Closer

(CONTENT WARNING: Language and acts of violence)

Closer

Tommy stopped mid-bite when he saw the grizzled hand pop up. He stared, watched the coach emerge in segments. The arm first. Then the head, complete with the team’s iconic blue hat perched atop a head of thinning, graying hair. Next came the shoulders, narrower now than they’d been in the man’s prime, slumping and rounded. Then the rest of the coach, in his pristine team uniform with the large, blocked numbers hanging on his crooked back.

           Tommy elbowed Steve, used the half-demolished hot dog he’d been devouring to point, dumping fresh-diced onion, gobs of yellow mustard, and chunks of sweet relish on the neck and back of a man one row down.

           “Fuckin’ hell, Tommy!” the man yelled, “you’re dribblin’ shit all over my brand-new jersey.”

           Tommy ignored the onion, mustard, and relish-coated man called Bobby. He kept elbowing Steve.

           “What?” barked Steve.

           Tommy pointed again with the hot dog. “Look!”

           Steve looked.  He grinned. He jabbed a sharp elbow into the fat bastard next to him. “Triple F, look!”

           All four bills of Fat Fuck Frankie, known as Triple F or just plain Trip to his close friends, looked. He smiled. He slapped the bald spot of the man in front of him.

           “Swear to fuckin’ Christ, Trip,” said the balding man, “do that shit one more time, just one more time, and you’ll catch a beatin’. I shit you not. A beatin’.”

           “Yeah, Nicky,” Trip snapped back, “You and what feckin’ army?” He slapped the bald spot again, then pointed to the field. “Looky there, you dickbag.”

           Nicky looked.

           They were all looking. All watching, concentrating as the coach cleared the first base line with a little hop to avoid the bad luck every true fan just knew would land on the poor bastard who had the temerity to step on the chalk. They watched as the man made his way to the short mound of dirt in the middle of the infield. Each man in the bleachers had the same thought rampaging through his beer-sotted brain.

           This is the day.

           This is the time.

           Finally. Coach was gonna do it. Fresh fuckin’ start time.

           Trip gave voice to the desire, announced the collective thought, a ratty Orioles hat askew on his head and his excitement on full display.

           “Holy shit, boys! He’s doin’ it! He’s bringin’ out The Closer!”

           The men looked at each other, all daring to hope. They’d heard it in his voice, the way he’d somehow capitalized that title in his rural Maryland drawl. They watched the coach approach the mound. Watched him ascend the pile of rich, brown dirt.

           They could be wrong, they all thought. This could be nothing more than a mound visit, a stall. A way to buy some time for the reliever to calm down after he’d been forced to watch a potential game-ending ground ball roll right through the legs of a rookie second baseman who was now busying himself searching for the hole in his glove and refusing to make eye contact with anyone.

           Tommy watched the pitcher. And the coach. So did Trip and Nicky and Steve and Bobby. And the rest of the fans.

           The coach said something. The reliever shook his head. The coach said something else. And the reliever shook his head again.

           Trip farted, a high-pitched gaseous squeeze ripping past his flabby ass-cheeks. Bobby belched, nearly vurped. Nicky swore. Steve scooted to the edge of his seat. And Tommy squeezed the shit out of his hot dog.

The coach shook his head. It was, they saw, one of those sad shakes. The kind a doctor gives right before the bad news comes dribbling out.

           Everyone saw it. Everyone heard the reliever spraying profanities.

           The coach shook his head again.

           “Here it comes, boys!” Trip jeered. “He’s givin’ him the hook.”

           And Trip was right.

           The coach’s hand came up, palm to the sky in that universal gesture that says ‘you’ve had it, son. I’m bringin’ in a fresh arm.”

           The reliever’s shoulders slumped. He looked at the hand. Looked at the sky. Looked at the catcher. And back at the hand, surprised it was still there. As if looking away would clear the mirage.

           But it didn’t.

           Because it wasn’t a mirage. It was real. The hand was real. Just as real as the runner on first base. The one, the reliever’s scowl told everyone, that shouldn’t be there. That wouldn’t be there if the fuckin’ rook at second was worth a good goddamn.

           The reliever turned, glared at the second baseman and mouthed a long stream of obscenities. He slammed the ball down, into the dirt rather than into the coach’s waiting hand. He stormed off the mound, launching his glove into the dugout with a velocity his fastball hadn’t approached in two whole innings.

           The crowd hissed. The crowd booed. They jeered and razzed and heckled the man leaving the field.

