I made the decision not to tell Ernie about my encounter with David Bateman or Eva’s infidelity. I knew how much he was looking forward to attending a World Series, and I didn’t want to be a downer. Even the weather was cooperating—still unseasonably warm, high eighties. The rest of the nation would tune in to see Giants fans clad in black-and-orange T-shirts instead of the parkas and ski hats we traditionally donned to attend games at the wind tunnel known as Candlestick Park.
Ernie arrived in full Giants attire, shirt and hat. Mickie once threatened to shoot me if she ever saw me wearing a professional team’s jersey unless it said “Loser” across the shoulders, but I slipped on my Giants jersey for that day. When I got in his Mercedes, Ernie handed me a hat just like the first time I’d gone to his house to play three flies up. This one was new, black with an orange SF stitched on the front. “My father bought it for the client. I see no reason for it to go to waste.”
“Neither do I.” I adjusted the size, slipped it on my head, and pulled down the visor. “We look like a couple of really big Little Leaguers,” I said.
4
Candlestick Park was draped in red, white, and blue bunting that made even the concrete mausoleum look festive. The grass was a rich green, and the cloudless sky radiated a pale blue. I could smell steamed hot dogs, popcorn, and roasted peanuts.
“Let’s get a beer,” Ernie said as we walked through the ticket gate. “I want to be in our seats for the opening festivities.”
We bounded up the concrete steps and found the shortest beer line. It didn’t take long for the first admirer to say, “Hey, aren’t you Ernie Cantwell?”
“Not today,” Ernie said. “Today I’m a Giants fan, just like you.”
“I used to love to watch you play,” the man said. “What the hell happened to you?”
Ernie got these kinds of questions all the time, and though he did a good job hiding it, I know it bothered him when people thought of him as some washed-up former athlete who walked off the field and disappeared. “I retired,” he said. “Now I work for him.” Ernie pointed to me.
“Yeah, what do you do?” the man asked.
“I rehabilitate washed-up ex-jocks,” I said, which ended the conversation.
I looked out and watched the last stream of cars inching into the parking lot just as the stadium began to shake. Ernie and I looked at each other and would later recall we had the same initial thought—that we were missing something inside the stadium, something so incredible as to cause sixty thousand fans to stamp their feet in unison. Then we both stumbled off balance. It felt like waves were rolling beneath the stadium. Out in the parking lot, car alarms blared in unison.
“Earthquake!” someone yelled.
My instinct was to run; we were not far from an exit, and all I could think about was the tons of concrete hanging over our heads, ready to fall and crush us in an instant, but Ernie grabbed my arm and looked me in the eye. “Don’t run!”
People looked as if they were standing on the deck of a moving ship, their legs unsteady, listing back and forth, fear etched on their faces. When the earthquake had passed, there was a moment of eerie, stunned silence, fear that the earthquake could start up again. People looked up at the cement overhang, then at one another, and the crowd let out a collective, spontaneous roar—as much a sigh of relief as an acknowledgment that we all had just experienced something beyond a normal tremor and had lived to tell about it. Strangers just seconds before the shake, they all now talked animatedly and high-fived one another. The televisions behind the concession stand, which had gone black, flickered back on. Announcers stood on the grass field fitting in earpieces and looking confused. Players milled about behind them, some looking up into the stands for family members. The TV station cut away to a familiar newscaster sitting behind a desk in a San Francisco news studio, but I couldn’t hear what he was reporting over the buzz of the crowd. The guy in front of us, however, was wearing earphones and holding a transistor radio.