KILL YOUR SELF; A Helpful Essay

Intro
There’s a problem. These self-help books - they’re everywhere. People are reading them. Believing them.
The fact that they’re published in the first place is a problem – that the people we’ve entrusted books to think it’s a good idea to print and sell these. But what is truly scary is that people take the advice they receive from self-help books and apply it to their lives and their worlds – the same world me and you live in and share with these large legged children.
I admittedly am not well read within this genre, but thanks to my mom recently mailing me Randy Pausch’s, The Last Lecture, I have some ideas, mainly that I just won’t take it anymore. The deal with Randy’s book is he was dying from cancer and wanted to leave something for his children and colleagues to remember him by. Now, I realize ripping a guy who was dying and simply loved his family is not the friendliest thing to do, but it must be done.

Positioning
Chapter Five of Randy’s book is, It’s About How To Live Your Life. This is the basically what all self-help books are about. The original assumption is that the author or authors know more than you do about life (Which is simply not true. Maybe the opposite.), and are now going to share this information with you in the name of helping though they are the ones profiting from the process of selling you the book. This is blatant dishonestly and self-righteousness and should be enough to make readers want to stop. But apparently it doesn’t as every time I get on the train someone is nose deep in, How to Become a Fucker by Age Thirty. So here’s some more…
The first self-help reading experience I had was with the book The Secret, viewing experience actually. I watched a DVD copy my sister gave me. Her boss had given it to her. After watching The Secret I considered writing the boss a letter without telling my sister, but in the name of preserving her job to continue borrowing money from her I decided against it. My initial disgust was based simply on the assumption I’ve already mentioned - that the author knew something I did not, when really what they did know was what used to be called “common sense”.

Masters of the Obvious
The message of The Secret is this - if you focus all of your thoughts and energies on getting something, you will get it. Yeah, and if you wipe your ass with your hand it’s gonna smell. The actual content of any self-help book is the overtly obvious. And they have the nerve to name the book what? – The Secret!

Faking It
As I’ve implied, the things in Randy’s book or the Secret are true – things like focusing on your goals and feeling gratitude are good. The problem though is that a person can not learn how to truly do and feel these things from a book, not books like these at least. People understand life as it unfolds based on the sum of all their time and experience up to the moment at hand. So where reading a self-help book may be one experience, it can not compare to the power of all human interaction, emotion, and thoughts they’ve had over the course of their entire lives. What they can learn from the books though is how to fake it. What you’re left with is a person without a vision for their lives pretending they have one as opposed to being honest with themselves, or an ungrateful person acting grateful because they think they should. In sort, you got a bunch of phonies. What could be worse?


Artistic Value
This may shock some readers to find out, but writing is an art form. Or at least it can be when the writer artfully or stylishly puts together subtle, or beautiful, or funny, or sad pieces of life. Self-help books do none of these things. They simplify the human experience which, when we are honest about it, can be quite complex, to the point of presenting an unrealistic world and in turn confusing readers without them knowing it.
If you really want to give someone a piece of writing that can help them, write something good. Or is that too difficult?

Conclusion
I e-mailed my mom…
“Seriously mom, I don't know if you're kidding or not. Motivational literature is the new Old Navy. This stuff is dangerous.”

A JOB TO DO

I was hired six weeks ago to work the front desk at a new health club on the south side of Williamsburg. I was looking forward to having a desk job for the first time so I could read and write when there was nothing else to do and lord knows I needed the work. When I started I weighed 200 pounds; kind of heavy for me, so I was also excited to start working out again. I like the job so far, but it’s not quite what I expected. The reason I’m even writing about what was supposed to be an easy and boring job is a recent incident, actually two incidents, that have me spending my shifts standing behind my desk, staring to the street outside, composing dramatic letters of resignation in my mind. Here’s the first…

To management and ownership:
This letter is regarding the request made at the meeting Monday February 18th for all employees to remove locks from lockers and to clear lockers after each shift. I feel this is an infringement on our rights as employees and as people. I personally will not be removing the lock from my locker as I am not in the habit of doing things that don’t make sense just because an authority tells me to. I am a trustworthy and potentially valuable part of this business and expect to be treated accordingly. I do not see the logic behind not allowing us each a locker or something equally as spacious and safe for our things. There are sixty lockers in both the men’s and women’s locker rooms. Of these hundred and twenty lockers, less than thirty are being used at any one time. I have not said anything about the fact that we can’t sit, eat, read, use our phones, or the internet behind the desk, and that there are no scheduled breaks during our shifts, but I feel this one issue needed to be addressed. I like our chemistry here and hope to stay for some time, but this is the kind of treatment that builds distaste between employer and employee and I am prepared to leave strictly on principal – we need lockers. Thank you for your consideration.
I did not consult any of my co-workers on this matter; these are my words only.
-nate fish

Before we even get into the list of things I am not allowed to do while at work, lets talk about the fact that I am being paid 10 dollars an hour – a good after school job - in this case after school means “post-graduation”. It’s beyond me why I’m even taking the extra time to write these letters, I suspect it’s because I’ve been reading a lot of Orwell lately, and like I said before – I actually like the job.
I worked with a Serbian named Enes before he left to manage the new Bronx location. Now I work with Gosia, a polish girl who will only listen to The Hot List on the satellite radio that plays at all times in the gym (The Hot List plays top forty rap and R & B). I also work with Gladys [Night], Gloria [Estephan], and Bryan. Rick and I gave Gladys and Gloria famous last names - we haven’t given one to Bryan because he doesn’t speak and has meth acne and listens to his i-pod even though the radio is playing. Gladys and Gloria don’t speak either, but they’re Spanish - we’re not sure where Bryan is from and are simply relieved when he leaves every day without having killed us. Rick is the General Manager - Pete is the head trainer. Pete would be a short, thin, white man, but instead he decided to be a muscle balloon covered in pimples and has devoted his entire life to bulking up. Sometimes I stand behind the desk and wonder what made him want to do this. Emran is the other trainer. He is half Italian, half Pakistani – a bear of a man - and he is forced to shave his entire body. He says he’s getting electrolysis soon, that he knows a guy, and can get it done for 770 instead of 2300. Emran is also a magician. He was quiet at first, but ever since the day he snuck up behind me and did a coin trick while smiling and talking too fast, we’ve been cool. And these are the “co-workes” whose rights I’m defending in my letters.
I guess technically what you are reading is the second letter and refers to the second incident.
Last week, I had my right to discount items revoked when I made the heavy decision to discount a member’s day pass from twenty-five dollars to twenty. Membership at the gym is 999 for one year paid in full or there are two monthly billing options for slightly more if that’s how you choose to pay. There is also the option of buying a twenty five dollar day pass if you are not a member – you just have to fill out one of these wavers sir or ma’am. This particular member had to buy a guest pass because his membership was not due to start until April, still two weeks away. He has a broken ankle and wanted to use the steam room for the day and lift some light weights. I remembered selling him and his wife their memberships a week earlier. I sell a lot of the memberships and this is what I mean in the first letter when I say “potentially valuable part of this business.” It’s funny I don’t get any extra money for it, and by funny I mean not funny. Well, this particular member’s wife had misspoke and told him day passes were only twelve dollars, and so he only brought twenty. I told him not to worry about it; that I’d discount the pass and he could use the gym for the day. It came to 20.83 after tax. I put the money in the register and dug through my pockets for the extra .83 cents. Rick was on the gym floor working out at the time. Later that day he said, “Nate, talk to me about [said member]’s day pass you sold earlier,” in his mostest self-important voice with the phone turned away from is ear. I knew it was Elina on the other end. I told him how the poor fuckin’ kid had limped over and only had twenty bucks and how he’s a member and that I thought it a better idea to let him in for twenty then to piss off yet another customer. Elina is the owner’s wife; she monitors us and essentially controls the whole business from her home computer. What neither Rick or Elina know as well as I do is how upset our six hundred or so members are with the gym.
We opened Feb 1st. Of the 600 members, 400 signed up pre-registration meaning just that they got discounted prices on memberships in exchange for a promise we’d open on time. And we did, more or less, but the gym is still only about 75 percent complete. Only two of the tree floors are finished. The gym is 17,000 square feet. The top floor is the largest and sits at the same height as the bike and foot path of the Williamsburg Bridge. The walls of the gym are glass. The first thing you see when you walk in is the big rectangular desk, or more accurately, the wooden frame for what will be the big, granite and slate covered rectangular desk - me standing behind it. There are two computer stations on the desk – one at each of the front facing corners. Each station has a monitor, keyboard, cash register, credit card machine, and printer. Pens, tape, paper, staplers, post-its, envelopes, and Rick’s notebook are in between the two stations – very institutional. Rick’s a bit freaky with the organization and the first thing he does when he walks in is clean up. The gound level, the level with the big desk, is mostly done, but the saunas in the locker rooms are not finished.
One of the common questions when someone new walks in is, “When are you guys opening?” - another common question is, “What’s that smell?” The lower level, the basement, is not even close to being done. Worse, all construction down there ceased when Mike, one of the other owners, fired all the builders. Since construction stopped, a huge pile of garbage has accumulated in the basement and a puddle an inch deep or so of standing sewage leaking from somewhere grows. As you can imagine, people are not too happy about paying a thousand dollars for a half done, shit-smelling gym – so I cut the kid a deal and deducted four dollars and seven-teen cents from his day pass – figured it was good customer relations.
When Rick hung up with Elina he was mad. He said, “Nate, you can’t do that man - you can’t just discount items without asking.” I explained again the circumstance and why I didn’t think I needed to ask anyone before discounting the day pass because I knew I was doing the right thing. Before we go any further, let’s review briefly the duties I am expected to perform at my job. Out of work I am currently writing a book, a collection of poetry, completing a series of paintings, I play and coach baseball probably four days a week, I DJ, I’m starting a writer’s workshop, and starting a magazine and website – while at work I am literally by rule made to do nothing. I stand in my black collared t-shirt they gave me, name tag and all, arms crossed for six hours at a time. I honestly understand the no sitting thing; if I owned the gym (which I never would), I wouldn’t want the people behind the front desk sitting and eating and reading and checking e-mails either, so I stand and don’t say anything. The phone rings roughly six times a day. A lot of these calls are prerecorded messages about, “The vehicle you’re driving…” and that’s as far as it gets before I hang up. Some of the calls are for Maria De La Cruz – we don’t know who that is. And some are straight hang-ups. I was told things would pick up, but it’s actually getting slower. It’s exciting when the phone rings, but it’s really exciting when a real person actually walks in. Part of the reason I’m good at selling contracts is my that I’m genuinely excited to talk to someone when I get the chance, so I take my time and give them a full tour of the gym and make them feel comfortable. I know all the members by name, what they do for work, and their marital status as I do not let them leave until they have stopped and spoken to me for at least one minute. Besides Rick and the rest of our crew, I see the same twenty or so members every day. It is a privilege to exercise during the day while most people are working. There’s Toshi who usually spends about three hours a day in the gym in his khaki pants sitting in, or on, different exercise machines reading his newspaper and making sure to not break a sweat. Jack Nicholson exchanges briefcases with Toshii “the Chinaman” towards the end of The Departed just before everyone is killed. Toshii throws crazy parties at his condo in the city I’m just waiting him to invite me to. Steve Burns was the original kid on Blues Clues. Steve mostly just uses the treadmill. Justin Gallo is a pro surfer. Schuyler owns a yoga studio in Tribeca, has two sons, and is the only person we allow to not wear shoes. There’s John Paul Armenio and his wife. John Paul was recently fired from his job at Morgan Stanley and though his wife spent 4,800 dollars on personal training for him, he never works out with a trainer. There is nothing particularly interesting about John Paul or any of the members I see during my shifts besides that they are who I see every day. When they walk in they scan a keychain card across a little ball with a red laser shining from it called an orbit. When the orbit registers the bar code on the back of their card the photograph I took of the member when they signed up appears on the screen along with their personal and billing information. Barring any billing issues, which Elina tells us we must address immediately, I then ask the member if they need a towel and wish them a good workout. I will likely not see the member again until they are leaving and unless I can spark quick conversation, I say just “goodbye.” Needless to point out, I feel qualified to handle any of these high stress situations that could potentially arise at my job standing behind the front desk of a gym, so when the time finally came to discount a day pass, or not discount a day pass, I chose to take a stand, not ask Rick, and make the decision to go ahead and do it.
The next day, when I went to discount my large Smart Water from the coolers next to the desk, a little box popped up on the screen saying, “this employee cannot discount items.” Oh, this employee can’t discount items? I tried one more time. The same thing happened. I figured out pretty quickly that Elina, from her perch, had tweaked the system to not allow me discounts. So I paid full price for my Smart Water, didn’t say anything, and starting composing my mental two week notice. When I went to change the channel on the satellite radio later that morning, Rick stopped me and said I had to leave it on The Pulse; that I wasn’t allowed to choose the station anymore. I am willing to stand, not have breaks, and even not read during my shifts, but to make me pay three dollars for a water and not allow me to choose the music is too much. So me and Rick got into it a little. I showed him how I can’t discount anymore - he said he knew that I couldn’t discount because he had talked to Elina about it. I said it was poor judgment by them and that with the stench coming from the basement and all the unhappy members they had bigger problems then me discounting four dollars off a day pass especially considering I don’t stand to benefit whether someone pays twenty or twenty-five dollars to work out, and that “I always act n the best interest of the club.” What I should have said is god bless the working man – for he is stupid! – and god damn the god damned bureaucrat for he is nothing but a scared child liable to do anything to save his own ass, or liable to do nothing at all if it better serves that same function.
It’s been six weeks – I collect my 250 a week, listen to whatever satellite station Rick wants, and after exercising for one hour after each of my shifts I no longer weigh 200 pounds… I now weigh 201.
THE END

WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING IN GERMANY

to see full WTFAIDIG daily blog entries, visit www.whatthefuckamidoingingermany.blogspot.com)
4/5

It’s all changing. I arrived last night after missing my connecting flight in Madrid by seconds. I was running through the airport with my carry ons asking people where the hell J47 was. When I got to the gate, the guy just said; “too late,” and walked away. I took my sweatshirt off and kicked it on the floor.
Chris Haas, our assistant coach picked me up at the airport. I am thirsty and don’t have any water in my little room here and don’t know if it’s okay to drink the tap water. They haven’t paid me any euros yet to go to the store down the street. Ten minutes from the airport, on the autobahn, we got a flat tire – really flat – like shake car for thirty seconds until you slow down enough to pull off the road. Chris said, “Shit”. He speaks good English. He took out a little orange triangular reflective flag that was next to the jack securely screwed in the trunk and propped it up on the road about 100 feet behind the van. I thought this a very good idea and wondered if everything in Germany was so well thought out and couldn’t help but think about hoe good Eichmann was at organizing those trains schedules to as the cars wizzed past rocking our van. It was cold and raining. I had woke up right as we had landed and I looked out the little plane window to my left and saw leafless trees and a brown open field and a grey sky. It scared me. We sat and waited for Michael, our head coach – I think that’s his name – to pick me up – the rest of the team was waiting to meet me at an Italian restaurant near the field. Paulino had arrived from the Dominican earlier that day. I was supposed to have land half and hour after him, but I missed my connecting flight like I said. Michael finally arrived and we talked about German Pro Baseball and drove through the rain. I had no idea where we were or where we were going that’s how it always feels when your driving through rain at night. He has bad breathe but I liked it. Only five or six guys were still at the restaurant by the time I finally arrived. I was wearing my “D” hat for Disciples – The Haar Disciples, Chris had given me at the airport. I ate a plate of Tortellini with Bolognese and drank water with bubbles – “ con gas” I remember people in Argentina call it. The five guys that were there were very nice and I tried also to be very nice though I was honestly tired.
Mo took me and Paulino to our rooms after dinner. Each team in the Bundisliga (top league) in Germany is allowed two foreign players – we are them. I actually know Paulino because we also played in the same league last summer – in Israel. He was with the Giants organization for four years – a good player. I understand why he is here – it’s hard to make money in the Dominican – I’ve played there too – so if he can come here to play and mail home some euros – he’s doin’ good for his family. Why exactly I am here I still have not figured out. I have my life in New York and I am certainly too old for this shit I thought as I walked into my room that looks like a dorm room – colorful striped, scratchy, shets on the little bed. Well, I have to go now, we have our first practice in 45 minutes.

4/5 (after practice)
I struck out in my first at bat on the European continent. Doubled off the left field wall my second. I made two plays at third base. The field is pretty nice. My schedule – so I am told – will be something like this. We play one day week – that’s not a typo or a misread by you – we actually only play one day a week, and as I realize my surroundings, I am trying to think of this less as professional baseball and more as a paid six month writing retreat in Europe. The other six days of the week I can go to the field if I choose to practice or help run practice for one of the younger age groups.
After the game today, me and Paulino went to the supermarket down the street – from what I‘ve gathered, the only place to go in our immediate area. And that brings me to the immediate area. I am being housed, I’ve found out, in the sane building of a mental institution – the building the staff lives in. It is right down the street from the field which is why I imagine they’ve put us up here – I hope its not because they know I’m a lil crazy. I have a single room. It is small. I share a bathroom with everyone else on the floor including Wolfgang who I met earlier. I also share the kitchen with everyone else. The showers are down stairs. I am on the second floor – room 39, and Paulino is down the hall in 44. Me and Paulion spent 110 euros at the grocery – about 200 dollars. The manager at the supermarket helped us find stuff. We are a funny couple, me and Paulino. I only speak English and he doesn’t even speak that – only Spanish – neither of us speak a word of German. I should hate it here. I mean, compared to my life in NY, this is shit. In New York I have an apartment, a job, friends, an agent, a cool cell phone, a web site – here, I have a dorm room, a shitty little cell phone the team issued me – I just paused to think of other things I have here, but I’ coming up blank – that’s it. But, the funny thing is, I like it. Things seem to be unfolding at a more appropriate pace then in the city. In New York, I sit and do any number of things – possibly even nothing – order food, and eat the food all within the hour. Paulino cooked chicken and rice and beans for dinner and between the shopping and the cooking, it took all afternoon. The place is a real shit-hole and I’m fuckin’ exhausted, but I think I like it. . Hozomeen, Hozomeen – it looks like six months of desolation for me like Kerouac on the mountain – at least I’ll get some writing done. We leave tomorrow morning at 530 am for a double header somewhere near the border of France – a four hour ride each direction. I’m going to go masturbate or something.

4/6
I’m exhausted. As planned, we left this morning I in the dark – 5:30 – and drove through Germany four hours to Neunburg, 5 kilometers from the French border. It was raining and snowing the whole time and I was sure the games would be cancelled, but like Coach Mike said, the weather seems to always be good in Neumberg or whatever it’s called and it was a pretty nice day – a little cold. The team is a pretty laid back bunch – pretty much just like all other ball teams I’ve ever been on – stupid and close. For some reason I expected our team to be different because the players are European , but I am seeing that stupidity is not uniquely American – it’s just a common trait of athletes. Gregor, our center fielder, an Austrian national team player, gave me a bat with my our team name, Haar Disciples, engraved into the barrel with my name underneath. It was very nice of him.
I was taken by surprise when we started warming up before the game. I am used to my own routine, and usually in pro ball everyone is sort of doing there own thing before game time, but in an instant this group of friends turned into an army brigade and started doing drills I had never seen before as if they’d been doing them since birth - maybe cause they have. Two players at a time would run to the coach about fifteen feet away, quickly change directions, back peddle back to the starting line, then sprint 90 feet – the distance of the bas. Once the set of two passed coach for the second time the next two started. I tried to keep up but was sufficiently winded as I’ve been here for two days, have barely eaten or slept and am just trying to get my bearings.
I can’t help use the reference “brigade” in this case - the world war two thing is just screaming at me. After the games we “went to the showers” I was just hoping water came out and felt a hint of what my recent relatives must have when undressing and being identified as a jew with a circumcised penis. It was okay – just water – though a little cold. On the way back from the game we drove passed Dauchau – just another town on the road sign. We won the firs game – lost the second. I was roughly 1 for 9 at the plate. Paulino hit a home run. Everyone was really upset about the loss. Coach gently told us it was a “shitty thing to have to ride four and a half hours home with the taste of a loss” in his unforgiving German accent; at least it was English. He looked at me most of the time and it freaked me out a bit. First, I am honestly scared of German accents, something I’m working on, second, it made me wonder what they are expecting from me – I am sure its not a 1 for 9 performance but I really hope ts not a carry the team on your back scenario. Speaking of expectations – I got paid today. Life is good when you are paid to play baseball though I must say – this is it for me – my last season, and if we played any more than one day a week, I simply could not do it. My arm is currently falling off - something I knew when I signed to come play here, but I convinced myself I could push through 28 games over six months and abuse my body one last summer for the chance to live in Europe on someone else’s dime. I haven’t said anything about my arm except in the preliminary e-mails with coach where we negotiated my sweet deal. I am so tired that I currently have no feeling about being here – it feels the same but different – somewhat out of body so far though that is a cliché and might not evoke any image or feeling for you in particular (sorry). I must finish my glass of wine, roll my cigarette, smoke my cigarette, and sleep – it’s become a quick ritual – oh yeah, I can’t forget – masturbate. My first day off is tomorrow so I should have some time to elaborate on this whole insane situation I’ve gotten into that I’m not sure I like or not yet. Until then…

