The second date was much better than the first. That was when we discovered our chemistry. The real Bonnie came out, and she was a sweet and genuine woman with energy and charisma and all the other things I never would have suspected from a girl who couldn’t remember where her car was in a lot that held only twenty. And she was beautiful. I don’t know why I wasn’t stunned by this on the first date, maybe it was because I was preoccupied with collateral damage, but I couldn’t miss it the second time around. She wore a yellow sundress with beads and bangles and sandals. Her brown hair was still light from the summer sun, and her face had the slightest hint of freckles around soft brown eyes. She brought a guitar with her and taught me how to play a few chords, interlacing her fingers with my own across the fret board.
With everything we did, she had fun, like a child who treated life as an adventure. Being with her was addictive, and when she left me that night, I was sad to see her go.
In time, we were meeting nearly every night we could see each other. She lived in Cleveland and I in Canton, which presented logistical bridges that only love could cross. Love and a crap job working at a local Circuit City, that is. I couldn’t drive my grandma’s car forever, not with the way it swilled fuel. The dating economy demanded I make some investments if I wanted to keep up the relationship. I took the little minor league savings I had accrued, bought a used Corolla, and committed myself to working at Circuit City for the holiday season. It wasn’t the most common thing to see a pro athlete do, but it was the only way I could keep the car gassed up, and dates paid for.
Ironically, of all the things that Bonnie liked about me, baseball wasn’t one of them. It was a bonus, she said, like icing on a six-foot-two, dark-haired, blue-eyed, likes-long-walks-on-the-beach cake. We shared the same faith, which was big because she was worried about getting matched with an Internet-spawned psychopathic killing machine. I told her that, historically speaking, there have been several psychos who believed in Jesus, but she told me if I gave her any trouble she’d kick me in the crotch and run—she told me it was what Jesus would do.
Though not the key pillar of our relationship at first, whenever the question came up of how things would get paid for, or why I never invited Bonnie over to my residence, or why I worked at Circuit City, the line always traced back to the same point: baseball. As things got more serious, the role baseball played in my life became more apparent to her, and to me. Everything I did, I did with the game in mind. It was my first love and it was a commitment I had to honor, hoping that Bonnie would understand. She did, or at least she did her best to look the part. She supported me and encouraged me, but people have a much easier time understanding stuff when you’re right next to them explaining it. In two months’ time I’d be gone, out chasing the dream of playing in the big leagues while Bonnie would still be here waiting on me. If it wasn’t for the fact that it was so wonderful, I’d say it was unfortunate that Bonnie and I liked each other so much because no matter how good things were right now, there was no way she was going to avoid pain by being my girlfriend, or I by being her boyfriend.
Dating a baseball player is much more complicated than dating your average Joe, and dating me was more complicated still. I had baggage in the shape of a crazy old woman and a family with a past history of violence and alcohol abuse. Bonnie hadn’t met any of them yet, but that was what today was supposed to be about: lunch with Grandma and coffee with my parents. I had resisted the idea of her meeting my family for as long as I could, but I knew, even from the short time we were with each other, that Bonnie and I would be heading toward bigger decisions. We didn’t have a lot of time together, so she deserved to know what was ahead of her before committing to a year of holding her breath on her dreams while I chased mine.
The first major obstacle in front of any kind of relationship Bonnie and I might have was currently passed out in her recliner, head lolling sideways, dentures roaming freely about her gaping mouth while she sucked air. This was Bonnie’s first official encounter with the eldest woman in my family, the same woman I called landlord, and it started to the soothing sound of a ninety-year-old with sleep apnea gasping for air, only to find it, then fart.
