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Chapter 1: The Friendly Confines
 By Jim Caple |
Previously at 24 College Avenue: One year after meeting Magdalena in Prague while leading tour groups for “Europe in a Backpack,’’ State College junior Josh Williams has taken a summer job with the company’s sister group, “America in an SUV.’’ He and Magdalena are leading tour groups to some of the country’s most important historic sites. . . . Mandy Stevenson is a beautiful blonde with the red Devil Hotties, State College’s famous cheerleader and dance team. She was forced to move into 24 College Avenue when she was kicked out of her sorority for supplying booze to an underage pledge. . . .
Josh couldn’t believe it. He had been to dozens of baseball games in his life and never had so much as a foul ball hit within two sections of him. Yet not only was a home run ball now sailing toward him on a majestic parabola, it was a home run off the bat of The Asterisk.
The Asterisk had a name like every other player when he was much younger but because of widely-held suspicion that he bulked up with the use of banned performance enhancers – his head was said to have grown three cap sizes in the past two seasons alone – he became known only by the nickname a columnist gave him after the slugger had blown off an interview. “From now on, we should only refer to him as The Asterisk,’’ the columnist wrote. “Because every home run this cheater hits should be marked with a big, red, neon Asterisk to document that they are all tainted.’’
The name stuck, not that The Asterisk cared or even noticed. The secret of his confidence and success was that he never cared what other people thought of him. Well, that wasn’t quite true. He did care, only he used the criticism as motivation. Indeed, the more people referred to him as The Asterisk, the more frequently he hit home runs. Amid all the controversy and the hysteric sports talkshows, he was closing in steadily on the all-time home run record. Despite his 43 years of age, he had 17 home runs this season and 751 for his career.
And now home run No. 752 was coming right to Josh. Greedy fans fought their way to the ball but it was no use. Josh was surrounded by two dozen Europeans on his “America in an SUV’’ tour of the most important U.S. cultural sites and all 24 were oblivious to the significance of the home run. Without trying, they successfully blocked anyone else from getting near the ball.
Magdalena squealed with delight as the ball landed in Josh’s cupped hands, then hugged and kissed him. “This means you are on the team, yes? That you will get to go on the field now?’’ Josh shook his head and laughed. He was too excited to notice her kisses or the stinging pain in his hands. As he studied the home run ball, all he could think of was the money he would earn selling it on-line. His student loans would no longer be a concern. His worries that his English degree wouldn’t translate into a decent-paying job were melting away.
Josh handed the ball to Magdalena and urged her to place it in her purse. “Protect that baby,’’ Josh told her. “That’s worth a couple hundred thousand dollars.’’
“Why?’’ she asked.
“Because some moron collector will pay through the nose to own a piece of history.’’
Josh was thinking about buying 24 College Avenue and furnishing it with bean bags chairs, a giant scoreboard on one wall and a wet bar in every room when the fans began chanting, “Throw it back! Throw it back! Throw it back!’’
Throw it back? Josh laughed. There was no way he was throwing back this meal ticket.
“Throw it back! Throw it back! Throw it back!’’
“What is this ‘Throw it back?’” Magdalena asked. “I thought you say that fans pay hundreds of thousands of dollar bills for these baseballs.’’
“They do,’’ Josh said. “It’s just that it’s tradition at this ballpark to throw the opposing teams home runs back onto the field.’’
“Why? Does the run home not count if they throw it back?’’
“No, it still counts.’’
“Then why?’’
“Well, it shows you don’t have any respect for the other team.’’
“How?’’
“It just does, Magdalena. Take my word for it. It just does.’’ Geez, Josh thought. This is like explaining the infield fly rule. How do you explain what Cubs fans do so that it makes sense to a European? Almost nothing Cubs fans do even makes sense to Americans. For that matter, why did Magdalena always have to ask so many questions? Sitting next to her all day was like being in a political science class. Why does the candidate with the most votes not always become president? If Americans feel so patriotic that they plaster their SUVs with U.S. flags and “Support Our Troops’’ stickers, why do they drive such gas-guzzling vehicles that increase the country’s dependence on Middle East oil? Why do the news programs always try to frighten Americans by emphasizing stories about crimes that almost never happen? Why do American parents give their children horribly violent video games but freak out if a singer’s nipple is exposed on TV? Why does water cost more than milk? For crissakes, couldn’t she ever just chill and just go with the flow?
“Throw it back!’’ the chants continued, louder and angrier each moment. “Throw it back! Throw it back! Throw it back!’’
“I will not,’’ Magdalena said. She felt the stubborn Czech pride that fueled the Velvet Revolution rise in her body. She was tired of Americans thinking they had the right to order everyone around, to act as if Europeans should bow before them just because of their parents’ and grandparents’ sacrifice in World War II. What did Americans know of sacrifice? Did they see their cities bombed night and day for years? Their own civilians killed in the tens of thousands? And where were the Americans when the Nazis took over her beloved country without a protest from her supposed allies? To be frank, she felt more than Czech pride, she also felt the effect of a half-dozen Old Styles and a long afternoon baking in the hot Chicago sun. She stood up and shouted defiantly to the fans around her. “No, I will not throw back ball! America cannot always have his way! You and your president can go to hell! I will keep ball as souvenir!’’