4/7
Just ate dinner with Paulino. It never occurred to me how much time we’d inevitably spend together. And did I mention he speaks virtually no English. On our walk to the supermarket this morning – after our breakfast – we had one of our longest conversations; it went like this.

Paulino: Window
Me: Widow?
Paulino: E Window
Me: What window?
Paulino: E windy
Me: Oh, yes, it’s windy.

The manager of the supermarket now just starts laughing when she sees us walk in. On today’s visit she explained to me most of the meat in Germany is at least mixed with pork and she programmed Paulinos cell phone for him – she is something like our mother for now.
I had an absolute nightmare, meltdown, deal breaker, I’m out of here experience this morning. My computer has been working fine thus far as you know because you’re reading words I typed on it. The computer was the only thing plugged into the outlet next to the tiny desk in my tiny dorm room I will describe better later, and it was somehow handling the 220 volts of electricity European outlets pump out though it is built to take 110 volts – American style (must have something to do with the little box on the power cord). I went to plug in the champ. The champ is a small guitar amplifier I use as a speaker on my travels. The word champ is a combination of chest and amp because as I said it is an amp, and I the past I‘ve worn it around my neck attached to a rope or necklace or whatever though I have not achieved a comfort level here yet that would allow me to do such a thing. So I plugged the champ in, it made a loud pop and began smoking from its back. Toast!!! I immediately unplugged the champ and my computer went black screen. I tried plugging it into other outlets in the room – more accurately, the one other outlet. Nothing, or as the Germans would say, nussing. Thought I was totally fucked. I suspected the champ might not make it through the initial plug in as its power source, a small back box began to hum and vibrate a bit when I first plugged it in. It was pure haste that made me go forward with the attempt, and after it exploded and the computer zapped out, I paced the room mad at myself. I found a half pack of light purple post-its when unpacking and have been keeping notes of things I need to get to make my life here livable. After two minutes of pacing, I took a post it out and wrote “computer” on it. As far as I was concerned if I didn’t have a computer I could not make here six months which raises al kinds of questions about how fucked up it is that I couldn’t live without a computer, but I rationalize the whole thing with the fact that I’m a writer and at least my need of computers is not solely based on porn and I decided I could live with a typewriter if I had to. Mind you, this is all before me and Paulino’s breakfast which I was expected to prepare according to our agreement of alternating cooking the meals, or at least I think that’s the agreement. So I went into the kitchen where he waited and hooked up some eggs and turkey and swiss on whole wheat bread, one of my classics, and tried not to think of the fact that my life was completely fucked.
After breakfast, on the walk back from the grocery, I called mo, the kid who works for the team and takes care of foreign players, among other things, to explain my predicament. He said he was planning on coming over anyways to drop us off some plates and laundry detergent and stuff. Even through this fucked up morning, I felt surprisingly okay and I’m convinced it’s got to be the fact that I’m sober for the first time in five years and my mind and body just take to that better. Mo showed us the laundry room in the basement we hadn’t seen. I stole a little bookshelf for my room and then we went into Munich for the first time. The way the train works out here is you buy a card and voluntarily get it stamped each time you ride for 2 euros - roughly 4 dollars. But Mo said the guys only check stamps every once and a while and he always just rides for free and deals with the fine if he gets caught. Sounded perfect. Munich is awesome – a really cool looking city – though unfortunately, I live in a shit box roughly ten kilometers south of Munich. I might end up renting a place in the city – Fuck It.

I just got a text message. I get weird German text advertisements about once an hour on my phone the little pay as you go phone the team gave me, and even though I have no idea what they say, I still like getting them because I have virtually no human contact right now and it makes me feel normal. This one said; die angegebenen informatioinnen sche nicht aus. Bitte geben sie buchstaben oder 6 ziffern an.

Son in Munich me and Paulino bought adapters for the rooms though I was convinced it was two late and my comp was fucked. I told myself the only way any good could come of this situation is if I learn not to act so hastily anymore. It felt good to be around people, on the train, walking fast through the streets, cutting someone off, looking at women. Did I mention I’m rakishly horny. The guys on the team told me an American girl is coming to play on the softball team, not that I am exclusively looking for American women – it just seems like an easy angle and I’m just hoping she’s fine, or cool, or, don’t want to push it, both. Unlikely. Anyways, we cruised Munich for a few hours. Today is a Monday and Monday is our off day and since this post is already long and I promised in my last post to explain what the fuck I’m doing in Germany I’ll just tell you the converter works and my computer and life are not fucked forever. I almost cried I was so happy. Then me and Paulino cooked pasta and brcooli.
You know what, I’ll explain wha I’m doing here in my next post – I’m tires. Here’s a poem I wrote instead.

This is my life
And I am alone
And it makes me sad
And it makes me glad
I have a pair of Nikes
stuck to my face.

4/8
Okay, here’s the deal. 10 days ago, wow – can’t believe it was only ten days ago my life was so different, I got a phone call from a guy I played with last summer. He said there’s a team in Germany that needs a corner infielder and the pay is good and there’s lots o free time and the fields are nice and it’s a good set up all around. I had no intentions of playing ball this summer or ever again really considering I’m 28, I have tons of shit going on in my life away from baseball, and mostly because when I went to see an orthopedic surgeon in New York he told me I have a tear in my shoulder – my labrum specifically. I told him thanks for calling but I couldn’t do it. I called my dad to see what he thought and he confirmed it was a stupid idea and shouldn’t do it “Just move on with your life,” he said. The next day I was out to brunch in Brooklyn with friends and I casually mentioned the offer – they quickly stopped eating and asked me if I’m crazy and that I should definitely do it. “What else are you gonna do? – stay in NY all summer and do nothing with a bunch of assholes who do coke all night?” We’ll skip my defensive reaction to the implication that I do “nothing” and proceed, proceed to me walking outside the restaurant to call Gregg, the guy who made the initial offer. I asked him or the phone number of the team in Germany and told him I’d possibly changed my mind and I just wanted to talk to them to get some details. I tried calling Germany , but my phone wouldn’t make the call, so I go the e-mail address, sent the team an e-mail and started dong research online about the league there/here. I got an immediate, enthusiastic response from the assistant coach, Chris, saying they definitely wanted me as soon as possible – the season started that weekend and if at all possible, could I fly out later that week. I called my parents again. My mom said if I wanted to do it I should – that it sounded like a cool opportunity to live in Europe for a while and write and since I “wasn’t doing anything in NY anways – why not”. Why does everyone think I do nothing? I sent an e-mail back saying I could leave Thursday – it was Sunday. I called my job – quit – put and add for a six month sublet of my apartment on Craigs List and started making lists of things I had to do before I left. What my friends who recommended I go don’t understand is how unglamorous playing professional baseball overseas is. They think it sounds amazing. Go to Europe – get paid to play – tell the girls I’m a pro athlete – and live the life. What I now already too well is that the conditions would likely suck and no one here would care about baseball. I did it anyways – took a chance. The deal I negotiated with the team via e-mail is this. 700 Euros a month, round trip air fare, a cell phone, and a furnished apartment for the duration of my stay. I told them about my shoulder. They didn’t seem t care and even reassured me it would likely be fine because we only play once a week. They explained we have one game day a week – doubleheaders on Sundays. We are off Mondays, I would be expected to coach a younger Haar Disciples team on Tuesday afternoons. We practice Wednesdays, off Thursday, practice Friday, I still don’t know about Saturdays, and games Sunday. And there is a three week break halfway through the season with n practice and no games. I had already old teams in Los Angeles and Israel “no” to playing this summer, but such a light schedule and pretty good deal sounded cool. My team , as I’ve mentioned, is called the Haar Disciples. We play in the Bundisliga (famous for soccer) which just means “top league” in German. It is the highest level of baseball in Germany and the only level where the players are paid. The Disciples are a baseball/softball club and also have a second level team, two softball teams, and a whole youth program. Two foreign players are allowed on each team and there are all kinds of rules about how any foreign players can be on the field at one time and what positions they can be playing at that time. For example, a foreign player cannot pitch the first game of the double header and there cannot be a foreign short stop and a foreign catcher playing at the same time because those two positions are so important. The second ule mention might just be the saving grace of my summer as Paulino plays short stop , and though they want me to catch, it would mean either moving him to another position, or removing him from the game. Catching is brutal, and though I can do it, I’d always prefer not to.
My flight left Thursday at 9 pm. I pretty much took care of everything I needed to do by Wednesday night and we had a big table for twenty at a cheap Italian place in the East Village the night before I left. I said goodbye to everyone, went for a last shop Thursay afternoon with my sister, and went to the airport Thursday afternoon with her and my folks who drove down to say goodbye and one of my goodest friends. I felt thankful for all the love I have in my life and realized that doing shit like this forces you to take some kind of life inventory where you pack all the things you really need, tell all the people you really love that you really love them, and stash the rest in the closet til you get back. There was a two our delay in New York which is why I missed my connection in Madrid (the Madrid airport is rad and Spain looked nice from the big windows facing the hills). Chris, the coach who I was e-maling with was waiting for me at the airport and I alredy explained our little adventure out n the autobon in an earlier post. It’s been five days here so far, ten days since I got the offer. Last year I had nine months to prepare for leaving to play, this year I had five days. I think I like it here, or at least I keep telling myself I do. Like I said, “the apartment” I was promised is actaully a dorm room on the sprawling campus of and psychiatric institute. I did find a little café on the campus here where families of the crazy people housed here sit and eat and drink beer when they come visit. It is a depressed scene but I was glad to find the place – they serve pretty good coffee – and I plan on being there a while each day. Well, this sure is the simple life. I have one plate, one dish, one fork, cook every meal, and there’s no where to go but in my head or cruise with Paulino. Funny thing is, the week before I got the call from Gregg in California, I was thinking I needed a big change, seclusion, a chance to sober up and finish my book, grow. Now – here I am in Haar, Germany.

4/9
I will begin this entry by stating again that I am tired. Though we only play on Sundays, we practice every day, and practice is long, and since me and Paulino, or at least Paulino, have nothing else to do here besides walk to the field and practice, we go over each day around 4 and work out ti 8. My routine seems to be shaping up like this. I fall asleep around midnight after me and Paulino eat a huge supper in my room as an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm plays on my computer. My sister bought me season five when she found out I was leaving because she is smart and knows there would be nothing here for me to do. I am sure Paulino understands very little of the show, but he usually laughs at vaguely appropriate times and refers to Larry David as “Idio” (translation = idiot). Also, Pauliono refers to the crazy people we can see shuffling around the hospital campus from our room windows as “the people with memory problems,” which is now how I refer to them as well in our conversations. Our diet is limited. Tonight we had spaghetti for the second time in three nights. We usually cook too much and end up eating the leftovers along with whatever we fix for breakfast which brings me to mornings. I set an alarm on my little phone for 9 am. I am supposed to read for one hour, prepare breakfast, take a poo, clean my room, and head down to the café for coffee at twelve – when it opens. But I sleep an extra hour knowing that list of things will not take long. I bring a book and a notepad to the café with me. Today I started Beirut to Jerusalem, the once authoritative and entertaining, now outdated text on the Middle East conflict. After coffee, we either walk to the grocery store for whatever we need and to say hello to our German mom, the manager there. She still laughs hard every time she sees us walk in and usually begins speaking German to one of the cashiers who begins laughing also. I am not sure what they’re talking about but I’m growing suspicious because I put thirty euros on my little phone two days ago – talked on it for maybe a total of half an hour – and the minutes are already used up. I was surprised today when Paulino and I were there buying laundry detergent and they noticed, by name, the Charles Bukowski book of poems I was carrying. And they were surprised I was carrying it, and we stood surprised at one another for a moment – me, manager/mom, cashier, and Paulino who was not surprised by anything. Between going to the store or doing laundry or whatever single task must be accomplished during the day, we have roughly two hours before leaving for practice. In this time I roll a cigarette, smoke half of it and begin writing for my book, or at least I did today and since we’ve only been here six days and am settling in, I imagine I will continue to do so. At 4 we leave for practice – practice till 8, walk home, shower, cook, eat, watch Curb Enthusiasm, clean up, Paulino leaves for his room, I type my blog entry, go to sleep. The absolute saving grace of this experience is having my own room. I have hung many things on the wall already, and betwen the book case I stole the other day, and the grandfather clock I found, my room is shaping up. But the clock ticks back and forth and I didn’t sleep well last night and I’m convinced it was from the noise I’ll give it one more night and if it annoys me again, I’ll smash it into pieces. I already ripped off the gold gizzard thing that swings back and forth. Did I mention my arm hurts – correction, everything hurts. It seems they plan to squeeze out of me their 700 euros worth every month as I am made to throw batting practice and catch bullpens at practice each day. I say nothing, just wince a bit when no one’s looking. One of the perks of playing shit ass pro ball is no trainers. I down Advil and would ice if I had access to some. Sometimes I find my mind drifting into a fantasy where I get officially inured and they send me home. We’ll see, we play two on Sunday, maybe I’ll fracture and eye socket or two or bleed almost to death on the field and be outahere. We shall see. But I can’t lie, after all these fuckin’ years, playing baseball’s still fun, and getting paid to do it is even better.

4/10/08
It’s been a week of solitude and I’m ready for some action. I realize I’m used to an unaverage amount of it in my life and in its absence I find myself dancing in my room wanting my friends to be around. Every night I get dressed – right now I’m wearing jeans, a green collared t-shirt, nice socks, and new shoes – but for no reason, nothing ever happens. If there was anything around, I’d make something happen, but it’s just not an option out here. The guys from the team said they’re going to go out tomorrow night. I shall drink 3,000 beers.
Me and Paulino ate rice, beans, corn, carrots and broccoli for dinner. Maybe I should call this blog, The Germany Diet, and publish it and make some money. Today was more o the same – wake up, read, café, the store (today is was for q-tips and batteries and to minutes on my phone), write, practice at 4, shower, dinner, Curb Your Enthusiam (I don’t even like the show that much), this. We’re already on episode 6 of ten and I don’t know what we’re going to do when we finish disc two. I made my first painting in Germany tonight (see photo) and I’m glad I brought some art supplies along. Not much else to report on so I will discuss a bit about what I’ve fond out about Germany, more accurately, Germans thus far. In the three days I had to prepare before I left, I was able to gather some information about Germany from people in New York who had been here and felt obligated to tell me there thoughts on this place as people often do when you tell them you’re going someplace they’ve been. First, I heard Munich is a nice city. And it is. Too bad I live in Haar. Then I heard Berlin is nicer; I hope I get to find out if that’s true. James, a guy at my job, told me Germans are “scared of confrontation” and are very nice if only from this urge to not offend. I must admit, a large part of me wanting to come here was to see what it’s like fifty years after the war. I asked Mo what religion most people in Germany are. He said, “Da, I do know,” and acted as though he either honestly did not know or had no interest in discussing it. The guys on the team know I’m Jewish, the head coach even called the day before I left to ask if I wanted a kosher meal on the flight. I half think they’re expecting me to break into some world war two fit - I’d just like to have a conversation about what it means to their generation, but it seems like no one wants to talk about it. Another thing I found out before leaving was that because baseball is not a central sport like soccer is in Germany, that it attracts some funny characters – different than our idea in America of the athletic ballplayer. And so far, the guys who hang out at the ballpark are anything but athletic. Nice, yes. Goofy, yes. Athletic, no. Most of the better players from the younger divisions are Japanese. I don’t fully understand what they doing here, but there are a lot of them. I think they’re here for two year visits and it has something to do with the car companies; BMW, Mercedes, Volts Wagen, but I’m not totally sure. So, there are the Japanese players, there are three or four Spanish speaking kids (Paulino was happy to find out) and the rest are German with American parents or some half interesting story about why they play baseball in a country where no one else does. For example, my head coach, Mike, with the bad breathe, played a game they call handball here. It’s not the same handball from New York. This handball involves teams, and goals, and a lot of throwing – something like soccer with your hands, and since its played indoors and only during winter, they had to find another way to practice throwing, so they started a one of the first baseball clubs in Germany. That was thirty years ago. Mike and the rest don’t really look like ballplayers, but all are accepted from the goofiest guy in the dugout to the new Jewish American, no one but no one is made fun of - the new German identity – better late than never, but how this shit happened here so recently I still cannot understand even after comparative religion courses, a class called “evil in the 20th century”, reading Kant, Neitchze, Hanna Arhent, and more, but I am going to find out.

4/12/08
I’m drunk, finally. I just arrived home from the city. I must admit, it is scary as fuck arriving home to a mental institution – walking through alone in the dark half expecting an escaped patient to jump from behind a bush and bite my ankles. Germany, mental hospital – the perfect setting for a horror. Well, I made it into my room, ate some peanut butter with a spoon and now I’m typing. I had a fun day. Manu, one of the guys on the team thankfully called me to invite me and Paulno to a scavenger hunt around Munich one of his friends organizes every year. The guy who organized it is Peter, Peter lives in a store front/loft that is very cool and seems to live a fun life here in Munich. I wanted to ask him if I could move in, but instead just thanked him for the day and wished him a happy birthday. We had bikes. Manu borrowed one of his friend’s for me and we cruised the whole city for like five hours looking for answers to the questions on the paper test Peter had written. It was fun. Almost immediately after we mounted our bikes – just as I was admitting to not being too slick on a bike, I fell after ramming into a high curb and we all had a laugh. Paulino would not come along because yesterday we were caught on the train without tickets as Mo advised. I was keeping a look out, but the checkers came up from behind and asked us for our tickets. I acted as though I had no idea what was going on and was not prepared to give them the forty euros fine they demanded we pay. Paulino quickly counted out forty and handed it over. He is very religious and very scared to “go to jail” as he’s said many times. I’ve concluded both that as a black man he has a well deserved fear of being wrongly imprisoned, and as a religious man, he is quite obedient as religion breads obedience. He said, “Me no go to city anymo,” when I invited him along. The officials only made us pay a total of forty instead of forty each partly because it was obvious we were foreigners and because of my refusal to pay anything. So, a fun day, it felt familiar – people, noise, music, laughter, buzzing conversation, girls. I hung out with Katherine most of the time but was looking at the blonde who was looking at me. I bet we see each other again – me and the blonde that is. I know Katherine will see each other again because she is coming to our game tomorrow. Which brings me to our game tomorrow. We have two of them – a double header, the s-bon series. The s-bon is the name of the train system here and since the other team is also form Munich, a few stops away, its called the s-bon series like when the Mets play the Yankees it’s the Subway Series. Theres even little flyers made up that say” s-bon series” that will be passed out to fans at the game tomorrow. And I must sleep as I cannot go 1 for 9 again like last week. There’s no excuse this time. Must sleep. Must hit home runs. See you tomorrow night.

