First Base, And Other Metaphors
From The National Pastime
by Jim Courter

When Charlie saw Pam for the first time, stepping onto the terrace that late afternoon with a tray full of drinks, he had to remind himself that a guy in his position—young and talented, rich and famous—could afford to play it cool. He might get knocked off his feet by a high inside fastball, but he'd be damned if he'd let a woman do it. Still, his blood ran hot at the sight of her, and only by force of will was he able to resist the raw pull of her sex.

Charlie watched as she served some of his teammates and Harold Braun, the team's owner, on the terrace of whose Malibu house they stood and whose liquor they drank. He saw them follow her with their eyes when she came toward Charlie with her empty tray.

“Something to drink, Mr. Cole?”

Charlie took a cigar from an inside breast pocket of his sport coat and lit it with a paper match. He blew smoke over the terrace wall.

“Dark ale.”

“I'll be back.”

She returned minutes later. Charlie took the bottle from the tray, leaving the glass next to it, and took a long pull.

“Aren't you drinking?” he said.

“I'm working.”

“When are you not working?”

“When the party’s over, I guess.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Who doesn’t?” She touched his arm with two fingers. “Duty calls.” She turned and walked off, casting a look back at Charlie that he took to mean Try harder. His imagination already full of the ways he might enjoy her company, Charlie believed he would.

After ten minutes she hadn’t come back out. Ignoring a voice in his head that warned him against walking into something he’d regret, Charlie went to Harold Braun for a brief word, then went inside.

She waited as a bartender filled her tray with more drinks. Charlie went across the room and stood beside her.

“It ain’t fair,” he said.

She turned to him and smiled as if she’d been expecting him. “What's not fair?”

“You know my name, but I don't know yours.”

“It's Pam.”

Her tray was ready. She lifted it and turned into the room.

“When that's empty,” Charlie said, “let me take you somewhere. We could get better acquainted. Names ain’t much to go on.”

“But Mr. Braun . . .”

“Mr. Braun's been taken care of.”

She looked out onto the terrace, where Harold Braun watched them with an indulgent smile.

They went to Diamond Doug's in Charlie’s Porsche and took a booth near the back.

“My teammates and me come here a lot,” Charlie said. “It’s close to the ballpark.” He regarded her quizzically across the table. “What's that look for?”

“You don't remember me.”

Charlie searched his memory.

“Two years ago,” she said, “on the set of Swing and a Miss. I was a miss. You and that catcher from Chicago played yourselves.”

“Is your hair different?”

“It's shorter, and redder.”

“You still doing films?”

Pam swirled her margarita with a straw. “Nothing to write home about. You've been busy.”

“I guess. Played myself a couple more times. Once a drunken outlaw.” He sipped beer and smiled. “The real me. You look like you could write your own ticket. What are you doing serving drinks at Harold Braun’s preseason party?”

“What a million other people out here are doing, dreaming big and making ends meet.” She sipped her margarita. “And finding out the hard way that you can have looks and talent and get nowhere and have not much of either and end up on top. I've had some bit parts in films and commercials and done some modeling. But I can’t seem to be able to make the right connections. Any advice?”

 

 

Pam lit a cigarette with a disposable lighter. Charlie lit a cigar with a paper match and signaled the waiter for new drinks.

“Not really,” Charlie said. “I was lucky to get hooked up with Stu Green. He’s Mr. Connected. He worked out my first big league contract, and before you could say Jackie Robinson I had a shoe deal and was doing commercials and movies. It don't seem fair—a mug like me turning down parts while you have to hustle drinks to make ends meet.”

“It's work,” Pam said, “and you never know what…” She waved a hand. “Let's change the subject. Answer a baseball question for me. How do you stand in there against ninety-mile-an-hour fastballs and hit for power and average?”

“You a fan?”

“Between my dad and my brothers, I grew up with baseball. What's your secret?”

Charlie shrugged. “I see the ball.”

“That's a secret?”

“It's harder than it sounds, and lots of guys don't. They ain’t got the eyes for it, or their head's not in the game. Or they're afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Sure. They don't want a fastball stuck in their ear. Neither do I. You can get hurt, even with a helmet. But even if you don't it can ruin you. Some guys never recover”—he tapped the side of his head—“mentally. Pitchers are like dogs, they can smell fear. They'll buzz one close in on you to back you off. Some will go for the head. So you're either afraid or…I'm not sure what. Maybe too dumb to be afraid. Like me.” He laughed and pulled on his beer.

“Have you ever been hit?”

“Plenty, but never hard in the head. I can't say how I'd react if I ever was, besides wanting to kill the guy that hit me. But you can't let a pitcher scare you. When I'm at bat I put everything out of my head except to see the ball and hit it. I see the spin, the threads, every cut and smudge.” He pointed to his right eye. “These are my secret. Don't tell.”

