At Wrigley Field
His first name was Ted. Not Theodore. Just Ted. That’s what was on his birth certificate, and that’s what he demanded his colleagues at the precinct call him. He winced when folks he hardly knew addressed him as “Teddy” because that was what his dearly departed mother had called him whenever she was pissed off at him; and since she had only ever called him Teddy, that offered some insight into his relationship with her.
God, he missed the salty old witch—so much so that he nearly burst into tears when the old gal in the aisle seat (who was as frail as mom had been before the cancer took her away) stood up so that Ted could squeeze into the window seat at the back of the plane.
The flight from Chicago to Baltimore had been delayed by three hours due to bad weather. Then it had almost been canceled when the delay put the co-pilot over his flight-time limit. But a replacement came in from Indianapolis; and the passengers were told they could board.
In the high-intensity lights outside the window, Ted watched the sidewinding sheets of rain sweeping over the tarmac—blown about by the sharp gusts off Lake Michigan. The wings of the plane and the canoes underneath them were quivering. I hope this flight doesn’t get canceled as we’re pulling out of the gate. I could’ve been home by now.
He leaned forward and apologized to the woman in front of him for bumping his knee against her seat. “It’s all good,” the harassed mother replied, trying to calm the toddler in her arms. “I can’t believe we were delayed this long.”
“I can,” Teddy said. “I’m from Chicago; and in my 43 years, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve flown out of O’Hare on time.”
The old woman smiled at him as he spoke. She was bundled up in a coat and wore a cashmere scarf. Seems like the elderly are always cold, he thought.
It took another 30 minutes until the plane finally got off the ground. Ted had been up since 4:00 a.m. and had managed to nod off a couple of times as the plane slow-rolled up and down the interminable switchbacks leading to the runway. But once the bird was airborne, a rush of nervous adrenaline coursed through his blood and he sat up in his seat. Meanwhile, the cabin lights had dimmed and everyone else was trying to catch some Z’s.
He hated red-eyes, and he hated the fact that he wouldn’t be arriving at BWI until the wee hours of Saturday morning, well after the rest of the airport staff had gone home for the night.
He removed his laptop from under the seat and put it on the empty cushion next to him so he could stretch out his legs. The old woman stared at him, eyes glowing in the moonlight reflecting off the clouds of the upper air. He realized that it had been a bit rude to dump his shit on the empty seat without so much as saying something to her.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he whispered. “I just thought that since no one was sitting here. . .”
“What’s your name?” the woman asked.
“Cecil,” Ted replied. He was a homicide detective in West Baltimore and tended not to share personal information with people he didn’t know, since his list of enemies was as long as a CVS receipt.
The old lady nodded. “You pronounced it ‘SEE-sil’. But people in places like New England pronounce it ‘SEH-sil’. You ever hear of Cecil B. DeMille?”
“I think so.”
“He was a filmmaker.”
“Oh, right.”
“The Ten Commandment?”
“Yeah, I remember: ‘Damn them all to Hell.’”
“Right actor. Wrong movie.”
“We should probably be quiet.”
“They don’t make movies like that anymore.” The old woman looked away, but only for a moment.
He tried to ignore her, but he could feel those eyes boring into him.
“You look tired,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“You were at Wrigley Field last night.”
Ted’s heart skipped a beat. He had spent all of last week in Chicago with his father, who lived off West Addison near Wrigley Field. The bars and streets outside had been thronged with people last night because of the game. He’d only stepped out for a few minutes to make a run to the corner store, so he wasn’t sure how this woman could have seen and remembered him.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
“Maybe.”
“I wasn’t at the game last night.”
“I didn’t say you were at the game. I said you were at Wrigley Field—as in you were by it.”
Senile and chatty. Great. “You shouldn’t be out by the ballpark at night. It’s full of drunks and rowdies. You could get hurt.”
“I wasn’t there. I dreamed I saw you. I saved your life. Or maybe you saved mine. I can’t remember. I’m gettin’ old. But the baseball team was there too. They ran right past you.”
“I see.”
The mother in front of him peered through the gap between the seats. “Would you mind keeping it down? My daughter finally fell asleep.”
“I’m sorry,” he replied. Then he whispered to the old woman. “I think I’m gonna try to sleep too.”
“I don’t mind, Cecil . . . Funny, though. I thought your name was Teddy.”
