the windows were just tinted

April 1, 2014 by Steve Myers 7 Comments

We were gonna skip school or work and wonder how brains or God or whoever could squeeze all that blue sky, ash wood, cowhide, green grass, chalk dust and enthusiasm into a floating diamond of coordinated pinball players for nine innings or more?

The chains were gonna slip away like drunk snakes and we were gonna reach above the wall and sneak a peek; shape shift into drift wood and merge with a gush of melted mountain side snow; racing head first towards the ocean.

Elemental carbon was gonna be more than a periodical table. It was gonna spark more than flags and anthems and ego. We were going to look out at the sky; drunk on infinity.

But it wasn’t meant to be. I was sitting in the cafeteria break room at work instead. It was 2:45 PM in Montreal. My body seized control; turned my mind sober. Opening day was nothing but a rally flirt, just a game among 162; an exaggeration; a myth of Sisyphus and the world’s grimace tried to suck me in deeper.

But then an amazing thing happened. I received a jolt of something from somewhere and I began to see wills as big or small; not the check list wills of who wins our knickknacks when we die, but the will of courage. We are the chariot rider. We control the reigns. The horse-our emotions is at our mercy.

I became convinced that people can read these wills like braille without the bumps and fingers; more like mannerism detection; rewarding or punishing us accordingly.

My will must have been Polo Grounds big because no car, wheelchair, or pedestrian sign interrupted my locomotion. I made it home in 17 minutes flat; arriving at precisely 4:17 PM. It was the top of the sixth inning; Brewers leading the Braves 2-0.

I abandoned all discipline and vows and middle ways. They fell away like lizard’s skin. I resubscribed to the flirt and seduction of opening day; downed some metaphorical champagne and started feeling giddy. Gibraltar was no longer 90 feet away. I was there and a strange and wonderful thing happened.

It was only a damp, dark room and an arrangement of electrical pixels on a screen in the corner, but it did a convincing impersonation of Brandon Kintzler pitching the top of the seventh inning, Wil Smith in the eighth, and Francisco Rodriguez in the ninth.

Final score; Brewers 2, Braves 0. Gallardo-the winner over Teheran.  Milwaukee in first place with a 1-0 record, ahead of Pittsburgh and St. Louis who also won, but the M in Milwaukee is closer to A than P or S.