“Deep doodoo. Is that religious terminology?”
“It is in my congregation.”
“So what’s all this have to do with what Arnie and Nick are saying about the government?”
“Another scripture says, ‘Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's’.
“The world we live in is what it is, and we have to live within that structure while at the same time keeping our thoughts and actions as close to the teachings of God as possible. Remember the forehead and the hand.
“I think that the ‘watchers’ are doing two things. First they are making people aware of what is happening around them so that they can make informed choices, and second, they are holding Caesar, the government, accountable for its actions.
“From a theological standpoint, in a perfect world, people’s thoughts and actions would mirror the message of God, and by extension, our government which is made up of people would govern accordingly.”
“It would seem that we have a long way to go.”
“You can say that again!”
CHAPTER 11
Take me out to the baaaaal game
Take me out to the park
The song was rattling around in my head all day. Like Maggie, Ox had tired of my vocalizations and threatened to ask for a new partner if I didn’t cool it.
I have always been a big baseball fan.
When I was a kid back in the fifties, the Kansas City A’s were my heroes.
My family’s financial situation was such that we didn’t go to a lot of games at the old Municipal Stadium on Brooklyn Avenue, but I listened to almost every game on the radio.
Those were magical years for me.
Bill Wilson, Elmer Valo, Vic Power and Bobby Shantz were like old friends, but my real hero was left fielder, Gus Zernial.
Gus was the ‘hammer’ for the team. One year he was second in the American League with thirty home runs just behind the great Mickey Mantle.
One of the sure signs that you are aging is when you read about your childhood heroes passing on.
On Sundays, The Kansas City Star has a column called ‘Final Chapters’ where they list the deaths of famous movie stars, authors, sports heroes and other notables.
Not long ago, I found my childhood hero, Gus, listed there. He had died at the ripe old age of eighty-seven.
Seeing his name brought back a flood of wonderful memories of my youth and I silently said a little prayer, thanking him for those good times and wishing him well in the next life.
If there’s a baseball heaven, I’ll bet he’s up there, hitting some dingers for the Lord.
Like many of the kids my age, I collected baseball cards --- lots of them.
The Rodeo meat company included a Kansas City A’s baseball card in every package of hot dogs. I can’t tell you how many weenies my poor family had to eat that summer.
I mowed yards for extra money, which I promptly took to Mrs. Flood’s Candy Store to purchase the latest Topp’s Baseball Cards complete with the big wad of chewing gum.
As I look back over my life, I have few regrets, but if I could have any ‘do-over’, it would involve my baseball cards.
By the time I was a senior in high school, I had well over three thousand cards including the coveted Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio.
When I went off to college, I figured I was past all that kid’s stuff, so I gave my entire collection to the kid next door.
Dumb! That collection would be worth tens of thousands today.
All these thoughts were mushing around in my head as we prepared for the night at the ballpark.
Judy, Ox, Dr. Rhinehart and Amir were to meet at our building and we would carpool to the stadium.
Ox insisted on driving, so we piled in his SUV and headed to Kauffman Stadium on I-70 just east of Kansas City.
When we pulled into the huge parking lot, I told Ox that since he drove, I would take care of the parking.
I nearly fainted when the attendant said, “That will be fifteen dollars, please.”
Dr. Rhinehart had purchased the tickets for all of us and after we found our parking spot, we settled up.
My next reality check was when I saw the $36.00 on the stub of each ticket.
I had eighty-seven bucks tied up in this thing before I had even seen the first pitch.
I hated to admit it, but I hadn’t been to a ballgame in several years.
The Royals teams, after the ‘85’ World Series Championship, had been less than inspiring.
This season, however, there were great expectations for a young, revitalized team filled with ‘can’t-miss’ prospects from the farm team.
When we entered the stadium, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
The ballpark had gotten a two hundred and fifty million dollar facelift in 2009 and this certainly wasn’t the stadium that I remembered.
The whole area behind the outfield had been transformed into a family fun park where kids could bat, run and throw and there was a new, very awe-inspiring Royals Hall of Fame.
I noticed right away that the days of just hot dogs and peanuts were long gone.
As we made our way to our seats it was like walking through a high-class food court. You could get everything from pizza to a KC Ribeye steak sandwich, not to mention a full rack of ribs from one of KC’s famous BBQ joints.
I was especially excited when I spotted a booth that sold nothing but margaritas. I’m not a big boozehound, but two things I particularly like are Arbor Mist and a margarita.
I figured that I might as well enjoy the evening and I asked Maggie if she would like one too.
She did, and I watched as the vendor mixed our drinks.
“That will be twenty-two bucks,” he said, sliding the drinks across the counter.
A quick mental calculation told me I had a hundred and nine dollars invested in the evening before my butt had hit my seat.
When we were finally seated, I had to admit that the stadium was quite impressive.
Amir was speechless. This was so far removed from anything he had seen in his own country.
Vendors were parading up and down the aisles and fans were shelling out five bucks for hot dogs and seven bucks for a cup of beer.
