Coming Around Again

Every religion has its version of life after death, but no one on this Earth knows for certain how the process works. Certainly not Shaun O’Rielly, but he was about to experience an up close and personal brush with the afterlife.

He awakened on a crisp springtime Tuesday morning to the sounds of birds singing and the glare of sunlight pouring in the windows of his bedroom. For the majority of Baltimoreans, nothing about the day was special. For Shaun, everything about the day was different. He was emerging from a seemingly endless period of wallowing in grief over the death of his wife, Andie, short for Andrea Moss O’Rielly.

He yawned and stretched languidly, shaking off the effects of his nightly sleeping pill and the first dreamless night he could recall since her death. For a time, he had feared sleep and wondered how the dreams, these little snatches of the brightest moments of their lives, could feel so much like nightmares. Now, in place of the hollow loneliness that had become his constant companion for nine months, he felt a surge of anticipation and new energy as though he and the sun were rising together out of the darkness.

Oddly, what caused this momentous change in his attitude was not at all monumental. The simultaneous arrival of his two favorite seasons, Spring and baseball, peaked a curiosity in him about the friends he had abandoned in his mad-at-the-world self-imposed exile, his teammates who would be starting baseball practice, teammates he suddenly needed to help him get on with his life.

It was time to get up. He sat up and put his feet over the side of the divan. The floor still carried the winter’s chill despite the thickness of the carpet. He shivered as he retreated to his bedroom and walked the few steps into his closet. The clothing bar that had held her wardrobe was empty except for his robe, which he pulled on. He avoided looking at the resulting total emptiness on her side of the closet. No gloom, no doom, no morbid thoughts were going to spoil this day.

From a shelf on his side he lifted down a worn leather duffle that held his glove, spikes and baseball cap. He took each of these items out of the bag and savored them, holding them like small treasures, smelling the sickly-sweet tang of glove oil and the musky wool of the cap, taking in the visage of the friendly smiling Oriole on its crown, and the contrasting menace of his gleaming sharpened spikes. Satisfied his equipment was in top shape, he placed everything back in the duffel, which he secured and set out like a suitcase as he might if he were traveling a greater distance than to a reunion with the team.

Later, while the afternoon melted under the welcome springtime sunshine, he took the elevator down to the garage, picked up his car, and set his course for The Stockyards. As he drove closer, long familiar landmarks filled his subliminal awareness, as though he was driving on automatic pilot. In their place he envisioned a scene in which grown men played at a classic kids’ game, laboring to work out the kinks of a winter’s inactivity. Though blocks away, in his mind he could hear their familiar chatter, Hey, Batter. Hey, Batter, swing!

He turned the last corner, pulled into the parking lot, and the scene was almost exactly as he had envisioned: men batting and tossing baseballs around the yard; equipment strewn about on the ground by players anxious to get practice underway; the galvanized fencing of the backstop sounding like it was singing as it was ruffled by the breeze; the light towers ready to fend off the night and already buzzing with daytime insects; the smack of leather on wood, ball on glove; and the grunts of exertion and chirpy banter of his teammates, everything instantly familiar and reassuring.

Except for one significant detail, he noticed as he looked out the windshield. His heart sank, and he held his breath an extra moment as he observed an unfamiliar figure, a new man, an interloper, holding down second base, Shaun’s position. Feeling betrayed, he gripped the steering wheel with both hands so tightly that his knuckles were white, while his face flashed red from a combination of his irritation and his embarrassment.

He clenched his teeth and, in unison, the muscles in his lower back tightened. His physical discomfort was equaled by the distress of second-guessing his unannounced decision to rejoin the team. He looked into the rear view mirror overhead and, seeing pain in the reflection of his eyes, wondered aloud, “What am I doing? What was I thinking? Why am I here?”

For a moment, he toyed with the notion of forgetting the reunion and returning home. But he looked in the mirror again and found the momentary pain replaced by resolve. He belonged here, not back in the gloominess of the past nine months. The Stockyards beckoned, almost as though it were challenging him. He got out of the car and slammed the door.

Rico Lopez, the slick shortstop, stopped in mid-throw and called out, “Look who it is.” Grady Foster, the brawny catcher, grunted, “Damn, it’s Shaun.” Murmurs of surprise and excitement coursed through the others. Buddy Ross, the team’s left fielder and coach and Shaun’s best friend did a poor impression of Chuck Thompson -- the Baltimore Orioles’ Hall of Fame broadcaster they all had grown up with -- announcing, “Now coming to the field is Shaun O’Rielly. And ain’t the beer cold!”

Warmed by their welcome and feeling like a prince of this domain, Shaun headed for the field. But along the way, he could not suppress a growing sense of frustration over the presence of the new guy..

Buddy waved his hand as a signal for the team to resume their warm-ups so he could have a few minutes alone with Shaun. He jogged across the field and intercepted Shaun. Head cocked to the side, a smile spreading across his face, crinkling his nose and accentuating the crow’s feet at the edges of his eyes, Buddy stopped dramatically about a yard from Shaun. A glove on one hand, a ball in the other, both hands on his hips, back arched, he broke into an imitation Irish brogue as bad as his Chuck Thompson impression. “Well now, our fine Irish lad has come down from the hills. Saints be praised.”

He closed the final yard between them and hugged Shaun, but their embrace was awkward. Shaun’s frustration trumped elation.

“Who’s the new guy?” Shaun asked.

“Well, if that doesn’t beat all,” Buddy replied, his posture now rigid. “Nine months, not so much as a word from you, nary a returned e-mail, nothing but the sound of your answering machine, and I don’t even rate a ‘Hello’, a ‘Good to see you’, ‘A fuck you, Buddy’, or some other endearment?”

Shaun was steely eyed, looking past Buddy to the would-be second baseman, standing to one side, a separate entity from the rest of the team, a newcomer obvious in his discomfort. "Sorry,hello, fuck you, Buddy, so who's the new guy?"