Is There Really a July Christmas? (KC, MO)
Christmas Case #004
Kansas City, Missouri
The Earth is in constant motion; some days you wake up not knowing that while you’re asleep or daydreaming, the ground has shifted under your feet. When Martin O’Malley went to bed one night, his house was in Missouri; when he woke up, his house was in Kansas. The weirdest part was that no one could quite figure out why. Geologists were baffled; there hadn’t been an earthquake. And, in truth, most of the media just plain ignored it. They were much more interested in the World Series.
Martin wandered around his neighborhood, which was on the outskirts of Kansas City, which was now squarely in the state of Kansas. It looked the same, except it was in another state.
“The irony,” Martin chuckled. He half thought God or some other powerful entity was playing a practical joke him. “We’re not in Missouri anymore.”
It did seem like something out of The Wizard of Oz, and, no, he was not referring to Ozzie Smith, the Cardinals’ Gold Glove shortstop. He wandered out of his neighborhood and into a local corner store. The bell rang as he entered.
“Good mornin’,” said the clerk.
“Strange mornin’,” Martin corrected him.
He meandered up to the counter. “What do you suppose happened here?”
“Whatever do you mean?” asked the clerk.
“Well, when I went to bed last night, I lived in Missouri, and when I woke up, I live in Kansas,” Martin informed him.
The clerk scratched his head, as if unsure of himself. “That’s a dilly of pickler. Where do you say you were from originally?”
“St. Louis,” Martin replied.
The clerk, looking out toward the morning sunshine, continued to scratch his head.
“It seems to me,” said the clerk without a hint of humor, “that Kansas City ought to be in Kansas not Missouri, and some being just righted it.”
Although the clerk was a dolt and a fool, Martin thought his observation somewhat keen. It had always perplexed people who were not from the Midwest when he had to explain he lived in Kansas City, Missouri.
“Don’t you mean Kansas?” people would often correct him, as if he didn’t know where he lived.
“No,” he’d assure them, “Kansas City is in Missouri, at least the part I live in is.” Now it was as if some being had somehow rectified that. He remembered a story his Uncle Sal used to tell him as a kid, a story about gods playing pinball. He looked out the window up at the sky. Had the gods somehow meddled with the state his city lived in?
“So, you’ll be rooting for the Cardinals tonight?” the clerk asked, somewhat disappointed.
“I am a St. Louis native,” Martin admitted, “and they’re going to win.”
The clerk shook his head. “I sure hope not.”
Maybe, just maybe, the gods had intervened because of the World Series. Tonight was Game Five and the Royals were down 3-1.
When Martin got home, he flipped on the TV. Oddly enough, all the outlets still seemed to be connected. So we can rule out earthquake, Martin thought to himself. The local news was talking about the anomaly. There seemed to be a great deal of people, the census guessed it was over a million, who had been displaced from Missouri to Kansas. They showed the way Kansas City used to look when half of it was in Missouri, and the way it looked now after the anomaly. They then spent the next 23 minutes talking about the big game tonight. The one announcer described it as a battle for the heartland of America. Could the Royals pull off a miraculous three-game sweep and win the series? Martin didn’t think so. Not likely, he said to himself.
Martin went about his daily life. There was not much he could do about it; he now lived in Kansas. He would probably have to get a new driver’s license. He went shopping, had a fancy dinner. It was just after supper that he discovered the alternate room. It was neatly tucked in behind the garage, and Martin, having lived there over fifteen years, thought he would have noticed it before. Especially because it was quite a lovely room, complete with a skylight and bay windows that faced out toward the Kansas River, something his old house, in his old neighborhood, did not have. It was so odd. Again he looked around, half suspecting someone was playing a joke on him. Was he on one of those TV shows? Hidden Camera or Fooled? He didn’t see any unsuspecting dolt hanging around looking to interview him.
