The Vagabond

Vag took a long drag on his beer and glowered at the two idiots capering in the middle of the floor. They had been capering for nearly two hours now, and Vag wished they would go to bed. But the idiots went right on with their rhapsodic swaying.

Gotta keep your back straight ... pure Allais, of course, and it goes like this and always leaves the demonstrator on the rug ... then, after all, that's all wrong, and something called Arlberg (not in Life magazine, so who knows?) is really ... can't have your can sticking out ... really an almost metaphysical thing, you know: counter-rotation is the essence.

All day long they do it, thought Vag, and do it alike, and then they sit down at night and theorize. Every time it snows, the same fanatics reach for the ace bandages and head north. Now, with crocuses showing in the courtyards, it was snowing again.

Vag, despairing of quiet, picked up the paper and found himself reading the sports section. Then the Great Thing happened. It was a small headline: "Tribe, Sox Head South for Pre-Season Training." Very quietly he picked up a shattered half-ski and hefted it; cocking his wrists, he saw little white balls, not flakes, bouncing off the left field wall in the sun.

Out like a lamb and the Grapefruit League too, thought Vag, making a mental note to write for these opening day seats.