That was the question on every new guy's mind in June, which was when the trash-talking started for the softball game.  In August.

 

I'll admit I was a skeptic, just like everyone else.  I held the honest American belief that softball was nothing more than a nice "gimme" for our female athletes and another American-made sport for us to dominate in the Olympics.  I never imagined anyone from the TentCo crew getting too worked up about an afternoon of slow-pitch.  Boy was I wrong.

 

Kyle Shore was the first one to correct me, mid-job, when I dared to talk shit about softball.

 

"Dude, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.  The fucking softball game is the best time you'll ever have in your life."

 

I just stared at him and realized that if I said another word about the softball game, he was going to cry or kill me or both.  So I shut up and kept the skepticism to myself.

 

It blew my mind.  Even the most non-athletic of the TentCo guys were jazzed about the softball game.  As much as Greg Jackson looked like Jesus, I swore I saw a bit of Reggie Jackson in him when he spoke of the game.

 

As the game approached, I began to understand.

 

"Jeremy, is your guy going to be able to get us mushrooms in time for the game?  Because if he can't, I know a guy who can get us some acid, but it's not very good..."

 

I only caught that sentence as Greg and Jeremy carried a tent pole past me on a job, but it was at that moment that the picture started to come together.

 

"Gerry, man, I'm going to make a run to New Hampshire to buy liquor before the softball game--you want me to get you anything?"

 

Mike Harvey never offered to do anything for anyone.  Even Gerry was surprised at the offer.  As I sat there riding "bitch" in the middle seat of the truck, all I could think was, "holy shit, this is a big fucking game."

 

In the weeks before the game, guys started showing up around the shop who had previously existed only in legend.  Guys from TentCo's glorious past--the 80's crews who had snorted every paycheck, wrecked every truck at least once over, and solidified their reputation in TentCo history.  Kyle Shore's older brother even showed up one day out of the blue and looked over a pile of tent poles to ask me if I batted righty or lefty.  That one had me speechless, and as he wandered off, he shouted, "well, at the very least, bring weed motherfucker."

 

One week from the game, Carlos suddenly became Joe Softball, posting the game info all over the shop.  As I read that poorly photocopied piece of paper, I realized what was unfolding before my eyes.

 

"Veterans versus Rookies--Pembroke Memorial Field.  Wednesday, August 12 - 3pm"

 

The rosters were listed at the bottom--I saw my name on the right, alongside the rest of the tenters I worked with every day.  On the left was a veritable TentCo Hall of Fame.  I knew them by their stories, still told in hushed tones of awe. 

 

There was Ritchie, the now-hapless insurance salesman who had once taken down a tent by himself in a hurricane while polishing off a bottle of Jack Daniels to keep warm.  Right below him was Tom Harvey, Mikey's brother, who had once punched a guy out at a job site for giving him shit.  To "decompress" that night, he pounded a 12-pack of beer while watching planes land at the local airbase.  And anchoring their roster was Mike Shore himself--a ripped, coke-snorting madman who was the only guy in recent memory to get laid on a tent job.  With a woman, even.  In short, they were the Legends of TentCo. 

 

That same day, Greg Jackson went around asking people if they wanted to put in an order for mushrooms.  Chris assured everyone that he would have "the biggest bags of weed you've ever seen."  And Don even offered to buy my 19-year old ass some beer.  An entire case.  For me.

 

As the game drew near, less and less got done around the shop.  Everyone was thinking of the game.  Some guys were leaving at noon because Carlos had intentionally blocked out the week before and the week after the game on the schedule.  The company was turning down jobs to make sure that nothing interfered with an afternoon of softball.

 

The day of the game, we all sort of went to work, clocking in, doing a tent job or two, and meeting back at the shop at lunchtime.  Don handed me an entire case of beer, telling me, "you'll need it, rookie."

 

The trash-talking was intense, and I was amazed by how many people were taking this thing seriously.  Naturally, the Veteran team was full of ringers--most of the new guys couldn't verify whether or not some of the guys had ever worked at the company.  Meanwhile, the Rookie team was full of athletes--hell, I was a college lacross player at the time--but the non-athletes on the squad were stockpiling enough drugs and hard liquor to survive a revolution, which was certainly going to dull our "edge."  Of course, no one was complaining.

 

"Lunch" consisted of four or five beers in the trailer that held all the tables and chairs the company would rent along with its tents.  There I heard the stories from previous softball games.  Everyone agreed that the Glory Days were definitely over--there wouldn't be any whores or blow at this afternoon's game--but the intensity had definitely picked up in the past few years.  The Veterans were really, really serious about winning this fucking game.

 

Our band of Rookies was slightly less serious.  This was clear the second I arrived at the field.  While the Veterans were swinging bats, stretching and jogging in the outfield, Kyle and Alan were assembling a beer funnel on our bench while Chris rolled joints like there was no tomorrow.  Gerry and his buddy Ryan didn't even have gloves.

 

As I got to the bench, Don walked over from the Veteran side and handed me another case of beer, "just in case."  He refused to leave until I'd chugged two of them, "to catch up."

 

This was going to be some afternoon.

 

As I sat there smoking the first of many joints with Chris, we watched the rest of the guys roll in.  It was pure spectacle.  Mike Shore drove onto the field in his IROC-Z Camaro, while Ritchie quietly taped up his bat a few feet away without so much as looking up.  Meanwhile, Kyle and Alan were out in right field pounding beers in their new funnel, throwing the empty cans at each others' heads when they finished.  To top it all off, Carlos had taken his Joe Softball look to the extreme, donning a sweet 70's vintage pair of grey BIKE shorts that clung so tight I felt like I should apologize.

 

Greg and Jeremy arrived just before the first pitch, blitzed out of their brains on an impressive three-fer of tequila, weed and mushrooms.  Jeremy kept shaking his head and saying, "wow, holy crap, man--I can't even feel my legs."  I  have no idea if Greg was in the same zone, but it didn't stop him from grabbing a bat and hitting a few stray beer cans into the parking lot. 

 

My buddy Willy was in his usual strange space--his dad owned the company, so, in a way, this fucked-up band of yahoos was a direct reflection on his family business.  At the same time, Willy wasn't afraid of a beer or two.  Needless to say, he worked right through the "weird" and was sitting on second base killing a joint by the time the team captains were meeting on home plate.

 

The captains' meeting was historic--it was as much a part of the game as the shitload of drugs and alcohol that made it possible.  Kyle was representing us--he was on the bubble of being on the Veteran squad any year now, but as a major league baseball prospect, he was a good man to have around.  The Veterans were represented by some sketchy guy no one on our side knew.  The smart money guessed that he was a coke dealer who demanded to be a part of the mayhem.  At the very least, he was wearing a sweet "Poison" concert T, which was enough "street cred" for us.

 

As Ray, the tent-making man himself and our umpire for the day, read the rules, the team captains passed a fifth of tequila back and forth.  It was empty by the time Ray got to the "rain-out rules." 

 

After that, there wasn't much else to say but "play ball!"

 

Baseball is my second-worst sport (watch me play basketball some time if you need a laugh), so I tried to save myself some pain by offering to play right field, my home during my painful years of Little League.  What I failed to consider was that a bunch of drunk old guys aren't exactly going to be pulling the ball.  Much to my own amazement, I caught the balls that were hit to me, and the inning ended without incident. 

 

I mean, of course, I pounded my beer as I left the field.  After all, that was one of the rules for the Rookies.

 

Will and I sat there on the bench, watching the game unfold.  Greg and Jeremy were rolling around in the dust, attempting to make each other eat something that I'm sure was not edible.  Mike Shore was at third base, pissing on the bag.  And Carlos was throwing the ball at every Rookie's head.  In short, good times.

 

A few innings later, I took my turn at bat and amazed myself by getting a solid single to left-center field.  When I arrived on first base, I noticed, somehow for the first time, that Mike had an entire case of Bud next to him.  He made me pound a beer before the next pitch.  Chris, our first base coach, handed me a joint as I lead off first a bit, watching Will bat.

 

At that point, ten beers and three joints into the day, things get a little bit blurry.  I'm pretty sure the Veterans won--I remember pounding four beers in a row in the losers' tradition, but they may have just been fucking with us.  Who knows?  In between, there was a bench-clearing brawl that was settled by a round of bong hits, a homerun by Mike Shore in which he fell on his own piss-bag as he tripped rounding third, and a bout of bat-fencing in which my now-empty beer case served as an impromptu helmet.

 

After the game, of course, it was time for the Rookies to party.  They say that "God looks out for drunks and children," well at that point we were pretty much both.  I'm pretty sure God himself drove my car into Boston, as we hit our friend Ryan's party like a sledgehammer hitting a China shop. 

 

That was a fucking blur, I'll tell you--all I remember was him getting all high and mighty because I had his sister and his sister's friend sitting on my lap while I drank Jim Beam from the bottle.  Jesus Christ, man, I was sharing!

 

We blew that pop stand after Willy got busted making out with Ryan's other sister on the fire escape.  I'm pretty sure things would have gone further if Ryan didn't lean out the window with a bat.  Listen, man, don't throw a party unless you expect people to party, OK?

 

At that point, there wasn't much left for us to do, so we grabbed three or four beers each for the road and piled back into our cars, driving to Alan's place to watch porn.  In the most incredible occurrence of the entire day, Carlos somehow found our Filth Party completely by accident, driving his car right onto Alan's lawn and stumbling into the room with an empty bottle of Captain Morgan.  Without batting an eyelash, he sat right down on the rug and commented, "man, I can't wait for a good cumshot."

 

I remember waking up on Alan's floor at five in the morning, wandering to the fridge, grabbing a beer, and shooting the shit with Kyle, who was fucking with Alan's dog in the kitchen.  Rottweilers are never going to be mistaken for Harvard grads, and this one was the dumbest of the lot.  We finally got tired of messing with him after he nearly choked on a can of Busch Light Draft, and simply sat there, pounding beers and piecing together the previous night.  Turns out, we'd both had better times than we realized.

 

Fortunately for us and our customers, the day after the softball game was an official TentCo holiday.  So, with time on our side, Kyle and I raided Alan's fridge and ate some half-cooked bacon, at which point we figured it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. Who knows?  If Alan woke up, he'd probably make us do the dishes.

 

I snuck in my house that morning--after all, I was still living with my parents at the time--and ran smack-dab into my dad.  By that point, they'd gotten used to me disappearing for a day or two, but he couldn't help but ask, "how can you have mud and glitter on your face?"

 

At that point, I wasn't much for speaking, but I did chuckle a bit as I sad, "softball's a crazy game."