nice home,” I said.
He smiled but didn’t look up. He was focused on the tea cup in front of him.
“Thank you for letting me stay here.”
Another smile, but still he didn’t look up.
“Are you sure everything is alright.”
He looked up. “How is your tea?”
“It’s great. It’s wonderful,”
“Be honest with me Jimmy.”
“I am. It’s great tea. There’s a little citrus in there I think.”
He looked down again. “You’ve had better, I’m sure.”
All tea tasted the same to me, but the conversation was already uncomfortable. “I don’t think I have had better.”
He looked up quickly. A suspicious glare in his eyes. “You must have.”
“Why?”
“Jimmy you’re a Chinaman.”
I looked hard at him for a moment. “Yep, we covered that.”
“But you know the saying ‘all the tea in China’”.
I smiled, and waited for him to smile back. His smile never came. He had a wondering, quizzical look on his face that told me his reasoning made perfect sense to him. My smile awkwardly drained from my face.
“I suppose there is quite a bit of tea in China, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve consumed a lot of tea.”
“I’m sorry, you must think I’m a turkey.”
“No problem. This is very good tea. Smooth,” I lied.
“Is it?” he asked, a tiny smile finally tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“It is.”
We sat like this for the better part of twenty minutes. The conversation wasn’t easy, and there were several stretches of silence that lasted for what seemed like an eternity. He finally asked me about the job, and the team. I was eager to talk to someone about my pending adventure, so I jumped right in.
“I’m looking forward to getting started.”
“First game is tomorrow, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I’m a little nervous, but I’m looking forward to it.”
He was making solid eye contact now. “I’m surprised that you didn’t arrive in town before today. Are you going to the stadium today . . . to practice or whatever?”
“No, I’d originally planned on it, but they called me and told me just to show up for the first game, and that we’d go from there. I’m a bit surprised they didn’t want me to show up a few days earlier, like you said.”
“Hmmm. That is a bit odd. Do you know what you’re doing? Have you ever done play by play before?”
“I’ve listened to quite a bit of baseball on the radio. A ton actually.”
“But you’ve never done it yourself?”
I paused for a second. “No.”
“So do you know what you’re doing?”
“Not really.”
He smiled at me, as if to give me a little credit for being honest, and then added kindly “You’ll do fine.”
“Thanks Horace.”
He stood, and started to reach for my tea cup and saucer, his hand shaking as he did. I rose.
“Let me clear these Horace, it’s the least I can do. These cups are very nice.”
“My best china,” he said. He looked down, and then slowly raised his head. His hair was white, cropped close, thinning a bit at the front. He had dark eyes that were noticeable if only because they were pronounced against his pale skin. They were pointed at me through the large glasses. “No offence,” he added, a mischievous smile more evident than he may have wanted.
It took me a second before I clued in to the joke he’d made. “Ha. None taken.”
The next day I woke up just after six, showered, dressed in a comfortable pair of tan chinos and a green golf shirt, and made my way upstairs. I was startled as I came up the stairs and stood at the entrance to the kitchen; Horace was busy cooking eggs, bacon and pancakes, and was wearing a bright red apron that had “CHEF” written across the front in white lettering—it was the apron that startled me.
“Jimmy the chinaman. Good morning.”
“Morning,” I said, a little surprised that the whole “chinaman” thing was still . . . well, a thing.
“Game starts at two doesn’t it Jimmy?”
“Yeah,” I said and turned my attention towards the stove. “Something smells good.”
“What time are you leaving at?”
“Thought I’d leave around half past eleven. Thought I’d take a cab. Shouldn’t take more than five minutes by cab right?”
“Yeah,” he said and paused a moment, and then turned towards me. “I’d drive you, but they took my license,” he said, his voice petering out into a whisper.
“Sorry to hear that,” I said and wondered why he’d had his licence taken away. For a split second, I contemplated that he’d been in an accident of some sort, and then looked up at him and saw the large glasses, and his stooped posture, and the licence thing made sense. “I’ll be fine. Gives me about two and a half hours to figure out what I’m doing.”
