Big Sex • May 12th, 2019
BROOKLYN - Well folks, it was wet, and not in a sexy way. Not at all. It ain’t me to bitch about the weather when I am not talking about tending my vacant lot garden in Spanish Harlem, or ensnaring and force-feeding chili peppers to the squirrels who have defiled it. But I’ve seen an episode and a half of Ken Burns’ The Vietnam War, and I’m here to tell you that May’s first two Sundays at York were not altogether unlike fighting a land war in Asia.
“Every day is a gift,” winced 8 Ball as we drew for teams, searching for hope in his own voice, “that’s why they call it the present.” Magic Man clapped him on the back and said something thoughtful about the women who bore us. But tarpless, beerless, and sodden to our peter pouches in the unending torrential rain, we lowered our heads and hunkered into our Henleys like turtles. Mothership Mother’s Day was goddamn miserable out there, despite Rizz and Remdog’s efforts to lift our spirits with a few raucous, alarmingly well rehearsed puddle-stomp dance numbers; to celebrate their moms, I guess. They shook their calves and narrow asses all about, as only non-dads can. The other four of us beheld these two unarmed drummers, faking brave smiles, marching into a battle already lost. You ever see a performance so unexpected that if you can manage to peel your eyes away from it, it’s to check out the audience’s reactions? I caught a glimpse of Papa Peligroso’s eyebrows raising before he cleared his throat and encouraged us to keep playing -- a dadsome cover for what he wouldn’t say: that he could take the cold and the rain and the bullets, fine, but this? He was missing Mother’s Day with his family for this? Misguided as the choreography was, it might have moved us were it a little later in the day, were we to have had some beer, were we to have had any beer at all; but here we were, too delirious and downtrodden to even think of paddling over to the bodega; self-owned, all having been people who figured other people would bring beer. We’d only played three innings of one game before this bewildering floor show, and, although cursing the thought, we already all but wished that we were dead. “‘Mr. Putin, please, show some fuckin' mercy,’” I cried toward the nuclear satellites somewhere up in the vomiting skies. And yet we clapped for Mr. Everywhere and Mr. Man as politely as we could muster, if only to get the doomed game going.
It had off and on cold-rained during Double Barrel’s visit the week before as well, kind of like it did in Paterson that second time last year. But on this Mother’s Day, it was a sustained downpour. Even the tapiest, Lizard Skinsiest taped bats were soon useless in our pruned hands. Mr. Zogg’s Sex Wax was enough for awhile, and then it wasn’t. Soon there was no dry corner of undershirt under any shirt to sop up sufficient water and activate the viscous surf product. I think we hit a few singles here and there, but by and large it was slugger after drenched slugger hammer-throwing my sensuous, inviting, naked, adhesiveless, limousine-black-enameled Sex Bat down the third base line; over the ivy fence; into the marble shop next door. Finally a wall of rain blew aside for a second, giving us a clear enough window to see as far as the wretched Detective Pikachu billboard up there laughing at us, and the red-light digital thermometer under it -- which read: “38” degrees. Fahrenheit. What? What is this, YFS Greenland? What in sam fuck is going on out here? Wanderer, is this wut it's like in Portland? What happened to April showers and May flowers? Are we all dead?
Audibly and grotesquely did my socks squelch inside my flat bottoms, me splashing this way and that to retrieve sad grounders that settled in York’s pools of hepatitis dirtwater. That morning, too quick to congratulate myself on my forethought, I had stuffed a change of X-Files t-shirt and a change of black under-tank-top into my network of CVS bags. But lo, Sex learned another lesson: “I should’a just brought extra socks and [Corona brand slip-on] flip flops,” I yelled to 8 Ball, imagining that that might’ve made my commute later back to the Sex cave a little less unbearable. As we trudged past each other between innings, Shepherd acknowledged this wisdom -- “As long as you have dry socks you’re good” -- and we exchanged tertiary knowledge of immersion foot syndromes in combat, but it wasn’t long before we concluded that, even considering today’s woes, it was not okay to equate this to that. Even on the shittiest fucking day at York in memory, on this grim and clumsy Mother’s Day, we were gladdened to have a day at all. But we did long for the slightly less wet Sunday previous:
On May 5, D-Lo a.k.a. the D$$’s Double Barrel, dressed all in black -- damn does this man know how to pack for New York -- had strolled out of the York F stop and into the Cathedral, cigarette cherry long and pointy as a demon’s horn. Cracking an electric blue Bud Light tallboy and somehow successful in establishing himself as the only man alive exempt from deserving any shit for that, Double Barrel took a look around and complimented the beauty of York. (D-Lo is now one of an intrepid handful of D$$ boys thus far -- incl. Hot Dog, Katfish, So. Diamond, Ay Caramba, Reebok Switch, etc. -- to follow through on their vows to come up extracurricularly and play in Brooklyn again before the city, Jared Kushner, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses turn Bridge Park 2 into some sort of monument to perpetuating inequality.) “Beautiful?” Nerf Dolphin inquired, gesturing toward a soggy decrepit plant that was strewn into foul territory like a squid out of water (as though from a hellish episode of M.A.S.H., or any show starring Bam Margera, some pedestrian fucker had uprooted and discarded the dune grass that the Surgeon had lovingly planted in an NYC Parks survey pothole). “That’s right, Meat,” replied Soy Lacrimoso. “It is beautiful here.”
