Foul Weather

In the top of the fourth, Randy Papke, the beer guy for sections 121 and 122, sits down. After a two-hour rain delay, there are plenty of empty seats. He finds a nearly abandoned row behind the Giants’ dugout, avoiding the spot where old Louise had been sitting, further down. He slides the insulated crate into the walk-space and follows it. He’s on the verge of being canned but sits down anyway. Well, the boss practically ordered him to. He can still sell Bud Light but the fans will have to come to him. They’ll have to pour their own.

There is a reflection of his face on the lid of the cooler before he tips it open to take out a beer for himself. His face has really caught up with his age. Vitamin supplements have apparently stopped working. Naturally oily hair is down over his collar. So maybe he does need a trim. But Hilly Frontenac, the section chief, could have discreetly taken him aside. She didn’t have to call him out in front of the others. Hilly supervises all lower deck vendors from home plate around to the tarp roll on the first base side. It feels like she’s been riding him lately. His brief heroism during the storm probably won’t keep her off of him for long. 

*

The Comerica was packed, earlier; a strong turnout to watch a rare interleague matchup between the sorry Tigers and the Giants. Everyone came to see Barry Bonds go for another watered-down home run record. The umps were using specially marked baseballs to authenticate his plate appearances and anticipated valuable home runs.  

With a runner on second in the first inning, the Tigers walked the controversial slugger to set up a double play—which never happened because the shortstop booted a slow ground ball. Next, the future Hall of Famer flied out to the warning track in right-center. After that, it rained scissors and knives for an hour and a half. The game was already 5-0 in favor of the Giants at the end of the third, but not official yet. The umps and the Tiger management were determined to wait out the storm because the Giants were due in Cleveland tomorrow and didn’t want to come back.

*

Randy pops the tab on his beer. This is a great seat. He worked hard during the rain and risked his neck. There wasn’t time to think, and now there is. Barry Bonds is probably done for the night, too. Hell, the place is two-thirds empty now. Let Hilly trot her scary bronze crew cut down here and fire him, right in front of what’s left of this crowd. That’s all it will amount to, the little talk she said they needed to have. Meanwhile, he’s going to enjoy his moment of fame. He knocks back a long chug.

Aside from the prospect of losing a job and probably an old friend, events during the storm have brought clarity to some troubling issues in Randy’s life. It has dawned on him, for instance, that he can no longer afford the studio apartment in Royal Oak. It’s almost a relief to accept this. A downsizing has been pending since Natalie moved out. 

The fans have been staying away from Comerica Park in such numbers that he is already in arrears to Crystal for two months of child support. And now his vintage Cavalier is making digestive noises, preparing to crap out its transmission. His past luck predicts that this will occur at some intersection on Woodward Avenue. He needs a cheaper place to live, preferably within walking distance of his next employment. Or, he could just live in the Cavalier, if it dies close enough to Joe Louis Arena when the hockey vending jobs start. There are no new roommates anticipated to come to his financial rescue. He could end up with bunkmates though, if Crystal’s jackal lawyer has him tossed into Oakland County Jail.

Randy takes another deep gulp. The grounds crew is still spreading Diamond Dust on muddy spots around home plate. Same principle as kitty litter. Natalie had a little calico with her when she bailed out.

The players have to warm up again, throwing on the sidelines. Hilly will say that his heroics were just part of the job. It won’t give him a pass from shaping up, getting his act together, if that’s still even an option. Saving someone’s life doesn’t excuse unprofessional behavior; to wit, drinking on the job. So he tips the can straight back and drains it in full view of any customers or stadium personnel who may be watching.

*

Anyone could have continued to sell up in the sheltered areas. The fans had crammed together on the concourse during the rain, inseparable from lines doubling back and forth for the food kiosks. But Randy slipped into a cheap, glove box slicker and hitched up his rig. He dodged the waterfalls spilling out of the upper deck and went back down into the box seats. A few customers were still weathering the storm under umbrellas and garbage bag ponchos. He could have been fried by lightning at any moment but continued dashing around, serving anyone who hailed him. Finally, he hustled down behind first base to where Louise the Wheeze had her season ticket spot by the dugout rail.

