{"id":16924,"date":"2021-09-24T05:00:16","date_gmt":"2021-09-24T09:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/?p=16924"},"modified":"2022-08-03T13:09:46","modified_gmt":"2022-08-03T17:09:46","slug":"home-at-the-stretch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/fiction\/home-at-the-stretch\/","title":{"rendered":"Home at the Stretch"},"content":{"rendered":"

My father finally got back from the war just before the seventh inning stretch. We sat together about a dozen rows back from the visitors\u2019 dugout on the first base side at Wrigley Field on a Friday afternoon a few days after school had let out for the summer, and he had taken me to my first baseball game after I had waited my whole life for him to get home so we could go together.<\/span><\/p>\n

He had arrived at home in mid-September almost three years ago, when I was still only five. I remember the joy in my mother and then the almost immediate and palpable tension. He was much quieter than I expected, hardly looking at me and rarely speaking to either of us. He didn\u2019t drink, raise his voice, or teach me things. On Monday mornings, he would leave in his Chrysler that I was desperate to ride in with him, and then he would return for dinner, eat silently, and then sit by the window facing our street until I went to bed. Five days a week, \u201cgood night\u201d were usually the only words he spoke to me. On Saturdays and Sundays, he\u2019d fuss alone in our detached garage. Once after he had been home for about a year, I heard him snort at something he read in the paper, but otherwise he didn\u2019t smile, laugh, wrestle with me, or look me in the eye.<\/span><\/p>\n

For a while at first my mother would suggest that I be patient; he was adjusting to being home. But eventually she said nothing anymore, and I\u2019d see her wiping her eyes over the dishes. We learned to exist together.<\/span><\/p>\n

My father left for Europe a week and a half before I was born. For my first five years, my mother would show me the two pictures she had of him and tell me about how much he liked to dance with her and about how much he loved the Cubs. He would dance with her anywhere before the war, she said, even sometimes when there wasn\u2019t music. And there wasn\u2019t a game that he didn\u2019t at least scour the box score; otherwise he listened on the radio faithfully all season long.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But then she got pregnant and he had to go to the war.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of my earliest memories is of my mother turning a baseball game on the radio while waiting for me to fall asleep for an afternoon nap. That was the first time she told me about how much my father would have loved to be sitting there with us, listening.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From then on, she raised me to love baseball too because that way when my father came home, we could bond over it and go to a game. Even though I started begging to go to Wrigley Field when I was four, she would only say that it was for my father to do that. He\u2019ll be home soon, she\u2019d say. It took almost a full three years for him to finally do it. Even when the Cubs were playing in the World Series a few weeks after he\u2019d gotten home, my father paid scant attention.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But that Friday afternoon in June when I was eight, he surprised my mother and I both by coming home around lunchtime and telling me to finish eating and come with him to the car. We were going to a baseball game. All he said on the way there was that the Cubs were playing the New York Giants and asked whether or not I knew how to fill out a scorecard.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When we got to our seats and started filling out the lineups, he scowled when I laughed that the Cubs\u2019 left fielder\u2019s name was Peanuts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe served over there,\u201d my father said, crossing his arms.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was afraid to say anything else until the bottom of the third inning when Bill Nicholson tripled home Andy Pafko to break the 1-1 tie. My father smiled\u2014just with his eyes\u2014when that happened. I glanced at him and let out a little cheer and clapped my hands together once. He saw out of the corner of his eye and the side of his mouth facing me lifted just a little.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two innings later, he asked if I liked school. I told him my teacher\u2019s and my best friend\u2019s names and how we played stickball and tag at recess.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHm,\u201d he said, with his fingers drumming a little on his knees.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the bottom of the sixth, the Cubs scored again, making it a three-one lead.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe should leave in a little while,\u201d my father said. \u201cThere will be traffic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Wordlessly, he made known that we would wait until the top of the seventh was over to make sure the Giants didn\u2019t score before we headed for the car. Ralph Hamner got the first batter to ground out weakly and my father cleared his throat and almost said something. After the next batter grounded out to the shortstop, he spoke again.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI met a woman overseas,\u201d he said, not looking at me. \u201cA French woman.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t sure what he meant, but I could feel a slight nervousness from him, which was strange. Distant though he had been, my father at least projected confidence in everything he did.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe spoke only a little English, but it was enough,\u201d he went on. \u201cI betrayed your mother over there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t remember the third out of that inning because Wrigley went quiet in my head and the grass and seats and fans into a swirl. I looked over at him. He was finally looking me in the eye.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not the same with your mother anymore,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t be.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After that we walked together to our Chrysler. He put his arm lightly over my shoulder as we went and told me a story about sneaking into his first Cubs game the year they lost the World Series to Philadelphia. He flat out grinned as he told me about eventually getting caught and thrown out.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On the drive home, he lit a cigar and relaxed in his seat when Doris Day and Buddy Clark came on the radio, and we sank into an easy quiet. I was delighted and wished we could drive forever.<\/span><\/p>\n

As we rounded into our neighborhood, he stopped at an intersection and looked at me, still smiling a little but serious.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThanks for coming with me today,\u201d he said, adding after a moment: \u201cSon.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The next two blocks I could only think about how we were finally all together again. As we pulled into our driveway, I saw my mother sitting in my father\u2019s chair by the front window waiting for us. I saw, too, the quiet grimness return to him, and I realized I wouldn\u2019t be the same with her anymore either.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my earliest memories is of my mother turning a baseball game on the radio while waiting for me to fall asleep for an afternoon nap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-jared-wyllys"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16924"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16966,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16924\/revisions\/16966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}