The television next to my grandma was tuned to Judge Judy with the volume cranked into the upper ranges. Still, Grandma snored away. There are only two types of show my grandma watches: programs that document stupid young people, and news about stupid young people being shot. To emphasize this point, in Grandma’s hands lay a newspaper open to the obituary section. She enjoys seeing whom she’s outlasted, crossing their name off a death list she keeps next to the framed family portrait, wherein some of her “less desirables” have been cut from the scene. Most days she watches Jerry Springer while reading her collection of Bible walk-throughs concerning the Apocalypse. She doesn’t make it through the Bible or the programming before she falls asleep. For her, there is something irresistibly relaxing about watching sinners fight over trailer park politics while she reads God’s comforting promises of roasting them in hell—her own variation on the modern bedtime story.
My grandma practices her “you hope I’m dead, but dead people don’t fart in their sleep” impression pretty regularly these days, ever since I started dating Bonnie, actually. I used to think Grandma was tired because she went out late at night to feed, but I later discovered it was because Grandma liked to stay up and eavesdrop on my conversations with Bonnie.
Though they’ve never met, my grandma doesn’t like Bonnie and she tells me so every time I leave the house with a smile on my face. According to my grandma’s twisted algorithm of what makes a woman proper and respectable, Bonnie just doesn’t add up. Grandma says a woman should never date a boy she met on the Internet; that makes her a stalker. She says a woman should never drive hours to see a boy; that makes her desperate. A woman should never talk to a boy after midnight; that makes her a whore. And above all, says my grandmother, a woman should never date a boy who doesn’t make any money; that makes her stupid.
I firmly believed that if my grandma met Bonnie in person, she’d change her opinion. However, considering my grandma was also fond of listening to the counsel of imaginary people when rendering judgment, I decided her napping might not be a bad thing.
“Should we wake her?” asked Bonnie.
“No,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. If she’s asleep every time you come over, I’ll be perfectly fine with that,” I said with a beaming smile of hope.
“I feel weird. I mean, look at her.”
Grandma was drooling now.
“Don’t feel bad,” I said. “She’ll wake up soon and then we’ll do a quick, painless lunch. If she wonders what happened, I’ll act like she was awake the whole time and just can’t remember. I’ve done it before. Let’s put these groceries on ice and make the most of our good luck.”
Bonnie had brought the meal with her. A picnic in December, she called it. She even brought a bottle of wine to put the meal over the top. We put the picnic on hold, stuffing it into my grandmother’s cemetery of a refrigerator to await its time. Then I playfully herded Bonnie toward my bedroom with tickle prods.
Aptly named, my bedroom was almost entirely occupied by the air mattress parked there. Since there was no room for chairs, Bonnie and I took a seat on the bed, which, being a giant inner tube of sorts, groaned and squealed like a pool toy when we plopped on it.
“Do you ever feel embarrassed by the fact that you are dating a guy who lives with his grandma?” I asked, looking around the room at the suitcase that served as my dresser and my travel companion, the card table I used as a desk, and the four feet of open space not occupied by a collection of my grandmother’s antiquated heirlooms.
“No. And don’t ever think it does,” Bonnie said. “Besides, I still live with my parents.”
I thought about her answer for a second. We were both stuck in that age of sacrificing independence for a chance to get a foothold in our dreams. Giv
ing up some pride was par for the course. Bonnie had an amazing job as a music therapist working with people with special needs as well as with Alzheimer’s patients, and was living at home so she could save money before moving out to start her own therapy practice. I was trying to survive long enough in baseball to wash up on the golden shore of the big leagues. Dream chasing; it made sense when you took time to explain it, yet when my eyes fell upon a picture of a little girl getting into a bathtub with her bare butt showing, which my grandmother had hung on one of the floral-papered walls a century ago, my determination waned.
“Nope,” I said, “there is definitely something wrong with a guy who lives with his grandma at age twenty-seven. Besides, your parents are cool, and you’re a girl. It’s different for you. A man needs to be out on his own, it’s a pride thing. Why do you think I always resisted the idea of you coming over here?”
