Do you ever get the desire to scream out “ounce!” (own-say) whenever you see Jose Altuve in a baseball uniform? No? Okay, then it’s just me. Either way, Senor Altuve and the rest of his mates look really sharp in those new road unis. Lo and behold they made the Seattle Mariners scream some things this past series (maybe even in Japanese) that may not be printable. Hey, who am I kidding, this is the revived Orangewhoopass, of course it’s printable.

Now it is on to Anaheim to meet up with that dastardly Pujols and his band of merry men in a weekend series. Homers for everyone!

---

Houston Astros (3-6) versus the Anaheim Angels (2-6)
April 12th through the 14th
Angels Stadium of Anaheim

It’s early, but…
Who knew at this stage of the season, or at any stage of the season, the Houston Astros would have a better won/loss record than the mighty Angels of Anaheim? Not me, but that is the beauty of having a really breakout series in Seattle, those long time rivals of the local nine. So not only did the Astros win their first series of the season, but they did it on the road. This is the place where Astros wins go to die. This year… four words: FREAKIN’ AWESOME ROAD UNIFORMS! What got little attention this past series was the smack that was run by the Seattle television broadcast version of Patti Smith about the new road unis. Never mess with the Baseball Gods when it comes to good baseball fashion sense. Stirrups long side on the back, young lady.

---

Friday, April 12th
Bud Norris (1-1, 3.18 ERA) vs. Tommy Hanson (1-0, 4.50 ERA)
Start time: 9:05 CT

Not sure which Hanson brother is pitching for the Angels, maybe the one who plays the drums or skates on the left wing, but it doesn’t matter. Houston has finally broken out of the early season jitters and settled down when it comes to hitting. Of course, all it took was skipper Porter sitting one guy down in the middle of a game to send the message to everyone. Since that comm was sent to the entire team via one quinea pig JD Martinez, they all seem to be more relaxed and focused at the plate. Okay, maybe not all of them, but when Marwin Gonzales starts to swing a mean stick, you have to take notice. On the flip side, the Angels aren’t a bad hitting team either, but if I thought the Astros bullpen was suspect, wait till you get a load of this Angel pen. I think they’re all rehearsing to be the batting practice pitcher for Josh Hamilton in the Home Run Derby. That is important because Houston has never fared well against Hanson in the past. Fireworks are going to start later in the game in this one. No lead is safe for either side.

Saturday, April 13th
Lucas Harrell (0-2, 7.84 ERA) vs. Garrett Richardson (0-0, 2.08 ERA)
Start time: 8:05 CT

Lucas Harrell has had a Jekyll and Hyde season so far. Of course, that is exactly two starts worth of data, so let’s just say it’s a toddler version of Jekyll and Hyde. Still, toddlers can be mean sumabitches too, but I digress. For whatever it’s worth, and my guess is “not much”, I still don’t see how Harrell translates into anything other than journeyman starter who has had a run of really good luck. For example, you want to talk about luck… there is nothing luckier than to miss squaring off against Jared Weaver to try and win your first game of the season. Harrell should take advantage of the fact that some dude named Richardson and probably a very worn out Anaheim bullpen get to try and hold down the orange and blue hitters. Go Marwin!

Sunday, April 14th
Philip Humber (0-2, 3.09 ERA) vs. C.J. Wilson (0-0, 5.25 ERA)
Start time: 2:35 CT

Okay, you want to talk about luck, I give you the flip side of the coin named Philip Humber. He of the perfect game last year who this year can’t buy a break pitching for the Astros. Humber has been the most impressive starter on the team, worthy of some amount of praise and a whole lot of condolences for wearing out the shoulder for a team that was completely lost at the plate. As luck (the bad kind) would have it, it was after Humber’s last start that the road Astros started to hit. So to reward the Rice ex, he now gets to face the Angels best pitcher not named Weaver. There you go Philip, deal with it.

