Plan B for the Middle Class by Ron Carlson

the car’s name painted across both doors: BEAUTIFUL MEMORY. In one close-up I recognized Doreen at the wheel. She had a helmet on, but I could see her smiling.
    I could hear Hanna downstairs with some of her students, moving around to the music: “Come on, baby, do the twist!” And I was kind of smiling sadly about how my life had turned out, and I wasn’t really watching the television commercial, which showed a house burning up while people in blankets discussed insurance.
    And then: KA-BANG! In the flames I saw the message clearly, the last subliminal message before arriving here. In the bright orange of the fire danced the words:
    JOIN THE ARMY
    Hey, it’s not so bad here at Fort Bragg. I feel a little funny, being the oldest recruit by twenty years. A lot of the kids call me sir. But I’ve organized a little group in the barracks, and I’ve already taught them the Hustle, the Mississippi Three Step, and the Grand Rondalay. I miss Doreen and Hanna, but I did leave Hanna the house, and I read in Sports Illustrated that Doreen has a good fast support team that can change a tire in seven seconds.
    So, my life has changed, but who knows, the Army may help. Be all you can be, that’s my motto. Boot camp is tough, but Fort Bragg is real nice. We don’t have time for magazines or television, and listen: the dental care here is tremendous.

SUNNY BILLY DAY
    T he very first time it happened with Sunny Billy Day was in Bradenton, Florida, spring training, a thick cloudy day on the Gulf, and I was there in the old wooden bleachers, having been released only the week before after going o for 4 in Winter Park against the Red Sox, and our manager, Ketchum, saw that my troubles were not over at all. So, not wanting to go back to Texas so soon and face my family, the disappointment and my father’s expectation that I’d go to work in his Allstate office, and not wanting to leave Polly alone in Florida in March, a woman who tended toward ball players, I was hanging out, feeling bad, and I was there when it happened.
    My own career had been derailed by what they called “stage fright.” I was scared. Not in the field—I won a Golden Glove two years in college and in my rookie year with the Pirates. I love the field, but I had a little trouble at the plate. I could hit in the cage, in fact there were times when batting practice stopped so all the guys playing pepper could come over and bet how many I was going to put in the seats. It wasn’t the skill. In a game I’d walk from the on-deck circle to the batter’s box and I could feel my heart go through my throat. All those people focusing on one person in the park: me. I could feel my heart drumming in my face. I was tighter than a ten-cent watch—all strikeouts and pop-ups. I went .102 for the season—the lowest official average of any starting-lineup player in the history of baseball.
    Ketchum sent me to see the team psychiatrist, but that turned out to be no good, too. I saw him twice. His name was Krick and he was a small man who was losing hair, but his little office and plaid couch felt to me like the batter’s box. What I’m saying is: Krick was no help—I was afraid of him, too.
    Sometimes just watching others go to bat can start my heart jangling like a rock in a box, and that was how I felt that cloudy day in Bradenton as Sunny Billy Day went to the plate. We (once you play for a team, you say “we” ever after) were playing the White Sox, who were down from Sarasota, and it was a weird day, windy and dark, with those great loads of low clouds and the warm Gulf air rolling through. I mean it was a day that didn’t feel like baseball.
    Billy came up in the first inning, and the Chicago pitcher, a rookie named Gleason, had him o and 2, when the thing happened for the first time. Polly had ahold of my arm and was being extra sweet when Billy came up, to let me know that she didn’t