Solar Eclipses and Homerun Balls

And the last of many, too, apparently—days of gainful employment, that is.  Turned out, I had, in fact, misheard Meelod.  I was back in line at the food truck for my third wiener when he called me, right on the dot at 1:00 p.m., and said he assumed I was almost back, yes?  I tried to explain myself, that I was on my way back to the kiosk now (I did not mention the two hotdogs I’d eaten, or the one that I was currently waiting on), but Meelod said don’t bother, that I was fired, that he’d tried to tell Omar it was a bad idea, admitting an infidel such as myself into the sacred confines of their kiosk, their livelihood.  Ah, that’s too bad, I said, but, speaking of, I asked him if he’d heard anything from him—Omar—yet.  How was his cousins’ staycation going?  Were they stuffed on breadsticks yet?  Was Nadia still unaware that she was more than 5,000 miles from Italy?  That, Meelod said, was complicated, and he left it at that and hung up.  Well, alrighty then.  I figured it was probably for the best.  Omar was an oddball, but he’d seemed fine enough.  Me and Meelod though?  Sheesh, we were like oil and water, hot and cold, dog and cat, or hotdog and coldcat, but you didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to compute that I just wasn’t cut out for the kiosk life, with all its hounding and hassling and hawking.

But getting terminated was a blessing in disguise.  And I know that’s a bit of a cliché, people are always saying that—like, no, no, I mean, yeah, okay, I was fired, so now I don’t have a job or a steady stream of cash coming in or health or dental insurance, and the rent and car payments are due next week and my tooth has been killing me, but honestly it’s okay, because the most important thing is that I’ve learned what type of management structure I work best under, and my boss was sort of an ass—but it was true for me.  Sure, for the first two days after Meelod gave me the sack, I felt like a sack myself—I didn’t even get outside to view the solar eclipse—but on the third day, the Reverend Father Alabaster Fudge rang, saying he had an extra ticket to the AAA baseball game, which also happened to be the home opener.  I readily accepted the invitation.  “Grand,” Rev. Al said.  “But here’s the thing: you need to come scoop me.”

When I asked him why he couldn’t just walk, the ballpark was only a half mile or so from the rectory, he said that he didn’t feel safe doing so on account of the large, fuzzy black hole that was currently occupying the center of his vision.  He explained that he and a couple other priests, together with the choir director and wedding coordinator, had gone outside to take in the solar eclipse, and Rev. Al, so captivated by the astrological phenomenon, couldn’t take his eyes off of it, despite not wearing the proper eye protection.  I asked him how long he stared at it for, and the fucking retard said, oh, I don’t know Sterling, at least a few minutes or so.  He admitted that when the symptoms first came on, he thought it was the Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin, coming to him in a vision—what business he thought Our Lady would have with the likes of him, I hadn’t the slightest clue—but he said the eye doctor had since enlightened him that the blind spot, the photophobia, and the violently intense headaches were no miracle, only symptoms of solar retinopathy. 

Well, as requested, I scooped him up.  And look, I’ve known Al a long time, so I’ve gotten used to the rubbernecking and the swiveling of heads when we’re out in public together, the bewilderment of the strangers stemming not just from the fact they’d spotted a clergyman outside his natural habitat, but also because Al’s priestly streetwear includes a pair of black Air Force 1s—sure, hit up the downtown YMCA on a Tuesday or Thursday afternoon and you may be lucky enough to witness the Dunkin’ Disciple, as he calls himself.  That day, though, he’d added to his ensemble those blocky prescription sunglasses and a cane.  It was like you were back in middle school, walking down the hallway with Trevor, the kid with the rolling backpack, staying vigilant lest either one of you got shoved into a locker.  Trevor’s crime: having a backpack with wheels.  Yours: guilty by association.  Anyway, after we took our seats behind the center field wall, I asked Al if he absolutely had to wear the specs, and he got all pissy with me, as if he were a quadriplegic and I’d asked if the tongue-operated wheelchair was actually necessary.  I admit, I was a little pissy myself, but that was because, on our way from the parking lot to the ballpark, Al had insisted on keeping one hand on my arm, the other on his cane, as he basically forced me to serve as his guide, his seeing eye dog.  Get off of me, you’re not blind, I’d told him, you just stared at the sun like a dumbass. 

