Daily Log of a Fresh-faced College Graduate
May 31, 2013

“They suspect something fishy in the Spade thing,” I say to Don-o the next morning.  I set my phone down and shovel a bit of taco omelet into my mouth.

Don-o seems hurt but steeled.  “Doesn’t surprise me.”

I ask him what he means by that and don’t get squat.  I think about Ken and his news last night that has changed everything.  Don-o, he sits staring off into space.  I wonder if withholding really freakin’ important information is a genetic trait.  Ken was recently fired for taking money outta a donation jar and is no longer a cop.  Our whole plan was based on that simple fact.  Yet we’ve showed our hand to Percy Nor and his boys.  There’s no going back.  We either go straight to the cops, which Don-o is dead set against, or we go on with Plan B, which calls for us to meet PN and a set of Bad Dudes that we weren’t going to be able to get away from with a simple lucky crosscut to the jaw or with some weird magic spell from our Annie Savoy reincarnate.

Plan B, as far as I’m concerned might as well be from outer space.  I agree to it only because alternatives are sparse, and because the last email I got from his gang has let me know they know where my family lives.  This is hardball, and my stomach aches.  Plan B, you see, is pretty simple.  Ken-o goes to the site a couple hours early and sets up a video link that dumps straight to the Net.  We meet Percy in what he thinks is a private place to get him to admit his scheme, and just as the meeting is starting, we advertise like mad on as many social sites as possible.  This lets us expose him, and it all goes away.

I think it can work – all except the part where a bunch of Ken’s friends are enough to keep Percy Nor from telling his Bad Dudes to take us all out.

#

So Fargo comes into town and tattoos the Sandgnats with 13 runs on a night Bryan Stewart starts.  Am I happy about it?  Of course.  Do I get a smug expression on my face when the Dinosaurs go single, double, double to start the game, all of them hit like rockets?  Damned right.  Do I get buoyed when Ramón Flores chases Stewart with a deep blast in the third?  Absolutely.  But I hope you can forgive my sense of distraction, and you can see why the fact that Crystal Lake has now lost four straight is nowhere near as satisfying as it might have been a mere 48 hours ago when life appeared likely to go on beyond May.

Don-o, of course, enjoyed the hell out of the game.

#

We’re out of Gnat Field by 11:00, which means we have an hour to get to get to the rendezvous spot, which is a little patch of sand called South Beach Park that sits off a tiny body of water called Silver Lake.  We liked it two days ago because – get this – it was isolated and surrounded by trees where the cops could have hid.  Now all that solitude really does is give PN cover.

We’re ten minutes early as Don-o pulls Annie into a parking place.  No one else is there.  I roll out of the passenger seat as Don-o shuts down the engine.  He sits there and runs his hands over her dashboard.  He’s saying goodbye, I think.  Son of… Don-o isn’t sure we’re making it out of there, and he’s touching Annie like it might well be the last time.  It makes me think of Mezzy, but I don’t know why.  My chest constricts to a tiny ball.  I smell gravel and lake and the odor of trees blowing in the nighttime breeze.

Then Don-o is out of the car and we’re walking down a sidewalk to the sand.  “Thanks for a hella two months,” Don-o says as we reach the beach.

“Shut the hell up.”

Two cars pull up – both dark with blue halogen headlights.  Doors open; men get out.  One opens a back door, and I see the man himself – Percy Norestra in the flesh.  Until that moment, I didn’t believe he would actually show.  I couldn’t conceive that two snotty college kids from Duluth, Minnesota could tell a man like that they wanted to deal and actually get a meeting.  It’s a hella time to learn that someone like me might actually matter, might actually be able to do things bigger than himself.

He comes down the ramp, his entourage behind him.  The moon is only half-full, but the night is clear and I can see things well enough in the white background of the sand.  The dude’s actually wearing gold-rimmed sunglasses and a dark t-shirt.  He’s from a family mixed of Puerto Rican, black and German, and that means he’s pushy, proud and hard to get along with all in even mix.  You can tell it just in the way he freakin’ strolls across the sand in boots that probably cost $5,000.  He stands in front of us, arms crossed all gangsta-like, while his Bad Dudes form a half-circle between us and the cars.  I see a gun sticking from his belt.

“You got 30 seconds,” Percy says, glancing at a watch that don’t exist.  “Go.”

“We know about the twins,” Don-o says, his voice is smooth as a 12-to-6 curve.  “And we’re gonna take you down.”

“You can’t take me down.  Twenty seconds.”

“Yes,” Don-o says.  “I can take you down.”

Everything gets quiet.  Percy smiles and I see gold gleam.  I’m wondering where the hell Don-o is going.  This didn’t sound like we were dealing, and I thought that was the thing; pretend to deal, get Percy talking, give him enough rope to hang himself.