---

When you’re hot, you’re hot… when you’re not, you’re Wallace
Anyone with two eyes and penchant for over analyzing this early season’s worth of baseball can see that there are some noteworthy streakiness going on with this team. Carlos Pena, Chris Carter, Marwin Gonzales, and of course Rick Ankiel on occasion. Gonzales is really the surprise to me because I’m not used to American League baseball. So is this what they had in mind with the number nine hitting spot in the order in the AL? Aye Diosito Mio… Go Marwin! What is more surprising to me is Justin Maxwell somehow becoming a major league hitter of the consistency kind. Nevermind Altuve, you knew this kid could hit… but J-Max? Time will tell of course and truth be told, he’s only a quasi-centerfielder holding down George Springer’s job for later (or maybe not), but if J-Max is actually hitting with consistency, then they knew of what they were doing to put his photo along the walk of fame for 2013 outside of the MMPUS. Then there is Brett Wallace. Ahum… ’nuff said. Next!

Injury Report

Both Houston and Anaheim are realtively injury free right now other than Jared Weaver. Next time, no more Neo-like moves on the mound big guy.

So I’m kinda sad I couldn’t think of any type of “Angels in the Outfield” reference to use this time. I think we’re all better for it too. Be sure to catch up on the games in the Gamezone this weekend, Mr. Happy will be in a good mood to see you there!

We chose the bar because it had no windows.  It was close, too – stumbling distance from the hotel.  Whatever it was, wherever it was, we needed a bar and we needed a drink and we needed it fucking now.

***

In the last six months I’ve spent a month in New Jersey, two and a half months in New York City and going-on-two months in Long Island.  I’ve seen a hurricane, two blizzards and a man pissing on Madison Ave at 1pm on a Sunday.   Cigars in basements.  Scotch on rooftops.  Debussy in the square.

Long Island is what you’d expect.  The sky is grey and the beer is stale.  Seeing a grown man rip off his tank-top to display a dripping-new full-back tattoo in a bar is a regular, if not expected, occasion (wings are still in).  And the accents – fuck, the accents.  Imagine visiting Texas for the first time and discovering that everybody really does ride a horse to work and carries dueling six-shooters.  It’s that bad.

The big city is another beast; one that deserves more thought and words and eloquence than a drunk, belligerent Astros fan can offer.  So I’ll leave that to chuck.  He’s not an Astros fan.

But New Jersey, man, I could get into New Jersey.

Astros (1-5) @ Mariners (3-4)

Monday, April 8, 2013, 9:10pm Central

Humber (0-1) vs Saunders (0-1)

Opening Night Magnet, Potential OSF sighting, just sayin’

Tuesday, April 9, 2013, 9:10pm Central

Bedard (0-0) vs Maurer (0-1)

Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 9:10pm Central

Peacock (0-1) vs Beavan (0-0)

Grand Slam Family Night Somehow Not Sponsored by Denny’s

We chose the bar because it had no windows. It also had cold beer and baseball on TV. The jukebox sat idle in a dusty corner; Madonna and Billy Joel and Jock Rocks v2 momentarily hushed.  The bartender (Nick) inherited the joint from his father (Nico) and his father’s-father (Big Nick).  Naturally the place was called Danny’s Pub.  Danny’s remained cash-only through the years, and you never really wanted to hang out there past 11pm.  But it was dark and small and never-crowded. It was perfect.

A cadre of pharmaceutical saleswomen scattered when we opened the door, like rats from an attic light bulb.  We chose a table with a TV view and ordered two draft Buds.  Trevor and I had been in Morristown for a couple weeks and tired of our clients’ companionship.  We needed to drink unsupervized and air our many grievances.  We needed a drink.

The group of saleswomen drew back together, this time as far away from the bar as possible – all backs and hushed conversations.  They weren’t interested in us and they couldn’t care less about baseball, but they wanted the fuck away from The Man At The Bar, who we quickly learned was a man named Jack.

Jack was a frail man in his 50s or 60s or maybe even 70s.  He wore a bowl haircut of sandy brown hair, narrowed bloodshot eyes and a semi-toothless grin.  Gnawed-off fingernails.  Slight limp.  He came to our table.

“Mind if I sit?  Is it ok?  I’m quite the ladies’ man but those little things in the corner couldn’t handle my charm.  Mind if I sit?  Is it ok?  You two seem like rock stars.  Is it ok?”  Yes, it was ok, and yes, he could sit.  I assumed my suit and tie outed me as a rock star.

Jack liked to talk.  A lot.  About the same thing, often verbatim.  He was, or is, a librarian.  He hasn’t talked to his daughter in three years, despite her monthly phone calls.  He loved Texas.  He thought we were tall – giants – and good, smart folks who told it like it is and picked up on all the small details.  Didn’t take shit from nobody.  Kicked ass and didn’t care about the names.  I felt like a regular Woodrow F. Call.

