“I didn’t realize that heaven and hell coexisted in the same space. I always thought one was above and the other below,” I offered.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure I’m in heaven, but since you have that same haircut, you must be in hell.”
Jond shook his head. If anything was the bane of Jond’s life on earth, it had to be his haircut. It was, quite literally, a bowl cut. Once a month, on the second Saturday, as he sat in his kitchen, his mom put the bowl on his head and started to cut around it.
I tried to laugh, but I couldn’t even fake it. I just started to sob. How different would my life have been if Jond hadn’t died? How different would I have been if Jondrik had lived? How different . . . Wait. Only then did I realize that Jondrik didn’t have to die when Jond died. Jond may have died, but Jondrik could have continued in my memories. I should have gone to his funeral. Damn. I was just too young to understand that.
If I couldn’t live for the moment all those years ago, I could at least try now. For the first time in nearly four decades, I was sitting with my dog and best friend. And, dead or alive, that was a huge gift.
“Is there a ball around here somewhere?” I asked with a sly smile and a sniffle.
“Oh, I get it,” Jond joked. “You think, ‘Hey, this is heaven, so there must be whatever we want whenever we want it,’ huh?”
“Well, yeah, kinda,” I responded, amazed that our Jondrik routine just picked right up like no time was lost and nothing was weird. And that it wasn’t weird at all that I was nearly four decades older than him.
“It’s not quite like that, but I’m sure we can find one. Oh man! Remember when we stole one?”
I was feeling a little uncomfortable talking about broken commandments in heaven, but since we were already “here,” I guessed nothing too bad could come of it. It was the only thing I ever stole. And it was an emergency. We had a game to play with no balls to be found. I remember going back to pay the store owner weeks later.
On the far side of God’s pool, with an ocean view, was a huge, perfectly manicured lawn. It was surrounded on three sides by an equally well-maintained four- or five-foot hedge. Just high enough to create a kind of natural fence and low enough to see over. Or, better yet, just high enough to create the perfect outfield wall. If you hit the ball over the wall, it was lost. So, we called that an “out.” A home run was a ball hit into or onto the hedge on the fly. Much more difficult to do that.
To hit, we used a small replica LA Dodgers wood bat. No idea where that came from. Ira reappeared to umpire. Blondie roamed the outfield and was kind enough to bring the ball back to the pitcher without chewing it up too badly. Whatever teeth marks she made in the ball were used for extra movement on the pitches. A ground ball fielded cleanly was an out. A fly ball that landed in front of the wall, but beyond the big blue planter was a double. Just like old times. Except since we weren’t playing in the street, we didn’t have to let cars go by.
I threw that first pitch, and Jond crushed it. It settled perfectly on top of the hedge in center field. Home run. I was down 1-0 and couldn’t have been happier. I felt the same relief that I experienced during my walk through the aspen trees on the way to this house. I had carried the weight of Jond’s death for all these years without realizing it. I had somehow managed to blame myself for it. As if I should have known he had that defect. As if, because he was my best friend, I should have noticed it was there.
We have all these experiences in our lives that leave behind residue. Over the years it builds up to create sluggishness and weight. These experiences influence our decisions, which we often make unconsciously. Jond’s death created a void, and in this moment, I realized it helped me build a wall between me and other friends. What if they died suddenly too? I think I told myself I’d never be hurt like that again.
After twenty minutes, the first person to wander over from the pool was another kid, maybe twenty, twenty-one years old. He was tall and strong with long, straight brown hair and piercing blue eyes. A model, maybe. Or a young actor.
“Can I play?”
I had forgotten that other people were even here and hadn’t given any thought to opening our game, but it seemed like the perfect idea. Jond took one look at him and, without missing a beat, said, “He’s on my team!”
His name was Will, and Jond was smart to take him. Will had played baseball in college, and he told us that he died in an accident just before his first professional summer league assignment. Fuck me, was all I could think, but no words came out. Like prison. The inmates always asked each other what they were in for. Sort of the same thing here.
We were soon joined by Lynn and Emily and Stan and Habib. Then came Ben, Ashook, and Chantal. It wasn’t long before our game was the main attraction. We had two full squads, and our made-up rules gave way to more traditional baseball rules. Except for the home runs. You hit the ball over the wall, and you were out. We didn’t all speak the same language, but somehow when we spoke, we all understood. We didn’t all look alike, and not everyone knew how to play. None of that mattered. We all sensed that we belonged together in this moment. We all spoke with love.
The wizard was back, sat in a chair behind the action, and started calling the game like an announcer. He gave everyone nicknames. We were Shorty, Lefty, Red, Tiger, Skippy, Rex, Panther, Stripes, and so on. He found something we were wearing, something we did or even said, and it became our nickname. He looked right through me and called me “Hemingway.” Best nickname ever.
