And growl and hiss at each other.

There were nine at once last summer, mostly brown.

But mostly they run around at night, once it’s quiet.

Pity the poor person who must switch off the generator after the
guests have gone to sleep.

And walk back, whistling, squeezing a headlamp.

Mustn’t run.

I stopped at a collection of picnic tables and began picking up sheets of paper.

A blonde elf picked up crayons. She didn’t need help but I offered anyway.

We set out coloring pages, outlines of the kid from “A Christmas Story,” and a girl sitting on Santa’s lap.

I scowled at sermon notes a man had left on the table.

He’s just a guy, I told myself.

Be nice.

The elf told me she was familiar with the feeling.

“My dad’s really religious, but we hardly ever went to church,” she
told me.

(So you’re going to hell, I thought.)

Now she follows Wiccan teachings.

(Yeah.)

The elf told me about casting spells for good, since energy returns in threes.

She was drawn to the feminist teachings in her faith.

(I’d rather listen to a goddess than a God, myself.)

“I’d love to be a stay-at-home mom and a full-time witch,” she said.

(Yeah. I laughed.)

“I know it doesn’t go with the feminist thing, but it’s what I’ve
always wanted,” she added.

I nodded.

“Well, if that’s what you want,” I said.

(That sort of goes with the feminist thing, too.)

My home for the next 8 hours.

Children shot darts at paper ducks, occasionally flipping the ducks backwards.

Mostly not.

I helped preschoolers pull back strings on bows: “hold the arrow like this.”

Every few minutes, I held up my hands to stop the assault, then knelt down to pick up foam arrows and darts.

A couple of 15-year-old boys stopped by to play. They wore cowboy boots and called me ma’am.

A man in jeans, a t’shirt and a Carhartt jacket joined them. He brought his daughter.

I think she was 6.

“I about died the other night,” he told the boys.

He turned his head to reveal baseball stitches along his neck.

(A very large baseball, like a 6-year-old might use.)

The boys stared.

I looked for a chair.

The girl watched the carousel behind us.

“I got into a fight at a bar. This guy started talkin and so I started fightin, then his girlfriend – no, his sister – came up behind me with a knife,” he explained.

Good sister.

“Half a centimeter deeper and he woulda hit my carotid artery and I’d a bled to death in seven seconds.”

“Whoa!” the boys said in unison.

“She got $100,000 bond, assault with a deadly weapon,” he added.

“Assault! It should’ve been attempted manslaughter,” one boy said.

“I’m glad you’re okay!” the second boy added.

I picked up arrows. Silently.

The man mentioned the bar.

“I don’t like that place – my dad got into a fight there ’cause three people tried to jump him,” the second boy said.

(The chances.)

“No! It’s good! I know the guy that owns it,” the man said proudly.

“Why’d you try to start a fight?” I asked.

He finally noticed me.

“He was talkin bout my Tap Out shirt,” he said.

Call in if you’re sick, and, Don’t call Santa by his real name, even if you know what it is.

(And so forth.)

She led me to a cash register.

A cashier mumbled instructions and glanced around the room.

He asked me to stand by a second cashier and figure it out.

(Oh. That’s not what he said?)

“I can try it now,” I told the cashier, after 15 minutes.

Some women handed me camouflage sweatshirts.

My supervisor tossed the hangers in a box as I asked them for their numbers.

Something about “We get in trouble” otherwise.

Is that how it works?

(I always make something up, a cashier told me later.)

Me, too.

A man in a black polo and khakis approached.

“I wanna get the military discount,” he said.

“You got your ID on you?” my supervisor asked.

He explained that he didn’t, that it was probably in a box in Virginia.

I scanned his items.

“I don’t have my ID, but I can show you where I got shot,” he continued.

I tried to remember which buttons to push.

Number?

He told me.

“They sent me to Germany. I sat around there for a while but my leg tightened up, so there you go. Now I’m working at KFC.”

Um. Do you have a rewards card?

“I’d go back in a heartbeat if I could,” he told us.

