| Paper Street |

“Blue,” he says. “That was really bad. He was safe by three feet.”

“You didn’t ask me for time,” I tell him, meaning, Show some respect before you argue with me. Most of the coaches do respect me, because I am as old as their own fathers. Something like relief floods their eyes the first time they see me in my uniform, and they realize that I’m not a grandfather, but there to call the game. They dislike most of the umpires, who are only teenagers. So Ken Prachett asks me for time and I step back and raise my arms, calling a pause to the game. Immediately, everything I love about it—the coolness of the evening, the soft light over the field, the curled-up dogs, the slow, steady machinery of baseball—falls away.

“The call stands,” I tell him. “He’s out.”

“Charlie. You can’t be serious. My dog could see that he was safe. Are you blind?”

Truthfully, I did not actually see his player’s foot touch the bag. Nor did I see the ball arrive in the fielder’s mitt. I didn’t clearly see the pitch or the hit, either. I had been having trouble with the clarity of my vision since before I left for the field this evening—and for the last few months, really—and I was listening for the sound of the ball arriving or the runner arriving, whichever came first. This is something I’ve trained myself to do—and until now, it’s worked.

“The call stands, Ken.”

“It’s a close game, Charlie. I wouldn’t be out here if it didn’t matter.”

I remind him that he’s wasting daylight, and then he gets angry.

“You can’t do this. It was a horrible call. Even Bill will say it was bad.”

Bill Munson coaches the other team, the Newton Mudhawks. I can feel his eyes on me from across the field. I don’t want him involved. “It’s the second inning and there’s no score,” I say. “Do you want to play ball, or do you want to stand here blowing hot air?”

At that moment my partner, a sixteen year-old named Travis, tall and dopey-looking and red-haired, wanders up the baseline. I can see his puffy chest, his mask dangling in his hand, but he is blurry and dark, like an image on a television with the brightness and contrast turned down. He wants to know what’s going on.

“Did you see the play?” Ken asks him.

“Not entirely. The catcher blocked my view.”

“Was my runner out or safe?”

Travis spits thoughtfully, covers it with his toe. “Can’t say.”

“What do you mean, can’t say?”

Travis shrugs. “Nope. Sorry. Their catcher has a fat head.”

“Jesus Christ. What kind of outfit is this?”

“It’s Little League.” I say this as if it should explain everything. “And if you ask me, your boys shouldn’t see you arguing with the umpire.”

“They shouldn’t see lying,” Ken retorts. “What’s so hard? You reverse the call, say you were wrong. We forgive you and go on.”

I turn my back and start toward my position behind first base, signaling that the argument is over. If he follows me, I’ll throw him out. It’s gone on too long already and I’m angry at myself for allowing it to. I don’t want to look into the bleachers, where my wife is seated amongst Prachett’s sympathizers with this month’s Garden Gate.

“We expect professionals, Charlie,” Ken calls after me. “I’ll have Mr. Dishman at your next game.”

Chris Dishman is the Director of Officials. At the one-day umpire school in May, he took me in for a moment, smiling. “People will love you,” he’d said. “Like right out of Norman Rockwell.”

Dishman warned us about reversing calls. I have not reversed any in the two months I have been umpiring, and I will not do so now, even though I can feel the heaviness in my stomach that tells me I am wrong, and I can feel my wife’s eyes in the stands, willing me to do the right thing. The right thing would be to say that I couldn’t make the call, to admit that Ken Prachett is right: I’m a living, breathing stereotype, the blind official. My specialist can’t figure out what’s wrong. It does not seem to be glaucoma or cataracts. It doesn’t appear to be macular degeneration, though at times my eyes behave like that is what I have. All we know is that I have periods of several hours where the world looks as if I am viewing it through a shroud of dark fabric, and that these periods are getting more frequent. Grainy, evening light makes it worse. Sometimes I will stand on the field as twilight falls, and I will be aware of the closure on my field of vision. I will become terrified that this is what the future holds: twilight, even at noon, and all the changes this would bring to my life, and to Sharon’s. Would we have to leave our house? Could we still travel? What else wouldn’t we be able to do for ourselves? To admit that this is happening to me, and it is why I dropped a simple call at first base, would require a bravery and fortitude that I’ve never known, though I’ve wanted to.

