The Voices in Our Heads

by Michael Aronovitz

  This is the shifting of the weight to the back foot during the pitcher’s wind-up in the linear approach.

  This is the moment in the pitcher’s wind-up where his hands separate. This occurs after the knee-kick, when the lead hand follows the front knee toward the plate and the pitching hand is drawn back to the “cocked” position.

  Georgie’s father uses an inaccurate word here. “Bail” gives the impression that the batter “backs out,” and what he means is that the linear approach acts like a “pendulum with an auto-stop button,” yielding to the hitter the ability to “freeze-frame at six o’clock” in his “hitting ready position” if the ball is not in the strike zone.

  A “3 and 0” count means that the pitcher has thrown three straight balls. In this case it is normal practice for the batter to look at the next pitch no matter where it is thrown, since chances are the pitcher is fighting for control. Here, the batter gambles that the pitcher will throw a fourth pitch out of the strike zone, causing a “walk” or free base. When faced with a “3 and 0,” many batters will put the bat across the strike zone, similar to the positioning used in a “bunt,” because they feel an obstruction crossing the target might rattle the pitcher. (Note: If the bat is pulled back before the ball crosses the plate, it is not counted as a swing.) Moreover, some batters will “waggle” or jiggle the bat because they think the motion will distract the pitcher even more. This, however, is rather juvenile. First, it makes it obvious that the given batter is not going to swing (as is always the batter’s option), therefore permitting the pitcher to lob in an easy strike with no possible consequences. It also smacks of bad sportsmanship.

  A slang word for a pitch of average speed, predictably right down the middle and easy to hit.

  Georgie’s father illustrates the idea presented in note 18, in that better hitters are given the “green light” or rather the permission to swing when they have earned a 3 and 0 count. The rationale here is that the pitcher is aware that most batters will look at the next pitch without swinging. He will therefore (most often) try to throw a pitch over the center of home plate, and at the height of the batter’s belt. Good hitters tend not to foul this pitch off or miss it. The key here is that the pitcher does not know whether or not the hitter has received a “green light” (usually forwarded from the bench by the head coach to the third base coach, who communicates to the batter through hand signals like touching the cap, the chest, the nose and the chin, most of these decoys, the real signal—say, “hit” or “green light” equaling, say, a touch to the brim of the hat—kicked off by an “indicator,” the sign before the sign—maybe a touch to the tip of the nose) and in not knowing whether or not the batter is going to swing away, the selfsame pitcher will have a more difficult time throwing that pitch accurately. Again, if the given player “waggles” the bat, he gives away the fact that he is not going to swing, therefore eliminating the question in the pitcher’s mind and firming up that pitcher’s chances of throwing a lazy, easy strike.

  Since the game between the pitcher and batter is really a battle over the “count” (three strikes and the batter is out; four pitches called out of the strike zone and the batter walks), and having more balls in the count than strikes helps the batter get better pitches to hit, many batters look at the first pitch, gambling that it will be called a “ball,” outside of the strike zone. Since pitchers are aware of this, many of them throw a straight fastball over the heart of the plate and at belt level to get the advantage of being “up one strike.” Many batters like to see a lot of pitches and “work the count,” utilizing the philosophy that a) gauging velocity helps a later swing, and b) chances are (especially in youth baseball) that the pitcher will throw more balls than strikes as the count advances. The other philosophy is that the best pitch of the at-bat is often that first strike, since chance claims the pitcher is trying to “start ahead,’ and certain batters look to hit that first pitch. This aggressive approach works well for some, like Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves. It did not work well for Philadelphia’s Doug Glanville.

  A count of “2 and 1” means the batter has two balls and one strike. This gives a distinct advantage to the batter, because the pitcher wants to avoid “3 and 1”—the count that is the most in the batter’s favor to get a fastball down the middle with full permission and expectation to swing. Consequently, at 2 and 1, the pitcher usually tries to throw a basic strike.

  Slang term for a ball thrown over the center of the plate, and between the belt and the letters on the chest of a player’s shirt. This is commonly known as the zone that affords batters the greatest chance to hit the ball hard.

  A term for a pitch that may or may not be a strike, thrown near to the batter so he will a) hit the ball off the grips and not the thickest part of the bat, or b) be intimidated and possibly have weaker swings at later pitches.

  A batter is supposed to step into the swing with the front foot aimed straight back at the pitcher. Since the natural reaction is to move out of the way of a fast-moving object, players sometimes get in the habit of stepping away from the ball as they swing. (For a righty, this would mean stepping in the direction of third base.) This is detrimental to success in hitting because a) it brings the head away from the ball, lessening hand-eye effectiveness at the point of contact, and b) makes it nearly impossible to reach a ball thrown over the outer half of the plate.

  Many coaches have the given player bite the sleeve of his front shoulder for the purpose of keeping his head “down on the ball.” The most effective way to make contact with a baseball is to watch it hit the bat. Since a swing is a violent motion, the automatic reaction is to follow it with the head, therefore causing the phenomenon so many dads yell about from behind the fence: “Your head’s coming out and your shoulder’s flying open!”

