Bob Doyle was a little league wildfire. His friends called him Bob, but other players called him Bobby. It was a habit they were trying very hard to break. His coach, a washed-up schlub named Zachariah Hicks, planted the nickname when Doyle was still in the tee ball division. He wanted to demean him, to put the young puppy in his kennel. he wanted Doyle to be reminded of his age.
Yer a small fry, Bobby, and yer not the first. My coach used ta call me Zacky, y’know. But I grew up, son. I became a man. Who's the man in yer house? Is it yer daddy? Naw, it ain’t yer daddy. I seen him, I seen how he crawls through them corner stores. All them dollars goin’ inta a brown bag, that brown bag goin’ down his throat. You seen him too, haven’t ya Bobby? The way yer daddy moves like a slug? Was he the one who named ya? Did yer daddy give ya the name? I always hated mine fer givin' me the name. I din’t deserve it yet, ‘n’ ya don’t deserve it yet, neither. We earn our big names, Bobby. They shouldn’t be handed ta us right out the gate. When my woman got knocked up, I insisted we name the boy Sammy. He can be Samuel when he’s all up ‘n’ grown. Now, yer situation is a lil different. You get to be Bob once ya score us some goddam runs. Y’hear that? Ya don’t have ta wait till yer 30, kiddo! Ya can have yer big name in jus’ a cuppla months! Butcha gotta score us some runs. Big men get to home plate, big men bump the number up. Big men don’t take ta the bottle like yer daddy. Big men pick up the bat.
Seasons passed. Doyle would be at training most weeks, but there would be certain days where he’d have his apprehensions towards the whole ordeal. These feelings would sneak up on him, often in the innocuous hours just before leaving the house. Minding his studies, doing a chore, adventuring through his imagination, the activity made no difference. All at once, the most curious thought would creep into his mind, overpowering any amount of focus he applied towards his current situation. What was Coach Hicks up to? If he had to guess, he would assume that his Coach was getting ready to head to the field. He was probably going over the list of drills and routines, adding harder ones, striking out easier ones.
Or maybe he was already at the field, and he was already getting warmed up. Grown-ups have bigger bodies, he would need all that extra time. Or maybe, maybe Coach was already warmed up. He’s a pretty smart guy, isn’t he? He’d get all that stretching over with. No, it’s likely that he’s done warming up. Coach is already swinging the bat, he told Jimmy to arrive early, and Jimmy is throwing the ball at Coach. He’s knocking it out of the park, that’s what he’s doing. He’s winning, he’s splitting the balls at the seams and he’s winning. Gosh, maybe he’s winning so much that he’s getting bored. He’s getting tired of all this success, he needs to teach his team how to be this successful. Maybe he’s wondering where his team is. Maybe he’s wondering where Bobby is. Is he looking for him? Is Coach looking for Bobby? I bet he is. I bet he’s trying to find him right now. Doyle would stay home on those days, telling his mother that he had a stomach ache.
Hey, bud? Can I open the door? Okay, well, I’m gonna talk anyway, alright? Hopefully you can still hear me. I want to talk to you about baseball. Well, not baseball, but- Agh, you know what I mean. Have you still been enjoying it? Does it still feel good to swing a bat? Hah, I bet. Well anyways, I wanted to know if you still wanted to keep playing. Your mother and I thought it’d be a good way to keep you active while you were growing up, something to teach you the values of hard work and warm weather, y’know? But, well, you’re all grown now. Well, not grown fully, but you’re older, so- Agh, sorry. This would be easier if I could see you. The point is, me and your mom both think you should take up something new. It doesn’t have to be something totally new, you don’t have to join the art club or learn an instrument, you can still play sports if you want! But, well, we think it would be best if you moved on from little league. You’re not even little anymore, bud. What are you, Junior League? Or are you still in 50/70? It’s hard to keep track. Ooh, track, maybe you can take up track! I bet you’d like it. You always smile the most when you’re running the bases. Aw hell, you can still play baseball, Bob, but just join the school team, okay? Doddridge is known for having a stellar ball team, you’d be a great fit. We just don’t want you in little league anymore, okay? You’re bigger than that now. This is a compliment, I’m complimenting you right now. Can’t you open the door?
