Metzger's Dog

19 The strong winds of the morning had scoured the sky to an impossible blue and then moved on. The sunlight now beat into the bowl of Dodger Stadium, heating the seats and the concrete steps so that food and drinks spilled months ago cooked and released a perfumy essence into the air. When the third warmup pitch smacked into the catcher’s mitt, a tiny cloud of dust exploded and then drifted luminous in the sunlight for a second.

Jorge Grijalvas stared about him at the stadium. He wasn’t looking at any of the individual players throwing the ball back and forth. That view of things didn’t interest him very much. His box had been chosen because it gave him what he called the whole view. At a glance he could see the entire infield as a unit. If he lifted his gaze he could see not people, but the crowd. He liked the crack of the bat and then the whole infield moving at once in the smooth, precise, and practiced maneuvers too quick for thought. The Dodger infield was like a special kind of machine, perhaps a trap.

Grijalvas had the same box every year. He also had a box in the Hollywood Bowl for the concert season, but he always gave the tickets to friends and business acquaintances who seemed to enjoy it, or perhaps only to enjoy accepting the friendship of Jorge Grijalvas. He paid no attention to the Los Angeles Rams, because American football made no sense to him. He understood it completely, but it seemed interesting only theoretically.

Baseball was different. Here was ritual, the nobility of a single small man in a white uniform on a field of dust pitting his cunning and his reflexes against nine in a contest of concentration and will before an immense gathering of people, a colorful, variegated blur of humanity ranged from the dugout to the heavens, all breathing in unison, all gasping as he swung the blond bat.

Grijalvas smiled and pivoted his head about in satisfaction to look at his companions. He was a happy man. He was a man of substance, a padrón, a man who could spend the afternoon in Dodger Stadium surrounded by his friends. They were more than friends. They were fidelios, the faithful.

As he gazed about the stadium he could see that the food and ice-cream vendors were beginning their first sweep down the steps that separated the seating sections. Across the stadium they were stepping down the aisles at once, the aluminum cases slung on their shoulders glinting in the sunlight. He snapped a twenty-dollar bill in his fingers and held up his right arm, then glanced about for the man who would come to collect it.

He was pleased when he saw the vendor step down the aisle. It was a young woman with beautiful long brown hair that shone reddish in the sunlight, and a complexion that was white, like a ceramic figurine. She was perfect, as the day was perfect.

“Give these gentlemen whatever they wish,” he said.

“I’ve only got hot dogs, sir.” And then she smiled, and he included her in his expansive mood. She added, “Great hot dogs, though.”

Grijalvas turned to his friends. “What do you think? Do we believe her?”

“How can we know?” said Juan, his face expressionless. “Is it guaranteed to be horse meat?” He winked to keep the tattoo of a tear on his cheekbone covered by his sunglasses.

She held up a tinfoil package. “This one ran third in the Belmont Stakes.”

Grijalvas slapped his knee. “Give us five, and keep the change.” He watched as she gave the other four hot dogs, then he said, “I want the one that won the Kentucky Derby.”

“Of course. I’ve been saving it for you.” She reached into the aluminum box and handed him one of her foil packages, then moved down the aisle. He saw her slip into the crowd and then onto the exit ramp. It must be a good day for her if she had to go back for more hot dogs already. Grijalvas looked at the infield. The first batter was striding to the plate, swinging his bat in a deliberate motion that seemed to be more mental than physical.

Grijalvas didn’t like hot dogs, but he found himself fiddling with the aluminum foil. It was so much bigger and heavier than he’d expected. He opened it and peered inside. When he saw the piece of paper on top he said to Juan, “Excuse me,” and walked down the steps to the men’s room. Inside, he unfolded the paper and read.

“Jorge, I need a favor. The rest of this hot dog is seventy-five hundred dollars, so don’t eat it. What I need is the use of your Mexican connections….”

He folded the paper without reading the rest of it and put the foil package in the breast pocket of his coat. Today was not a day to think about business. Still, he was a happy man, and there was no reason not to do as this man asked if the request was reasonable. The man was a lunatic, but the world was full of lunatics, and most of them were not capable of surprising.

On the far side of the stadium, Margaret climbed the steps and sat down next to Chinese Gordon.

“How did it go?” he asked, peering through a pair of binoculars.

“He got it.”

“Yeah, I saw that.” He lowered the binoculars and frowned at her. “Did you save me a hot dog?”