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Chapter 16

Man can perceive three million different hues but there are only sixteen to twenty different names for colors.

A.R. Luria, The Making of Mind

I said, “He was an idealist, a child of the French Revolution. He created Group Theory when he was only nineteen years old and solved a problem that had baffled the greatest minds since Descartes. All by himself.”

Florence asked, “What is Group Theory?”

“Well, it is easy to describe but difficult to explain. I mean, you have a set of elements, a binary operation that produces elements... it’s associative and maybe commutative, has an identity and an inverse, ... anyway, it would take awhile to explain... But what gets me is that he wasn’t even allowed into the University because he flunked the mathematics entrance exam! And he created this marvelously beautiful and complicated branch of mathematics all by himself, in his room. His intellect was surely the equal of any that ever appeared on earth. He was the equal of any ancient Greek or disciple of Confucius. And they killed him.”

“For creating Group Theory?” She looked at me quizzically, ironically.

“No, because he was a revolutionary. He should have been the hero of Stendhal’s Chronicle of 1830... he was Julian. Anyway, they framed him and then shot him: he fell in love with a very beautiful woman who was a secret agent for the Monarchy and her supposed lover, who was also a secret agent, pretended to be jealous and challenged him to a duel. Naturally the whole thing was a setup and Galois didn’t have a chance. The man was a professional, a James Bond type. Galois knew it was a death sentence, but he faced his death like a hero. He had no honorable way out.”

“I don’t understand. If he discovered Group Theory, why didn’t someone try to save him?”

“He sent his papers to Cauchy, the leading French mathematician of the day, and Cauchy threw them into the waste basket. He said they were unreadable. No one took the time to study his work while he was still alive. The night before the duel, he instructed his sister, in a letter, to try to get it published because he knew its value. But no one recognized his genius while he was alive, and yet he was among the most intelligent men who ever lived.”

“Are you going to put that into your paper on intelligence?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what it proves. I assume that it means that genius is simply passion raised to heroic pitch. The fact that it wasn’t recognized by the greatest mathematicians proves that genius has no other distinguishing characteristic other than the enormous passion...”

“Maybe it only proves that vanity and envy rule the world and that no one was generous enough to admit he was a genius.” She often surprised me with the lapidary concision of her intelligence. She added, “I have to confess that I don’t see how anyone can get worked up over mathematics anyway... not to mention getting passionate over it.”

“Well, I don’t mean to be condescending, but I think it’s just because the human race is in such a low state. I mean not that you are, but...”

She laughed, too condescendingly, and said, with a playful glint, “So if human beings were in a higher state, they would all get passionate over mathematics.”

“They already do. Have you ever considered sports as a kind of applied mathematics? The ball as a perfect mathematical entity, a sphere, and the playing field as a perfectly symmetric, idealized world?”

“It sounds far fetched. But I told you I don’t know anything about sports.”

“Well, at least you’re honest. Most Americans consider it unpatriotic not to know anything about sports and will never admit they don’t know anything, even though most of them know almost nothing because they never played. I mean really played: with referees and well-trained and well-conditioned teammates. Sports is like mathematics in that way too. My teachers always used to say that mathematics isn’t a spectator sport. It is a skill that must be mastered by actually doing mathematics. And sports aren’t spectator sports either, really.”

She asked, “Is that why you never go to games?”

“Well, I go occasionally. I suppose I’m exaggerating all this, but it’s true that most people go to games because it’s something to do, because it’s a social event. They could care less about the sport. Take college baseball for example. At UC Berkeley, they play at a level just below the Major Leagues but hardly anyone goes to the games. They didn’t even charge admission the last time I went. But nobody goes. There are hardly a few hundred at the games. But the football games! You might as well stay away from the campus on a Saturday when they are having a football game. There is so much traffic, you can’t get near the campus.”

She asked, “Can’t sports be like music? I mean in the sense that you don’t have to actually play a musical instrument to appreciate music.”

“I think sports are more like mathematics than like music in the sense that sports are open ended. A game is like an attempt to prove a bunch of theorems that all together lead to a big result, --a victory. A musical performance is always done in more or less the same way, it is a kind of performance whose only virtue is that it is done well or badly. The outcome is already known.”

“Indian music isn’t like that. It is more like what you are describing. And jazz too.”

