Jack Start and Old Coach Young were staring intently at the television screen, the image of God filtering through the haze of cigarette smoke. A hush fell over their corner of the bar as the bartender and the patrons surrounding them strained to hear the message, apparently being delivered from heaven.
God opened a desk drawer, pulled out a pack of Marlboro in the box, stuck a cigarette in his mouth, and lit up. He blew a long puff of smoke at the camera. He coughed, a nasty smoker’s cough, and then cleared his throat.
The picture faded to snow and static. Then a Red Sox batter could be seen flying out to deep center field. The Twins had apparently retired the side. One, two, three.
Jack Start took a long swig and then dropped his empty beer mug on the bar. He wiped the froth from his lips. Stared up at the baseball game. “What just happened here?”
Old Coach Young shrugged his shoulders. “Some guy interrupted the Twins game and said he was God.” He dwelled on the idea as he sipped his beer. “I’ll bet it was one of those Volkswagen commercials.”
“Where was the Volkswagen?”
“They never show it at first. It’s a high-concept ad.”
“Oh, please,” begged Jack Start. “Did he look familiar to you?”
“Who?”
“The guy who played God.”
“I think he might have been on a TV series. I know I’ve seen him before.”
Jack Start was having a flashback. “He made me think of Pudge Abercrombie…I mean, you know, what Pudge might have looked like had he lived.”
Old Coach Young smiled, a rueful smile. “Ole Pudge… I haven’t thought about that kid in years.”
“For years I couldn’t
“That’s right, you were on the ship canal that night, weren’t you?”
Jack Start was suddenly drowning in his watery memories. A year earlier he had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He had lost two wives to divorce, and two jobs to alcohol, but nothing haunted him more than watching his boyhood friend wash out to sea. “Yeah, I was on the canal.”
“Who else was there?”
“Tommy Robek.”
“The skinny kid. What ever happened to him?”
“He was killed in Vietnam.”
The coach shook his head. “That fuckin’ war.” He sucked on his cigarette. “So you’re the only one left alive?”
“Yup, I’m the only one left alive. I should have given the damn ball to Pudge.”
“Say what?”
“Nothing.”
The two men went back to their beer and their baseball, as did the rest of the bar. But a strange feeling had descended over the room. Something of a pall. There seemed to be more thinking going on than talking.
“Are you going to the reunion?” the coach finally asked.
“I didn’t go to the ten. I didn’t go to the twenty. Why the hell would I go to the twenty-five?”
“Because she’s going to be there.”
Jack Start felt his heart stop. After being fired from the only two newspapers in the Twin Cities, and then being diagnosed with MS, he’d had an overwhelming desire to return home. Somewhat of a calling. “How do you know?”
“She’s divorced from the governor, for Christ’s sake. It’s all over town. She’s driving up from St. Paul,” the coach went on. “I think she has one son.”
The veteran reporter exhaled into his beer. “Yeah, that’s what I need in my life right now…a forty-three-year-old ex-cheerleader with the governor’s kid.”
“Maybe that
“I don’t think so, Coach. I’ve got plans.”
The old coach rolled his bloodshot eyes. Snickered in his beer. He looked up at the television set, still a touch of the teacher in his voice. “Do you know how to make God laugh?” he asked. He answered his own question. “Tell him your plans.”
Jack Start, too, looked up at the television set. He could see his reflection staring back. He raised his empty mug of beer in salute. “Here’s to God and all his lovely plans.”
The Red Sox made a pitching change in the eighth inning.
Then the Twins scored two more runs to win the game. The next morning, in a box above the fold, the following article appeared on the front page of the
