“There’s No Place Our Love Will Be Easy Again”
“There’s No Place Our Love Will Be Easy Again”
By Mike Salisbury
THIS IS A STORY ABOUT LOVE. It’s about the things we love and the things we want to love us. Joe DiMaggio knows a thing or two about love. He loves getting things for free, whether it’s an apartment with hundreds of thousands of dollars in furnishings, or bags of pretzels from the American Airlines lounge, where he always crams his pockets. Or, this Cadillac, a gift for his endorsement deal with Cadillac Avenue of Hollywood, Florida. “What a wild world,” he said the first time he took one off the lot to much fanfare. You would’ve thought he was an astronaut, taking off on a maiden voyage to some far-off world.
Behind the dealership, DiMaggio kills time going through his old car. Opening the console, the glove compartment. He pockets the garage door clicker and pops the cassette tape of The Old Man & the Sea out of the stereo player. He’s too early. The dealership is still waking up.
DiMaggio hears her before he sees her. She’s sitting on a crate just outside the bay door, crying. Her elbows bent, hands outstretched, she talks to them, arguing with herself. She’s dressed for work, a blouse and pumps; maybe she works here at the dealership. Probably does, but who knows? He can tell by the runny mascara and her pleas that this is about love. There’s no easy love. None that DiMaggio has found, anyway. He wishes he could walk over to her, tell her these things. No one listens to advice, especially about love. They’d rather run their mouths all day and night.
He tries not to stare at her, but it’s too late – she’s seen him now. She quickly dabs her eyes with a tissue and begins standing up before going inside the office. He’s ashamed, like when he rubbernecks a traffic accident. Those private, quiet moments should be yours and yours alone.
Checking his wristwatch, impatiently, he begins to get out of the car, the cassette tape in hand. He watches the manager drive up with the new one.
If anyone had to guess, say you told them they’d win a grand or two if they could guess what’s in Joe DiMaggio’s cassette player, they’d say The Graduate, the one with the song “Mrs. Robinson” by Simon & Garfunkel. Where have you gone? He was right here and never understood what that song was about. But he’d tell you he was glad the musicians didn’t use that bum, Mickey Mantle.
He shrugs off Mr. Ten Commandments, Charlton Heston, The Old Man and the Sea’s narrator, even when he says, in his heavy, baritone voice: “Do you believe the great DiMaggio would stay with a fish as long as I will stay with this one? I am sure he would because he is young and strong.” Those tapes are a time machine to Joe’s father, who was also a fisherman. To listen to this book is to conjure his father, to be in the boat with him back in San Francisco Bay, even if DiMaggio’s only driving the streets of Hollywood, Florida.
The manager is standing before him, uttering the same phrases DiMaggio has heard hundreds of times now, how thankful they are, how much they appreciate him. But it’s the thing at the end that snaps him to attention. “Nothing more American than a Cadillac, except maybe blondes,” the manager says, with a smile, offering his hand for a shake on it.
Love is really nostalgia. People love DiMaggio. But what they really love is who he was—Joltin’ Joe, the Yankee Clipper. That was then, and this is now. The years of self-imposed emptiness stack up like baseball cards. You can reach for the past, but that doesn’t mean it won’t flinch. DiMaggio knows this. He longs to be haunted, but all the ghosts are gone. He’s 68 years old and lives alone with his rules: Never mention Sinatra or the Kennedys. Never be late. Never ask for a signature on something during a meal. Never wear the wrong color outfit. Never mention Monroe, ever.
DiMaggio shrugs off the manager and takes the keys anyway. He gives him a look before walking directly over to the new Cadillac.
Inside the car, he sets the tapes down in the passenger seat. Adjusts the mirrors. Gripping the steering wheel, he thinks: Forgiveness – for yourself, for others—is a lot like love. It’s a pitch you shouldn’t take.
Author’s Note: The title of this story is from a line in the poem “Craft Fairs, Picuris Pueblo” by Kim Addonizio.
Mike Sailsbury‘s fiction has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Midwestern Gothic, and Crab Orchard Review, among others. Mike is a graduate of the MFA program at Pacific University. He is the co-creator of the graphic novel The Quarry (Scout Comics). He lives with his wife and daughters along Michigan’s West Coast.
Elliot Lin is a college student who spends their free time musing about sports and how they shape or reflect identity. You can find their other baseball-related illustrations here, on Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram.