Clothing Optional Read online

  DONALD

  I used to watch you play.

  HAPPY

  Oh, yeah?

  DONALD

  Yeah. My dad worked in the city…. I’m originally from Long Island. There’s a shocker, huh?

  HAPPY

  I didn’t say a word. But now that you mention it…

  DONALD

  (bracing himself)

  You’re going to make fun of me now, aren’t you?

  HAPPY

  No. Maybe later. So, you were telling me about your dad.

  DONALD

  All I was saying is that lots of times I would go to work with him on the weekends and afterward we’d drive up to the Polo Grounds and I’d see you play. I was eight.

  HAPPY

  Polo Grounds ain’t there no more, huh?

  DONALD

  The city knocked it down and put up apartment buildings a few years after the Mets moved into Shea.

  HAPPY

  And is that how you found out where I lived? From the Mets?

  DONALD

  No. I learned you were down here from that article I read about you.

  HAPPY

  What article?

  DONALD

  In the New York Post. That series you were in?

  HAPPY

  Series?

  DONALD

  Oh…

  HAPPY

  What kind of series?

  DONALD

  Well…

  HAPPY

  Go ahead. Tell me.

  DONALD…

  The New York Post, in their sports section, has a feature called “What Might’ve Been.” And, about a month ago, they had a piece…

  HAPPY

  About me?

  DONALD

  I’m sorry. From the way it was written, I just assumed that they spoke to you….

  HAPPY

  What’d they have? A lot of that next Willie Mays stuff?

  DONALD

  Yeah.

  HAPPY

  Look, would you like to come in? Tenants catch me chatting like this, they’ll think I got too much free time on my hands and give me more stuff to do.

  DONALD

  Sure.

  Happy indicates the inside of his apartment. Donald enters, and Happy closes the door behind them—revealing that he is walking with the aid of a cane.

  HAPPY

  Would you like something to eat?

  DONALD

  Yeah, I’ll have a slice of apple pie, heated up, and a large milk.

  HAPPY

  Now would that be regular milk or two percent?

  DONALD

  You have both? Wow.

  (off Happy’s look)

  On second thought I’m going to have a big dinner later—you know, at the seder. So maybe I shouldn’t spoil my appetite.

  HAPPY

  Damn, and here I was so looking forward to cooking for you. So, what are we talking about?

  Donald opens his attaché case and takes out a clear plastic cube that has a baseball covered with signatures inside.

  DONALD

  Here. Check this out.

  He hands the cube to Happy.

  HAPPY

  Wow…

  DONALD

  The 1962 team. Pretty amazing, huh?

  HAPPY

  No pun intended.

  DONALD

  Oh. No. Although that was the year they started calling you guys the Amazin’ Mets, right?

  HAPPY

  Right. Our amazing team that lost 120 games, which I believe is still the record for the most losses in one season by any major-league team in baseball history.

  DONALD

  Yeah, it still is.

  HAPPY

  Look at the names. Casey, there’s Gil Hodges, Elio Chacon…

  DONALD

  Yeah, my grandmother got really excited when she first heard Elio Chacon’s name because she thought he was Jewish.

  Happy stares at him.

  DONALD (cont’d)

  She thought it was Eliosha Cohen.

  Happy continues to stare.

  DONALD (cont’d)

  True story.

  Happy continues to stare.

  DONALD (cont’d)

  Now you’re going to make fun of me?

  HAPPY

  No, not yet.

  (re: the ball)

  Say, is it okay if I take this out of the cube?

  DONALD

  Are your hands clean?

  HAPPY

  Excuse me?

  Donald grabs Happy’s hands and examines them.

  HAPPY (cont’d)

  Look, I just want to see it, not perform surgery on it.

  DONALD

  Yeah, I guess they’re all right.

  HAPPY

  I’m flattered.

  Donald takes the ball out of the cube and hands it to Happy.

  DONALD

  But try to hold it by the seams.

  HAPPY

  Are you always so annoying?

  DONALD

  Pretty much.

  HAPPY

  So, where’d you get this ball?