Bob Doyle grew up to become a fourth-rate businessman, operating a laundromat whose place in the town’s clothes-cleaning hierarchy was located somewhere in the low 20s. He still relied on outdated machines that had coin slots like a pinball table. Put in your quarters too fast and the machine spits it back out via a separate slot, unless of course it doesn’t, and then ol’ Doyle has to come out with a clothes hanger to tug the quarter back into the hands of the nimrod who couldn’t do it properly. It shouldn’t be that hard, you just put the coins in one at a time. Everyone should be able to do it. It’s a 24-hour laundromat which wasn’t his idea, but he can’t afford the place without the extra cash flow. Doyle mans the place until dinnertime, tagging in a broke high schooler to take over for the graveyard shift. When he arrives home, he apologizes for being so late. He has to reheat dinner, but she kept the food out as long as she could before storing it away.
How were the kids? Did they go to bed without a fuss? Good, that’s good. This meatloaf is delicious, it really is. Did they like it? That’s great. I’m sorry I couldn’t be here for dinner. No, it wasn’t traffic. No, Billy was there to take over. I don’t have any excuse for being so late. I’ve been in the driveway for the past hour. I meant to come inside, left hand to God, I wanted to walk straight through the door. I got held up. I started thinking about my ball days. It froze me up, honest. I got to thinking about my time on the field and it shut me down. The car felt like a straightjacket. I know you don’t believe me. I know you’re thinking, I don’t see you freezing up when you’re telling guests about your career, but this is different. I started thinking about this boogeyman I used to have. I was a real wild kid, nothing but trouble, and that led to a particularly active imagination. It got away from me a couple of times.
Sometimes, just before I’d go to little league practice, I’d start seeing this real disturbing figure in the room. Not just my room, but any room, wherever I was. It would tiptoe in, but it would sound like it was pounding down on the floor. I remember how it sounded real well, it sounded like a loaded question. The noise it was making, it was like it was asking me if I knew what it was. I knew better than to guess, or worse, say I don’t know. I just always ignored it, but it was always still there. One time, my dad heard me screaming and he rushed in to ask me what happened. I tried to answer him, but I kept mumbling and whining, I was a real mess. Dad got me some paper and a pen, he told me to write down what happened. He showed me the paper a couple years ago. It read “spiderweb in a bullsuit.”
Hell if I know what it meant. I mean, we’re talking about a scared little kid here. Kids are already incomprehensible, and then you add fear into the mix? It might as well be gibberish. Although, it did mean something to me back then. I really thought about it, I was terrified and I still wrote that down. Now, it makes as much sense to me as hieroglyphics. I feel like I let the kid down. I ought to remember what that meant. I remember how I felt. I still feel that way sometimes, I just felt that way right outside our house. The boogeyman still scared me, just as bad as it always has. That’s a little unfair, don’t you think? I can still feel like a child, but I can’t understand one. That just doesn’t seem right.
Well anyway, I don’t want to go to bed on a sour note. The wildest thing happened at work today, let me tell you to lighten the mood.
Just before I left, a couple of hooligans brought their laundry into the store. It was a small load, they were literally carrying handfuls of clothes, no bins or anything. The first guy was a real gangly type and the other looked quite average, all things considered. They split their haul into two different washers, which was a real waste of money since one washer could’ve held everything, but the first guy whipped out a pill bottle and that’s when I understood. He split up the bottle’s share between him and his buddy, that gave them five dollars apiece.
His buddy took a quick glance at me before readying one quarter in the slot, and his friend did the same. Then they counted down from three, and when they got to “go!” they started throwing the quarters into their washer as fast as they could. The lanky guy kept trying to find a rhythm, but he would always mess up the pacing and the quarters would roll back out over and over. His buddy just kept shooting them in rapid-fire, which wasn’t actually that bad of a technique. Their washers would get jammed, of course, and they’d have to do the wave of shame to get me over there with the hanger. I must have un-jammed those washers seven times before the night was through.
Eventually, the lanky fella finds his rhythm, and he starts getting quarter after quarter. His buddy is getting stressed so he starts going even faster, jamming up his washer again, and the skinny guy wins by the time I get his quarter back. Was I a little annoyed at the two of them for causing such a racket? Well, sure, but I gotta be honest. That was some of the best fun I’ve had in a long while, and I was just the referee! And the cherry on top? The right man won. Slow and steady, that’s how you get things done. You get a plan, you execute that plan smoothly, and you don’t get discouraged when the bumps start coming. He’s got a winner’s mentality, that kid. It really was a hoot, watching them play their little game. Yup, slow and steady. One step at a time.
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