Over postgame pints of Wild Turkey in our pajamas at 68 Jay, the Shepherd got to yammering again about some controversial call -- a strange play from the week prior that had resulted in a double and an eternity of griping and logicking and rule mansplaining. Without a Commissioner present to tell Shep to shut the fuck up, D-Lo nodded solemnly as he listened to the various takes on a play he’d never seen -- too diplomatic and bemused to weigh in -- and I remembered once witnessing Double Barrel shut down a “That’s-a-single”/“No-it’s-an-out-I-saw-dirt” argument at St. Patrick’s during a Mid-City D$$ game. He shut it down faster than the Surgeon can ingratiate himself to a coven of barflies, and ruled with more justice and authority than Sheriff Andy Taylor. Noticing his silence here at 68 Jay Bar, we asked D-Lo for his opinion on such situations, and he answered: One time after some contention in the outfield, the New Orleans players [that is: Romper Cables, The Bathroom, Wonder Breast, Name that Sack, Instagram Cop, Hey Watch It That’s My Porn Foot (Buddy You Just Stepped On My Porn Foot), The Sponge Cake, Uncle Lopside, Sand In My Slow Cooker, Va-Va-Vulva Power, Alimony Drugs, Cock Fire, Egg Whites, Taint, Buster Hugs, Bitch I Wish You Would Call My Doctor, The Anthill, Butter Job, Racoon Dentist, The Midriff, et al.] established a clear, unimpeachable rule about their right field fence -- I browned out but it’s something like, it’s a home run if you hit it. Crackerjack stuff.
Yes, in spite of our waterlogged souls, there was deep good what came out of them two rainy Sundays. The Brooklyn boys had struggled to bomb through the rain of D-Lo’s first game on the 5th, on a day meant to collect donations to honor D-Lo’s dad, so after game 1, Soy pledged to extend the donation edict through Mother’s Day to give us more chances to hit. And then, the fellers started to smash a few that day after all -- which is good, because no one would or could bomb on the 12th.
And they wouldn’t want me to tell you this, but Soy -- along with extra donations (on top of what they had to give in home run money) from Gr8 Ball (which is another Pokémon reference for you fuckin’ crusty olds) and Rizz and The Shepherd -- personally ponied up the difference between what meager bomb dollars we could come up and an even two hundos, so that YFS Brooklyn could send ten Tubmans to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in honor of D-Lo’s dad and mothers everywhere. Each gift like this, St. Jude wrote to Soy in thanks, “allows us to continue our lifesaving work and ensures that no family pays for anything at St. Jude.”
On Mother’s Day, Season XI --
The Red boners were: Soy Peligroso, 8 Ball, Large Sex
The Black squad were: Rizz Everywhere, The Shepherd, The Magic Man
G1: R’s: 3, B’s: 2
G2: R’s: 1, R’s: 0
(May 12) HRs: None whatsoever. Say what you want but it was like trying to have sex standing up in a hammock out there
(May 5) HRs: Nerf Hoops: 4, Rookie Travis: 4, Rizz Every-where (who was first to pay up for St. Jude): 3, Large Sex: 2, Soy Peligroso: 1
The Weekly Smut by Sex Grande
Monk says I’m Sponge Cake. I hope that’s true. I’ll see y’all next weekend on my championship tour.