After a few rounds, we were delighted to learn that we earned Simple Jack’s utmost respect and trust, and he asked us for a favor.  Turns out, the night before, Jack was at a bar near the airport, where he charmed the pants off a pretty young couple (“like always”) and took them both home. He didn’t remember what happened when they got there, but the next morning he woke up naked and $1000 poorer.  His last $1000.  And now he wanted us to track down the perpetrators and get his money back.  Tonight.

Injuries

Astros

Blackley – jetlag

FeMart – awful nickname

White – Arias Syndrome

Mariners

Kinney – typhoid fever

I know you’re never supposed to go to a second location with a hippie, but I was unclear on the rules of engagement with drunk librarians.  Jack seemed like a simple man who managed to fuck up every single decision he ever made.  He didn’t ask for much from life and he never got it.  And upon further prodding his robbery story blurred, like a collage of memories assembled in a drunken interrogation.  But he seemed desperate and, shit, we didn’t have anything else to do.  And we didn’t want to give the Good State of Texas a bad name.  So, sure Jack, we’ll track down these thugs for you.  But first – dinner.

The Famished Frog was bustling.  Trevor and I grabbed a table in the corner of the bar while Jack stared blankly at an ATM near the bathrooms.  I drained a glass of Yeungling and contemplated exit strategies.  Play the work early card?  Start acting tired?  Surely we weren’t going to spend the rest of the evening tracking down Bonnie and Clyde with an idiot who couldn’t figure out the ATM in 10 minutes.  And, I mean, I did have to work early and I was getting tired, so….

BANG.  Our heads jerked to the bathrooms, where the ATM lay on its side.  Fuck.  Jack was squirting through the crowd towards us, then to the front door.  “It’s them!  GET ‘EM!!!!!”  As we looked past him, a man and a woman snatched their belongings and fled the Frog.  Bonnie and Clyde in the flesh.

Trevor dropped a twenty and we shot to the door.  We followed Jack’s hysteric squeals of rage and delight towards the center of town.  Far ahead, the bandits skipped across streets and vanished into the square.  Jack moved quickly for a guy with a limp, and he wasn’t far behind.

We made it there a minute later, but the commotion was gone.  No sign of Jack, Bonnie or Clyde.  A piano sprung to life nearby, its tune familiar but strange.  We wandered to the sound of the jukebox draped in eerie moonlight, unaware of time and space and thought.  There, clad all in white robes, danced eight women in perfect unison.  Debussy in the square.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

“Our elders say that the sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them.”

“When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk.”

“A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.”

“I am Evil Forest. I kill a man on the day that his life is sweetest to him.”

* * *

The 1979 season drew to a close, and the Astros finished 1 1/2 games out of first place behind Cincinnati. A wretched offense and the lack of a fourth starter somehow still teased 89 wins, fifteen more than the previous year. J. R. Richard was truly feared and at the top of his game, but the supporting cast was wanting. So very close, but those last steps up the mountain would prove more difficult and more costly than all the ones that had gone before.

In 1979, there was really only one Gunslinger, and the Astros needed him to prove that they were serious at last. Four no-hitters, over 2400 strikeouts, 383 in one season, a fastball that often touched 100 miles per hour and a knee-buckling curve that couldn’t be ignored had placed Nolan Ryan in the pantheon. When Ryan was on the mound, the game was reduced to a series of one-on-one confrontations and that’s the way he liked it. His history of pitching for weak teams shaped his approach, seeding the mythic appeal of One Man Against All Comers. Proud and alone, he would stand or fall based on the strength of his peerless right arm.

This Gunslinger ethos matched up well with Houston, and they made him the highest paid player in the game with that three-year, $3.5 million dollar contract before the 1980 season. The million dollar club option in the fourth year was expected to be Nolan’s last before he hung up the leather for Alvin, to ranch and raise his kids. Now all the Gunslinger had to do was to ride into town and take center stage, mowing down challengers over the seasons and hoisting the Astros into the postseason.

So he did. Three times in seven seasons the Astros made it to the playoffs. Ryan’s pitching wasn’t the only reason, but he was the public persona of the team, the shiny gold belt buckle or the star behind the capital H. With his growing success as a gunslinger in a gunslinging town, a better cast followed that improved the team steadily. Now in the reflected light of success, the Astros were on the map nationally.

