¿Otra vez?

The Bear didn’t want to scoop himself out into a cold gray October first morning on the bike to a full crammed day of work, skipped lunch – well, a box of leftover Hawai’ian flatbread, fries, avocado, and deviled egg tucked down in between whatever – Greek class, and the game downtown. But duty called.

Before departure in the late afternoon, Puck wrapped up his final class assignment of the day at quarter till four – writing digital-face clock times on the hand-held white board. His 8’s still resembled Dr. Seuss topiary. But he gradually and steadily improves.

So those $3.20 seats in section 432 were reserved for myself and The Bear, with Red Strike and his girlfriend, whom I had never met. She was in HR at the Brown Shoe Company and arrived wearing an emerald green coat. I was the short stick in the group. We stocked up at Trader Joe’s. The Bear became our snack machine, stuffing bags of popcorn, peanuts, sesame sticks, pistachios, banana chips, and chocolate-covered pretzels inside his bike bag, as he distributed the edibles amongst our row of four.

I hadn’t sat this high in awhile. As we took our chilled seats – a band of cold orange light under black – jeweling the arched ring of the gladiatorial seats, a nip of cool wind. Halfway through the spectacle, I was dowsed in Linnea’s trenched black puffy coat, Mom’s orange-red knit gloves, and Rose’s old knit Cards cap. The crowd was active tonight, pumped on early by Jaime’s blooping just-enough home run in the third to tie the game early. We all agreed the cold evening would end perfectly with a thunderstorm.