Horace brought a plate full of fried breakfast food and a cup of coffee over and set it in front of me, and then sat across from me with a single piece of dry toast and a very small glass of orange juice. I was a bit embarrassed, and I thanked him several times, before digging in. We ate; me heartily, him like a bird, and made small talk, none of it very substantial or deep. I wanted to ask him about his wife but thought better of it and stayed within the confines of baseball and broadcasting. He really had a deep respect for Howard Gold, and seemed to enjoy talking about him.
“You haven’t even met Howard yet have you?” Horace said, his wide open eyes magnified behind his glasses.
“Not yet. I’ll probably meet him a couple of hours before we go on the air. Seems crazy,” I said just before shoveling a fork full of fried egg into my mouth.
“He’s great. He’s old school like me.”
I looked up from my plate and smiled, still chewing. “Oh yeah, you’re an old school type of guy are you Horace.”
“Yeah, especially when it comes to sports.”
“Did you play baseball at all?”
“Yeah, when I was young.”
“Who’d you play for?”
“Well, I didn’t really play for one team. We just played at the playground back when we were young; in Chicago.”
“Right.”
“It wasn’t organized or anything. It was just a couple of us . . . from the neighbourhood . . . in Chicago,” he said looking down at the table.
I nodded and wished I hadn’t asked him who he played for, and then realized the obvious link to Howard Gold. “Right, you’re from Chicago; that’s how you know about Howard.”
“He did the Cub’s games back when we lived there. He was so smooth and cool and knew so much about the Cubs. We loved him.”
His use of the word “we” almost caused me to ask about his wife but I held off again. “Well I hope he has patience with me. I’m a little nervous about just meeting him let alone working with him today.”
“You’ll be fine. He’s a class act. He’ll treat you well—I know it.”
And so we continued to chat, and eat, and then I helped him clean up and returned to my room to go over some information on the team that I’d brought with me. At about eleven, I called a taxi and received good wishes from Horace and ventured out into the world of broadcasting.
To suggest my first broadcast was a bit rough, would be to understate things. The Bull Frogs play their home games at Cooper Field, named after Marshall Cooper, the first owner of the team back in the late 1950’s. The stadium is on the eastern edge of the city of Staynor, about a five minute car ride from Horace’s place. Unfortunately my cab driver, a large muscular man with what I assumed was a Russian accent, had a habit of turning his head completely around to face me as we spoke, and so, not surprisingly, he ran into the back of a small mail truck. There was yelling, and swearing, and almost a physical altercation, all of which was of no interest to me, but then the police a
rrived, and I was told I’d need to give a statement. This took longer than it usually does on television, and my pleas and explanations about having to get to the stadium to go on live radio seemed not to impress anyone, and so I was late to work on my first day as a broadcaster. I arrived in the middle of the first inning.
I met my landlord’s idol on live radio, and for the next two and half hours he berated me like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Admittedly, I made mistakes. When I thought I had something interesting to say; a statistic about a player, or a general thought about what one of the managers might be thinking, I’d blurt it out and try to start a conversation; like the pros do. By the end of the game, Howard was reaching over and turning off my microphone in mid-sentence and exhaling loudly as if to underline his frustration. Immediately after the game, he let fly an expletive laced tirade in my direction, and suggested I not return the next day. After he’d left, and he left quickly, the program manager, a middle aged tough looking woman named Lucy, made me promise that I would return and ensured me that things would get better.
It was early evening when I arrived at Horace’s house. He’d given me a key to the side door, which allowed me to access my room in the basement without having to disturb him. I was shell shocked from my experience with Howard, and wanted to go directly to my room. I slowly opened the door, trying not to make any sort of noise. He was standing on the other side of the door. The giant glasses pointed right at me.
“What happened Jimmy?”
“What do you mean?”
“Jimmy.”
I let out a long sigh. “I told you that I hadn’t done any broadcasting before.”
He looked down at his toes, and then back up at
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