Bob's PEBA novel

[Arroyos]

Fellow PEBAns,

Many years ago I started the stories of Yuma's GM in the mental hospital. Last year I finished his journey from mad house back to baseball, and I am currently collecting and revising those tales to make a novel about the PEBAverse--as told from one mentally unstable POV! I have about 50 chapters done, with at least another 50 to go. Rather than wait until the entire project is completed (and count on my living that long!), I decided to post here in the Forums some sample chapters while I finish the book.

Some of you will remember these tales, some of you are so new you might not know any of the stories, but most of you will remember some of them. So to launch this little side project, here is the very first chapter of the novel. It introduces our protagonist and the woman who will replace him when he is committed to the hospital. Let me know if you enjoy it, and I will keep posting.

Bob
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 1: Just Like That

He walked into the office just like that, no hello, no I’m back, no never you mind—just as if he owned the place, as if he’d never been gone, as if it hadn’t been 379 days since anyone had last seen the man, as if all those yesterdays could be held in one 24 hour rotation of the earth rather than spilling out beyond one full revolution of the earth around the sun, as if … well, as if time didn’t exist, as if the calendar and the clocks in the office, the furniture and the employees, even the team logo “Yuma Bulldozers” were all some grand fiction he’d concocted for his entertainment and time were his butler, his lackey, his personal slave to order about as he wished—but then, time is and time was though it meant nothing to him obviously, so, to get the record straight, for everyone to see and know, yes, he just walked in, yup, just like that.

He walked back into the office that had been his, back into the organization he was supposed to be managing, back into the work lives of all the employees gathered in the cramped quarters, and, yes, back into the personal lives of one or two as well.

Like he’d never walked out.

Just. Like. That.

The air was sucked out of the office. Mouths hung open. Heads shook, eyes looked around just to make sure he wasn’t an apparition. Everyone waited.

He looked them over, looked them up and down, then nodded as if they were exactly what he expected after all this time, and headed for what used to be his office.

Because you couldn’t exactly say it was his anymore.

Pam Postema—you’ll remember her, a former minor league umpire before joining the Bulldozer organization—had been recruited, personally, by him, then assigned the jobs no one else wanted or knew how to do. The first woman to umpire a major league game, albeit during spring training, she was used to being passed over. During her 13 years umpiring in the minors, she watched a lot of younger men with less experience get promoted to the majors, but not her. Yes, that Pam Postema, the woman who’d stepped up and run the whole shebang in his unexplained and lengthy absence, that Pam, the one who now stepped in front of him, blocking his path to his former office.

“Where in the name of Bart Giamatti have you been?”

He didn’t answer at first. He looked at the others in the office: his personal secretary, the mail room boy, a minor league scout whose name he couldn’t recall at the moment, two office helpers, and a woman standing in the corner. Her name he remembered. And several other details about her, none of them appropriate for him to think about in the moment. But he couldn’t help smiling at her.

“Good to see you, Roberta.”

She smiled back, but said nothing. That seemed to crack the tension in the air, at least momentarily, and several of the staff greeted him.

“Good to see you back, sir.”

“We’ve missed you.”

“Welcome home.”

He showered his toothy smile across the room, then turned to face Pam Postema. She hadn’t moved. And she wasn’t smiling.

“Asked you a question,” she said.

“Where’ve I been? … Nowhere,” he said, shrugging. “Everywhere. Somewhere.”

“Quit throwing junk at us. Try a fastball. Right down the middle. It’s been more than a year. You owe us.”

He thought about that. “Okay,” he said slowly, “but it’s gonna take a minute or two.”

Postema nodded, giving him the go-ahead. He turned and found a chair and sat down, heavy, like he was carrying some great weight. Pam gestured for everyone else to sit too. The secretary, the mail room boy and office staff found chairs or desks to sit on. But not the woman in the corner. Not Roberta Tipitina. She hadn’t moved. Her eyes were glued on him.

He took his hat off, rubbed his finger over the bright yellow edging on the big letter Y in the middle of the orange cap.