Charlie and Pam drank, talked, and smoked until midnight. Pleading fatigue, she declined Charlie's invitation to prolong the evening at his place. But she said she'd like them to “see more of each other.”

Charlie found her choice of words tantalizing, and in weeks to come they did see more of each other, but not in the sense or to the extent that Charlie was itching for. They spent time at each other's places and at restaurants, gravitating toward those that ignored outright the ban on smoking. But in the face of Charlie's urgings to intimacy, Pam allowed him to, but not beyond, first base, explaining that she had old-fashioned notions about saving sex for marriage.

Marriage. There was something for Charlie to chew on. He wasn’t an avowed bachelor only because he had given so little thought to the subject. Now that he had cause for doing so, he heard again that warning in his head that he had heard that first night and off and on since, telling him that when a ten like Pam takes up with a mug like him it can only be that when she looks into his eyes she sees dollar signs, in this case his fat $12 million-a-year contract. At least that was what he heard when he was away from her. When he was with her that voice was drowned out by his breathing and the pounding of his blood, as on the night when, typical of their time alone together, he was wild with desire for her, mad with frustration at her not allowing him past first base, and Pam whispered wetly in his ear that whenever his schedule allowed they might sneak off to Nevada and quickly and quietly tie the knot.

A few days later Charlie injured a thumb in a head-first slide. The team doctor said he’d need at least a week to heal. That night, with Pam in his Porsche, he broke the speed limit all the way to Lake Tahoe, which Pam preferred to Las Vegas for its being less tacky, where they exchanged vows and hastily purchased rings, checked into a cabin in the pines overlooking the lake, wherein Charlie rounded not only first base but second and third as well, and, finally, bad thumb and all, slid hard and fast into home.

Early the next morning, as Charlie slept, Pam rose and checked her voice mail. It had an urgent message from her agent, telling her of an audition she ought to return for that very day. She was in a cab and on her way to the airport before Charlie stirred. When he finally did he found next to him on the pillow not his new bride’s face but a note explaining what she had learned and done and promising to make it up to him. Charlie drove home the next day.

Pam, who had got herself moved into his place from hers before Charlie returned, greeted him at the door apologetically. The audition had been for an obscure part in a low-budget production. Her dope of an agent, her third since coming to Hollywood, should have known better. She'd dump the bum in a minute, but who would represent her then?

“Any ideas? How’s the thumb?”

Pam and Charlie sat behind some potted palms that marked off the unofficial smoking section of a restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard.

Pam looked around. “I love this place,” she said. “It's like…Deal City.”

Charlie studied the menu and frowned, wishing he hadn’t let Pam talk him into coming.

“I don't speak French,” he said.

A waiter appeared. Pam ordered something Charlie had never heard of. “Coffee,” Charlie grunted. The waiter gave Charlie a look—part condescension, part annoyance—and flounced off.

 

 

 

Pam put a slender gold case on the table, opened it and took out a cigarette, put it between her glistening lips and waited. She touched Charlie's hand.

“I want you to light me when we're in public.”

“Okay.”

Charlie produced a book of matches. Pam pushed a gold lighter across the table. He looked at it.

“If you don't mind.”

She leaned forward. He picked up the lighter, thumbed the top open and the lever down and held the flame to the end of her cigarette.

She blew smoke. “What did Mr. Green say?” she asked.

“He said he'd see you,” Charlie said. He pulled a business card from his wallet and slid it across the table. “You're supposed to call in the next few days.”

“That's fantastic, Charlie.”

She put the card in her purse.

“Keep the lighter for these occasions. I have another.”

Charlie stuffed the lighter into his jacket pocket. He lit a cigar with a paper match, raised the two fingers that held the cigar and saluted.

“Yes, ma'am.”

Pam sat at one end of the couch, flipping pages of a magazine. Charlie sat at the other end watching a game. Pam pointed the remote at the TV. The screen went black.

“Hey!”

“Tell me about the fight,” she said.

“Not much to tell. Guy plunked me with a fastball. I went after him. Most fights, you’re lucky to land a punch. I managed to draw blood. Very satisfying.”

“And a fine. And a suspension without pay. How much will that cost us?”

“A chunk, but a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.”

“And you had to fight.”

“Yup.”

“I had the girls over to watch that game,” Pam said. “They were excited to see the man I married. And what do they see? You brawling in the dirt like a juvenile. And do you have to spit?”

“I got a rule,” Charlie said. “You pop me, I pop you twice, and twice as hard. My ol’ man taught me that, and I ain’t never forgot it.”

Pam winced. “Haven’t ever.”