4/13/08
We split today (won one, lost one) just like last weekend. I was 4 for 8. I felt surprisingly good considering how drunk I was last night. We had to be on the field at 9 am – three hours before game time – to “set up”. I keep finding things out about this German league as they happen – no warning. Setting up consisted of putting up a home run fence in the outfield, building the “burger shack” (concession stand) out of aluminum poles and tarps, wheeling, unfolding, and placing tables for the score keepers, announcer, ticket booth and benches for the fans, and setting up for bating practice - essentially transforming the entire ballpark for opening day in one morning. During warm-ups, after construction was done, my arm hurt so bad I convinced myself “this is it – I’m done – playing one last game and going home.” I felt all emotional because I honestly thought I would ask to leave after the second game and promised myself I wouldn’t say anything about the arm until then – “go out like a warior.” But then I ate 1,000 milligrams of Advil and felt a little better. It was a nice, cool day – a couple hundred people out at the game. I sliced my arm open diving for a ball and it wont stop burning. Overall, a fun day. I got a bike from Mo and not just a bike – a white old school beach cruiser with white wall tires. It’s called “the valor” or at least I says the valor on it. Paulino got a bike too and was very happy about it. He’s been asking the team for a bike ever since we arrived. His bike is much better, but mine is cooler even though the back tire is flat and its hard to peddle. I like it here I thought as I rode the valor home from the field in the dark after having a beer and some pasta at the recently discovered only restaurant in Haar. A lot of times I even laugh out loud at myself – and I’ve figured out why I like it – possibly the key to all happiness – I have absolutely zero responsibility in my life. I don’t have a real job, bills, anything – I have nothing, and that’s perfect. Well, not nothing – we were paid today – 5oo euro – the remainder of our salary for April – so I have money – which might be a factor in the happiness thing though I’d prefer not to think so. Todd paid us – he is the owner of the team. It was the fist time I’d met him. Ad by us I mean me and Paulino. I just learned we are the only players who get paid to play. I broke my Nate Fish, Haar Disciples bat unfortunately on one of my hits. I’ll trade a bat for a hit every time – it only sucks when you break a bat and get out which is usually the case when bats break. We’re off tomorrow. I’m gonna sleep good tonight.



4/14/08
Today was the first day I didn’t go to the field. I took a long bike ride around Haar, found a gas station to fill the tires of the valor up and discovered Haar might actually contain hints of human activity – a pub, a restaurant, a tanning salon even (not that I’ll go – to the tanning salon that is). I’m sore from the games yesterday and am feeling old in the body area. I don’t know how big leaguers do it, but I’ll bet you if it weren’t for the money… they wouldn’t. Not after the age of thirty at most.
Passover is this weekend, and though I’m not religious, I think I’m gonna go to a seder in Munich. It’s just something about being in Germany and going to a seder that seems intriguing. It’s Saturday night. We play a double header Saturday, Seder’s at nine. Not a lot to write about todaysince I’ve hardly left my room. The café downstairs was not serving hot drinks today – no coffee – only beer and soda, so that threw me off a little. I am tearing through the five books I brought; Beirut to Jeusalem, the Bukowski poems, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (Nick Flynn), though I haven’t started “the ways of religion” for a second time through, and I’m saving “Motherless Broolyn” to read later this summer though I can’t stand the title. I am no longer trying to decide if I like here or not, I simply am here, and as is the case with being anywhere sometimes I like it and sometimes I don’t – a fluctuation that is easier described simply as mood swings rather than connection to a place. Oh, I cleaned my room today. There’s a little lip in the door though I’m convinced was strategically placed there to prevent one from simply sweeping the dirt from the room into the hallway which is honestl what I would have doe, so instead I tossed it out the window. Holler.

4/16/08
I guess I skipped a day though not intentionally.
The café downstairs is becoming increasingly interesting to me and I’m spending at least an hour there every day. I order a large cappuccino for 1.65 euro. I always leave a good tip but the service continues to be brutal. What’s it take to get a little special treatment around here? - I thought as I was leaving just a few minutes ago. From what I can tell, everyone in the café is crazy as hell which in itself makes for an interesting scene, but there are other things I like about it too. There’s a juke box in the corner called Double Thunder that plays mostly wildly depressing songs at random times. I have never seen anyone put quarters in Double Thunder but it kicks on every once and a while anyhow. Yesterday it played When A Man Loves A Woman, while the crazies with their messy hair sipped beer and stared at each other. The servers must think I’m crazy - why wouldn’t they? – my hair’s as messy as anyone in there. Today Thunder played an equally slow tune though I don’t know the name. At the same time I watched two men dig wholes for “direktor parking space” signs in the lot outside. They had a great deal of trouble setting them before filling the wholes back in. I couldn’t help but think the signs were for them and how funny it was to watch them struggle over erecting their own reserved parking space signs.
I’m reading a lot and working on my book again. I figure the only way this time will be worthwhile in the long run is if I write something great while I’m here.
The weather continues to suck – cold and rainy though everyone says it will improve soon. I’ve been here not even two weeks - six months seems a far way off – by then I’ll be like Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption – institutionalized and not wanting to leave. I’ll prop myself up on a chair in the middle of my bare room and scrawl “Nate was here” on the ceiling in sloppy, variously sized letters. Then I’ll go meet Paulino in Mexico where he escaped to after tunneling out of here months earlier to live on our boat.
It’s Passover this weekend and I reserved tickets at a seder in Munich.

THE RESISTANCE GENE and THE TIME EXPERIMENT

What is the resistance gene? And do I have it?
It is obviously not a gene in the scientific sense, but a characteristic of the personality that often seems so imbedded it might as well be. It is the healthy mistrust of authority and the ability to confront evil on a personal level no matter the outcome of the confrontation. Pretty much, if everyone had “the resistance gene”, the ills of colonialism and the Holocaust would have been prevented, and all the evil in the world would have been confined to the rare hateful, or truly greedy individual; King Leopold and Hitler in these cases.
In the recorded history of “heros”, or people who act justly, there is no pattern of race, religion, or class that would suggest one has it and the other doesn’t. I find that fascinating, so I decided to look deeper into the subject.

In Chicago, two weeks ago, I was standing on the street when Joe told me, “It just turned five o’clock.” I started telling everyone that walked past, “It’s five o’clock. It just turned five o’clock.” I told teN people and got drastically different responses from all of them. Some looked at me like I was crazy, some thanked me for the service, some simply ignored me, and some were clearly scared. At this point I devised a loosely scientific experiment to deduce exactly how many people have this “resistance gene” according to their spontaneous response to me telling them something as arbitrary as the time. I decided to return to New York and repeat “The Time Experiment” on one hundred people, monitoring and recording their responses.

Stanley Milgrim conducted a more controlled and legitimate experiment trying to expose the some of these same things. In his experiment he had an authoritative doctor giving instructions to the subject, an individual administering eclectic shocks to a hired actor pretending to be in pain every time the subject pushed a button and voltage was given. The results of the Milgrim experiment show overwhelmingly that the person giving the shock was more willing to listen to the doctor, and keep increasing and doling out volts, as opposed to stopping, even though they knew the person was in pain. In short, they obeyed the authority and continued hurting the individual receiving the shock as long as the doctor took responsibility and told them to. My experiment is less about response to authority, but it similarly measures an individual’s spontaneous will.

In my experiment, I represent some thing out of the ordinary.
The person receiving the information, what time it is, represents any individual presented with the opportunity to spontaneously react to an advance. They are being addressed directly, and made to feel somewhat uncomfortable. This discomfort simulates the discomfort one may experience when confronted with an opportunity to act out against something they recognize as wrong; i.e., an attack they could prevent. Since I could not commit harsh acts of injustice against, or around, these hundred people, the best I could do was simply something that warranted a response, something clearly unusual. The various reactions dictate their willingness to engage or withdraw, and ultimately, whether they have the resistance gene or not.

Before I began the experiment I created four possible categories of responses;
1)Ignore; the person who does not acknowledge me verbally or with eye contact.
2)Eye contact; the person who looks at me, but otherwise ignores the exchange.
3)Engage; the person who thanks me, says something in response, or stops to look and/or speak with me.
5)Fuck You; the person who responds violently, physically or verbally, to me telling them the time.

According to this scale the person who ignores me and withdraws from the exchange will be the least likely to resist evil, and the person who says, “Fuck you man”, is most likely to resist and possesses the ever important resistance gene.
I chose two locations to conduct The Time Experiment. First, the corner of N. 7th Street and Bedford Avenue between 11:10 am and 11:32 am. Second, Time Square, 7th Avenue, between 39th and 40th Street from 3:36 pm to 3:47 pm, both on the same day.
Bedford Avenue is the center of a neighborhood with a combination of Puerto Ricans and Hasidic Jews on the south-side, and almost exclusively young professionals and hipsters on the north-side. I live there.
Time Square is obviously different from Williamsburg, more tourists, and people are moving generally faster and are surrounded by more audio and visual stimulation. I asked 50 people at each location. Here are the results…

1) 34 people completely ignored me.
2) 29 people made eye contact with me, but said nothing, and in almost every case rolled, or quickly refocused, their eyes.
3) 37 people engaged with me, smiling, nodding, slowing down, extensive looking, giving thumbs up... 6 of those people spoke to me for varying lengths of time. Some saying, “Yes. It is.”, and some stopping for full conversation.
4) 0 people reacted violently (remember, according to this experiment, this would have been “the best” reaction).

The largest and most ranging group was “engage”. But the number of people who ignored me, plus the number of people who made eye contact with me, and then looked away, is 63, far surpassing the number of people who engaged, and not inappropriately grouped together.
Ignoring, or making eye-contact then ignoring, are virtually the same thing. One is an instantaneous, arguably unconscious withdrawal. The other is more a conscious decision not to engage. Many of the people gave me looks suggesting I may be crazy, and some were just confused. Even people who didn’t look at me often changed their look and posture.
Within the group of people who engaged, most responses were positive. This group overall obviously exuded more life, energy, charisma, then the other. Usually, eye contact initiated the exchange after my announcing the time, and then I could see a thoughtful moment when the person would hesitate and think about what was going on, and then finally, a reaction; a smile, a nod of acknowledgment, an “okay”. This group represents a portion of the population at least willing to engage on some level with a confrontational force.
No one had the “Fuck you” response I had hoped would appear. According to logic, this instantly rebellious attitude would make the most sense taking into account everything that’s ever happened.