Randy didn’t believe the urban legend going around among staff that Louise was some kind of eccentric heiress. He knew of several older folks who lived on soup and dollar store staples but scraped up the cost of season tickets in prime locations. Louise was probably just an eccentric. Even Tyrone, the roasted almond guy, wasn’t working in the downpour and Tyrone loved Wheezy for the three bags she always bought. It was Tyrone who usually tipped Randy off, about the time the batting cages were being rolled away, as to Wheeze’s desire for her first beer of the game: “You’re ol’ grandmamma don’t look so good. She wants a eye-opener.”

The lightning wasn’t bad before the storm broke – just a bluish strobe behind low, ugly clouds. When the deluge came, however, it stabbed like the electrodes of a mad scientist. Randy found Louise trying to sneak a smoke under her sheet of plastic, an oxygen backpack unhooked and piled in the next seat. The clear tubes of her nose-rig rested on the cover of her score sheet clipboard. She clutched her XL Tiger parka to her bosom. He heard the clank of her Zippo as he approached. 

“Caught ya!” Randy thrust his face under the foggy plastic. “Who’s yer daddy, Wheezie?! What’re you doing back with those nasty things?!”

“Oh, my Lord,” the old woman sputtered. She coughed the cigarette into a chalky puddle on the ground just over the retaining wall. “Thank the Lord it’s just you, darlin’. Couple a those ushers’d like an excuse to run me outta here. C’mon under here before you get blowed away! How’d you know my throat was getting parched?”

Randy looked around at the few diehards left in the section. No one beckoned him. Louise held up the edge of her shelter. There seemed to be enough room. He slipped his shoulder harness off and left the box in the aisle. A serious lightning bolt struck close beyond the statues on the concourse in left-center, followed by a doom-crack of thunder. “You people’re gonna get me seriously killed,” he panted, ducking under the plastic. He reached back out, groping in the cooler to retrieve a 16-ouncer for his hostess.

“Well, you’ll go to heaven, sweetie.” She grinned with all her yellow teeth and winked. “And, you might as well leave me two of those bad boys. Save you another trip.”

Randy took Louise’s five and two singles. He snapped the tab and poured, her cup gripped between his knees. “One at a time, Wheezie. You wanta get me electrocuted and fired?”

“Nawww, darlin’. I just don’t want you get drenched cuzza my bad habits.”

Randy sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I might be done after tonight, anyway.” The rain drummed harder on the plastic. Randy shuddered as some of it leaked down his neck.

“Why?!” Louise had to shout. “That nasty boss on your case again?”

Randy leaned against her damp bulk and chuckled. He had forgotten about Hilly while sprinting around between crackles of lightning. “Yeah, and I’m supposed to get a haircut.”
Louise shifted to inspect Randy’s coiffure. A fresh, unlighted cigarette had reappeared in the corner of her mouth. She fondled the locks behind Randy’s ears. “Don’t you let ‘em do it, hon. You gotta stick up for this beautiful head-a-hair. Just look at this bag lady mess I’m stuck with!”

Randy resisted the impulse to offer her a light. “I don’t know, Wheeze. I might have to,” he sighed. “I’m hanging by a thread. Work with the Lions and Red Wings doesn’t start for another month. And that’s not nearly the hours this is.”

Louise smoothed Randy’s hair until he began to worry that a saliva mousse might be coming next. “I know, I know,” she said. “This world is gonna try'n make you swallow something vile every day. But something  usually comes along to wash it down. You’ll see. Just tell me you been keeping your visits out to that little baby doll. The one in those pictures you shown me.” Louise’s voice trailed off to a hoarse whisper.

