| 15 October 2006 The Fragile Heart In the darkness, the light from the clock-radio was baleful. It was shortly after four; the kids in the party house across the street were probably just getting to their beds. We only exist briefly in the same space-time continuum, and I am only aware of them in the few weeks that the windows are open in the Fall. My experience with the last three group tenants of the party house is that they achieve some sort of equilibrium over the winter months. Perhaps chill hostility over the dirty dishes in the messy kitchen, or glowers over the empty pizza boxes in the living room. I suspect the group dynamics are similar to intimate relations. When the relationship is new, there is intimacy all over the house. As the years pass, it becomes a simple “Screw you,” as the lovers pass in the hall. The heart is a fragile thing. Whatever it is, the noise is not nearly so pervasive in the Spring, when the windows open again. Perhaps they come to terms with their independence, or maybe they just get tired. . I padded into the kitchen to start the coffee, hands shaking a bit. I did not know the result of the college football game that had commenced after the glorious baseball victory in Detroit. It should have been held in rickety old Tiger Stadium, where the last march to the World Series had occurred. It would have united this team with their golden age, which runs in spurts of triumph and misery back to ornery Ty Cobb and the dead ball. Tiger Stadium opened the same day as the grand Fenway Park in Boston in 1918. Fenway is on the list of historic places, a national icon. The home of the Tigers has become an eyesore, slated for demolition. If they can find the money to do it. Detroit is the first disposable American city, and perhaps the victory at the new park named for some company with too many vowels in its logo will do something to spark construction of a new city on the ruins of the old. The water gurgled in the coffee pot. This was the last moment of uncertainty. If I did not seek it out, I would not know the answer to the question that had caused my eyes to open wide in the darkness. One victory in a day was enough to ask for. More would be greedy, and tempt fate. The last World Series victory was 1984; twenty-two sad seasons ago. The one before that was 1968; the only two times in my lifetime. The team had won twice before, in 1945 and 1935 against the hapless Chicago Cubs both times. Things could certainly be worse. The Cubs have not won a world series in nearly a hundred years: they beat the Tigers in 1908, and there are only a handful of people alive on the planet when it happened. Three generations of fans have come and gone without feeling the delicious feeling of watching a bottom-of-the-ninth clutch homer rocket out of left field, bringing in three runs and the sweet taste of victory. So, contrasting a trip to the World Series with a mere football game is foolish, and means that my priorities were skewed. If they had not started the game at eight at night I mght have been able to watch it to conclusion. More likely I would have roused in the brown chair halfway through the night, the television too loud, disoriented. But still… I poured a steaming mug of rich liquid darker than the inky pre-dawn outside. In the old days, the last time the Tigers won the Series, I would have stalked downstairs in my pajamas to find the Sunday paper, only to find that the game had ended after it had gone to press. No score available, I would have hunted for the car keys, breath fogging the windshield, and motored to the drug store, if it was open this early on a Sunday morning, for a later edition. It is great living in the future, though it has come with a cost. I booted the computer system and breathed across the rim of the coffee cup. I had left my glasses on the bedside table. I discovered that I could read the tiny letters on the monitor if I simultaneously leaned forward and squinted hard. I mistyped the letters “ESPN” into the search engine three times, and then clicked hopefully on the menu to get the college game-day scores. They may have heard my shout of joy at the party house across the street, even if the windows are closed. I am a rational man in my way, and I know that this is a colossal set-up for a broken heart, later in the season. The Tigers could blow their trip to the Series, and hopes for the National Championship will doubtless be dashed, as they have so many times before. But it is magical to be in the hunt, isn't it? My heart was beating rapidly. It is a fragile thing, but remarkably resiliant. Now I was ready to think about nuclear weapons, resurgent Islam and the coming struggle with China. Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra |