The Gold Coast

19

That Saturday morning the same old party is beginning at the spa when Sandy gets sick of it. It’s sunny outside and the spa with its plants, mirrors, spectrum slide walls, clanking Nautilus machinery, gym shorts, leotards, and the sweet smell of clean sweat, just isn’t big enough to do the day justice. “Ahhhhhhh! Boring!!!!” He lets the lat pull go and its weights crash down, then he fires off into the mall and comes back with softballs, bats, and a dozen gloves. “Let’s go! Play ball!” He dragoons the whole crowd and they’re off.

It takes them a while to think of a park big enough to play softball in, but Abe does and they track south and east to Ortega, where a large grass park surrounded by eucalyptus trees lies empty. Perfect. There’s even a backstop. They split into teams, lid some eyedroppers, and start up a game.

None of them have played since junior high school at best, and the first innings are chaotic. Sandy plays shortstop and does pretty well with the grounders, until one bad hop jumps up and smacks him right on the forehead. He grabs the ball in midair and throws out the speedy Abe by a step. His forehead has a red bruise that shows the ball’s stitching perfectly; it looks like some of the surgical work on Frankenstein’s monster. When Sandy’s told this he starts acting the part, which makes for somewhat stiff short-stopping.

Tashi has apparently lidded some Apprehension of Beauty; he watches everything with the dazed wonder of a four-year-old, including, when he comes to bat, the first two pitches from Arthur. Openmouthed awe, bat forgotten—what an arc! Sandy runs up and reminds him of his purpose there, mimes a hit. Tashi nods. “I know—I was just getting the trajectory down.” Next pitch he hits one so far over Humphrey’s head in left field that by the time Humphrey even touches the ball Tashi has crossed the plate and sat down, looking more dazed than before. “Home run, huh? Beautiful.”

Third out and Jim takes left field in a state of rapture. “I love softball!” “Jim, you never play.” “I know, but I love it.” Trotting out onto that pure green diamond time disappears, all the adult concerns of life disappear, and Jim feels like an eight-year-old.

Unfortunately for his team he also plays like an eight-year-old. Arthur is up, and he hits a fly ball toward Jim. The moment it’s hit Jim begins to run forward, because after all the ball is in front of him, right? But while running in a little basic trajectory analysis shows him that in fact the ball is destined to fly far over his head. He tries reversing direction instantaneously and falls on his ass. Scrambles up, oh shoot there goes the ball, running desperately backwards trying to look over his shoulder for the ball, left shoulder, right shoulder, how do you decide? Now the ball’s falling, awful acceleration as it does, Jim running full tilt makes a great leap, the ball hits his outstretched glove then bounces off and out, no, an inch more of leather and it would have been an unbelievable catch! He falls, runs to the ball, throws it wildly past Sandy as cut-off man, watches Angela recover it and fire it in sidearm as Arthur cruises across the plate. Damn! Virginia, on deck, is laughing hard. Jim throws his glove down, shrugs ruefully at his grinning teammates. “Hit another one out here!”

“I’ll be trying,” Virginia calls back.

More hits, more alarming misjudgments, awkward scrambles after the ball, wild throws back in. It’s fun.

Next time at bat Tashi hits one even farther than the first time. Home run again. For his subsequent at-bat the outfielders have dropped back until they’re standing in the eucalyptus trees, and Tash laughs so hard he can barely stand. “I couldn’t hit it that far no matter what!” “Sure, sure. Go ahead and swing.”

Moving the outfielders so far back does create some monster gaps up the alleys, and Tash proceeds to hit a screaming line drive that stays eight feet off the ground for about two hundred feet, then skips off the grass and rolls forever. Another homer. And the time after that he does it again. Four for four, all homers. Tash just stands there, mouth hanging open. “Four homers, right? Three? Four? Beautiful.”

It’s a different story in the field. Playing center, Tash catches a medium-deep fly and sees Debbie tag from third for home. Really a good chance to nail her at the plate, so Tash rears back and puts everything he’s got into the throw. Unfortunately his release is a little premature. The ball is still rising as it rockets forty feet over the backstop and into the trees. Who knows where it’ll land. Tash stands in center inspecting his right hand. Everyone sits down they’re laughing so hard. Then they can’t find the ball. Sandy declares the game over and they sit down in the hazy sun to eat Whoppers and fries and drink Coke and Buds. “Do you think it achieved orbit?” “Great game.”

