Chapter 9

One December night, Casey went to a pub with Neil for drinks. It was wet and cold but still warmer than Cincinnati for the time of year. Casey had not thought much about his life there during his first few weeks on the Emerald Isle, but the dampness of the air reminded him just how much he hated those winters, and he was grateful it was no colder than it was. Still, his friends were there, if he could count Sidney and A.J. as friends.

Neil sensed a bit of homesickness in Casey, even though it was not until later in the night when Casey realized it and admitted it. He kind of missed the parties with the ballplayers. He missed Marin. He definitely missed baseball. And he missed Anne.

“Do they play baseball in Ireland?” Casey asked Neil.

“Baseball in Ireland? No. We don’t play anything that requires throwing anything other than a punch.”

“Ah, yes, we do have baseball in Ireland,” the bartender interrupted.

“What are you talking about, mate? I’ve never seen anyone play baseball.”

“It’s been here since the nineties. We even took a bronze in the European Pool B Championships a few years ago.”

“There’s a European baseball championship?” Casey asked rather incredulously.

“Aye, and some of the teams made it to the World Baseball Classic last year.”

“Netherlands and Italy.”

“Aye.”

“Did you watch it?”

“Of course. I love baseball. I lived in New York for a few years and watched the Mets play.”

“At least it was the Mets and not the Yankees. I’m a Reds fan.”

“You still must be basking in the glory.”

They chatted a bit more about the game before the bartender had to attend to other customers. Small world, or were small things simply getting bigger? As the Guinness flowed, the conversation between Casey and Neil grew more serious. Casey found himself telling Neil about his time in Iraq. Neil took the Iraqi side, which Casey could not really argue with, and then, Neil made a startling confession. At least to Casey.

“I’m a Republican.”

“Well, I tend to vote Democrat, but that’s ok.”

“No, not American politics. Irish. I’m a Republican. I was a member of the Irish Republican Army in the seventies and eighties. I vote Sinn Fein.”

“IRA?” Casey’s eyes grew wide. “You’re a terrorist?”

“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Can you think of any country who only go independence for three-fourths of it while the colonial occupiers kept the other fourth?”

“Well, no, but the IRA kills innocent civilians!”

“And the British government does not? Do you honestly believe that just because one side wears uniforms, their form of terrorism is legitimate?”

“I really don’t know a lot about the conflict. I would tend to blame the British more, though, because of all the other atrocities they’ve committed across the globe.”

“Well said,” the bartender called out from the other side of the bar.

“He’s listening,” Casey whispered to Neil.

“Relax. This is a Republican pub you’re in.”

“What? All of these men are in the IRA?”

“Or were, until the peace came, until our leaders sold us out, made all of the decades of fighting a waste.”

“You don’t think it’s better that people aren’t getting blown up or shot down every day?”

“When you put it that way…you ought to go up to Belfast sometime, see the price of ‘peace.’ It’s only a matter of time before the place explodes again. All they’ve done is put more barbed wire up and fenced in the hatred. But we all know that fences are easily torn down.”

What was it about Casey that attracted him to mobsters and shady characters? Must have been in his blood, for it was certainly in his cousin’s.

“Casey, let me tell you something. Our family has been Republican since the United Irishmen were formed not long after the yanks gained their independence. Our great great great grandfather was a friend of Robert Emmet’s. Your family was involved in the 1848 rebellion and fled to America to protect themselves from the British, not because they were starving. My own grandfather spent ten years rotting in a British prison cell. You’re one of us, mate. You’re one of us.”

A Guinness fog had crept into Casey’s brain, and in the morning, he had only vague recollections of the conversation. Still, the little rebellious streak in him took some pleasure in knowing that his family had fought against injustice and for independence and had been rebels themselves. He decided to go to Belfast, so he packed a bag and went to Connolly Station, boarding the next train to the city of such conflict.

When Casey was growing up in the eighties, places like Belfast and Beirut were synonymous with war. Casey was not sure he knew the difference between the two, only knew an explosion a day kept the peace away. He never understood how of why America was involved in either of the two conflicts, but he was definitely aware of the involvement. Young Casey had wondered why the US seemed to be mired in perpetual warfare throughout his childhood and most of his adult life. Why did Americans feel the need to always have an enemy?

He expected to find a city that looked like Baghdad, with bombed out buildings, walls full of bullet holds, and a fear so pervasive that people did not want to leave their houses. What he found was quite the opposite, a bustling urban center with towering cranes symbolic of economic development, well-tailored skirts and suits going to meetings and coming from deals, money changing hands and turning a war torn town into a fashionable city, a hip place where things happen and people go to see and be seen. So this is what peace is like, Casey thought, no matter how fragile the peace. Seems like the Arabs and Israelis could take page from the book of Belfast, and the Sunnis and Shiites, too. And Sudan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Myanmar…so many conflicts, purposeless bitterness, tragedies. Strange how this is not considered an Irish town, he thought. Certainly looks Irish. The people do look a bit more tense, more suspicious, maybe it’s my imagination. Architecture’s the same, though. Guinness served everywhere.

Casey made his way to The Falls, the part of town that housed the Irish, the Republicans, the rebels, those who won’t let go, thugs. Murals still adorned the walls, murals of famous rebels, of militia logos, of symbols of the four provinces. Green and orange flags flew from every house, hung in windows and cars like they were preparing for a sporting event. Prosperity had not visited this part of Belfast. He walked through the neighborhood unaware of the danger the area presented. The few people he passed on the streets frowned at him, tried to turn his soul black. He looked at them through his lens. Their souls were black, crumbling like rocks from a cliff, too far gone to be saved from their own hatred. As he was snapping a photo of a flag lined street, he felt a hand on his shoulder, a tense hand, ready to rip his arm off at any moment.

“What the fuck are you photographing?”

“Um, just the flags.”

“Oh, another fucking yank who thinks this place is some zoo for your amusement, we’re just animals for your fucking photobooks. Give me your fucking camera.”

“Are you robbing me?”

“What does it look life, you bloody moron?”

“You can’t rob me, you don’t know who I am.”

“Do I look like I give a fuck who you are? Just give me the fucking camera.”

“No.”

“What?”

“I said no.” The man was speechless. “Take me to O’Hagan.” It was worth a shot to name drop just to save the camera and maybe himself.

“O’Hagan? What would O’Hagan have to do with you?”

“Name’s Casey O’Hagan. I want to see my cousin.”

“Jaysus, another fucking yank looking for his long lost relatives. We don’t want you here. Now Give me the fucking camera!” The man’s face was turning red, but Casey guessed that if he were serious about the camera, he would have already attacked him by now.

“Take me to O’Hagan now, you fucking Paddy! How dare you interfere with matters of business!”

Another man approached him.

“Seamus, what’s going on here?”

“Fucking yank’s causing problems.”

“He’s trying to rob me.”

“What do you expect wandering in these parts with a bloody camera?” the newcomer said.

