- December 20, 2024
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Every now and then, when I’m trying to look especially dashing, I’ll partake in a fine cigar. Never an ordinary cigar, mind you. Only “fine” ones (which try as hard to kill you as ordinary cigars but you smoke while wearing a robe).
Become the associate editor of a small-town, community weekly and you start to become accustomed to a certain lifestyle. No apologies.
So I’m partaking, but I’m also sulking, because it seems that nobody else in the world seems to care that Game 6 of Major League Baseball’s American League Championship Series is on. No bars are screening it. Nobody’s talking about it. Instead, everyone’s buzzing about something called “college football.”
I looked it up, and apparently, college football is a game in which an object called a “pigskin” is thrown and caught by exploited youngsters who boast something called “school spirit.” I don’t know. I was never much for religion.
So I admit it: I’m sulking. But I’ve got to say: I’m pulling off the sulk — hard. Blowing smoke rings will do that, make even your lowest moments seem classy. Oh, and there’s a reggae band playing on this center stage. And people are everywhere — really out tonight. One of those Saturdays.
A few storefronts down, music thumps and, in the flicker of a strobe light, you can see bodies sweating and smiling and stupidly thinking they’ll live forever. Next to that, families are scarfing pizza. Across the way, a yogurt shop, with the hyper kids and the rainbow sprinkles and all the simple, happy memories older people forget to make life easier to swallow.
And me, I’m sitting with two friends in a quiet corner — less traffic, dimmer lights. And we’re just watching as the weekend sucks people in then spits them out again. And we’re thinking about how the weeks are like that, too. And how the months are like that. And how we’re like that.
We think it, but we don’t dare say any of that. I mean, we’re still men.
“You see Victorino hit a grand slam?” I say, instead, coming back to our table from the bar. “Red Sox win it!”
“Oh man, I cannot wait for the start of the Series!” Moey says.
“Really, when did I start loving baseball so much?!” Joey adds, pulling his stogie quick from his lips.
And then, for a second, we all silently mourn the end of our fantasy baseball season. We mourn the stats and the strategy and the distraction. We mourn the chance to make believe again.
Baseball is a northern sport and, a group of Florida boys tucked away in a forlorn corner of a weekend streetscape, we knew we were displaced. FSU v. Clemson? Who cared? We didn’t belong. We were completely alone here.
“Well, it’s gonna be a looong offseason,” Moey says.
And I look around at the people dancing and talking and touching. I look at the way they look at each other. I look at the curves in their smiles, and how each one seems to curl and cascade through the haze of our cigar smoke. And I think how there has never been a season in history that’s ever played out long enough.
But instead I say: “Seriously.” I puff. I cough. And I go back to looking dashing.
BY MIKE CAVALIERE | ASSOCIATE EDITOR
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