The Circle Drag
The first rule of working at a baseball field is that it’s not about the money. The second rule that’s applied to maintaining a baseball field is that it’s really not about the money. The “job” checks all the boxes for the collegiate initiate: small yet stable direct deposit, occasional free eatery, healthy downtime, outdoor labor, flexible hours. If you think this doesn’t really sound like the typical life of an employee, you are right, and we were lucky.
Two white pick up trucks lounge in the front spaces of the lot as the third steams in with its windows down. No shortage of Sublime tunes, “I’ve got 6 discs loaded up in here”. Late to the show, I play it cool with enthusiastic and humorous greetings but they don’t respond. I acknowledge the negative grease and move on to tuck away my goodies in my locker for the day ahead. The black bean and pepperjack cheese burrito, I already feel the looming urge to maul the bastard to shreds; I’m hungry and I wouldn’t even need to blast it with microwaves of radiation.
A mango with its meat showing and this weeks book get tossed into my cubby. A quick peek to the neighboring locker owned by “fart” as it reads on its door grants me a quick grin, and I’m off into the grotto to kickstart the shift. The grass is green, and the dirt is tan. The skin, the dirt is called, needs to be dragged and watered.
(Imagine the process of brushing your hair then applying the proper ointment to ensure moisture and grip. Say you’re bald, you’d have to ponder the creation of a dirt bike ramp. I’m talking the manipulation of the earth to serve the purpose of aesthetic and function. It takes the perfect combination of tool touch-ups and water works. Men of the name Jules may call this “Divine Intervention” as I was the lucky lad to ride upon the freshly maintenance-d sand pro, the machine that in unison with a hose, makes the skin very aesthetic and functional, indeed.)
Were Sundays in America invented for Baseball Games? (I thought the chicken came first but now I really don’t know.) I’m blessed with one of those feelings of “right place + right time”, a feeling quantified at “Accelerating past Seven”, level of contentment. The Arizona Sun does not play games, his mission in this sector of the earth is to deploy vast amounts of energy to be met with no opposition, it should be illegal to have a shirt on in this part of town. My sleeveless crop top matches my rolled up shorts: maroon or die. My cheeks are getting fried but I forget about them as I perfect my dirt sculpture. The mind proceeds to wander through the figurative sands of time and space as my body pilots the combustion-powered machine that combs the particles of the infield; it’s a microcosm of the galaxy itself. With each oval I drag, I have the ability to correct my past drags, looping through life equipped with both the pencil and the eraser. The student becomes the master and the teachers become the blasters. On my outbound passes I gladly receive the divergent drops from the hose stream, and I get the pleasure to see my smooth dirt work adopt the moisture with cozy receptivity.
this collegiate gig however, went on to disrupt my expectations of the traditional labor force. Live through a phase of life akin to the vibrational attunement of “Brown Eyed Girl”. You know what this does to the American soul. Imagine the tapping-in of yacht rock; It just hits different when you’re with your buddies as you perform very merry, mellow physical labor. Sweet dessert, I nurtured this little oasis in the desert. A metaphor for my future? You guard the grounds of Valhalla, and there’s no future career shot of playing it safe.