He pulled up his pant leg to reveal pink welts behind his knee.

Credit. Right?

“Thank you for your service,” my supervisor said.

He signed, shrugged and walked away.

(You’ve saved ten percent.)

On what? The mind bends.

Naturally.

The Store That Cannot Be Named, if you will.

A certain writer – we’ll call him David Sedaris – inspired me to apply to be an elf.

Except that he hated it.

(Foreshadowing!)

This isn’t New York, however.

This is the Ozarks.

The people are kind and like to kill things.

(Although, to be fair, it can be necessary.)

Oh, listen to me!

Elfing couldn’t be any worse than folding clothes for two months, so I applied in October.

As I thought about a baseball game I’d just attended, I received a call.

“Can you open your schedule?” she asked.

(Beyond 8-6.)

Can I lease my soul to the company store?

“Sure,” I said, afraid that saying no would mean hearing no.

The next week someone interviewed me.

“Now, some people take one look at the outfit and say ‘No, thank
you, it’s not for me,’” she told me, as she cut through tape on a cardboard box.

“And, you know, that’s just fine,” she added, holding a green and
red hat with bells.

“No tights?” I asked.

She smiled.

No tights.

Nor green shoes.

Just a red polo, green apron and the hat.

Oh, and khakis.

(Horrors.)

“So, how many hours can I expect,” I asked her.

“Well, we have a lot of college kids, and they’ll just call in,” she told me, annoyed.

“Well, in December …” I said helpfully.

“They just think, ‘It’s all about me,’” she said.

“And they have finals,” I added.

She shook her head.

But she seemed to like me, perhaps because I had graduated nearly five years ago.

(I wanted to bring real world experience to the role.)

She said I’d get 30 hours, and she shook my hand.

Kinsler stole second. Andrus on second. Texas took second.

Holliday was out. Pujols was not.

Holland threw strikes. NA-PO-LI hit ball.

La Russa couldn’t connect. Neither could bats.

Freese. Hamilton. Berkman. Freese. What?

Wild pitchers. St. Louis went wild.

So did several hundred others.

I guess they were more committed.

So instead I headed back toward the stadium, pushing through Pujols jerseys.

“Rangers just scored,” I overheard, and then, “2-0.”

I found a place in right center, a gap between gates where I could stare at a television screen inside, along with thousands of people in red.

Two runs? Eh.

It was tied after an inning.

I shivered.

And then Allen Craig hit yet another home run to give St. Louis the lead.

I high-fived several men in their 50s, and a few women about my age.

And asked for more runs.

“YADI! YADI! YADI!” turned to roars for a bases loaded walk.

“He put in a lefty?” a man yelled, and cursed Ron Washington.

“He hit him! He hit him!” I cried, when that lefty and Furcal made it 5-2.

That catch. That catch. That catch.

Dotel ended the 7th with no runs in, and I looked at the people around me.

Bright eyes.

(And soon, 6-2, St. Louis.)

Only two innings left of the season, I thought.

Sad.

“6!”

“5!”

“4!”

People climbed up on the concrete barrier, clutching the fence with their fingers.

One man scaled the fence, and hopped inside the park.

A soldier grabbed him.

“Let him go!” the crowd yelled.

He didn’t. But there were more of us than them.

I hit the concrete with my gloved hands.

“We’re good on runs,” I thought but didn’t say.

(Because what if they came back?)

“2!”

“1!”

Fireworks and shrieks.

I caught a piece of red confetti.

And then I walked away, slapping hands with grinning fans.

I stepped over broken glass and bought a Post-Dispatch.

I stared at tiny fans standing on the very top of a parking garage.

And then I watched the Baseball Tonight crew turn around and smile.

Someone had set up a television so we could watch the show as it was taped.

(Like everyone else.)

Not at all like everyone else.

I called a friend to tell her where I was, and on that screen I saw “11th.”

And that could only be one team.

That’s when I knew.

I didn’t have a ticket.

I figured I wouldn’t be much happier inside the stadium if they won the World Series.