Randy couldn’t look at her if she was getting all teary on him. That sometimes happened after she’d had a few. He adjusted his hold on the plastic covering so he could reach back into the cooler for her. No one was going to know if he left her an extra beer. Then he should probably get back to work. He worked his hand around blindly in the ice. “Yeah, I’ve been showing up.” The ice was melting and the beers had sunk to the bottom. “That’s probably where the Friend of the Court’ll have me picked up.”

Randy found an extremely cold can just as a gust whipped the plastic away from them. It blew over the wall, onto the field side. “Sorry, Wheeze. I thought you had it.” The rain lashed his slicker. He put the beer down to retrieve the shelter. When he turned to take her money, Louise’s head was lolling over the back of her seat. The unlighted cigarette lay in her lap. She wasn’t smoldering so Randy quickly ruled out lightning. It would have zapped them both, he thought. Her eyelids were half-closed and her mouth was collecting rain.

“Aww, c’mon, Louise. Not today,” Randy groaned. “Aww, shit. Hey! Hey, somebody!? I need a little help down here!” There was no one close enough to hear him.

He couldn’t recall how he knew what to do next. He hadn’t paid attention in Life Science class, at least on a conscious level. Or was it Health and Fitness? Maybe he’d gotten a merit badge in Boy Scouts. He remembered the Swimming one, but Life Saving would’ve been a stretch for his ambition level. He went to work, anyway, as if he’d done it before.

Randy just assumed that she wasn’t breathing, but how was he supposed to tell? Hold a mirror under her nose? The rain hadn’t slackened. He put two fingers on her carotid artery but wasn’t sure what he was supposed to feel there. Christ, water was collecting in her mouth. Her lips were colorless. He was wasting time.

He tried to hoist her up by the armpits, to maybe lift her out into the aisle where she could be prone. No go. Impossible weight. Dead weight? He gripped the double chins in his left hand and shook her head. This did not revive her but did spill the rain water. Well, at least her head was positioned right. He opened her mouth all the way and dug for her tongue with his thumb and forefinger. It was right there. She hadn’t swallowed it. 

“Thank you very much,” he muttered.

Her mouth was not as difficult to deal with as he would have imagined. He just pinched her nose, locked down on her lips with his own, and blew—two quick puffs. Now what? Count to four. Where did that come from? Four sounded right, though—same as Crystal’s nutty square breathing she used to do instead of just dropping a Valium. But there was something else nagging at him. What was he neglecting? Wasn’t he supposed to push on her somehow? Beat her chest or something? With his hands still outside her clothing, he pushed down hard between her breasts a few times.

Down he went again, his mouth to hers with a fresh lungful. She tasted familiar—alcohol and tobacco. One. Two. Just a hint of cinnamon from the roasted almonds. He checked her tongue after the next breath then slipped his thumb tip in to hold it down. Open wide. Three. Four. Randy stood and turned with both hands still on Louise’s face. 

“Hey! Usher!” he screamed into the wind. “A little help!” 

The rain came at him out of the lights like a blizzard of gnats. He bent and puffed and counted before glancing back up at the section entrance. Luckily, Purvis Watts, the usher stationed there, hadn’t abandoned his post. Cloaked in his own slicker, with a tiny rain shroud clipped over his usher’s cap, Purvis stepped out of the thinning crowd in the tunnel. He mimed a hand to his ear. Randy hollered again, still pinching Louise’s nose. “EMS, Purvis! She’s not breathing!” Before he knelt with his next offering of air, he saw Purvis lift a walkie-talkie from his belt. Then he started down the steps, two at a time. 

“Okay. Here we go,” Randy told himself. He kissed and double puffed. He counted. “C’mon now, Wheeze. I can’t beat on your big ol’ titties all night. You hear me?” Three. Four.

Purvis’s handset squawked beside him. “You sure you know what you doin’? No, not you! I’m talkin’ to the guy down here doin’ that…you know, breathin’ for the victim! Hurry up! We down in 122, behind first base!”

