The Rules Reconsidered: Death Of A Ladies Man

The most dangerous people in the world are those without a sense of humor.

And, possibly related, Baptists.

I was at Lupton Stadium, with The Barry Lewis, who was trying to show me how to log onto Twitter with my phone--because the dear man had what he considered the brilliant idea of allowing/forcing/blackmailing me into live tweeting TCU's baseball game against DBU. Only two problems: I know nothing about baseball, and even less about Twitter.

"Barry, dear man, why are you doing this to me?"

"For fun."

"No doubt for you, sadist you are. But what about our fanbase? They're going to be mortified! Positively mortified, I tell you!"

"Let me worry about that. Just report the game as you see it. Stream-of-consciousness, like."

Thus the game began. But within my first three tweets, I received an objection.

"First quarter, huh?" asked The Barry.

"Naturally," I said.

"They're innings."

"What?"

"It's the first inning, not quarter. You're calling it the quarter."

"Barry, dear man, if you're going to twist my arm into doing this, for fun, as you say, could you at least let me do it my way? I thought you wanted me to tweet what I don't know."

"Just thought you might welcome the advice."

"Sure thing, Barry."

At which point, I made it clear to any dear reader unfortunate enough to peruse my scribbling that the top half of the first quarter of the first half was over.

And so it went. I must say this at the outset: I despise Twitter, so evil an institution not one billionaire, nor a billion, could possibly make it worse. And there I was, tweeting about a game I couldn't see, precisely because I was tweeting about it, so I had to guess about plays I wouldn't have had a clue how to explicate had I actually seen them. And this torture lasted, dear reader, for three hours.

And to add to that, Twitter, in its infinite wisdom, combined the pernicious effect of Autocorrect with the disallowance of an Edit button. Thus, I was reduced to writing sentences such as these: "Dear Twitter, if you're going to autocorrect my tweet, you sure as shot should allow me to edit it!" and "This ump is seriously pusing our fans off"--for everyone to see and with no recourse to correct what autocorrect botched.

About midway through the fifth quarter, or the sixth, could have been the seventh, the Barry Lewis shared with me a horror story. One baseball team in Weatherford was playing another from the same city. One guy hit a home run and the pitcher didn't like that. So when the hitter was rounding third base, the pitcher ran from the mound to tackle him, and so hard was the batter hit I could practically hear his bones crunch from The Barry Lewis' phone. Then the players in the nearby dugout decided they evidently didn't like that either. So they swarmed en masse the pitcher who tackled their batter. And thus, chaos ensued.

"My God! Did they kill him?" I asked The Barry Lewis.

"No. But both teams probably did themselves in. There are going to be a lot of suspensions."

"What instigated this?"

"It is implied there was taunting going on."

"These people need to find a sense of humor," I suggested. "Surely we can just chalk it all up to a bad joke and people who can't take them."

At which point we ourselves were swarmed by a crowd of enthusiastic Baptists--I say Baptists, I don't know what they were, all I know is they were cheering at all the wrong times, for the wrong reasons, and the players' names one particularly loud lady behind me was shouting did not belong to our jerseys. I was tempted to ask them if they could politely curb their enthusiasm, or at least share it somewhere else, but I remembered I was at the helm of the Twitter button, so I fired off about a half dozen tweets like bullets into the ether at their expense.

And it wasn't only I who was troubled by their obnoxious presence. For the Barry himself, the most calm and collected of my myriad friends, was visibly frustrated, looking behind him every so often.

"Barry, these people are terrible."

"They're Baptists."

"So was I in my youth. What are you saying?"

"Have you forgotten Baylor? What do you expect?"

"We really need a visitor's section."

"I agree."

"On the other side of Berry Street."

"Couldn't agree more."

At which point there was a dispute, which I could not honestly comment upon, having not seen it while tweeting. But supposedly there was a play with two outs, and it was not clear if the Baptist first baseman put his foot on the bag when our guy was called out.

And in the midst of this discussion, this yelping hyena shouted behind me: "He ain't gonna not touch the bag with the ball in his glove!"

"Barry," I said, "I was with the impression that at least one benefit of a college education is that one could learn to speak English."

"There are presumably others."

"Like learning how to troll the home team in their own stands?"