The crowd roared with disapproval and its chanting grew louder and more menacing. Throw it back! Throw it back! Throw it back! Throw it back! Throw it back! Josh turned nervously to look for security guards but he only saw a fan giving him the finger. “Hey @#&%!’’ the fan yelled. “Show some balls and tell your @#&% @#&% of a Commie girlfriend to throw the @#&% back on the @#&% field!’’
A burly man in a torn “1908 World champions’’ t-shirt was storming down the aisle toward him. Another angry man in a filthy “Wrigley Field Naked Beer Drinking Team’’ t-shirt was pushing aside the tour group from the other direction. A grandfather threw a AA battery and hit Josh in the nose. A mother of three tossed her beer in his face. A bottle of vodka smashed at his feet. A shirtless man with a blue B painted on his chest (he was part of a four-man C-U-B-S spellout) grabbed at Magdalena’s hair and yanked hard, snapping her head back violently. “Throw the @#&% ball back you @#&% Commie whore slut bitch!’’ he snarled as Magdalena screamed.
Panicking, Josh grabbed the ball from Magdalena’s hand and whipped it to the outfield with all his might. He felt an awful ache in his gut as he realized he had just thrown away a lifetime of financial security and then felt an even worse pain as he watched the baseball strike The Asterisk in the back of the head and knock him to the ground.
# # #
Mandy hated everything about Band Camp, beginning with the location. Rather than hold the weeklong camp on campus as every other school does, Red Devils marching band director Milton Davenport held his at an actual campground. He said it promoted unity. Mostly, it provoked a lot of bitching.
Camp Devil Lake was a mosquito-filled boy scout camp three hours from State College and beyond cell phone coverage. There also was no electricity in the camp, so after the first day, everyone’s laptops, DVD players and iPods were out of juice and useless (though it was well-known that Davenport had a generator in his lodge that allowed him to watch a well-stocked library of porn on his computer).
So what did they do all day? They woke at 7 (“an obscene hour,’’ Mandy felt), ate scrambled eggs for breakfast then practiced for eight, long, exhausting hours. By the end of the day, Mandy was ready to hurl. Not from the workouts -- the cheerleaders rehearsed their dance routines and pyramids which was hot and sweaty and tiring but what made her want to hurl was listening to the State College fight song along with “Tequila,’’ “Birdland,’’ “Louie, Louie’’ and other marching band standards played over and over and over and over and over.
Because there was no electricity, the band members amused themselves each evening by sitting around a fire by the lake, breathing in awful smoke and drinking and telling stories from their previous bowl trip (“Remember when we caught Bonzi doing it with his trombone in the hotel room?’’) and talking about what they were going to do at their next bowl trip. Eventually they would start telling ghost stories that were supposed to scare them. Just that evening, a tuba player had told some lame tale about how there was a man in a hockey mask with a hook for a hand who had been prowling Camp Devil Lake for years, killing at least two dozen victims by ripping his hook through their eye sockets.
“Really, I swear it’s true,’’ he told them. “He even killed a cheerleader here 11 years ago. They found her in her underwear down by the lake.’’
“That is such bull@#&$,’’ Mandy said. “Do you really think we’d still be coming here every summer if someone had been killed? And why are the victims always blonde cheerleaders in their underwear? Why does he never kill fat, zit-faced trombone players like you?’’
This burst silenced everyone until one of the drummers shouted, “Even if you were a @$%&ing serial killer why would you want to see a tuba player in his underwear?’’ They all thought this was hilarious and laughed until Mandy wanted to puke again.
God, Mandy thought, the band members were all such geeks.
She was thinking this as she lay on her bunk, her blanket kicked down at her feet and wearing nothing but her underwear and a tanktop. On top of everything else, Camp Devil Lake was so hot and humid that sleeping was virtually impossible. If you slept in your underwear with all the blankets off, you could possibly stay cool enough to sleep for a couple hours. But if you did that, the mosquitoes would feast on your body and the boy scouts would peek into the bunkhouses and play with themselves as they watched you sleep.
The mosquitoes weren’t the problem at the moment. Right now, Mandy needed to go to the bathroom really, really bad and the only place to do so was in the outhouse. And it was the outhouse stench and filth that prompted Mandy to hold it before going to bed in the hopes she could make it through the night. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Her bladder was so close to bursting that she dashed out the cheerleaders bunkhouse without pausing to put on her shorts first, not even worrying about boy scouts seeing her in her panties.
Being careful to not actually touch the outhouse seat, she squatted over the hole and relieved herself. As she reached for the toilet paper, she noticed in the moonlight that there was a well-worn copy of Maxim.
“Disgusting,’’ she said.
