2049.05: "Shadow of the Mountain," Part II

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2049.05: "Shadow of the Mountain," Part II

Post by Drew_V » Mon Dec 13, 2021 3:10 pm

SHADOW OF THE MOUNTAIN
A Bucharest Impalers Saga in Several Parts
Written by Drew Visscher

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[This short story is best enjoyed while listening to the uncredited "Romanian Sorrow Song."]

To go forward, one must inevitably withdraw, and to advance on this earth is only ever really a long retreat. Planets orbit the sun like runners on a basepath, like the spin of a curveball—and while it may drop, it may fade or fall away; it may launch fifty feet over Center Field. But it always comes home.

I remember the pacific sway of the trees; the humid hymn of grasshoppers on a summer morning, and the long tosses of the time-worn baseball from a child’s hands to an ailing grandfather’s glove. I used to count the catches; one, two, one hundred, knowing they were finite, knowing that eventually, one would be the last. So it turns.

When we could no longer withstand the Seattle sun, we retreated to the pine-tooled garage, and if the Storm were playing, he would crank the ancient radio dial, lean back in the threadbare lawn chair, and brandish a sweating Timișoreana as we cheered on the old names; Morris Pennebaker. Rob Van Winkle. Mack Randall. He would often curse in the old language, which would illicit a steam of staccato protests from bunica, inevitably in the adjacent kitchen. She would click her tongue and bring bunicul another Romanian beer on a tray—her eyes betraying her tone, and she would wink at me and tell my grandfather that the infield shift was a grave sin, worse than coveting, and she would cross herself fervently and return to the kitchen.

Sometimes, late in the evening, we would climb to the mossy roof of the peeled-blue Puyallup bungalow, and although we couldn’t see Mount Rainier, my grandfather would lean back on the peeling shingles, sighing, and tell me that he could feel the shadow of the mountain—and it reminded him of the old country.

My grandparents had three great loves in their life: baseball, Romania, and their only grandson. On the rare occasion when we could afford to attend a game at King County Complex—or when the Boilermakers Local 502 awarded free tickets—bunicul would take my hand through the gateway to that wondrous, open-grass temple. Grandmother attended Mass alone, but this was my grandfather’s cathedral. The overpriced hot dogs, which we would share, was his Eucharist, and we would rise or sit with the joyful hope of a flyball; or make the sacraments of cheering or lament as the homily of innings advanced.

He never spoke about my parents—but I saw the pain in his eyes when I would slap a line drive perfectly over his head, or reach back on a long haul to snag a wild toss at the edge of the park fence. It was in my brightest or boldest moments that I felt farthest from my grandfather; his typical carefree ambivalence would transition sharply to downturned eyes and a looming sadness. Once, when I turned sixteen, he took me into the cellar and, clicking on an ancient bulb, he sorted through a tin can and showed me a weathered photo of my father. He was dark-haired, handsome, holding a bat over one shoulder with a beautiful, pensive young woman looking up on his other.

I only worked up the courage to ask my grandfather about my parents, once, near when he died. Grandmother was long gone, and as he lay in the indignant jaundice of Pacific Tower, he could only grimace, and sigh, tears in his folded eyes, and he frowned and spat and mumbled “Fie ca Ceauşescu să putrezească în iad.” He died on Christmas Day.

I often wonder what my wonderful bunica and bunicul would thing of me now. Would they hide my photograph in an unfinished basement, to covet in quiet corners of the evening? Would they console one another with “We did our best,” or “Such is the way of things?” No one can say. All I took of my heritage was a little Romanian, a tragic love of baseball, and the faded photograph of my young Romanian parents, forever adoring one another upon a fading polaroid.

As I entered the airport, alive with the stale fragrance of air conditioning and leather bags, I held the photograph of my parents in one hand and my only suitcase in the other. I put the strange, unnerving phone call from the anonymous Impalers benefactor from my mind, for now. I ignored my intuition to turn to despair over the many mistakes I charted since the death of my grandfather. There was so much to do, and much still to understand—but as I looked through the peeling windows of the old airport, I observed the towering Carpathians, tossing their long, dark shadows over the river plains. I couldn’t help but smile, a little. So much to learn--but I was home.


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Drew Visscher, Bucharest Impalers GM

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Re: 2049.05: "Shadow of the Mountain," Part II

Post by shoeless.db » Mon Dec 13, 2021 7:10 pm

I used to count the catches; one, two, one hundred, knowing they were finite, knowing that eventually, one would be the last. So it turns.
This hurt. Tore me.

Good stuff. Looking forward to the next installment.
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