  The premier “composite” aluminum bat, which has a woven inner graphite wall contributing to a “trampoline effect.” This refers to the phenomenon where the ball “jumps off the bat” and travels further distances faster than those produced by wood or more standard aluminum bats.

  A circumstance during which the batter has a number of at bats in a row without a hit.

  A metaphorical way of saying the weight should be evenly distributed with the feet spread at a distance only slightly less than the span on the shoulders. (Often, the feet in this stance are a bit outside the shoulders actually, but the idea is balance without over-spreading the feet to the point that stepping into the pitch is hindered).

  A metaphorical term for turning the outer ankle of the back foot (for a right handed batter) toward right field during the swing in an overall action that resembles squishing an insect on the ground. The popular theory is that once the batter steps into the pitch with the front foot, then turns the back ankle on the pivot-toe, the feet become stationary. The more modern linear approach, however, claims that once the “bug is squashed,” the hitter should follow through with the motion and push off that back toe in order to continue the “line” created, straight from the contact point of the ball to the position of the pitching rubber.

  Prequel

  September

  Violence, you see, is reactive, and my biggest problem is that we do not recognize what would be “causal.” The one who hits back gets suspended, the player who retaliates draws the yellow flag, and even now as I say this I despise the illusory nature of my own semiotic presentation. Words are excuses, buffers, pillows. I actually did not intend to draw up images of what would be considered everyday middle-school hallway scuffles or lazy Sundays where the given family would use Fox Sports as a tool to scrape together a moment of togetherness. I meant to question the idea that our world holds some sort of permanent beauty in the first place. And I suppose the super-ordinate here is that when the blood does seep through the seams of our perfect little existence, when a moment of bright red spatter finally does spray up from beneath that sickening, gauzy fabric to soak outward in widening, blossoming stains, we are quicker to patch the gash with mo
re fluff than to admit that the façade proves our absolute falsity. So let me be clear. It’s not the criminals that I despise, nor the shifty lawyers, the lying politicians, or the gate-keeping teachers whose human rubrics we are forced to measure our childhoods by. Because they are mere products of reaction, players, gamers utilizing the sickness they have inherited and turning it back on their brothers and sisters like a massive flood-lamp. They reverse the metaphor, keeping themselves in the dark like lighthouse operators, leaving everyone else to believe that being illuminated in the spotlight means anything more than having the eyes blinded. No, I do not blame the users.

  I blame words. Buffers. Similes that tell us that something is “like” something else when that something else is easier to stomach, and those hyperbolic metaphors that directly compare something with another subject or object that stands in much greater stature than the real. “He’s like a breath of fresh air.” No, he’s not. He smiles a lot and is appreciated because he doesn’t pose a social challenge in the office. “She’s a quiet beauty.” The fuck she is. She was born with average looks and average intelligence, and has long practiced a smile that makes her an attractive subordinate.

  Goddamn it.

  And to be really specific, it’s not even metaphors and similes that annoy me. It’s the euphemisms.

  “We had to put our poor Rover to sleep.”

  Really? Did you put the dog in a twin bed, pull up the covers, sing a night-night song, and kiss her forehead? Or did you bring her to the vet when the kids were at school and pay a hundred and seventy-nine dollars for her to be held down on a lab table and given a shot that stopped her heart?

  “He finally lost his battle with cancer.”

  Yes, what a warrior, for the last months throwing up thirty times a day, sweating into his sheets, and crying like a baby for morphine.

  “She’s gone to a better place.”

  Oh? Mom is buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery over in Springfield, in a lawn crypt down at the south edge where the property slopes off to a wetland. There is a honeycombed nest of twelve caskets stacked in checkerboard alternate there, and by now hers has been invaded by the termites and driver ants who called a temporary truce, banded together, and launched a month-long campaign against the slat down by the bottom right edge where there was a hint of a gap that widened just a fraction during the initial lowering and setting process. I am sure that when they finally broke through and swarmed the interior, they found her absolutely delicious, skin mostly deteriorated, falling off the bone in tatters and shreds.

  I can’t look at anyone or anything now without wondering about the bald history, the real backstory, the dirt. That Chicken McNugget. Maybe it was a mother’s second daughter named “Cluck,” a bit awkward out of the incubator, clumsily padding around in the mud-caked hay behind the diamond-shaped nesting wire, but a real go-getter at feeding time, good sight and peck ratio. They cut off her feet and her head, they plucked out the feathers and tossed them in a wet trench at the base of the conveyer, they cut her in fourths, put her carcass pieces in the equivalent of a jumbo blender with the corpses of her cousin “Balk,” a mean girl named “Doodle” who had a nice beak but got teased for the cloudy film she could never quite preen out of her left eyelet, and hundreds of others from various flocks. All for the freezer and the deep fryer, all for the epitaph of grease running down some kid’s chin after a soccer match.

