Daily Log of a Fresh-faced College Graduate
May 14, 2013

“You know we’ve got to go back, right?” Don-o says to me that night.

“I figured as much.”

Seeing as the bruises on Don-o’s face are still ripening, going back to Florida is not something I’m terribly interested in doing.  But even on a good day, Don-o doesn’t tend to think much further than one idea ahead, and given the story he told on the way to Charleston, I am in no way shocked when he says he wants to go back to Jacksonville.

“Yeah,” I say, “we can go back, but only if we see the F-Heads game.”

“Done,” Don-o says, and I know he means business because his jaw has that conclusionary set he can get.

#

We get up early, have a quick breakfast, then hit the road.  It’s a four-hour shot, and Annie seems to be in fine form; her engine is humming and the tires grind over pavement with hardly a sound.  My Warriors cap is turned backward and jammed down to my ears in order to let the wind buffet me.  It feels like a different wind today.  It feels like a song – a movie score, that’s what it is – a piece of classical music composed by nature itself, playing in the background as Don-o and I ride to Jacksonville.

I try to focus on the game ahead.  Florida is 23-15 and in second place in the Dixie.  Kentucky is two games behind.  Though early in the season, the game is important not just for what it means in the standings but because it sets the tone for the rest of the year.  It’s going to be Dustin Moyer for the F-Heads and Brad Bland for the T-Breds.

I really should be able to get up for it, but the truth is I keep thinking about Don-o and his quest.  I believe him; really, I do.  Still, I need to see this with my own eyes.

We get to Jacksonville about lunchtime.  My cash is running low, so Don-o offers to buy lunch.  I say I would rather just hit a grocery, so we get a package of bologna and some cheese.  “Support your local brewery,” Don-o says as he grabs a couple dark-bottled beers from an independent distributor.

After lunch, we drive down by the bay.

#

We park a ways down the road and jump out of Annie like we’re Batman and Robin.  This is a rich place.  It’s residential, with some hella-serious houses.  Swimming pools, matching boats and satellite dishes the size of Cuba hang off each of their roofs.  I’m suddenly thinking “CSI Miami” and “Cuban Underground”.  We’re walking along a small, tree-lined road.  I smell the aroma of water, but not in a good way.  I admit I’m feeling the moment a bit too fully, and I’m coming to realize that this might well be serious, serious business.

“What are we going to do?” I ask.

“I’m going to see if I can find something that tells me what the hell’s happening.”

“Why don’t we just go to the police?”

Don-o looks at me like I’m already in a straight jacket.  He rubs his bruised eye and forehead.  “Sure,” he says.  “Okay.”  He puts his hand to his ear in the universal signal for I’ve got a cell phone and I know how to use it.  “Yeah officer, I’m a twenty-two-year-old kid with enough drugs stored up in my system to register positive until I’m thirty, but don’t let that stop you from listening to this little story of mine.  And by the way, you should run immediately to this mansion on the waterfront and arrest everyone inside.”

“Okay.  I get it.  So, what are we going to do?”

We come around a curve and he points with a subtle nod of his head.  “See that building?  That boathouse and the yellow house up the shore a bit?”

“Yeah.”  I see them.  They are set far back from the road and covered by dense trees, but I can make out the house and various paraphernalia they have along the dockside of the property.

“We’re going to the boathouse.  When we get there, I’ll show I wasn’t kidding.  I’m going to sneak in and see what I can find that might tell me who is doing this.”

“I don’t know, dude,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck.  “Sounds dangerous.”

“You knew that when you signed up.”

I thought about the morning before and the conversation in the car on the way to Charleston.  Don-o’s story was too strange to be believed, but the bruises and cuts all over his body were real enough, and the Bad Guys who chased us were no figment of my imagination.  Yes, I knew it would be dangerous.  “Is it worth it?”

“It’s baseball, dude.”  He has that look in his eyes.  “It’s baseball.”

I nod.

“We’ll go down along the water line and see if we can slip in.  Keep an eye out for the bad dudes.”

We use trees to cover our progress until we come close enough to the boathouse that I can see a combination lock hanging from its door.  For some reason all I can think of are slabs of beef hanging from huge boat hooks inside.

“No way we’re getting in there,” I say.  “Do we swim it?”  I’m thinking we might get in the water and swim under the gates that would open to let the boat out into the causeway.

“How very Hardy Boys of you,” Don-o replies.

I scowl.

“We’ll get in,” he says.  It speaks of Don-o that it never crosses my mind to doubt him.  “But the big question is whether we’ll get out.”  He smiled, and then before I can ask any more stupid questions, he steps quickly, directly and… gracefully… to the padlock.

I find myself beside him.  He whirls numbers.  I smell something wondrous: Grass, freshly cut.  Chalk lines, straight and sure.  I hear a pennant beating in the breeze that is maybe blowing out to center.  A number falls, and I hear a distant crack of bat on ball.  Another number comes with the thump of a 98 mile-an-hour heater as it impacts the catcher’s mitt.  A third number, and the wind rushes past my ears like the sound of 50,000 people standing and cheering a line drive into the gap.

“Come on,” Don-o says.