  DONALD

  My dad…. Like I said, we used to go to the games all the time. He’d been a New York Giants fan, you know, before they moved to San Francisco. So when the National League came back to the city, well, it didn’t matter that the Mets stunk. In fact, that was part of the charm. I’d sit there and see the players letting ground balls go through their legs, and tripping over their feet when they were rounding bases, and I’d look at my dad and say, “I can do that,” and he’d look back at me and say, “I believe you can,” and we’d laugh about that all the way home.

  Donald laughs at the memory.

  HAPPY

  So, where’d you get this ball?

  DONALD

  You see, the Yankees were too good. They were exciting. But there was no way an average kid like me could ever actually relate to those guys. But you…

  Again Donald shakes his head and savors the laugh.

  HAPPY

  Ball? Get? Where?

  DONALD

  Well, look who’s being annoying now! And where’s my pie? I got this ball the first day you played for the Mets.

  HAPPY

  Really?

  DONALD

  They’d just brought you up. On September first. The day the teams can expand their rosters for the final pennant drive, right?

  HAPPY

  (smiling)

  Yeah. There I was, sitting in some Howard Johnson’s down in Tidewater, when they call me with the news that I’m going up—for the pennant drive to a team that was fifty-seven games out of first place with only twenty-eight left to play—and it was the greatest day of my life. They gave me a plane ticket, I called my folks, and when I landed in New York and stepped up to that plate for the first time, I was…

  DONALD

  Happy.

  HAPPY

  Happy. I grew up across the street from the Polo Grounds. Used to watch Willie Mays do what he did from our kitchen window. So now here I am, playing his old position, hitting those two home runs, and I’m…

  DONALD

  Happy.

  HAPPY

  Happy. And that’s what I told those sportswriters and that’s how that whole Happy Haliday business got started. All those banners, those pins, that billboard near the Holland Tunnel…

  DONALD

  That’s also when my dad started calling me that.

  HAPPY

  Happy?

  DONALD

  Uh-huh.

  HAPPY

  Happy Rappaport?

  DONALD

  Well, I’ll admit it didn’t have the same ring to it that Happy Haliday did, but dads don’t usually say the last name when they’re calling their kids so it worked out okay…. This ball? The second time you were up?

  HAPPY

  The single?

  DONALD

  The pitch before it.

  HAPPY />
  The foul ball?

  DONALD

  This is it.

  HAPPY

  That’s the ball?

  DONALD

  Yep. We were sitting in the second level, behind the plate, and this ball came screaming back at us. I brought my glove to the game, but there was no way I was going to catch this thing without it ripping my entire arm off my body. So my dad just nonchalantly reached over, stuck his huge meat hook of a hand in front of me, snagged the ball out of the air, and said, “Here you go.” And here we are. It’s thirty-five years later, and this is still the closest I’ve ever come to catching a foul ball at a game.

  HAPPY

  And what about those signatures? I don’t remember swinging at any balls that had all those names on it.

  DONALD

  Those I got on the last day of that season. Someone who worked for my dad had a friend who got us passes to the clubhouse. So I brought this ball so I could get your autograph after the game. I ended up getting everybody’s except yours. We waited for you, but…you never came back from the hospital. So we went home and just figured we’d get your autograph the following season.

  HAPPY

  Sorry. Imagine how I felt, though. I get hit by a pitch, run to first, steal second, steal third, score on a sacrifice fly, collapse in the dugout, get taken to Lenox Hill for “precautionary” X-rays, and the next thing I know they’re drilling holes in my skull because I had blood clots. Before that day, I’d never even heard of blood clots; but now I had some and they were going to keep me from doing the only thing I ever cared about doing.

  DONALD

  I wrote to you that winter.

  HAPPY

  A lot of people sent cards, get-well wishes…. At one point they were actually delivering mail that was just addressed to “Happy, New York City.”

  DONALD

  That was me.

  HAPPY

  You sent those?

  DONALD

  Yeah. My father said you needed your rest, so I just wrote “Happy, New York City” on the envelope and put a blank sheet of paper inside because I didn’t want to tire you out by making you read too many words.

  HAPPY

  I appreciated it. Your father still call you “Happy” after it was all over for me?

  DONALD

  Yeah.

  HAPPY

  Really?

  DONALD

  A lot. He always pointed to you as an example of how a person should enjoy life in the moment because you never know what’s waiting around the corner.

  HAPPY

  You mean, sort of like a “Man makes plans and God laughs” kind of thing?