“Hemingway steps up to the plate with the bases loaded. Shorty is on the mound. The Gnome gives Shorty the sign to play ball. She rocks and fires. Curveball. Swing and a miss. Strike one. Red is playing very deep in left field, and Rex in center looks ready for action. The next pitch is on the way and . . .” It went on like this. Every pitch. Every batter. Except for Will.
When Will came to bat, the wizard didn’t give him a nickname. He knew that while we were playing for fun, somehow, this simple game meant something more to Will. He rattled off all of Will’s actual college stats. How he knew them was beyond me.
“Now batting, Willie Johansen. Willie, a tall lefty born to school teacher parents, is a lifetime .348 switch-hitting first baseman from small-town Iowa. He looks at a first-pitch strike from Stretch. It wasn’t until high school that Willie really started playing baseball after a concussion ended his football career. There’s a ball low. He was drafted by the Houston Astros out of the University of Nevada where he earned All-American honors. Ball two. That’s two balls and one strike on the tall lefty. This is the first time he’s held a bat since—”
Willie crushed one deep.
“There’s a long fly ball to the deepest part of the yard. Legs is going back to his right; he looks up, and it lands on top of the hedge! Home run!”
Willie jogged around the bases with a huge smile. After he crossed home, he immediately found me playing third. “Thanks. I haven’t taken a swing in a long time.” How did the wizard know? Was God messing with us?
First Ira. Then Jond. Now the wizard. I was a walking conspiracy theorist.
I could have played for hours, for days. I think we all would have. But we were interrupted by the dinner bell.
As the others streamed into the house, my legs were frozen in place. I simply could not move.
CHAPTER NINE
A man helps a young, out-of-town couple with directions to a nearby restaurant where he is also going. Something about them sparks his curiosity, so he discreetly picks up their tab without them knowing. The next day, the husband shows up at the man’s office for a previously scheduled job interview.
There was so much laughter as everyone made their way from the field into the house. So many smiles. Hugs, hands being held, people walking arm-in-arm. Just joy. Pure love. I wanted to go with them, but I couldn’t move my feet. I stood on the pitcher’s mound and watched everyone head into the house. I was stuck.
From my spot on the mound, I saw that the sliding glass doors were wide open, and a line of people poured onto the patio and wrapped around the pool. What is inside? Why can’t I make my feet move? Why can’t I go inside? Where are Ira and Jond? Doubt and fear overtook me and filled the space in my body and soul that was occupied by joy just moments earlier. What if this was all just a big joke and not really God’s house after all? What if I’m not in heaven? What if it is just a trap?
I had felt this way before. I’d felt it when I tried to write, and the words wouldn’t come. That feeling of fear was fueled by a question: “What if I wrote something wrong?” Really, it was more like, “What if I suck?” That kept the words inside.
These weren’t the questions that kept my feet from moving from the mound. Based on the circumstances, I was certain that whatever questions I had were a doozy. Oh, who was I kidding, I knew exactly what the questions were. Is this purgatory? Am I going to hell? I’d certainly made enough mistakes and hurt enough people in my life to earn that particular trip. I hoped I had judged myself enough to be saved from that fate.
Why couldn’t I just stay in joy? I often joked to myself that my spirit animal had become the Saber Tooth Tiger stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits. Why must I always question everything to such a degree that I become an unmovable object? Why did I let fear have such a strong presence in my life? And, why, why was it still here now? It’s not that I expected heaven to be a cure-all—actually, yes, that’s exactly what I expected. I expected heaven to be a cure-all for the problems I had in my life. But just like my breakdown in the garage before I saw Jond, my demons were truly alive and well. How is it that I died, but they lived? It didn’t seem fair.
The truth is, however, I thought I knew exactly why I couldn’t move, and it had nothing to do with whether I belonged in heaven or was going to hell. It was about the root cause of all the angst in my life. The core of my depression. The thing that always stopped me.
That first time I watched the cars, I ran away from home because my parents had a fight. One different from the fights they typically had. Sure, they screamed and called each other names. Yes, they tried to pretend they were “keeping it down so the kids wouldn’t hear.” But that one was louder. Meaner. There were more doors slamming and, for the first time ever, the sounds of things breaking.
That fight, according to the tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds upon hundreds of hours spent in therapists’ offices, was the fight that marked the end of my childhood. I was only seven, and from that day forward, my job was to take care of my mom. It was my job to make sure that she was never sad. It was my job to make sure she was never disappointed. I was afraid to show any happiness. I learned to lie. Love became undeniably conditional. If I did the right thing, I got love. From that day forward, it was my duty to take care of any woman who was feeling bad. It became impossible for me to ever hurt any woman’s feelings, even at the sake of my own.
