Chaos to the Fly 2
2.
Nine o’clock in the morning, Coach Vic and Coach Pete showed up for practice dead drunk and immediately began cracking open pony boy bottles of Little King Ale.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Brian said. “It’s nine o’clock in the morning, and they’re already bombed out of their skulls.”
“I can’t wait to grow up,” Milsap said.
Brian shook his head. “I thought you wanted to be a ninja. There ain’t never been one ninja with a beer belly. It’s all about self-discipline. Shit like that.”
“You’ve obviously never watched Drunken Master. There’s like a whole martial arts devoted to getting fucked up and throwing hands.”
Brian snorted derisively.
“It’s true. That’s why I figure I’ll learn the karate now. And judo. I’ll get good at that so when I’m old enough to drink legally, I’ll already have a solid background in the ways of kung fu. Then I can join the Arashikage like Storm Shadow and become the clan’s first drunken master codenamed ‘Shitfaced’.”
“Milsap!” Coach Vic hollered from across the diamond.
“Speaking of which,” Milsap muttered under his breath.
“Milsap!” Coach Vic stumbled his way from the third base side dug out. He got just past where Economou stood chewing on his glove. “Milsap! What the fuck you smirking at?”
Milsap stood near the pitching mound. He glanced at the guys he was holding court with. Brian, Wesley, and the new kid, Aguirre. They sure looked like they were smirking. Why should he be singled out?
“I ain’t smirking, Coach.”
“I’m looking right at your face, Milsap, and guess what? A big fucking smirk. You better not be smirking about what I think you’re smirking about.”
“How can I know what I’m smirking about if I don’t know I’m smirking, Coach?”
“You trying to get philosophical with me, Milsap?”
“Coach! I don’t know what I’m smirking at! I can’t control my face.”
“All right, calm down, Hollywood. I’m saying you better learn how to control it before you’re old enough to hit the bars. You know what happens to smirking philosophers at Mister Joe’s on a bad night?”
“Shit, even on a good night,” Pete slurred, stepping up beside his brother. “Coming into Mister Joe’s smirking and philosophizing.”
“With a reputation for stealing hood ornaments,” Vic added. “You end up getting your ass kicked up around your shoulders. That’s what happens. And, God willing, I’m the one doing the ass kicking.”
“Coach,” Brian interrupted “What do you want us to do? We gonna practice or what?”
Vic stumbled a bit trying to stand still.
“Yeah, play some baseball,” Vic said. “Go ahead, Brian. Hit the ball to these jackasses a little bit. Pretend it’s a game. Uhm… the play’s at first, so that’s where you’re going to throw it, you hear me? Play’s at first. Me and Pete’s gonna watch, give you jackasses some pointers.”
“Damn, man,” Vic mumbled to Pete as they slow-walked back to the dug-out and the breakfast beers that awaited them. “You’d think these goofy little bastards never practiced baseball before.”
Pete shrugged. “Guess Biedron wasn’t much of a coach before he checked out.”
“Wasn’t much of a firefighter, either,” Vic chuckled.
Brian lobbed the ball up and chopped a grounder to his younger brother playing a deep second base. Wesley fielded it cleanly and tossed the ball to Aguirre covering first. Aguirre threw the ball back into Milsap standing beside Brian. Milsap’s only concession to his position was the catcher’s mitt. Even nine o’clock in the morning, it was too fucking hot to armor himself in all the catcher’s paraphernalia. Also, Coach Vic forgot the equipment bag at his apartment and didn’t feel like running back to get it while he still had beer on ice.
Brian tossed the ball up and bunted it about eight inches in front of home plate.
“Goddammit, Brian,” Milsap sighed. “Really? It’s too fucking hot.”
Milsap trudged forward, grabbed the ball, set his feet, and threw a laser that sailed five feet over Aguirre’s head.
“Short little prick,” Milsap huffed. “Couldn’t even be bothered to jump for it.”
They watched Aguirre tear ass down the foul line, chasing after the ball until it stopped rolling ten feet away from Urbanzek who never noticed it.
“Brian Nixon and Ronnie Milsap.”
The duo looked over their shoulders at the kid speaking their Christian names.
“First of all, I don’t go by my first name. Ever.” Milsap said.
“And I don’t answer to my last name,” Brian added.
The Hayes boy behind the Chain-link fence backstop seemed nonplussed by how Milsap and Brian wished to be regarded.
Milsap studied the Hayes boy trying to figure out which one he was. He straddled the same patchwork bicycle Mickey rode the other day. That didn’t mean anything though. Milsap took them for a one bicycle family. He was fairly certain this wasn’t Mickey. There was a deadness to his eyes that his two younger brothers were still trying to catch up but hadn’t quite achieved.