“True. But think about basketball, for instance. There are rules of play that are based on “axioms” which are the physical dimensions of the court. They are like Euclid’s “point,” “straight line,” etc. The basket must be exactly ten feet off the ground and the hoop must be a certain diameter, eighteen inches I think. Did you know that you can’t block a basketball if it is coming down from the highest point of its arc?”

She didn’t know what I was talking about.

“Anyway, it’s called goal tending and it’s illegal. Those are like the rules of Algebra, or rules of Differentiation or Integration.”

“I’m lost.”

“Well, I’m pushing it, but I think there is a certain validity to what I am saying and I think maybe people are fascinated by just watching it, maybe the way they are fascinated by chess for example. But I can tell you that playing it is infinitely better than watching. There is simply no comparison.”

She stared at me uncomprehendingly. I asked, “What do you make of the fact that people don’t go to college baseball games?”

She thought for a few seconds. “I don’t know. Maybe it is at the end of the year and they are tired of going to so many games.”

I asked, “Could I interest you in going to a game?”

“You mean really interest me?”

“You see, you are an illustration of what I’m talking about! Why is it that you don’t like sports anyway?”

“I don’t know. I suppose because it just seems pointless. A bunch of grown men kicking a ball around and acting like children. I suppose because I think of it as an exclusively male activity that excludes women on purpose... It is basically a male chauvinist activity and I detest it.”

She looked at me warily and self-consciously. She hadn’t meant to be so honest but wasn’t unhappy that she had been.

I looked at her legs and then looked into the mirror and noticed that my hair was longer than it had ever been. She had kept her promise and her hair was growing back. I suggested that we get out of the house. We drove to lake Merritt.

I said, “Well, it looks like our social life is improving. Van and his girl friend tomorrow night and your party tonight.”

We sat there on the wooden bench by the duck pond at lake Merritt and watched a couple of storks staring into the void. It was May 29, and the image of a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, burning himself alive on national television, entered my mind and then a flood of images from a documentary on the Jewish death camps. I saw a beautiful young Jewess, dead, lying on her back, naked, on a pile of naked corpses. Her angelic face, shrouded with thick dark hair, and her voluptuous body were eerily beautiful against the hideous pile of arms and legs and breasts and genitals and faces of freshly killed Jewish women. She looked almost coquettish there, on her back, with marble white flesh, Rubenesque thighs, and a neat black tuft of hair almost hidden in the flesh between her legs.

She said, “I’ll go to a game it you want me to.”

I said, “What? .... Oh, I know you will,” and I thought, “to please me.” I said, “I don’t really care much about baseball anymore, but it’s odd ... this year, it’s different. The Chicago Cubs are leading the league by about eight games and they’ve always been in last place, ever since I was a kid. And this team called the New York Mets...” I looked at her questioningly.

She said, “My ex used to talk about them sometimes. Didn’t they lose 100 games in one season or something?”

I was surprised that she knew. “That’s right. In 1962, the expansion year. It was their first year as a baseball team and they broke the record for the most games lost in one season. 120. Anyway they actually have a chance for second place. They’re real close to the Cardinals.”

She had that uncomprehending but intense look that most women have when listening to sports talk. It is as if they are remembering their mothers telling them that they should always look interested when men talk about sports. It seemed to me like empty reverence combined with intense condescension.

“Last year was the last year I took football seriously and I thought I was finished with baseball too. I carried the Raiders all the way to the Super Bowl last year and I’ve been getting this strange feeling that I’m going to have to carry the Mets to the World Series this year. I’ve actually been depressed this week because the Mets have lost five in a row even though it has helped the Cubs. I don’t understand it because Ernie Banks was one of my childhood heroes... He’s the star short stop for the Cubs... well actually, he’s playing first now but...”

Her face was flushed and she looked like a woman carrying a twenty five pound basketball on her back.

I said, “Anyway, I find myself turning to the Green Page like I did when I was a kid.”

She asked, “What’s the Green Page?”

“Oh, I forgot, you’re a foreigner. That’s the Sports page of the San Francisco Chronicle.”

She said, “If the truth were to be known, I figured it out as I was asking the question.” The expression, “If the truth were to be known,” was one of her favorite expressions and she always used it ironically. But she looked like a kid ashamed to be ignorant of an obscure detail of our National Pastime.

I didn’t try to share my feelings with her because I thought they were infantile and narcissistic. I thought that if I did, she would think of me as a pathologically infantile.