“I love my parents and it’s a good situation, but I’m twenty-eight, for crying out loud. I’d like to have my own life too.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay.” She looked up at the picture with me. “Though that is a little awkward. But, look, we’ll have our own lives eventually. It’s not like we’re not successful in our work, right?”
“I’m so glad you don’t know much about baseball,” I said.
“Why is that?”
“So I don’t have to explain how much of my life is ‘what have you done for me lately?’ ”
“I think you’re making this into a bigger deal than you need to.”
I lay back on my bed with a sigh. “Maybe.”
“For sure,” said Bonnie. She didn’t wait for me to counter her argument as she leapt on me. Soon we were giggling and tickling and smooching. We rolled around on my squeaky inner tube of a mattress, and when we came to a stop we were staring into each other’s eyes in that special way that ensures girls love romantic comedies while men barf.
In that moment, I wanted to say something I’d been feeling since we started dating, like how I could see my future in her eyes, staring back at me like a promise in a life so full of fog and questions. I wanted to tell her I had big plans and I knew how they would all come together. I wanted to tell her so many things, but when I opened my mouth the door of my bedroom swung open and slammed into the wall with a loud bang—there she stood, risen from her slumber, the other woman in my life in all her terrible fury.
Chapter Three
Bonnie and I were lying on each other on my bed, completely clothed, including our shoes. Bonnie was so startled and embarrassed by the intrusion she rolled violently into the wall. I just covered my face with both hands and said, “Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?”
“What’s going on in here?” demanded my grandma in her raspy, undead voice.
“I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met, I’m—” Bonnie tried to introduce herself as she smoothed the excess embarrassment out of her clothes, but was cut off.
“Why is there wine in my house?” continued the inquisition. Grandma took no heed of Bonnie, but kept her eyes trained exclusively on me. It would be like her to investigate any changes in her kitchen before inquiring upon houseguests.
“Jesus gave it to me,” I said, sitting up.
“Dirk!” Bonnie scolded me. Then, looking toward my grandmother, Bonnie continued, “I brought the wine, Mrs. Hayhurst. We were going to have it with this great meal I planned—”
“You’re a drunk!” Grandma wailed, trampling right over Bonnie’s confession. “Just another good-for-nothing Hayhurst drunk!” The way she locked on to me, you’d have thought she’d found a kilo of cocaine in the house, not a bottle of dessert wine.
“I’ve never been drunk in my life. Hell, I don’t even like wine,” I said.
Bonnie frowned at my response, I tried to stammer out an explanation about my developing a taste for finer beverages, but Grandma was back on me.
“That’s what all the drunks say! All of the Hayhursts are drunks and liars. Just like your grandfather, the biggest liar of them all,” she said, referencing the saintly and long-dead Mr. Hayhurst.
“What did Grandpa ever lie to you about?”
“He was having an affair on me!”
“Oh, for the love of God. Here we go again with the cheating stories!”
Bonnie looked back and forth between Grandma and me with a lost expression.
“He cheated on me all the time. That’s how he got the gonorrhea.”
“What? He never had gonorrhea.”
“Oh yes, he did, he got it from the woman who sold food at the bowling alley.”
“Ah, yes.” I looked at Bonnie with a smirk. “The seductress of the bowling alley, singing her siren song between serving decaf and disinfecting shoes. Well, with charms like that you can hardly blame the man, right?”
Grandma burned me down with her eyes. “You’re gonna get it too! You need to get back into church doing the things you’re doing.”
“And what things would those be?” I raised a cocky eyebrow.
“All this drinking and sex having. Booze and gonorrhea! I heard you two in here fooling around on that mattress. I saw what you were doing. I knew you were a liar about being a virgin. I’ve heard your phone calls. Ever since you two commenced to dating, you’re always trying to get alone. Now you’re in my house fulfilling your lusts! Well, I’m not going to allow it.”
Bonnie’s face became a sunset of embarrassment. I was just stunned by it all. “You mean, you were faking sleep just so you could listen through my door?” I stammered at my grandmother. “You have, haven’t you? You’ve been acting it up just to listen at my door.”
