When the whistle hit the bar with a dull, metallic thud, I knew Plan C was worse than Plan B. Plan B was to get off the Kennedy, which on this Friday afternoon resembled I-75 heading out of Atlanta after the Zombie apocalypse. It was simple—just get off at Touhy and drive east until I could find a reasonable alternative heading south. Either I was one of many great minds thinking alike or there was simply no way to reach work by quitting time.
That is when Plan C—in the form of some non-descript vaguely Irish pub—appeared. Stopped at red light, I saw a Cubs game above the sparsely populated bar. I could call my boss Brad and lament the terrible traffic until he told me not to worry about coming and wish me a good weekend. Besides, there was parking right in front. As a borderline agnostic, this was as close as I was to come to a sign from above. God nodded his assent as I got Brad’s voice mail that announced he was out for the afternoon. What’s good for the goose, right? So much for giving 110% 24/7/365 and whatever nonsense was at the bottom of Brad’s emails.
I forgot the bar’s name by the time my eyes adjusted to the gloom. There were four men, including the man standing behind the bar. A row of three high boy tables waited in vain for a crowd that would never appear. At the far end of the bar, an old man nursed a pilsner-glass while annoying the bartender with his constant complaints about everything. Opposite him was a thirty-something man drinking a can of Diet Pepsi while eying the taps that were apparently off limits to him.
Then there was the coach. From bottom up: Nike running shoes that never did anything but walk, bulbous sweatpants and matching sweatshirt with the name of a local high school emblazoned on the chest. The mascot was distorted due a distended stomach, partially supported by the bar’s brass railing. His only other adornment was a whistle on a lanyard dangling from his neck, surrounded by a halo of drool.
I was completely anonymous in a bar I would never visit again. It was the closest I would come to being invisible and thus free of my constant companion—Irrelevance. I would enjoy a beer or two and watch the end of the Cubs game without the need to engage in conversation or even think. The bartender poured me a beer without asking.
The beer was nondescript, but cold. The Cubs were down to the Cardinals by one in the bottom of the ninth. Two outs. Kris Bryant was up with a 1-1 count. Remarkably, I didn’t interpret the Cubs as a referendum on myself. My thoughts were flat line until the metal whistle hit the bar and a being a great heft plopped on the stool next to me. I didn’t have to look over to know who invaded my oasis. If I were a dog, I would be an American Blowhard Pointer.
Despite my silent cringing prayers, he spoke. “That Bryant kid has ‘it.’” He punctuated the sentence with an elbow to my ribs, just in case I could not tell he was talking to me. I swiveled my stool and surveyed him. He guzzled whatever was left in his mug, with two rivulets of saliva cascading down his chins.
“You play?” he asked, priming himself for disappointment.
“Play?”
“Baseball? You play?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so. I can always tell a player. And before you ask, it has nothing to do with having physique. I had this student once. Adnan. He was from either Iraq or Iran. The one we didn’t fight. It doesn’t matter. Adnan showed up at the first day of spring training, wearing dress shoes, khakis and a polo shirt. Poor kid. He had never held a baseball. I looked him up and down and I said: ‘Adnan, I don’t care if you can hit or throw. What I care about is effort and attitude. You give me everything every day and I won’t cut you. And you know what? That boy played all four years for me. True, he held a bat like he was playing golf. He couldn’t throw at all and shagging flyballs was an adventure. When I used him as a pinch runner, he ran like he was ducking a sniper. But I didn’t care. You know why?”
He raised one of his eyebrows until it looked like one caterpillar was sodomizing another. He obviously had nothing better to do than to wait for me to say something.
I took a leap. “Because he had it?”
He jammed a thick index finger into my chest until it hurt. He punctuated each word with a poke. “He. Had. It. I could only pray that the rest of my players had a dollop of Adnan’s It.”
“God damn it,” he said, looking up at the television on which Kris Bryant had just swung at ball in the dirt. “What the hell was he thinking? He can’t lay off the breaking stuff. He guzzled half of the mug, looked at his watch, and looked around. “Screw it. It’s the weekend. I don’t need to spew this crap until Monday.”
“Tell the truth, Adnan wasn’t worth a damn. I know we are supposed to tell stories about kids like Adnan who got by on desire only. But what I would give for a team of Seth, my star pitcher. He has more talent in the pinky of his non-pitching hand than Adnan has in his fat body. But I have to keep pointing at because ‘It’ matters.” He made air quotes with his Vienna-sausage fingers. “Between you and me, it is just the caboose for S.H., if you get my drift.” He lifted his mug and drained it. “I was spelling “shit.” In case I didn’t get it.
“It didn’t used to be this way. When I was a kid, the good ones played and the bad ones never made the team. But not anymore. We are all winners. Hooray! Who cares if we lose in the process.” He motioned for another mug. The bartender looked like he was debating the revenue versus liability.
“You’ve always been a bencher. Am I right? I’ve been doing this so long that I can tell with just one look.” His head bobbled up and down, his tongue lolling about like a mongrel with fleas. He narrowed his eyes as if he was seeing multiple me’s and managed to land his fat index finger just above my left nipple. “You. Are. A. Bencher. I wouldn’t be surprised if your keester is full of splinters. Am I right? You are a bencher, aren’t you?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “I knew it. A bencher, pure and simple.” He crossed his arms over the medicine ball he called a stomach.
I plotted the line from “shut up, you fat fuck” to where I punch him in his ruddy, pudgy face. But I didn’t do anything. The same phrase was running around my head like a squirrel caught indoors. “A Bencher.” Was he right? I could look at the long list of triumphs in my life, and unlike my disappointments, they seemed handed to me out of pity. The academic award for a solid B average. A certificate of appreciation from the boys’ basketball team for excellence in stacking basketballs after practice. A dingy gold ring because staying married was easier than a divorce. Finally, several rumpled business cards that identified me as a senior sales manager at a mid-tier medical supply company with no junior salespeople.
He reached over and rubbed his stubby fingers in my hair like raccoons rutting around the garbage. “Don’t worry. There’s nothing you can do about. Some are born with it and most aren’t. You have a whole bunch of company. He motioned with his chins at the others in the bar. “No one here is going to set the world on fire here either. Adnan? I hear he is working for some accounting firm. Don’t know if he is a success or not. At least he was good at sitting down.” He looked down at my butt on the stool and said nothing. He held up his near-empty mug and shook it. The remaining beer sloshed like stale dreams.