I had an irrational happiness for Ernie Banks, one of my childhood heroes and all-star shortstop for the Chicago Cubs because the Cubs were finally in first place. He was a childhood hero because he was built almost exactly like me, tall and skinny but he was still a power hitter like me. I didn’t tell her that when I was a kid, I used the Louisville Slugger Ernie Banks bat whenever I could, only occasionally cheating for a period with an Eddie Matthews or now and then with a Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams or even with a fat handled bat like a Ted Kluszewski or Jackie Robinson.

Possibly as penance for my infantilism, I remembered the article that I had read that morning on the second page of the Chronicle. It said that Dick Gregory was back in Cook County jail, for five months, and fasting again, for kicking and beating a cop. Which, of course couldn’t possibly be true. I couldn’t believe they would do that to Gregory after he had run for President and I hated Nixon after that, assuming that somehow he must be behind it even though Watergate was still in the future. I knew that Gregory would get even with Nixon for it, somehow, and of course, he did. It was called My Lai.

She looked uneasy. I said, “Well, don’t worry. I’m finished with baseball.”

I didn’t know that five years later I would be playing baseball for the Paris University Club team and that I would hit a three run home run in the bottom of the ninth to beat Marseilles, 8 to 5, for the championship of France. It was as sweet as any home run that I’ve ever hit, even though they were the only two official European baseball teams in France.

We ate a very light dinner and went to the party at about eight. The house was a large, brown shingled Maybeck with a Tilden Park front yard. Tear gas lingered in the air from the People’s Park demonstration that day.

We entered a living room filled with women. I was the only man there. The room was lighted by a globe of turning colored lights and a tall blond woman was dancing in the middle of a group of women.

They noticed us out of the corner of their collective eye but otherwise we got no formal greeting.

The music was so loud that I didn’t try to talk to Florence. She yelled into my ear that the woman in the center was the fantastic woman that she had told me about, Diana.

Diana was taller than the others. I thought, “Farrah Fawcett-Majors with a dike haircut... no, her skin is too pasty. Well, maybe it’s the light.” She turned in circles and a long, diaphanous scarf billowed around her.

Florence advanced into the room ahead of me, transfixed. I went into the kitchen, got an Olie from the refrigerator, went to a table laden with food and began loading a paper plate with potato chips, little sandwiches with tooth picks holding them together, a bunch of green and black olives, a hunk of pâté and a piece of French bread, a large piece of ripe brie cheese and a vegetable salad with raw cauliflower in it.

I was picking the cauliflower from my plate and throwing it into the wastebasket, when I heard a voice, “How are you doin?” Florence was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, watching me.

“Me? I’m all right. As long as I can find some food and something to drink I’m all right at any party.”

“Are you sure?”

I hated the gaggle of lesbians in the living room but, by that time at least, I had learned when not to say it.

I said, “Don’t worry about me. If you want to dance, go ahead. I see some books over there. Maybe I’ll settle down for awhile and read... while I’m eating.”

“Don’t be too unsociable.”

“I don’t think they’ll miss me.” She didn’t choose to hear the sarcasm in my voice. I said, “I’ll come in there and check out the dancing after awhile.”

“OK.”

I walked down the hall and while I was browsing through the books in a small bookcase I noticed a television set in a room at the other end of the hall. In the room, a couple of women were having a tête-à-tête near the door. When I entered the room, they glared at me and walked into the living room.

I turned on the set. The Mets were playing the Padres! I had forgotten! Jerry Koosman was pitching a one hitter. I couldn’t believe it. Koosman was a good pitcher, but he gave up hits. Lots of hits. I watched as he struck out the sides. Yogi Berra was slowly pacing up and down in the Mets dugout and Gil Hodges, the manager, was peering out at Koosman.

During the beer commercial I went into the living room to see how Florence was doing but I didn’t see her. In a dark corner, the same two women who had glared at me were standing close together with arms around each other’s waists.

I went back to watch the game. I thought, “Fuck them all, I don’t care, I’m going to watch the game,” and I sat there watching as players were stranded on base, grounded into double plays or hit long outs that sent outfielders onto the warning path.

“Who’s winning?” The voice had a lilting foreign accent, one that I didn’t recognize. I turned around to see a woman with thick black eyebrows and a mass of curly black hair pulled austerely back over her ears into a pony tail. She was standing just behind me.