After careful deliberation, he decided he’d hang out in the room. It was a calm October day, and the scene was too pleasing to waste in front of the TV. He called his friend Jerry O’Brian. He made some lemonade and pulled in a comfortable rocking chair. He brought in a “leveler” he had bought just yesterday from this real sketchy guy outside of the hardware store. (To him it looked like an ordinary level, but it was sold to him as a “leveler”.) The sketchy guy had told him it was special and that’s why it wasn’t just an ordinary level, it was a leveler. He wasn’t quite sure why he bought it. Normally he’d never buy something from a shady man who looked like a vagrant. It was odd, but he had trouble picturing what the man looked like. No matter. He put the leveler on the floor. According to the leveler, the floor seemed to slope slightly toward the west. It probably didn’t even work properly. There was something a little weird about the leveler; he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. The green fluid inside the leveler seemed to swirl around like a mist, and sometimes he thought he could make out images in it. Had he seen his dead wife? He thought he saw Vince Coleman being run over by the tarp machine. It couldn’t be. Vince Coleman, the Cardinals’ star rookie who had 110 stolen bases, had been injured in the Championship Series and was unable to play. What was going on? Did the leveler have something to do with his injury? Martin shrugged it off. It didn’t matter. The Cardinals had this one in the bag. They are up 3-1, he said to himself. The green inside the leveler swirled, and he saw an umpire. His name was Don. Don D. How did he know his name? He must have heard that on the broadcast and his mind was playing tricks on him. He got up and put the leveler back in the closet.
He needed a drink. He went into the kitchen, backtracking in his mind. It was weird. Did the leveler possess some power? He’d bought the leveler from a man who claimed to be a traveling salesman but could have just been a vagrant. He appeared to be doing business from a sack slung over his back. He had trouble picturing him, but he remembered his name; he called himself July Christmas, or had that been a lie? He had told Martin he had something very special just for him. He had said it would level the playing field. What could he have meant by that?
Martin stared out at the river, half expecting something would happen. He didn’t know what, but he thought it might be grand. The river did not rise and wash former Missourians away, and an asteroid did not crash into the river, neither did a giant sea monster crawl out and start stomping people. It was a mundane day. The night brought a fever pitch that can only be described as baseball magic. World Series magic, of course. We were still a year from Buckner’s flub and three years from Kirk Gibson’s The Natural moment, but there was magic in the air, I swear. Is there anything better than Game Five? Martin thought. And his Cardinals could win IT tonight. The Series. Royals Stadium, which now sat squarely in Kansas instead of Missouri, looked the same, except it was, like Martin, across the river. But tonight’s game was at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. He poured himself a Busch beer, which was customary, and sat down to turn on the tube.
Jerry O’Brian and his friend named Smashmouth Joe arrived shortly. Jerry was in his mid-sixties. Smashmouth Joe was younger and wore a mesh hat and a stained t-shirt. Martin showed them the new room but didn’t tell them about the leveler. He wasn’t sure why not.
Jerry whistled. “I didn’t even know you was working on an addition.”
“Well, the thing there was…I wasn’t,” Martin admitted.
“When’d you have it installed? Those skylights must have been pricey,” Smashmouth Joe asked.
“Well, that’s the thing there…no one installed it…It just sort of appeared.”
“Heavens to Helena, you… telling me this room just appeared out of nowhere?” Smashmouth Joe asked.
“That’s there what I’m telling you,” Martin explained.
“Are you sure it weren’t here before?” Smashmouth Joe asked.
“Nope,” Martin exclaimed.
“That’s some crazy shitake mushrooms,” Smashmouth Joe said.
“Maybe it’s a sign we should watch the game in this room,” Jerry suggested.
They rolled in the TV but could find no outlet to plug it into. Both Martin and Jerry scratched their heads.
“I don’t suppose the room appeared with an outlet?” Jerry asked.
“It would appear not,” said Martin with a hint of a smile.
They had to watch the game in Martin’s old living room.