           “Get the fuck outta here, ya bum!”

           “Hit the road, Jack!”

           “Rag arm!”

           “Meat! Meat! Fresh Meat!”

           “Dead man walkin’!”

           The crowd questioned his manhood. They questioned his sexuality. One loud and surprisingly sober man three rows behind Tommy and Trip and Bobby and Nicky and Steve announced that his daughter’s EZ Bake Oven had more heat than the benched hurler.

           The pitcher stopped short of the dugout. He looked at the crowd, his face a purplish-red mask of rage. He sneered at the fans, flipped the whole stadium a pair of double birds, and disappeared into the dugout amid a blizzard of beer, popcorn, hot dogs, and garbage.

           Tommy, Trip, Nicky, Bobby, and Steve missed this part. They weren’t watching the man leaving the field. They were watching the coach. They saw him crouch down. Saw him retrieve the ball. Saw him begin to roll it around in his hands. Saw him glance at the catcher. At the dugout. Even at the second baseman who was, at that moment, extremely interested in the ground near his cleats.

           “He’s gonna do it, boys! I know he’s gonna do it!” Bobby squealed.

           The coach transferred the ball to his left hand.

           Trip, Nicky, Bobby, Tommy, and Steve began to rise, their ample asses leaving their spots on the metal bleachers with Clausewitzian precision.

           The coach looked to right field, to where the bullpen was tucked away behind the fence.

           The guys were standing now, leaning forward to get a better look.

           The coach raised his right arm to the bullpen, then used his ball-clutching left hand to tap it.

           The crowd went silent, then exploded.

           The stadium’s speakers sprang to loud, violent life, blasting X’s Wild Thing to every corner of the ball park.

           “He called for the righty!” Bobby screamed. “Fuckin’ Rich, man!”

           The guys threw high-fives around with reckless abandon. Bobby high-fived Tommy. Steve high-fived Nicky. Trip high-fived the blue-haired old couple sitting next to him.

           “There he is!” Tommy pointed down the fence line. “It’s fuckin’ Rich, guys!”

           And so, it was.

           The coach had called for the righty. For The Fuckin’ Closer.

           Rich.

           Rich-fuckin’-Ebersol.

           All six-foot-five and two-hundred-fifty pounds of glorious, baseball launching, grade-A beef. Number ninety-goddamned-nine, in a white uniform so pristine that he might have been the Savior himself and the walk-up music Handel’s Messiah.

           But the music wasn’t the Messiah.

           Because Rich was no angel.

           He was Rich-motherfuckin’-Ebersol. The man with the thick, handlebar moustache, a wild, ungovernable mullet, a mean streak five miles wide, and Reno Hightower’s white fuckin’ shoes.

           He was The Closer.

           The man you called on to put the game away.

           The meanest damned sonofabitch this side of, well, anywhere. A Greek god with a howitzer stowed in his right sleeve.

           He was, in this part of the country, the man.

           More to the point, for Trip and Nicky and Bobby and Tommy and Steve, he was their man.

           They’d grown up with Rich. They’d gone to school with Rich. They’d started fights with Rich, had ended fights with Rich. They’d spent nights in the bars with Rich and nights in the tank with Rich. Two of them, Trip and Tommy, had even done time in the joint with Rich (for that incident with the booze and the boosted truck and the missing, seventeen-foot-tall fiberglass cow from Old Jim Henderson’s Family Steakhouse).

           But that was the past.

           This was now.

           Rich Ebersol strode to the mound. The crowd went batshit crazy.

Rich paused to roll and crack his neck, the thick curls of his mullet bouncing left and right.

“Give ‘em hell, Richie!” screamed Steve.

Rich collected the ball, set, rocked back and fired, the leather of the catcher’s mitt snapping with the impact of the warm-up toss.

“Fuggin’ gaaaasssss!” hissed Tommy.

Rich rocked again. The ball flew. The mitt snapped.

Nicky screamed and ripped his shirt open. “Yeeeeeaaaaaahhhhh!”

Rich got the ball back, waved at the ump, pointed at the batter.

The music stopped.

The crowd murmured.

The ump shrugged, slipped his mask on, and screeched. “Plaaaaaay baaaaaall!”

Tommy and Bobby and Nicky and Trip and Steve stayed standing. So did everyone else, even the blue haired couple next to Trip.

They could not sit. The whole town had been waiting for this. For forever, it seemed. It was time. It was their time. It was Richie’s time.

Rich Ebersol stood behind the mound, barking and huffing and shaking. Yelling at himself. He snapped the ball into his own mitt. Once. Twice. And a third time. He turned, faced home plate, and stepped onto the mound.

The batter stepped into the box, waved his bat over the plate, drew it back and up, elbow high, shoulders square. Waiting.

It was showtime.

The score?

Two to one. Two outs. Runner on first. Bottom of the ninth.

Rich stood on the rubber and looked in. The catcher signaled. Rich nodded.

His arms came up, split apart, one moving toward the plate, one moving back. His left leg rose, kicked towards the catcher, towards the waiting batter. His weight shifted. His drive leg pushed. His plant leg slammed into the ground as his torso whipped around, flinging the hand with the ball downrange.

And the hand let go.

The ball shrieked through the air, zipping high and inside, right at the batter’s jaw.

The batter turned and hit the deck. The catcher moved in a blur, snatching the ball from thin air.

“Baaaaall!” yelled the ump.

Parts of the crowd booed. Most of the crowd cheered.

“Hell yeah, Richie!” Nicky screeched. “Brush the little shit back!”

“Chin music, baaaaabbbbby!” yelled Tommy. “Get ‘im off the plate!”

The batter stood, refused to brush himself off, glared at Richie. Glared at the crowd.

“Whatsa matter, sweetie?” Trip crooned. “Get a little dirt in your vag?”

The catcher zipped the ball back to the mound. Rich caught it, grinned, came set again.

The batter stepped in, dug in, waved the bat again, brought it back.

Richie rocked and fired.

The ball snapped in, dead center, cracking leather.

“Steeerrrrriiiike!” the ump jabbed the air.

Bobby was jumping up and down, sloshing his beer everywhere. “Jesus Christ, boys! Did you hear that?”

“Ninety-five, at least,” Trip judged. “Maybe ninety-eight!”

 “Fuggin’ gaaaaaaassss!” hissed Tommy.

The batter stepped in again and came set.

Rich looked in again and came set.

The batter flexed his fingers.

Rich wound up and threw.

The ball raced.

Leather snapped.

“Steeeeeriiiiike two!” hollered the ump.

“He’s gonna do it, boys!” Trip cheered. “He’s gonna pull it off!”

“One more strike, baby!” Nicky screamed. “One fuckin’ more!”

The batter stepped in.

Rich came set.

The crowd went silent.

Rich started his wind-up…

…and the batter…

Did he fuggin’ grin, Tommy thought.

Rich let the ball fly.

The batter swung.

The bat cracked.

And the ball raced off into the lights, streaking towards and over the left field fence with plenty of room to spare.

Tommy looked at Nicky. Nicky looked at Trip. Trip looked at Steve. Steve looked at Bobby.

They all looked at Rich.

Rich never saw the homerun. Never saw the ball disappear into the cornfield beyond the fence. He never took his eyes off the batter. The batter that had just started his homerun trot.

“No fuckin’ way,” said Steve.

“Did that kid…” started Tommy.

“Yeah, he did,” confirmed Bobby.

“Holy fucking shit,” said the blue-haired old woman sitting next to Trip.

And that is how the 2024 Burdock Jaycees Father-Son Baseball Game should have ended. With the kids winning and the gracious adults accepting defeat for the tenth straight year.

           But it didn’t end that way.

           For reasons.

           Reason number one?

           Halfway to first base, fourteen-year-old Rich Ebersol Junior looked at his dad and flipped his bat.

           Reason number two?

           This was Rich-fucking-Ebersol. The Rich Ebersol who’d once struck out twenty-seven straight batters to win Burdock High’s only state title. The Rich Ebersol who’d once been a ‘sure thing’, destined for college and the big show. The guy who should have played for the Yankees, the Red Sox, or, maybe, just maybe, if dreams could come true, the O’s. The Rich Ebersol who had gone to jail for stealing the truck and the fiberglass cow. The Rich Ebersol who’d gone up the river four times on assault and battery charges. The one who’d never said no to a beer and had always had a close, personal relationship with a Mr. John Daniels.

           The Rich Ebersol who’d just been let out on parole.

           The Rich Ebersol who’d been given a fresh start. At life. At fatherhood. And at baseball.

           The Rich Ebersol who’d picked up the flipped bat and started chasing his own kid with it.

The Rich-motherfucking-Ebersol who the Burdock Sheriff was trying to tackle in right field.