“Yank says he wants to see O’Hagan,” the man called Seamus said.

“What? Are you Casey?”

“Um, yeah. How’d you know?”

“Talked to Neil this morning. Said you two went out for a pint last night and you told him you were coming to Belfast today. Told me to keep an eye out for you, you’d be likely to wander into trouble.”

“He said that?”

“Well, you have, now, haven’t ya?”

“I guess so.”

“So you’re gonna meet your cousin Padraig?”

“Am I?”

“You were looking for ‘im.”

“I wasn’t really. I didn’t know I had a cousin here. Or maybe Neil told me and I forgot, I don’t know. I just dropped the name to get this jackass off my back.” A throbbing vein stuck out of Seamus’ forehead.

“Ahh, so you aren’t as dumb as you look wandering around these parts. Come on, I’ll introduce you to Padraig. He’s Neil’s brother. You can meet the parents later.”

“His parents are here, too?”

“Aye.”

“So why does Neil live in Dublin?”

“Had to leave because he fell for a Protestant girl. In the old days, they’d have killed him for it. Now though, they just shame you into leaving.”

“Wow, he didn’t tell me that. Or maybe he did and I just don’t remember.”

“One would think a story like that’d be memorable enough for ya.”

“Oh, well, I think I drank a keg of Guinness last night, maybe the whole brewery.”

“Yanks,” he replied shaking his head with a smile. “Seamus, go find better ways to spend your time than robbing people. I have my eye on you.” Seamus grumbled and walked off. The two of them started to walk in the other direction.

“So are you a cop?” Casey asked.

“Cop? Jaysus, no. We police ourselves around here. Can’t trust the pissers. They pretty much leave us alone, at least the smart ones. We have our own system of justice around here.”

“Interesting. You’d think there’d be cops all over around here.”

“Oh no. We’ve had enough occupation.” They came to the end of the street. A ten foot white and green wall ran the length of the neighborhood like Berlin. A building on the other side flew the Union Jack.

“I didn’t realize the neighborhoods were this close.”

“Ah yeah, the ‘peace’ wall. Over there’s Shankill. We’re all living in fortresses around here. At least the wall keeps those British scum from coming into our neighborhood.”

“Why not just learn to get along?” Casey asked, half serious.

“Are you crazy? Those lowlife maggots are a waste of the inferior British flesh that covers their delightfully breakable bones.”

“You sound just like a Shia man I had a conversation with in Iraq.”

“You were in Iraq?”

“Three times.”

“Your country is the new empire, you know.”

“Don’t think I support that war.”

“Never claimed you did.”

“What’s your name, anyway?”

“Sorry, should have properly introduced myself. Name’s Charles, after Parnell.”

“Parnell?”

“Mate, you’re going to have to learn your Irish history. It’s your history, too.”

“I’ll have to pick up a book.”

They came to a house without an Irish flag and went up to the front door.

“This is Padraig’s house. You’re wondering where’s the flag?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too.” He knocked and a poster child for the Irish race answered the door.

“Padraig, meet your yank cousin, Casey.”

“Ah, Casey, nice to meet you. Neil told me you’d be visiting our lovely town of Belfast. Come in. Can I get you a cuppa?”

“A cuppa?”

“Coffee, tea…”

“Oh, cup of. Sure, I’ll have some coffee with a bit of milk.” Charles and Casey moved into a room that resembled a museum of Irish history while Padraig went to get the coffee. There were flags and banners hanging from the walls, guns and medals under glass cases, a framed copy of the Irish Proclamation, some antique tables, and even the orange and green pillows on the couch seemed to have some historical significance. This was another movie Casey found himself in, a different sort of mobster movie, one with such thick accents that Casey felt he needed subtitles. Padraig returned with a tray and three cups.

“Where’s the tricolors?” Charles asked him.

“Being cleaned. So, Casey, what brings you to Belfast. Simple curiosity?”

“Yeah. I want to see as much of Ireland as I can.”

“Why’d you leave the States?”

“Just to get away for awhile.”

“Ah, a girl, is it?”

“How do you paddies know these things?”

He laughed and then said, “So how’s your family?” The intuitive Padraig realized immediately from the look on Casey’s face that he should not have asked the questions. “Jaysus, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“It’s ok, you couldn’t know. Both my parents passed away years ago, my father from prostate cancer, my mother from breast cancer soon after him.”

“Two cancers, eh? You better take care of yourself. It’s hereditary, you know? Drink makes it worse.”

“I’m aware.”

“So, where in the States are ya from?”

“Cincinnati, Ohio.”

“Is that where they make the soap?”

“Huh?”

“You know, soap, like Ivory.”

“Oh. You mean Proctor and Gamble?”

“Aye, that’s the one.”

“They don’t make things in Cincy anymore – jobs moved elsewhere. It’s just the headquarters now. But I’m impressed you recognized it.”

He leaned in. “Ah, well, I have a bit of a habit in reading the labels on products. Gotta know what you’re putting on yourself, you know?”

Casey laughed, then said, “You know, I expected you IRA types to have dead eyes and no souls. That’s what they teach us in the States, anyway.”

“You do realize the IRA is no longer involved in violent activity? It’s those bloody splinter groups that cause the trouble. They’re just a bunch of thugs who have gotten into drug trafficking and the like, nothing but common criminals. Their existence is rubbish, and most of us won’t have anything to do with them.”

“We think that Seamus is involved with them,” Charles interjected.

“You know Seamus?” Padraig asked Casey.

“He tried to rob me.”

Padraig turned to Charles. “We’re gonna have to do something about him. He’s getting into too much trouble.”

“I gave him a warning today.”

“Ok, but next time…”

Casey shuddered to think about what would happen to Seamus, even if he had tried to rob him and take away his lens, his window to the soul of the world.

“Hey, listen, would you mind if I take some photos of you in this room. For my personal collection is all. No one else would see them.” The two of them pondered the request for a minute before agreeing. What Casey saw in them surprised him. He had expected to find hatred and blackness, but instead he saw pain and loss in their weathered faces. He also saw traces of healing. There was also anger, both stale and fresh anger, but these were not evil men. They were simply men.

After the photos and a bit more chatter, Casey said his goodbyes and began to leave.

“Wait,” Padraig said as he was heading out the door. “How long you in Belfast?”

“I figure I’ll spend all day tomorrow and leave in the afternoon on the next day.”

“Would you be interested in a tour tomorrow morning? I can drive you all over, except for the unionist places, of course. I know the history pretty well. Might be worth your while.”

“Yeah, sure, that’d be great.” The plans were made, and Casey headed back to the city centre for a bite to eat, but not before snapping a few more photos of the Republican neighborhood, a symbol of what division can do for a people. Casey had a lot to learn.