The Royals jumped out of the gate early in the second. It was pretty much over after that; they crushed the Cardinals 6-1, and there was no joy in Martinville, but Jerry and Smashmouth Joe were celebrating. After they left, Martin mulled. How could this happen? Martin was certain they would win tonight. He honestly wondered if it had something to do with the leveler. Was it cursed or something? By now it was nearly midnight, and everything had gone dark and quiet. He took the leveler back out of the closet. It clearly was not a normal item. It appeared to glow in the dark, a haunting green, and Martin could not help but watch the green liquid swirl. It was hypnotizing. He saw things he thought he had forgotten. A black mustang; he’d worked all summer long to buy that car. He saw a dog, this dirty mutt that he had had when he was nine that his mom had said had run away. She had lied, and his dad had dropped the mutt off on the side of the road, but how could he possibly know that? He put the leveler away. What was going on? Maybe the thing was cursed.
Martin went into the kitchen for a snack. It was late, maybe he should try to get some sleep, but he had very little to do, and he was still alive with the hope that the Cardinals could win Game Six. He poured himself some tea. Game Six would be at Royals Stadium. He wondered if parking would be the same. Perhaps tomorrow he’d take a walk down there and investigate.
The next morning Martin rolled out of bed and took a bus down to Royals Stadium looking for clues. The place was quiet.
“Too quiet,” Martin said like a cop investigating a bomb scare. Though Game Six is tomorrow, Martin mused. The stadium looked the same, though Martin was hardly an expert. He walked around the outside. He saw a young boy selling hotdogs and decided to purchase one.
“I’ll take a dog,” Martin said approaching. “How’d you happen to get to work today?”
“I got a ride with my uncle,” the hotdog vendor answered.
“And did you notice anything odd?” Martin questioned.
“You mean other than the fact that it’s across the river in Kansas?” the vendor said, handing him a hotdog.
“Nobody likes a smart mouth,” Martin said with a mouth full of hotdog.
“How come no one is talking about it?” Martin inquired.
“Dunno, I suppose most people are more interested in the Series,” the vendor explained.
Eventually, after his wanderlust had been fulfilled, Martin boarded the bus and headed home.
Once he was home alone, he took the leveler out of the closet where he was stowing it away. He was becoming obsessed with the damned thing. The leveler was only about eight inches long, but now when he held it, it felt like a power staff that a wizard might wield. Gandalf the Grey or The Wizard of Oz, Martin muttered to himself. He briefly thought again of Ozzie Smith, but the leveler hadn’t shown him Ozzie Smith, it had shown him Vince Coleman. Why? Was it cursed?
The casing that held the green liquid looked to be made of metal but was extremely light, almost weightless. He peered into it, and again the liquid began to swirl and show him images. He saw himself going apple picking as a boy. He had visited a farm and gotten stung by a wasp. He cried the whole way home and said he hated his mother. He had forgotten all about that day. The liquid swirled deeper. He saw the Series. Was he seeing Game Six? No, again, he saw Vince Coleman. The hair on his arm was standing up. What was this thing? He held it in his hand, and it felt as if it were humming or maybe singing a lullaby that only he could hear. For a moment he thought it was humming “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” and then he saw the umpire again as clear as day, well, as clear as a green day. Don Denkinger. How could he know his name? He must have heard it on the broadcast and his mind was playing tricks on him.
“Don Denkinger, Don Denkinger, Don Denkinger.” Martin thought saying his name three times might be like some incantation, but nothing happened.
Martin breathed in deeply. The night had come down like a phantom and appeared to be calling him, daring him as he stared into the green, swirling fluid inside the leveler. He wiped the sweat from his brow and peered down into the glass. This time there were Cardinals players around Don Denkinger. It was hard to make out, but it looked like Tom Herr, Jack Clark, and Todd Worrell. What was going on? They all appeared to be arguing with him. And then he saw something that made his heart drop, old Whitey Herzog (the Cardinals’ manager) sauntering over toward first base, and he could see a Kansas City Royal in the green picture. Jorge Orta? What was he seeing? Was this the future? Was he seeing Game Six?
He got up in a panic and quickly walked to the kitchen for a stiff drink. He had to think about what was going on. Process it. This was crazy. He thought he was having a panic attack; he had had them after his wife had passed. He walked into his new room complete with the skylight. He sat in the rocking chair sipping gin and looking at his new bay windows. In the moonlight, it was beautiful looking out at the Kansas River. The room seemed to calm him, as though it had appeared just to balance out the chaos of the leveler. He eventually dozed off in the rocking chair and had a dream about the Series.
