PART II
Like India Ink
Mildly strange, but nevertheless true: Ross and I were going to the Yale Bowl. Yale vs. Dartmouth. I had always considered baseball his only mistress. Still, it should be fun, I thought. When was the last time I was at an official sporting event as part of the crowd? (Ross hadn’t yet spirited us away to Fenway.) My mind meandered backwards, thinking of many things; thinking of Michael, of course, but also thinking of Lawrence. Where was he now? What had become of him?
I met up with Ross at the office on the afternoon of the game, bringing him a hot coffee and a chocolate cupcake with orange icing, then we drove over to the field. Too late for the tailgating, we headed directly over to the stadium. Reverb from the PA system floated beckoningly over our heads. We located his gang in the stands, some of his old friends from law school and a group of reporters from the New Haven Register, a preppy bunch complete with cool sarcasm and shots of peppermint schnapps. When they caught sight of the two of us walking toward them, we were greeted with cries of “Fowler! Fowler!” Strange again, from my perspective, that he would cast himself with this lot—respected by them, surely, but no longer bound by them.
After a perilous climb up and over other spectators, we finally settled ourselves with our crowd high up in the bleachers. The air by this time had assumed a phantasmagorical nature in line with the season, continually shifting from sparkling sunshine to a smoky haze drifting up from the tailgaters’ grills to a sharp face-stinging breeze; it was just a few days before Halloween and the leaves had turned brilliantly this year. Two of the Register reporters from the group had taken the holiday to heart: one rigged up as Napoleon with the hat, boots, epaulets, etc.; the other assuming the form of a neon orange and black tiger. They were loud, amused by their own antics, and in desperate need of an audience.
At first they annoyed me, Napoleon sprinting up and down our section in order to favor each one of us with a personal audience whether we wanted this or not, his one hand semi-permanently stuck inside his jacket, naturally, so that he was constantly off balance, stepping on people, waving his free arm, blocking their view. Just a little bit too much schnapps, possibly, but someone there told me he never touched the stuff. He suddenly threw himself down next to me—so hard I almost bounced off my seat—putting his arm around my shoulders, shaking me from side to side, lapsing from a bad French accent into a kind of hybrid pirate-Gaelic lingo, “Aye, lassie, it’s been a long time since the lads have seen anything the likes of you.” Ross, needless to say, found this amusing. His tiger friend was oblivious to it all, down on the track in front us in a world of his own, doing a nerdy twisting dance and giving vent to sudden shouts of emotion that might have been connected to what was going on on the field; however, given the tiger head, most of what he said was unintelligible. As the afternoon and game—boring and secondary in nature—wore on, their antics began to charm even me.
Right before half time they decided to take to the field. When the Dartmouth band marched in, they were there escorting them, cavorting around like drunken drum majors, each on opposite ends, sandwiching the band. Although our group let out great hoots of laughter, everyone else watching evidently assumed these two characters were mascots, though the question as to what possible connection they could have had with Dartmouth apparently never arose in anyone’s mind. ‘God, they’re gonna get arrested,’ I said to myself, standing on my seat to get a better view. The band with its reputation for bizarreness took it in stride and played along. When they marched off the field, Napoleon and the tiger were the last to go, bringing up the rear, making twirling, bowing exits, excruciatingly hamming it up for the crowd which gave them a huge hand.
It was only when the home band, the Yale band, took the field and Napoleon and the tiger re-emerged to prance around yet again that people, including security personnel on the sidelines, began to understand that these were free agents, associated with and responsible to no one. Security began to edge onto the field to try to isolate and corner them without creating too big of a scene, but the boys managed to elude their pursuers, doing a dodging, high-stepping dance, weaving in and out among the marching, abruptly turning trombones whenever they got too close. It was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen. Ross laughed so hard he couldn’t catch his breath and I had to pat him on the back.
Eventually they came back to us unscathed—flushed and full of glee. Every detail of their coup was rehashed with relish. The tiger finally took off his head, so I could see the grinning person underneath, his blond hair plastered to his head with sweat. Napoleon stayed in character, receiving his due praise with the dignity befitting an emperor. Each seemed larger than life in that late afternoon light; each seemed to have the whole world spinning smoothly in the palm of his hand.
But sometimes beauty turns itself inside out, and payback is served for sweet times. A year and a half later this young Napoleon would tearfully ask his tiger friend at the end to forgive him for what he had put him through. Struck down by a disease that could not be conquered, and that took him at 28 years old. His death was one of the saddest things I’ve ever known. Another hashmark on the side of the departed was etched on the tally board, and I felt the scale tipping; I began to feel old. But he is still present in my mind at times, this Napoleon, still master of that field. Often in autumn; the time of ghosts. Often at the sunset hour before the colors fade and cool, before the darkness pools like India ink.
Image: Face value. Source: Private collection.