Dan Wakefield - Home Free

After the final out Gene and Flash hit a couple bars, then stopped and shared a joint on a bench on Commonwealth Avenue beneath some stone Revolutionary soldier.

“Watchin that ball game,” Flash said, “it kinda got me down.”

“You mean the Sox blowing it?”

“Nah. They haven’t got a chance in hell this year.”

“So?”

“Just watchin those jokers. That Yankee infield. Shit. They’re not so hot. When you’re a kid, even in college, you think the pros are some kind of supermen. Hell, they’re just ball players, some better, some worse. I never even tried. I could have had a shot. At least a tryout. Our college coach had connections in the Lakers organization.”

“I thought you were too short,” Gene said.

“For forward. Maybe I coulda switched to guard. I wasn’t much of a shot, but I had speed, and best of all, I could go to my left. That’s important.”

“Yeh, man.”

“Not many guys can go to their left.”

“I know.”

“Shit. I mighta caught on. I’m not sayin I’d have been another Jerry West, but I might have played a few years in the NBA. Got me some good business contacts, bought into some kind of franchise operation. Look at The Hawk. At least he has his fuckin Sub Shop.”

“Yeh.”

They were quiet for a while, and then Flash said he’d better hit the road. Gene clapped him on the back and thanked him for the ball game.

“Forget it,” Flash said.

He started off and then stopped a moment, under the streetlight. He turned to Gene and said:

“I wasn’t shittin ya, man. I really could go to my left.”

“I dig,” Gene said.

Flash nodded. Then he turned and walked on.

On weekends the city seemed like an empty echo chamber. Evidently everyone was either out sailing in the fleet of small boats that choked the Charles in a bobbing white traffic jam, or were hidden inside hooked up to TV and air conditioning. In Back Bay the streets were nearly deserted, the trees motionless, the sky hot and blank.

After hitting the books all day since a breakfast of cold beer and some deli potato salad one late July afternoon Gene went aimlessly roaming around, looking in windows, studying marquees of movies he didn’t feel like seeing, lists of exotic ice-cream flavors he didn’t want to try.

He stopped at a little outdoor café that was open on Newbury Street, and ordered an iced coffee. There were a few little round tables with old-fashioned drugstore chairs around them arranged under an awning. Maybe it was like Paris. He doubted it. There were two older women with hats at one of the tables, and at another one a guy with a beard and sandals eating some elaborate ice-cream concoction and reading a paperback. Moby Dick . Heavy. That was one result of Gene’s long rambling education. He may not have read all the shit but he’d heard of it.

A girl in a flowered dress sat at a table a little in front of him and ordered a chocolate sundae. She carried a straw purse and a copy of the Evening Globe and a map of the city. Tourist. She put the purse and the Globe on a chair next to her and fanned herself with the map. Her medium-length black hair was mussy from the heat and every once in a while she brushed it back with one hand. She wasn’t any doll but she wasn’t bad either. Plain and pleasant-looking. And bored.

Gene thought about it. He hadn’t been laid since Lou left, almost a couple of months ago. She wouldn’t be back for almost another month. The best part about the girl in the flowered dress was that she was a tourist. No matter what happened he would probably never see her again. There was a smudge of chocolate above her upper lip. Idly, her tongue licked over it.

It had been a long time since Gene had tried to pick up a girl. He remembered the main thing was to start talking. It didn’t much matter what you said. He wiped his mind clean, like a blackboard, and smiled. He began to speak.

The girl spoke back, and more words went back and forth between them and Gene heard his voice suggesting they try to find someplace cool.

When they got there he admitted his apartment wasn’t very cool, but the beer in the refrigerator was.

“OK,” she said.

He popped two cans, gave one to her, and said, “I’ll bet you’re from Baltimore.”

“No.”

“Well—then let’s pretend you are.”

“All right,” she said.

He didn’t want to know anything about her. They talked about the heat some more and then Gene turned on the radio so they didn’t have to think of any more shit to say.

After the second beer he kissed her and they moved to the bedroom. They undressed and made love—remotely, distant, dreamlike. When it was over they dressed and had another beer. When the “girl from Baltimore” finished hers she said she’d better be going. Gene said OK, and walked her down to the street and said good-bye. She gave him a little wave and went away, with her straw purse and map of the city. She forgot the Globe .

Gene went back and turned the radio off. It was the first time he’d balled another woman since he’d been with Lou. It wasn’t even like the same act had been performed. This had been empty and flat, like a stale beer. He didn’t want to do it anymore with anyone else. He’d rather jerk off remembering Lou.

The end of August brought an unexpected cool spell and Gene got stoned by himself and went out to sit on a bench in the Common, savoring the nippy breeze, knowing it meant he’d be seeing Lou soon. Going back to that stale apartment seemed like a bummer. He curled up under a tree and closed his eyes. He blinked awake to brightness, opening to a soft lemon light pouring down through the leaves. The fresh breeze stirred around him, cool and soothing. He stretched, smiled, thinking of the music, hearing it in his head, feeling all it meant:

Here comes the sun

When Lou got back to Boston Gene had a surprise for her. He had got them a new apartment, nothing grand but at least a little more spacious and gracious than the funky pad behind the Trailways station. It was a long thin floor-through on Marlborough Street near Mass Ave, a bargain because of being corroded with archaeological layers of grime and needing repairs, but boasting big windows onto the street and a carved marble fireplace that didn’t function but looked very fine. For a six-pack Thomas helped scrub the place down and Gene applied plaster and paint, hung bright yellow curtains, added to former furniture an old leather couch from an office sale. For a housewarming present Thomas produced a brand-new queen-size Beautyrest mattress. He said not to mention to Lou it was hot.

To crown the whole enterprise Gene rigged a thrift shop chandelier from the living room ceiling.

“It’s royal ,” said Lou.

“For you,” he said, adding to please her, “Me, too.”

Next stop the queen-size mattress with madras spread in the bedroom where they forgot the Almadén Chablis on ice and the supermarket red caviar and the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. They were hungry first for each other and they filled themselves up in the shadowed room, to the tune of random sounds of a warm September afternoon: roller skates on concrete, the play-by-play of a Red Sox game on a neighbor’s radio, sparrow chatter.

Later, their own purring.

There was mellow Donovan music playing when Lou got home from her faculty meeting, and the place was bright and warm, welcoming. She unloaded her books and briefcase on the couch and sniffed the good scents coming out of the kitchen.

“Hey—what’s cookin?”

“Surprise!”

“What kind?”

“Bouillabaisse. With lobster even. The works.”

“Wow!”

“If the phone rings don’t answer. Door either. This is just you and me, babe.”