Martin was eating a hotdog, sitting right down the first base line. Everything was so vivid. The sights and sounds. He could smell the cotton candy and popped corn. There was only one thing that was slightly off. In his dream, Vince Coleman was healthy and on first base taking a monster lead. He hadn’t been injured by the tarp monster. Martin tried to pinch himself but found he could only squeeze the fabric of his khakis. The ace reliever Dan Quisenberry went into his sidearm wind up, and Vince was off like a thief, stealing another base. Unfortunately for Martin, the only World Series Vince Coleman would play in that year would be in his dreams. He awoke in the rocking chair; at least he thought he was awake. He was still in the room that had appeared, but there was someone standing in the shadows. It was the man who had sold him the leveler, July Christmas. Martin was still half-asleep, but he jerked out of the rocking chair. He could feel himself hobbling toward the shadow, but…but…but it felt like a dream.
“Why are you here?” Martin babbled.
For a moment he thought the shadow might be some inanimate object like a coat rack.
How did you get in here? Martin wondered.
The shadow remained motionless.
“What are you doing in my house?” Martin questioned.
The shadow did not say a word, but Martin could see he was holding something. It was glowing green. He was taking back the leveler. Martin tried to reach out. “No, you can’t.” As Martin got closer, the shadow became a man with features. He was tall and lean. He was a light-skinned Negro with red hair. It was the very salesman who had sold him the leveler. The vagrant. Martin tried to grab hold of him but couldn’t seem to reach him. He could see the salesman was wearing a dark trench coat, but what was even more alarming was that he could see that the sleeves of July Christmas’s jacket were covered with hundreds of tiny white flies. The flies seemed to glow neon white, and although they were not the same color as the leveler, they reminded Martin of it. As Martin approached the shadow-man, he wanted to reach out. He was within arm’s length. He wanted to grab the leveler, but he was afraid. He didn’t want to brush up against that sleeve where he could see maybe thousands of white flies. They were swarming, not buzzing; they were too minute to even buzz. They covered his sleeves like a fungus or a fine snow, and he wasn’t sure, but he thought he could make out the shadow smirking.
Martin jerked awake; he was alone in this strange room that had appeared out of nowhere. He suddenly wanted to leave the room badly. He went into the kitchen and discovered that it was only 12:30 AM. He went to his bed but tossed and turned, thinking of the leveler. He wanted to hold it, to peer into it and see what he could see. Why had he had the dream about the strange man who had sold him the leveler? Why had the room appeared, and was it somehow connected to the leveler and his house being in another state?
The next day brought a series of more questions about the leveler and the World Series. Martin was hesitant to take the leveler out of the closet where he had stored it away in the hope that he’d forget about it. Not likely. He managed most of the day to ignore the strange possession that had been sold to him by a peddler who was obviously not on the up and up. But as dusk fell, he felt an obsession with the thing as if he were that Golem creature from The Lord of the Rings. He felt a greed tugging inside him, and he knew he must hold the object. He hurried to the closet. He pulled the leveler out of the closet. He was strangely not at all alarmed by the fact that he felt instantly better as he touched it. Was it his precious? He went to the extra room that had appeared out of nowhere and sat in the rocking chair. As he peeked into the green, swirling liquid, he saw Vince Coleman stealing second base. What was he seeing? Was this some alternate universe in which Vince Coleman had not been injured by the tarp? When the Negro vagrant had said the leveler would level the playing field, was he talking about injuring Vince Coleman? He had a nagging feeling that the leveler contained the injury of Vince Coleman inside or maybe something more sinister; maybe it was holding a piece of Vince Coleman, maybe like a piece of his soul. Eventually the images changed and became more detailed. He continued to stare, and again he saw what appeared to be an argument along the first baseline. Like the image of Vince Coleman, he had seen this before. The Cardinals players were angry. Tom Herr, Jack Clark, and Todd Worrell all huddled around Don Denkinger arguing. What was going on? They all appeared to be arguing a call. And then again, he saw old Whitey Herzog sauntering over toward first base, and he could see Jorge Orta standing there. What was he seeing? Was he seeing Game Six? He didn’t think it was possible. Martin fell asleep in the rocking chair, holding the leveler like a teddy bear.