“You wanta take a turn?” Randy asked between breaths.

“Naw, you go ahead on,” Purvis said. “You doin’ fine. They just backin’ an ambulance up to the front gate.”

“That’s a good start,” Hilly Frontenac said from behind him. Randy didn’t have to look to know her hands were on her hips, her expression critical. “Ty, don’t just stand there with your thumb up your ass. Shake the water outta that plastic.”

A few more ushers and Event Staff security stiffs had also gathered. “Hold this tarp over us, somebody,” Hilly ordered. “You know that Bee Gees tune, ‘Stayin’ Alive’? You use that rhythm on her chest.”

Randy heard the splatter of raindrops resume on the plastic spread above him. Now Hilly, too, knelt in front of Louise, her metallic hair and wet hands crowding near their linked faces. He nearly laughed out loud at the thought of how bizarre this ménage must look. “We’ve gotta get your oxygen to her oxygen, see,” she said as Randy lifted his mouth off Louise. “I’m gonna do the compressions. You rest until I say.” She unzipped Louise’s parka and stacked both hands on her sternum.

“You’re just copping a feel,” Randy said, then filled his lungs. “And, I hated disco.”

“Funny.” Hilly pumped rapidly, just below the breast bone, then released. “Okay, blow! Is her tank even on?”

Randy raised up to inhale again. “It’s just a trickle anyway, isn’t it?”

Hilly repeated the staccato compressions. “I don’t know. But it can’t hurt. Stick it back in her nose and I’ll turn it up full blast.”

Randy paused and gasped. “It’s probably pure. I'm gonna need some too.” He quickly inserted the tubes and squeezed Wheezy’s nostrils snug around them. “We need about two more sets of hands in here.”

“Just blow, Randy,” Hilly repeated. “Blow!”

*

The Tigers take the field again. The applause is weak and scattered. The new pitcher is announced—the next lamb to be sacrificed. It’s Fred “Friction” Stevens, a veteran knuckleballer who’s been demoted to the bullpen.

Randy has no idea exactly how long their efforts at CPR went on, but it couldn’t have been too long. There are always a couple of EMS vehicles parked behind the stadium. He doesn’t know who all was involved in the rescue. He just had an odd sensation of witnesses, like he was being watched, judged. And it couldn’t have been Hilly Frontenac who’d been right next to him, pumping away. 

Until four guys in scrubs of competing pastel shades pushed them aside. “Great job, fellas,” one of them said. “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am. My mistake.”

Their praise was totally condescending, as Randy replays it now. They were inserting an Ambubag tube into Louise’s trachea, even as they hoisted her onto a flat-board. One of them lubed the paddles of the ADF.

“Bite me,” Hilly had growled. “Bite us.”

“Somebody hold this plastic up, please,” another rescue guy called. “We better zap her right here!”

Randy and Hilly backed their way through a small knot of staff and fans. Randy lifted his cooler. He didn’t know which way to turn or where to go. 

“You’ve got a break coming,” his boss said as she started up the steps. “Take it. Then I want to see you before you clock out.” That’s been his only clue, so far, as to what his near-term fate might be.

The game resumes. The night has cooled, the humidity nearly gone. Of course, the first Giants hitter draws a walk. Well, that’s why this guy isn’t in the starting rotation anymore. The next hitter takes a few fluttering pitches then bounces one to short—a sure double play for any other team, but the Tiger second baseman skips the relay past first and into the visiting dugout. One out with a runner at second on the overthrow. There aren’t enough people left in the place for the sustained booing this situation deserves.

Randy doesn’t flinch when Hilly’s hand lightly squeezes his shoulder. He senses the apprehension in her decision to actually touch him. Then she plops down next to him. She lifts her feet over the cooler and rests them on a seat-back. “That was a cool thing you did,” she begins. “My crew is just full of surprises.” 

