In the right light — and it's important that the lighting be just right — former St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Willie McGee can look
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a little bit like Tyra Banks. Or Ben Vereen. It all depends on that lighting.
Not long ago, I took a break from New York City. The city is wonderful, of course — that is, when it's not crushing your spirit, depleting your soul and requiring you to have prior credit approval just to get a damn glass of Scotch — and I had no beef with the place. It was just too loud, and I had work to do. You see, I'd been working on a book — a really big one; it didn't even have any pictures — but was finding it difficult to concentrate, what, with the two-ply liquid paper partition being all that separated me and the boisterous elderly Korean couple constantly doing it next door. (Worst part about
New York: knowing the guy fingering your tuna sandwich at the deli downstairs was tossing his wife's salad the night before.)
So I took a break. I called my cousin Denny, a quiet schoolteacher in my hometown of Mattoon, Illinois. He
lives alone in a big house with two cats, no television and no Web access. I told him I was coming his way for two months. It was the perfect plan. In a city full of distractions, I needed to find a place that had none. I would only be able to concentrate on my work. I would have no choice. He had a spare room, an old word processor and the lazy nothingness of endless corn fields and chubby cows. It was perfect.
I packed a couple of suitcases, hopped in Denny's car and, thirteen hours later, we were awash in the glorious void of Southern Illinois. The house held the beautiful silence of the Midwest well; you could hear crickets reading in Iowa. Denny is a quiet, simple sort, spending most of his evenings riding his motorcycle or grading papers. He would have no problem with me just tap-tap-tapping away in his backroom, pausing only for cigarettes and occasional phone calls to angry creditors. I settled in and spent the first three days and nights pecking furiously. Solitude became me. No television, no police sirens, nobody fucking next door. I was very productive.
One evening, when I'd reached a point where I felt comfortable taking a break, Denny and I went out for a couple of beers. There, we ran into Amy Garrett, the girl I'd lusted after from junior high until — gee, what time was it now? She had the most perky little breasts then, and now they resembled something from an R. Crumb comic. She walked to our table, expressed surprise to see me and mentioned how much better looking I'd become since high school with a wistful sigh. Our eyes met, and she put her hand on my shoulder flirtatiously.
She then left with a huge guy named Buck with a tattoo of "Mum" barely visible beneath a ZZ Top beard
speckled with peanut shells, cigarette butts and the souls of innocent children. Denny and I went home and he went straight to bed. But I, after the Amy encounter, had some business to take care of.
A note about me: I am a visual person. For whatever reason, if I can't see something, it doesn't exist. My
imagination is limited. Therefore, and how do I put this, whenever the urge to manually stimulate myself arises, I have to look at something.
I stealthily searched the house. With no television, I couldn't catch Pink on MTV. Without Web access, I couldn't download naked still shots of Drew Barrymore on Letterman. But Jesus, Denny had to have some magazines around here somewhere. I found Motocross Monthly . . . Guitar World . . . Reader's Digest? What the hell?
I searched frantically. Nothing. I even scoured the trash for old mail; I thought maybe he had gotten a winter catalog with women in tight sweaters or something. Zilch. Nada. The place was barren. I laid back down and attempted to use my limited imagination. But it wasn't happening.
The next four evenings, repeated attempts came up fruitless. The fifth night, my father and I drove to St. Louis to see the Cardinals Caravan, a yearly excursion where baseball greats past and present meet fans, sign autographs and hand out pictures. Among the booty we returned: An autographed photo of legend Willie McGee, my favorite player from my youth. He was decked out in his No. 51, sprinting out
of the batter's box after a presumably solid drive to left field. I immediately taped it to the wall above the bed in my guest room.
I tried to sleep, but I struggled. I thought I was beginning to sweat. I tried feeling myself again, but I was nothing without my sight. Anguished, I flipped the light on and turned around. Willie caught my eye.
There was something about the way his jersey puffed out with the swing. If you looked at it just right, it actually appeared that it could be a breast. If you ignored the face
above it, it was a downright robust breast. Kind of like Tyra Banks' breast.
I glanced left. I glanced right. No movement. Denny was fast asleep. That bulge from Willie's uniform really did look kind of like Tyra Banks' breast. What breasts she has . . . oh, Tyra . . . Tyra . . . Tyra . . . Tyra . . . Yeah . . . that's right, Tyra . . . that's it . . . don't stop . . . mmm . . . oh, Willie — wait . . . oh, Tyra . . . umuh, that's the way I like it, Tyra . . . give it to me like you gave it to the Brewers in the '82 Series . . . shit! . . . go go go . . . slide! slide! slide! . . . he's rounding third . . . here comes the throw . . .
Goddammit, I thought. He does look like Ben Vereen.
I cleaned up the mess and promptly threw away my sacred souvenir initially intended for the first 30,000 fans aged twenty-one and over. I couldn't even look. My childhood hero . . . oh Lord. What had just happened?
I used Willie McGee for sex. I shook his hand once, when we got box seats when I was 12. And now, with that same hand . . . well, I was sure our relationship would never be the same. We'd gone too far.
This was the end of the second week. Clearly, I had already lost my shit. I made a note to run by the magazine shop in the college town ten miles over. Somebody had to have a Hustler, somewhere. Or a Sports Illustrated for Women. Shit, a Vogue would have been fine.
But those girls, they wouldn't be Willie.
I don't want to say I dug him out of the trash. But the book I was telling you about . . . the reason I went to Mattoon in the first place, it still isn't finished.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Will Leitch's "Life as a Loser" column runs weekly on TheSimon.com. He has written for Salon, The New York Times on the Web, New York Press, Ironminds, Playboy.com and The Sporting News.
lives alone in a big house with two cats, no television and no Web access. I told him I was coming his way for two months. It was the perfect plan. In a city full of distractions, I needed to find a place that had none. I would only be able to concentrate on my work. I would have no choice. He had a spare room, an old word processor and the lazy nothingness of endless corn fields and chubby cows. It was perfect.
speckled with peanut shells, cigarette butts and the souls of innocent children. Denny and I went home and he went straight to bed. But I, after the Amy encounter, had some business to take care of.
of the batter's box after a presumably solid drive to left field. I immediately taped it to the wall above the bed in my guest room.