The lock is open now.  Numbers, I think.  Number right, number left, number right.  Three numbers like a hitter’s line, three numbers that came to Don-o as if out of the wind, and a lock once closed solid is now open.  The hair on my arms is standing on end and my stomach feels like it’s inside-out.

Don-o slides the boathouse door open, and we step in.  He shuts it behind us.

It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but when they do, I see him there.  Manny Aguilar.  Manager of the San Antonio Calzones at Laredo.

Even knowing he was there in advance does nothing to stop the sense of strangeness I feel at seeing him unconscious and trussed up spread eagle over the raised livewell that runs along the entire back end of a boat that’s maybe a twenty-four footer, sleek and white and rolling gently in the tiny current that flows under the boathouse.

I go to untie him, but Don-o stops me.  “Watch the door,” he says.  He has that focus in his eye, and he doesn’t wait for a reply.  He stepped up and over the rail, then disappeared down into the guts of the boat.  It feels like a decade before he returns, but when he does, his face is set and his eyes are black marbles of anger.  “Come on,” is all he says.

We’re gone.  Aguilar is still tied up, the door is closed and locked behind, and we’re in Annie and driving toward Farmer Field so we can see BP.

“What do you know?” I ask him.  I want to understand, feel I have to know what the hell Manny Aguilar is doing stretched out and comatose like a human sacrifice in the well of a powerboat.  But Don-o’s not talking right now.  Even though I know him enough, know that he needs his space and that if I give it to him I’ll know what he’s thinking soon enough, even though I know all that, the tension lets go of me.  I pound my fist on Annie’s dashboard so hard she shudders.

Don-o glares.  “If you do that again,” he says.  “You’re walking.”

#

The game itself seems to be over almost before it freakin’ starts.  Bland gives up two in the first and then, to make sure the Thoroughbreds’ chances are dead as dead, he allows six more in the second – the bulk coming on Kwang-chih Zhu‘s three-run homer.

Baseball is never a sure thing, though, and Kentucky gets their cuts.  A single, a double, and big blast by William Peterson gets three of those runs back in the third, and a triple from Fraser Monroe helps them to another in the fourth, but Moyer holds on and the final score is 9-4.

As usual when we stay for the whole game, we wander down to the boxes for the cleanup.  I’m bulling around with Don-o and only half paying attention as I lead him down the steps when I run into the lady.  She gives a tight yelp, and begins to fall backward.

“Excuse me,” I say, steadying her.  She’s carrying an empty box of popcorn and half a drink, and her thin white purse is swaying like a kid’s swing set.

I look up and I see…

“Mezzy.”

My throat goes suddenly dry and the world becomes a microscopic tunnel.  Her eyes are as green as the gauzy field behind her.  Her hair is a bit longer than it was in April, but it’s cut in the same shape, and now a slash of it is falling down over one eye like an auburn curtain.  Her lips are drawn tight against her face so that their color is drained; they look like a thin pale stroke applied casually by an anime god.

She looks at me for a moment before recognition dawns.  “Oh, hi.”

We stand there for an instant too long.  My tongue seems to be growing in size with every pico-second.  She’s as brilliant as I remember.  More.  She’s wearing a pair of white jeans and a yellow top that shows a pair of perfectly slender shoulders that had obviously been tanning.  At this angle, I can see most of a small tattoo on the back of her shoulder – a graceful, prancing horse.

“You’re that guy from before,” she finally says, standing there with me blocking her way, both arms sticking out awkwardly to hold her purse and her drink.

“Yeah,” I stupidly hold my hand out to shake, then bring it back.  “I’m Casey.”

“Yeah, that’s right.  Casey.  Casey at the Bat.”

“Yeah.  Imagine meeting you here.”

She looks up the aisle, suggesting she wants to go home, or to her hotel, or… well… just about anywhere but here.  I get out of her way and she climbs the steps.  Only then do I really notice Belinda is there with her.  Then they are walking away, Mezzy in her yellow top and Belinda, who I’m sure is a fine-fine person and is certainly a looker all on her own, but who is – like that one horse that came in second in every triple crown race – doomed to run in the shadow of greatness.

My moment is slipping away.  I feel it.  It’s something real, solid.  It’s a coin that I’m gripping.  It’s oiled, greasy, and it slides under the pressure of my fingers and thumb.  I see it tumbling away, gleaming in whites and blues as it falls off the cliff and into the dark, emptiness below.

“Hey,” I call up to them, feeling a sense of vertigo.  The girls stop.  “Do you want to go get a drink?”  I wait a moment.  “It’s on me.”

For just an instant Mezzy looks like she’s going to say, “Yes.”  But then: “I told you, Casey.  I don’t go out with…”

“I’m clean.”  I cut her off.  And as I say it, I know that I am clean; that the drug chapter of my life is gone.  I can’t tell you how I know, but it’s this moment that I know.  I find that I am actually a bit afraid of this knowledge, this change, and if it hadn’t been for Mezzy saying something, I think my brain would have overloaded trying to analyze it.  But Mezzy saves me this trouble.

“Okay, then,” she says.  “One drink.”

“Outstanding,” I say.

“And maybe a burger,” she adds.  “I’ve had it up to here with this popcorn.”

I know I’m outta cash, so I give Don-o that look that asks if he can cover it.  His nod is imperceptible to anyone but me.