It Happens

[roncollins]

Written by Casey Neal
Daily Log of a Fresh-faced College Graduate
May 16, 2013

"What are you doing here?" I turn and ask as we all pile into Annie – guys in front, girls in back.

"Graduation gift," Belinda says.

"My dad gave me a trip to Florida for getting through school," Mezzy adds.

"We've been here a week," Belinda finished. The two looked at each other and burst out with inside-joke laughter. I just leave it sit. Don-o starts the engine and we're off to Pecos Joe's, which is apparently a new place – the usher recommended it when I asked for an idea of where to get a beer and a burger, and it looks good. I get the Diablo Burger, which is a bar-b-que thing. Mezzy does the All-American without cheese.

The conversation flies. We're laughing and telling each other our road stories and roommate stories. We see the waiter hanging around, so we order a second beer. Mezzy nurses this one, so I do, too. It turns out the girls are heading back to Lexington tomorrow.

"Why don't you two let us take you home?" I ask in a burst of sudden inspiration. It feels good to ask this question. It feels like I'm swinging for the fences, but for the first time my swing is compact and my eye is firmly on the ball.

Don-o stiffens a bit but stays with me like a good wingman is supposed to. "Great idea," he says. "But you gotta agree to a stop in Charleston."

"West Virginia," I say, assuming.

"Gonna see the Sox take on the Trendies?" Mezzy replies.

"Yeah," Don-o replies.

Awesome chick, this Mezzy – a girl who can pull any PEBA team's schedule up without a second's hesitation has gotta be all right, eh?

Long story short: After much argument that includes a discussion about whether Mezzy's Dad would be more pissed about the hassle of dealing with the airline tickets or with the idea that they were essentially hitchhiking home, they agree. My life is complete.

#

"You shouldn't have asked them to join us," Don-o says later. It's a warmish night and we're parked under a tree. We're planning to save money tonight, and sleep in Annie. "This thing with Aguilar could get dangerous for them."

"What's the scoop on that, Don-o? I mean, seriously, you totally owe me the story."

"I'm not certain, yet."

"I call bull."

He shrugs. "I need to talk to someone in West Virginia before I know for certain."

"Who?"

I wait, but he doesn't say anything else. Don-o is just like baseball stats. He only gives you what he wants you to see, so you have to look hard to find the truth in between the words.

"You think this is bigger than Manny Aguilar?"

His jaw line tightens under his three-day stubble. I think about Aguilar for a moment, and I see a hidden reality smack dab in the middle of his situation.

"There aren't any news reports of him going missing," I say.

"That's right."

"And that's why we left him tied up?"

Don- finally budges a step. "I didn’t want anyone to know I was onto anything."

"We," I said.

"What's that?"

"You didn't want the Bad Dudes to know we were onto something."

"Yeah. That."

#

That's how we find ourselves racing a dark rain cloud up I-77. We beat it easily, Annie carrying us north in style like she was a supersonic parade float.

It's a long day's drive, but we get to Charleston and find a hotel – a real place this time. Holiday Inn – a guys' room and a girls' room. We get some hard lemonade and sit around the over-chlorinated indoor pool, talking and laughing and having a very good time.

Then it happened.

Mezzy is sitting on the edge of her lounge chair and laughing at Don-o's imitation of Drew Carey. I’m across from her. We both bend at the same time, and she’s there, her lips hanging like a Kudo curveball. She pauses, and this time I don't wait, don't hesitate. This time I read the pitch, I see the spin of the ball and I know, just know that if I lean into it…

The kiss is way too short, but it is soft like I suppose a first kiss is supposed to be if you're a gushy girl.

"Ooooo," Belinda said.

Mezzy sits back in her chair with an expression I take to have some element of satisfaction. Her eyes flicker to me. "Don't get used to that."

I do my best Don-o shrug. And then we’re laughing again.

#

Don-o is gone when I wake up. He doesn't answer his phone, or reply to texts. I assume he's turned it off. Jerk.

I'm worried, of course. I go out to the parking lot and actually think that maybe I can track his path like Sherlock Holmes or something, but that ain't happening; even I know that.

He doesn't get back until about 3:00. By that time, Belinda, Mezzy and I have had lunch and done a few laps in the pool. We're all ready to head to the park.

"Where were you?" I ask.

Don-o looks at the girls. "Later," he says in that monotone he gets when he's deep-deep into something. This worries me more than a little and I probably woulda laid into him a bit, but I’m feeling good with Mezzy and I don’t want her to see that. Besides, I’m not sure anymore exactly what Don-o might do if I push him too hard, and I don’t want him walking out the door.

#

You want an example of why the PEBA will succeed where the MLB dropped the freakin' ball? Just spend a day at Allegheny Field. It is, to be blunt, flat-out gorgeous. The field is spacious, especially to left field, eating homers like they're Lay’s Potato Chips but giving back in line drives doubles and to-the-wall triples. The entire left field background is nothing but a hillside of green trees – pine and birch and oak and whatever the hell else. There is a hand-operated scoreboard low and to the left. The whole place is built down inside a valley that makes you feel like you've stepped completely out of the real world and that, for just a few hours, you can be in this safe cocoon where baseball can wrap its arms around you and nothing – I mean nothing – can possibly hurt you.

