FF – Take Me Out To The Ball Game

Photo Copyright: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Take Me Out To The Ball Game!

Bertie only went for the company, in truth – he’d watched the game with Harry and Len since Debra died in ’72. They ate hot dogs smothered in seven kinds of heart attack, sipped over-priced beer and talked about all the nothings that mattered.

When Sarah dragged Harry to Florida permanently, Bertie and Len kept buying three seats in the nosebleeds and took turns to drink Harry’s beer.

After Len died, Bertie watched one last game. They found him after the game, slumped in his seat with crushed cans in his lap, and more on the empty seats either side.

Extroduction

I have a feeling the yellow post in the foreground means this is a Football stadium, but in my mind it was baseball, and these three old duffers went every week to the Roger Stadium (formerly SkyDome) in Toronto to watch the Blue Jays play. It doesn’t matter of course, the game was really ancillary to Bertie’s enjoyment of these evenings out with buddies.

Like Bertie, I quite enjoy watching the game without any real investment in, or deep understanding of, what’s happening on the field. Putting this story together made me finally research a few things I’ve been wondering for a while, so here’s some extra info for those foreigners like me!

• Take Me Out To The Ball Game is the unofficial anthem of North American baseball. It’s played on the speakers and sung by the crowd. I bet Bertie would know all the words and sang them loud on that last trip to the stadium. They didn’t sing it first, but you can enjoy Frank and Gene’s version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r2luDoV9TI
• The fanfare that plays at times and for reasons I can’t fathom (Is it just random?) with or without a lead-in, is called “Charge”. You can read about it and hear a midi here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_(fanfare) or learn to play it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb19d08Lnec
• On the Jumbotron is consistently voted in the top 5 worst ways to propose to someone. I bet Bertie and his buddies would have seen a few people get engaged though over the years!
• The Nosebleeds are so named because they are so high up, they are jokingly associated with this symptom mountain climbers get at high altitude. They are cheap though, so a great way to watch the game when you’re not really there to watch the game. I think Bertie and his boys would have chosen to spend their pensions on the beer rather than a better view.

Covenant

After a long (looong) hiatus, I have been inspired by an old writing buddy to pop back and post about an old, fictional friend. Melanie never ages, so she is still 7ish, but now Sebastian is 7 too; he wasn’t born when she started being 7 in my head. Yesterday we chalked our walk (and those of some friends we are missing!) – the blue writing above it is hard to read but says “We’re in this together”.

 

Covenant

When I stuck the last red heart to the living room window it made a complete rainbow of hearts and I couldn’t see so much of the street outside. For a whole week now, we’ve been stuck here, in the house, waiting. Waiting for the government to say we can go out again? Waiting to get bored? That’s happened already. Just waiting, I guess. Every day, I’ve folded and cut and pasted up tissue paper hearts of a different colour. Now the rainbow is done and I’ll have to think of something else to do with the long hours indoors.

Looking out of the window doesn’t help really. There’s nothing to see. A few people wearing those little blue paper masks. They wear those at the hospital a lot, but they’re everywhere. Do they really help? Does the invisible enemy really care about a tiny scrap of paper?

Mrs Mwana has put up a rainbow too. Mrs Mwana always has amazing sweets that she keeps in a little jar and now the wrappers shine their colours across the street. “It’s like hugging,” Mrs Mwana said, “Put something in your window each day and I will do the same. That way we know each other is there.”

I said we should do a rainbow because the rainbow is the symbol of God’s covenant not to kill all the people again in a massive flood. Mrs Mwana doesn’t believe in God, so she said “I’m not sure about God, sweetheart, but this is our covenant. You and me.”

Mrs Mwana’s rainbow has stopped at the orange line. I should go across and check she’s OK, but Daddy said nobody was allowed to go outside or touch each other. It’s why we can’t visit Mummy at the hospital any more. Not even to say goodnight.

I wonder what Mummy is doing right now. Sleeping, probably, Mummy spends a lot of time sleeping. Last week, I was watching Mummy sleeping and I wondered how they would know when she died. Would she really look any different? I asked Mrs Mwana. Mrs Mwana said not to worry, the doctors would know. Then she said “And when it happens, you come and see me so that we can say goodbye to her spirit.”

Except now I can’t even hug Mummy goodnight and I can’t visit Mrs Mwana and if Mummy does die, there’ll be no way to say goodbye to her spirit because I’m locked in this stupid house with this stupid rainbow that doesn’t even block out the weird, broken world or the horrible virus that’s flooding across the planet to kill everyone I love.

I want tear down the hearts, because God broke his covenant and Mrs Mwana broke her covenant or she’s lying dead in her kitchen and can’t even tell me. Then I see something moving in her window. Mrs Mwana is taping red sweet wrappers over the top of the orange ones. She sees me and points upwards to where a cloud catches the light from her sweet wrappers, or maybe it’s God, painting his promise back onto the sky.

 

Friday Fiction – Another Brick In The Wall

Short and sweet this week – I hope you have friendships like Emily and Sarah’s and I hope you value them as much as Emily does. I do, and I do, even if I don’t get around to saying it often enough.

Today’s pic is from Bjorn Rudberg.

Another Brick In The Wall

I hadn’t seen her for years; we’d dropped from inseparable to Christmas cards, to Facebook stalking. Then she called me up.

“Sarah, it’s Emily.”

I recognised her voice immediately. My brain flashed memories: the Boyzone concert, a shared bag of chips on the wall outside school, shared secrets and Forever Friends bracelets with half the heart each.

“I’m getting married,” she said. “I’d like you to be my bridesmaid.”

“Me?” I said, stunned.

“Babe, you got me through teenagehood and a crush on Keith Duffy. You are exactly who I need beside me on the biggest day of my life.”

Friday Fiction – Crushed

Even those who buy into the “inspiration not illustration” theory might struggle a bit to work out how this story fits this week’s prompt. I had a few ideas which came to naught, then settled on this title before writing a piece which I don’t think fits the title all that well! Nevertheless, thanks to Rochelle for all her hard work guiding this merry band and to Roger Bultot [sorry, not sure of his website. If someone lets me know or if I find it, I’ll add the link] for providing the photo.

For those who missed it, I posted a pledge regarding constructive criticism on Monday. You can read that pledge by clicking on the scalpel picture in the right sidebar, and add the picture to your site if you enjoy receiving concrit on your own stories.

Crushed (Genre: Romance – this is getting to be a habit!)

I waited for him to take it back. He couldn’t mean it; we’d been through so much together. His blue eyes stared into mine, pleading for an answer. He wanted me to tell him I understood, maybe even that I’d been thinking the same thing.

“Amy. Say something.”

I knew it was wrong to be angry. When a boy says he loves you, you should be flattered, happy … anything but angry.

But I trusted him. We were friends. We’d already been through so much as friends, how could we change that now?

I couldn’t speak. Then he kissed me.