People were more responsive in Williamsburg then in Time Square as one might
suspect. And there are a myriad of other fallacies that make this experiment scientifically unsound. More examples, “attractive females” were less likely to engage because they are approached in a similar fashion several times a day by characters probably who do not look unlike me. Headphones played a huge part in peoples reactions; I had trouble deciding whether to count them. Ultimately, I did. And me; the fact that I was wearing red, white, and blue cut-off sweat pants and a black hooded sweatshirt with a black leather hat over the pulled up hood largely impacted each reaction. But that does not make the data any less valuable. This is important information that is hard to calculate and decipher. Testing how or how not a person may spontaneously react to something they recognize as out of place, or wrong, is relevant to everything about our humanity, and speaks volumes about how each of us live our lives. Calling attention to the topic seems to me more valuable then the certainty of the science behind the experiment.
The results do not differ that much from Milgrim’s. The large majority of people chose to either ignore me, or acknkowledge me and quickly look away. The decision to ignore is a decision to be taken advantage of, to not react, and is more heavily present in actual movements of evil around the world than in this study. The fact that most people ignored me proves how few of us have taken the time and made the effort to think deeply about evil, and in turn develop the ability to spontaneously resist it. Ultimately this hints towards a quote from Professor Dilnot and a suspicion of my own, “You must be more afraid of the quiet, law abiding man than the man who breaks the law out loud.”

HEART FAILURE

For once, living way down in Brooklyn put me closer to where I needed to be, and I was able to walk to the pick up. I was expecting a full fleet of buses lined in front of the stylish entrance of the museum with teems of young people bustling around holding steaming thermoses trying to find each other. But when I arrived, I saw a single bus in the back parking lot looking cold and lonely. I boarded.
I had signed up for Climate Control Action Day just the day before. I wanted a free ride to DC to get a first hand look at the current state of the revolution.
Our bus leader had not arrived, so a middle-aged, pony-tailed, deaf man in the front of the bus suggested we pass a sheet around and write our names and cell phone numbers down just in case anyone got lost. He was overtly proud of his own life long activism and subsequent ability to spontaneously plan and make lists.
The bus was about half empty. It was still dark and I couldn’t see if there were any pretty girls. More people arrived, we pulled out, and everyone but me went to sleep.
By nine we had make our way almost to Baltimore passing some amazing stretches off nothing green. When everyone woke up we were handed neatly assembled packets of information about Climate Control Action Day. Our bus leaders were beginning to seem like my old Hebrew School teachers as they talked over the bus’s distorted sound system.
We were to arrive at RFK Stadium at11 a.m. In the parking lot we would get Climate Day t-shirts and metro cards, take the Metro to Capitol Hill, and there, finally, join thousands of ferocious environmentalists and change the world forever. But not before we stopped for donuts and coffee.
When we re-boarded I was able to take a survey of my fellow rebels; a small Spanish man, a high school teacher from The Harbor School with ten or so of his students, three black girls with dreadlocks, and a bunch of old white people who could afford, like me, to waste their time going to Washington DC on a Tuesday.



Honestly, I had prepared for an all out party. I even brought The Champ. Champ is short for “chest-amp”; I invented it two summers ago in Israel. The champ is a little guitar amplifier that clips to a round CD carrying case and hangs around my neck. I have all the controls in from of me while my hands are free to shake and snap as I blast music from my solar plexus.
I also brought spray paint to make protest signs with. On the bus I was thinking of possible phrases; “I heard it’s nice on Mars this time of year!”, “What about the weather machine?”, “It’s the poor peoples’ fault”, and, “Nice Day; Get It”, where the best I came up with. But, the day turned out to be not even worth the effort.
The rally was on the back lawn of The Capitol. A small group, equally as pasty as the one I was arriving with, stood facing the stage heads high and attentive in there matching t-shirts. A line-up of politicians and Alaskans spoke in five minute intervals as they were introduced by the very enthusiastic, Weasel, daytime personality of Washington’s only “green” radio station. They talked about stabilizing our climate and disallowing drilling in the arctic for two hours as the crowd got smaller and smaller. By the end, Weasel was noticeably fatigued.
After the rally we were supposed to hand deliver to our senators’ and representatives’ offices type form letters we had been given to sign on the bus. I would tell you what the letter said, but I didn’t read it. I could only imagine a gauntlet scene from Indiana Jones, or Mad Max, where I dive and roll past swinging blades, defeat the fanged-horse-beast, and solve the stone rubrics puzzle, just before I drop my little piece of paper in the “in” box and thank the clerk. It all just seemed so lame to me. Where was the passion?
I did go along with some people to Chuck Schumer’s and Hillary Clinton’s offices though. No gauntlet, just big hallways and good etiquette. It was time to get back on the bus. As we walked one of my trip mates said, “My heart is starting to act up. I need some more of my medication when we get back to the bus.” I thought, heart failure. I slept most of the way back, but the chicken fajitas I had eaten for lunch at the Native American Museum were hurting my stomach. We got back around 10 o’clock; I got off the bus and walked home in the dark.

