Joyous Glashkins never attended “How to be cruel” summer camp. He never needed to. He learned how to jab pencils into playmate’s forearms and feel no remorse, all on his own. And as peach fuzz began to gather on his upper lip he used words to manipulate his way into people’s minds and found where they were weak and gonged away until individuals lost their voice.
Joyous’s Mom and Dad were never around. No brothers or sisters either, but a cousin took him on long walks and called him Wick and the name kinda stuck. Wick spoke in superlatives, about the best band, greatest book, biggest dumb ass and if you didn’t agree with Wick, he made you feel stupid and small.
Wick remembers the day dad took off for good. The local library hours had loosened, sometimes staying open till midnight and other nights not closing at all. The days of being book smart had become fashionable so Wick loitered at the library, copying down big words most people had never heard. He collected them like weapons, to show off and when the time was right, he said mawkish instead of lovey-dovey and his peers oohed and aahed.
The only bandwagon Wick refused to hop on was baseball. He hated the game ever since the local little league made wearing spikes illegal. Sheerskin’s Bluff was where the old Steel Mill League used to play and Wick loved the place because there was no grass or diamond and no reminders of baseball other than above ground dugouts, but they were covered with what Wick called “an incurable disease of tree root whiskers.”
He wandered among the bluff’s ruins with stick in hand atop old furniture limbs and piles of dirty clothes. He was a vulture in need of a carcass to conquer. Wick was chained to this routine like a couch potato to a couch or a runner to the road.
Sheerksin Bluff was not a popular destination. It was a place for lovers or junkies to hide out. The sound Wick heard one day was too many voices. Something was not right. He poked his head through a fan of leafy branches and wished he hadn’t because what he saw disgusted him. There were bats and balls and two teams and to make matters worse, a freckle faced girl playing keystone combo flip with a man wearing a patch over his eye and was that a cigar dangling from his mouth?
Baseball returning to the Bluff was bad enough, but this church choir girl impersonating the gas house gang with a man blowing a blues harmonica sent Wick over the edge. Too much east and west dancing side by side. Wick’s lips began to move on their own.
He slid quietly to the bottom of the hill and stared at the Enstant River rippling in the sun. The reflection looked like glass shards and it soothed him, but the sound of leather smacking leather up above was fingers down the chalkboard. Wick curled up like a sow bug, surrendering to sleep’s sweet escape.
But there was no way out. Wick dreamed of a floating camp fire log and when he awoke, the image lodged in his mind. Was it a relic from a forgotten people? A sirloin steak? The burnt foot of a bear?
Wick’s mind had turned into a buffet table of possibilities. His certainty had vanished POOF! Poisoned by choice! He felt like a ghost in his own life. He curled back up and begged for more sleep. The Wick had been snuffed out.
If only Wick were real and he was in Minnesota this past weekend. The Brewers may have the worst record in baseball, but their fans were louder than the first place Twins fans. Wick would have loved to hear them muted on their home turf.
Target Field may be spacious, but the Brewers keep hitting home runs, three more Friday night and one on Saturday. Two wins in a row. A Sunday shutout by Mike Pelfrey spoiled what would have been the Brewers first sweep of the season.
But Monday brought a win against Pittsburgh, a combined 2-0 shutout after two long rain delays. The Pirates struck out six times with runners in scoring position, but details aside, the Brewers are 21-37 and officially over the Cleveland Spiders 1899 hump of 20 wins. Next up the 1890 Pittsburgh Allegheneys and their 23 wins.
brewers baseball and things 