“Dickey Hayes,” he said. “But mostly I answer to Slickey, so I get it.”
“Yeah.”
“About the name thing.”
“Gotcha,” Milsap said. “Good to know.” Perhaps for the first time all Summer, Milsap felt less like talking, more like playing some ball,
“I thought I’d try to find you guys before my brother did,” Slickey said.
“All right,” Brian said.
“Mickey, not Nickey,” Slickey added.
“We saw Mickey just the other day out behind Lake Powderhorn,” Milsap motioned toward the back end of Hermit’s Park, vaguely north.
“He said he saw you, too.”
“I wouldn’t think he’d know who I am,” Milsap said, not without a little pride.
“Everybody knows you’re a smartass hood ornament thief. I was there that one blizzard you skeeched off the back of twenty-seven cars in one night.”
“Twenty-eight all together. I got a conversion van on the way home. I grabbed ahold of the back ladder. I could have dragged behind that van all the way to Calumet City if I wanted.”
“It don’t count, you ain’t got a witness.”
“I know. But I know I did it.”
“Still don’t count. And Brian, you’re the Hammond Times paperboy on my street.”
“I don’t remember seeing a Hayes on my route.”
“You deliver to our neighbor. We just take the paper off the old lady’s porch. She never misses it.”
“You deliver papers?” Milsap said. He’d never heard Brian mention he had a job. Not once. And it seemed like the sort of thing you’d talk to your best friend about. It did explain his sudden disappearances and why he always had money in his pocket.
Brian shrugged, looked away.
“Anyway,” Slickey said. “Reason I’m here. Mickey sent me. He said he wants you to give it back.”
“What?”
“Give what back?” Milsap said. “His dignity? I barely got enough for myself.”
“What you took. He said he’ll give you to the end of the day to bring it back, and he’ll go easy on you. Every day you wait to make it right, though, it’s gonna be even worse for you.”
“Not sure how anything can get any worse for me,” Milsap said.
“What are you even talking about?” Brian said.
“Mickey said if you ain’t got it, if you sold it, he’d just take the money. Said, it was probably about twelve hundred dollars’ worth of plants you took.”
“I ain’t hardly got two dollars.”
“We didn’t take your dope plants,” Brian hissed.
Slickey’s beady eyes narrowed even further if such a thing was even possible.
“We got out of there the moment we saw your brother.”
“That’s not what he said. He said y’all lollygagged behind, waited for him to be gone.”
“Hey, kid, where’s your mitt?” Vic had managed to sneak up on them as stealthy as a runaway brewery with Pete a couple unsure steps behind him. “Why ain’t you out there practicing? I know you ain’t any good.”
“I ain’t on your team,” Slickey sneered.
Coach Vic willed his eyes to work better, or focus, or do something. He did this by closing his eyes, then opening them wide several times. Then rubbing them with his knuckles. “Uleki?”
“Uleki’s in centerfield,” Brian sighed.
“Huh.” Vic wobbled in place. “All you little jackasses look alike to me. I see you got a little earring stuck in your head like this one.” He motioned at Milsap. “I guess that makes you a little gay, too.”
“C’mon, Coach…”
“Relax, Milsap. I know you all see yourselves as badasss, little George Michaels running around here.”
Milsap and Slickey exchanged expressions of exasperated horror.
“Christ, what do we have here?” Pete said. “A rat tail hanging off the back of a mullet? Fucking hell. You know, my Uncle Bob, he useta wear a feathered alligator clip off the back of his skull and crossbones bandana. And I useta think that was the dumbest shit I ever seen.”
“Really?” Slickey said. “You’re gonna judge me and you looking like Hulk Hogan caught AIDS and fell into a box of Star Wars Colorforms.”
Pete reddened as Vic clutched his knees and guffawed.
“Nice try, you fucking weird ass looking little goblin. You can whisper your weak little putdowns into your little cry pillow when you’re remembering how Petermania ran wild all over you.”
“What?”
“It means, fuck off, kid.”
“Unless you wanna be on the team,” Vic added. “Fat kid like you oughta be able to hit the ball a country mile if you ever caught ahold of one.”
“I’ll pass,” Slickey said. “There’s about a million things I’d rather do than play tiddlywinks with you losers.”
“Well, then, go on, then,” Pete said, his eyes bulging like Hulk Hogan after taking one too many shots to the dome. “Run along and go do your million things. Go on, get.”
Slickey made some meaningful eye contact with Milsap and Brian before he pedaled away in the direction of Mister Joe’s Tap.
Pete side-eyed his brother for a long, uncomfortable moment.
