The Long Happy Life of Taffy Slummings, part three

[Arroyos]

The Long Happy Life of Taffy Slummings, part three


“It’s Jesus!” a voice cried out. “He’s come back for us!”

For a moment, Slummings had no idea where he was. Then he remembered the hospital, the visitors’ room, the need to find Mayberry and the old lady who persisted in mistaking him for the Second Coming.

Ah, the Second Coming, Slummings thought to himself, recalling a poem he’d studied during one of his many incomplete tours of higher ed. No degrees but many memorable quotes. “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world …”

He looked around at the ancient faces hoping he was a family member come to visit—or Jesus Christ, for god’s sake!—and saw lives that had truly fallen apart, their centers shattered, and anarchy corroding their brains. Is this the fate waiting for all of us, he wondered. This or a pistol to the brain perhaps.

Slummings shook off his dire thoughts. Find Mayberry, he thought, find the whacko preventing him from promoting his right hand woman and finally bringing the Yuma Front Office up to ship-shape. He looked around the room for a likely suspect—not Mayberry himself (they all looked like Mayberry) but someone who might be sympathetic to Slummings’ search.

He looked past the open-mouthed faces staring at him. They’d be of no help since they were hoping that he would help them, entertain them, remove them from this … this … Just what was it, this hospital with patients that never leave? He took a longer look at the room he was in, and seeing it as if for the first time, he noticed how bare the walls were, how functional the furniture, how institutional the colors. Pale green walls, dark reddish brown floors, and lightly stained wood furniture. Old furniture. Could a more institutional, less comforting decor be imagined? The only warmth, the only color, came through the large windows along one wall. Light poured in from a large quadrangle of grass and trees and blue sky. Slummings crossed the room to look out the windows.

What he saw surprised him. Silenced him.

On the lawn outside, surrounded by the one and two story buildings that defined the quadrangle, old men and a few old women were playing baseball. Baseball! It was the last thing Slummings expected to see. He couldn’t stop staring.

“Bet you didn’t expect to see that here in the Hotel California,” a voice behind him said, chuckling.

“What?” Slummings turned to see who was speaking.

A tall, thin orderly holding a plastic bottle of water smiled at him. “Want some?” he said, offering the bottle.

“No, I, uh …” Slummings stuttered.

The orderly held the bottle up to the light and looked through it. “It’s not Colorado River Water, that’s for sure. But it’ll wet your whistle.”

For the second time in minutes, Slummings was stunned into silence. He didn’t know what to say. After a moment, the orderly took a sip of the water himself. “Mary needed just a sip before she stopped seeing you as Jesus.” He laughed. “She’s a card though. Full of surprises. Why once—”

Slummings held up his hand to stop the story before it started. “Colorado River Water?” he asked the orderly. “You know about … that?”

The orderly slapped his thigh. “Oh yeah! We all know about Colorado River Water. Mayberry’s been telling those stories for years.”

“He has?”

The orderly nodded. “One of the primary sources of entertainment here at the Hotel. I remember once—”

Slummings stopped the orderly again with a hand up. “I need to talk to him. Mayberry. Where is he?”

The orderly looked out through the windows to the broad expanse of grass in the quadrangle and to the makeshift diamond defined by 3 pillow cases and what looked from the distance to be a large silver plate. A plate for home plate, Slummings thought, how fitting.

“See the tall older man standing beside the woman doing the pitching?”

Slummings squinted to find a woman tossing the ball underhand to an elderly gentleman with a bat. Beside her a man dressed in all white stooped, his hands behind his back. The pitch seemed to bounce on the silver plate and the man in white tossed his right arm in the air.

“Good pitch,” the orderly said. “You see the man who called the strike?” Slummings nodded without losing focus on the pitcher. “That’s Mayberry.”

“The umpire?”

“Yup, the umpire. He loves to call the games.”

Slummings turned to the orderly. “You’re telling me the General Manager of a major league baseball club chooses to umpire? I don’t buy it.”

