play house in my gullet.

Since then, I've been bouncing around between dead-end office jobs but hey, the money is good—I've got my own pad, and the bills are paid. That's more than I can say for Todd, who, at thirty-fucking-two, is still infected with our dream.

"HOTDOGSSSS!! HOTDOGS HERE, FIVE DOLLA DOGS!!!"—the pimply hotdog tween saves me from the depths of myself. I flag him down, give him a ten for a dog, and tell him to keep the change.

I shuffle back to my spot. It's the ass of the seventh, and the Kodiaks are down 3-4. Todd's coming up to bat. He's strolling out of the dugout to a pitiful smattering of greasy palms, his face glowing with his signature pig-in-shit grin.

I smile for the first time that day; hell, for the first time in a year.

I'd bet every penny—my house, my car, my 401(k), every damn thing I own that, in this moment, we're thinking about the same exact thing: the quarry, our cauldron of sunk costs.

In high school, we'd take our bats and bike out to the old limestone quarry. We'd mull around in the noonday sun, using my dad's measuring tape to establish a pitcher's mound exactly sixty-feet-six inches from home base.

I'd stand at the large, grey stone designated as "home" with my bat, trying to get my stance right. I'd nod, and Todd would pitch a rock. When it became clear he couldn't reach home from regulation distance, we'd agree to move the pitcher's mound to a more manageable twenty feet.

I'd swing and miss, swing and miss, swing, miss. He'd yell, you'rrrrrrrrrre out! I'd pretend to pester a non-existent ump as we'd switch positions.

I'd pick up a stone, doing a gratuitous windmill wind-up before each pitch, imagining the bases are loaded.

He'd swing, miss, swing WHAPPPPP…

Reflexively, we'd visor flat palms over our eyes, searching for the sailing stone, chest thrumming with that holy shit! there's a great power within us! fuzz, the breeze bringing us meaty whiffs of Nathan's and whispers of the old church ladies belching phantom calliopes through the air with their trashy organs.

Ladies and gentlemen, he's going all the way home!

The smile hangs around for a while. I want him to knock that sucker into the stands, shatter the lights, shatter the goddamn sun into molten shards!

I hold my breath, praying the ketchup-stained slob next to me is a recruiter for the Brewers.

Todd reaches the plate and wriggles into the stance his father taught us. The pitcher is a merciless, chubby swine of a man and easily gives Todd strike one.

Todd's smile dulls.

He spits, pawing the dirt bull-like with his cleats. He nods to the pitcher and swings. Strike two! Some Whirlwinds fans cheer. Todd taps home with his bat and adjusts his stance, his knuckles shining white like a castaway's.

His smile's gone. His mouth yo-yos between a wan hyphen and lemon pucker. He scans the bleachers and looks right at me.

In his eyes, I catch the diaper's full glint of stellar shame, the look my nephew makes when he shits himself in the sandbox and doesn't want anyone to know. I know it all too well. I saw it reflected at me in the grimy Men's Warehouse fitting room mirror as I tried on my first pair of work clothes right before I had to ask the strange salesman to tie my tie.

He nods.

I nod back.

It's that twitchy, barely there, I see you and respect you nod—the nod by which two parties affirm they're already dead.

The pitcher winds up, and Todd swings.

Strike three, you'rrrrrrrrrre out!

The crowd cheers as he trudges to the dugout for the last time as the church ladies butcher "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" on their organs.