“What?” Vic said. “Kid’s probably got a lot of wrist strength from wringing chicken necks or whatever those hillbillies do. Don’t look at me like that. He can’t be any worse than Economou.”
Pete shook his head. “Kid running his mouth like that, and you want him to join the team. I think we hit our quota on smart-mouthed assholes. Anyway, all I’m saying, there’s a bunch of weird ass kids running around these days. Kid looked half Eskimo. Back in the day, kids like that would have been drowned at birth.”
“We’re in super dark times,” Vic agreed. “Except musically. Musically, I think we’re doing okay. I’ve been listening a lot lately to that new Queensryche ‘Operation Mindcrime.’ Have you listened to that cassette I made for you?”
“Yeah,” Pete sighed. “I just didn’t get it. Who killed the nun?”
“Sister Mary.”
“Fuck, I don’t know. I guess. I didn’t understand shit. It’s supposed to be a story?”
As Vic and Pete walked a few paces away to hash out the story notes of Queensryche’s concept album, Brian batted the ball around the infield with an occasional flyball to the chuckleheads in the outfield when he could catch their attention. Brian’s heart just wasn’t in it. The coaches could sense his distracted mood and figured now was as good a time as any to call it quits for the day.
Coach Vic called the team to the center of the diamond. The Lukasic brothers stood side by side, though slightly askew as though attempting to form a V. Vic wore another Iron Maiden T-shirt, this one with the band mascot, Eddie, brandishing a hatchet, a wild shock of hair exploding away from his skinless, skeletal face. Pete wore his usual Harley Davidson T-shirt with the sleeves cut out, a riot of tattoos where his muscles should be.
Vic and Pete both crossed their arms across their chests. Both glared with glossy, bloodshot eyes at the Pirates as though each kid owed them their lunch money.
“All right, you jackasses,” Vic said. “That was a better practice. I noticed a couple of you even caught the ball now and again. Not you, Economou, and put your hand down, goddammit. It’s not question time, yet. And, no, I don’t want to hear about how bad it hurts taking a baseball off the love handle, okay? We’ve all watched you writhing on the dirt like a breakdancing gerbil.”
“I got a question, Coach.”
“Ah, Christ, Milsap. This better not be a jackassy question.”
“How many beers you think you drank this morning?”
“Okay, that one’s borderline. How many beers? See, the thing is, we were drinking eight-ounce pony boys, so those don’t really count as beers at all.”
“Yeah, only twats count breakfast beers,” Pete said.
“Yeah, I’m gonna hafta agree with my brother on this one. If they’re still serving Egg McMuffins at the McDonald’s, you can’t count the beers. So, that was a jackassy question, Milsap.”
“Well, I got another question. How many Iron Maiden T-shirts do you own?”
“How many? I’ll tell you what, Milsap. Next time you’re at home and your mama’s making Hamburger Helper, duck back into her bedroom, poke your nose in her closet and count the Iron Maiden shirts you see.”
“Dick.”
“That’s what you get for asking jackassy questions. So, now, I got a question. Are any of you all fucking, yet?”
Uleki said “each other?”
“What? No, c’mon, man. Any of y’all fucking girls, yet?”
After several silent beats where all the Pirates glanced uneasily at each other, a couple of them maybe realizing their fears were substantiated, that they should have been getting more action than none, Milsap finally took it upon himself to speak for the team. “Coach, we’re all like twelve years old.”
Pete said “I was knocking down ass when I was eight. And that’s without those gold George Michael earrings stuck in my head.”
“Back when you had a full head of hair, I bet,” Milsap mumbled.
Pete’s bloodshot eyes began bulging again.
“It was different times back then,” Vic pontificated as he often did with a skin full of booze. “It’s probably just as well for you sorry lot. Unfortunate-looking little bastards. Anyway, I see it as my responsibility not only to teach you how to catch a baseball before it bounces off your fucking faces but also school you in how to suffer this shitty life with as little humiliation and hassle as possible. You understand? I wish someone had taken me aside when I was your age and explained a thing or two to me. Maybe then I wouldn’t be working in a fucking factory, having to drink draft beer every time I go to the bar.”
Pete released a prolonged belch.
Vic wrinkled his nose. “Goddam, man. What is that? Waffles?”
Pete shrugged. He couldn’t remember the last time he ate waffles.
“Anyway, what I’m trying to tell you guys,” Vic said. “You need to spend more time on the game, less time worrying about how your gonna get your little tallywhackers wet. You do that, you just might stand a chance in this world.”
