Last home game of the season

Last home game today. Fifty-four degrees, which is the only weather Captain Corny was built for. For the first time since May I could feel my hands.

The costume smells different in October. In May it smells of foam and the warehouse. By July it smells of me. By October it smells of something that has had a long and complicated life, and seen things, and would like to lie down. I know the feeling.

They had me do a proposal in the fourth inning. A young man in section 12 had arranged it with the front office. My job was to walk up the steps with a sign that said WILL YOU, then turn it round, and the other side said MARRY ME, and then the camera would find them. I’ve done three before. Two said yes. One said “Can we talk about this at home,” and I had to walk back down the steps, slowly, an ear of corn holding a sign that no longer meant anything.

Today was a yes. She cried, he cried, the big screen showed it all and the crowd stood up. She hugged me. She said, “Thank you, Corny.” In six seasons nobody has ever thanked him. I nodded the big nod. Inside, I was having a moment I can’t fully explain.

Seventh inning: the corn song, as many verses as we got through, which was six. The intern who wrote it, Kelsey, came down to watch from the dugout for the last one. She’s going back to college. She mouthed the words with me. I didn’t know she knew I knew them.

We lost, three to two. A good loss. The kind you can live with.

After, I took the costume to the laundry room, which means I put it in the big sink and hosed it down, which is all the laundry it gets. I took the head off last. I always take the head off last. Then I sat on the bench and looked at him for a while, Captain Corny, propped against the lockers, smiling through the mesh, missing a leaf.

People ask why I keep doing it. The money is bad. The heat is worse. My back is the back of a much older man. But somewhere in Twin Rivers there’s a six-year-old who thinks a vegetable can also be a person.

See you in April, Corny.