"Presumably."

"I sent that latter to ADJD a month ago. Something must be done!"

"I agree. That's why I suggested you write him."

"I honestly think there is no problem in the world that couldn't be solved if people everywhere simply heeded what I advise."

"Tweet your game."

"Sadist!"

It then occurred to me, as the male Baptists got more and more aggressive, that we could have a live-action reenactment of the Weatherford tragedy in real time. After all, these people were trolling the handicapped section. What would happen were a few hardy strapping Frogs, with a few too many beers and too few braincells, to decide to reply to their taunts in kind?

I asked the Barry Lewis. He agreed it was a problem.

"These people really need a better sense of humor."

"They're Baptists," the Barry said with finality.

And, triggered, I was reminded of an event that transpired a week or so before at Ye Olde Bull and Bush on Montgomery 76107 (please, no direct correspondence; all mail will be summarily returned).

Leonard Cohen was on the jukebox, and The Stubbs was flanked by my dear friends and lovely ladies, The Kelly, aka., The Kelly K, and The Mallory, aka., The Tidwell. And he was not at all happy about his situation, as his ass was still smarting from the dart wound he suffered, compliments of yours truly, and his foot was still broken, compliments of a dropped keg, so he was constantly alternating between standing and sitting.

I was at a nearby table going over The Katreeva's screenplay, making the smallest adjustments to what I was certain would prove, if filmed, one of the great horror movies of our time. But there was a line of dialogue The Kat and I could not agree on, so I gestured to Bobby to join our table.

He visibly blanched, gestured to the heavens as if to ask what he did to deserve this, and limped to where we sat while the dear ladies behind him shouted, "Come back soon, cutie!"

And right when he arrived, so did another stranger. With a gun. The Kat seemed to recognize him because she blanched just as conspicuously as The Stubbs had prior.

"That appears to be a gun in your hand," I said (somewhat redundantly, I admit).

"Thank you, Watson," The Kat said.

"Who is this guy?"

"An ex of mine."

"I can see why you made him such. Where's Austin?"

"Climbing Mount Everest."

"Leaving me to the mercy of this man."

"I don't think that was his intention."

"Hello Katreeva," the humorless Lothario finally said.

"Sir," I said, "could you possibly put that gun away? Or at least take it elsewhere. It's publicly indecent."

"I've got business to tend to, I reckon."

"So do we," I said. "The lady here just finished a screenplay. She's about to make it into a movie. Come back next year and you can shoot her then whenever you like!"

"My daddy always said to finish what you started."

“She hasn’t finished what she started!” I protested.

“My daddy always said—“

"Your daddy sounds like an ass. And I'm pretty sure even he would have been willing to allow for a few exceptions!"

The man's eyes grew in intensity, the gun began to quiver, with his finger on the trigger quivering likewise.

"The man is utterly humorless!" I said.

"That was always the problem!" The Kat said.

"What's my problem! I'll show you a problem!"

And it became clear that in the name of friendship and chivalry and loyalty, to say nothing of basic decency, I was morally obligated to take a bullet for the dear Kat--albeit with The Stubbs as a human shield.

And so just before he fired, I grabbed The Stubbs, wore him like a coat of armor, and leapt in the way of the bullet's trajectory. I heard The Stubbs shout, then groan, before we fell to the ground in a pile. At which point I caught sight of The Little John backhanding the jealous ex right through a window with one blow. There was a rainfall of shattered glass that continued to clatter after the bar went silent.

"Am I dead? Am I dead? Holy God am I dead!" The Stubbs shouted.

"If you are, dear Bobby, you are the greatest miracle I've seen yet: a talking corpse!"

The Stubbs frantically searched for the bullet hole, which could not be found, and upon inspection, we learned that the red patch in his jacket was not blood but paint.

"He went through all that, and put us all through that, with a paint gun!" I shouted.

"Guy must think he's some kind of prankster," Little John said, staring at the poor fellow, unconscious on the outside patio.

"Good jokes in good time. That's my new motto," I said.

And remembering this encounter as the Frogs lost and a dozen or so Baptists hot for a fight taunted our people on their way out, I fired my own missile, a missive, begging Twitter to add an Edit button. For safety sake.

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