“It was probably pointless ‘til you got there,” Randy says. He places his empty in the cup holder on the seat in front of him before lifting the cooler lid. There is just enough room to fish around in there under Hilly’s arched knees.

“Nevertheless,” she insists.

First base is open, so, of course the Tigers will try to set up that elusive double play again. Stevens begins an intentional walk to the next Giant.

“Have you heard anything yet?” Randy asks. They ought to just go ahead and pitch to the next guy because ol’ Stevens hasn’t thrown a strike yet.

“Nah. They won’t tell me anything. They’ll just notify the front office.” She lifts her thick legs higher as he plunges into the cooler. Her expression clouds as he removes another beer. “Or, you can call Metro Emergency Services yourself. They loaded her. Or, Detroit Receiving. That’s where they were going. Hell, maybe Mike Ilitch will come down and tell you in person. You're gonna make as much news as any of the players.”

“Mmmm,” Randy groans like Homer Simpson. He wishes he could drool like Homer, just for Hilly. “Free pizza and Crazy Bread for life.”

“Hey, I’d take it,” Hilly says. “In any event, all the more reason I can’t let you drink in front of the customers. You’ve got to punch out and take off your smock – then I don’t care what you do. You’ve earned it.”

Randy holds off on opening the fresh one. He palms it from hand to hand. If he cracks it, that’ll probably be the career move he’s been weighing. “It isn’t very professional.”

“No. It’s not. I can’t believe you’re being such a baby about that! It’s my job on the line, too, if you guys don’t look sharp!”

He has a fingernail under the ring-tab but balks. Maybe it’s time for some discretion and the maturity that everyone in his life has pled with him to show. 

“There are ways to handle people,” he sniffs. “Not in front of the whole crew; like, a shave for this guy and whiter shoes for the next one—it’s not right.”

The batter jogs to first after his free pass. The Giants substitute a fast guy off the bench to counter the double-play gambit. The on-deck circle has been empty during the intentional walk—the Giants waiting to decide who’ll bat in Barry’s place if the Tigers change pitchers. Now, in the nearly-empty stands, there is a ripple of amazement and scattered applause. Here comes the infamous slugger himself, bounding out of the clubhouse tunnel and up the dugout steps.

“I know I come off as pretty gruff sometimes,” Hilly says. “I didn’t think I was gonna offend anyone’s tender sensibilities.”

Randy shrugs. Barry adjusts his elbow armor and steps into the batter’s box, no less menacing for the score, the hour, or the lame challenge facing him from the mound. 

“I’m just saying.” Randy stands up long enough to remove his smock. He tears loose the Velcro stays of the ergonomic brace around his waist. He folds these in his lap but still doesn’t open the beer.

“Let me take those for you,” Hilly offers. “I’ll hang them up and clock you out.” She reaches down to unplug the drain of his cooler. “I’ll drag this out of here and leave you alone.”

The first pitch from Stevens dances and sinks as it’s supposed to do but is still out of the strike zone. Now there are scattered boos and epithets. No one has paid to watch Barry walk again. And, Barry isn’t up past his bedtime just to walk again. He’s already looking out to the mound like Stevens is something he’s just scraped off a dress shoe.

When the water has emptied down the steps, Hilly shoulders the cooler. “Will we see you tomorrow?”

Randy watches the next butterfly pitch shade the corner of the plate – just outside. Ball two. Now Stevens is glaring at the ump. “I suppose, if,” Randy says. “One condition, right?”

“Well, yeah. You need to get squared away,” Hilly replies. “A good trim.”

Randy’s eyes never leave the game. “I’ll think about it.” He holds the unopened beer above his head and Hilly takes it.

“Seems like a no-brainer to me,” she adds. “We’d hate to lose you now.”

Barry loses his patience on Stevens’s next offering. It’s a beauty, too – soft and whiffling, rising as it paints the inside corner, in on Barry’s fists. He wants to lay off it but can’t, quite. The foul ball arches high over the Giants dugout, spinning with a crazy reverse english. It ricochets straight back off an unpadded joint of the rail to the left of Louise’s seat. Randy doesn’t have to move an inch – just hold out his hand.  