He glanced at her in shock. The tone and modulation of her voice had changed. She had almost sounded like mom. The old lady was facing forward, eyes closed. He folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the window. I’m so tired that I’m letting this crazy old biddy play on my nerves. He tried to fall asleep, and within a few minutes he had.
He dreamed that he was floating downward at an oblique angle into a random stretch of the Loop. The L-train passed beneath him, amid that screech of wheels and hollow rumble of metal all too familiar to the denizens of Chi-Town. The walls and tops of the train were either missing or so transparent that he could peer into them. The commuters were all schoolgirls wearing backpacks. They were handing one another cotton candy.
But now he was on a street that seemed a mashup of every lane and alley around Wrigley Field. The ballpark lights were on because a game was in full swing. There was a crack of a bat against the ball and crowd went wild. The Chicago Cubs ran toward him in military formation, complete with a drill sergeant calling cadence. The players gripped their bats like rifles. The people around him blew bubble gum, which disengaged from their mouths and floated up into the air like soap bubbles.
The old lady waved from the sidewalk. She stood near a cotton candy vendor, who wore a hoodie over a cap. He was scowling at Ted. The vendor handed the woman a wad of cotton candy sans paper cone. She seemed distraught but accepted it. She shoved it in her mouth and it became bubble gum. She blew a bubble and it burst into a cloud of blood. Everyone screamed, and the old woman lay dead on the concrete, as a vuvuzela sounded because someone had scored a home run.
Ted jolted awake because the hot mic came on. “Folks, this is your captain speaking. We’re beginning our final descent into the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. The weather outside has cleared up. It’s 71 degrees outside. Local time is 1:35 a.m. Please return to your seats. We should have you on the ground in about 20 minutes. Cabin crew, prepare for landing.”
Ted glanced over at the old lady, but she wasn’t in her seat. When he turned around, he noticed the lavatory was occupied. But the bolt slid open almost immediately and a heavyset man stepped out. He sucked in his gut so he could scooch past the flight attendant.
“Excuse me, Miss,” Ted said.
“Yes?”
“There was an elderly lady next to me.”
“Sir, please store your laptop under the seat in front of you. We’ll be landing shortly.”
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes. She probably moved to another seat. This wasn’t a full flight.”
Ted stood up and scanned the cabin to see if he could locate her. But no luck. He asked the man across the aisle if he’d seen where the woman had gone. But the man was a foreigner and couldn’t understand what he was saying.
The plane landed and they made it to the gate. When they were preparing to deplane, Ted helped the mother remove her stroller from the overhead bin. He asked if she’d seen where the lady sitting next to him had wandered off to.
“Hmm. I didn’t see her,” the mother replied. “But I heard you talking to her.”
The infant in her arms pointed to the woman’s seat and said, “Gomma!”
“There you have it,” the mother smiled. “She calls her grandma and every old woman she sees gomma.”
The terminal was a ghost town; only half the overhead lights were on. The monitors at the gates were blue-screened. Because the baggage handlers were down to a skeleton crew, it took another 15 minutes before the conveyor belt and carousel sprang to life.
Ted’s was the only suitcase that didn’t come down the chute. When everyone else had found their luggage and departed, he walked over to the young lady in the tiny office by the bathrooms. He told her that he was missing his suitcase.
She had been fast asleep but pretended she hadn’t been. She asked for his baggage receipt, scanned it, typed something into the computer, and drummed her lacquered nails on the counter until an answer came back.
“Looks like your bag is still in Chicago.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Sir, you don’t have to raise your voice. It’s not like you lost it. It’ll arrive sometime today and they’ll drop it off at your address in Owings Mills.” She looked at him archly. “I think someone needs to go home and get some sleep.”
Ted wasn’t sure if the last remark was intended for him or her. He might have found her sass attractive if he hadn’t been so tired. He thanked her and exited the terminal.
He felt like a fool for having told his ex before the trip that he wouldn’t need a ride home. Now there were no cabs in sight.
He checked the rideshare apps on the phone, but he was competing with all the bar-hoppers in downtown Baltimore and the suburbs. The wait times were outrageous, so he decided to “upgrade to comfort” for only $72.95 (for fuck’s sake). His ride was booked and he was notified that “Cecil” (of all people) would be arriving in approximately 35 minutes.
He was the only one at the rideshare pick-up point. He slung the laptop bag over his shoulder and stood yawning under the saline glow of the lamps on the curb.