“Nobody. It’s a tie game.”

There was a kind of strange tenseness about the game that riveted me to the screen. It seemed somehow that the destiny of the Mets and maybe of baseball itself hung on the outcome of the game. She said, “The uniforms are beautiful.”

Jerry Koosman was standing on the mound shaking off signals. She asked, “Why is he shaking his head like that?”

“The catcher is telling him to throw a pitch that he doesn’t want to throw.”

“Why doesn’t he simply throw the kind of pitch that he wants to throw and not ask the catcher?”

He threw a fast ball over the lower outside corner for a strike. I answered, “Well, if the catcher doesn’t know what he’s going to throw he’ll have a hard time catching the ball. Most people don’t know that. A catcher doesn’t usually tell a pitcher what to throw, he asks the pitcher if he thinks it’s a good idea to throw a certain kind of pitch. Since the catcher plays every game and the pitcher only pitches every four or five games, the pitcher knows that the catcher might have some pretty good ideas about the hitters. Usually pitchers go along with a veteran catcher like Yogi Berra but sometimes they shake off even a veteran catcher.”

I looked up at her to see if she had understood anything that I had said. She had moved closer, by my side, and was looking intently at the screen. She said, “Do you think the Mets can beat the Cubs this season?”

“Well, the way they’ve been playing this week, I don’t think so.”

She said, “I think Gary Gentry will help them a lot.”

“You follow baseball.”

“Yes. Well, my uncle does. He’s always taking everybody to games and watching them on TV. So I guess it’s by osmosis or something. I really don’t know that much.”

She looked self-conscious, as if she wasn’t sure if she’d used the word “osmosis” correctly.

I said, “Well, if you know about Gentry, you know a lot. He struck out more batters than any other pitcher in college baseball history.” I smiled at her.

She said, “Yes. And his father wanted him to get his college education first, before he would let him play. He was underage and his father had to sign a paper. But he relented. Do you think he made a wise decision?”

She looked back at the screen and waited confidently for an answer. Her nose was long, with a bump on it and her forehead was very low. Her hair was thick and curly and black. Her eyes were close together. Tiny ears peeked out from behind the tangled black bush of hair and her breasts seemed almost non-existent.

I said, too melodramatically, I guessed, “Sometimes you have to go against your deepest convictions. Occasionally life presents chances for greatness and they have to be seized in spite of everything.”

A Padre hit a line shot that was going to fall into left center, and the runner went for third base. Tommy Agee came out of nowhere and badly misjudged his chance to catch the ball. He should have played it safe and held the runner to third but he lunged through the air like an overweight trapeze artist with the void behind him. With arms outstretched, he bounced on the grass, skidded and then rolled. Still on the ground, he raised his glove with the ball lodged in the tip of the web, about a third of it hanging out. His face beamed with a toothy grin and Shea Stadium broke into madness.

The runner was almost at third base, holding his head with both hands, kicking the dirt, and making no attempt to get back to first base. Sitting on his butt, Agee tossed the ball to Cleon Jones who fired a line shot to first for the easy double play.

I asked, “What country are you from?”

She paused, long and beautifully, as if she needed to learn something from my eyes, as if she didn’t want to break the charm of the moment with a few ill chosen words. “I’m half Persian.”

The sound of kazoos, horns and bells competed with the screams of peasants who originated from every region on earth.

She added, and her eyes were wild and dancing, “My mother’s an Oglala Sioux.”

We looked into each other’s faces again, in silence. It seemed to me that we were both looking for reasons not to care about each other. The crowd didn’t stop their celebration. She said, “They’re happy.”

“It was a good catch. Some people don’t need much.”

I wanted to ask her something, anything, but I indulged myself in her beauty instead.

She asked, “Are you a student at Berkeley?”

“It’s a long story. Are you?”

“Yes.”

“What are you majoring in?”

“Mathematics.”

My eyes brightened. She looked down, self-deprecatingly and said, “I’m thinking of changing my major.”

A Padre hit a line shot right at Koosman. Our eyes moved back to the screen. He fell to his left, as if he were trying to get out of the way of the ball, and rolled onto the ground. But he, too, got up with the ball in the web of his glove and a sheepish grin on his face that said he couldn’t believe that he had caught the ball.