“Ain’t for sale. Truth is free.” Both Slummings and the orderly watched the next pitch. “Ask him yourself. That’s what you came for, isn’t it? To talk to Mayberry?”

“Yeah, but …”

“The man loves baseball. Surely you knew that.”

“Sure, but …”

“But what?”

The orderly waited for Slummings’ response, but Slummings just kept watching the game. A fly ball was dropped by one of the fielders and the second baseman—or woman, Slummings couldn’t be sure—converged at the base with the runner and the umpire. The runner slid across the grass as the infielder caught the throw from the outfielder who’d dropped the ball, then leaned down to apply the tag. Mayberry leaned in over the base, paused dramatically, and then spread his arms to call the runner safe.

“See that?” the orderly said. “For an old guy he gets around pretty good. I’ve seen him make the call at first base, then run down the line to call a close play at the plate. He’s good. If your team needs an umpire, I’ll give him my recommendation.”

“Umpire,” Slummings said derisively. “We don’t need no stinking umpire,” he added in a snarly voice.

“Treasure of Sierra Madre, right?”

“Huh?”

“That line,” the orderly said, “that’s from Humphrey Bogart in Treasure of the Sierra Madre, right?”

“Umpires in a Bogart movie? I don’t think so.”

“No, silly. Badges! It was badges in the film. ‘We don’t need your stinking badges.’”

“Bogart didn’t say it.”

“No, the bandido did. He said it to Bogart. Am I right?”

“Yeah okay, you’re right, but you missed the point. The Yuma Arroyos need an umpire about as much as those bandidos needed badges.”

“Gotcha.”

“I didn’t come all this way to find a fucking umpire.”

Slummings and the orderly watched in silence as the players swapped sides at the end of an inning. Slummings pointed. “What’s he doing now?”

The orderly laughed. “He’s sitting down.”

“Umpires don’t sit down.”

“His legs get tired. He’s a very old umpire.”

“An even older General Manager.”

The orderly considered Slummings’ remark for a moment, then asked, “That’s why you came all this way, isn’t it? Not to return him to baseball, but to fire him.”

Slummings studied the game in the field. The orderly stared at Slummings. After several moments, the orderly turned and started back toward the building.

“Where you going?” Slummings called to him.

The orderly stopped, turned to look at Slummings, then pointed across the grass to the game which had resumed. “If you’re so heartless you can deprive an old man of the greatest pleasure in his limited life, well, I don’t want anything to do with you.”

The orderly turned to go again, but Slummings’ voice stopped him. “I can’t fire him.”

The orderly turned back to Slummings. “Say what?”

Slummings sighed deeply. “I can’t fire him, my entire office staff would quit, including the woman who should replace him.”

“Good for them.”

“So I have to persuade him to resign.”

The orderly guffawed, bent over, hands on knees, and rocked with laughter.

“It’s not funny,” Slummings said. “This can’t go on. He’s no more GM than you are. He can’t run a ball club from—” Slummings stopped himself.

“From Hotel California?”

Slummings gave the orderly a long look, then nodded. “Yeah,” he said at last, “from the fucking Hotel California.” When he looked back at the baseball game, Mayberry was still sitting on the lawn and the players were dispersing. “What’s happening?”

The orderly squinted as he looked across the quad. “Probably,” he said, drawing the word out as long as possible, “someone got a little too excited. Yup,” he said pointing, “see the orderlies removing the tall thin guy? He’s bipolar, probably got too excited and started humping everyone.”

“Really?” Slummings said in disbelief. “He humps people when he’s excited?”

“If we don’t stop him quickly, he sometimes pulls his pants down and starts masturbating.”

Slummings laughed. “In the middle of the field? In the middle of the game?”

“Anytime, anywhere, that’s his motto.” The orderly paused, smirked. “If he had a motto.”

Slummings watched the players wandering off, but Mayberry just sat on the grass near the second base pillowcase. “Will the game resume?”

“Probably not. By the time the orderlies get the humper calmed down, someone will remember there are snacks in the cafeteria and someone else will need a bathroom break and a couple of the oldest patients will forget there ever was a game.”