When Martin woke, it was already late in the afternoon. When he hobbled into the kitchen, the sun was shining bright and it was 1:13 PM. Had he really slept that long? He must have. He was distracted, but today was Game Six and he could hardly wait. Still the leveler was in his hands, and the visions he had seen from last night were fresh in his mind. Had he seen the future? He thought he may have. If he had, what had he seen? Was the umpire, Don Denkinger, about to make a bad call? Was that what he was seeing? Even if it was, what the hell could he do about it? He put down the leveler, which he had been grasping for over 12 hours at this point, and poured himself some coffee. He felt weak. His hand hurt. He wandered around the house aimlessly, but his mind kept returning to the leveler. He straightened up, and not feeling right in the head, Martin decided to go for a walk. He popped around the corner and into a tavern, the Jolly Jug, for a drink. The tavern apparently had relocated to Kansas like Martin’s house.
“Beer,” Martin muttered. “Smitty, what do you suppose happened here?”
Smitty cracked a beer and handed it to Martin. He shrugged. “Near as I can tell, it was divine intervention, either that or aliens.” A few barflies seemed to second that second suggestion.
“You ever hear of anything so strange?” Martin asked.
This guy at the end of the bar said, “I heard of this family once, they had a house on the Mississippi. During rainy season, the river flooded and carried their house downstream. They went to sleep in Kentucky and woke up in Tennessee.”’
“But at least there’s a reasonable explanation for that,” Martin exclaimed. “My house…this whole neighborhood wasn’t carried into Kansas by any water.”
“Maybe it’s some force of nature they ain’t discovered yet,” suggested Smitty.
“I don’t know,” Martin said, thinking of the leveler again.
The TV was set to some channel which had a sports talk show. They were talking about Game Six.
“Can KC pull off a three-game sweep and give Kansas City fans an early October Christmas?” the announcer on the TV said. Martin’s ears immediately perked up. Was it an October Christmas or a July Christmas?
“Huh,” Martin muttered. “That’s odd.”
“What’s odd?’ Smitty asked, polishing a glass.
“Nothing,” Martin said, sipping his beer.
Was it a coincidence?
“Don Denkinger will be crew chief,” the announcer said. “We’ll need him to level the playing field.” Martin almost spit out his beer. What was going on? Wasn’t that what the vagrant salesman had said to him? It was weird, but he felt as if some higher power was speaking to him or trying to send him a signal. Was the leveler a sign from God? July Christmas an angel? He didn’t think so. Still, he felt he might be meant to intervene. He could go to the stadium and try to warn Don Denkinger, explain to him the situation. That wouldn’t sound completely nuts. Except it would. He might get arrested. He might not even be able to get into the stadium. Still he felt a force pulling on him, as if something physically wanted him to go to the stadium. How would he even gain entrance? He did know of a spot where he could try to sneak in; when he had coached Little League, the boys had told him of a place where you could slip under the fence. It might work.
He finished his beer and went back home. He was pacing around his newly acquired room. Was he really going to do this? He felt he had to. He started to plan what he was going to do. He’d break into the stadium and attempt to speak with Don Denkinger, the umpire in his vision. It sounded insane. It was insane. Had he gone insane? He didn’t think so once the leveler was back in his hands. He put the leveler in a backpack and changed into dungarees and a flannel shirt. Around 5:00 PM he locked his door and headed to the stadium. The crowd was already out in full force, tailgating, drinking, swarming the parking lot. Security was out in full force, too. Luckily, they paid little attention to an old man. Martin knew the stadium well, and he waited until darkness fell. Like little Johnny from Little League had said, there was a hole in the fence. When someone lit off a bunch of fireworks and everyone was distracted, Martin went down on his hands and knees, and with a little wiggle room quickly snuck under the fence.
Running Afoul
As a boy Martin had loved baseball and naturally had grown up loving the St. Louis Cardinals. They had won the pennant in ’26, ’31, ’34, ’42, ’44, and ’46. Martin was hooked. Maybe he wasn’t a superfan, but rarely a year went by in which he didn’t attend one game, and if they were good, maybe more. He even enjoyed their wins as an adult in ’64, ’67, as well as ’82, but there was something dark and sinister brewing and he felt it his duty to stop it. Sure, the Cardinals had won many pennants in his lifetime. You couldn’t say the same about places like Chicago or Boston. But the whole thing with Vince Coleman was weird, come on, the fastest guy in the league unable to outrun the tarp monster? No, sir, something weird was going on here, perhaps magically. So, was he doing the right thing? He wasn’t sure, but he felt he had been given the leveler to intervene. And, in truth, the leveler seemed to have a hold on him. And he believed the leveler was telling him the future, and Don Denkinger, the umpire, was about to blow a call that would cost the Cardinals the game and possibly the series. Martin felt his adrenaline pumping as he stood in the dark hallway leading up to the upper deck. He was at Game Six! Holy Shit!!! His dungarees were half ripped from slipping under the fence, but he still had the backpack containing the leveler. They had already started to admit people into the stadium, but it was empty. Martin meandered around the concession stands pretending he was considering a purchase. He went to field level where he cursed himself for not checking where the umpires’ dressing room was earlier. After some careful surveillance, Martin thought he knew where umpire Don Denkinger might be entering the field from. He grabbed a hotdog and beer in the hopes of fitting in and hung right near the entrance to the field.
Martin reached into the backpack to grip the leveler; he could see it glowing through the bag. It reaffirmed what he was here to do. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he took a moment to reflect on the extra room that had been added to his house that was in another state, the state that it always should have been in, according to most people. “How could Kansas City be in Missouri?” they’d ask. “That’s ridiculous.” The room and the leveler were connected; he just didn’t understand how. Or why. July Christmas could probably explain it, but he didn’t think that apparition would show himself again. The whole thing was still like a surreal dream. What did the room have to do with the leveler? A level is supposed to check whether a room is level, he reasoned, but what does a leveler do? He thought about the vagrant, July Christmas, who had sold it to him. Maybe he was an agent of the Devil, and Martin should throw the leveler in the trash and enjoy Game Six. Somehow he couldn’t, though; the leveler had become his needful thing.
Down near the dugout, it was already starting to get crowded as the excitement for Game Six began to build. Several of the players could be seen signing autographs. George Brett and Bret Saberhagen had caused a small crowd of kids right near where Martin speculated the umpires’ dressing room might be. Martin felt like a spy as he tried to look inconspicuous with his backpack slung over his shoulder, looking like some punk kid ready to do something illegal. And he was, well, not some punk kid, but he had broken into the stadium and was attempting to persuade Don Denkinger, that what? He should stay vigilant. Yes, that was it, he would simply explain to Don Denkinger that he must stay vigilant, nothing illegal about that. If he could just talk to him. He saw several officials walking out, but was unsure if any of them were Denkinger.
He headed to the second level and bought a program, looking carefully at the pictures of the officials. He flipped through the program anxiously, looking for the culprit. There he was, number 11. Damn Denkinger was going to ruin everything; he had seen it himself in the green liquid of the leveler. And as crazy as that sounded, he believed it. He watched from above for a while.
Finally, he spotted Denkinger on the field, near the KC dugout. He was bent down tying his shoelaces. Number 11. Martin felt his heartbeat accelerate; for a moment he thought he might pass out. Was he really going to do this? What was he going to say? He wiped the sweat from his forehead. The night was warm, no October chill. Martin went back down to the field. He wanted nothing to do with security. He was fearful they’d ask him for a ticket, and when he couldn’t turn one up, he’d be escorted out. He tried to get the attention of the Royals’ ball boy.
“Hey, boy, can you get Don Denkinger’s attention for me?” Martin asked.
The boy was fielding a ball caught in the netting behind homeplate. The boy initially ignored him, but Martin was from an era when persistence was heavily valued.
“Excuse me, young man,” Martin shouted when the ball boy walked back by.
“Yes, sir, how can I help you?” the ball boy asked.
“Can you get Don Denkinger for me?” Martin asked.
