Buy Me Some Peanuts

The phone rings as I begin to saw into the crisped socks with a translucent steak knife, and I curse my luck by shoving the TV tray to the carpet. David Lee Roth calls a halt to the band from the other side of the flat screen and asks me directly what the fuck my problem is.

“Hungry!” I scream, raising my fists in the air.

The air in my living room vibrates again with the second blare from the rotary phone. I stomp over and snatch it impatiently, too angry to say anything. The voice on the other end mumbles, not forming words, but I understand:   I am to be the starting third baseman for the Detroit Tigers.

(())

I don't know if there is actually a ballpark in Niger, why the Tigers are in town, who they are playing, what time the first pitch is to be thrown, or anything else pertinent to being a baseball player on this particular afternoon.

I find a small man pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with baseball gloves. He must know something.

“Are you going to the game?” I ask, my voice quivering with anxiety.

“Of course! Hop on!” He waves to the pile of leather and I climb up, sitting like a nervous dog as the man weaves his way through vendors, broken-down vehicles, and lost donkeys.

(())

The small man deposits me in front of a small brick building where two women are poised motionless over a chess board in the display window.

“Angry!” I bellow, standing precariously on the mountain of gloves, which has grown to height of a small elephant. A crack of thunder pops behind my shaking fists while the clouds open up and shower the earth with perfectly prepared crisped socks.