Dean Duffy

One
MY TEN-YEAR "CAREER" as a baseball player ended in May of my senior year. It was the last game of the season, a home game, eighty-six degrees, dust swirling around the infield. At the bottom of the ninth, we trailed 3-13, which was the same as our win-loss record that season. I was at bat with two outs, nobody on base, and only three spectators left in the stands.
The pooped pitcher was throwing me fastballs right down the middle. I kept fouling them off, pitch after pitch. The count stayed I ball and 2 strikes. It was my 77th at-bat of the season. I was 4 for 76 for a batting average of .052, which was why the opposing pitcher was throwing me chest-high fastballs.
I knew this was the last at-bat of my life, and I pretty much just wanted to get it over with. But I wasn't quiteready to commit suicide. I still had my hitter's savvy, and it told me the next pitch was going to be a changeup.
And sure enough, along comes this big fat lazy moonball. I cocked my bat, waited for the ball to float its way to me, and I swung for all I was worth. And missed. I turned and looked in disbelief at the ump, who nodded and raised his mask and said quietly, "It's over, Dean."
And so it was. The end of baseball and the end of a dream I had devoted my life to since I was seven years old. As I walked to the dugout, I held my head up and did not drag my bat.
A few days later, another lifelong career ended: school.
Our graduation ceremony was held at the Seattle Center Arena, followed by an all-night dance in the Alki Room of the Seattle Center, music provided by a heavy-metal band called Flex. Throughout the night, I said goodbye to my classmates, and the next day my parents, three kid sisters, and I moved from our house in a north Seattle suburb to a dilapidated wreck of a farmhouse on San Juan Island in northern Puget Sound, four hours away from Seattle.
It was on a gorgeous piece of greenery, with broad pastures, horses, a sweeping eastward view of the sound, a fresh stream running along the back boundary. My folks had quit their jobs and sunk their life savings into it and planned to renovate the house, turning it into a bed-and-breakfast. For the past twenty-seven years, Dad had been the head maintenance man at the Nimbus Creek Golf and Country Club, and Mom had held variouscleaning jobs. Now they were going to make their living catering to Seattle yuppies who wanted a weekend getaway.
I wasn't sure what I'd be doing afterward, but that house was my summer job, and I threw myself into it. My dad and I worked fourteen hours a day seven days a week. My three sisters fed the horses, and my mother fed us.
I spent more time on the roof and ladder than on solid ground. Day after day, the sun beat down on me. It was just what I needed: hammering, patching, scraping, painting, sweating. My skin turned brown; my dark hair grew down over my shoulders: I looked like Tarzan or Conan the Barbarian.
The work had its own rhythm and pace. It didn't quite compare to shooting strikes past a batter or ripping a base hit into the opposite field with a runner in scoring position, but it was satisfying in its own way.
Baseball, that nightmare, was behind me, and I needed to look ahead to what I'd do next. College, of course, was the most likely prospect. Although I'd been accepted to the University of Washington in Seattle, I wouldn't be able to attend until I could find a way to pay for it, which meant filling out every financial-aid form I could get my hands on, along with finding a job and saving some money. I knew I should have been preparing sooner, but right up to the spring of my senior year I'd had good reason to believe I'd be offered a baseball scholarship somewhere. This was no delusion, believe me. But in the end it had all fizzled out.
I worked straight through summer, on into September,one of the hottest and driest on record. There hadn't been a drop of rain in the Pacific Northwest since early May.
One Friday afternoon toward the end of September, I finished painting the exterior of that gigantic house. Two coats' worth. I climbed down the ladder and walked around "Duffy Inn," admiring my work.
The four guest rooms were still three months from being ready for guests, but reservations were already trickling in. After this weekend, they'd be coming in faster, because Pacific magazine was sending a crew out to do a "Before and After" feature on our place. My folks were going to get some free publicity.
I figured it would be a good weekend for me to get away, go back and visit my old neighborhood just north of Seattle. I could stay with Jack and Shilo Trant in nearby Nimbus Creek. I hadn't talked to them for two weeks or seen them since graduation, and I missed them more than any friends my own age. I had known them since I was seven, when I had become friends with their son, Van. Van and I had stayed halfhearted friends, while Jack Trant and I had grown close. It was Jack who'd discovered my talent for baseball, and for the past ten years he had been my coach, trainer, mentor, and second father.
That Friday afternoon, after I finished looking over my paint job, I stood at the kitchen counter, studying the ferry schedule, when the phone rang.
"Duffy Inn," I said.
"Hey there, Dean Duffy. You sound more like your old man every day."
I smiled. It was Jack Trant.
"How's painting?" he asked.
"Finished," I said. "A few hours ago. The whole mess."
"No kidding. Way to go, pardner. What're you up to now?"
"Looking at the ferry schedule."
"Oh?"
"I was thinking I might call you and invite myself over for the weekend."
"Don't bother. You're invited."
"Hey, thanks."
"Don't thank me. It's that wife of mine. She misses your homely kisser."
My smile broadened. "I miss hers, too."
"There's a couple of things I want to talk to you about," Jack said. "Not now, when you get here. Let's just say they have to do with your future."
"I'm open for suggestions," I said.
"Good. And dust off your golf clubs and bring. 'em along. There's a man I want you to meet. Dick Drago."
"Dick Drago?"
"An old friend of mine. Fraternity brother. He's just passing through town tomorrow. We have a tee-off time for one o'clock. Me, Dick, Shilo ... and we need a fourth. How about you?"
I wasn't sure I had heard right. "The fourth? In your foursome?"
"Think you can handle that?" he said.
"Playing? Not caddying?"
He laughed. "I said bring your clubs. That means playing, not caddying."
"Who's Dick Drago?"
"I told you, an old friend. Can you be here by eleven?"
"Easy. The first ferry leaves at six."
"Thataboy."
As usual, Jack hung up without saying goodbye. I pressed my palms on the cool surface of the newly installed kitchen counter, then folded the ferry schedule and stuck it inside my wallet.
Copyright © 1995 by Randy Powell