The television camera scanned the bleachers. The fans were dancing in the stands, hugging each other and toasting the sky with paper cups of beer. As the Mets went back to the dugout they threw bags of peanuts, pop corn, cushions, scorecards, cups of beer, and anything they could get their hands on, onto the field. The screaming wouldn’t stop. The police in the stands looked uneasy.

She asked, “What happened?”

“A miracle.”

“I missed it.”

“Well, we miss miracles sometimes.”

She smiled. I looked at her hair telling her with my eyes that I would like to run my fingers through it, and then I looked at her mouth telling her that I would like to kiss it. She looked back at the television set, very seriously, and without saying anything, took off her jacket. She was wearing a pink blouse, and I could see that she wasn’t wearing anything under it.

She asked, still watching the screen, “Do you believe in miracles?” She looked back at me and at my shoulders, which felt enormous next to hers. Her eyes were trusting and she seemed to snuggle up into me like a little girl.

I said, “I used to believe in Santa Claus when I was a little boy.”

“But you don’t anymore?”

“Well... Now I believe that people are miracles.”

I looked at her body and strong legs and the curve of her bare arms. I had folded my arms and my left hand was under my right biceps causing it to bulge. She looked at it and then her eyes dropped lower and she looked away coquettishly.

Remembering the philosophy of Wilhelm Reich, and not wanting to mistake the feeling for love, I made note of the fact that I wanted to fuck her and studied her features coldly. I convinced myself that she wasn’t pretty, and in fact, that she was almost ugly. But her skin was luminous and her body seemed to contain a perfectly controlled energy. The tangled mass of black hair made her look like a wild animal.

She said, “I’ll be right back.”

She got up quickly, and disappeared. I turned back to the game, alone with my feelings. Her face and hair and movement, dominated everything. I wanted her in an uncontrolled, impossible way, and I hated her for the power that it gave her. I didn’t even know her name.

I thought, “Well, she won’t come back. Women like that never do.” I repeated an idea that I had worked out the night before. “They act and feel first. For them, words only justify action but action always comes first and follows feeling.” I noticed that she had left her jacket.

I watched the game in silence. The Mets went down ignominiously and quickly. Baseball can be like that. Cleon Jones grounded out on the first pitch. Kranepool took one quick strike and then popped out to Colbert at first, and Swaboda hit a line shot to Pena at third. Koosman walked back to the mound.

She hadn’t returned yet. I thought, “Fuck her, I could care less. I’m going to get something to eat.”

I got up and went back into the kitchen. “Lo and behold,” I thought. “In flagrante delicto.” Diana’s butt was sticking out from the refrigerator door.

I asked, rather falling over myself at the opportunity, “Any beer left?” She didn’t look up. I got another paper plate and started loading it with food. Snubbed.

She turned around with a beer in both hands. “We’ve got two kinds.”

I answered, “Well, that’s service.”

Her smile darkened into an offended frown. I said, “I like Olympia. I guess it’s the water.”

“I can’t stand beer.” She looked past me, at the wall, and added, “I don’t drink.”

She handed me the beer, still looking at the wall to our left, and then, with her arm still outstretched and holding another beer can, wheeled past me, theatrically, and walked through the door, back into the living room.

I thought, “Fucking weirdo lesbian,” and went back to the television set. It was turned off. I turned it back on, muttering to myself, “People who don’t like baseball are un-American and weird on top of it,” and popped open the beer can as noisily as possible.

I looked up to see her dark eyes in the doorway. She seemed to hover above the ground for an instant and then glided towards me and I found myself watching her feet and legs and observing attentively as she sat down in the chair next to me. She seemed almost too self-consciously graceful.

Once seated, she ignored my attention and asked, “How are the Mets doing?”

She seemed genuinely concerned and looked into the screen with the same seriousness as before. I noticed that she wasn’t wearing any makeup or jewelry. She seemed innocent of coquetry and I felt ashamed of myself.

I said, “I won’t tell you until you tell me your name.”

“You tell me yours first.”

“Guess.”

“Nooo.” She laughed in a way that I had never heard or seen anyone laugh before. It was a manic and yet self-contained laugh, as if an extraordinary amount of energy flowed through her face and it was therefore necessary to contain it through an act of truncation. I thought that it was possible that she had never shown that expression to anyone else but me and I knew that it was a crazy, impossible thought.

