Wet Corduroy

Once I identified the metallic taste in my mouth as blood I was left perplexed by a remembrance of childhood. Why would this remind me of that?

Broken Pinstriped Heart

Yankees lost last night. This means I won’t be following sports with any passion until April. That hurts because it was a big part my day, each and every day. It feels like breaking up a relationship and quitting an addictive substance the same night. Not advisable.

The real difficulty comes with all the coverage and analysis that will now be spewed forth. That’s worse than the defeat itself. There’s really nothing to say. I will now enter my sports media blackout period, the lone exemption being today’s Mike and the Mad Dog show.

One thing I’ve learned the past two years is that it’s better to take these sorts of things sober. While inebriation helps with the tension during the game, it’s preferable to have a level head in case of an unfortunate outcome. There’s less chance of things breaking and people getting hurt. Live and learn.

More interesting is what happened before the game. I spent the rainy day chilling, reading Billy Budd, Foretopman. I think I’m onto something with this Melville cat. Having been lost at sea a few times in Moby Dick, I kind of gave of up on the guy until a recent reference to Bartleby, the Scrivener piqued my interest and I conveniently had a paperback collection of 4 short Melville novels on a shelf. I immediately took to the archaic language and digressional style. His prose is like one of those trick pictures you have to un-focus your eyes to make out. I find I have to turn off the laconic part of my brain and let his language make its own sense, similar to Shakespeare in this regard. Quite often I have to re-read a paragraph to be sure of the meaning, but just as often I’m impressed enough to underline a particular turn of phrase. He seemingly breaks every rule of good writing, what about being clear and concise, showing and not telling.

Around seven I finished the book and went out hoping to miss all the pre-game garbage on television. Chatting casually on my cell I headed up Arthur Avenue. A block up I noticed, in that peripheral way one does around here, four youths in black jackets and hoods diagonally and slowly crossing the street. I don’t remember formulating a complete thought about them, just a feeling of subtle contempt. Our paths crossed at the corner by the clinic and with a glance I noticed how small they were. As I passed, one of them snarled, “Whatchou looking at?” And then what might’ve been intended as a shove but resulted in just a pat on my shoulder. I wasn’t going to be baited and continued on laughing merrily into my phone. The next thing I know a rock whizzes by my ear and something inside me broke. I snapped my phone shut and then I was down the block with a handful of rocks yelling, “You missed me. Here, try again.” The rock thrower ran behind some parked cars and continued to lob pebbles in my direction. The other three played possum nearby. What really brought me back to my senses was one of the four, a girl, saying, “What are you gonna do, beat up a twelve year old?”

Honestly, if the kid hadn’t run I would’ve made him eat the rocks. This adrenalin explosion had a strange effect on my game watching later. I mostly sat in front of the television Indian style unable to exclaim or react demonstrably. On commercials I did dishes. When Bubba and Sheffield collided all the tension took residence in my temporal lobe. In an alternate universe Matsui hits a three-run homer and I’m smiling like an idiot all day.