{"id":22046,"date":"2025-07-17T09:38:26","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T13:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/?p=22046"},"modified":"2025-07-17T09:38:26","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T13:38:26","slug":"the-hardest-thing-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/fiction\/the-hardest-thing-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hardest Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Opening Day of the 2007 season, Del headed east in a Toyota Corolla stolen from long-term parking at McCarran International Airport. He had four hundred thousand dollars of Mob money in the trunk, a forged driver\u2019s license, and his single prized possession: an October 22, 1960, issue of The New Yorker<\/em> signed by John Updike and Ted Williams.<\/p>\n

In Oklahoma he stopped at a sports memorabilia store and bought a spiral-bound scorebook with laminated plastic covers and pages for a hundred games. Del doubted he\u2019d be around long enough to finish it, but he liked to keep an open mind.<\/p>\n

He ditched the car in Kansas City, where he bought a bus ticket to Washington, DC. The bus arrived early in the morning, and Del emerged blinking like a mole from Union Station. He found a City Paper<\/em> and soon secured a room in the basement of a row house in Northeast from a woman whose Boston accent was as thick as his own.<\/p>\n

A few mornings later his toilet wouldn\u2019t stop running, and he asked Rita, his landlord, where the nearest hardware store was. \u201cI did some plumbing back in the day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He had it working in an hour, and after that, he began taking care of the minor repairs typical of older houses. One night, she invited him to the second floor, where she lived, for a beer. She brought their drinks to a narrow porch overlooking the alley behind them.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you ever do time?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow did you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have that look about you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside, a Dodge with tinted windows drove slowly down the alley. Del waited until it was out of sight before he spoke.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did a stint at Walpole. I was promised a good lawyer and a short sentence, but got neither.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least you kept your accent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Del raised his glass. \u201cYou can take the boy out of Boston,\u201d he started.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you can\u2019t take Boston out of the boy,\u201d she finished. \u201cMy late husband was from Southie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIrish?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs they come. He did time in Walpole, too, but he died inside. I had to leave town.\u201d<\/p>\n

Del understood. He emerged from prison bearing a lightning-bolt scar across his abdomen and carrying a grudge for all the years he\u2019d lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to Las Vegas after I got out,\u201d he said. \u201cI worked in a restaurant, fixing things. HVAC, plumbing, electrical, a little welding.\u201d Enough welding, in fact, to open a wall safe he wasn\u2019t supposed to know about.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now you\u2019re here,\u201d Rita said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now I\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n

She went into the kitchen and came back with two more beers. It had been a long time since Del had a drink with a woman. They sipped their beers in silence, but it wasn\u2019t uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould you like to spend the night?\u201d Rita asked, after they\u2019d finished their drinks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be nice,\u201d Del said.<\/p>\n

When they were under the covers, she traced his scar with her index finger. \u201cDid that hurt?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it was a long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say the memory of pain goes away quickly,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhysical pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other kind,\u201d she started.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt never goes away,\u201d he finished.<\/p>\n

She pulled him to her.<\/p>\n

The next morning, her side of the bed was empty, but she\u2019d left a single ticket to Saturday\u2019s Nationals game on the kitchen table, under a note asking him to lock up when he left.<\/p>\n

The weather forecast was lousy, but Del figured he\u2019d get to see at least a few innings. He walked to the ballpark with his scorebook tucked inside the waistband of his jeans and made his way to Section 417. The fans around him knew baseball and didn\u2019t have to be told when to cheer.<\/p>\n

The rains came with one out in the top of the fifth and the game tied 1\u20131. Del was no weatherman, but he didn\u2019t think it was going to let up anytime soon. As the delay lengthened and fans began leaving, he moved down to the lower level, trying to stay dry.<\/p>\n

He scanned faces, looking for anyone who seemed out of place. A man in a black windbreaker appeared to be doing the same thing, and Del slipped behind a group of young guys who were debating whether they should stay.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever leave early,\u201d he said, but they ignored him. He tried to find the man in the windbreaker again, but he must have given up and left. As the delay entered its second hour, the crowd dwindled.<\/p>\n

When play finally resumed, Del\u2019s scorebook was damp, the ink smeared, so he returned the book to its position against the small of his back. He was tired, and at some point, Saturday night had turned into Sunday morning, Mother\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

The top of the ninth went quickly. The rain came again. After a few minutes, Del made his way to the bathroom, which was empty. Just as he finished zipping up, he sensed movement behind him.<\/p>\n

The man in the windbreaker.<\/p>\n

Before Del could react, the man stabbed him with a knife, grunting as he tried to wrench the blade from the pages of Del\u2019s scorebook.<\/p>\n

Del whirled, forcing the man to turn. He wrapped his left arm around the man\u2019s neck and braced his right arm behind his head. As he dragged him into a stall, the man\u2019s feet scrabbled for purchase, his body bucking against Del\u2019s, until it finally went still.<\/p>\n

Reaching behind his back for his scorebook, Del pulled it free with both hands. Blood dripped onto the tiles. He made a compress out of toilet paper and cinched it tightly against the wound with his belt.<\/p>\n

Del returned to his seat just as play resumed. He sat a few rows from the dugout, so close he could hear the ballplayers chatter.<\/p>\n

The lights began to dim, and he grew cold. Ryan Zimmerman, the Nationals’ young third baseman, came to the plate with the bases loaded.<\/p>\n

Ted Williams had homered in his final at bat, then announced that he wouldn\u2019t be accompanying the team to New York for its final games. Updike had written that Williams had done the hardest thing by quitting at the right moment, but Del thought the writer had it wrong. The world let you know when your time was up.<\/p>\n

As Zimmerman finished rounding the bases, Del knew that his time was now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Opening Day of the 2007 season, Del headed east in a Toyota Corolla stolen from long-term parking at McCarran International Airport. He had four hundred thousand dollars of Mob money in the trunk, a forged driver\u2019s license, and his single prized possession: an October 22, 1960, issue of The New Yorker signed by John Updike and Ted Williams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":22675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4180,4181,4179,4182,4178],"class_list":["post-22046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-baseball-2","tag-crimefiction","tag-johnupdike","tag-nationals","tag-tedwilliams","writer-tom-milani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22046","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\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22046"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22676,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22046\/revisions\/22676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}