“Who?” the ball boy asked.
“The umpire over there.” Martin pointed to Don Denkinger, who was standing with two other umpires. “I need to speak with him. It’s urgent.”
The boy thought about it for a moment and then said, “Sorry, sir, they seem kinda busy. It’s gonna have to wait till after the game.”
Drat, Martin mused, so close.
“Could you at least tell him I need to speak with him?”
The boy thought about it for a moment longer. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “It is Game Six.”
Martin sat for a while, though he had no seat or ticket stub to verify his seat. He clenched the leveler through the backpack. He wanted to speak with Denkinger before the game, but that was not to be. He’d have to wait until the 7th inning stretch to confront him, which, unknown to Martin at the time, would change the trajectory of Game Six forever.
The night descended with a fever pitch that could only be the World Series, and the crowd started to become thick as the game was about to get underway. People were yelling. A beachball was being punched around. People were pushing and shoving. Martin gripped his backpack tightly as if something might steal it.
“Cold Beeeer, cold Beeeer heeere,” said a man who looked uncannily like July Christmas. Martin obediently ordered one. He did not know why.
As the beer was handed to him, Martin seemed to break himself from some odd hypnosis. He stammered, “Are you him?”
The vendor smiled, almost winking. “Him who?” The crowd started to roar. The noise was overwhelming, particularly when the Royals took the field. It seemed to shake the foundation of the stadium.
“Juuuly Chris-Christmas,” Martin stammered.
The vendor smiled, or maybe it was more of a smirk. “Name’s Sunny Watson,” said the skinny, dark-skinned man, pointing to his name tag that said Sunny. It was that smirk, though. It was the smirk that bothered Martin.
Martin’s mind was swimming. Was he being watched? Martin continued to keep moving, as he feared security might ask him for his ticket and the jig would be up. Martin moved from level to level but wanted to remain close to field level.
Game Six was off and running, unlike Vince Coleman, Martin mused, or maybe exactly like Vince Coleman. Game Six was a pitchers’ duel, Danny Cox against Charlie Leibrandt. 0-0. Yawn, Martin thought. He never did much like pitchers’ duels, and the Cardinals were known for their hitting and speed. Despite losing Vince Coleman, the Cardinals still had: Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee, Tom Herr, Jack Clark, Tito Landrum, Terry Pendleton, Cesar Cedeno, Andy Van Slyke, and Darrell Porter, a pretty explosive lineup. Yet tonight they were pretty much hitless. Leibrandt had allowed only four hits the entire night. None of their stars were shining, and Martin felt a certain doom seeping into him. He knew what he must do. He must speak with Denkinger. He could feel the leveler vibrating in his backpack and knew he must. It was calling to him.
He went down to field level and was contemplating what he’d say. I bought this leveler off a vagrant, and then the next day an extra room appeared in my house. The leveler can see into the future, and you’re about to make a horrible mistake. Well, he probably shouldn’t start with that. He didn’t know how it was going to go down, but he knew he must chance it. It was worth the calculated risk, or so he reasoned. What he didn’t understand was that the leveler that July Christmas sold him was something like W.W. Jacobs’s Monkey’s Paw in that you had to be careful what you wished for. The leveler was both a gift and a curse.
The entire thing came to a climax during the 7th inning stretch, that is, for Martin, not for the World Series. The Series would come to a climax in the 9th, and it is highly probable that Martin’s encounter with Denkinger altered the course of the Series.
And so it went for Martin O’ Malley, a small pawn in a larger game of giants and monsters. His palms were sweating, his knees quaking, the leveler slung over his back; Martin looked like a man possessed. It was at that moment that Martin knew the leveler was a curse, but he could do little to stop himself from carrying out its bidding. He knew he wouldn’t have a lot of time, and he’d most likely be looked upon as a crazed fan, so he knew his words mattered. What could he say? What could he do? He still wasn’t sure, when somehow destiny seemed to thrust it upon him. It was the 7th inning stretch. Denkinger must have had a problem, because he exited the field for a moment to rush to his dressing room. Security escorted Denkinger to the dressing room, parting the crowd like the Red Sea. Martin stood but an arm’s length away from the man he knew he must talk to. He could feel the leveler’s pulse quicken. It was weird but it felt smaller. He gripped it in the backpack. Had its shape changed? He didn’t know, it felt like it. He didn’t have time to inspect it; the umpire had already entered his dressing room. Martin thought the moment had passed, he had missed his opportunity.