It stings a little—a combination of the ball’s squirrelly action and acceleration off the pipe. But hell, there it is—the much-advertised official monogram of authenticity. And it’s his. Normally, the policy requires that employees hand over stray souvenir balls to the nearest child or parent accompanied by a child. But he’s a civilian at the moment, and most of the kids in his section are on their way home. Scattered cheers around him honor the nice grab. Maybe they’ve remembered him from the traumatic scenes earlier. He must still be on the clock for his fifteen minutes of celebrity.

But, now what if…? The wheels are already turning. Put this sucker on eBay and carve out some breathing space in the world – the haircut, some rent. Does he still know anyone with a computer? Anyone he hasn’t broken up with lately? The ball has to be worth good money, even if it isn’t from a dinger. Who can prove it wasn’t?

Barry is talking to himself, shaking his head in dismay but smiling. 

Friction Stevens is still deadly serious. This holding stint out of the bullpen could save him from a trip down to the farm club in Toledo. He throws over to first to chase the runner back. It’s the most velocity he’s shown so far. Then he delivers to the plate—a pitch that dies and comes to life twice on its way, finally sagging over the outside corner. It was going to be a strike, but Barry has to lunge with a one-handed swing just to make contact. The bat grazes a seam on the underside of the ball. The foul pop-up appears to rise by stages, in the opposite direction required by most laws of physics. This dervish lands in the section just to the right of home plate, but the carom could go anywhere. It strikes an armrest and comes whirring like a trapped moth over two leaping fans in 121, straight toward Randy’s left ear.
There is more applause, some of it bordering on raucous, as he admires his second treasure. No one is jeering at him to surrender the ball. Maybe they think they get it. Maybe they think they see the karmic transaction being played out—grubby vendor who did rescue breathing on old woman receives just reward. Randy stands up, a ball in each hand, and makes a modest bow. He can pay Crystal enough child support to keep her happy; throw in a stuffed animal for the kid. Was it too late to have the Cavalier’s transmission rebuilt? But there is something else, as he turns to trudge slowly up the steps, a dread on the edge of his euphoria.

Randy doesn’t see the next pitch because he has turned to start back up the aisle. The offering is Stevens’s version of a “heater,” coming in on Barry’s hands again at about 80 mph, tops. The junk has been so good that this mediocre fastball looks like something Randy Johnson would throw. Barry is taken by surprise but gets a late piece of it. The foul goes way high and nearly straight up. The Tiger catcher lays out, making a solid impact against the padded wall, trying to reach into the seats. But the ball spins away, carrying beyond his reach. It strikes the edge of a seat-back and loops toward the back of Randy’s head.

Everyone left in the section is hollering heads up!, so he pauses and ducks. The ball lands behind him and hops again, white against the dark sky. It comes down gently as a whisper, bounces in front of him where he can catch it, even with the other balls in either hand. If those fans hadn’t gotten his attention, it would have tapped him on the shoulder or kissed him on the cheek. Well, by now he’s ready to believe it was meant to do both those things. He resumes his climb. “You’re welcome, Louise.”

Randy crosses the Concourse: the Food Court, the Bengal Tiger statue, out through the gates into VIP parking. He doesn’t hear the soft roar that the remaining crowd manages when Barry twists himself into a stumbling knot, trying to cream the third strike. He is counting more chickens after that third souvenir. Like, not just a trim but something new from a stylist.

CHRIS DUNGEY is a retired auto worker in Michigan. He rides mountain bikes, camps at sports car races, feeds two wood stoves, sings in a Presbyterian choir, and follows Detroit City FC and Flint City Bucks FC with a religious fervor. More than 70 of his stories have found publication in lit-mags and online including Mulberry Literary, Of Rust and Glass, and Potato Soup Journal.