The Boy and The Bear

Extra Innings

A gust knocked the old baseball hat off Garbeau’s head.

It bounced into the aisle and down three steps.

Garbeau just stared at it.

“Expect me to get that for ya?” Wratch asked.

Garbeau shrugged. 

“I feel like I’m breathing down the neck of my own obituary.”

The two friends always got last row tickets to the ballgame.

Except for opening day, and maybe when a Chicago team was in town, they usually had the whole section to themselves, how they liked it.

Wratch walked down the few steps and grabbed Garbeau’s hat. The sweat stains on the elastic looked like the waves on an angry blue and brown sea.

“You’re gonna outlive me,” Wratch said. “I can feel it.”

Garbeau put his hat back on, watched a batting practice home run sail into the right field seats, kids chasing it like it was a leprechaun with a pot of gold.

“Put a skylight in my granddaughter’s bedroom last week.”

“See,” Wratch said, “I couldn’t do that shit.”

“You know what she said to me?”

“The bikini model?”

Garbeau kicked his head back and exhaled like he expected to blow a cirrus cloud higher.

“No, no goddamnit. Ella, the little one. Elizabeth’s daughter.”

“You got like seventeen grandkids, ‘Beau, I can’t keep ‘em straight.”

Garbeau arched and cracked his own back

“The only one you ever bring up is Hannah.”

“The bikini model.”

“Yes, Wratch. That’s one of her jobs. The only kid you ever ask about. Old perv. I’m talking about Ella. She’s seven. She told Elizabeth she wanted a skylight in her room, so me and Tommy installed one. “You know what Ella said?”

“Measure twice, cut once?”

Garbeau laughed at that one. When the laugh dissipated he sat up and grabbed his pop from the cupholder on the seat in front of him. After a swig, he said “She said she wanted the skylight so she could look for me when I went to heaven.”

Wratch looked at a guy he had known since their teens. Looked away. Did a little memory montage in his head.

He shuffled his feet. Saw a beer vendor by the gate of the concourse, waved him over.

“It’s cute that she actually believes you’re going to heaven.”

“You know damn well I did all the bad shit before she was born. Elizabeth wouldn’t dream of telling her any of it.”

Wratch got his beer from the vendor. Took a deep pull, foam on his upper lip. Smiled at Garbeau. “We’re still alive, and still willing and able to pay thirteen bucks for a beer. I’d say we got lucky.”

Garbeau was silent, staring at the grounds crew giving the infield the last spraydown.

Wratch reached and patted Garbeau’s knee.“Your granddaughter really shook ya talking about you being gone, huh?”

Garbeau sipped his pop again, purposely took some ice cubes in his mouth and sucked on them.

“The rent-a-cop I shot at Northland in ‘81 died two days ago.”

The beer in Wratch’s hand trembled.

“No shit? I forgot the guy’s name.”

“Jablonski,” Garbeau said. “The obituary had a picture of him posed right by the statue…the kid on the bear. They mentioned the incident, of course.”

“They mention your name?” Wratch asked, thinking maybe he shouldn’t have.

Garbeau shook his head. “The gunman served fourteen years in the Southern Michigan Correctional Facility in Jackson. Something like that, anyway.  No name.”

“See, Garbs, you’re lucky. They coulda mentioned your name. He coulda died when ya shot him.”

Garbeau swallowed more ice from his pop, crunched it while he spoke.

“They listed the surviving family members,” Garbeau said, “like they always do. Guy had a granddaughter named Ella.”

Wratch patted Garbeau’s knee again.

“Forget about him, my brother. I bet he never put a skylight in that kid’s bedroom.”

***

Author’s Note:

For more thoughts on this story, read the accompanying piece “Northland”.

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