The knock on Nolan had always been that he played for himself and because of that was a .500 pitcher. His gifts were such that reducing the singular conflicts might mean denying the special talent, denying the very reason for his celebrity. Celebrity it truly was, for he was alone in the American conscience as the Gunslinger Personified. He transcended the sport, his legend drawing upon the history of the American Experience and those echoes were wildly popular. “Things happen when I pitch,” he said. “A sinker-ball pitcher gets three ground outs and nothing happens. It’s boring watching guys get singles and groundouts. My games are exciting.”

The trappings of this celebrity warped that initial expectation of ending after four years in Houston. After all, he was still at the top of his game, still winning those challenges, and his star continued to grow and his legend exploded. A fifth no-hitter. 3,509 strikeouts, then unthinkably on to more than 4,700. His continued success defied all of the concepts of the aging ballplayer. At the age of 40, Ryan led the National League with a 2.76 ERA and 270 strikeouts. Despite the 8-16 record that year, he finished fifth in the Cy Young voting. As Mark Belanger said, “It’s a moral victory not to strike out against him.” Age and those 16 losses were difficult foes to subdue, however. Fearing the unkind diminution that age was sure to take on the Gunslinger, Astros owner John McMullen offered to re-sign the star but with a 20% pay cut.

===============

Texas Rangers vs. Houston Astros
Sunday, March 31, 7:05 PM CDT, Minute Maid Park

Matt Harrison, LHP – 18-11, 3.29

Bud Norris, RHP – 7-13, 4.65

Two pitchers getting their first Opening Day assignments. Norris pitches pretty well in MMPUS, but he’s prone to getting that fastball up and against this team, that’s not the way to stay in the game for long.

Promotions: Opening Day Street Fest, Schedule Magnet Presented By United Airlines

=============

Texas Rangers vs. Houston Astros
Tuesday, April 2, 7:10 PM CDT, Minute Maid Park

Yu Darvish, RHP – 16-9, 3.90

Darvish held the Astros to two runs in eight innings last season, the only time he’s faced Houston. He’s expected to be much, much better this year. Great.

Lucas Harrell, RHP – 11-11, 3.76

A groundball pitcher with a good sinker, Harrell has a decent puncher’s chance to go deep in this one. Say, a Chuck Wepner’s chance.

==============

Texas Rangers vs. Houston Astros
Wednesday, April 3, 1:10 PM CDT, Minute Maid Park

Alexi Ogando, RHP – 2-0, 3.27

Ogando is making the conversion from reliever to starter. What better way to do this than against Houston?

Philip Humber, RHP – 5-5, 6.44

Humber has thrown more perfect games than anyone on either team.

==============

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

“There is no story that is not true.”

“‘When did you become a shivering old woman,’ Okonkwo asked himself, ‘you, who are known in all the nine villages for your valor in war? How can a man who has killed five men in battle fall to pieces because he has added a boy to their number? Okonkwo, you have become a woman indeed.'”

“But he was not the man to go about telling his neighbors that he was in error. And so people said he had no respect for the gods of the clan. His enemies said that his good fortune had gone to his head.”

“It was like beginning life anew without the vigor and enthusiasm of youth, like learning to become left-handed in old age.”

* * *

Once again The Gunslinger was cast off from his home, sent away because no one could do what he had already done, and anyone could do what was left for him to do. In Anaheim, they figured it was easy to find .500 pitchers for much less money, so they let Nolan Ryan walk. At 42, Ryan was already past where anyone else had been on the thin ice of possibility. He couldn’t possibly have anything left, and no owner in his right mind would commit to paying what he wanted, only to see it all go down the tubes.

Even more futile and downtrodden than the Astros had been, the Texas Rangers had won as many as 94 games once, in 1977. Since then the club had slid into that hell of 65-75 wins a season, never able to crack the code that would bring them to the next level. Motivated by the burning need to imprint his middle fingers on the psyche of the Astros’ owner, Ryan’s signing provided the Rangers with a sorely-needed marquee draw and legitimacy in the baseball world. His five years with the Rangers didn’t bring any postseason appearances – the best finish the team had was 86-76 in his final year – but his mythic status finally took on a size commensurate with the Gunslinger’s ego. Every start was An Event, covered ad nauseum by national press, filled with entire stadiums lighting up from camera flashes as he struck out challenger after challenger. Personal rewards were the ultimate culmination of a career seen through the lens of individual challenge and combat; he was a Texan, and he pitched for the Rangers, but Nolan Ryan was and always had been a mercenary, a modern gladiator. Accepting his pay and then turning a team game into a series of small battles that he needed to win by himself. This was the basis of his story. The fact that he won so many of them, raising his middle fingers to the disbelievers, is what made him so special.

