It was three beers and six innings later at the Cannon Brewpub that Vic is thinking about that irritatingly sunny day when Ray James says, “It’s only six hours to Gulf Breeze—why not just go?” in a bar, in the same town, some forty odd years after Vic struck out and forty minutes after Vic has relived it once again. Ray checks his old naval watch (one of the big, solid, metal-banded ones with the anchors) and says, “We could just catch the sun coming up.” Vic takes a moment to wonder himself what time it is, but never asks.

Vic is thinking about his bat, and what kind of bat it had been. It was wood, that much he remembered. But he is contemplating the brand name, the name of the company branded in charcoal black on the wood at the base. He stares at the amber color of his beer as though an answer lurks there, and he isn’t really paying attention to Ray and what Ray is saying. He hears pieces, “no need for us… supposed to be retired… tired is the only proper half…” So, he isn’t really paying attention or particularly committed to the idea when he nods quietly and says, “Yeah.”

“Are you serious?” Ray starts, his flat, white Pall Mall cigarette almost falling into his beer. He sits up a little on his stool, straightening out the patterns on his flower print, button-up shirt. It cuddles his gut near the wasteline.

Vic looks up from his reverie at the bar and replies, tired, “Yeah.” He sighs again. “Let’s go,” as though they were going to a funeral and not a sunrise. And he knows he isn’t going to remember the name of the company that made the bat, anyway. Wilson, Schmit; fuck it. Who knew?

“Well, shit,” Ray scoffs. “I didn’t think you were capable of spontaneity there, Vic.”

Vic looks around the bar–at all the faces he knows, has known for a long time. He watches the faces as they talk and occasionally glance at him, some nodding a polite greeting to him, some just looking, some staring at a baseball game on the television up above the bar. He turns back to the bar, sips his beer, and smiles kindly at Ray. “I’m not capable of it, Ray.”

Ray looks on for an explanation and for a moment is worried he will be disappointed.

“Ain’t nothin’ about it spontaneous. I’ve been meaning to leave this shit town for twenty-six years.”

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