The next few years went well. Thanks to Angel, I was in the best shape I’d been in since my 20’s. Under her oversight, which included presiding over my stretching and cardio program and what we ate at home, I’d lost weight and I was stronger and more mobile while officiating, which I thought funny because I was in pretty good shape when I met Angel. Being an attractive older man was one of the reasons she was attracted to me.
We took Ma to the Chancellor’s Room for her birthday every year and something she never expected to happen once was now an annual event. It was plain she enjoyed every minute of it.
Mr. Barrett, of course, was our waiter that first time and, also of course, was in his usual splendid form taking Ma’s hand and declaring it was plain where Angel got her beauty from, which made both of them cry.
Angel had been a regular visitor to the Chancellor’s Room for several, many, years and she was now completely in her element, so I let her take command, from ordering wine to our main courses to dessert.
“You created a monster. You know that, right?” she asked one time after Mr. Barrett left with our order.
Yeah, I had to admit, I had. Angel had gone from scared fine dining novitiate to being completely in her element faster than I had thought she would.
Angel’s editing business was pretty steady. Some advertising where writers hang out and some word of mouth produced steady work. It wasn’t as much as she was making at the bank, but it was enough and since editing can be done at home she could work when she wanted.
———
Sunday dinner at Ma’s remained a tradition. Sometimes she made something else besides meatloaf, usually to please Angel, who didn’t share my deep love of meatloaf, but Ma really enjoyed making meatloaf for an appreciative audience, so we had that and Ma’s famous macaroni and cheese a lot.
This routine, pleasantly, seldom changed. We’d get there in the early afternoon and sit in the kitchen and start in on a bottle or two of wine and usually Angel and Ma, as they have since our very first Sunday dinners, used this time to catch up. Sometimes if there was a professional game on TV and someone I knew was officiating it, which happened from time to time, I’d leave them alone and might go watch it, or I might not. I’d missed a lot of Sunday kitchen time in the bachelor decades, had a lot of catching up to do, and was loathe to miss any more Sunday kitchen time than I had to.
After dinner, as usual, Angel would usually go nod off somewhere, sometimes her favorite living room chair or the bed in our room, leaving Ma and I to ourselves.
Ma and I talked politics a lot on Sundays. It started during a presidential election, which was very close and contentious, and which Ma had a lot of opinions about. She was very conservative. She had to make a go of it her ownself, earning a living and raising Angel without any government handouts and saw no reason why anyone should be getting her money for staying home and sitting on their ass. I tended to agree that government should really just butt out and let us citizens rise and fall on our own. I disagreed with her assertion that we should just start shooting people on death row, and she saw no point in letting anyone other than men and women marry or in legalizing weed or any other drugs.
Angel would listen to our discussions from time to time but seldom joined in. She didn’t really follow politics all that much.
I was surprised to find out I had strong opinions on some matters. I’d always followed the news and enjoyed reading history and biographies, and I was a registered voter, of course, a member of a small third party, but I wondered where the hell all these policy opinions came from.
———
We went back for an extended stay in the small town where I grew up. Among other things, we had dinner at Danny Taylor’s house and I am pleased to report Angel and Mrs. Danny Taylor, who recall was my prom date, got along famously, though Troy, Danny’s gay, assistant pastor son, who was more or less Angel’s age, thought it was “gross” someone his dad’s age would marry any girl in general much less one half his age specifically.
We only stayed a week. That was about three days more than Angel preferred, but Ma was with us and she teamed with Auntie Marsha, of course, to keep the entire town on their toes. Ma stayed with Marsha and they slept till noon and drank coffee until late afternoon when they finally got around to considering how they were going to spend their day. Usually, they had dinner at our house or at the diner, though one night Ma taught Marsha how to make her famous macaroni and cheese, which I think depressed Marsha because she didn’t really have anyone to make it for, though Ma pointed out it kept for a week.
It was, I suppose, inevitable, that a Bingo session coincided with our visit.
A complete battalion of women, commanded by Auntie Marsha along with Angel, Ma and Danny’s wife Susie, headed out for the diner followed by a night of Bingo at the VFW. Danny and I had no interest in going so we passed a rather pleasant evening at his house. Danny has even fewer cooking skills than I did, so we had a pizza sent over from the diner.
The good part about Danny is he doesn’t require non-stop conversation, which I am unable to provide anyway. We figured the town had enough to deal with, with the invasion of the girl’s expeditionary force and all, so we sat in his living room and watched the ballgame. His house was large, single-story, still furnished straight out of the ’70s, except for the kitchen, which he had graciously let Susie keep as modern as she wanted.
“You know anybody umpiring this game?” Danny asked.
“Yeah. I worked in the minors with the guy at second base.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. There’s a couple of more still in the big leagues. That’s about it though.”
“You don’t give the impression you lose any sleep over not making it.”
I shrugged. I tend not to make noise when I shrug and Danny was watching the game, so he didn’t see me shrug.
“I mean, some here took it pretty tough when you got cut. “
I laughed.
“Yeah, I remember. It was like I was a player or something.”
“I thought my dad was going to hemorrhage.”
I remembered that. Danny’s dad was a big sports fan and reportedly sulked for weeks after I’d been cut. He took it harder than my own dad did.
“I got the news by phone,” I told Danny for the 933rd time. “I was over it before I hung up. I was surprised at how easy I took it. A shrug and smile at the good memories and that was it. Cue the next chapter.”