“Fornicators!” she howled. Then, for the first time, she looked at Bonnie. “You should be ashamed of yourself. What kind of girl acts the way you do?”
“Okay, that’s enough. Come on, Bonnie,” I said, “we’re leaving, mealtime at the asylum is cancelled.” I took Bonnie by the hand and commanded my grandmother to dislodge herself from our path. We went into the kitchen and collected our things, including our bottle of Satan’s Kool-Aid, all the while Grandma monitoring us as if we might steal from her. Then, as my hand hit the door handle to exit, Grandma said her good-byes like this: “What’s the matter, have to take your whore someplace else to have sex with her?”
I froze. Maybe this person who read me bedtime stories, took me shopping for school clothes, and made me milkshakes as a boy did not say what I swore I heard, but Bonnie’s eyes, wide as they were with shock, told the truth.
This was a test, I thought. I had a choice to make. Aside from her normal batch of insanity, Grandma was probably jealous that another woman had moved in on her man. She was cracking the whip over me, showing me who was the boss around here. She had the upper hand because if I blew up, she’d take away my “home,” and she knew I knew it. If I lost my cool, I’d probably lose Bonnie too. I had to stay calm, be mature, let it go. I took a breath and turned the door handle. Everything would be all right. This was only a test.
“You need to take that whore back to the street corner you found her on!”
And this was a test I was going to fail.
“Bonnie, wait in the car,” I said, as I directed my shell-shocked girlfriend out of the house and shut the door after her. When I turned to face my grandmother, she was wielding a broomstick with a queer smirk derived from finally getting control of her man. In turn, I held the wine bottle tightly and envisioned smashing it over the kitchen table and dueling Grandma with the jagged remainder. We stared each other down like gunfighters in an old Western, if old Westerns were rooms with linoleum floors and flower wallpapering.
“You planning to make your getaway on that?” I said, pointing at the broomstick.
“Oh, you shut up. You’re no grandson of mine.”
I strode before her, towering over her hunched, blue head. “Listen, you old battle-axe, I don’t care about the crap you say about me because I know you live in a fantasy land and are
n’t to be taken seriously. But when you spew your poison on people I care about, you’ve crossed the line. Bonnie is a saint, and the first time you speak to her you call her a whore? What’s wrong with you?”
“She’s got a voice like a whining dog,” mocked my grandmother, and then she began barking at me. I could only shake my head in disbelief as she yelped in imitation with her hands up like paws.
I raised my wine bottle like a club, indicating I’d like to knock the dentures out of her mouth.
“Go ahead, I’ll have you put in jail!” promised Grandma.
“Really?” A beautiful thought came into my mind. “I don’t think you’ve thought this through. If the police show up at this house, I’ll be forced to explain that I live here to help you get around, because you are senile and incontinent and delusional.” She choked up on her broom. “The family didn’t want to see dear old granny go to a home, so I volunteered to look out for you. But now that you’re violent, things have changed. I’ll tell them how you routinely burst into my room to accuse dead relatives of having affairs.”
“Bah,” she snorted and waved me off like I was bluffing.
“Think about it. You think your testimony is going to convince the police?” I let the question hang over her head for a second. “It’s my word against yours and the only other witness, a woman clinically trained to work with seniors who suffer from Alzheimer’s and dementia, you just called a whore. So go ahead, Grandma, make my day.”
“You can’t talk to me that way, this is my house! I want you out, get out!”
Satisfied I’d made my point, I consented. Grandma wouldn’t be insulting Bonnie anymore, not unless she wanted a visit from some gentlemen in white coats. I turned my back on her and headed for the exit.
My victory was short-lived, however, as I didn’t make it two steps before I felt the rod of her broomstick crack me over the head.
“Have you lost your mind?” I said, turning to the old bag while rubbing my lumped skull.
Out of My League Page 2