Just then she heard a low moaning that sounded vaguely animal-like. Mandy suddenly wondered whether there were any bears at Camp Devil Lake.
She continued to hear the moaning as she hurried back to the bunkhouse, glancing over her shoulder periodically for a bear or a cougar or whatever. She could see nothing, however and stopped worrying when she reached the bunkhouse screen door. Mandy reached down to turn the doorknob, only to see that there was something dangling from it.
A large sharp hook.
Pathetic, she thought, just pathetic. The fat tuba player thought she was going to fall for such a stupid trick? What a geek. She removed the hook and tossed it aside.
And that’s when she saw the pool of blood oozing from under the door.
Mandy started screaming when she felt the dry, wrinkled hand on her shoulder.
# # #
“Marcus just sent text massage,’’ Magdalena said from the passenger seat. “He ask if Chicago police still beat college students over head.’’
Josh raised his middle finger and kept his eyes on the road. He wasn’t anywhere near ready to joke about what happened yet.
After the baseball struck The Asterisk in the head, the police were on top of Josh almost before the ballplayer fell to the ground. They forced him facedown into the aisle, roughly cuffed his hands behind his back and dragged him out of the bleachers. “Where were you guys when I was being attacked?’’ he complained, which prompted the officers to “accidentally’’ bump his head on a support beam.
“Got anything else to say @#&$?’’ one of them said.
Josh had heard all about the historic ballpark’s ivy-covered brick walls, its hand-operated scoreboard and its intimate seating but no one ever told him about the jail cell underneath the bleachers for unruly fans. Then again, the jail probably wasn’t a big selling point to potential fans. When the police removed the handcuffs and pushed him into the crowded cell, Josh stumbled in a puddle of vomit.
“What are you in for?’’ asked a drunk wearing a tattered t-shirt that read, “They Can Install Lights When They Can Pry This Bottle Of Old-Style From My Cold, Dead Fingers.’’
“I hit a player in the head with a baseball,’’ Josh replied, wiping the vomit from his face.
“Damn, I should have thought of that,’’ the drunk said. “When they blew that five-run lead in the fifth, I charged the pitcher but they tackled me before I could get to the mound.’’ The drunk paused. “These guys are going to be the death of me yet.’’
Fortunately for Josh, The Asterisk wasn’t hurt by the baseball, just stunned, and he was able to stay in the game. Had The Asterisk been seriously injured, it’s doubtful that the police would have listened to Magdalena’s desperate pleas that Josh had not intended to hit the player with the ball but only threw it to stop the angry fans from attacking her. “Pretty nice aim for a guy not trying to hit anything,’’ a suspicious officer said, “If he wasn’t throwing the ball at him, then how come he hit him right in the head?’’
“With a head as big as The Asterisk’s, how could I miss?’’ Josh offered in his defense.
The officer reluctantly admitted Josh had a point. Eventually, the team decided not to press charges and released him.
The whole affair took so long that it was too late to take the tour group for the promised trip to the Chicago Art Institute. Magdalena had her heart set on seeing the Impressionist collection, especially Saurat’s “Sunday Afternoon in the Park,’’ and she had bitched about missing it for two solid hours, as if it was Josh’s fault. Maybe, he thought but did not dare say, you would have preferred I hadn’t done anything and let the fans would have beat you senseless? Leading the tour with Magdalena had been great at the start – well, not the tour so much as all the sex – but lately Josh had to admit Magdalena was getting on his nerves with all her questions about America. How come America is the only country to ever use nuclear weapons but feels it can decide what other nations are “safe’’ to have them? How come Americans are so fat? How come they never walk anywhere? Why is there a team called the Jazz in Utah and a team called the Lakers in Los Angeles? Worse, she also got jealous every time he spoke with Analise, the alluring French student who made Josh wonder whether tying himself down to a steady girlfriend was a wise move at age 22.
The tour group spent the hours until Josh’s release by drinking in a bar across the street from the ballpark. By the time Josh had been released, the group was nearly passed out. Which wouldn’t have been a problem except several were still conscious enough to begin throwing up as soon as Josh pulled onto the Dan Ryan, filling the SUV with an overwhelming stench.
Actually, it wasn’t so much an SUV as a converted military troop carrier that got eight miles to the gallon and handled like a bulldozer. It had been painted in embarrassing psychedelic patterns that indicated the company owner was overly nostalgic for the days of Ken Kesey . . . or the Partridge Family.
None of this helped with Josh’s mood as he crawled along in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Was traffic always bad in Chicago? And why the hell were they listening to NPR anyway?
“Could you find some music?’ Josh asked. “I’m sick of hearing the news.’’
“Yes,’’ Magdalena said. “Why be informed? We are in America. We must be entertained instead.’’
She shook her head with disgust and tuned the radio to a music station.
Had she waited just 20 more seconds, they would have heard a news report about a State College cheerleader missing from Devil Lake.
Next: The Velvet Rope Brigade
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