The hotel in which he was staying was just outside the city center where there was not a plethora of restaurants. His mood and his weariness kept him from venturing too far from the hotel for dinner, leaving a limited choice in restaurants to eat in. There was a sports bar down the street – he’d grab some dinner, take a nap, and then see if he felt like going out later. The bar was an American style sports bar with walls adorned by various pieces of American sports memorabilia, including baseball items. He smiled at this little piece of home. The menu was a bit ridiculous, as the dishes were named after sports teams that were mostly unrelated to the food. He scoured the list in amusement and knew what he would order as soon as he saw it – Cincinnati Reds.

It was a pasta dish with a meat sauce, probably intending to resemble Cincinnati chili. Problem was, they forgot the flavor. The dish was almost too bland to eat, and Casey even tried pouring a little Guinness over it for some taste, but that failed. There was no helping this dish. It was the novelty of the name that saved the experience from receiving the “terrible” label, an experience only the circumstances of his life could appreciate. He wrote it down in a notebook back in his hotel room so he would not forget. He wrote about the whole day’s adventures and then went to bed, foregoing any night out to combat his loneliness. He did not need to, for he had family he would be seeing in the morning. Just a few short weeks ago he had had no family, and it was nice to know he did have some out there, even if they were associated with a group on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. They did not seem like monsters.

Padraig was prompt, Casey was not, as the telephone announcing his cousin’s arrival woke Casey. At least he had learned how to get ready quickly during his time spent in the Army, so Padraig did not have to wait too long. They saw Belfast Castle, City Hall, Queen’s University, Stormont Parliament in addition to various churches (the Catholic ones), war memorials (the Irish ones), and architectural gems across the city. After several hours of sightseeing, Padraig suggested they grab some lunch.

“Yeah, I’m famished,” Casey said.

“We’ll go for a bite at O’Neill’s. They’re friends there.” Friends meaning Republicans. Neil stuffed his car into a parking space in front of an Irish pub, a space that should have been too small for the car. He grinned at Casey’s wide eyes as they hit not so lightly the cars in front and behind. “That’s what a bumper’s for, you see.”

“Don’t you have parking lots?”

“What?”

“Parking lots.” A blank stare. “You know, big lots to park your cars.”

“Oh, you mean carparks?”

“Carparks, is that what you call them here?”

“Makes sense, fewer letters. Besides, this space is grand.”

“I guess,” Casey replied as he stepped out of the car and checked for damage to the others.

“Relax, people don’t worship these machines like you Americans do. They’re just piles of metal with a bit of paint, not golden calves.”

Entering O’Neill’s, Casey could see this pub was no different than any pub in Dublin except for the excessive display of flags, hanging as if they were what made the place Irish, as if the portraits of Joyce and Wilde, the hurling sticks, and the harps that lined the walls did not give it away.

“You don’t mind eating in a Republican pub, do you?”

“No. I’ve been to them in Dublin with Neil.”

“You sure the CIA won’t arrest you for consorting with terrorists?” Padraig asked with a toothy grin.

“These days, one never knows,” Casey replied in all seriousness.

Padraig knew everyone in the pub and introduced his yank cousin with a hint of unwarranted pride. They ordered their lunches and a couple of pints, and Padraig immediately began to talk about subjects that seemed too serious to discuss with strangers.

“So, have you ever killed anyone?” he asked. Casey was taken aback. “In the war, I mean.”

“Um, well, that’s what happens in war.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“What war did you fight in?”

“The one against the Brits, of course.”

“A war against the British? You mean the conflict here in Northern Ireland?”

“It’s a war, mate. Guns and bombs, people dying.”

“But…” Casey wanted to explain why this conflict could not be a war, but he could think of no good reason it was not. These people had been fighting for their independence, after all. Just because the British government defined it as criminal activity and murder did not make it less than a war. Besides, why was government sanctioned killing not considered murder? “I guess I haven’t thought of it that way.”

“Government propaganda can do that for you.” He looked around the room for no real reason. “I hated it, you know, this war. The Brits have painted us Paddies as cold-blooded murderers, but there was a reason, an end. Most of us hated it. We cringe when we have to pull triggers. I should say cringed. It’s all in the past now, at least for the time being. They were supposed to give us a voice in the government, but Stormont has been wracked with problems. Why should we have to disarm if they won’t? Still, things are so different now. To tell you the truth, I grew so tired of it all. I’m fifty years old, I’ve been fighting my entire life. I don’t want to do it anymore.”

“But you don’t have to, right?” He released a chilling silence into the air, an indicator of something Casey desperately wanted to ignore. That silence sat with him for the rest of his time with Padraig, even through conversations about less serious topics, and he carried worry with him back to Dublin the next day and the days after that.

Chapter 8 - not much baseball in here

Land appeared out of nowhere. Passengers had been told the descent had begun, but aside from the changing cabin pressure, it seemed as if they were stuck in the sky, for there was no visible land, only myriads of gray clouds floating far beneath them, clouds that had made the world disappear. Those clouds grew closer, inch by inch, ever so slowly, until they swallowed the plane, bounced it around, an eternity of gray turbulence. And then there was green, endless miles of green, emerald green like nothing he had ever seen, more green than any verdant ball field had ever fed to his eyes.

Aside from the wretched deserts of embattled Iraq, Casey’s shoes were caked with nothing but American soil, his lungs full of American air. Dublin Airport felt like the extreme definition of foreign to him, strange and alien, and even though they were speaking the same language, Casey did not understand a word they were saying. It was chaos, an alternate universe where everything he had learned in his life was of no use. He knew enough to realize the first thing he needed was money, colorful, strange money – Euros –the currency of a united Europe, a continent whose history books start new chapters with each new war that had plagued its lands. This is a continent that grew so tired of war, its leaders took an unprecedented measure to design a system that would ensure war would not break out again, for if a country started a war, the economic consequences would be so severe the instigating country would be destroyed by its actions. What a noble concept. It’s too bad all countries on the planet had not grown tired of incessant warring. Peace seems like such a comfortable concept, he thought as the changer handing him the new currency. Now he had to figure out how to get out of the airport to Dublin City, where he would stay in a hotel until he could find an apartment to rent for three months, where he could forget the misery of Midwestern winter and failed relationships.

“Hey pal, need a cab?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Casey responded to the friendly face that had spoken those words.

“A yank, eh? This your first time in Ireland?”

“Yeah, first time anywhere, really.”

“Welcome to the world,” he said with an accent Casey thought was made for the movies. “Where in the States are you from?”

“Ohio.”

“Oh, the place with the potatoes?”

“No, that’s Idaho. Ohio is a pretty big state with a few big cities – Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton…”

“Ack, yeah, I’ve heard of those. So what brings you to Ireland?”

“I just needed to get away for a bit.”

“A girl, is it?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“You don’t seem to be the type of yank to come here to find his long lost relatives.”

“No, I didn’t even think about that.”

“You look like you have some Irish in you.”

“One hundred percent. Name’s Casey O’Hagan.”

“O’Hagan, eh? Nice to meet you Casey. My name’s Neil, Neil O’Hagan.”

“Ha, ha, what are the chances?”