Off to the left, a pair of headlights winked on. It was a car illegally parked in an area occupied during the day by airport security to prevent assholes like this from doing what he was doing. The guy drove up and rolled down the passenger window.
“You need a ride? Only $20.”
“You don’t even know where I’m going,” Ted said, stooping down and looking inside.
“Then where you going? . . . Is that an Apple watch?”
Ted kept his face expressionless. The guy at the wheel wore a hoodie over a gray cap. Maybe it was déjà vu but he could’ve sworn this was the same shady guy from the dream. The man was chewing bubblegum, and Ted noticed that there were no rideshare decals on the windshield. The man’s eyes were glazed, like he was high on something.
“I’ve already got a ride,” Ted remarked.
There was a children’s backpack on the passenger seat with the trademark bear for the cartoon series “Cotton Candy Andy” sewn onto it. Sticking out from under the backpack was what looked like the barrel of a handgun.
The man blew a pink bubble and popped it. Then he lasciviously sucked the gum in, and smiled. “I could give you more than just a ride.”
“I’m not interested.”
“You’re gonna be here a loooooong time.” There was menace in the voice.
“No I’m not. My ride’s coming up the ramp now. Right over there. See?” Ted pointed vaguely in the direction from which the man had come.
Without a word, the driver gunned it and the car sped away from the curb.
Ted dialed a number that bypassed the standard 911 switchboard. He was connected to an emergency dispatcher. He reported the car and license plate number, and gave a description of the guy. “I think he’s armed; and my gut tells me he’s dangerous.”
The dispatcher assured him she would put out an APB.
Ted’s hand was shaking when he put his smartphone back into his pocket. He would never have accepted a ride from the freak. But if it hadn’t been for the old lady and that weird dream, he doubted he would have been as vigilant as he had; and he might not have noticed what he now was certain had been a gun. If I hadn’t bluffed as I did, the guy might’ve pulled it on me and ordered me to get in the car.
When “Cecil” arrived, Ted crawled into the backseat; and within minutes they were on I-295 North. There was a traffic jam. Three cop cars were parked in the right-hand lane. A trooper was directing traffic around an accident. On the shoulder, Ted recognized the vehicle he had called in. The driver’s door stood open. As they passed, he caught a glimpse of a white sheet covering a body near the road.
He had to wait until Monday morning to get the full story from his boss, who called him into the office. He said that, thanks to Ted’s tip, a patrolman spotted the guy almost immediately as he exited Metropolitan Boulevard. The cop pulled him over. The suspect jumped out of the car brandishing a weapon and was shot dead.
“We’re still waiting for the toxicology report to come back,” the boss said. “But the guy had a child’s backpack full of Fentanyl and bubble gum with him in the car. We think the backpack belonged to a schoolgirl who was killed last week in Severna Park.”
“I could tell the guy was a sicko.”
“The vehicle was stolen from an elderly woman on Friday afternoon. She lived in a retirement community on the outskirts of Elkridge. There’s no perimeter gate around the complex, and the mailboxes are located in front of the leasing office.
“Someone had the bright idea of putting the residents’ full names and addresses on the mail slots in case the residents got confused as to which box belonged to them. The suspect was photographing these, possibly with the intent of selling the information online.
“At 5:50 p.m. the leasing office’s security cameras picked up the old lady arriving in her car. She stepped out wearing a coat and scarf. At some point the perp accidentally hit the record button on his phone and the old lady could be heard telling him that she recognized him from Wrigley Field.”
“Oh boy,” Ted shook his head.
“The perp strangled her, threw her body in the trunk, and drove away. She was still in the trunk when you encountered him at BWI. The guy had evidently worked off and on for five years at Camden Yards, selling popcorn and such. Makes me wonder if the old woman recognized him from there and got Camden Yards mixed up with Wrigley Field. Ballpark guess, you might say. Get it?”
“That’s not funny.”
The boss rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well. I was just trying to soften the blow for what I’m about to tell you, which I think you’re gonna find a bit chilling.”
Ted frowned. “What?”
“Before the guy strangled the old woman, you could hear her on the recording speaking to him in a low gravelly voice. It sure didn’t sound like the same mild-mannered old lady to me. And all she said was, ‘My son Teddy will set you straight.’”
Wow- A Wrigley Field horror story that has nothing to do with a Cubs loss.
It appears mom saw more in her son than he thought she did!