Gus Johnson
401B
It starts with hurriedly rummaging through my desk for headphones, but soon enough I’m plugged in and walking. I’ll cross Evans Avenue, sliding past the maintenance buildings, on my way up to campus tonight. Andrew Bird’s “Armchair Apocrypha” is my sole companion for this journey. His whistle solos and violin melodies perfectly accompany the length and tempo of my strides. With every step I lay a little footprint, a tiny stress mark on the grass, as if the act of movement somehow reduces tension from my muscles and leaves it on the ground through the soles of my shoes. I’m going to the baseball diamond just beyond the intramural fields. One might think that I’m meeting a date to watch a game, but I’m doing nothing of the sort. There won’t be any lights shining for a night-game. This place of crowded benches, foul balls, and hot-dogs, of popcorn, peanuts and beer is now void of sports fans. I’m going there to be alone.

There is a trash can near the visitor’s entrance which aids me in hopping over the steel fence. The can is a perfect stepping stool, and it’s so conveniently placed. Why not take advantage? I am able to hop the fence quite easily, even in my flip-flops. My knees have to do a bit of shock absorption on the other side, but all-in-all it’s a very simple process. Once inside the park, I pass closed vending stands and resume my station in seat twelve to look out over the field.
The protective mesh net four feet in front of me is used as a backstop. It is also used to keep old men in faded caps safe from foul balls, but I’m using it as an object for unfocussed attention. I look through it the same way I concentrate on those 3D computer generated images. I don’t know whether or not I’m trying to find a hidden picture or meaning, but my eyes slip lazily back and forth between the fabric of the net and the negative space between it as if I was.

After taking a short stop near second base, my view extends another 300-something feet out to centerfield. Beyond that is the parking lot. Sometimes I’ll watch cars go by; a kind of steady stream of students and employees returning home from campus. My eyes follow their taillights as they trace the arched fence beyond the warning track. Next, I raise my gaze up to the neon blinking of the Circus-Circus sign for the hotel and casino. It’s iconic to look upon, but I mostly use it to test my sense of timing. I snap my fingers in unison with the light board switches, and pretend I caused the change. Finally, I lift my view a little further up to the night’s sky; rejoicing in the steadiness of an unblinking pop-fly moon.

The first few times I went to the baseball diamond every noise made me nervous. Perhaps some maintenance man was still cleaning up. Every dull metallic popping sound from a settling bleacher was an unknown intruder, and every car that drove by the perimeter could most definitely see me. I just got the feeling that I was not supposed to be there. I don’t know what they would do if I were caught; probably just ask me to leave. I don’t even really know who “they” is (it’s just one of those “they” situations.) “They” wouldn’t approve.

Mostly I go to the field to mull things over. Something always brings me there seeking refuge: girls, homework, you name it. At these times I’m on overload. Surprisingly, I do little actual thinking while I’m sitting in seat twelve. If I thought things out any further, I’d just be adding more stress to the situation. I’m giving my brain time and space to work itself out, to unwind and decompress. I try to think of the brain as an old library. I’ve just got to give the librarian time to slide around on those rickety bookshelf ladders before I can expect to get the volume I’m looking for.

From seat twelve home plate sits directly before me, and from there the field expands along the foul lines into a sort of reverse horizon. I’m sitting at the vanishing point. Instead of looking out at that dot in the distance, the one where I used to draw railroad tracks and two lane highways in my sketches as a child, it’s suddenly me who’s at that convergence of lines. I’m seeing a picture of and from my childhood.

I can see myself out in center field waiting for my father to hit me a pop fly. He’s reaching into an old Ace Hardware concrete mixing bucket to grab another Diamond brand baseball (they’ve all got his nickname “Moki” or some alternate spelling written in permanent marker so that people don’t take them when we go to little league practice.) I’m rocking onto the balls of my feet with nervous anticipation of judging the trajectory of the ball. He’s throwing the cowhide up with one hand and quickly using both again to swing in an uppercut. The ball is flying. I’m sprinting my hardest. If I catch these next five in the air, he’ll let me come in for my favorite part, batting practice. I’m out there on the field of my childhood, but I’m also sitting near my dad’s position in seat twelve.

Resting on that folding plastic chair, it gradually dawns on me that most things depend on your point of view. I go to the baseball diamond because I can see both past and present there. I see a perfectly manicured field before me, but I also see the rough and poorly managed ones of little league. I remember unconsciously averting gopher holes in center field, the ping of metal bats, and the crack of wooden ones. I remember the smell of pine tar and the taste of sunflower seeds. As I see both past and present, as if at a distance on that reverse horizon, the future kind of works itself out into a new perspective. Whether or not this girl really likes me, or whether or not somebody finds me here in seat twelve doesn’t really matter. The specifics aren’t as important as the theme: an impression of perspective is the reason I go to the baseball field alone at night.