“You come to Ireland not looking for your relatives, and you found one right away. Say, you want to talk about it over a bite this evening? The missus loves company.”

“Sure, why not?”

Neil proved to be a decent tour guide, pointing out landmarks and monuments and reciting bits of history that made Casey want to learn more about the people of this little island who literally built America’s towering cities. They entered Dublin from the north side, the working class neighborhood, where many of the Georgian brick houses showed the weariness of working class travails. As they drove closer to the murky waters of the Liffey, the signs of what the wealthy call “progress” emerged from the roughness. New paint and sandblasted brick were adorned with shiny new windows and pink and red flower boxes. (Flowers in November? And were those palm trees? In Ireland?) Soon they passed shops full of the excess of prosperity and luxury populated with youthful carriers of disposable income. This was the new Ireland, the offspring of a Celtic Tiger, who had turned Ireland from a poverty-stricken third world country to one f the richest in the European Union. Tales of rotten potatoes and death had become the bad parts of history books, the part that successive generations do not understand, cannot fathom. Even the Troubles in the North were ridiculous enough to drown in the satisfaction of prosperity, at least to some people.

The Liffey came into view and Neil turned to drive along the quays. Casey had decided to stay in the Clarence Hotel, a luxury in which he would indulge as a treat, but he could stay there no longer than a week. Years of frugality had kept him mindful of the short life of a full bank account. Casey saw Neil’s judgment by the look on his face as they pulled in front of the hotel.

“So here’s my address,” he said after Casey’s bags had been unloaded. “If you stop by at about seven, that’d be grand. Do you want me to send a buddy by to pick you up?”

“That’d be great, since I don’t have a clue where anything is.” Casey checked his watch – it was four. That was eleven Eastern Standard Time and gave him three hours to get ready to visit Neil. He wondered when the jet lag would kick in. A porter showed up to carry his luggage, a fact that bothered him a bit. He wanted to carry his own bags and did not feel comfortable with a stranger touching his stuff. Neil and Casey exchanged see you laters and Casey disappeared into the realm of the upper crust, at least compared to the Motel 6’s he had been accustomed to.

The concierge was friendly in a fake sort of way – Casey felt judged by him, too, though it was for the opposite reason as Neil. He was a nobody, a yank with money to blow and the time to blow it in. This yank looked lost, out of place, unaccustomed to nice things. Oh well, it was only a week.

Casey showered as soon as he closed the door behind the porter. What was it about traveling by air that made the skin gross? It was like it was dry and oily at the same time, slimy, pores opened like craters, emitting that strange airplane smell of recycled air, latrines, and the fumes of jet fuel. It was a huge shower, a huge bathroom, twice the size of any Motel 6 room, too big, really. The towels were not the small, coarse white towels of motels, but soft towels that were big enough to wrap one’s whole body in. The shampoo was brand name, the soap, too, and Casey marveled at the other amenities – lotions, hair gels, razors, even a tooth brush and tooth paste. No doubt these things would end up in his suitcase by the time he departed. Besides, for the price of the room, he should have access to unlimited quantities of whatever shampoo he desired. The minibar, too. Why should he have to pay extra for it? He discovered it was stocked with Guinness – the magical draft bottles with the rocket widget inside that made it taste as near to draft beer as any bottle or can in the history of brewing. In a bathrobe – the hotel provided bathrobes – he sat down on the bed and opened a bottle. Ahh…Guinness in Dublin. He could not wait to have a pint of the black stuff from the tap – it was like drinking milk straight from a cow, he envisioned. It was only five, so he decided to fulfill his tasty dreams in the hotel bar, so he dressed himself, finished his bottle, and headed downstairs. His life in Cincinnati never crossed his mind.

The perfect pour takes about four minutes, and a freshly poured pint of Guinness is a work of art. As a pint settles, one can watch the goodness cascading down the glass like a waterfall in Heaven, sending gas evenly through the stout to create the sweetest, smoothest beer on thee face of the planet. The Irish national drink. Even the Liffey looked like Guinness – perhaps that was what the rain was, what created the green. He laughed out loud at the thought. The bartender looked up.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing. I’m just happy to be here, to escape the States for awhile.”

Though a crowd was trickling in for happy hour, it was not full or busy enough for the bartender not to engage in conversation.

“So what brings you here?”

“To Ireland?”

“To the Clarence.”

“I’m staying here.”

“I gather that. But why choose this place?”

“Why not?”

“You don’t seem like the type to stay here.”

“What do you mean?” Casey was beginning to feel a kind of anger at what he perceived as an insinuation that he was not good enough for the hotel.

“I mean, most yanks who come here come in big, obnoxious groups who stay here because of who owns the place, and it’s really out of their budgets, so they skimp on tips and luxuries and they usually get pissed and spill beer all over the place. You’re pretty quiet.”

“Who owns the place?” Casey asked intrigued.

“Wow, you really don’t know?”

“No.”

“U2.”

“Really? Cool. I love their music.”

“Me too. It’s just obnoxious when crazy yanks come here like religious fanatics.”

“I can imagine.”

Casey drank his pint and another one after, grateful he had decided to travel. Things seemed exciting already. He finished up his second pint and headed out to wait for his ride, Neil’s cab driving friend. He did not wait long, and Casey was off to the suburbs of Dublin before he had even seen the city itself. Neil’s house was a modest two story building with the good fortune of having a bit of space between his house and both the neighbors. There was a palm tree in the yard that Casey found humorous for some reason. The house itself was made of rough, dimpled concrete as gray as the sky above it, and it looked identical to the other houses in the neighborhood, quite different than American suburbs, which existed to put distance between neighbors, to push individualism instead of community, a shame really, considering we are all stuck sharing the same planet together.

Casey like the modesty inside the house, the lack of things to pretend a household is wealthier than it is, the lack of pretense. It was a small house but it fit a family of three. Neil Jr. was eight years old, still young enough to not feel the smallness of the house. He did not know his house was small. Neil and his wife, Eva, knew. They knew every time they ran into each other as they were preparing dinner in the kitchen. Casey felt a bit guilty for making them go through so much trouble, but Eva seemed to revel in the idea of company, even a strange yank with dubious relations to her husband.

The first half of the dinner was characterized by the standard small talk of strangers – what brings you to Ireland, what do you do (in between jobs brought envy), what do you plan on doing here, what do you think so far…It was not until they began to talk about the O’Hagan family that things became truly interesting. It turns out that Neil and Casey were not all that distant of relatives, but second cousins, much closer than either of them had imagined in the brief time they had known each other. It was a relief to Casey to know there was at least one person in this strange land he could count on for companionship.

Casey slept well that night, slept deeply, with none of the troubling dreams that frequently tortured his nocturnal existence. Jet lag had its privileges, he presumed. He woke early the next morning ready to explore the Dublin environs. He would start at a bookstore – he needed to put a destination on the purpose of his wanderings. He also needed to find an apartment.

He did that before noon. It was a sunny apartment with bright yellow walls, provided that there was sun to brighten the. Apparently, there were no pretentious magazines to dictate what colors were acceptable for walls around there. Casey welcomed the color. The apartment was sparsely furnished, but there was a bed and a couch, which were all he really needed. Three months would fill the place with accumulated junk, anyway. He called Neil on a newly purchased prepaid cell phone – mobiles they called them in Ireland – to give him the address, and Neil offered to lend him a couple of tables and chairs he and his wife had stored in their cellar.

Casey picked up a travel book about Ireland that was designed for people with limited means (but apparently enough means to travel to Ireland.) He decided to spend a few weeks in Dublin before adventuring off to other parts of the island, which he wanted to see all of. After his full morning, he stopped for lunch at a deli, ordering a ham salad sandwich, which consisted of ham and cole slaw on a piece of bread called a bap. It became his stable lunch after two bites.

With tour book in hand, he ambled over to St. Stephen’s Green, one of the largest parks in Dublin. It was named after the first Christian martyr, who was a good representation of Ireland, a nation that had been persecuted for its beliefs, left to starve by the British Empire, which exported food from Ireland throughout the course of the Potato Famine. Those Irish Catholics who would not convert to Protestantism were left to starve. But then again, the Brits seemed to appreciate a good genocide every now and then. This information was news to Casey. He had known his family immigrated to America during the Potato Famine, but he had not known that food was plentiful in Ireland during that time. What a crime. What hate. How could one hate a people so much that he would let them starve to death? Hate. Hate leads to war. Ireland was no different, but as Casey thought about it, he began to understand that yes, sometimes war is justified. He decided to contemplate it more over a couple of pints, even if it was only two in the afternoon.

Missing page - a few days later

Samuel Beckett glared down at Casey as James Joyce looked past him. Beckett had reason to glare, Casey thought. I don’t like anything he’s written. What was that stupid play about the tapes and the bananas? And why did he feel the need to write in French? Perhaps it was just too tough to be a contemporary of Joyce. The pictures of the writers gave him company, as he began to feel a bit lonely. It was the first week, he thought. That’s probably normal. He’d write a letter to Anne telling her he was in Ireland, that it was a spur of the moment decision and that’s why he hadn’t called to tell her. He pulled a notebook out of the backpack he had been carrying around all week and opened to a blank page. Would she be angry with him for not telling her he was coming? The pub was a dreary space with red walls, wooden railings, and those portraits of famous Irish writers that came to life in the darkness of his own solitude, laughing as he put his pen to the page as if to say, “Never!” His pen, full of green ink, laboriously hit the paper, soaking it with the four symbols that represented her – A-N-N-E. Why had he not put the standard “Dear” in front of her name? Anne. It glared at him, too, showing its sharp points and menacing lines like teeth. He had printed the letters – writing them would have softened them, given them curves, made them more representative of her. Under the watchful eyes of those writers, he felt the pressure to draft some masterpiece to her, something that could make her understand what he was feeling in some poetic way that would make her melt as she read it, but he could not do it. He just did not have the words in him.

Joyce died before the end of the second world war, too soon to see how he had destroyed literature. He never experienced the recovery, the slow, painful healing, the creation of Israel, American hegemony. No sixties. No Cold War. No European Unity. But his stories, though some of the language had fallen into disuse, were timeless. His characters wore the masks of everything that made humanity human. Casey had just finished reading Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and thought Stephen Dedalus and Holden Caulfield could have been friends, if Holden were ever capable of having a friend. He was also through a third of Ulysses. Molly reminded him a great deal of Anne. Someone should write a new Odyssey, he thought, one that includes new realities of a world spent – movies, rock music, nuclear weapons. Was the human condition the same as it was back then? Joyce’s pre-war characters seemed to be more innocent. Could it be possible that war, technology, and Hollywood had changed humanity, diluted it, dissolved it?

The bartender, a Polish guy called Julek who had come from Krakow six months earlier, poured the rest of a new pint and set it in front of Casey. “It’s so beautiful,” he said in broken English, smiling and showing a mouthful of yellow teeth. There were so many Poles in Dublin these days, and Czechs and Slovaks and Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Slovenians, harvesters of the fruits of European unity. They were bartenders, busboys, bellhops, and brewers, hard workers who lived in tiny flats and sent most of their earnings back home to countries the West had shamelessly given to the Soviets, who stripped them of their self-determination, their dignity, and often, their lives. As repulsive as the Yalta Agreement was, Casey wondered for the first time if it did not save millions of lives. If Yalta had not happened, would the United States have gone to war with the Soviet Union once the Germans had been defeated?

Casey put down his pen and put his hand on his chin, a thing he did when his brain was in contemplative mode, a frequent occurrence since he had quit the monotony of office life. It had freed his mind, brought thought back to him, made him question what he had taken for granted as a lowly salesman. He wondered if Yalta had not happened if the United States would have dropped an A bomb on Moscow rather than two civilian-populated cities in Japan. Someone should write a good movie about it, he thought. It’s interesting to think about.

He stared down at the glass in front of him and pondered the existence of a substance capable of screwing with the head and eliminating rationality and reason from and evening’s outing. Drinking is simply poisoning the human body with rotten grain or fruit, yet it has been around since the dawn of human history. Dionysus is the true god of the world. There sat a stout, black as night, perfect head, great curves, the conscience of a country, screaming for a buddy to sit next to. Casey wondered how Joyce managed to sit and write in all of those pubs alone while the rooms reeked of voices and laughter. He supposed Joyce’s characters were his company. Too bad Casey could not even write a letter, let alone a good story. He put the notebook back in his bag and pulled out a few postcards. Postcards were easy to write. Hi, having a good time in Ireland, wish you were here. He addressed them to Marin, Sidney, Adam, and A.J., who said he wanted to visit in January and that Freel might come along, too. If there was one thing pure about A.J. Sullivan, it was his Irishness. It would be fun to have them around, have some company, and a January visit left plenty of time for a break from A.J.’s excesses.

The thought of the visit, though weeks away, cheered him a bit. He even wrote a brief postcard to Anne before paying his tab and quitting the bar. He strolled through Temple Bar to the quays along the Liffey and wandered down to O’Connell Bridge. The air smelled of rain and burning hops, smells that were forever ingrained in his memory, triggering thoughts of Dublin with each similar whiff in other parts of the world and other parts of his life. There, at that moment, he felt exhilaration as he inhaled that air over the water and watched the city lights dance in its ripples.

His eyes moved down O’Connell Street, down to the modern Millennium Spire, a hideous thing considered artistic by those who admired it, but most modern art was hideous, he told himself. Symbolic of the confusion and jumbled emotions of our time. He passed a homeless man with so many bags of possessions, he could hardly carry them. The man cursed at him, like Casey was personally responsible for the man’s misfortunes. How many crazies had he run into on this trip? Stumbling around, ruffled clothes, ruffled hair, ruffled alcoholized breath. No art there. The man continued to harass him, so he turned around and said, “Look. My ancestors suffered enough! But instead of drinking themselves out of their homes and begging people for money, they moved to America and worked hard to make lives for themselves! Leave me alone!”

