Chapter Sixty

"First off.."Babe Ruth says to me."Let me be the first one to wish you a happy birthday."

I cocked my head. I tried to put the date into my head, but it wouldn't come.

"It's September the 2nd Marty, your birthday. If you could have anything you wanted in the world on this day, what would it be?" The Babe puffed out his chest as if to say he was ready to grant me my fondest wish, like a genie from a bottle.

"Geez, I don't know Mr. Ruth, I don't really want much right now. I'm still a little shaken by what just happened."

The Babe seemed a little upset by my remarks.

"An autograph?" I said sheepishly.

Babe Ruth laughed.

"A better container for the Devil?"

He looked down his nose at me and shook his head. "How about a ride to Louisville and a fish sandwich?" He produced a coupon from "Moby Dick's" fast food restuarant and handed it to me with pride. "Don't go in unless the "Now Frying" sign is lit. You don't want to eat there when the fish is cold."

"I'm more of a chicken man." I said under my breath.

"Heard about the chicken thing, thought maybe a change of pace might be in order for you son."

"I dunno" I kicked the moss around a nearby tree. "I really don't care much for fish."

"They have fried okra as a side...you can't beat that, nobody has that....okra...mutherficka!"

It was a little surprising to hear the Babe using gangsta speak. I began to contemplate how many times I'd been surprised in the last few days, or weeks, or however long it has been. My 360 degree vision allowed me to keep contact with the Sultan of Swat and still watch "The Box".

"Really, Marty, you have to start thinking about what changes you need to make in your life, and believe me, you're going to have to make changes." Babe pulled his cigar from the corner of his mouth and stared at the damp chewed end. He tried to flick off the ash but he ended up knocking the fire out of it. The ember flashed red and yellow as it bounced off of his pant leg and then died in the cold wet floor of the forest. "Do you know how hard it is to get a decent smoke here? Fick me." He pulled a lighter, emblazoned with a nascar logo and a picture of Dale Earnhardt, from his pants pocket and flamed the stogie back up. "Jesus! The Devil wouldn't even be in that fickin box if we could get brand name smokes here. This is worse than Europe!"

"Speaking of that." I said with a smile. "Where am I?"

My light attitude didn't please the King of the Homers. "You're in the ficking woods..dumbass!"

"I know that sir,but..."

"Don't you see the significance of that? Do you get the metaphor? The symbolism? The whatever the fick?" He blew on the hot end of his cigar to make it burn. "You are IN THE WOODS."

My smile couldn't hide the giveaway expression that I had no clue what he was talking about.

"In the classic movie The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is living a shitty life, surrounded by dumbshits and assholes. One day a big motherfickin tornado sucks her ass to a wonderful place with streets of gold and wonderous sights and all she wants is to get back to Kansas. It's the basis for all Amercian Cinema. No matter what the story, the lead character wants "Something Else" and then after having their shit handed to them in a dozen different ways, they realize that what they truly want is what they've already had. Christ, you even had the Tornado."

"I'm not even sure of what I had. Is this a movie?"

"Did I say this was a movie? This is real life, this is real death, that is a real Devil in that box. Some day you may be sitting in a lounge chair, sipping a wine cooler, wishing you were back in the woods with Babe Ruth waiting for hell to break loose every five minutes."

"Are you saying that everybody wants what they once had?"

"No, I'm saying every cucksucking movie at the multiplex has the same formula. That's what I'm saying!" A confused look formed under the brim of his Yankee baseball cap. "Oh you thought I had a life lesson for you...sorry. I'm just saying movies suck. You know every movie they've made about me they've had some good natured fat-ass play me. William Bendix, John Goodman. How is that supposed to make me feel? Listen, when I was a little kid my parents put me in an orphangae and then never came to visit. After I got out of there and started hitting home runs and getting free beer and pussy do you think that I wanted to be back in that good ole bastard farm?...Fick no! Frankly, I don't even care that I ended up here in the woods."

"Yea, I was wondering, why are you here?"

"And you! Do you want to go back to being a dickless accountant driving a Honda Civic? Is that what you want for the rest of your life. Having women walk all over you and people treat you like you should kiss their asses all day long? Well do ya?" He pointed his stubby index finger hard into my chest.

I could see the box start to shake a little and I was wondering if the Babe was keeping an eye on things.

"I didn't think so. Sure I made plenty of mistakes, and I'm going to pay for them for a long time, unless sonething terrible happens to Barry Bonds soon. I'm going to be here, whacking the poop outta Satan's ass everytime he tries to escape the box, but I aint sorry see? God he don't like people fornicating outside of marriage and he sure has his way of lettin you know bout it. He's got no room in his heart for carousers and louts."

I was shocked. "Babe are you saying that you didn't get into Heaven? Are you saying you were refused because you had sex out of marriage?

"You ever read the Bible Marty? You can read can't you?"

"But everybody knows the Bible is only metaphors and scare tactics to keep people in line on Earth, God forgives all sins!"

"You any good at baseball son?"