September 23, 2002

A photo of Markos' actual arms, on this actual occasion, having some years later been converted into an art project.

Markos and I were in my apartment drinking mescal, which he explained that, because it's made from a cactus (or something), is supposed to give a much cleaner drunk, more like a psychedelic than regular alcohol. And as we rode our bikes over the bridges of Hiroshima, having polished off the whole bottle, it did seem that everything had a ringing clarity unlike what you usually get with booze. It was indeed a lot more like being stoned. Less mental static, more brilliant colors and hypnotically beautiful textures.
      We made it inside the ballpark with our stash of rum to guard against any encroaching sobriety that might have tried to crash our party. The Hiroshima Carp were playing some other team, but I remember nothing of the game at all, except for an American first baseman on the other team name O'Malley. There was a chant that the fans would do that went "da-da-DA, da-da-da-DA." We soon made the Nobel Prize-worthy discovery that this rhythm perfectly matched the words "O'Malley, you fucking suck!" Now, it's not that we even knew who the hell O'Malley was or anything, but we suddenly became very enthusiastic about the idea of screaming this whenever the crowd started in with their chant, and doing it so loud that ol' O'Malley himself (who was playing about thirty rows in front of us) would actually hear it. Great idea, eh?
      There were some kids sitting near us who were curious about what it was we were screaming, and we explained that it was something to support the Carp. We tried to teach them the chant too, but they just couldn't get it. About the third inning, we finally screamed loud enough that O'Malley did hear. He turned around and looked our way. He looked pissed. Markos and I hugged each other and laughed a laugh of pure terror. O'Malley was going to scale the fence and come up there and beat our stupid skinny white asses. It wasn't like we would be hard to find. That was all he had to do, just look our way, to shut us up forever.
      After the game we wandered over to the Peace Park where, about 50 yards from the A-bomb epicenter, Markos passed out on a park bench. This was seriously discouraging, because I had thought the festivities were just getting started. I tried to revive him, but no luck. Dude was out. I left him there and rode off to play some video games and do some window shopping. Came back to find he hadn't moved at all. I left again and went to a convenience store where I bought a disposable camera. I took a whole roll of pictures of Markos passed out on that bench, some with my own face inserted in the frame, some with the flash going off inches from his face (still hoping he would wake up), and some from the top of a near-by tree.
      Several months after returning to Ohio, I got a letter from one of those kids at the ballpark. It turned out I had given him my address, and the little guy actually wrote me a letter. Drew me a picture and everything. Please write back, he begged, but I never did, proving that I fucking suck worse than O'Malley.