Charlie picked up the remote and pointed it at the television. The game reappeared.

“Grammar queen.”

Pam was in the kitchen making a salad when Charlie came through the front door. He dropped his duffel onto a chair and his ball cap onto a table. “Hi, baby.” “Hi, Charlie.” He went to her. She allowed herself to be embraced and kissed, then leaned back and inspected him.

“You need a haircut,” she said. “I'm reheating lasagna. Hungry?”

“As a bear.”

Charlie took a can of beer from the refrigerator, opened it and took a long pull. He sat on the other side of the table at which she worked .

“I had Sharon over for the Chicago game. We got a big kick out of your hair, the way it curled out from under your ball cap over your ears. How was the trip?”

“Not bad for the road. We went five and four. What’s this big news you mentioned on the phone?”

She beamed. “Are you ready? I got a part in a romantic comedy. A friend of the female lead. Lots of lines. Stu's done wonders for me. And he says it's just the start.”

“Stu? Now it's Stu?”

“I was going to eat in the den and watch a movie.”

She went off with some things on a tray then returned. As she passed Charlie, she flipped the hair over his ear, curled almost into a tube.

“We have to get you to a barber.”

“We?”

“Let's eat.”

 

 

 

They sat behind TV trays on the couch in the den. Pam used the remote to turn on the TV to Key Largo.

Charlie read the sports section of the newspaper as they ate. When he turned the page, Pam put a finger to her lips. “Shh.”

Charlie finished eating then left with the newspaper.

It was after ten o'clock when the film ended. Pam turned off the TV and carried some things into the kitchen then went into the bedroom.

Charlie was asleep on his back, still in his clothes, the sports section open across his chest, snoring through parted lips.

Pam went into the bathroom, opened a drawer and took out a pair of long, stainless-steel scissors with pointed tips. She put them on her right hand and returned to the bedroom.

She bent over Charlie. Enough light spilled in from the bathroom to allow her to see. She carefully snipped the tube of hair over his nearest ear, front to back. It fell to the pillow like down.

She spread the scissor tips and leaned down and across him to get at the other side. As she did so, the rug she stood on slipped, and she fell across Charlie's chest.

Before she could regain her feet, he pushed her off, threw the newspaper aside and jumped up. He saw the scissors.

“What the hell!”

He put two fingers to the left side of his head and inspected them. They were bloody.

Charlie turned on the light. He grabbed Pam by the wrist above the hand that held the scissors and squeezed until she cried out and dropped them to the floor.

“You could have put that in my eye,” he snarled.

Charlie released her and stomped into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. The scissor wound was superficial. It hurt little, and the bleeding had nearly stopped. He stuck some toilet paper on it and stalked out and into the living room.

Pam followed. “Can I explain?”

“No.”

Charlie put on his ball cap.

A tube of hair stuck out on one side, unmatched by the side Pam had clipped. He went out the door.

Pam stood in the open doorway, rubbing her wrist. As his car disappeared past the hedge at the end of the drive, Pam wondered how long it would take him to notice how ridiculous he looked.

Charlie slid into the booth across from Pam and looked straight at her. Pam looked around the room. “Lunch crowd.”

“I have to be at the ballpark by two. You said this wouldn't take long.”

A waiter set a salad in front of Pam.

“Coffee,” Charlie said.

Pam sipped Perrier. She moved pieces of her salad around with a fork. The waiter delivered Charlie's coffee.

“I knew it when I saw you on TV the night Sharon was over,” Pam said. “I told myself you just needed a haircut, but I think I began to realize then what I know now. We have different styles, Charlie. I can’t grow in the direction I want to with us together. Don't be sore.”

Charlie sipped his coffee. “I won’t.”

“I've been in touch with my lawyer,” Pam said. “He'll be in touch with yours to, you know, start working on a settlement. I thought it would be nice if we could get together here and part on good terms. No hard feelings?”

“Not a one.”

Pam took the gold case from her purse, extracted a cigarette and put it between her lips. She smiled at Charlie, as if to say, “For old time's sake?”

Charlie produced the gold lighter. He thumbed the lever and studied the flame a moment. As he did, he heard an echo of the voice in his head he had first heard at Harold Braun's party. This time it seemed to mock him. He felt like he had been picked off first base with the game on the line.

Charlie held the flame to the tip of Pam's cigarette then pulled it back. Pam looked around the room. He turned the adjusting wheel. The flame licked high. He leaned forward and pushed it into the hair above Pam’s ear.

Panic raced into her eyes. She shrieked and slapped wildly.

As matter-of-factly as he might drop his bat and move toward first base after taking ball four, Charlie set the lighter on the table, slid out of the booth and headed for the exit.