Great day. Jim sits on the grass and flirts with Rose and Gabriela, who have singled him out for the afternoon. They only pick on guys they can trust not to take them seriously, it’s a sign they feel comfortable and friendly with you, and so of course Jim enjoys that part of it; also he can’t help fantasizing that they really are serious this time. That would be a night to remember: what the screens would show!

Jim doesn’t really notice Virginia, sitting on the other side of him. And unfortunately she appears to be peeved about something; she knocks his hands away from her when he does turn to her, snaps at him. “What’s the problem?” he says, irritated.

She just snarls. And she won’t confess to any reason for being disgruntled, which annoys Jim no end. He can’t figure it out. He has to suffer the sotto voce lash of her sharp tongue, even while they’re both being very hearty and friendly with everyone else. Great. Jim hates this kind of thing, but Virginia knows that and so she pours it on.

Finally Jim asks her to come along with him for a short walk, and they go off into the eucalyptus trees.

“Listen, what the hell are you so upset about?”

“Who’s upset?”

“Oh come on, don’t give me that. Why don’t you tell me? It’s stupid to be bitching at me when I don’t even know what for.”

“You don’t, do you.”

“No!”

“That’s just like you, Jim. Off in your own little dreamworld, completely unaware of what’s going on around you. People don’t mean a damn thing to you. I could be dying and you wouldn’t even notice.”

“Dying! What do you mean, dying?”

Virginia just grimaces with disgust, turns to walk away. Jim grabs her by the wrist to pull her back around, and furiously she swings her arm free. “Leave me alone! You don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on!”

“You’re right I don’t! But I do know that I hang out with you by choice—I don’t have to. If it’s going to be like this—”

“Leave me alone! Just leave me alone!” And she storms off, back to the others out in the sun.

Well. So much for that alliance. Jim doesn’t understand why it’s ended, or why it began, but… Oh well. Confused, frustrated, angry, he walks back out onto the playing field. Beyond the seated group of friends, Virginia is conferring with Arthur; then, to Jim’s relief, she walks off with Inez and they track away.

But the feelings generated by the fight don’t go away; the real world has intruded back into Jim’s afternoon, and anger makes the Whopper lie heavy on his stomach. Virginia’s bad mood adds to the other more serious bummers of the last couple of days, forms a fierce brew, a desire to strike back somehow.…

When Arthur stands to leave Jim approaches him. “Arthur. You talked about real resistance work. Something more serious than the postering.”

Arthur stops and stares at him. “That’s right. And you called the other day. I was wondering if you’d ever do anything more.”

Jim nods. “I had to think about it. But I want to do something. I want to help.”

“There’s something coming up,” Arthur acknowledges. “It’s a lot more serious, this time.”

“What you mentioned before. Sabotaging weapons plants?”

Arthur looks at him even longer. “That’s right.”

“Which one?”

“I’d rather not say, till the time comes.” And Arthur’s look becomes sharp indeed. They both know what this means: Jim has to commit himself to sabotaging any of the defense corporations in OC, including, presumably, Laguna Space Research. His father’s company.

“All right,” Jim says. “No one will get hurt?”

“No one in the plants. We could get hurt—they’ve got some tough security on those places. It’s dangerous, I want you to know that.”

“Okay, but no one inside.”

“No. That’s the ethic. If you do it any other way, you just become another part of the war.”

Jim nods. “When?”

Arthur looks around to make sure they are still quite alone. “Tonight.”

The Whopper does a little backstroke in Jim’s stomach.

But this is his chance. His chance to make some meaning out of his life, to strike back against… everything. Against individuals, of course—his father, Virginia, Humphrey, his students—but he doesn’t think of them, not consciously. He’s thinking of the evil direction his country has taken for so long, in spite of all his protests, all his votes, all his deepest beliefs. Ignoring the world’s need, profiting from its misery, fomenting fear in order to sell more arms, to take over more accounts, to own more, to make more money… it really is the American way. And so there’s no choice but action, now, some real and tangible form of resistance.

“Okay,” Jim says.