When I became an umpire three months ago, the condition barely existed. I saw the ad in the paper and wanted to get my body out of the house and my mind away from the television. I’m in good shape otherwise and I thought umpiring would be relaxing. The opposite has proved true. People take Little League way too seriously. The last time a job made me so nervous was the last time I had a summer job, in 1941, when I was sixteen. I ran errands for Public Service Gas and Electric, sometimes going to places that ran me through the gauntlet of what even then were bad sections of Newark, New Jersey. An old man calling a baseball game shouldn’t have to feel like that, and boys shouldn’t be taught to look at any game that way. Really, I don’t want to reverse the call. A small, dark part of my heart is gratified at annoying Ken Prachett. I’ve called several of his games and I don’t like him.

Travis calls the game back to order, and we resume with one down in the bottom of the second of six innings, daylight permitting. I take up my position along the first base line, ten feet or so behind the bag, one foot in fair territory, one foot in foul. The fog that still won’t clear hangs in front of my eyes. The batter, the catcher, and Travis are smudges of color such as one sees when removing their driving glasses at the end of the day. It is for this reason, partially, that I never call balls and strikes. The reason I give, which is also true, is that once I got down in a crouch behind the catcher, I would never be able to get back up. But I want to call the plate, and I am tempted now and then to ask for a half-inning. I want to lean down and watch the ball release from the pitcher’s hand and see it coming in, the spinning laces and the white blur, and not flinch. I have the sense of many things bearing down on me that I wish would tail out of my path, but a fastball is one I would gladly watch all the way in, again and again.

Ken Prachett’s Cardinals do not keep the game close for long. They are bigger, stronger, and better equipped and better coached. I realize what it is that has been bothering me about them since before the game even started: there is something arrogant and aggressive, almost angry, about the way they warm up and move about. It’s a disturbing swagger to see in thirteen-year-old boys. The next hitter doubles, and I follow his lithe, professionally uniformed body to the center of the infield. The next hitter doubles him in, and the next triples that one in. The fourth blasts a towering home run into the parking lot just beyond right field. Every boy who comes to the plate takes the dispirited Mudhawks’ pitcher for a long ride. I feel as though I’ve brought on this firestorm, as if I’ve awakened something in Prachett and his boys: a self-righteous anger, a desire to blow the game apart so that bad calls will not matter. They hang seven runs on the Mudhawks without getting another out, at which point Travis invokes the Mercy Rule, ending the half-inning so the other team can at least have a shot before things get out of hand. The Mercy Rule allows a team to escape with their pride intact; if the Cardinals are up by ten or more after three innings, we’ll end the game.

Between innings I’m aware of someone’s eyes on me, and I turn to see Ken Prachett facing me. He is talking on his cell phone and pacing in front of the bleachers. He approaches me as he ends the call, then slips the phone into his back pocket.

“Dishman is coming over to watch the rest,” he tells me.

I stare at this man, watching his face slowly come into focus. In his eyes I see something vengeful, perhaps the still-hot ashes of a dream of playing baseball himself. I remember hearing about a coach going through a messy divorce, and though I can’t recall if it’s him, it would make sense.

“I hate to do it,” he says, “but what you did was blatantly irresponsible. It threatens the integrity of this game.”

I’ve always been amazed at the way normally inarticulate people can string together words when they are angry, as if after hearing them someplace they saved them away. We stand together for several minutes without talking. I can’t think of a reply. I watch his pitcher—the biggest kid on his team—warm up. He kicks his long leg high and explodes down the mound. The ball blazes into the catcher’s mitt like a missile every time, landing with a frightening crackle. I remember that in the first inning, this brute struck out the other team on nine straight pitches.

“How hard does he throw?”