“You were always like that. Low key. I remember seeing you in the minors in Texas that one week…”
Danny let the sentence hang for a bit. He was about to get married and Susie dispatched him to spend a week on the road with me, one last bachelor session.
“Damn, that was a hell of a week…”
“For you! I was still working my way up. I had to behave myself.”
“Anyway, you had, what it’s called, a what…”
“Banger. We call close plays bangers.”
“Yeah, a banger. The manager came out and really gave it to you. You had to, what…”
“Run…”
“Yeah, run him. You never lost your cool..”
“How much does your buddy working tonight make?”
“I don’t know for sure. With his experience, probably about $300,000.”
Danny whistled.
“Yeah, well,” I said brilliantly. “How much money do you need?”
“You’re asking this of a banker?”
I laughed.
An inning or two passed and I told Danny I was certain he knew some people, too. He’d been a banker a long time.
“Well, maybe some people in the government. SEC, Treasury. Boring financial suits.”
“Well, there you go. You know people.”
“Yeah, I suppose. A couple have been on TV, too. Of course, they were denying charges…”
“See and you thought you were a nobody. You know alleged criminals!”
Danny laughed. Our team was rallying for a couple of runs to pull a bit closer.
“You know, D, Officials on TV are no different than you. You’ve put the same work into your life that they’ve put into theirs. You saw what you wanted – a good life here – and you worked until you had it.
“Never thought of it like that.”
“You gotta bloom where you are planted. Or, in your case, where you chose to plant yourself. We’ve both done that.”
“Yeah. At least we’re not looking back on what might’ve been.”
A few minutes later Danny changed the subject.
“I heard you and your mother-in-law talking politics.”
“Yeah. Stuff like that interests her. Me too, frankly.”
“You should run for office. You’re nice, you’re a good listener. You’re married to a child. You’d get votes.”
I laughed and waved a hand, dismissing the idea. Me running for office. Imagine that.
———
The game was long over and Danny and I were drinking some brandy when the First Female Expeditionary Squadron returned to headquarters fresh from evening bingo maneuvers. Ground transportation from the bingo theater was provided by the town’s Vehicular Constable Unit (Motorized), Officer Ike commanding.
“Howdy there, boys,” Ike said, exiting the department’s Motorized Vehicular Unit. We had heard them drive up and Danny and I were standing on the porch, trying not to laugh.
A side door opened and Angel came pouring out onto the driveway. Marsha tried to exit from the front passenger seat, but her feet seemed to have trouble finding the ground. Susie Taylor was still in the back seat, apparently passed out, though sometimes people’s heads in this situation fall to the side for other reasons.
Ma was the only one able to successfully negotiate egress from the Motorized Vehicular Unit, but further movement beyond standing fast seemed to be beyond her ability.
“Is the place still standing?” Danny asked, leaning on a porch frame.
“Well,” Ike said, taking off his hat and scratching his head. “Pretty much.”
Danny and I laughed.
“Better get your checkbook out, Danny.”
Danny shook his head solemnly.
“My checkbook? Three-fourths of these misfits are associated with you.”
Ike walked towards us.
“It was a pretty slow night,” he said. “So I headed over to see what was shaking at the VFW.”
Ike paused to look and see if any of the Bingo Brigade needed assistance. None did. Yet.
“It was pretty lively. Big crowd, with the ladies here holding court in one corner. Lotta hootin’ going on, but it was just folks being folks.”
“Nothing that demanded your professional attention?” I asked.
“Nah,” Ike said, nodding his head back at the car. “I figured some might need a courtesy ride home.”
Ike pushed his cowboy hat up a bit with an index finger. The ladies of the Bingo Expeditionary Squadron were still in various stages of making their approach to the house. Marsha’s feet had finally touched terra firma though she wasn’t quite standing yet, Angel had made it up from the ground and was looking around curiously, Susie was still sitting in the back seat, though she appeared to be awake, while Ma was actually on her way, slowly, to my car.
“I was right, too. None of these fine ladies was OK to drive anywhere,” Ike said. “The last game, of course, was the blackout game – you have to fill the entire card – and when the lovely Mrs. Taylor won the last game, Marsha here called for an immediate federal investigation because, obviously, the games were rigged from here to high heaven.”
“Damn straight they were, kiddo!”
“And the ladies did nothing else to merit further official law enforcement attention?” Danny asked solemnly, which made both Ike and me laugh.
“Naw, they’re all right. Just wanted to make sure everyone got home safely.”
Danny and I both herded the bingo gals where they should go.
“You headed out tomorrow?’ Ike asked. Of course, he was just verifying, because thanks to Marsha everyone in town knew our complete schedule, including the anticipated hour of hour departure.
“Yeah, we are, Ike. You going to keep the town in order till we return?”
“I think so. Mighty good seein’ you again.”
“Mighty good seeing you, too, Ike.”
“Good to see you settled down. You seem to’ve got yourself a good wife.”
Danny came by, too, and we said goodbye.
“Now don’t you two get all mushy and stuff on me.”
“We won’t Ike, don’t worry,” Danny said. “They’ll be back.”
Angel and I headed out the following day. Ma, however, stayed with Marsha for another few days. Danny Taylor told me after my steadying, meaning dull, influence left the fun really started and Officer Ike spent no small amount of time providing further ground transportation in official city vehicles.
Chapter 12: Angel
Chapter 13: The Captain – Part II
The Angel and The Captain Homepage