“I know about Jared Spade,” Don-o says.

This clearly freezes the fabulous Percy Nor in a way he hadn’t expected.  “What da fu…”

“I know he’s Jeremy Spade‘s twin, and I know you and him have a deep-deep past that you’re working to exploit to gain access to the Trendsetters.”  Don-o took a half step up, raised his shoulders and set his chest.  “I know that you and he worked a plan to kill his father and take control of the Trendsetters.”

My brain freezes.  I whip my head to Don-o, which I’m sure spoils all sense of calm and confidence, but Percy’s not looking at me.  He pulls his gun with a flare half-drama and half-anger, and waves it in a fanned-out arc that comes to an end pointing directly at Don-o.  “What da hell you talkin’ bout?”  His boys step forward, but Percy sends them back.  “I got this,” he says in a tone of voice that means he’s in charge and he’s not taking crap about it.

“That was a big ol’ mistake, Percy.  You got greedy.  You tried to move too fast.”

“Shut the hell up!”  Percy holds the gun at Don-o’s chest.

“What was it?” Don-o says, his voice growing in the darkness.  I’m looking now; looking in the tress for ghosts of Willie Mays or Shoeless Joe or Billy Freakin’ Martin.  I’m looking for magic and sniffing for smells of grass or a ballpark or… anything.  But they aren’t here.  Instead, it’s just Don-o and Percy facing down each other on a flat plate of sand in Crystal Lake, Illinois.  “Did Jared get tired of being second string to Jeremy?  Did he have you wrapped around his wingus for drug cash, or what?”

“Be-freakin’-ware you crossin’ da line, man.”

“You ain’t got the guts to kill him,” Don-o keeps on saying.  “So you probably have Jeremy tied up someplace, maybe even up in that limo, maybe up in the trunk or maybe the backseat, depending on whether he’s being coachable or not.”

“Oh, he’s back there,” Percy says as he takes a step up and turns the gun sideways.

“Boss…” one of the dudes says.

“I got it, damnit,” Percy yells at him.  “I freakin’-a got it.”  He looks at Don-o.  “And yeah, Jeremy Spade’s a bit roughed-up, but you, man… you’re a dead man.”

And then I see it.  Don-o knows he’s a dead man.  He’s known it for the past twenty-four hours.  He’s good with it; it’s all in his plan, you see.  It was never on his mind to get Percy Nor to admit to something the world would view as a form of corporate greed.  No, that was too damned small; that wasn’t enough.  He’s taking Percy down for good.  He’s baiting the dude, making him sweat.  Don-o wants Percy to shoot him so that the dude goes away for 20-to-life.

He’s saving baseball.

“If you think you can steal baseball, you’re a bigger fool than you look like,” Don-o says, smiling.

I move before I see the muscles of Percy’s finger constricting on the trigger.  I move because I see the truth: I see that Don-o cannot save baseball because Don-o is baseball, and if Don-o takes that bullet that Percy is preparing to send directly into his heart, it will be baseball that takes the hit.  This is the thing that I know.  Baseball and Don-o… their futures are fused, intertwined and impossible to separate… one cannot survive without the other.  I realize at that very moment, too, that I am not a full believer in the Church of Baseball.  I don’t move to save baseball.  I leap because it’s Don-o.  I leap because I see in that instant that I believe in something as big as baseball, and something that is just as true.

My leap is a headfirst dive worthy of Charlie Hustle.  There is a gun blast of sound and a fiery orange flare.  I feel something like a punch high and up on my arm, and I’m tumbling away through the air.  People start to move then.  Voices clamor.  Another gunshot rings out.  Guys in the trees, dudes scuttling along on the beach.  Someone grabs Percy and drags him toward the cars.  Percy gets off another shot, but it’s wild.

The pain starts as I roll over on the beach.  It’s like fire up and down my left arm.  Lights are going on in houses across the way.  “Ah crap!” I yell as my arm burns.  “Holy freakin’ crap.”

Then Ken is at my side, asking if I’m all right, and I’m saying, “Freakin’ no, I’m not okay!” and he’s looking at my shoulder.  The beach clears out as Percy and the Dudes retreat.  The tires of all their cars are flat and that pisses them off, but people are coming out of their houses now, and at least some of the Bad Dudes know it’s best to cut bait.  They move off, pulling Percy along.

But Percy, I think he knows the gig is up.  And Don-o… Don-o is still standing in place as if nothing’s gone on around him.  He’s standing there with the moonlight silvering his smooth face and with his arms comfortably at his side, prepared to take a bullet, prepared to give up an out to move the runner along.

It is, I think to myself, the essence of true power.