Fittingly, the end occurred on the field when he blew out his elbow, trying to win another battle. Stopped at last, the tidal wave of myth crested and slowly drew back. After his playing days Ryan struggled to find ways to quell his restlessness, his need for personal victory that in the end could not be stilled. Dabbling in business and politics, he found that the friends he’d made while riding high as gunslinger weren’t quite as deferential now. He found that courtesies were only extended based on a quid pro quo, not freely given just because he had been The Gunslinger who once had slain all comers. This time, he’d cast himself adrift into a world that no longer cared about his every move but would like an autograph.

==============

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

“The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”

“Living fire begets cold, impotent ash.”

“No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man.”

“Okonkwo stood looking at the dead man. He knew that Umuofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messengers escape. They had broken into tumult instead of action. He discerned fright in that tumult. He heard voices asking: ‘Why did he do it?'”

“It is against our custom, It is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offense against the Earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil, and only strangers may touch it.”

* * *

Eventually he came back to the game. It was the place where his currency was brightest and crispest; the constant attempts to relive youth through remembrance fill the veins of baseball and pump a new but different life into the husks of old stars. Like washed-up boxers retelling dim stories in a bar, they come alive and feast on memories. He parlayed his wealth and connections first into significant Texas minor league ownership and then he accepted the mercenary’s role once more and became the public face of a group who purchased the Rangers. The competitive fire was burning hard in him still; the challenges were shadowy and potent. It was easy for Ryan to work the public and grin for politicians, but fending off the quizzical bumps he got from all directions at the hands of multi-billionaires threatened to be overwhelming. The old gunslinger had learned some tricks though, and soon enough he could function in this new arena too. He learned the game of keeping focus off of yourself, while making sure that what he wanted to do didn’t interfere with enough of the Really Big Money to cause him problems.

It was an inevitable but delicious circumstance that resulted in the takeover of Texas baseball. Sticking it to Houston had long ago been replaced by much larger challenges, but in order for him to be successful with the Rangers he had to do just that – find ways to dominate the competition on every possible front. An addled and complacent Astro owner, flush with success but without a plan to maintain it, provided the perfect opportunity and Ryan seeded the state with an aggressive crop that strangled the Astros into submission. Their minor league teams fled the state. The major league team became a moribund laughingstock, ripe for the ultimate takeover, and was finally subjugated as weak and ineffectual prey in a killing field designed to strip them of all cover.

Internally though, the Rangers were slipping. Ryan’s bullish style and outsized ego resulted in a series of missteps that required action by other hands on the rudder. Once this realization became public, it was now more clear than ever that Ryan had been used again, his celebrity and mystique bartered for public interest and acceptance as long as it didn’t interfere with the larger questions at hand. At 66, facing the possibility that he couldn’t win this last challenge, he played the last public card he could and floated the humiliation to the press. The call to arms was noted, but not heeded. This is the last showdown for the old gunslinger.

===============

Much has changed for the Astros since 2012; actually, almost all has changed for them. It’s still the same ballpark, but new paint and colors are everywhere as they cast bread and circuses to the fans. New players, new broadcasters, new front office, new logo and uniforms, new business model, new frontiers in public relations stumbling. It’s normal to see extensive change under new ownership and expected that those changes would be even more pervasive when a failing one is taken over. Any way you look at it, it’s a New Era. Ice Age or Age of Reason? We aren’t going to have answers to these questions for years. It is, however, baseball season. It’s the greatest game, and we still get to see it played in Houston, night after night. Take the solace you can in this and continue your journey with patience. There is a horizon, and the sun does rise above it.

I don’t hate the Brewers. To me, they’re something like the accomplice held at gunpoint to drive the getaway car. I don’t really care about Prince Fielder and whatever they’re going through by losing him to the Tigers. I don’t care about Rickie Weeks’ crappy season, or John Axford closing games like someone committing suicide. I have no hate for them, I just don’t give a damn.