As Casey wondered what had happened to his compassion, the man mumbled something and tossed a rock at him. A few drops began to fall from the sky, Dublin rain. Sometimes there is enough space between the drops to slip between them, like dodging the cares of the world. The rain created different shades of black on the ground below and stretched the colored lights in these black puddles. The night had yet to grow old, but Casey caught a cab back to his flat. He told himself he was tired and would go to bed early, but it was the loneliness, not fatigue, that made him want to slip into a nocturnal state of unconsciousness. He was a little worn out from this week of wandering Dublin City, exploring every corner, every shadow, and many pubs the city had to offer, sleeping little, getting up, and doing it all over again. But his sense of adventure kept him going, and it was only at night when the bitter loneliness kicked in. Suddenly he wondered if it were not Cincinnati, Ohio from which he needed the break, but from himself.

Chapter 7

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

Five hours of breathing someone else’s breath – the stale, recycled air struggling to circulate 30,000 feet into the air, or however high planes fly – was enough to feel suffocated, especially among so many strangers. Casey buried himself in the phony world of Holden Caulfield, in Pencey Prep and the Lavender Room and the Radio City ice rink and all. It had been in high school that he last read the book, or maybe he had picked it up sometime during college, but he remembered every word, every action quite vividly, because he had related to it. He still related to it in a way, all the phoniness and heartache and misanthropy. Although, Casey figured, Holden was not really misanthropic – he wanted to save the world from itself, catch people before they ran off the cliff. Casey was not Holden as he thought in his younger years. No, Casey had given up on humanity. Now he sat on the edge of that cliff with a six pack of beer watching the people run off the edge. At least he had enough humanity left in him to not feel pleasure in seeing them fall off. It still hurt.

Towards the end of the book, when Holden visits his sister Phoebe in his parents’ house, Casey found a piece of paper pressed between the pages. The paper looked old – it had yellowed significantly and looked as if it had been handled quite frequently. He pulled it out, carefully unfolding it and respecting its fragility. It was a letter crafted in shaky handwriting and dated November 11, 1951. It had a few black marks over some of the writing, and Casey knew right away what this was: a war letter.

Dear Clara,

As I promised, I’m writing to you as soon as I’ve arrived safely to Korea. It was no luxury ride, I tell you. A lot of the men got sick from all the turbulence. We was tossed around like popcorn on a couple of times. One guy, Jefferson, cracked his wrist when he fell. I was thinking of you all the way, kept the harness on like you told me to, so I was all right. I miss you already. I’m stationed at [blacked out] about [blacked out] from the frontline. It’s really muddy all over, been raining a lot, I guess. I think God’s crying cause we’re apart, but I promise you, my dear Clara, that we’ll be together as soon as this is over. Doesn’t it seem like there’s always a war? I though after Europe we’d never have another one, but those darn Reds want to take over the world. We’ll get em, hon, then we can be together forever, even if they won’t let us get married. But I gotta good feeling that things is gonna change when the wars all stop. Keep praying, dear Clara. God will make it all right.

Love always,

SGT. Lincoln T. Robinson

United States Army

25^th Infantry Division

“Wow,” Casey said aloud.

“What’s that?” Marin asked, putting down a book she had purchased from the old man’s store.

“It’s a letter from a soldier to his lover during the Korean War. Here, read it.” She took the letter from him, handling it delicately, like glass. Casey watched her facial expressions as she read through the note, and he recognized empathy in her eyes.

“How sweet,” she said when she finished. “I wonder who wouldn’t let them marry.”

“Yeah, it’s interesting, isn’t it?” Casey paused to think; he was always thinking more than what was required, thinking about the lives of those who fight and their loved ones who are affected. From what little information there was in the letter, he gathered that Sergeant Lincoln T. Robinson had fought in the second world war as well.

“You know what else is interesting?” Marin asked.

“What?”

“Look at the date on the letter.”

“November 11, 1951. Veteran’s Day for a guy who fought in two wars.”

“Not only that, but the year 1951, the same year Catcher in the Rye was first published. Your book is a first edition.”

“A first edition? The guy must have made a mistake. I’ll call him when we get home and tell him. It had to be a mistake, right?”

Marin looked at him and thought, this is a good man. She wondered if she were not falling for him. Most people would exploit the mistake, sell the book for its proper value.

“I’m going to google Sergeant Robinson. I wonder if there are any records of him.”

“Why?” she asked, though she was curious herself. It was a wartime love story, a real story, not a Hollywood concoction, not something phony, but something authentic, no embellishment, no exaggeration, no insertion of comic relief.

“Nothing to do during the days, and anyway, I’ve developed a certain fascination about people, despite my disdain for them.”

“Disdain? Why?” Had she not noticed a fundamental flaw in him?

“I’m afraid I’m not a very outgoing person, Marin, on account of all I’ve seen. But buying that camera was good. I’m finding a renewed interest in people.” He saw her eyebrows turn down like he had said something cruel or confusing.

“You seem to be a complicated guy,” she responded without elaboration. And then it hit him, her interest in him, was it interest? Was this the beginning of a relationship? He did not want a relationship, did he? She was a body, a rebound, perhaps. Friendship was grand, just sex was grand, but a relationship was definitely out of the question. Had it been a mistake to invite her on this trip? As they sailed miles above the ground, he understood that what she wanted, expected, or presumed was quite far from what he wanted, for he wanted only one person: Anne. What was wrong with him? He liked Marin, found her interesting, mysterious, incredibly attractive, someone he could date for awhile. But her connection to Anne through Michael ruined it all, and Anne would always be lingering in the shadows of any interaction he had with Marin. His escape would be his travel to the homeland of his ancestors, an escape from both of them, from Sidney and A.J. and Cincinnati. He would take a break from his life for a few months, a break that would last as long as the off season.

“Marin, I’ve decided to leave the country for the winter.”

“Oh, she said, unable to hide her disappointment, which would probably manifest itself into despair once he was out of sight. “Where are you going?”

“Ireland.”

“Ireland? Everything there is supposed to be really green.”

Not diamond green, thought Casey. Green enough, though, not like gray winter. Good Guinness, good nightlife, not like banal Cincinnati, where downtown dies before sunset. The Emerald Isle, they call it. One of the wealthier countries in the European Union these days. They certainly did something right, those Irish. From rotten potatoes to the technology capital of Europe in only a century, a tiny drop in the ocean of time. Emerald green. Escape green.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“But you have no job.”

“Exactly. That’s why I’m going. I have the time to go.”

“Have you ever been out of the country?” she asked, immediately wanting to slap herself for such a stupid question. “I mean…”

“You mean aside from Iraq. No, I haven’t, except for a lunchtime excursion into Windsor, Canada when I was younger. My parents took me to McDonalds.”

“Yum,” she said sarcastically. “I’ve been to Italy.”

“Really? How was that?”

“Heaven. I mean, if there is a Heaven, I hope it’s Italy.”

“Mine’s a cornfield in Iowa.”

“Huh?”

“Have you ever seen Field of Dreams?”

“Oh, yeah. Great movie.”

“That’s my idea of heaven.”

“I suppose for someone who loves baseball so much, there could be no better paradise.”

“None at all.”

Yes, he most certainly was a complicated man, she thought again. He doesn’t want me, I can tell. Sucks. I really like him. But he has issues he has to deal with, I understand that. Oh well. He’s going away, so this will all be over soon anyway. He reminds me of Michael sometimes, the good side, the one that wasn’t trapped in a world of dubious activity. God, how I miss him sometimes. Funny, I should try to pin some blame on Casey for his girlfriend’s transgressions, but I don’t blame him a bit. Her, though, I better never meet her. Not only did she take Michael, but she’s taken Casey before I even had him.

He returned to Holden’s world for the rest of the trip, though his mind sometimes wandered to thoughts of Anne, Marin, and of course, Reds baseball. When the captain announced the descent into CVG, and yes, Cincinnati Very Good is the dumbest airport name in the world, he felt relief. He hated flying, was terrified of it, could not get on an airplane without having visited an airport bar for a couple of hours beforehand. He did not like placing his fate in someone else’s hands, did not like the fact that said fate was also shared with so many strangers, most of whom he had no tolerance for, especially those who had children they did not control, or who disregarded the comfort of those around them in anyway, and so many of them did. There were those who played music with headphones so loudly that they might as well have played it without the headphones, those who felt that paying for one seat did not mean they were limited to the space of one seat, and those who felt screaming was the appropriate decibel level for conversation in such a forced and fake intimate setting, an intimacy that existed only because of the shared fates of all of the passengers. The stale air, the tiny bathrooms that were merely the beginning of the process of freezing human waste and dropping it to the Earth below, the thin blankets and cramped space, the horrid meals, the unfriendly flight attendants, and the feeling that you were merely an instrument for profit in the corporate inferno all made flying one of the least pleasant tasks one had to face in the modern world. The moment the captain announced the descent brought a flood of relief, meaning passengers only had to suffer through another half hour, the length of a simple sitcom, before the plane would land and the job of flying was complete. Casey recalled a conversation on his flight to Basic Training all of those years ago with a businessman sitting next to him. They talked during the length of the trip – the man helped him to forget his fear of flying until the captain announced the descent. Casey told the man the decent was his favorite part of flying. The man’s eyes exploded with amazement, and he said with all seriousness, “Are you crazy? Landing is the most dangerous part of flying!” The man said nothing to Casey after that. Very bizarre. And it took nothing away from the relief Casey felt during descents. Besides, how could anyone say that taking off was not more dangerous than landing? Casey shuddered at the thought and began to talk about nothing to Marin just to get his mind off the danger of landing.

CVG, Cincinnati Very Good, grew closer to the plane, and then they were one. It would not be long before they could breathe their own air again instead of passing around germs to each other. All of the strange feelings and the lack of focus on baseball had disappeared as soon as they touched down. The World Series was returning to Cincinnati, and nothing else mattered. Except a few things.

The Apocalypse could have been scheduled for the next week, but Casey did not care. Even with an impending loss in Game 6, the world could not be any more perfect than it already was – at least the narrow, warped version of it in which he hid himself. Problem was, he could not tell who would win Game 7, and as soon as Casey turned the key in the lock to his apartment, Sidney called. He sounded rather angry.

“I think you are withholding information from me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Game 7.”

“Oh.” He paused for a second. “Listen, I just got in, can I call you right back.”

“Five minutes.” Sidney hung up the phone before Casey could respond. Casey called back five minutes later.

“So I started to get the feeling on the plane. The Reds are going to take the series. They’re going to be World Series champs!” Lying felt dangerous, even frightening, but mobster movies weren’t real, right? What could happen if he were wrong?

“Do you have a score?”

“Sorry, Sidney, I don’t. But bet a lot on the Reds. It’ll make up for not knowing the score.” He was leaving the country anyway, right? They wouldn’t travel half a world a way to punish him for being wrong, would they?

“Ok. I trust you. You’ve made me a lot of money this season.”

When the phone went dead, Casey wondered why Sidney had waited until they had landed to ask him, why he had called instead of asking face to face. He was rather grateful for it, however, because he knew his eyes would give the lie away.

Game 6 was full of the energy and excitement of Games 1 and 2, more because the Reds only had to win one game to take the title and disappoint large market corporatists everywhere. There was something nagging at Casey, though. He had never been to a World Series game before these, and now he had been to six in a row, soon to be seven, and the excitement felt different, not as strong, and he wondered if the magic had lost its luster, or perhaps his own magic had ruined it. What is the fun in rooting for something if you know the outcome? His saving grace was not knowing how Game 7 would end. He still had hope, he still looked forward to it. But the stress caused by Sidney’s insistence on having an outcome cut into the excitement.

Game 6 was a mess, and pitcher Milton threw like it was a Little League game. The whole show was embarrassing, nothing like a World Series game should be. Casey drank that night, drank the loss, drank his stress. He realized his drunkenness, realized his inability to focus early in the game but continued to buy beer. The alcohol running through his veins and through his sight was not running through his sense of reason, he told himself. The beer guy seemed to think otherwise as he avoided Casey’s section. The night’s activities blurred together – reds and oranges were the same, oranges and yellows, yellows and greens…The colors swirled together at Game 6. The senses blended together. Sidney disappeared halfway through the game and did not return to his seat, leaving Casey to stumble home alone. Alone. Loneliness is brutal.

He woke up the next day feeling like he had been shot or stabbed or pummeled with hot lava rocks. Popping some head meds, he picked up his phone to catch the time. Two in the afternoon. And still he wanted to sleep, but he forced himself to stay up. He sat down to look up the bookshop’s phone number on his computer but could not find it anywhere. He merely chalked it up to his physical state and vowed to look again later. He googled Sergeant Robinson and found a few entries, but his pounding head gave him no way to focus, so he set that, too, aside. He sucked down some Gatorade, usually pretty good relief from hangovers, and tried to eat something, but there was not much in his fridge, and the leftover Chinese just made him sicker. A fever was trying to grip his body, his face hot and pale, and his hands were trembling. I have to stop doing this to myself, he lectured. Come on, it’s Game 7, the Reds could win the World Series tonight! Where is the excitement? What was happening to him?

