IX.
February 22, 1991 – Baseball with Mark for old times' sake."Hey, Marky, you doing anything?" Roger asked as he barged into the filmmaker's room one morning. Mark was sitting on his bed, putting on his shoes.
"What's it to you?" he asked, looking up.
"I was wondering if you wanted to go to the park and…I dunno, play catch or something,"
Mark stared at him with a weird expression on his face. "What are you, ten years old?"
Roger laughed. "Maybe. Don't you miss it? C'mon, we used to do it all the time when we were kids, remember?"
"Yeah and broke a few windows in the process, might I add,"
"And wrecked a few garden gnomes…"
"And destroyed a couple of barbecues because the ball kept going into the neighbors' grills…"
"So you up for it?" Roger grinned wickedly, throwing his twenty-year-old baseball in the air and catching it with a flourish. Mark returned his enthusiasm with an equally excited beam.
"Hell yeah,"
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Roger was thankful that the weather was on the okay side that day. If it weren't, he would seriously have to start considering that the God he grew up believing in as a kid was more than pissed at him and conspired against his every move. Which would contradict one of the items on his list.
"You're sure you're feeling okay?" Mark asked as they walked to the park.
"Yeah, best than I've felt in years," Roger said. That wasn't a lie. He'd been pretty healthy the last two days, with only the occasional cough and pain. That morning, he felt like he could even jog around the whole block.
The park was quite a walk from where they lived but neither of them minded. Even though Mark was driving him crazy again with the camera.
Whiiiirrrrrr…
"Smile, Rog,"
"Get that thing away before I rip it from your hands and smash it into the pavement," Roger made a face as he threw the baseball up in the air and caught it again and again. Man, it had been a long time since he held one of these things…
Mark turned off the camera and put it back in his bag.
"Hey remember when I moved into Scarsdale?"
Roger remembered a skinny, pasty kid who looked like he was going to get beaten up every five minutes in school, standing in front of the house just in front of theirs. He'd been upstairs in his bedroom, watching the moving van put things inside the house and had decided he was going out to meet the new kid. Since he'd been grounded that day, he went out through his window and clambered down the rose ladder his mother had had someone put at the side of their house.
"Yeah? What about it?"
"I thought you were going to beat me up,"
"I thought you were going to cry,"
They both laughed as they entered the park and almost immediately, started a game of catch, like they had when they were kids. Once again, Roger found delight in seeing how well Mark Cohen could finally catch a ball. He remembered teaching the little geek and wrestling him to the ground out of frustration.
"I can't catch it, Roger!"
"Yes you can! Now stop being a wimp and just do it!"
"I can't! The ball's just too small and the sun keeps blinding me!"
"Just catch it, Cohen, or I'll beat you up!"
"Do that and I'll tell your Mom what you said."
"Shut up and just catch the baseball!"
"I CAN'T DO IT!"
"YAAAARRGGGHHH!"
Roger smiled at the memory, nearly missing Mark's next throw in the process. Mark was still pretty much that, but at least the guy could catch now, which didn't make him as pathetic as before
"Wake up, Davis! What're you smiling at, anyway?" Mark called from the other end.
"Me teaching you how to catch," Roger laughed. They weren't too far away from each other so they could hear one another pretty well. The kids watching them must've thought they looked like morons, two grown guys playing catch in the park. How weird was that? But Roger didn't care.
"Boy, you sucked,"
"Shut up," Mark said. "You were always threatening me,"
"I had to. You weren't going to learn if I didn't throw bodily harm in."
"My Dad used to tell me to stay away from you. He said you had 'issues' you had to deal with and he didn't want you passing them down to me,"
"Dude, he's a psychologist. He thinks everyone has issues. He even thought the Pope had issues,"
"True," Mark laughed. He caught the ball clumsily and it almost knocked his glasses off. "Damn, your fastball's still good,"
"I had practice. Sometimes you need to throw stuff during concerts to keep the crowd entertained," Roger joked.
He'd never forget those days when he was on top of the world with his band, but he didn't want to go back to them either. Those days had been too fast, too reckless. It had been a blur of lights, smoke, haze and people. A never-ending cycle of trouble that made problems land on his and Mark's doorstep every night. Even if it had brought him the attention he'd needed back then, he never wanted to go through any of it again.
They played with the ball a few more times before Mark declared he was beat and sat down on one of the grass, taking his glasses off and wiping his face. Roger jogged over to him.
"You wimp," he taunted.
"God, I'm growing old," Mark said, his face blotched from effort. "I would kill for some lemonade right now…"
"Like what your Mom used to make?" Mrs. Cohen made the sourest lemonade on the planet. It made Roger cringe just thinking of it.
"No, like Cindy used to make. Hey, your Mom's lemonade didn't taste so hot either." Mark said.