“Symanski,” Pete said. “This don’t concern you so much. Not with that corncob nose you got. You’re pretty well unfuckable. Sorry you gotta hear it like this. Some cats just unlucky that way.le jackasses of my own
“They all are, really,” Vic said. “No sense in singling Symanski out for having a nose like the dick of John Holmes’ corpse. And not in a good way. But, hell, even a blind squirrel finds a nut, sometimes. Maybe not a blind squirrel with a nose like a hemorrhoid on the end of a prolapsed anus. Yeah, there’ll be no nuts for you, Symanski. But what I’m saying is, you gotta be careful. Don’t let your little league careers get sidelined by a shot of leg. You know I had a high school sweetheart…”
“We ain’t in high school, Coach.”
“Shut up, Milsap. You’ll wind up there eventually, probably for five or six years. Unless you keep running that mouth. Taking hood ornaments that don’t belong to you. Anyway, you made me lose my train of thought.”
“You were giving us the sex talk for some reason,” Wesley said.
“Right. So, anyway, my high school sweetheart, she ended up running off with the manager of a McDonald’s. You believe that?”
“That they had McDonald’s back then?”
“Shut up, Milsap. Yeah, they had McDonald’s back then. White Castles, too. Cheeseburgers were like a dime.”
“Dang!” The Pirates looked incredulously at each other.
“But I’m telling you, that was the best thing that could’ve happened to me.”
“He says that,” Pete said, “but he couldn’t eat a Big Mac without crying for a solid hour.”
“Shut up, Pete. There was no crying. Very little crying. I will say this, though, to this day, I can’t smell French fries without getting a half chub. But it’s just as well she ran off with the Hamburglar. I’d probably have a couple jackasses of my own running around this field, bringing shame to the Lukasic name. Tell you the truth, I’m not sure that I don’t. Urbanzek looks a little familiar around the eyes, you got that brokedick, Lukasic trudge down pat as well. Sometimes I see you shambling around the outfield, I swear to God, I think I’m looking at Pete out there.”
Pete nodded. “There’s a pretty good chance your mom accused the wrong Polack.”
“I’m convinced,” Urbanzek said. “Can I have a couple bucks for a pop and some Doritos after practice, Dad.”
“That you’d even ask me for money disqualifies you from the possibility of being my blood. What are we even talking about? Oh, yeah. What I’m trying to tell you, one of these little league good time gals come sniffing around, wants to share a box of Jujubees with you or whatever the hell passes for courtship when you’re half-retarded, you tell them to go get fucked, just not by you fellas. You got your whole lives ahead of you to live without that kinda calamity. Jesus Christ, Uleki, quit raising your hand. What? What is it?’
“What do you do when you got them, and you’ve shared the box of Jujubees. Then what happens?”
“Well, then, Uleki, after you share your box of Jujubees, you resign yourself to the fact that it’s only going to be a short matter of time before she’s sharing her Jujubees with Symanski. Well, maybe not Symanski. That corncob nose is going to disqualify him from a lot of Jujubees. It’ll probably be Pena.”
Pena, the only player who’d taken a knee when the meeting began, glanced up from the grass, studying Vic with his dark, inscrutable eyes.
“Yeah, Pena will probably be the one you need to watch out for. He’s already got those dagger sideburns. And women are naturally curious about Mexicans. Regardless, Uleki, you can rest assured, you’ll be on the outside looking in before you fucking know it.”
“Oh.” Uleki looked crestfallen.
Coach Vic slapped his hands together and felt oddly jazzed that he didn’t miss. “All right. That’s practice, I guess. Don’t forget we have a game, when is it, Pete?”
“Thursday.”
“This week, Thursday?”
“What the fuck do you think?”
“Okay, game Thursday. Don’t forget your mitts and shit. Okay, go home and think about what I just said.”
As the Pirates dispersed, Vic put his hands on his hips, turned to his brother. “I don’t think they understood a fucking word I said.”
“It made sense to me.”
“Did it? I don’t know. What is it? The schools? Too much TV? They all act like they’re dumber than shit.”
“Maybe we were just ahead of the curve, brother.” Pete slapped Vic on the back. “In the end, you can’t teach them shit. You just gotta let them learn it. Or not.”
“I’m drunk,” Vic sighed. “But not so drunk that you’re making even the least bit of sense.”
“Mister Joe’s, then?”
“Mister Joe’s.”
Karl Koweski is a displaced Region Rat now living in rural Alabama. He writes when his pen allows it. He’s a husband to a lovely wife and father to some fantastic kids. He collects pop culture ephemera. On most days he prefers Flash Gordon to Luke Skywalker and Neil Diamond to Elvis Presley.
THE POLISH HAMMER POETRY CORNER is a weekly column, posted each Tuesday morning.
