5/25/11 - Busty

     I knew something was wrong when Missy looked up from her laptop and said : "So, do you at least want to know about any injuries ?"
     Of course, she was speaking of the San Francisco Giants and a game I had TiVo'ed and had yet to watch.  I  TiVo all Giants games and take copious notes : scoring, personal observations, outlandish proclamations, sage quotes from our delightful windbag of a color man, Mike Krukow.  Official terminology and vernacular.  Some inappropriate sexual innuendo (look - there's one right there "in-you-end-oh".)  Chief thinks I am ridiculous (generally) with my fussy game-taping and watching rituals.  I even tape and annotate games I've seen at the actual ball park.  I often cannot watch the match-ups live, so I have a few taped and saved on deck (pun so not intended) - ready to be watched at any time.  Chief insists that this is no way to live life : avoiding the Sporting Green, not talking to anyone, cursing those who speak about the game before I am good and ready to discuss it.  This...score-atorium is but the tip of the iceberg that, in some circles, is referred to as my "Giants problem".  Whatever, bitches - play ball.)
     So, I respond to Missy :  "Sure, why not - who was injured ?"  Then, I see The Look on her face.  So many expressions appearing simultaneously : big blue eyes are wide, mouth almost imperceptibly quivering, bottom lip being chewed and chewed.  I SO do not want to hear whatever was making her look this way.  This tortured and anguished.  "NO !  NO !  I changed my mind !  Don't tell me !"  My fussy baseball framework is intact, and I can go about my business as if....what... ?  Off to bed, then, with my reluctant little town crier.
     Then, as luck would have it, I glanced up at the TV screen as the news was shutting off.  I turned it off just in time to see 2 of the most dreaded words in all the annals of baseball injury.  Buster Posey.  My butt slammed shut.  I felt sick, all color drained from my face.  I was clammy, even.  Denial being oh, so much more than a river in Egypt, I thought aloud : "Buster who ?"  For a brief moment, I decided to pretend like I did not speak or understand English. This worked for about 3 minutes.  I streaked down the hall, and stopped my child at the end of a desperate dash.   Me, with my poor grasp of the language.  She gave me the slow and dreaded head nod as I whispered (for some reason, in a foreign accent - almost like Bela Lugosi) : "It was Busty, wasn't it ?"  She confirmed this horror with a resignation far beyond her years.  We were toast.
     I then climbed into bed, pulling the blankets all the way up to the whites of my eyes.  I desperately needed to remember the pre-approved times when it is totally okay to wake the husband.  Fire, blood, anything over a 4 on the Richter, robbers, scary noises, anything kid-related, too many drunk Catholic kids in the parking lot across the street, someone on the roof, mice trapped in a trap but still noisily alive  (true story).  I automatically assume that "Buster Posey injury" is at the top of this list.  My breathing is shallow and panty as I reach over to nudge the Chief awake.  I cannot believe this is happening.  Neither will he !   We will have so much to discuss - the "what ifs" alone.  I am trembling.   Wait a tick !!   I can't wake him for...baseball - he will, in fact, kill me.  He will curse the World Champion San Francisco Giants and their hypnotic hold on me.  This will be exceedingly bad mojo, and I cannot risk it.  Damn.   So, I slowly fidget my way into a restless sleep.   I dream of fresh-faced rookie MVP catchers with spots of high pink on their cheeks.  Country boys who you just know say "sir" and ma'am" when addressing their elders. My nightmares featured newspapers with big headlines : "Dewey Defeats Truman !"  "Elvis dead !"  "War is over !"  "Posey hurt !"  I am sure that my feet are twitching like a sleeping dog.
     Until the first text message comes in at 7:30 a.m.  It reads :  "BUSTER !!   OUT FOR THE SEASON ??!"   And then : "OMG - can you believe it ?!"    What is this blasphemy and what, if any, country did I wake up in ?!   I am the original Frozen Caveman Lawyer : "..what is this chiming rectangle, and what are these language-type characters etched on the glass ?"  I am clearly still dreaming - but things are all confuzzled as I untwine Morpheus' arms from around me and...head for the surface.  I believe that sleep is like deep sea diving : come up too fast, you'll have nothing but a rollicking case of the bends to show for it.  As sleep is in stages, so should be awakenings.  I hate being awake.
     I am still dreaming, and it is awful.  I sweat and tumble about, feeling peevish and somehow, chilled - from the inside.  I then realize that I am conscious : actually now awake and aware and reading a terribly toxic text.  I am not sure what bugs me more at this moment : the early morning wireless attack, or the presumption that I have seen The Event in question and am in any way ready or willing to discuss it.  The score-atorium is still on.  Big time.  Major league, if you will..  And you know I will.
    I cheer somewhat, needing to brave on, at the discovery of an important technicality : by the letter of the law, nothing really yet....exists.  As nothing yet specific and/or concrete has been given voice.  Crestfallen resignation on the face of my firstborn, gossipy hysterical text messages at sunrise, a name on the local news.  All hearsay, Your Honor.   So not admissable, dude.  Seriously.
    I need to run from the possibility of a Buster Posey injury.  Run faster...farther.  No use : the e-mail comes pouring in, the Internets are ablaze with smack talk and disbelief, calls stack up on the land line.  This shit is ON.
     The town crier, the tea leaves in my Giants mug, sky writing.  Morse code, flag-whippin' semaphors, smoke signals, Paul Revere on a horse.  Fog horns, lighthouse beacons, if this was a real emergency you would be instructed where to tune in.  Breaking news, stop the presses, this just in.  Extra extra.  Telegram, Pony Express, tribal elders passing down oral tradition while spitting in a fire.  I-Ching, Magic 8 Ball, beads and shells.   Tarot cards and fortune cookies.  Charades, American Sign Language, Marcel Marceau.  Weird clicking mouth noises by isolated Indonesian clans.    In song : a blues-y ballad.  Or something by the Sex Pistols.  Hand-lettered signs, dirigibles.  Tuesday noon air-raid sirens.  Chanting, intoning, buzzing - voices raise for Busty.
      I, clearly, can continue to "run".   It's the "hide" that's not going so well. 