So, Al sulked like a moody teenager for the first couple innings.  Mute and motionless, his eyes hidden behind the sunglasses, I couldn’t tell if he was staring at something or if he’d fallen asleep, but in the bottom of the third, two outs, bases loaded, a voice over the loudspeakers told us to make some noise for the rail-thin left-fielder Joaquin Jimenez Blanco—a middling prospect and known affectionately by his teammates and throughout the Minors as Slim Jim White—as he made his first AAA plate appearance and, on the first pitch, cracked a high fly ball into center field, which at first had all the makings of a routine pop up, except that it continued to soar higher and higher into the blue sky, and farther and farther back until, before you knew it, the center fieldsman had cleared the warning track and crashed into the wall padding in a dull thwuppp, and Rev. Al, though supposedly as blind as a bat, leaped out of his seat and Odell Beckhamed the fucking thing with his free, bare hand (the other still grasping his cane), before concluding this startling and unexpected feat of athleticism by landing in the empty seat directly behind him.  He gathered himself, stood, and was greeted by the raucous applause of the fans, who were cheering more for him than for Slim Jim White.  As Al triumphantly displayed the ball for the crowd, I noticed that his sunglasses were not on his head but were instead at his feet in a snapped and shattered mess.  When his adrenaline had faded and he, too, had noticed his lack of sunglasses, he began to grimace violently, doubling over in pain.

“Argh, Sterling,” he wailed.  “I can’t see a thing!  And the headaches, they’re back!”

Alright, alright, keep yourself together, I said, noticing that plenty of eyeballs were still on us.  Al began to say something, but it was interrupted as he barfed up whatever he’d eaten earlier that day.  He fell to his knees and crawled away from the chunky yellow puddle he’d made on the ground before curling himself up into the fetal position.  It was at that moment I noticed about a half dozen or so uniformed folks—ballpark staff by the looks of them, upper management—steadily and methodically making their ways towards us on the concourse.  Al’s antics had only succeeded in drawing more onlookers, effectively blocking our way to the nearest set of steps, and the next time I looked up, the staffers were already engaged in a flanking maneuver, heading down the steps of the neighboring sections.  I looked for another escape, if not for the two of us, then at least for myself, but it was too late: we were trapped.  They made it down to us just as Al had decided to compose himself and stand up, the cheeky fucker.  Gentlemen, they said, would you please come with us?

Before I knew it, we’d been ushered into a windowless, concrete room in the bowels of the ballpark, Rev. Al whining about his eyes and moaning about the state of his head the entire way there, all the while holding onto my arm again like Charlie Bucket’s Grandpa Joe, that geriatric fraudster who’d finally decided to get his lazy ass out of bed only after Charlie had found himself the golden ticket. 

“You’ll need to be my eyes and ears, Sterling,” he whispered, “I have a bad feeling about these guys.”

Again, I reminded him that he wasn’t blind, and, Jesus Christ, that he certainly wasn’t deaf, but I did begin to mentally prepare our defense all the same—against what, I wasn’t sure—but, thankfully, one of the employees quickly quelled my uncertainties and explained the situation: they wanted Slim Jim White’s first AAA homerun ball, and if Al gave it to them, he would receive season tickets, a jersey and a baseball signed by Señor Blanco, and the eternal goodwill of the ballpark and the Blanco family.  Wow, what a steal, I thought, and I wasn’t being sarcastic.  I didn’t know much about the guy other than his nickname and that, if you squinted, you could easily mistake him for the bat and vice versa, but anyone with a brain knew that season tickets alone was worth the trade, given that Joaquin Jimenez Blanco had as good a chance at getting called up to the Major Leagues as he did at teaching a high school English course.  Al, though, was having none of it, as he made what he called a generous—but what was really a completely outlandish—counteroffer (season tickets for the next five years, a dinner with Slim Jim White, a permanent post as Team Chaplain, and a new pair of prescription sunglasses).  This kicked off multiple rounds of heated negotiations, with al somehow winding up right back where he started with the original offer, sans the eternal goodwill of the ballpark, of course.  He leaned over and pretended to consult with me, murmuring some nonsense, and I nodded along and made throaty grunts of assent, like yeah, Father, in my professional opinion I believe you’ve overplayed your hand here,  this is the best you’re gonna get.  Al read my thoughts and repositioned himself, placed his hand on the table, and said, “Gentleman, you have a deal.”

The ball was handed over, handshakes were attempted—Al was still cosplaying as a blind man—and instructions were given on where he could pick up his loot.  As I guided him out of the room, though, he stopped at the door, turned around, and said, “A deal is a deal, no takesies backsies”—he let that banger sink in for a second before continuing—“but you all should be ashamed of yourselves, taking advantage of the handicapped, and a member of the clergy, no less.”  In conclusion, he told them that they would be answering to not only the Big Man Upstairs, but to his ADA lawyer, as well. 

On our way to the ticketing office, I asked him what he meant by his closing remarks, about the ADA lawyer and all, to which he replied not to worry, that he had something up his sleeve, which, knowing the fool for as long as I had, I understood to mean that I would somehow be involved.