However, that preening fuck they have in left field, that heir to all the smugness and shadow truths of Albert Pujols, that guy with the dick on his face – I have stronger feelings about him. I fucking hate The Peen.

All the real hatred I have is reserved for the Owner In Absentia though. The classless, bullying greedhead who became the scuttling lickspittle of the Barons who call the shots in the game I love. Inheritor of prosperity, relentless questor for ways to heap even greater sums into the ledgers of those who jerk his strings, all the while blithely willing to suffer the hatred and scorn of millions of fans across the country. As much as I’d like to see The Peen sprawled on the turf, shattered testicles filling his pants with blood, it would make the scene complete to catch Allen Huber’s kneeling figure as it pulls erect in the glare of the lights, his fangs dripping from lapping his dinner, a raspy gasp escaping his lips as he turns, snaps his cape and assumes the form of a bat to fly back across Milwaukee to his nocturnal lair.

Except cameras can’t see vampires.

Fuck you, Bud. I will piss on your grave. This time it counts.

You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere
Any place is better
Starting from zero got nothing to lose
Maybe we’ll make something
But me myself I got nothing to prove

One day, while I was in the throes of divorce from my lovely first, I had a visitor in my office. I’d had a few more of these lately since the economy was starting to turn down, personal visits to sell me things I used to buy sight unseen from some kind of catalog. Lately it had been office supplies – how were we fixed for paper, pens, calendars, that kind of stuff and at the time the people doing the selling were the girls who now sell pharmaceutical supplies. Definitely the kind of person you’d take a meeting with if you had any time at all, and divorce gives you all kinds of time.

Her name was Sondra, and yeah, I’d like to know a lot more about the pricing you can give me on a case of this and a box of that while I took inventory of what she had to offer. Young, even younger than I was, with a nicely filled figure and a thick mane of raven hair framing what was either Black Irish or some Mediterranean features, soft yet sharp at the same time. We hadn’t gone more than a few minutes when our charms made that pleasant locking sensation and soon we set up a date.

I knocked at her apartment door, and she let me in. There had been a change of plans, and she was wondering if I’d like to stay in tonight. She’d fix me her “famous spaghetti with sweet sauce.” Yeah, ok. Staying in would be an excellent evening, I thought. Tonight will be a very good night.

One thing though – did I mind stopping by her parents’ apartment for just a minute? She needed to get something from her mother. Wouldn’t take a minute.

Her parents’ apartment? I wasn’t really used to parents living in apartments in Houston, but that was probably just my provincial background, still not caught up with reality. “Sure, no problem,” I said. “I’ll drive.”

“Oh, no, they live in the same complex, just a couple of buildings over.”

You got a fast car
And I got a plan to get us out of here
I been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money
We won’t have to drive too far
Just across the border and into the city
You and I can both get jobs
And finally see what it means to be living

You see my old man’s got a problem
He lives with the bottle that’s the way it is
He says his body’s too old for working
I say his body’s too young to look like his
My mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give
I said somebody’s got to take care of him
So I quit school and that’s what I did

We walked to the building, then up the stairs. She knocked on the door and her father answered, hugging her gregariously and letting us in.

The brief second I spent shaking his hand and fixing his eyes with The Stare of Manliness was enough for me to take in the silvered perm, capped teeth, the too-small linen shirt open to the waist, the gray curls of chest hair propping up the multiple gold chains in ellipses of clumsy ostentatiousness. He greeted me cordially and then called for Sondra’s mother, who appeared from a back room.

The resemblance to Sondra was striking. I always count this as useful because I like to get some idea of how the girl I’m interested in is going to age. Sondra’s mother still had the raven hair, but her features were not so much accented by but more a series of ledges that held the thick brushwork of what passed for makeup. Bright, oily, in many ways a cross between Babs Johnson and Marietta Fortune. She was not quite as tall as I was, but she outweighed me by easily more than a hundred pounds, contained in a shapeless muu-muu reminiscent of the Jungle Room in Graceland. She said hello, and then took her daughter into a back bedroom.

Her father went into the kitchen, leaving me in the living room, feeling what I know now to be as if I were a character in a David Lynch film. The furnishings were decent but cheap, probably not rented but that same kind of temporary distressed functionality. My wandering eyes then noticed the large painting that hung behind the couch. Almost tall enough to reach the ceiling, it was a painting of her parents, posed a few years and pounds ago.

