They called it a nerdgurgle.
Involuntary, more annoying to the kid whose body made the noise than the kids at the bus stop who tortured him about it.
Saw some specialists, conflicting opinions, no relief.
Bought a house on the edge of town, fixer upper, probably should have been a tear down, but Russell Gaillor wasn’t gonna let it be discarded.
In the walls he found some old Negro League scorecards. Stearns, Gibson,and holy holy Moses a Satchel Paige start.
He called a guy at Kerner’s Collectibles, contorted his torso so he wouldn’t do the nerdgurgle over the phone.
The scorecards got authenticated, Russell went to pick them up and Channel 4 was there.
Tony at Kerner’s introduced Russell to the reporter, Randi Rheaume.
Russell recognized her, though he never watched TV.
Pretty.
Big ring on her finger.
She briefed Russell on what they were gonna talk about.
See if Russell was gonna donate them to the Hall of Fame.
When he went to say “hell no” he realized he was speaking to Andrea Hartman and he loudly, almost vulgarly nerdgurgled.
Randi’s eyes widened.
“ I knew I recognized your name. Oh…Russ…We…we weren’t very… It’s nice to see you again. Ummm…”
Randi tapped her ear piece.
“I’m going to do a quick teaser, Russ, just smile and look to the right of Nick’s camera. Don’t say anything, just smile.”
“ A local homeowner gets a priceless surprise, we’ll have more after—“
Russell unleashed a colossal nerdgurgle.
His face was the red of the light on the camera.
He wanted to go home.
He wanted to slap Tony for telling the press.
Randi reached for Russell’s hand.
“Is there any way you can not do that?”
She said it sweet and soft.
Russell shook his head, felt like biting his lip bloody, going home and sanding the kitchen cabinets he made.
“Thirty seconds, Russ, that’s all.”
“No promises,” he said.
He knew the red hadn’t left his face.
Randi squeezed his hand.
“What do you do for a living now, Russ?”
“I write code for security software.”
“That’s how I’m going to intro you”
She nodded at Nick.
“ A local software engineer finds a priceless trove of baseball memorabilia and…”
Randi blanked. The silence was awkward.
Russell Gaillor leaned in, smiling at the camera, feet sweating.
“… and still nerdgurgles,” he said.
***
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School.
Even though it was a half-century ago, the memories exist.
How we deal with them is a different matter.
Great story!
Happens to me every time I get ready to record a story. It shows up on the screen as an explosion of red vertical lines. When the recording is finished, I go back and delete the red explosions. If real life only had a delete key, half of human history would not have been.