There was a thunderous applause as the Royals took the field.
I watched as the boys in blue fired the ball around the infield.
I had recently read in the paper that some of these twenty year olds had been given contracts worth five million plus bucks a year.
I guess it does take a lot of five-dollar hot dogs to support that kind of payroll.
That made me think of my old hero, Gus. Back then, the top major league salary was a paltry forty-five thousand a year --- but then gas was only nineteen cents a gallon.
What wonderful strides we have made in sixty years!
After twenty minutes, I had become immune to the hawking of the vendors, but I noticed a surprised look on Amir’s face when a young hot dog vendor passed by our seats.
Amir tugged on Dr. Rhinehart’s arm, “I know that man. I have seen him somewhere before.”
We all looked in the direction that Amir had indicated, but the vendor had hurried up the steps and was disappearing into the tunnel.
The game turned out to be a nail-biter. It was a scoreless ballgame until the bottom of the sixth inning when one of the rookie phenoms belted a long drive into the right field bullpen.
Home run!
The crowd rose and cheered as rockets blasted into the air from behind the giant scoreboard.
I wondered what Amir was thinking as he watched the fiery trails streaking skyward and bursting into multi-colored showers of sparks.
The rockets he had experienced in his own country, bringing death and destruction to the villages, were a far cry from what he was witnessing tonight.
I had to admit that I was thoroughly enjoying the evening --- that is until the incident in the eighth inning.
They were the types who loved to cheer and yell at the top of their lungs. They weren’t above expressing their feelings about the umpire’s calls or their disdain for the opposing players.
As the evening wore on, very few beer vendors made it past their seats without stopping to pour them another round.
Of course, the vendor pours the beer and the cup is then passed from hand to hand until it arrives at its inebriated destination.
For the umpteenth time, I heard the vendor bellow, “Ice cold beer! Get your ice cold beer!”
Naturally, the guys behind us had to flag him down.
I heard the sloshing as the beer filled the plastic cup and I held my breath knowing that their manual dexterity had deteriorated significantly over the last few innings.
Suddenly, I became aware of the full impact of the statement, ‘ice cold beer’ when I heard ‘Oops!’ and felt the chilling brew slide down the back of my neck.
First of all, I’m not a beer drinker --- never have been.
I spent a lot of time on my grandfather’s farm when I was growing up, and I noticed early in life that beer closely resembled the big puddle that my grandpa’s horse left in the pasture after relieving himself.
At first, Mr. Fumble-fingers seemed genuinely sorry. “Hey man, sorry about that. Let me buy you a round to make up for it. It’s on me.”
I might have forgiven him if he had stopped there, but no, after a pause, he continued, “Well, actually, I guess it’s on you, isn’t it?”
That brought a roar from his drunken buddies.
I had just gotten over the initial shock of my cold brew bath when I suddenly became the butt of the guy’s joke.
In spite of the cold, I was boiling inside and was about to do something really stupid when Maggie put her hand on my arm.
“Walt, Amir’s watching. You need to be a good example.”
I knew that she was right and when I noticed that the guy and his three buddies were each thirty years younger than me and outweighed me by sixty pounds, I figured discretion was the better part of valor.
I turned to the guy, “No problem. Accidents happen. I’m sure your mother can attest to that.”
The guy thought for a moment and just as my zinger was about to sink in, another Royal popped one into the water spectacular in center field.
By the time the hoopla had subsided, the incident was over except for my soggy backside.
Another facet to the ‘hey, beer man’ saga involves trips to the men’s room.
The human bladder holds about eight ounces of liquid.
I only know this because my mind is filled with useless information.
So, for every ‘hey, beer man’ there’s also a trip to the can.
If you figure forty thousand fans and roughly half of them are men, that’s a lot of beer being recycled.
It’s always a thrill going to the men’s room and seeing twenty guys standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the urinals.
The urinal --- it’s always been a puzzle to me that you only find urinals in public buildings and not in private residences.
With all of the grief that women give to guys --- put the lid up --- put the lid down --- you couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn --- why aren’t there urinals in our bathrooms?
Even though it would lessen marital strife significantly, I can’t remember ever seeing a urinal in a private home in thirty years of real estate sales.
I also love the little signs that encourage urinary marksmanship.
Mel has a sign over the stool in his diner that says, “Our aim is to keep this place clean. Your aim will help!”
That, of course is an oldie but goodie.
Another one that caught my eye encouraged us guys to “Be like dad, not like sis. Lift the lid before you piss!”
Obviously, the intent of the designer of the ballpark bathroom was to maximize the number of stalls per square foot, so there is just enough room to squeeze in between the two guys on either side.
This works well unless one of the guys is a three hundred-pounder who takes not only his allotted space, but also at least a third of the space on both sides.
Naturally, this throws the whole line off kilter, rendering marksmanship considerably more tricky.
Although the urinal is an easier target than the stool, nothing is foolproof.