Game 7 was a sacred event, and even the apathetic masses throughout the country would tune in to watch the Griffey types send impossible feats into the seats. As game time grew nearer, Casey’s body began to forgive him for the previous night’s transgressions, and he was pumped for the game as he was walking to the stadium. Casey thought he felt the win, but something obscured the sense of victory. The meaning of Game 7, of World Series victory, and even baseball in general had begun to change, to slip into ambiguity. Why now, during the most important game of his adult life, the game that could bring glory back to the sleepy town on the Ohio River? Perhaps the tension between him and Sidney was heavier than what joy he should have been feeling, suffocating it. As he settled into the usual box, he hoped that excitement would replace the anxiety he felt, and though such excitement did return to him once the first pitch had been thrown, the anxiety never completely melted from his enthusiasm. Sidney’s impatient questions did not help either – they were akin to the incessant child’s travel question “Are we there yet?” though spoken not with innocence but malice.

Game 1 starter Aaron Harang, Cincinnati’s ace and baseball’s most underrated pitcher, took the mound for Game 7 with the fire of determination burning in his eyes and reflected in every motion, every pitch. Oakland’s starter matched that intensity pitch for pitch well into the game, which had all the makings of a classic. The enthusiasm of the crowd never waned, but as the scoreless innings piled up, Casey grew nervous. How would Sidney react to a loss? The seventh inning turned into the eighth turned into the ninth and still no runner had crossed home plate - no runner had made it past second base. Game 7 was going into extra innings. When Harang took the mound in the top of the tenth, the crowd unleashed such verve that one could have mistaken Harang for a man who had just saved the world from some hideous evil. He shut down his enemy on six pitches, his last six pitches, as he was due up first in the bottom of the inning. His pinch hitter struck out on four pitches, the A’s pitcher ignited by the fervor of the moment. Statheads everywhere were busy trying to find out the last time two starters pitched into the tenth inning of Game 7 of the World Series. Probably not since the prevalence and protocol of relief pitching came into play.

Ryan Freel came up for the biggest at bat of his career. One could see his enthusiasm in the vigor of his motions, digging in, moving the bat around, getting set for the pitch. Ball one. More movement, more anticipation, and the pitch. Ball two. With each release of the ball, the crowd collectively held its breath, releasing it only as the pitches settled into the catcher’s glove with a favorable outcome. The catcher fired the ball back to the pitcher and the process entered another round of its cycle. As the pitcher released his third pitch, Freel squared to bunt, laying down a perfect one along the third baseline. The third baseman charged the ball as if he was trying to prevent a bomb from going off, scooped, and threw to first.

The umpire called him out. Replays showed the umpire was wrong. You’d have to expect the umpire feared for his life at that moment, for the negative energy, the booing, and the insults hurled at his ears were louder than a jet engine and far more menacing.

Adam Dunn found his way to the plate through the booing, ready to take his turn at bat in an environment charged with negative ions. He took the first two pitches for strikes before watching ball one barely miss the corner of the plate. And then the ball was gone, launched out of the stadium, inciting a mob of red around the plate, a walk off home run. In Game 7 of the World Series. Reds win.

No one had any plans to leave the stadium anytime soon after, you don’t do that after a World Series Championship. You linger. You watch the golden trophy presented to the team. You watch the celebration with fervor. You hug strangers next to you. You watch the players return to the field with their special World Series caps and shirts. You watch the other team sit in the dugout dejected. You watch the MVP trophy presented to a player, in this case, Aaron Harang, 3-0 with 28 strikeouts. You watch your superstar shortstop pout because he did not win the MVP award. And if you’re Casey O’Hagan, you make a year’s salary in one swing of the bat.

There was not a sober soul in Cincinnati that night, not a wink of sleep before four hours of the new day had passed, the first day Casey’s beloved Reds were called World Series champs, the first day of the off season, the furthest point from baseball season you could get. Casey picked up his phone as the sky glowed with the warning that the sun was on its way to a new day. He dialed Anne.

“Did I wake you?” he asked when he heard a groggy voice on the other side.

“Casey, it’s five thirty in the morning, even big Reds fans are sleeping, or at least passed out. Except you, apparently. Why are you still up?” He said something she did not understand. “Are you drunk?”

“Are you sober?” he responded.

“Not exactly. I’m a bit buzzed. That was a great ballgame, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, sure was. Probably would be considered a classic if the Yankees had played it instead.”

“Listen, I’m too tired to talk to you now. I’ll call you tomorrow. Or I guess later today.”

“Yeah, uh, ok. I miss you,” he said, regretting it as soon as he realized he said it.

“Good night, Casey.”

“Night.”

The sun had already begun its slow descent down the short October day when Casey woke up with a headache that nearly kept him in bed, but he was quick to remember championship, and the joy seemed to chase the pounding away. He slowly got ready for what was left of the day. He needed to pick up a copy of the Enquirer, and he was going down to the team store to buy one of everything that had World Series Champs on it. As he was leaving the apartment, he checked the time on his phone and noticed he had made a phone call to someone he did not remember. He knew, though, could guess who was on the receiving end of such a call, and with the press of a few buttons, his horror was confirmed. What had he said to her? He was too afraid to call and ask.

There were many red eyes and pale faces on the street struggling to make it through the day, only saved by the victory high they were feeling. The city felt strange, like a major event had taken place and used up the entire supply of the town’s energy. Casey made his purchases and returned to his apartment with an empty feeling, the feeling of loneliness, and he was happy when his phone rang in the evening.

“Hey, Casey, what’s up?” It was A.J.

“Hey, congratulations. That was some game yesterday.”

“Yeah, it’s a great feeling. Listen, some of us are getting together tonight to continue the celebration. Do you want to join us?”

“Sure, I have no plans for the evening.”

“Good. Oh, but I don’t know if you should bring Marin – Michael is going to be there.”

“Ok, I’ll just show up alone. Or I could give Sophia a call.”

“Bring who you wish. See you then.” A.J. seemed to be detached from the emotional world most of the time, but at least he was astute enough to warn Casey’s about Michael’s impending presence. He wondered if he should call Marin and tell her – he had not spoken with her since they had returned form Oakland and was not sure he should, given the bizarre collision of their past lives and the emotional baggage any relationship would carry with it. Nah, he’d call Sophia. There was no thinking involved in any interaction with her.

Casey did not realize how much seeing Michael would set him off, especially after a few drinks. They got into an argument about politics that had nothing to do with politics under the surface. He talked about hardworking middle class people as lazy and undeserving of any of the taxes people in his social class paid (though Casey was sure the man did not pay much in taxes, given what he did for a living), as if he were trying to wage class warfare right in the house of a wealthy baseball player. Somehow he knew Casey came from nothing, and Casey wondered if it were the way he carried himself or if Anne had discussed her ex at length. Only Casey’s disgust for violence kept his clenched fist at his side. He needed a break from all of this and decided to take the first flight to Dublin the next day. He did not view it as running away, but if someone had told him that was what he was doing, he would have agreed with him.

He changed his mind though, and waited to leave after the victory parade in Cincinnati. When the floats had finished their tour of the Cincy streets, he was off to explore a new world and escape his old one – that is, at least until pitchers and catchers reported to spring training when Ohio’s February freeze could make one forget that warmth was a mere few weeks away.