“Strange,” Slummings said.

“So it goes,” the orderly said. “Life under the Big Top. Never a dull moment. Well, lots of dull moments, to be honest, but rarely two in a row.”

Slummings was still watching the umpire seated near second. “So this would be as good a time as any to talk to him.”

“No time like the present.”

Slummings started toward the baseball diamond.

“He’s going to cry, you know.”

Slummings stopped and turned to look at the orderly. “Cry?”

“Give me a minute and I’ll get some meds. He might need to be sedated.”

“He’s gonna cry?”

The orderly nodded.

“Why? He’s not losing anything. His life here isn’t going to change one iota.”

“You have no idea what being part of that ball club means to him. He sleeps with baseball cards in his pillow.”

“What?!” Slummings turned back to the orderly yet again. Like a runner held on second, he seemed unable to take more than a few steps away from the base without having to return. “Baseball cards in his pillow?” Slummings said with a grimace. “You’re pulling my leg.”

“Ask him yourself, though he might suspect you want to steal his cards, in which case he’ll lie to you.”

Slummings looked over his shoulder at Mayberry, then back at the orderly. “I’m not gonna get a straight answer from anyone in this nut house, am I?”

The orderly smirked, then shook his head.

“Shit,” Slummings said. “I knew I shouldn’t have come in the first place.”

“Welcome to the Fun House,” the orderly said, then turned and walked away.

Slummings stood and watched him leave for a moment, then turned and saw the current General Manager of the Yuma Arroyos being helped off the grass by a nurse near a pillow case that only moments ago marked second base in a ball game that had disappeared so quickly you couldn’t be sure it had ever been played.

Slummings felt like a batter who’d gone one base too far and was now caught in a rundown between second and third, nowhere to go, hunted down by infielders closing in on him like a trapped animal.

Fate was about to catch up with Taffy Slummings.

[Lions]

Fate was about to catch up with Taffy Slummings.

Fate has the ball and Slummings is caught up between second and third base. He's on the way back to second when Fate tosses the ball to Kismet. Slummings wheels around and heads back to third. Kismet can't quite catch up to him, but Karma is at third and takes the throw. Slummings is once again forced to retreat to second, where Fate is waiting. The throw from Karma ... Slummings slides ... Fate has the ball ... and he's OUT!

[Borealis]

Fate was about to catch up with Taffy Slummings.

Fate has the ball and Slummings is caught up between second and third base. He's on the way back to second when Fate tosses the ball to Kismet. Slummings wheels around and heads back to third. Kismet can't quite catch up to him, but Karma is at third and takes the throw. Slummings is once again forced to retreat to second, where Fate is waiting. The throw from Karma ... Slummings slides ... Fate has the ball ... and he's OUT!

No, wait, he's safe - safe of third. He's taking a pretty big lead out there, almost daring him to try and pick him off. The pitcher glances over, winds up, and it's bunted, bunted down the third base line, the suicide squeeze is on! Here he comes, squeeze play, it's gonna be close, here's the throw, here's the play at the plate
holy cow, I think he's gonna make it!

https://youtu.be/EvIw3xwZecw
Dial in to minute 3:30...

[Arroyos]

Fate was about to catch up with Taffy Slummings.

Fate has the ball and Slummings is caught up between second and third base. He's on the way back to second when Fate tosses the ball to Kismet. Slummings wheels around and heads back to third. Kismet can't quite catch up to him, but Karma is at third and takes the throw. Slummings is once again forced to retreat to second, where Fate is waiting. The throw from Karma ... Slummings slides ... Fate has the ball ... and he's OUT!

No, wait, he's safe - safe of third. He's taking a pretty big lead out there, almost daring him to try and pick him off. The pitcher glances over, winds up, and it's bunted, bunted down the third base line, the suicide squeeze is on! Here he comes, squeeze play, it's gonna be close, here's the throw, here's the play at the plate
holy cow, I think he's gonna make it!

If only Slummings could run and slide like Fernando Tatis!
https://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=29690946