My name is Sammy and I am a despicable creature, no more important than a mouse or a mosquito, a good for nothing snot, no better than a scrap around the rim of a toilet bowl that refuses to flush. The only human being I talk to is Harold the crossing guard and just the other day, he moved to Oregon.
I think Harold moving is why I grabbed the glass turtle beside my bed and considered throwing it against the wall for a little smashed glass good luck, but before I could carry out my grandpa’s ancient practice, I walked outside and spotted a crow, hopping on weak feet, eager to pounce on road kill and I preferred that over any good luck charms. That crow inspired me with a hunter and gatherer attitude and this put a little oomph in my will, not the kind of will you write to give your stuff to people after you die, but rather, the will to do something and so I spray painted St. Pascals’ sidewall, drank malt beer behind the post office and rode a shopping cart down McGibbon’s Hill. I also bought an old boom box and blasted heavy metal music and road a bus downtown and tried my hand at a free vegetarian pot luck and felt so damn good after eating rutabaga that I attended a polka dance church festival and forgot what day it was.
And then one one morning my alarm clock didn’t sound and I took it as a sign and maybe it was paranoid delusion, but I spotted a never before seen bird and that inspired me to run around town and I’m kind of fat so running is not my thing but I ran and eventually stumbled on a pile of books in a back alley with a sign that said FREE. I guess a family was moving or feeling generous. I found a copy of the book Obscure Defenses by Erving Monclusive. It was about the martial arts and pretty much anyway to defend yourself and attack too.
I read the book before bed and upon waking, a chapter here, a chapter there. I skipped all the weaponry, pretzel like moves, and deep breathing, kung fu kick-somersault-Judo-chakra on and on. Instead, I dropped anchor on pages 77-88 and perused the “how to stink up the enemy” chapter, whether it be by halitosis or general body odor because a strong stench sent the opposition scurrying for greener pastures or pastors, sometimes both. And after weeks of not showering and rubbing coffee grinds on my armpits, I rode those city buses and felt like an untouchable because people didn’t want to sit anywhere near me and my stench and so I was awarded space and that got me thinking about outer space and life on other planets and places I would like to go.
I camped out beside dumpsters and when it was raining, I hopped inside and it worked wonders because of all those potato peels, marinades, and rotten milk. The entire city became my enemy and I guess in boxing speak, I was undefeated with multiple knockouts because no one came near me.
Some, however, did petition town hall, begging people in power to carry out the old Bobby Cox heave-ho, to get me kicked out of the city, banned, to never return, and it sort of worked. The local baseball team, the Cliftons, wouldn’t let me in the game, but that’s why I say “sort of” because the manager of the Cliftons, Ivan Fumigator, secretly turned a blind eye or blind breath. He seduced me with a bag of foul smelling compost into his less than perfect office….a half eaten hamburger on the desk and bags of open chips and ashtrays filled with butts. It was a little paradise to me and it’s where we discussed strategy, not so much euphus pitches or suicide squeezes, but a way to bottle my infamous smell and with the help of Henny the Chemist, we succeeded in transforming the smell into an invisible paste for Clifton pitchers to apply to the ball in that old game of doctoring and that ball went up and then down and then back up again and it ruined a batter’s concentration and though I was escorted out of the manager’s office and told to never return, for the first time in my life, I had a reason to be.
brewers baseball and things 