  DONALD

  No, I’d say more along the lines of “Be careful what you wish for because you might get it.”

  HAPPY

  Why?

  DONALD

  Because you got hit in the head with a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball.

  HAPPY

  I didn’t wish for that.

  DONALD

  Yeah, but…you didn’t?

  HAPPY

  Who would wish for a thing like that?

  DONALD

  I see. So maybe it was more in the “smile is a frown turned upside down” area.

  HAPPY

  That must’ve been it.

  Donald looks at his watch.

  HAPPY (cont’d)

  Late for something?

  DONALD

  Huh?

  HAPPY

  You keep looking at your watch.

  DONALD

  Oh, just a habit.

  HAPPY

  What time’s your seder?

  DONALD

  Sundown.

  HAPPY

  And what time is sundown?

  DONALD

  Whatever time that everybody’s hungry. It’s a Jewish thing. Look, would you mind signing that ball?

  HAPPY

  (surprised)

  You want my autograph?

  DONALD

  Yeah.

  HAPPY

  You sure? I can’t remember the last time someone asked me to sign something that didn’t have an invoice number on it.

  DONALD

  You’re the only name that’s missing on it, and it would mean a lot.

  HAPPY

  If you say so.

  Donald reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out a fancy pen, and hands it to Happy.

  HAPPY (cont’d)

  How should I do this?

  DONALD

  Well, you just find an open spot on the ball and sign your name there.

  HAPPY

  I mean the pen. Where’s the point on this thing?

  DONALD

  Oh.

  (showing him)

  You just twist the top and…there you go.

  HAPPY

  And what about this shit over here?

  DONALD

  What shit?

  HAPPY

  This rubber shit.

  Happy shows him the pen.

  DONALD

  Oh, that’s just padding to rest your fingers on while you’re writing.

  Happy stares at him.

  DONALD (cont’d)

  It’s really comfortable.

  Happy continues to stare.

  DONALD (cont’d)

  It was a gift.

  Happy continues to stare.

  DONALD (cont’d)

  You’re going to make fun of me now?

  HAPPY

  (nodding)

  You’ve given me no choice.

  DONALD

  Go ahead.

  HAPPY

  Ready?

  DONALD

  (bracing himself)

  Yes.

  HAPPY

  You’re a Sissy Mary.

  DONALD

  …That’s it?

  HAPPY

  That’s it.

  DONALD

  Well, you nailed my fat ass on that one. So, now that that’s over with…

  (indicating ball)

  …if you don’t mind.

  HAPPY

  Oh. Boy, I’m really honored.

  He spins the ball in his hand, looking for a place to sign.

  DONALD

  There’s a spot.

  HAPPY

  Where?

  DONALD

  Between Marv Throneberry and Choo Choo Coleman.

  HAPPY

  Little tight, don’t you think?

  DONALD

  Not really.

  HAPPY

  Oh, here we go. Now, should it be “To Donald” or “Don” or one of your kids?

  DONALD

  No, no, no. Just your name.

  HAPPY

  But…

  DONALD

  It shouldn’t be “to” anyone.

  HAPPY

  But you flew down, you landed in West Palm Beach, you drove the rented Taurus to my house. I feel like I should say something special.

  DONALD

  I appreciate that, but it’s much more valuable if it’s not personalized to anyone.

  HAPPY

  What do you mean by “more valuable”?

  DONALD

  It’s worth more.

  HAPPY

  To who?

  DONALD

  To a buyer.

  HAPPY

  Excuse me?

  DONALD

  Well, if a collector is in the market for something like this, he’s more apt to pay top dollar if it just has the athlete’s name on it—as opposed to something that’s made out to a specific person, because when he goes to sell it, his buyer might not want a ball that’s made out to someone else.

  HAPPY

  (suspicious)

  You know, we both know what it is that I do for a living, but I don’t believe we ever got around to talking about what you do. Would you mind it much if I ask what line of work you happen to be in, Mr. Rappaport?

  DONALD

  I deal in sports memorabilia.

 
HAPPY

  And what exactly does that mean?

  DONALD

  It means that I go to shows—baseball-card shows, sports conventions, auctions—and buy mementoes from other dealers that I then try to sell to collectors who come into one of my stores, or sometimes I sell them privately.