[Tib]

April in A-Ball continued:

I went 2 for 4 the next game and 2 for 11 the rest of the week but I started hitting the ball better. After a loss in which I had gone 0 for 4 I was particularly depressed. I was sitting out on the back porch looking at the Swamp and listening to the frogs. The sun was going down and it was getting brisk. Cars moved on the highway in the distance. I hear a noise and there’s Cliff Tyler coming out his screen door with two bowls of something hot in his hands.
“Made some chili,” he called across the side yard. “Want some?”
“Nah, thanks.”
“It’s good,” he argued.
“Thanks, Mr. Tyler, but I’m not real hungry right now.”
“Suit yourself.” His wicker patio chair crackled when he sat down. “Where’s your buddies?”
“Out.”
“Why aren’t you with them?”
“I’m not very good company right now.”
“Ah, I understand,” said Cliff. “You’re not hitting. Eating you up inside. Don’t want to think about it. Can’t think about anything else. That about right?”
Does the whole town know? “Yeah, that’s about it.”
I could hear him slurping his chili. It was making me hungry.
“You know what I do when I have a problem that won’t go away?” he said between bites.
“No, what?”
“I invite someone over for chili.”
So I went over and had a bowl of very good chili with Cliff Tyler. We talked about frogs and pine trees. When we were cleaning up the dishes, I asked, “What’s your problem that won’t go away?”
“How’s that?”
“You said you invite someone over for chili when you have a problem that won’t go away.”
He eyed me strangely, then. I started to think I had said something wrong. He wiped his hands on a dishtowel slung over his shoulder, then he gestured to his kitchen table and we sat.

“For thirty-one years I was married to the most beautiful woman in the world. Cancer took her four years ago. You asked what my problem was, my problem that wouldn’t go away. Well, Davey Driscoll, my problem is that I still wake up every day expecting her to be here.”
Jesus. I didn’t know what to say. “Mr. Tyler, I—.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “She was a good woman, and a good wife, and she would have made a wonderful mother. She was the biggest part of my life. Now that she’s gone I fill the empty space with memories of her, memories so vivid it’s like she’s really here. But it’s lonely when memories are your only companions. So I cook chili. I don’t know why, exactly, but it takes my mind off things for a while.”

I’ll never forget that moment. That big man in that little room. That’s when it dawned on me that the furniture in the house, and the plates, and the flowered dishtowel on his shoulder were all hers. He had not changed anything.
“Mr. Tyler,” I said. “I will always have room for a bowl of your chili.”
He pointed a thick finger at me, smiling. “I will hold you to that.”


I started hitting. I didn’t exactly burn up the league, but I raised my average to .203 by the end of April. Dave Guevara and I started to click on double plays. I led the league in fielding for shortstops. McCammon was hitting the tar out of the ball, finishing the month at .298. Rowland was struggling, and Steve Ugarte was put on the DL with an elbow tear. I felt so bad about that. Lino Lopez began a slow decline to .250. I didn’t feel too bad about that.

Next week: The Unthinkable Happens