  And all you vegetarians and vegans or whatever, please go fuck off and fuck off royally. Eat your greens and ignore the fact that insects defecated on the leaves, and automobile exhaust tumbled across the sprouts and the flowers openly. At one point or two in your lives, you’ve eaten beans that some migrant worker pissed on, and you can bet dollars to donuts that once or twice you’ve wolfed down fruit that a farm hand picked after rubbing his privates. And money. How many bathroom floors was that quarter on before little Johnny decided to suck on it in the back seat of the S.U.V.? How many gum factories are infested with rats? How many pieces of food in a pizza shop have made the delivery vehicle after falling on the floor once or twice?

  I cannot walk down a city street without knowing some dog has squatted and shat at some point in history right where my feet are landing. I can’t grab the pole on a subway without wondering about all those who grabbed it before me, how their microscopic residues are melding with mine, infecting me on a level only a handful of lab geeks are meant to know, and I can’t sleep in a hotel bed without picturing the last people who fucked there, slept there, expelled gas between the sheets. We swim in a world of each other’s sludge, pigs in a trough.

  The other day I went to the supermarket to get a slice of pizza. The server was wearing a hairnet and disposable gloves. I was going to get into a conversation with him and ask if he changed the gloves after every transaction, but he was a fat jolly kind of soul who would have liked to talk about the weather, or the Phillies, or the woes of marriage so I could yuck-yuck about the stereotypes. No thank you, please.

  Then I thought about it. Here was an opportunity to really live, and I’d missed it. There I was, standing on a floor with the millions of other dirty, invisible footprints of those who had stood there before me, and I was thinking on one level about the dirty floor and the dirty gloves, and on a more important plane, planning my next activity, the John Lennon thing. But what about now? What about this moment, this place, the stromboli-in-a-box and the pre-made hoagies in the display before me, the roly-poly black guy on the other side of the counters and glass with the white smock, half-grown beard, and clownish, po-boy grin, the woman next to me with the handbasket on her hip, index finger curled over her bottom set of teeth, trying to decide whether to take the plain cheese or the one slice left with broccoli on it?

  I ordered a meat lover’s slice and ate it in my car, right there in the parking lot. It was good, and I got distracted for a minute when I simultaneously bit the side of my mouth and a particularly juicy piece of sausage. There was something about the pain and the taste of sausage and blood that made me more than sure that our real fear of aliens is not inbreeding, but rather the possibility that some new species would be one step up on the food chain, putting us in cages on farms for slaughter, then hanging us on big meathooks in their own specialty butcher shops right there on Market Street.

  I chewed thoughtfully. These ideas were fun, but I was really determined to link a couple of notions in my mind; the pig trough, the euphemisms, the blur we blindly waded through from one obligation to the next.

  Obligations. Yes. We answered redundant responsibility by choice. Those caught in the trough needed purpose. But to what end?

  A search for beauty.

  Really? So simple?

  Yes, but not for the reason one would expect. We didn’t search for beauty to fulfill desire. That was the euphemism! The biggest lie of all! We searched for beauty to make us exempt from our own histories, riddled with moments we pissed on the greens so to speak.

  The problem has always been that beauty cannot possibly be sustained. Everything has backstory, lurking at the periphery like a dark phantom ready to show the slanted eyes and pointed teeth beneath its hood. Hence, the blurring between obligations, the mental shut-down, by God, it’s a defense mechanism against the horrors of the self!

  So when are we free of this anesthetic veil, this protective gauze, this self-preserving self-destructive numbing shroud we stumble through life under?

  When we first see a woman, of course. Before we are soiled by her history.

  They say (whoever “they” really are) that men think about sex every twenty-three seconds, but that is not necessarily accurate in terms of raw content. Mixed in is an appreciation for the art of the woman, the gestures, the persona, the lips and lashes and liner and gloss. I was the assistant curator at a museum for a span of five years, and I used to love it when the young teachers brought their students in to look at the dinosaur fossils. They were so caring and lovely, bending over at the waist and giving advice or encourageme
nt to pupils not old enough to realize how beautiful her calves looked, or how nice she smelled, or how brilliantly her eyes flashed when she was giving orders to the group. I tried talking to women there, by the walk-through heart, by the plaque and window display titled “Ben Franklin’s Science,” but my questions were never quite seen as relevant. I was very good at telling them where the bathrooms were, or what time the gift shop closed, or whether refills were allowed at the soda fountain in the snack bar.

  When I got fired, I got a job making cakes for fancy weddings, and there is nothing on this earth so beautiful as a bridesmaid dressed in satin. My favorite was green with a low neckline. I liked working the cake table, cutting slices and looking at the texture of these supple dolls.

  I had a date with a girl I met at a wedding. Her name was Kathy. She had auburn hair and freckles on her nose. Tall girl, way taller than me, and she went to Rutgers, sophomore, nice teeth and a robust laugh that she bent with a bit while touching your arm. I was in heaven until I actually had dinner with her, and she told me that her favorite thing in the world was when the Salt Water Cowboys swam a herd of sturdy wild horses across the narrowest part of the Assateague Channel at low tide to be brought to a carnival for auction, when she told me her father left her mother when she was five, when she said she didn’t drink and didn’t respect anyone who wasn’t willing to try mountain biking.