      It would seem as if I have become a Giants clearinghouse for all information, updates, rumors.  All e-mails "sent", calls returned - and I have 3 text-versations occurring simultaneously (not bad, considering I'm not 17 years old) :


ME : Busty - busted leg...ankle.  Out for season
THEM : What !  No !
ME : Yes yes
THEM : Will we be okay
ME : If you mean us, no.  If you meant the Giants, I guess they'll have to be.
THEM : Ha ha I meant the Giants
ME : Let us not speak of this again


ME : I am still in total shock.
THEM : But the whole season ?
ME : It simply cannot be.
THEM : The whole season.


THEM : Can you stand it ?
ME : I never ever want to see Busty clawing the dirt at home plate in pain.  Never.

THEM : I cried.

ME : I say orange and black armbands.

This is an abomination.  All is not right with the world.  God must have stepped out of His heaven for a quick smoke. 


     I have to stop myself from thinking anything that starts with "why ".  Not only the useless "why" of 2 men colliding at home plate in such a a way where there becomes a "before" (he was hurt) and "after" (he was hurt).  Bang - life changes, it goes on : with or without us (makes you feel...less important, doesn't it ?)  It's fucked.  "Why" can lead to a nasty train of thought - one that few of us will admit to having...traveled on.  To wit, "..why couldn't it have been..."  Admit it .    You're human.   You've had ringside seats to "the good die young", and it's still wrong.
     This where perspective would normally kick in.  Gratitude.  Real life.  Just because we couldn't really see the micro-universe in "Horton Hears A Who" doesn't mean it wasn't there.  (I believe they even shouted "we are here !")  A skillion things happened at the exact moment Buster was annihilated at home plate.   Death, poverty, disease, social ills, college loans, old white Republicans, baby-killing mothers, progress.   A 24 year old boy breaking his ankle is small change.  He'll heal, play ball, be wonderful, have babies.  His brain wasn't scrambled.  Busty coo'.   (My brain is scrambled, and I don't have the option of going on the DL.  The world is okay.)
    Fuck that  - rational thought can bite me.  National emergency time.  I'm too agitated for perspective.  
      Oh my God - the world as we know it has ceased to exist.   Baseball has seen its last pitch.  $10 beers are a dim memory.  Exciting streetcar rides down to see an actual game in the most amazing ballpark in the world - gone.   Abner Doubleday wasted his Goddamned time.  If America's favorite pastime ends like this, what's next ?  Apple pie ?  Chevrolet ?  Hot dogs, even ?
   I feel like I am on a suddenly unfinished road, leading to no damn place.  It's like that "visual cliff" experiment : I know there's really not a steep and perilous drop just up ahead, but I instinctively feel like I'll tumble down.  Hard.
   I attempt coffee and a modicum of groundedness in reality : my unfavorite task of any day.  (The reality, not the coffee.)  I take rote stock of all of our blessings.  We might be down, but nowhere near out.  I continue on my whirlwind tide of Giants news and gossip : why, how long, but why.  I talk out of my head, and some callers and texters seem to follow right along my path of fevered Giants righteousness, as I just start to make shit up. (i.e "..well, when I talk to him later...", "oh, be sure you tell him...")   Is this mob mentality ?  Or my legendary..powers of persuasion ?  I often underestimate my...contagion.  I very much enjoy people going along with me, no matter what.  Almost blindly.  I am stunned at both the frequency and absurdity of this.
   Anyway, Buster Buzz continues, unabated, throughout the rest of the day and into the evening.  Chief gets an unasked-for and unbelievably detailed de-briefing at day's end.  I almost expected to be interviewed in my driveway.  Lucky thing I sport Giants wear at least 4 days a week.  Today is my "Fuck Yeah " t-shirt.  Everyone I talk to likens today to other eerie and tragic days in the City's history.  The same feeling...expression..all over town :  shock, resignation, fear, pain.
     Inevitably, I am forced to regroup once again.  At least until I hear about the surgery and extensive rehab assignment.  There are other things happening on the world - near and far - that require attention.  This upset is merely a piece of the action.    It's sports, for Christ's sake.
   Well, maybe it is sports, maybe it isn't.  It's the Giants.  The San Francisco Giants.  World Champions.  The Boys of Summer.  The Boys.  The Black and Orange.  Gigantes.  The Franchise. 


 The Giants.