Nude.

On velvet.

Houston Astros vs. Milwaukee Brewers
Friday, September 28, 7:10 PM CT, Miller Park

Edgar Gonzalez, 2-1, 3.94 vs. Yovani Gallardo, 16-8, 3.59
Promotions – Subway Coupon, Rally Stache (WTF?)

Houston Astros vs. Milwaukee Brewers
Saturday, September 29, 6:10 PM CT, Miller Park

Dallas Keuchel, 3-7, 4.66 vs. Marco Estrada, 4-7, 3.87
Promotions – Fan Appreciation Night, 2013 Magnetic Schedule

Houston Astros vs. Milwaukee Brewers
Sunday, September 30, 1:10 PM CT, Miller Park

Jordan Lyles, 4-12, 5.44 vs. Mike Fiers, 9-9, 3.55
Promotions – 2013 Magnetic Schedule

You got a fast car
But is it fast enough so we can fly away
We gotta make a decision
We leave tonight or live and die this way

I remember we were driving driving in your car
The speed so fast I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped ’round my shoulder
And I had a feeling that I belonged
And I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone

Sondra and her mother came back into the living room and I didn’t let on that I’d seen anything odd at all. I mean, it was definitely weird, but I wasn’t planning on sleeping with anyone but Sondra that night and I’d seen enough to know that this wasn’t going to be any kind of long-term relationship. We said our goodbyes and were gone – the whole thing didn’t take five minutes.

Back at her place, she started to make dinner while I made small talk and hovered in the kitchen. The place was dark, leaving me to guess if this was her mood lighting or some trick of concealment. I watched her while she cooked, all the time wondering what the hell was ‘sweet sauce’ and whether I needed to go get some wine. Maybe a lot of wine. She mixed some things in a pot and heated it, but she wouldn’t tell me what was going into this concoction. The pasta boiled, and then she pronounced that dinner was ready.

She opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a bottle of Riunite, pouring generous glassfuls. My high school was filled with hundreds of nights of Yago Sangria, TJ Swann Easy Days or Mellow Nights, Boone’s Farm and eventually MD 20/20, but since I’d graduated from college and gone out into the world that stuff was long gone. I was a neophyte, but I was already snob enough to choke back a little when I took a drink and feigned appreciation.

I watched as she ladled a mass of spaghetti and pasta water onto my plate, then spooned the sauce on top. The two didn’t mix; instead the oily sauce sat on top, small blobs forming red islands in the gauzy water like some failed science experiment. The first bite was even more shocking – it tasted like tepid ketchup with water and overcooked noodles, which was then washed down with just-above-freezing Riunite.

It’s a good thing that most women have no idea how powerful they are.

I don’t remember how much I choked down. I know it wasn’t a lot. Afterward in the darkness, we wrestled on the couch. Despite vigorous and lengthy maneuvers, navigating the vagaries of pantyhose gave her virtue the toehold it needed to prevail and eventually the evening ended. I was out on my own, out on the streets, dazed, unkempt, unsatisfied and back on the prowl.

You got a fast car
And we go cruising to entertain ourselves
You still ain’t got a job
And I work in a market as a checkout girl
I know things will get better
You’ll find work and I’ll get promoted
We’ll move out of the shelter
Buy a big house and live in the suburbs

You got a fast car
And I got a job that pays all our bills
You stay out drinking late at the bar
See more of your friends than you do of your kids
I’d always hoped for better
Thought maybe together you and me would find it
I got no plans I ain’t going nowhere
So take your fast car and keep on driving

***

This is my last preview of the season, last preview of the team in the NL. Thanks to those of you who read them, I hope they gave you some kind of chills and thrills as I clumsily tried to use the platform to point out something or other that I thought was important, or at least noticeable. It’s going to be a weird Void, but hopefully the bounce back up will start next season. I hope you’ll all be here for it.

She shows a scar where her face met his ring
She remembers the pain but she forgot his name
ah, it’s alright it really didn’t mean a thing

Textbook case of a mistreated daughter
who’s been told about some better offers
She agrees but she can’t forget her father

ah, then she remembers what she said
He had teeth like a vise and hands like a muzzle
He wasn’t polite but he had a way with words
On the day that he left she was honestly puzzled.

ahh… then she remembers what she said