BASEBALL HAS BEEN BERY BERY GOOD TO ME: PUERTO RICO

I left for Puerto Rico on a Thursday. The cab was late picking me up and the driver dropped me at the wrong terminal before I ran him down with all my bags and got back in. Carlos was waiting for me at ticketing with a nervous smile, “I don’t like getting here early man. I like showing up and getting straight on the plane”. I wondered why he was so early.
We went through security smoothly. I felt experienced. We sat at the gate across from ours in the row of seats facing the walkway to view scrambling families, overdressed couples, and of course to judge the female travelers. Some of my past teammates had devised a number scale to accurately appraise the sexual value of each woman at the airport, not nearly as scientific as I’m making it sound, simply how much money you would pay to sleep with her, 100 being the most. In the end this game reflects more the mind state of the judge, and less the attractiveness of the woman. Now, whenever I’m at the airport, I can’t seem to avoid playing the game in my head. I’m awful.
Carlos said he needed a drink so we went to the bar. It didn’t open until four, and by then our plane would be boarding. The bartender just stood behind the bar and told us, “No drinks, just beer”, as he pointed to a cooler with a, fuck you. I’m at work, look in his eyes. Carlos said, “This dude is pissing me off. Hey, they have Pac-Man. I’ll just play Pac-Man”.
A younger girl was roaming around our gate waiting to board. Carlos started talking to her in Spanish. We had to take a bus to the plain out on the tarmac. It was very full on the bus and the girl and I stood close together, me holding the overhead bar and her clutching the pole I was standing against. We were lying comfortably, but standing. When we got to the plain Carlos asked her to sit between us, and told her we’d get the person whose seat it was to switch. A big Spanish man came up and said, “Naw, Naw. I want my window seat”, in English. Carolina went back, and I was left between Carlos on my right and the muscle man with poor sense of personal spacing on my left. Discomfort was to become a theme of the trip.
When we landed in San Juan we met up with well-mannered Mikey, and went outside into the warm moist air we had talked about back in New York to wait for Reggie, our coach, and his blue van. I had met Reggie once before, but besides he and Carlos, I would be meeting everyone on the team for the first time. We waited almost an hour while other flights landed and more guys arrived. Reggie told me I owed him $265 for league fees, hotel rooms, and uniforms. I gave him 150 and told him I would get the rest to him by the end of the weekend and thought, shit man, that’s all my money in the world. Can’t someone with a job and lesser baseball ability just pay for it?
We pulled into Howard Johnson’s around 10pm, dropped our stuff in the room, and walked down the strip the hotel was on looking for food. Los Pinos Restaurant was a few doors down between Seven-Eleven and Burger King. San Juan was nothing like Santa Domingo where I had played last summer. It looked more like Florida, All-American. On the walk we noticed a small bum in shorts and a t-shirt. He was leather tan with straight brown hair coming out of his baseball cap. He and his little dog were sleeping outside the entrance of Seven-Eleven, a little authenticity. I ate chicken, rice, and beans, and had my first Medalla, the delicious Puerto Rican Beer. It came to twelve dollars. With my outstanding balance to Reggie, I knew it would be the best meal I ate all weekend. It was budget ball for me again.
When we got back to our room I met my other roommates, Hawk and J-Rod. They had been in Puerto Rico for a long time already having played in a tournament the week before for other teams. J-Rod was on the phone, eating ice, and dipping, hotel hobbies of the ballplayer. There is nothing better then a ball hotel room, and nothing at a more perfect ease than a ballplayer on the road. J gave me a slight, “Hey” that sounded more like “A”. Los had told me about J-Rod on the plain. He played several years for the Marlins and Angels, but he had never made it up to the big leagues. “He hits a ton and can pitch with either hand”, Los said. I had never actually met anyone that could throw equally well with both hands and I was suspicious as to whether he could actually do it.
Hawk was much more personable. He wore corn row braids and spoke in a heavy New York accent. All three of my roommates were born in Puerto Rico and moved to New York at various times in their lives. J-Rod did not speak good English even though he had been living in the states since he arrived to play ball 10 or more years ago when he was 17.
Four dudes. Two beds. I turned the little desk sideways and carried the chair out to the hallway, called for extra blankets and pillows, started making a nice bed for myself in the corner. The other three looked at me like I was crazy. Hawk and J-Rod were going to share the bed and they were surprised I planned to stay on the ground as opposed to sleep with Carlos. But I had been doing it for years; two on the beds, two on the ground. We were supposed to have a team meeting in the morning at nine so we all went to sleep.
Guys slowly arrived half uniformed anywhere between 9:30 and 10am , and the meeting didn’t actually happen till almost 10:30. I was meeting everyone as they arrived; John and his girlfriend, Willie, Snoop, Geo, Angel, Jose. This was my second experience playing on an all Spanish team in a Spanish speaking country and I have learned that time is more an abstract concept to them, not a hard reality to which one must adhere.
Our team had won this tournament the year before so Reggie just thanked everyone for getting there, went through some quick introductions, and talked briefly about how playing time would work. “Everyone paid so everyone’s gonna play”, Shit, I still owed Reggie 150. We left for our game in the Puerto Rican sun.
Reggie told me when he picked us up at the airport, “Fish, you’re gonna sit game one, and John’s gonna catch. I’ll Be straight up with you, you’re the better catcher, but we’re playing a stronger team in the second game so I want you to catch that one, and I want you to play short one game. I’ll probably have you pinch hit in the first game after we get through the order once, so be ready”.
I was relaxed on the ride to the park, I expected to just take ground balls and some swings. I sat in the back of the van next to Willie. He was the only black man on the team. He looked around 50 years old. His hair was an old shape, he had two wild bugged eyes, a little mustache, and wore the 1985 Barry Bonds Pittsburg Pirates gold stud earring with a chain hanging down to a cross. He wouldn’t stop talking to me on the ride over. His breathe smelled bad. He was annoying.
The park was beautiful when we got there. The stadium looked like 1960s or 70s architecture. The Roof angled back over the seats. It was cement, red, and yellow. We entered from behind home plate and saw the field for the first time (the best way to enter a ballpark). We walked behind the first base dugout and went down through the club house and out onto the field. Sunlight. Bright Geen Sunlight coming from the ground. Hot. So hot you could see the heat rising from from the field when you stood eyes at ground level in the dugout. So hot your feet actually burned inside your spikes. 100 degrees.
It didn’t take much to get loose, and we started taking ground balls. I felt good at short stop. The surface was the new artificial grass. The “soil” is rubber pellets that settle between the blades, leaving perfect inch and a half matted plastic grass. Everything was fast and bouncy and honest. My legs felt good and my arm felt like it was two hundred feet long.
Reggie read off the lineup and our team took the field; we were the home team. K.C. was pitching.
We had been taking swings before the game when K.C. was warming up in the bullpen. Almost every ball was getting past John, the catcher, and skipping down to us in front of the dugout. K.C. was throwing hard, but not that hard, around 80 mph I guess, but John clearly could not handle it. He did not look good going out to catch the first inning and he was already complaining about the heat.
We struggled badly in the first. K.C. gave up three runs, we made two errors, and John was only catching half the pitches. When they finally got back in the dugout John said a foul ball had hit him in his bear hand, that it hurt, and he had to come out of the game. That was fine with me. I was already putting on the catchers gear and telling Carlos I was going to throw out the first guy that tried to steal by the time Reggie told me I was going in. We had a quick 1,2,3 in our half of the inning and the next thing I knew I was trotting out to home plate to catch my first game in four years. I jogged out to the mound to talk to K.C. for a moment, took a good look at the eleven people in the stands, and jogged back to the plate where I gave the ump a smile and an hola.
The first hitter of the inning reached on another error and tried to steal second two pitches later. The ball travels from my hand on a downward plane to second base one hundred and twenty three feet away. Out.
It was hot though, and the more errors we made the longer we stood out there. I was wearing; two knee high socks, a long pair of tight pants over jock and sliding shorts, a belt, a red t-shirt under a vest jersey, covered by a chest protector and two knee-to-toe leg guards. My head was in a backwards baseball cap and face mask. My feet were in two tightly tied black metal spikes. I felt as good as a properly functioning robot, happy to be playing, and happy I had put myself through all those workouts.
I was hitting twelfth. One of Reggie’s, “everyone plays policies”, was that fourteen hit in the early games instead of nine, “to see who’s hot”, and get everyone at-bats. My first time up was against an old lefty throwing what we call puss, not very hard. He started me of with a fastball down the middle a bit on the inner half. I had made my mind up not to swing at the first pitch in my first at bat, to give myself at least one look before I started hacking, and of course he grooved me one. The next pitch was a brutally slow change up down the middle. Crack, a knuckling one hop line drive right at the short stop. He did a good job of staying in front of it, pinning the ball to his stomach with his glove and bare hand and getting the lead runner at third base. It felt good, a hard hit ball. I eventually scored after a walk and a single
We continued to make errors in the field and the other team continued to score runs. By the seventh inning the mercy ruled was in sight. Our team was old, slow, and sloppy. Our third baseman, Temple, made four errors in the first game alone. Easy ground balls were missed completely or thrown away to first base. K.C. only made it into the fifth inning, and maybe worst of all, I realized John had no intention of going back out there in that heat and catching anymore then he already had. I went into the clubhouse after the sixth inning to cool off in the AC, and there he was actually drumming a beat on a chair with his hands. I thought, The hand doesn’t look so bad to me. But I didn’t care, I was really having fun out there.
In my second at bat I faced a big righty throwing a bit harder. I got to three and 0 and looked down to Reggie for the green light to swing away. A fast ball down the middle. I skied it into shallow center field. My swing felt long. “Just missed it”, everyone in the dugout said. Our dugout had already taken on its own identity. Snoop brought a ghettoblaster and was playing Hip-Hop, Reggae Ton, or Spanish House music for the hitters’ walk to home plate. Some guys sat and talked and some guys went in and out of the clubhouse to sit in the AC. Snoop brought his kids down into the dugout, everyone watched there mouths at first, but by the fifth inning it was all “Fucks”, “Bitches”, and screaming at the other team. I would say we were a certifiable Bush League team.
We did get mercy ruled, thank g-d for my knees and Snoops little twins. We went to Applebee’s for lunch between games. The other guys ordered all kinds of deep fried food. I ate a turkey wrap with a side of broccoli, took a multi vitamin and some glucosomine, and drank a ton of water. When everyone else went to walk around the mall, I laid in the van. For those who have never experienced the pleasures of catching a full nine inning game, stand with your feet shoulder width apart, squat down until your but almost touches the ground in back, keep your shoulders tall so you can see the ceiling, and then explode back up to a standing position and repeat two hundred times. You should also have some one there occasionally throwing a rock off your face or hitting you in the back of the head with a bat. Don’t forget to throw a ball as hard as you can each time you stand. And that is pretty much what catching a single nine inning baseball game is like. I needed the rest.
It cooled off beautifully for our 4:30 game. We were in the third base dugout now, the shade dugout. Warming up on that perfect field in the cool air was enough to get me moving again and I jogged out to the center field fence with the clouds turning pink above me. We were playing the White Sox, a team made up of mostly Spanish guys recently released from there minor league contracts. The best team there.
Hawk was pitching. When I went out to talk to him in the bullpen about what pitched he throws and how we are going to work the game he just said, “It’s like some Gregg Maddox shit. Just put the glove up and I’ll hit it. Everything is side arm. The slider is straight nasty.” I liked his attitude but the lack of science worried me. Hawk knew everyone on the field from both teams, and he was completely intent on winning the game.
We hit first. I was hitting fifth now, behind J-Rod. We went down 1,2,3 in the first and had only scored one run in the first game. We weren’t playing real well. Hawk got us through the first despite more errors. I flew out to left field in my first at bat and was off to an o for three start to the weekend. In the second inning they scored three runs. We made two errors in the field and hawk threw a fit on the mound after Snoop dropped a ball in left field. By now we had made more errors then clean plays. I threw someone out trying to steal. When we got into the dugout hawk was screaming, “Come on now. We’re grown men out here. Play the game the right way. Shit, we ain’t kids no’ more, if this is the game you love, play it the right way. I don’t even want to pitch no’ more.” I had to take him to the end of the dugout and calm him down and tell him that getting mad about errors wasn’t going to help anyone make plays and it wasn’t going to help him on the mound. In baseball. You can only concentrate on those things you can control. There is a lot going on in the game, so the worst thing to do is think about it all at once.
They scored more runs in the third and hawk developed a blister on his left foot that was bothering him. He started the fourth but motioned to Reggie and said he had to come out of the game, that the blister hurt too much.
Carlos finally got something started for us on offense when he led the seventh inning off with a double off the left field fence. He was excited out there on second base. He is about 5 foot six inches tall and weights over two hundred pounds. He played pro ball straight out of high school, but had since married, had two kids and put on about fifty pounds. We waddled around first base, hesitated, not sure if he could get a double, then ran the rest of the way to second coming in standing up. He looked into the dugout and clapped his hands as if he had proved to himself and the rest of us that he could still play. He scored on a single. Now we had one to their seven. We kept rolling back through he top of the order and by the time I was on deck, J-Rod was up with two outs and runners on second and third base.
Everyone knew J-Rod is a beast, and no one knew who the hell I was so I wasn’t surprised when they intentionally walked him loading the bases to pitch to me. I quickly went to 0 and 2 after fouling a pitch off and trying too late to check my swing on a curve ball. I stepped out of the batters box and told myself, you can still do this. This dude has nothing to beat you with. See it and touch it with your hands. We got to two and two. He threw a fast ball down and in, barely missed. It was too close to take and could have been called a strike, but that’s what I get for being a catcher. Three and two, bases loaded. Two outs. Another fast ball, crack, I didn’t even feel it leave the bat. I looked up and saw a line drive sail about twenty feet over the short stops head and I got moving. A base clearing triple. I slid head first into third base even though the base coach was motioning”up”, not to slide. I couldn’t help myself. The score was now seven to five. The next hitter flew out to right field, and that was as close as we got.
After the game Carlos was smoking a cigar in the dugout and just looked as happy as he could be. He had already racked up three or four hits and could care less that we lost. I grabbed the cigar and took a big puff and choked a little, I was happy too.
By the time we left the field it was almost nine o’clock. On the ride back I was in the back of the van again with Willie, and he wouldn’t stop talking again. I just caught two games, can I get a little love on the seating arrangement? But, the more Willie talked, a funny thing happened, the more I liked him. I was tired but Willie had me cracking up. He said, “Hey Reg, the nigga’ in the back of the van wants to know why he ain’t playing mo’”, in a high soft voice. Willie knew he wasn’t there to play; he was really a base coach and was there to film. He had spent most of the day running around with his camera and tripod. He told me, “Man, I was so fuckin’ proud o’ you when you hit that triple. I knew you was gonna do it man. Did you hear me down at first base cheerin’ for you? Did ya?”
Willie wasn’t staying at Howard Johnsons with the rest of us. He had come with a friend and they were staying across San Juan in another hotel. He was on the phone with his friend saying, “We don’t deserve this shit man… Well I care. We paying money for that disgusting fuckin’ place man. We don’t deserve that shit”, but he wasn’t angry, more gentle and sincere. We got completely lost on the ride home and when Willie realized we had wound up by his hotel he proclaimed, “You see, g-d is always great. Y’all wait right here, I’m gonna go get my things, we’ll buy an air mattress and I’ll stay with y’all tonight”. We went to Walgreen’s for an air mattress and some snacks while Willie got his things from his room. I was really tired walking through the warm winding streets of Old San Juan. It had been twelve hours since our team meeting and spending that much time in a jock strap gets uncomfortable. I was shocked when everyone wanted to go Denny’s instead of back to the hotel, but I was just along for the ride in back with Willie, so we went to Denny’s in uniform.
I sat next to Hawk at Denny’s. By the time Hawk came out of the game earlier he and I were just looking at each other and laughing every time one of our guys made an error, what else could we do. Hawk is thirty six years old. He plays on eight different baseball tams, has had five knee surgeries, he teaches high school physics, works at several homeless shelters around Manhattan, coaches college baseball, and is one of the most curious and honest human beings I have ever met. He is largely the motivation for me to wanting to write this story. He told me he was half Puerto Rican, half Jamaican, and half Jewish, and if it’s possible, he actually looked it. He had brown skin and corn-rows and a big Jewish nose. He was smart, especially for a ballplayer. He started getting into his sexual exploits as we talked, all about these underground clubs he goes to in New York. “Yeah man, they just like old abandoned Warehouses. My niggas rent them out. Flat screen TVs, pool tables. Real nice. Bitches just walking around with nothing on. They text message me the password every Friday, a different word every Friday”. But he wasn’t a pervert; he seemed to know about everything. We had conversations about the crack era in the Bronx, Plate Tectonics, and how sad really the whole world is. By the time we left it was 1 a.m. We got back to the hotel; I iced my knees and arm for half an hour, took a shower, and passed out in my little corner bed.