As I stood in my spot between two portly fellows that had obviously pushed their eight ounce capacity to the limits, I heard an angry voice from somewhere down the line, “Hey Buddy! Watch what you’re doing! You’re peeing on my shoe!”
This, of course, reminded me of the little ditty:
“If your hose is short and your pressure’s weak, stand up close or you’ll splatter your feet!”
I’ve often wondered if the lady’s room at the ballpark is as much fun.
The Royals were victorious and I was gathering my stuff to leave when Ox said, “Where are you going? Don’t you want to see the fireworks?”
He noticed the dumb look on my face, “It’s Fireworks Friday. Every home game on a Friday ends with a fantastic display.”
“Oh, sure.”
I took my seat and in a few moments, a fireworks display that rivaled nearly every one I had ever seen on the Fourth of July lit up the night.
At the end of the evening, I had spent a hundred and forty-seven dollars and left smelling like a brewery, but it had been a wonderful evening.
Zareef had been shocked when his eyes met those of the foreign exchange student.
What were the chances that out of the thirty thousand people in the stadium, he would come face-to-face with the one person who could identify him?
He had hurried back to the vendor area and traded sections with one of his comrades, but he wondered if it was too late and the student had recognized him.
On one of his trips back to the vendor area to refill his hot dog container, he met Julie in the tunnel.
From that first day when she helped him master making change, she had taken him under her wing and made him feel comfortable in his new surroundings.
Everything was so different and there was so much to learn.
On several occasions, she had invited him to parties that the other usherettes and vendors would attend after games, but he had always reluctantly declined.
Mustafa had warned him that making friends was counter productive to their cause.
“Hi Zareef,” she said cheerily. “It’s Fireworks Friday and we’ll be here late. We’re getting together in the employee lounge later. I hope you can come.”
“I’ll think about it,” he said.
As the fireworks lit up the sky, Zareef thought about the explosives that would be hidden among those fireworks.
He thought about the metal container that hung from the strap around his neck that in a few weeks would hold those explosives.
He thought about the moment when he would press the button that would send himself and thousands of others to their death.
The weeks away from his country had blurred the memory of the atrocities that had brought him to America to exact his revenge, and he had to concentrate very hard to remember the screams of his dying brethren.
The visions of the deadly rockets returned and he felt, once again, the rage and the resolve that had fueled his passion.
But then another vision filled his head --- the smiling face of his friend, Julie.
Suddenly, his resolve became uncertainty.
CHAPTER 12
On Monday morning it was back to our regular routine.
We had just made our usual stop at the Krispy Kreme donut shop for our cream-filled long johns and coffee when the radio came to life.
“Any unit in the vicinity of the Watkins Pharmacy on Broadway, please respond.”
I juggled my long john and picked up the mike, “Car 54 responding.”
“Ishnst dat yer fomacy?” Ox mumbled with a mouthful o
f vanilla cream.
“What?”
He swallowed and took a sip of coffee. “Sorry, isn’t that your pharmacy?”
“Sure is.”
Maggie and I seldom went to the drug store, but on those rare occasions when a cold or the flu bug hit, we always went to Watkins because of the pharmacist, Wally Crumpet.
Wally is about my age and if you saw him on the street you might think he was just somebody’s grandpa out for an afternoon with the kids.
Unlike many professionals, he’s not pretentious, never takes himself too seriously and has a droll sense of humor.
We parked the cruiser and Wally met us at the door.
“Walt, my favorite cop.”
Then he looked at Ox, “Come inside. I’ll give you something for the rabies.”
I looked at Ox and smiled, “Thanks, Wally, but I don’t think he’s foaming at the mouth. It’s just vanilla cream.”
Ox quickly wiped his mouth with his handkerchief and we followed Wally into the store.
“So what’s up, Wally? Why the call?”
He led us to the rear of the building.
“We got hit last night,” he said, pointing first to the back door hanging from its hinges and then to the smashed glass of the drug cabinets.
“They knew what they were doing. They disabled both the alarm system and the surveillance system.”
“Any idea what they took?”
“We haven’t done a complete inventory yet, but I know that the Oxycodone and Valium are missing.”
“You might want to hold off on your inventory until the lab processes the scene. Let us call it in and we’ll try to get out of your way as soon as possible.”
While Ox was out making the call, I thought it might be a good idea to get Wally’s opinion on what I had been hearing from Arnie and Nick.
After I had shared as much as I could remember of Arnie’s rhetoric, I asked, “What is your opinion of the flu shots? I noticed your sign in the front window advertising ‘Flu Shots Here’.”
“It’s a scam and it’s dangerous,” he replied “but it’s either offer the shots or go out of business. “The CDC sends out a bulletin about the latest strain of flu and recommends that everyone be inoculated. People are scared to death that they will be swept away by the next big epidemic and flock to their doctors and pharmacies. All the big chain drug stores offer the shots, so I have no choice if I want to compete.
[Lady Justice 08] - Lady Justice and the Watchers Page 10