It's maybe 65° out and the sky is crystal clear. To be here with Mezzy is absolutely amazing. She knows the place inside and out. "It's close enough that my dad used to bring me here for vacations," she says, walking me around the gift stores full of local crafts. The blown glass place is cool, and both Don-o and I spend way too long playing in the open bins of handmade marbles.

We go to our seats as game time nears. I realize that there is no kind of perfect that is any better than sitting right here right now – a game ready to start in a pristine park and with friends who are… well… there. I don't know how else to say it except to say that everything feels connected and right and hopeful and just… there.

The Coal Sox have never had great success, but they draw well. The place holds 43K, and it's maybe three-fourths full. The two teams, West Virginia and New Orleans, are some 10 games back and battling it out for fourth in the division. Neither is likely to find much greater achievement than that before it's all over. West Virginia, in particular, seems to be mired in the lower-middle.

"Eighth in the league in OBP," I say.

"Tenth in homers," Mezzy replies. "But then, some of that is this park."

This is borne out by the fact that the Sox pitching staff is racking up numbers that are lower quartile everywhere except for HR allowed, where they are 4th. I know this because I'm reading a fan newsletter that some guy is passing out at the gate. Mezzy, however, is just rattling these things off.

"They're second in the league in steals, though," she says. "If they could get on base a bit more, maybe they could make a run."

"This is baseball," I say. "Hope springs eternal."

That brings a thing I'm already thinking of as a Mezzy smile. It's an expression that only she has. I lean over and try to kiss her again, but she dodges and grins a playful grin that somehow softens the fact that I've come up empty.

West Virginia is throwing Michael Ayers today, and New Orleans is countering with Jesús Costa. At 24 years old, Ayers is a potential star for the team. He had a nice rookie season and is 3-1 so far in 2013. Costa is also 24, and he has the same buzz as Ayers, but this is his rookie pass and the league has not been as kind on him.

"Costa's a bum," Mezzy says.

"He's going to be fine," I reply. "Look at his delivery."

"What do you mean?"

This gives me the excuse to lean in and point to him as he throws, to explain the drive he gets from his back leg and the way he brings the ball out of the glove in a fluid, backward motion that gets him into the right frame to deliver the pitch from a nearly 12 o'clock slot.

"You know this stuff, don't you?"

I smile. "It's a hobby of mine."

I feel pretty good about it until Costa gives the Sox two runs in the first on a walk, a double and a Brian O'Donnell single, then another in the second on two more walks, a dirt-buster and a sac fly. Not that Ayers was faring a whole lot better. New Orleans had gotten a pair of runs in the second on a walk and a string of three singles.

"Classic Sox game. All singles and walks," Belinda says, as if she really knows what she's talking about. Mezzy smiles an expression that tells me everything I needed to know – those are Mezzy's words from the past, but she won't call her friend out on it.

Ayers and Costa both settle in, though. As the next fifteen hitters all go down, one gets a glimpse of what their futures might hold.

Costa gets into trouble in the 5th, though, as he walks Larry Martin. Sox manger Pedro Castellanos then orders an unusual double-sac bunt with his leadoff and #2 hitters. It raises eyebrows, but both Edgardo Sánchez and Rafael Suárez get their jobs done – the speedy Sánchez managing to actually beat out his bunt for a single. So Miller finds himself on third when Ronald Harmon doubles both of them in with a grounder that finds a spot down the line.

I look at Don-o, but he's not worried at all. In fact, he's deep into the action, and for the first time in days, I don't see a core of anger in his black eyes. He's into the game. Somehow when I look at him, I see the game is into him.

"The Trendies had to get Sánchez at first," he says, as if in a trance.

"And it's late enough they should have had Montaño guarding the line," I reply.

Mezzy likes the talk, I can tell. She understands numbers. Her mind locks on them, and she's always right. But Don-on and I do a better job translating those numbers into things on the field – we understand where those numbers come from, why they exist. Or at least that's how I'm interpreting the expression that is half smile, half wonder as it crosses her face.

The game ends 5-2, Ayers the winner. Cristián Rosado, a journeyman reliever the Sox signed out of Japan last year, picks up his 4th save.

#

When it's done, we go back to the hotel for another round of poolside storytelling. It's fun, but we're all tired and so the conversation is more subdued than before. The girls go to the restroom at one point and Don-o and I find ourselves alone.

"Are you going to tell me?" I ask.

Don-o knows it won't do to pretend he doesn't know what I'm talking about. "It'll keep," he says. "I'll tell you when we get the girls home."

[Tyler]

Excellent, the Charleston saga of this adventure.

Love the description of Allegheny Field - it's exactly the picture I had of it in my head. Not watching the replays, I had no idea my manager bunted with Suarez. I'm going to have his head.

[Denny]

Is there anything better than when It's On with that cute girl you've had your eyes on forever?