Silence again for a while before Dad said, “When I saw Mac, I didn’t know what to say.”
“I know.”
“What did you say?”
I shrugged. “I told him that Tony hated baseball because he once threw up after too many hot dogs at an Orioles game.”
“Is that true?” He was looking at me again.
“Sure it’s true.”
“What was the score of the game?”
“What game?”
“The game you were at when Tony threw up.”
I could have pretended it was an odd question, but I knew my father well enough to know he cared about stuff like that.
“Dad, I was twelve. I went to hundreds of Orioles games.”
“But that game.”
“I honestly don’t know,” I said.
“You knew he threw up.”
“I know a lot of things about Tony. I know he liked New Kids on the Block when we were in fifth grade. I know he played shortstop for the Sterling Wildcats for three games before faking a knee injury and riding the bench. I know he lost his virginity to a girl he’d met just two hours before he saw her naked. What does any of that mean now?” I shook my head and played with the tie I had removed a few hours ago, folded in my lap.
“The score of the game, Brian. What was the score of the game?”
“Five-one, Yankees.”
I’d like to say that was one of the tickets Kacie had put in our scrapbook which she gave me for Christmas two years ago and that is why I remembered it. But that game was before Kacie. I knew the score because, as it turns out, I care about that stuff too.
Click Follow to receive emails when this author adds content on Bublish
Comment on this Bubble
Your comment and a link to this bubble will also appear in your Facebook feed.