The question pleases Prachett. “High sixties. Though from this distance it’s like ninety. He has a curveball, too. Remember his name— Pete Callahan. You’ll be hearing it someday.”
“He’s too young to be throwing breaking balls. He’ll ruin his arm.”

“Hey,” Prachett says, “who’s the coach here?”

I turn to him and poke him in the chest. “Here’s something, coach. If you’re about the integrity of this game, take him out. You know Munson’s kids can’t hit him, and they’re going to lose no matter what, because they can’t compete.”

“You’re really something, Charlie, you know that?” Pratchett says, and walks away.

I go back to straddling the foul line behind first. Dusk is falling, the light becoming dim and supple, and though it’s far from dark, it’s harder for me to see. I know about where Sharon is sitting in the stands, but I can’t see her face. I know that the boy stepping into the batter’s box is terrified at the fury unleashed by Callahan’s left arm, but if he made contact, I would not be able to pick up the ball. And I know as well that this will be the last game I call.


	POETRY THE LESSER FRITILLARY, THE ANGELICA Sandra Ahrens I want it both ways — to wander in sun-dreamed trance through nameless glory, and to take in a presence, calling it by name. It's true that no map is the territory it claims to tell. Lovers of names risk missing the thing itself to caress its invented title. Gazing into deep pools we encounter ourselves first and last. Names serve as binding, the tendril stitch of attachment to this blazing spot in June, marked with remarkable beings, named not as they are, but describing our path towards each spirit: a butterfly called the fritillary, the plant named angelica. STILL LIFE, INTERRUPTED Nils Clausson Representing innocence, a pear lies beside a peach, sensuality. These symbols are in form and color equally artificial, and rendered in miniature to magnify that artifice. The scarred oak table, the knife, these too may be signifying forms, but abruptly our abstraction is interrupted, violated: a boy appears, casually fingers the crease of the ripening peach, strokes the green pear's hard appealing palpability. In his presence the diminutive fruits resume their natural size. Our perfect composition is unformed, forever. Look how even the morning light bends differently since his intrusion. He thumbs the tempting edge of the knife, then thrusts it deep into the tabletop. Consider his uncontemplative pose, which defies certain interpretation. Perhaps the boy represents texture: how mortal objects feel on mortal skin? Perhaps an allegory of desire? Does his mouth not water naturally in expectation of the perfect fruit? He pulls out the knife, sets it down, touches again the pear, the peach, pauses, as if choosing which fruit to eat or, like Paris, which to offer his mother as a gift. FICTION from RULES OF MERCY Paul Graham The boy is safe, but I call him out. I feel my mistake as soon as I pump my arm and the crowd of parents in the first-base-line bleachers cries out in protest and disbelief. I can see the boy’s face well enough to make out the incredulous O of his mouth, his hands gripping his helmet as if he wants to pull it off and throw it. Then I hear the coach’s feet kicking up the infield dirt as he jogs over. Only when he is two feet away can I discern the details of his face, his hooked nose and beady, deep-set eyes. Ken Prachett wears a full uniform like his boys, complete with spikes and a pen around his neck. He thinks he’s Casey Stengel. “Blue,” he says. “That was really bad. He was safe by three feet.” “You didn’t ask me for time,” I tell him, meaning, Show some respect before you argue with me. Most of the coaches do respect me, because I am as old as their own fathers. Something like relief floods their eyes the first time they see me in my uniform, and they realize that I’m not a grandfather, but there to call the game. They dislike most of the umpires, who are only teenagers. So Ken Prachett asks me for time and I step back and raise my arms, calling a pause to the game. Immediately, everything I love about it—the coolness of the evening, the soft light over the field, the curled-up dogs, the slow, steady machinery of baseball—falls away. “The call stands,” I tell him. “He’s out.” “Charlie. You can’t be serious. My dog could see that he was safe. Are you blind?” Truthfully, I did not actually see his player’s foot touch the bag. Nor did I see the ball arrive in the fielder’s mitt. I didn’t clearly see the pitch or the hit, either. I had been having trouble with the clarity of my vision since before I left for the