Funeral March

Funeral March

In the second game at Rochester, when Hank’s second at bat came up in the fourth, the lights came on and the organist played Chopin’s funeral march. All around him, Rochester fans began screaming “Toooombstone,” stretching out the “oh” sound of his most hated nickname. Hank wondered if you could call someone a fan when their team had only played one and a half games of baseball, total, in their existence. He was mad, and he was wondering why he had even bothered signing up for this league, anyway. He was coming up with two outs and no one on, in a no score game, and he was pretty sure no one would ever care.

He knew why the organist was playing the funeral march, and Hank supposed he had done that to himself. Last night, he had come back to the stadium late at night. All of the other players had gone into downtown Rochester, finding the bars with ease. Some of them were hoping to find some hot young widows, considering they were so close to the giant hospital that was located in Rochester. As classy as that sounded, and as much as Hank missed talking to women, he declined.

If Hank would’ve had a room to himself, he might have just stayed there and called his ex-wife. He just wanted to talk to someone without shouting over loud music. Unfortunately, he had ended up sharing a room with old timer Alan Stone, who just watched CNN all night long and clucked judgmentally to himself.

The stadium was in walking distance, and he trudged out of the hotel’s front door and walked off into the night. The city wasn’t big enough to be full of people, and he found himself alone with his thoughts. Hank wondered if this trip might not have been a bad idea after all, and wondered if maybe he should’ve just kicked Alan out of the room for an hour and called his ex-wife anyway. He started to walk a little faster.

When he was within earshot of the stadium, he heard the unmistakable sound of organ music. The organ was being played loudly, and the music was very beautiful, but it was nothing Hank had ever heard before. The stadium wasn’t very secure, and Hank was able to sneak in without too much effort. If he made any noise, the frantic organ music would have easily covered it up.

Coming into the stadium, Hank expected to see some sort of public event. Instead, there was nothing there. The field was empty. The stands were mostly empty – some of the stadium workers were still cleaning up after their game. Hank worked his way to the organist’s booth. It was located just above the seats, just to the upper right of home plate. There was a big window which might have once been covered with glass, but was now open to the night sky. Inside, a man in his late thirties hammered away at the stadium’s organ. He had a pock-marked face, thick, bushy eyebrows, and a thinning hairline. He noticed Hank watching him immediately.

“Tombstone’s here,” the organist said, and he quickly went into the Funeral March. A few of the custodians looked up when the song changed, shook their heads, and went back to their cleaning.

“I was just out walking. Heard you playing a little extra music. I like that.”

The organist smashed his hands down on the keys of the organ.

“Went to the U for five years to get a degree in music performance. Everyone said I had a special gift. It didn’t make me any money. Now I manage a shop at the mall and do this just so I can have, what was that you said? A little extra music in my life.”

“I see,” Hank said. He folded his arms and leaned away from the open window.

“And you had a special gift people wanted to pay money for, and you pissed it all away. I like that,” the organist said.

For a moment, they eyed each other. Hank James was clearly bigger and stronger, but the desperation in the organist’s eyes told exactly how little he had left to lose. Hank just nodded and walked away, and as soon as he got out of the organist’s field of vision the organist began playing the funeral march again. It was the same song he was playing now, at Hank’s second at bat.

Hank took a big, angry swing at the first pitch and missed. The second piss went well outside the strike zone and landed in the dirt. With the third pitch, he just missed connecting with a fastball and sent the ball screaming into the upper decks. On the fourth pitch, the pitcher’s curveball didn’t drop down like it was supposed to and Hank felt everything inside of him allign like a lock about to turn.

The home run was a no-doubter. It went deep over the centerfield fence, and the center fielder didn’t even move. He just turned and watched it go out. The pitcher stomped to the back of the mound, cursing himself loudly. Hank trotted down the first base line as the crowd went crazy, screaming “Tombstone.” Suddenly, he didn’t mind the nickname so much. As he rounded second base, he watched players in the outfield stands laugh, clap each other’s backs, at point at where the ball had landed, and it really hit him how hard he had hit that ball.

When he got to home plate, the next HooseCow to bat slapped him on the ass as he trotted past. He made it to the dugout and guys were already telling he should always have the funeral march as his walk-up music, even back at home. He considered it. He even considered it when players told him he should put “Tombstone” on the back of his jersey, because he might as well.  The rest of the team rallied behind his home run, and the HooseCows won 7-0.

He didn’t hear that his first foul ball had struck the organist in the side of the head for another inning, and he would not hear the man died in the hospital until after they got back to Waterloo.

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