(Yes, I would be.)

But not that much.

I wandered toward the Hilton and cut back through a parking lot.

I stepped around Texans tossing footballs, and someone singing along with James Brown.

(At least the Texans have a backup, I thought.)

As I was walking back toward the stadium, a man approached me.

“You have such a great smile! I just noticed it right away!” he said.

(Hi.)

“Ah, thank you,” I told him.

He blinked twice, but his eyes stayed glassy.

He introduced himself and his girlfriend.

I shook their hands but forgot their names.

I told them I was at Game 6.

His girlfriend said they watched it at home. She fell asleep, until he woke her with a yell.

“Oh, my gosh!” she explained.

I smiled.

(It must’ve been 4 before I finally fell asleep.)

And then I saw a tall man walk by with an assistant.

“Hey,” I said, “Isn’t that Jack Clark?”

(But I knew that it was.)

“That’s Jack Clark!” I told the tailgater.

“Oh my god!” he said, and ran toward Clark to shake his hand.

(I couldn’t quite move. Plus, well.)

The tailgater returned.

“We’re just here in the parking lot and Jack Clark walked by. Now, that’s cool,” he said happily.

(And it was.)

“Have a beer with us!” he told me.

Why not?

He grabbed a can from a cooler and handed it to me.

Budweiser, of course, and mercifully cold.

A photographer in a green shirt asked the couple to pose on their truck for a photo.

The photographer stood on the hood and captured a kiss, with the stadium lights glowing in the background.

Then she asked the three of us to pose together.

“This is as close as I’m gonna get,” he told me, like he had to remind himself.

The couple told me to come back if I got bored, and he handed me a beer to pack into my shoulder bag.

Then they hugged me.

And I wandered away.

They didn’t score!

I just hoped David Freese would nurse a walk to start the inning.

“That was a ball! That was a ball!” I cried at a called strike.

“But remember, Albert, hit a … the count was 1-1 instead of 2-0 … I don’t even know what I’m saying!” I told Harold the fan.

(He grinned.)

And Freese swung on a 3-2 pitch, and that’s no way to get a walk.

But the ball kept flying until it landed in the grass between the bleachers.

And Freese jogged around those bases instead.

I threw my arms around the ushers and fans.

And yelled.

I don’t even know what.

A few minutes later, I hopped down the steps, and I paced in front of empty seats as I called my brother in Oregon.

He said the announcers called it the most exciting World Series game ever.

I said I could never attend a better baseball game.

(Besides the 5 errors, of course.)

If St. Louis would’ve won the World Series tonight, I would’ve passed out.

Instead I walked around in a daze, taking pictures of any fans who asked.

(Cardinal fans this time.)

“Get the scoreboard in the background!” they said.

I looked around the outfield grass, to the groundskeepers combing the infield, and the MLB Network crew near the Cardinals’ dugout.

I wish I had words, but all I heard were Jack Buck’s rattling in my ears.

“I don’t believe what I just saw.”

“That’s a big out!” I told fans around me.

(As if they didn’t know.)

Andrus ripped a single up the middle.

I looked around the stadium to forget the runner at 1st.

Hamilton launched a ball into the seats.

I grabbed the back of my head.

Texas fans grabbed the air above them.

I glanced at the lineup for the bottom of the 10th.

Descalso, Jay, pitcher’s spot.

But Darren Oliver?

Beltre couldn’t reach a foul ball, and Descalso ripped a single on the next pitch.

“Drop! Drop! Drop!” I yelled at a Jon Jay pop up.

It did! It did!

“Jackson can’t bunt!” I yelled at La Russa.

He agreed. Lohse tried instead, and nearly beat the throw to first.

(But I don’t like runners at first these days.)

Theriot grounded out to make it 9-8.

“I wouldn’t pitch to Albert either,” I told a fan next to me.

(Though he’s been reaching for low and away pitches since the end of September.)

Berkman rocked a mullet, and a single to center.

I watched a Texas fan choke back tears.

The Cards left two on to end the inning.

To the 11th!