field this evening—and for the last few months, really—and I was listening for the sound of the ball arriving or the runner arriving, whichever came first. This is something I’ve trained myself to do—and until now, it’s worked. “The call stands, Ken.” “It’s a close game, Charlie. I wouldn’t be out here if it didn’t matter.” I remind him that he’s wasting daylight, and then he gets angry. “You can’t do this. It was a horrible call. Even Bill will say it was bad.” Bill Munson coaches the other team, the Newton Mudhawks. I can feel his eyes on me from across the field. I don’t want him involved. “It’s the second inning and there’s no score,” I say. “Do you want to play ball, or do you want to stand here blowing hot air?” At that moment my partner, a sixteen year-old named Travis, tall and dopey-looking and red-haired, wanders up the baseline. I can see his puffy chest, his mask dangling in his hand, but he is blurry and dark, like an image on a television with the brightness and contrast turned down. He wants to know what’s going on. “Did you see the play?” Ken asks him. “Not entirely. The catcher blocked my view.” “Was my runner out or safe?” Travis spits thoughtfully, covers it with his toe. “Can’t say.” “What do you mean, can’t say?” Travis shrugs. “Nope. Sorry. Their catcher has a fat head.” “Jesus Christ. What kind of outfit is this?” “It’s Little League.” I say this as if it should explain everything. “And if you ask me, your boys shouldn’t see you arguing with the umpire.” “They shouldn’t see lying,” Ken retorts. “What’s so hard? You reverse the call, say you were wrong. We forgive you and go on.” I turn my back and start toward my position behind first base, signaling that the argument is over. If he follows me, I’ll throw him out. It’s gone on too long already and I’m angry at myself for allowing it to. I don’t want to look into the bleachers, where my wife is seated amongst Prachett’s sympathizers with this month’s Garden Gate. “We expect professionals, Charlie,” Ken calls after me. “I’ll have Mr. Dishman at your next game.” Chris Dishman is the Director of Officials. At the one-day umpire school in May, he took me in for a moment, smiling. “People will love you,” he’d said. “Like right out of Norman Rockwell.” Dishman warned us about reversing calls. I have not reversed any in the two months I have been umpiring, and I will not do so now, even though I can feel the heaviness in my stomach that tells me I am wrong, and I can feel my wife’s eyes in the stands, willing me to do the right thing. The right thing would be to say that I couldn’t make the call, to admit that Ken Prachett is right: I’m a living, breathing stereotype, the blind official. My specialist can’t figure out what’s wrong. It does not seem to be glaucoma or cataracts. It doesn’t appear to be macular degeneration, though at times my eyes behave like that is what I have. All we know is that I have periods of several hours where the world looks as if I am viewing it through a shroud of dark fabric, and that these periods are getting more frequent. Grainy, evening light makes it worse. Sometimes I will stand on the field as twilight falls, and I will be aware of the closure on my field of vision. I will become terrified that this is what the future holds: twilight, even at noon, and all the changes this would bring to my life, and to Sharon’s. Would we have to leave our house? Could we still travel? What else wouldn’t we be able to do for ourselves? To admit that this is happening to me, and it is why I dropped a simple call at first base, would require a bravery and fortitude that I’ve never known, though I’ve wanted to. When I became an umpire three months ago, the condition barely existed. I saw the ad in the paper and wanted to get my body out of the house and my mind away from the television. I’m in good shape otherwise and I thought umpiring would be relaxing. The opposite has proved true. People take Little League way too seriously. The last time a job made me so nervous was the last time I had a summer job, in 1941, when I was sixteen. I ran errands for Public Service Gas and Electric, sometimes going to places that ran me through the gauntlet of what even then were bad sections of Newark, New Jersey. An old man calling a baseball game shouldn’t have to feel like that, and boys shouldn’t be taught to look at any game that way. Really, I don’t want to reverse the call. A small, dark part of my heart is gratified at annoying Ken Prachett. I’ve called several of his games and I don’t like him. Travis calls the game back to order, and we resume with one down in the bottom of the second of six innings, daylight permitting. I take up my position along the first base line, ten feet or so behind the bag, one foot in fair territory, one foot in foul. The fog that still won’t clear hangs in front of my eyes. The batter, the catcher, and Travis are smudges of color such as one sees when removing their driving glasses at the end of the day. It is for this reason, partially, that I never call balls and strikes. The reason I give, which is also true, is that once I got down in a crouch behind the catcher, I would never be able to get back up. But I want to call the plate, and I am tempted now and then to ask for a half-inning. I want to lean down and watch the ball release from the pitcher’s hand and see it coming in, the spinning laces and the white blur, and not flinch. I have the sense of many things bearing down on me that I wish would tail out of my path, but a fastball is one I would gladly watch all the way in, again and again. Ken Prachett’s Cardinals do not keep the game close for long. They are bigger, stronger, and better equipped and better coached. I realize what it is that has been bothering me about them since before the game even started: there is something arrogant and aggressive, almost angry, about the way they warm up and move about. It’s a disturbing swagger to see in thirteen-year-old boys. The next hitter doubles, and I follow his lithe, professionally uniformed body to the center of the infield. The next hitter doubles him in, and the next triples that one in. The fourth blasts a towering home run into the parking lot just beyond right field. Every boy who comes to the plate takes the dispirited Mudhawks’ pitcher for a long ride. I feel as though I’ve brought on this firestorm, as if I’ve awakened something in Prachett and his boys: a self-righteous anger, a desire to blow the game apart so that bad calls will not matter. They hang seven runs on the Mudhawks without getting another out, at which point Travis invokes the Mercy Rule, ending the half-inning so the other team can at least have a shot before things get out of hand. The Mercy Rule allows a team to escape with their pride intact; if the Cardinals are up by ten or more after three innings, we’ll end the game. Between innings I’m aware of someone’s eyes on me, and I turn to see Ken Prachett facing me. He is talking on his cell phone and pacing in front of the bleachers. He approaches me as he ends the call, then slips the phone into his back pocket. “Dishman is coming over to watch the rest,” he tells me. I stare at this man, watching his face slowly come into focus. In his eyes I see something vengeful, perhaps the still-hot ashes of a dream of playing baseball himself. I remember hearing about a coach going through a messy divorce, and though I can’t recall if it’s him, it would make sense. “I hate to do it,” he says, “but what you did was blatantly irresponsible. It threatens the integrity of this game.” I’ve always been amazed at the way normally inarticulate people can string together words when they are angry, as if after hearing them someplace they saved them away. We stand together for several minutes without talking. I can’t think of a reply. I watch his pitcher—the biggest kid on his team—warm up. He kicks his long leg high and explodes down the mound. The ball blazes into the catcher’s mitt like a missile every time, landing with a frightening crackle. I remember that in the first inning, this brute struck out the other team on nine straight pitches. “How hard does he throw?” The question pleases Prachett. “High sixties. Though from this distance it’s like ninety. He has a curveball, too. Remember his name— Pete Callahan. You’ll be hearing it someday.” “He’s too young to be throwing breaking balls. He’ll ruin his arm.” “Hey,” Prachett says, “who’s the coach here?” I turn to him and poke him in the chest. “Here’s something, coach. If you’re about the integrity of this game, take him out. You know Munson’s kids can’t hit him, and they’re going to lose no matter what, because they can’t compete.” “You’re really something, Charlie, you know that?” Pratchett says, and walks away. I go back to straddling the foul line behind first. Dusk is falling, the light becoming dim and supple, and though it’s far from dark, it’s harder for me to see. I know about where Sharon is sitting in the stands, but I can’t see her face. I know that the boy stepping into the batter’s box is terrified at the fury unleashed by Callahan’s left arm, but if he made contact, I would not be able to pick up the ball. And I know as well that this will be the last game I call.