The Third Personality: A Novel (5)

DAVIE, Florida - Tommy Mendelson, now a serious base-running threat - of all things - was fired up for today's anticipated massacre of West Broward Pony League would-be rival Everhart Construction.

True, he couldn't hit with quite as much deep-footed power as he once exhibited during his Porky days in Little League - oh, but could he ever fly around those bases now! There was no more of this having-to-slide-for-extra-bases nonsense, either, unless he happened to be stretching, say, a double into a triple. And while Tommy sometimes missed the glory he so long associated with (and felt) smashing towering fly balls, he now experienced an equal rush making dashing acrobatic catches out in left - and coming up throwing … (Something the girls his age seemed to appreciate, as well - hey-oh!)

Unfortunately, the only "girl" seated in the stands for today's game was a woman maybe in her middle-to-late 20s - which was pretty ancient by Pony League standards.

"Mendelson - I've got you batting third today instead of fourth," Tommy overheard the coach saying. He tended to space out his coach's pre-game pep talks sometimes.

"Mendelson?" the coach's voice repeated, after a pregnant pause. "Are you planning on joining us for today's game?"

"Um - yeh, coach," Tommy said, looking up.

"Wonderful," said the coach. Then he stood.

"So, now, team," he began in feigned gusto. "What's the good word today?"

"Beat Everhart Construction!" chanted the players in unison.

The coach now looked confused. "What? I couldn't hear you."

"Beat Everhart Construction!" the kids yelled again, louder.

Now the coach acted like a dork. "I'm sorry - what was that?" he asked - and he started dancing sideways, his hand to his ear.

"BEAT EVERHART CONSTRUCTION!" the players cheered hoarsely.

In the top of the fifth, Tommy strode up to the plate, preparing to bat for his third time in the game.

He'd struck out figuratively going for the seats his first time up (simply an expression - there were no "seats," nor were there as usual any fences, either), and he singled past third and scored in his second time at bat - no big deal. The game was a yawner, as predicted.

Tommy's team was already up, 15-3.

It was hardly the stuff of annotated American history.

The "Porky shift," which some of the league's opposing coaches had carried over from their Little League days defensing Tommy, was designed to stop Porky, the pull hitter.

Unfortunately for them - that player no longer existed.

Strategically it was old hat - nothing special. The left side of the infield (third and shortstop) covered the line and played deep in the hole, respectively, while the left fielder simply played the line deep as the center fielder shifted over to left-center - leaving a gaping hole in right-center. The second baseman also moved over to the bag leaving a big hole there, too.

Tommy long since realized that anyone with half a brain (and the willingness to settle for an easy infield single) could just fungo the ball through the hole at second - and, pa-ta-pum, they were on. They could maybe even stretch the hit into two bases.

He still loved to try to hit the long ball now and then; but not this time up. The by-the-numbers ploy of other teams shifting into this same tired we-dare-you-to-hit-it-deep defense just seemed to bother Tommy more in this one instance, in this one at-bat, than it ever had.

Maybe it was pride. Tommy resented getting pigeonholed, or being dismissed as predictable. Didn't anyone out there know how fast he ran nowadays?

Everhart Construction was about to find out, Tommy decided.

Porky-schmorky.

He let an inside pitch slip by for a strike.

Then the pitcher's next pitch sailed over both Tommy and the catcher, and Tommy's teammate on first advanced to second.

And for just a brief moment, Tommy experienced a tiny twinge of déjà vu … He stepped away from the plate to collect himself, and glanced up. Looking around, he saw the only one paying attention to this particular at-bat (and why would anyone bother, really?) was that young woman, who appeared to be taking notes.

(Well of course - she was keeping score, Tommy deduced.)

He went back up to the plate, took a few quick, intimidating practice swings as if he were about to dismantle the poor schnook at third base - and then impatiently awaited his next pitch.

...Throw it outside…one big fat one…outside...

The pitcher then wound up, and hurled another beach ball - which looked as if it might just cross the outside corner of …

(It would!) Tommy swung: Kwok!

The ball shot through the open infield; he took off running.

(Al-right: he'd hit the pitch square - and he'd hit it good!)

