Daily Log of a Fresh-faced Graduate
April 22, 2013

The drive to Reno is going to be seven hours, but since the Tenpinners have an off-day before they host Crystal Lake, Dan-o says he wants to make a stop in San Francisco.  This is fine by me, but I have no idea what holds such interest in Frisco.  I mean, he has a cousin or something in the area, but Don-o’s never been much for stayin’ in touch.  He’s clearly set on going, though, and it’s not like I’ve got any better ideas.

Since we have extra time, we decide to sleep past noon, which is always great because nothing’s better than waking up after lunchtime.  But it means we start late, and by the time we get to town, the sun is already sinking into the bay.  We stop at a Mexican dive for a dinner that consists of a pair of what the chalked-up menu calls soft-savory tacos and a pair of what I call “dos savory beer-os”.

“Where are we actually going?” I ask as we dig in.

Dan-o smiles.  “San Francisco.  What’s it look like?”

“What the hell, man?  Is it asking too much to at least know if we’re going to meet anyone?  I mean, Jebus, do I need a shower?  Do I need to stay sober?  Practice my canasta?  What?”

“Yeah,” he says with a slow nod.  “You definitely wanna be sober.”

“Fine,” I reply, fuming as I eat and drink.  I pour salsa on my taco with more gusto than perhaps was called for, and I make sure to put the squeeze bottle down farther away than Don-o can reach.  He doesn’t appear to notice – but screw him, it made me feel better, anyway.  I suppose the truth is that I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep for once and figure maybe, if we’re meeting cousin Dot or whoever, that this might be a good place to find a real, honest-to-God bed.  But Don-o just puts down his card and pays for the tacos so we can leave.

It’s dark-thirty when we stop at the station to fill Annie up again.  I throw some cash at a guy behind a nut stand and now at least I have almonds to snack on as we pull away.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but I’m actually struck when he turns Annie onto Jamestown Avenue and stops in the parking lot at Candlestick Park.  He shuts the engine down, and everything’s quiet until the famous bay area wind builds its strength again.

Dan-o gets up and swings his legs over Annie’s doors, so I follow suit.

The sun is down a long time now and it’s pitch dark.  Dan-o walks across a span of concrete that seems as endless and as dangerous as the African veldt.  We find a chain-link barrier that keeps us off the main grounds, maybe twelve-feet tall.  Don-o climbs it like he’s a monkey, all elbows and knees, with the tail of his shirt flapping long behind him in that notorious wind that’s beginning to whirl around like it’s remnant spell-craft of a cranky witch.  Sure, I can feel ghosts, but mostly I can feel the eyes of an invisible police scanner intent on putting us in the clink for the night.  Dan-o’s oblivious, though.  He’s scaling the fence like it’s not there, so I do what seems only natural and I follow him, climbing up the wall and jumping down to land with a force that jolts my ankles so bad I need ten or twenty limping steps to shake off the pain.

“What are…“ I say, but Don-o puts his index finger to his lips and I shut up.

Dan-o strides now across the concrete pavilion to a row of locked turnstiles, hopping over one as if it’s a hobbyhorse.  In for a dollar, in for a pound – I, too, hop the horse.  Then we’re walking in the tunnel that runs inside the stadium, and we’re exiting out a squared passageway to find ourselves at the top of a chair-lined stairway that gives way to the field below.  Even in the darkness, I can sense the surface is a pristine carpet of green right, a solid swath, clean and bereft of markings.

The 49ers are in off-season and the MLB is deader-than-dead.  No baseball team has used this place since before I knew what a ball glove was, and the Niners will move after this football season.  Now I look down on this grass, and I hear the April wind beginning to blow like a cyclone, and I think about what is in store for this place, this thing that lies dormant below me, and I feel both lost and comforted at the same time.

Dan-o breaks the moment by walking down the aisle toward the field.  I’m right behind him and not complaining a bit now.  The wind is so cold it raises goose bumps as we get to the rail, but I’m not sure I feel it.  We hop the rail at the same time.  The grass is soft but firm, the prescription turf smoothing Candlestick’s historic wrinkles like a dose of Botox.  Still, Dan-o strides on and on until he comes to a place toward one end of the field, where he stops and, so very slowly, raises his gaze to the top of the stadium, scanning the rafters and the rows of darkened spot-lights that stick out like broken bones and exposed ribs against the light of the sky.  He breathes a calming breath and turns himself, rotating – just as slowly – the full of the compass.

I’m watching him now.  Watching only him, listening to the wind howl and feeling my hair flow in that howling wind.  “Do you feel it?” Dan-o asks, and I think I do.  I feel it.  “It tastes of Crackerjack,” I say without knowing exactly why.  “It smells like home.”

“Willie Mays played here,” Dan-o whispers.

For an instant, the wind actually dies and I hear the beat of my own heart, or is it the heart of an aged, old ballpark?  I admit I can’t say. but its beating is clear and bold, and in that single instant, I hear the crack of a bat and I see a flashing white uniform with number 24 running in on a fly ball, black cap tumbling away as he dives and stretches a gloved claw outward…

Then the image is gone.

The Candlestick wind crackles.  I breathe a quick breath and fall to one knee, coughing and hacking with the wind’s anger.  When I’m done, I can breathe again.  I look up and see Dan-o standing over me with his hand out.

His expression is a smile like none I have ever seen before.