"Yeah but at least it didn't melt your stomach. Damn, I could use a hot dog," Roger helped pull Mark up to his feet. Ugh. Chest pain again.
"You okay?" Mark asked. Shit. Had he seen the face Roger had made?
"Yeah. I'm just beat, that's all,"
A strange look passed over Mark's face but it disappeared as soon as it had come. "C'mon, let's get hotdogs…"
They walked over to a nearby stand and Mark ordered two hotdogs for the both of them: one with sauerkraut and one with mustard. Roger had never understood why on earth Mark loved sauerkraut. It smelled like feet. But Mark loved it all the same.
"Some things don't change, huh?" he said as soon as the hotdogs were in their hands, nice and warm and mustard-smelling (well, except Mark's which, of course, smelled like feet). "Why the hell do you like that stuff anyway?"
"Why the hell do you care? You've been asking me that since we first met. C'mon, let's find a place to sit,"
"Well, first of all because I can't really understand why you do since it smells so bad. And it's so weird! Pickled cabbage? I mean, come on!"
"It's a family thing. My Dad never liked you in the house for dinner either because you didn't like sauerkraut. And kept saying it, by the way."
"Hey, my opinion. Your old man's weird. I guess that's where you got it from,"
"Shut up."
They found an empty bench and sat down. For a while they just sat in silence, watching the kids play. God, Roger remembered being one. It was one of the most unforgettable times of his life: unforgettable, both in a good sense and a bad sense. He had the best of times with Mark, biking and playing sports and messing around, but he had the worst times with his family, especially with his father. When he was a kid he'd promised himself that when he became a father he wouldn't use his old man as model. In fact, he'd planned on being the coolest Dad ever, one which he wished he had. He felt sad now that that was never going to come true. He just couldn't risk bringing a child into the world with the sort of sickness that he had.
"Man, sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a Dad," he said out loud, his hot dog half-eaten in his hand.
"Roger Davis, dad? Surely you jest," Mark scoffed. "Are you serious? The Rock and Roll Prince changing diapers?"
"Ha-ha, Cohen. But seriously, have you never thought of it?" Roger was looking at the bunch of kids who were playing on the jungle gym not far away from where they were. "Man, that'd be cool…"
"Whoa, Rog, I think you've been out in the cold for too long. Have you talked to Mimi about this?"
"I was just wondering, you doof. I'm not planning on having any. Not with AIDS. It would be unfair for the kid," Roger placed his hot dog on the little paper plate that came with it and brushed his hand free from crumbs. "I just wish it sometimes…."
"Yeah, I guess you have a point…I've wanted kids too but I'd prefer having a wife and a stable income,"
"Sorry Maureen liked girls instead of you. Were you that boring?"
Roger laughed as Mark almost beaned him with the camera.
"You ass," Mark grunted. "I guess you really are feeling better because you're starting to make my life miserable again,"
They started talking about childhood memories related to making each other's lives miserable. Roger was surprised to discover that he had more to say about the topic than Mark did.
"Remember when you ran over Mrs. Farrell's flowers with your bike and, when you admitted it to her, she still thought I was the one who did it?"
Mark choked in laughter. "Hell yeah. She had you stand on her front steps while yapping about destroying property. God, I almost died…"
"From me. I could've killed you for that,"
"But you didn't because we were going to the beach that weekend and you needed me to get you out of the house while your parents were away."
"God, I hope your kids wouldn't turn out to be like us,"
"Yeah?" Mark smiled. "I was hoping they would."
Roger had to grin back. Their hotdogs were finished. "Even with all the trouble we caused? Even with all this shit we have to deal with now? Even if they ran away from home, skipped college and lived the rest of their lives in the East Village starving and sick and cold?"
"Hey, I learned stuff I know I never would've learned if I'd stayed in college. I wouldn't trade any of this for the world. And if my kids grow up to be like you and me…who help each other out and love their friends and do honest work, I'd be the happiest guy on Earth," Mark shrugged. "Who cares if we're starving and cold and sick? At least we're good people."
Roger gave a small smile. He hadn't expected an answer like that from Mark and he was impressed. The guy had never been good in expressing things. He did it better after a lot of thought and preferably while reading it on paper. He was really a lucky guy to have found a buddy in Mark Cohen.
"Hey, you know what?"
"What?"
"Thanks,"
"What for?"
Countless memories of him and Mark flooded into Roger's head. Mark would never know how grateful he really was, just for being there and for supporting him and for helping him get through shit. Though it was the best he could do now, it was also the most sincere thanks he'd ever said in his whole life.
"For everything. Just everything,"
Mark grinned. "I should've gotten this on film. Roger Davis actually thanking someone,"
"Shut up,"
"You're welcome, Rog."