Tommy rounded first in a wide arc, and kept going. A double was a shoe-in. But this hit actually had triple written all over it - at least. The ball, which had cleared the drawn-back infield by ten feet and just kept skittering, was now deep and sharp into the empty gap in right-center field.

(..."So long, fare-well, auf Wiedersehen…")

Halfway to second, Tommy could see that neither the center fielder, nor the right fielder, had as yet even caught up to the ball - which just kept bounding away from civilization on the hard-packed clay-and-mud-encrusted grounds.

(Tommy couldn't ever fashion a home run when he was fat - but now that he was sleek and fast - maybe now, he could…)

Tommy continued steaming on to third, at full tilt.

Oh, man! A teammate standing in foul territory behind third base was waving him home! Finally…he'd get his Home Run!

Tommy then rounded third, and actually felt a slight ruffle of wind in his hair as he passed by his bench where his teammates were now up on their feet and excitedly cheering him on.

(Not even a good relay would nail him this time …)

Another player - the cleanup hitter, who'd been waiting on-deck to bat next - now frantically ran over to plant himself behind the plate, in full open view of his now-sprinting, still-charging teammate - and he motioned for Tommy to slide: hands open, flat, palms-down, parallel to the ground.

Oh, cripes, Tommy then thought to himself, it's going to be close!

(Even when Tommy was fat, though, he was good at sliding - especially hook sliding into bases, to avoid being tagged out.)

...How'd these clowns get the ball back in so fast..?

Out of the corner of his eye, quickly scanning his opponent readying for a tag, Tommy saw the catcher not only had the ball, but he was going to sweep his mitt his way (with the ball inside) from the far side of the plate. Tommy then dropped down on his butt, slid, his back arched, his toes curled toward the plate …

And in a cloud of reddish dust…

(...Flffphshhff...)

…it was all over.

But not before Tommy saw the plate, his sliding feet, and the catcher's tag being applied to his ankle … Late!

(Only there was this one little problem: Tommy saw the whole play, the whole incident clearly - as if it'd happened in some kind of horrid … slow … motion.)

"Safe!" the umpire roared, his arms stretched out wide.

Cheers erupted from the third base side of the field.

And Tommy's teammates then cleared the bench, getting ready to jump all over their fast-afoot buddy and smother him with hugs, and pats and similar Pony League-oriented congratulations.

(There was only this one smidgen of a problem …)

"I missed the plate," Tommy said meekly to the ump, as he slowly pulled himself up out of the dust.

The umpire looked at Tommy in disbelief.

"I didn't quite catch that," he said.

"I was out," Tommy said a little louder, clearly dismayed. "I missed the plate, the catcher tagged me. I was. Out."

Tommy's teammates, now beginning to catch wind of this peculiar exchange - and wondering, what on earth can these two still be talking about? Why isn't Tommy elated? - pulled up just short of joyfully wrestling their friend to the ground and dirtying up his head, shoulders and rump and, instead; they merely listened.

What was left of all of their excitement died away quickly, as well.

"You were safe, son," the umpire repeated, beginning to look a little annoyed. "Go back to your bench. You scored."

"No, I didn't," Tommy complained. "I saw it all. I missed the plate by a foot. Their catcher then tagged my ankle, and …"

"I saw it, too, son - and I called you safe," bellowed the ump, in open disgust. "Return to your bench!"

(By now, both coaches were standing near the plate. Neither of them was real clear about what it was they were hearing; nor, how they ought to properly respond to it, either.)

The umpire, then, turned his back on Tommy and the coaches, and, by this time, the majority of the players from both teams.

This is crazy, the ump began thinking. If I reverse the call, the kid gets his way - can't do it. But I can't call him out "twice," either - nor can I throw him out of the game for refusing to be safe …

(A gnat then fluttered around in front of his nose, and he brushed it away.)

The umpire arrived at his decision.

"Listen, son. If I call you out - will you go back to the bench so we can finish this game?" the ump asked Tommy, facing the confused gathering once again. "Will you do that? For me?"

Tommy bowed his head. "Yes, sir," he said, nodding humbly.

"Terrific," said the ump.

"You're out."

While the opposing team was huddled in a circle offering a stunned hip-hip-hooray cheer for Thomas Harold G. Mendelson, the young woman Tommy had noticed earlier in the stands paused momentarily from her writing - which was not going inside a scorebook, actually, but some kind of large, strange-looking notepad.