Later, I decided that because she was an Iranian woman she had grown up experiencing intense feelings behind the veil and therefore her face was capable of registering far more intensity, before a stranger, than a Western woman could possibly allow herself. And yet, her mother was Oglala Sioux.

I said, “Let me guess your name.”

She said, “It’s Vida.”

“Life. That means life.”

She looked troubled.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that?”

She hesitated. “.... No.”

She looked into my eyes and I wondered why she lied to me.

I asked, “Why are you lying to me?”

Her eyebrows knitted together and her intensity seemed to flow into them, “I’m not lying.” The expression on her face seemed as fierce as that of Darius whipping the sea because a storm had sunk some of his ships.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Don’t be sorry. Don’t ever be sorry for anything you say.”

I said, “I like you.”

She looked at me with the same Mona Lisa smile that caused me to think she was a coquette a few minutes earlier. After she allowed me to search the terrain of her face for whatever it was that I thought was beautiful, and after I had concluded again that there was nothing extraordinary in her features, she said, “You haven’t told me your name.”

“It’s Jack.”

She looked away and seemed enormously pleased, as if I had told her a great secret.

I asked, “What are you doing at a party like this?”

“I didn’t know it would be like this. I came with a friend.”

“You’re not a lesbian?”

Her shoulders hunched together as if she were stifling a laugh and she looked around self-consciously. “Noooo.”

Tilly strode into the room, displaying an aggressive row of teeth. “Are you two getting to know each other?”

Vida and I looked at each other, surprised.

Tilly said, “Vida is a friend. She’s interested in the Women’s Movement so I brought her to the party. By the way, Florence is looking for you Jack. Did she ever find you?”

“No. But I’ve been in here for the last half hour. No one else has been here with me except Vida.” I glanced at Vida. I said, “You can tell her that I’m in safe hands.”

“I’ll tell her I saw you watching the baseball game with another woman.”

I looked at Vida but she wouldn’t meet my eyes.

Tilly said, “Well, I’ll leave you two alone.”

Vida’s arm went up. She said, “I should be going home. It’s getting late. I…”

Tilly said, “All right, but I have to go back upstairs for awhile. It’s an important meeting. All right?”

I said, “I’ll take good care of her.”

Tilly stared at me icily, turned her back and walked out of the room. I turned back towards the screen. We watched the game in silence. Koosman was shaking off signals again.

I said, “Well, I guess he’s having trouble with the catcher again.”

“He should do what he wants.”

After a few seconds, I looked into her eyes. She was staring at the screen and wouldn’t meet my eyes. Suddenly she asked, sharply, “Why are you looking at me?” She glanced at me quickly and then back at Koosman.

I thought for a few seconds. I gambled with the truth, “I like to look at you.”

She paused, as if trying too carefully to find words for her feelings.

“Who is Florence?” She stared at the rug, waiting for an answer.

“A friend.”

She looked up hopefully. We made love with our eyes. I looked away.

She asked, “How long have you known her?”

“About five months.”

Her eyes were steady like a woman who is used to pain and loss. But a blackness appeared in them and there was a silence that gave birth to an enormous distance and I said, reaching across it, “Look, I like you. Can you understand that?”

She looked into my eyes again and I asked, “Can I see you again?” She looked away and then looked back, questioningly. I said, “Look...”

I broke off in mid-sentence and looked back to the screen. It was the bottom of the tenth inning and McGraw was warming up on the mound. I couldn’t believe it.

I looked back at her. She said, “I’ll see you at Tilly’s house.”

My eyebrows shot up.

She asked, “Do you live next door to Tilly?”

Another lie. Why hadn’t she told me that she knew I lived next door?

I watched McGraw throw a looping curve ball that slashed the outside corner of the plate for a strike.

I looked back at her and she was looking into herself again, smiling gently.

Pena hit the second pitch about four hundred feet, a foul ball into the left field bleachers.

She made a move to get her jacket and then we both looked up to see Florence standing in the doorway.

Vida said, “It was almost a homer.”

I said, “The game would have been over.”

She looked at me questioningly but I was looking at Florence. Florence walked towards us. She said, “I thought you said that you were through with baseball.” She was smiling.

“I may be through with it, but I still love it.” I noticed that Florence’s cheeks were flushed. I said, “Vida, this is Florence.”

Florence put her hand out and Vida took it too warmly, with both hands. She remained sitting.