“Ya know,” he began, “I never thought these colors were quite right.” He held his hat up. “Orange and yellow evoke too many unsavory smells. But I wore this hat wherever I went. Proudly. And I thought of all of you.”

“You didn’t even send a postcard,” Postema interrupted.

“I know,” he said, dropping the hat into his lap. “But …”

They waited. The 4:05 train whistled its way across the last mile of the Sonoran Desert and into the heart of Old Town Yuma. Finally, he looked up and said, “Okay, you asked for it.” After that, it just seemed to pour out of him, like the Colorado River when they open the dam sluice gates and the cold water rushes down the narrow channel beneath the Yuma railroad bridge, pushing all the detritus trapped upstream downriver toward the Gulf of California. Once he started, it seemed he’d never stop.

It all began, he said, like he was telling some fairy tale, with a chance encounter in a run-down hotel casino in North Las Vegas and eventually found him and two companions starving to death on a makeshift raft drifting in the Gulf Stream somewhere between Cuba and Key West. He spun a tale of misadventure and mistake that eventually landed him on a hidden beach on the north side of Cuba where a small flotilla of homemade craft awaited those who’d been banished and those desperate enough to risk everything to start a new life.

“You ‘spect us to believe this tall tale?” Pam asked.

“As much as you believe in the ball club you work for or the PEBA that pays your salaries,” he answered. “As much as you believe in the illusion of a curveball or the magic of Colorado River water. Which reminds me. I could use a bottle of our secret weapon.”

The mail boy went to grab one out of the fridge in the break room.

“We have some doubts about that magic,” Pam said.

“What?” he said. “That river water got us where we are today. It’s given us our notoriety, and a whole bushel of first round draft picks. That water is our identity. Don’t go disparaging its powers.”

The room was silent. The others looked at each other, wondering who would speak the terrible truth.

“What is it?” he said. “Oh no, don’t tell me Gunner injured his arm?”

“We’re not in last place,” Pam said softly.

You couldn’t have swung a Louisville slugger through the air, it was so thick with fear and astonishment.

“What?” he said.

“Reno’s 13 games behind us.”

“Behind?” he asked, unable to comprehend. “Thirteen Mother-Puckett games?”

Pam Postema nodded. No one moved. The 4:05 whistled its way out of town, a coyote howled somewhere off in the desert, and the shadows in the office thickened.

“Well,” he finally said, “I guess we have our work cut out for us, don’t we?”

There was a collective sigh in the room; smiles burst out on faces that hadn’t smiled for months; the healthy buzz of a busy office returned.
He turned to Pam. “You were in charge?”

“Yessir,” she said, looking proudly in his eyes.

“You’re fired,” he said and reclaimed his office, slamming the door behind him.

[Borealis]

All in one year?? Oh man... that makes my head hurt!

[Arroyos]

All in one year?? Oh man... that makes my head hurt!

Take two aspirin and a bottle of rum to bed. No more hurt in the head!

[Apollos]

Very much enjoyed reading, I believe you would have posted this before my first PEBA go round, so it was nice to go back and see the origin story for so much of what I've read from you over the least decade. Keep posting!!

[Borealis]

Very much enjoyed reading, I believe you would have posted this before my first PEBA go round, so it was nice to go back and see the origin story for so much of what I've read from you over the least decade. Keep posting!!

I looked for the original, to post the link, but I had no luck - perhaps it was one that snuck past us when we made the server switch...

[Arroyos]

Very much enjoyed reading, I believe you would have posted this before my first PEBA go round, so it was nice to go back and see the origin story for so much of what I've read from you over the least decade. Keep posting!!

I looked for the original, to post the link, but I had no luck - perhaps it was one that snuck past us when we made the server switch...

Yes, I looked for it too, but there were several really old ones that didn't survive the transition. Happily, I have them all!

[Arroyos]

Very much enjoyed reading, I believe you would have posted this before my first PEBA go round, so it was nice to go back and see the origin story for so much of what I've read from you over the least decade. Keep posting!!

Thanks, Brian. It's knowing there are a couple of you PEBANs out there enjoying the story that keeps me going.