Presently ignoring the celebration on the field - at least for now - she seemed temporarily lost in thought.

Wearing little (if any) makeup, the young woman's eyes appeared much clearer, and older, than her years, Tommy thought. Further, she now seemed notably out of place there in the bleachers observing an obscure Pony League baseball game on a raggedy diamond just east of Broward County's State Road 84/Alligator Alley orange groves.

(...She doesn't act like she even knows anybody…)

Tommy looked at her again and felt an unexpected familiarity. Then he turned - and bumped right into his coach, who appeared a little bewildered.

No one was making a fuss over the young woman being there. Which was just fine with her.

She flipped over to a new page in her almost glowing notebook (!), and jotted down a few more words:

JES-CHUR WUZ MAG-NAN-I-MUS - TEEM LED BYE TWELV

"Gee, lady," a small voice drifted in over the young woman's shoulder. "You sure write words funny!"

It was a little girl. The young woman turned around to face her, with the trace of a teasing grin beginning to form on her lips. She studied the girl briefly, and then smiled. The sparkle from the young woman's eyes penetrated those of the youngster.

"What you've just said to me is outwardly correct," the young woman began to explain softly, with a dead-pan delivery. "But it's also limited contextually."

The little girl barely had time to blink.

"Those academic and inconsistent Chaucerian-like treatments and spellings with which you appear comfortable and familiar are reflective of the inflexibility of your transitory materialistic culture, which will gradually spiral downward in psycho-spiritual retrograde - something I predict your great-great grandchildren will look back upon one day with a certain bemused … confusion."

The little girl just stared back blankly.

Whatever it was she was feeling had not yet percolated to the surface.

"However, I should emphasize, too," the young woman added in a near-whisper, motioning to the little girl as if to a confidant, "I'd be viewed as insensitive and irresponsible were I even to imply that a young person of your appropriately limited grasp could, or in any way should, be expected to comprehend that which your family, neighbors, society - and planetary consciousness at large - don't yet marginally imagine …much less suspect."

The young woman then frowned with amusement, as if - as if - in some way out of her depth.

The little girl's jaw, meanwhile, was hanging open.

"You likely have noticed that I'm struggling in my efforts to apologize to you more succinctly," the young woman said, feigning a sigh. "You're still a child, true - but not incapable …" Then she looked up, and brightly and good-naturedly stared again into the little girl's (now thoroughly dilated) eyes.

"Would you pardon my presumptuousness?" she asked, at last.

For a few seconds, the little girl remained transfixed.

But then her eyes slowly began to squint, her mouth tightened - and she started bawling, loudly and uncontrollably.

Hurriedly, she got up and raced down her row of bleachers toward a man seated all alone, some thirty feet away, wearing a flattened Cleveland Indians baseball cap.

"Daddy! Daddy!" she wailed as she ran toward the man, whose arms began to open to her as she drew nearer … "That lady, over there," she wept, pointing. "She talks weird!!"

Then the little girl just cried and cried.

The girl's father finally looked over toward the young woman (...Oooh, he thought to himself, she's a looker …), and he mouthed apologetically the letters, "k-i-d-s." He then good-naturedly shook his head, smiled and shrugged: ....What can you do?

The young woman smiled back - blinked her eyes at him in friendly acknowledgment - and offered her own shrug for solace.

And that ended their first-ever-of-its-kind communication.

Tawker Hunt then began to return her focus to her notes taking.

She had been a little girl once, she mused - or, rather, she will be a little girl once (in a Plymouth, Massachusetts that doesn't yet exist here in 1962). And that thought made her chuckle quietly to herself.

In any event, Tommy Mendelson's the one Tawker singularly came to witness on this day - also a first of its kind endeavor.

And in spite of his (apparent) disingenuousness on the baseball diamond, she found she was impressed with him already - even though she had no intentions of doing anything about that as yet. He was, after all, still a boy.

Still, she realized she'd always been intrigued by his history (never mind those rare glimpses into their shared "future" together) - and so now, too, she was probably infatuated after finally having witnessed, first-hand, his presence - however youthful its present form.

Already, she was feeling an array of rich emotions - oh, and so much more.

So much. The experience of being here itself - it was simply …

Incredible.

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