Cleon Jones opened the bottom of the eleventh inning with a chopping ground ball over second base and the shortstop bobbled the ball. Jones was safe at first. Shea stadium raised itself about a quarter of an inch off the ground and the Statue of Liberty waved her torch.

I jumped out of my chair. “Jesus Christ.”

I looked up at Florence. Her mouth was open and she was looking at me as if she had never seen me before. We all looked at the screen as Kranepool came to bat. He squared off for the sacrifice bunt and completely missed a curve ball. The crowd groaned and grumbled. When McCool delivered the second pitch, and Kranepool squared off again and missed again, the crowd was silent, as if stunned. A shrill female voice broke the silence, “Swing away Cesspool,” and laughter crackled around the bleachers like a grass fire on a dry California hill.

I looked at Florence and asked, “Did you hear that?”

She had a blank look on her face.

Vida answered, “I heard it. What does “cesspool” mean?”

Kranepool squared away again, lunging at the third pitch. I jumped up again. “Son of a... I can’t believe it… This is not baseball. This can’t be happening.” I put my hands to my head while Florence defined cesspool for Vida.

Kranepool went back to the bench and he was pelted with invective. People were hanging on the railings, pretending to puke, and throwing things onto the field, and I felt sorry for him.

Vida said, “He got his tip on the ball. Doesn’t he get another hit?”

“No, when you try to bunt on the third strike that rule doesn’t apply.”

Florence said, “I’m completely lost.”

I said, “It’s a big game for the Mets. They’ve done better this year than ever before but if they lose this one it’ll be six in a row and I have a feeling that the fans will tear down the stadium. The Mets will be finished.”

Florence said, “All for a baseball game,” and gave a little smirk. Reberger was warning up on the mound.

Florence asked, “I don’t understand. The first pitcher just made the batter go back to the dugout. So why are they using a new pitcher?”

I answered, “I don’t know.”

Vida said, “He’s right handed. Maybe the next batter is right handed too.”

I said, “That’s obviously it. Swaboda is right handed. They don’t want to take a chance.”

Florence’s voice was shrill, “What could that possibly have to do with it? Being left handed or right handed?”

Vida said, in a small questioning voice, “It’s easier for a right hander to hit against a left hander pitcher?”

I answered, “Yes, that’s it.”

Florence said, “I don’t believe it. It’s probably just a superstition. I mean it’s well known that baseball players are superstitious.”

I said, “No, it’s been backed up by statistics.”

She didn’t look convinced. Swaboda swung at a fastball and missed. The same screeching female voice came from the stands again, “Comon Swabbieeeee... keep your eye on the ball for me.......... your MOTHERRRRRR.” Laugher spread from the backstop throughout the lower stands.

The next pitch was a fastball and Swaboda swung again and missed.

Florence said, triumphantly, sarcastically, “I thought you said he could hit against a right hand thrower.”

Reberger threw another fast ball. Swaboda was protecting the plate this time and caught the ball perfectly, sending a blooper into center field for a single. For some reason, Jones was running on the pitch and went to third standing up.

I got up from my chair again. Vida was smiling but Florence scowled. Shea stadium fell apart again. The noise wouldn’t die down as they walked Jerry Grote intentionally to load the bases.

Florence asked, “I feel hopelessly stupid about baseball, but why would they walk the batter intentionally if it makes the bases loaded?”

Vida looked at me as if she wanted to tell her but didn’t want to make her feel any worse.

I said, “Well, they’re looking for the force out at home plate. If the runners are forced to run then the catcher just has to tag home plate with his foot for the out.”

Florence answered, “Well, I know that much about baseball. To make an out a player can either tag the runner with the ball or touch the base with his foot.”

I felt a twinge of embarrassment for her and said, gently, “Well, yes, when its...” I didn’t finish the sentence. I waved my hand not knowing how to finish it.

Harrelson took the first pitch for a strike.

Florence said, “I guess I don’t understand anything then.”

Vida said, “You have to watch it. Then it becomes easy. I’ve been watching it at my uncle’s house for almost four years, since I’ve been in America.”

“Where are you from?”

“Persia.”

Florence asked, “Do you live with you uncle?”

“No, I live at the I house. Do you know where it is?”

“Yes, the International House. It’s on Bancroft isn’t it?”

Herrelson hit a foul ball to bring the count to 0 and 2.

I said, “Why don’t we take her home for Tilly. She’s upstairs in an meeting. She can’t get away.”