It was at this point that destiny reared its ugly head, and Martin was face to face with Don Denkinger. It all happened so suddenly, as if it were preordained. He could hardly believe it. Had the leveler caused it? A young lady in the crowd seemed to go limp, fainting dead away. Presumably her mother yelled, “HELP, Help, HELP!!” As security pushed its way through the crowd and rushed to assist the young lady, Martin saw his opening. Martin rushed to the front of the crowd, right as the umpire exited his dressing room, causing him to bump suddenly into Martin.
Martin was flabbergasted; he was face to face with Denkinger, the man he needed to speak to. He could hardly believe his luck. He stammered for words.
“I---I---I,” yet Martin could only stand there stuttering.
“Excuse me, sir,” Don Denkinger said.
“KC is in Missouri,” Martin managed to get out.
As Denkinger tried to sidestep him, Martin knew he had to do something. This was his last chance. Martin reached into his backpack for the leveler, fumbling with it as he ripped it from the bag. It had changed in size, shape, and color. Martin stared in shock at what he was doing. It was like a bad dream. He held the leveler out for Denkinger to see, except it was no longer the leveler. Martin was holding a revolver.
“You have to be vigilant. Don’t make that mistake,” Martin said like a true lunatic. He wasn’t even making sense.
Don Denkinger put his hands up. “Easy fella,” he said directing the statement more toward the gun than Martin. “I am vigilant, and I believe ya, boss. Whoever would put Kansas City in Missouri is a mad god.”
Martin pondered that for a moment, before he was gang tackled less than fifteen seconds later. Facedown, on his stomach, he was handcuffed brutally. From his cell he got to watch the 9th inning. He could see Denkinger was not himself. There was a moment when Martin saw him walk off the field toward the dugout, only to come back a moment later. The score was 1-0 St. Louis. If they could only hold on, they’d be World Series Champions. Martin recalled what he had seen in the swirling green of the leveler and hoped he had done enough to fight fate.
It was the bottom of the 9th, and Martin could only watch the scene play out in horror. It was like one of those slasher films, Friday the 13th or Halloween. Martin knew it would happen, didn’t want to watch it happen, yet couldn’t look away. Through the closed bars of his cell and his closed fingers, just as Martin had seen in the leveler, he watched this freak show play out. It was like watching that awkward part in a movie that you’ve seen before. Todd Worrell was on the mound, Déjà vu? Jorge Orta at bat, this wasn’t happening. Everything was going exactly how he didn’t want it to go, as he foresaw it going. Martin temporarily shut his eyes.
Orta hit a bouncing ground ball to the right side. Easy out. As Worrell went to cover the bag, Orta steamed down the line toward first. In real time, it was a tough call to make, but it looked like the ball beat Orta to first base by a millisecond. Martin could only watch in terror as Denkinger spread his hands out in a safe motion. Just as he had seen in the leveler, Worrell and Herzog came out to protest the call, but it was futile. Denkinger’s blown call would be famous and would cost the Cardinals the game and later the series. Had Martin accidently pulling the gun on him caused him to make the bad call? He didn’t know. Martin could only ponder from his cell. He wondered, if he hadn’t interfered, would the St. Louis Cardinals be the World Champions? He suspected so. He wondered about the purpose of his house being in Kansas, the extra room, the leveler, and July Christmas. Was he in Purgatory? Had he made a deal with the Devil? He wondered about the difference between good intentions and a mistake, and if crisis and opportunity were the same thing, as the Chinese believed. Was it possible to correct a mistake, or was a mistake just really the way it was supposed to be? He speculated, it wasn’t really a July Christmas, but more like an October Christmas for all Kansas City Royals fans. For Cardinals fans like Martin, it was a big lump of coal in their stockings and a reminder to be careful when dealing with July Christmas.
