Comeback

Franco Pagnucci

Wrigley Field: fall 1949.
Now dead, my immigrant father, who knew
clear pig-gut sausages,
sneaks the unfamiliar reddish tuber
into his coat pocket,
and eats an empty bun
and thanks "this guy" who brought him
to the game and bought him the hot dog.

Later. . .
Even though they were
"The Black Sox"
and they never win,
for me, The White Sox are Nellie Fox
playing Second, getting another hit.

. . . Still . . . Maybe it's 1957,
and I'm sitting in the Cubs' section
of Wrigley with Big Bob Hansen,
cheering the Braves
for whatever reason,
though I'm not from Wisconsin yet,
and I have to watch,
especially my left thigh.
Sometimes Big Bob's claw
comes down palm-hard as a pop-up,
clamps my thigh like a pliers,
and takes my breath away.

But Ernie Banks is up again,
and Brickhouse's voice
rides on the ball in the wind above centerfield
where The Babe's "called shot" went,
and the scoreboard numbers go up,
by hand and the scoreboard fireworks up
under the storm-dark afternoon

of August 1st 2006.
Cubs and Diamondbacks.
Night game. They've added lights, finally,
to accommodate and compete,
and the houses beyond the ivy walls
have blue bleachers
full of fans on the roofs.

For this game I'm two seats away
from another out-of-shape-and too-fat woman
on my right who wears a yellow t shirt
with plunging v-neck,
outlined by white inner, muscle shirt.
Maybe no bra. I don't stare.
I'd have to turn all the way right─
an over-the-wall reach.
Everyone would see. . .

though it's just a game. . .
TV monitors are above us,
right and left.

Though it's just another. . . "Let's go out
to the ball park" and there were five
home runs. no Sammy this year.
The talk is he might be coming back, too.
And this place,
this green field is all made up and pretty,
though July temperatures have been the talk.
All week. A week of it.
And a dry, hot month to boot.

A 102◦ as we drove in,
and past 8:00 p.m. it was still 100◦ plus
in the full stadium under the upper decks,
though the Cubs, too, never win.
Don't tell me
the "Go-Go" Sox finally won.
I've been too long gone from Illinois,
like the Braves from Milwaukee,
where the Brewers disappoint.

And I was drinking from a half bottle
of Sam's over-heated water.
and the woman in yellow to my right
was eating soft serve from a yello cup
she kept stuffed in her cleavage
and kept turning as the side
closest to her must have warmed
between her breasts,

while we watched
because we were hot, mostly
and had parked in a mostly vacant health club lot
from where we'd walked in the scorching city heat
of late afternoon to the Fullerton El
station and ridden an over-packed Red Line
that was late and made us miss half the homers,

and I watched because my middle-aged son,
visiting from PA, and I had driven down
from his much younger sister's in racine
and going past California,
I'd remembered Uncle Gino
who'd lived around
there for years while he cheffed
at the Italian Village on Monroe and Dearborn,

Uncle Gino at 62, sitting retired
and dead on the middle outside cellar-step
of the bungalow in Harwood Hts.
he d moved to from the two-story brick
on California and Monticello where
we'd made so many feasts,
so many holiday meals together,

and I watched because now I needed
to tell my son so he could carry back
these few facts for the story he might tell.
Severe storms had gathered in the northwest,
over Wisconsin,
after the fiery heat,
and were coming down,

and I saw the sky beyond the field darken
and darken
and saw the night lights make the green
field of Wrigley as green as Lambeau's
where I told my son we needed to go
with everyone back
maybe for that final game
maybe with Farve
playing his last,
as the woman on my right
kept coming back to her ice cream.

Franco Pagnucci
Robinson Lake, Barnes, 2006