Welcome to the Real World
Lawrence Block
Copyright 2011 by Lawrence Block
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords License Statement
This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other
people. If you would like to share this book with another person,
please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re
reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased
for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase
your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this
author.
WELCOME
TO THE REAL WORLD
a
golf story
by
Lawrence Block
Kramer
liked routine.
Always had. He’d worked at Taggert & Leeds for thirty–five years, relieved to settle in there after spending his twenties hopping from one job to another. His duties from day to day were interesting enough to keep him engaged, but in a sense they were the same thing–––or the same several things–––over and over, and that was fine with him.
His wife made him the same breakfast every weekday morning for those thirty–five years. Breakfast, he had learned, was the one meal where most people preferred the same thing every time, and he was no exception. A small glass of orange juice, three scrambled eggs, two strips of bacon, one slice of buttered toast, a cup of coffee–––that did him just fine.
These days, of course, he prepared it himself. He hadn’t needed to learn how, he’d always made breakfast for both of them on Saturdays, and now the time he spent whisking eggs in a bowl and turning rashers with a fork was a time for him to think of her and regret her passing.
So sudden it had been. He’d retired, and she’d said, in mock consternation, “Now what am I going to do with you? Am I going to have you underfoot all day every day?” And he established a routine that got him out of the house five days a week, and they both settled gratefully into that routine, and then she felt a pain and complained of shortness of breath and went to the doctor, and a month later she was dead.
He had his routine, and it was clear to him that he owed his life to it. He got up each morning, he made his breakfast, he washed the dishes by hand, he read the paper along with a second cup of coffee, and he got out of the house. Whatever day it was, he had something to do, and his salvation lay in doing it.
If it was Monday, he walked to his gym. He changed from his street clothes to a pair of running shorts and a singlet, both of them a triumph of technology, made of some miracle fiber that wicked moisture away from the skin and sent it off somewhere to evaporate. He put his heavy street shoes in his locker and laced up his running shoes. Then he went out on the floor, where he warmed up for ten minutes on the elliptical trainer before moving to the treadmill. He set the pace at 12–minute miles, set the time at 60 minutes, and got to it.
Kramer, who’d always been physically active and never made a habit of overeating, had put on no more than five pounds in the course of his thirty–five years at Taggart & Leeds. He’d added another couple of pounds since then, but at the same time had lost an inch in the waistline. He had lost some fat and gained a little muscle, which was the point, or part of it. The other part, perhaps the greater part, was having something enjoyable and purposeful to do on Mondays.
On Tuesdays he turned in the other direction when he left his apartment, and walked three–quarters of a mile to the Bat Cave, which was not where you would find Batman and Robin, as the name might lead you to expect, but was instead a recreational facility for baseball enthusiasts. Each of two dozen batting cages sported a pitching machine the standard sixty feet from home plate, where the participant dug in and took his cuts for a predetermined period of time.
They supplied bats, of course, but Kramer brought his own, a Louisville Slugger he’d picked out of an extensive display at a sporting goods store on Broadway. It was a little heavier than average, and he liked the way it was balanced. It just felt right in his hands. Also, there was something to be said for having the same bat every time. You didn’t have to adjust to a new piece of lumber.
He brought along cleated baseball shoes, too, which made it easier to establish his stance in the batter’s box. The boat–necked shirt and sweatpants he wore didn’t sport any team logo, which would have struck him as ridiculous, but they were otherwise not unlike what the pros wore, for the freedom of movement they afforded.
Kramer wore a baseball cap, too; he’d found it in the back of his closet, had no idea where it came from, and recognized the embroidered logo as that of an advertising agency that had gone out of business some fifteen years ago. It must have come into his possession as some sort of corporate party favor, and he must have tossed it in his closet instead of tossing it in the trash, and now it had turned out to be useful.
You could set the speed of the pitching machine, and Kramer set it at Slow at the beginning of each Tuesday session, turned it to Medium about halfway through, and finished with a few minutes of Fast pitching. He was, not surprisingly, better at getting his bat on the slower pitches. A fastball, even when you knew it was coming, was hard for a man his age to connect with. Still, he hit most of the medium–speed pitches–––some solidly, some less so. And he always got some wood on some of the fastballs, and every once in a while he’d meet a high–speed pitch solidly, his body turning into the ball just right, and the satisfaction of seeing the horsehide sphere leap from his bat was enough to cast a warm glow over the entire morning’s work. His best efforts, he realized, were soft line drives a major league centerfielder would gather in without breaking a sweat, but so what? He wasn’t having fantasies of showing up in Sarasota during spring training, aiming for a tryout. He was a sixty–eight year old retired businessman keeping in shape and filling his hours, and when he got ahold of one, well, it felt damned good.
Walking home, carrying the bat and wearing the ball cap, with a pleasant ache in his lats and delts and triceps–––well, that felt pretty good, too.
Wednesdays provided a very different sort of exercise. Physically, he probably got the most benefit from the walk there and back–––a couple of miles from his door to the Murray Street premises of the Downtown Gun Club. The hour he devoted to rifle and pistol practice demanded no special wardrobe, and he wore whatever street clothes suited the season, along with a pair of ear protectors the club was happy to provide. As a member, he could also use one of the club’s guns, but hardly anyone did; like his fellows, Kramer kept his guns at the club, thus obviating him of the need to obtain a carry permit for them. The license to own a weapon and maintain it at a recognized marksmanship facility was pretty much a formality, and Kramer had obtained it with no difficulty.