“Psychologie (une, huit, douze)”

(une)

Brick Steele whistled while standing next to the train, wiping sweat from his brow. The ‘crisp’ part of autumn weather hadn’t quite bitten down, yet; but this was perfect cigar weather he thought, smiling at passengers boarding. He’d be off in about five hours; and had a roast beef and cheddar, with avocado, tomato, and German mustard waiting back on board, in his bag. Jaye always put sweet barbecue chips and a sweet tea in a second bag — an admittedly weird superstition picked up as a star baseball player — years before a pitch put him in a coma, and several cardiac arrests that followed while in that coma, took him away from the game. A true ‘what-if,’ on the cusp over supserstardom.

But Brick recovered well, over the course of four years. A speech impediment as a result of the accident made television analyst or radio work difficult; but he found another love while taking a cross-country train trip with his wife, six months before she would die from cancer. They ate at food trucks outside of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and explored their teenage years one last time, before Jaye spent most all of the rest of her days too fatigued; and Brick would stroke her hair, singing Marvin Gaye songs as tears would fall down her face. He always knew when she cried, even if she always tried to hide it.