When I woke up in the morning I felt stiff like wood. I slowly got up and walked past Hawk and J-Rod sleeping one at the top, one at the foot of the bed. We had a 12:30 game that we had to win to advance to the playoff round after loosing our first two. It was already 10 am and the other three were still sleeping. I woke them up, quickly put my uniform back on, and went to Seven-Eleven were most of the team was already in the parking lot. The little dog was sleeping by the door and the old bum was buying beer. Carlos arrived and translated his mumblings for me, “There’s nothing like a cheeseburger from the garbage. What, you’ve never had a cheeseburger from the garbage? It’s very good”.
I was surprised they let him live in the parking lot. He had a cardboard bed under the Seven-Eleven sign with his dog’s bowls near by. I reluctantly got the rest of the money I owed Reggie from the ATM leaving a well-rounded balance of zero, and I bought a pastry and coffee. Before I knew it, I was in the back seat next to Willie, and it was hot as hell. He asked me how I felt as Reggie drove back and forth from Seven-Eleven to Burger King making sure we had everyone and screaming because we were so late. We got to the field at noon. It looked just as pretty as the day before. We were playing another team from NY, J-Rod was pitching, and I was catching, again.
J-Rod started the game throwing lefty. He threw pretty hard and could locate, a real pro. Our defense continued to botch nearly every play. We were making the game look hard. Our short-stop was spending more time on the ground then on his feet and he took himself out of the game after an easy ground ball hit him in the bare hand and ripped off a nail. Guys were dropping balls, and everything hit to the outfield was bouncing over or past our outfielders and getting to the wall. In the fifth inning the score was 6-3, them, so J-Rod decided to switch hands. He threw exactly as hard and accurately with his right as he had with the left. The umpire asked me if they were twins. I smiled and said, “That’s the same dude”.
J was not happy about how the rest of the team was playing and he was pacing up and down the dugout in our offensive half of the inning ranting in Spanish. I had noticed a certain fierce distance in him, but now he was letting it shine. Hawk had said to me, “Yo, that nigga is crazy. He don’t know how to talk to people, he talks at people”. He added, “But he is my nigga though, so I help him out. I mean, the nigga only has an eigth grade education”, later after giving him five dollars to get some food. They knew each other well. J had even been living with one of Hawk’s friends in New York free of charge for a couple of years.
J had sufficiently pissed all of us off by the seventh inning, even me. I was behind the plate sweating my ass off, and calling a good game. I mishandled one pitch slightly, not even dropping it, but just catching it with too loose a wrist allowing the ball to move my glove when they connected, and J-Rod glared in at me and gestured with his glove how I should catch. I threw the ball back to him hard, as hard as I could. He was about half way between home plate and the pitchers mound; he easily snagged it out of the air and looked at me as if to say, okay poppy. I get the message.
In the bottom of the ninth inning J came up as the winning run. We had scored one more run making it 6-4. Everyone was in the dugout saying things like, “This mothafucka done lost his mind. No shit man, he’s acting crazy”. No sooner, he hit a ball of the scoreboard in left center field 400 feet away. He circled the bases like he had many times before, got back in the dugout, and started saying, “Fucka you, fucka you, and fucka you”, to everyone on the team. Then he went out and struck out three in a row in the bottom of the ninth. We won.
The next game was at 4, right after the first. The team we would be playing had watched us win from the stands behind the third base dugout. We cooled off in the AC and ate granola bars I had bought the night before at Walgreens. I started to feel really sick. I wasn’t fatigued, I was tired. I felt like sleeping and I had a sore throat. Reggie read off the line-up for the second game. I was behind the plate, and J-Rod was on the mound.
I’ve never in my life seen a man throw two complete games in a single day, but J-was acting like it was no big deal. In his first at bat of the game he hit another home run, this one from the left side of the plate. It cleared the outfield fence, the net behind the fence where home runs are supposed to hit, and the outer cement wall of the stadium. I have never seen a ball hit that far. Besides that, the game went just as the others had. Us making errors and rotting in the field, and them running around the bases scoring runs. I was two for three in the game. We managed to keep it close and actually had a chance to win. I sat in the dugout and secretly hoped we wouldn’t. I couldn’t catch anymore. I went out to the mound in the eighth inning to talk to J who had already switched hands twice and mentioned that my arm was killing me. He just said, “Whatthefuckpoppy. I can throw three games a day without my arm hurting. You got to push the arm when it’s tired”. I looked at him and said, “You should say nothing to me but ‘thank you’ for throwing those guys out”. He smiled.
In the dugout the guys were laughing about J’s performance. “That’s some 1925 shit right there”, and they were right, it was. The man had thrown two complete games using both his hands, and had hit a home run from each side of the plate. We agreed it could have only been his attitude that kept him out of the big leagues.
The game finally ended. We lost, and I didn’t have to catch anymore.
Everyone was making plans to go out that night on the ride back to the hotel. Hawk had already told me he had plans for us, “We going to Frenchy’s nigga”, he said. Reggie dropped us off and told us to be back downstairs in an hour. I showered and was ready to go. The only thing I had eaten all day was a pastry and granola bar. Reggie had said, “Nate, wherever we eat tonight, I got you”, because I had caught so many innings and played well for him. Hawk couldn’t stick within the time limit; he was just lying around the hotel room talking and laughing instead of showering, so we left him behind and went to the restaurant. I got rice, steak, and beans this time, and ate so fast that Reggie just looked at me and said, “Damn nigga, you was hungry”. I still can’t figure why Spanish people think it’s okay to use the word “nigga” as freely as black people do. Everyone, even well-mannered Mikey, said it constantly.
We rode up and down the strip with the sliding doors of the van open looking at the girls and waiting for everyone still in the hotel. I was tired and getting sick. I almost jumped out and went up to the room, but Hawk got in the van and excitedly said, “Let’s go nigga. What the fuck y’all waitin’ fo’”.
Frechy’s Le Club, was in a dark alley somewhere about twenty minutes from the hotel. Hawk negotiated a deal with the doorman for all eight of us, and we entered. A round bar was in the middle of the room. Booths lined the walls and the stage was at the far end of the room. We immediately saw players from other teams filling the booths. I went and said hello. A tall, brown, stripper with long curly hair was staring right at me. I looked away after a few seconds, took a drink, and when I looked back her eyes where still fixed on me except now she was smiling and gesturing, one hand making a circle, and the other pointing and moving in and out, the international sign for fucky fucky. I thought, holy shit, this is a freaky scene, and then actually said those very words out loud to Reggie. She wouldn’t stop. She was motioning for me to come to her, so I did. When I got near she grabbed me and just said, “I like to fuck”. I smiled and said, “So do I”. I had my hand firmly around her left ass and she was digging down my pants and grapping like crazy. All of a sudden a little old bald black man who looked like the kitchen cook from the shining jumped out of nowhere with a huge wad of money in his hand and started wildly licking the back of his own hand and humping the air while saying numbers in Spanish. “You want to fuck me?” the girl said, “One Hundred and sixty dollars?”, in a nice accent. I said, “No. Maybe later”, and I walked back to the booth sort of smiling, but she followed me and sat with us for an hour drinking with her legs across my lap and my hand on her ass. Eventually one of the guys did take her up on the offer and disappeared for ten minutes into the back room. I pretty much didn’t move from that spot until we left at 4am. The time turned into a dream like memory with me sitting half asleep slowly sipping Heinekens with an occasional lap dance bursting out on me or next to me. By the time we went to sleep it was 5 and hawk and I vowed to not wake up until afternoon.
When I did wake up I was full blown ill. My head was pounding, I was sweaty and cold, and I could barely swallow. Carlos said, “Hey man, you want some of the flu medicine I’ve been taking”, and I realized it was that fuckin’ cigar that got me sick. That, and catching all those innings. I spent the next day and a half laid up in the hotel under blankets. It was probably for the better. I didn’t have any money anyways. I only left to make trips to Seven-Eleven for medicine and snacks and to see the old bum. When Los and I pulled out of HoJos at 4 am in a cab five days after we had arrived, the bum and his little dog where the only living things on the street. He was walking slowly, drinking a beer, the dog scampering behind him. I said, “Los, look who it is.”
END