Bobby Sullivan found reality during the bottom of the ninth. At the end of a hard American day of time-clocked construction drudgery. Bobby went out, bought a six-pack and some beer nuts, and propped his smelly feet up on the milk crate in his living room and watched the ball game. It was his way of relaxing, though certainly not his exclusively (this fact bothered him); tonight, as was the case with most of his terminal summer nights, the ball game was all he had to look forward to.

And he was certainly looking forward to it. Bobby always loved baseball, had played Little League when he was young and later on he pitched for his high school team. But college--well, he couldn't understand what was happening in college so he dropped out, having decided to make some money in construction instead. No money in Kant or Hegel, he reasoned. There were plenty of philosophy students mopping floors until midnight for minimum wage, and Bobby had grander aspirations: he wanted a fast, sleazy car, a pool, a color TV, an air conditioner, a wife who looked like Cheryl Tiegs, and plenty of beer.

He already had most of those pure American joys, including a new Trans Am with stripes of fire painted down the side (ultimate sleaze), but the milk crate under his feet was a nagging paen to what seemed like an eternal and fruitless search for happiness in wealth. He often wondered what he had to look for to find happiness; Bobby Sullivan'd been working construction now for five years, and his aging muscles tugged and strained on him, painful but, fastidious friends of his own mortality.

Aside from the dull, in candescent glow of his Woolworth's lamp, Bobby's color T.V. was the only light in his living room. It sent a stupifying green-purple din into his soul, increasing his sense of urban isolation and loneliness. He couldn't find any women who would go out with him that evening, and his buddies were probably whooping it up in the backs of their pickups (or so he thought). But Bobby had his color T.V. and Ken Harrelson and Dick Stockton, and with Rick Burleson up against Ron Guidry, the count was 0-and-2. It was better than drinking alone.

Strike three. Christ-a tie ball game. It really got Bobby's bile up when the high-paid hitters couln't hit homeruns during clutch situations. They're pulling in hundreds of thousands of dollars to play a game and he had to leave home and sweat away eight hours a day at meaningless work. By the time he would get home he'd be too tired to do anything but drink beer and watch a ball game, a captive audience. There were so many useless people in America -- he was grinding his teeth now -- ball players who can't win, philosophy students who don't know the meaning of reality...

Huh. Another swill of beer brought some more bile up. Just that evening he was waiting for the Watertown Square bus after work, sitting on an ancient bench in the urine-soaked subway when some freak hauling a queer knap-sack pushed his waist-length hair back behind his shoulders and began arguing with his chum about "perceptions of reality."

"C'mon, man, what kind of crap is this about 'the real world.' What do you mean when you say you want to get away from school and experience the real world -- this is the real world. What you see in the here and now. Reality is constantly changing and it's different for every person who perceives it."

What kind of bullshit was this, Bobby thought, the kid doesn't know what's real and what ain't.

A dumpy, buck-toothed idiot poked Bobby in the arm.

"You got a dime for two nickels?" he asked.

"Sure," Bobby said, pulling a dime from his pocket.

"Naah, I mean a dime for two nickels," the idiot replied, inadvertantly spitting pieces of ice cream cone and spittle all over Bobby's green work-pants as he spoke. Bobby grimaced, looked at him with a twisted faceful of disgust, "You mean two nickels for a dime."

"Na, I mean a dime for two nickels."

"Yeah, well I don't have it." Bobby turned abruptly away from the bore and fastened his eyes on the confusing "Heaven Can Wait" billboard advertisement across the way. The idiot turned on his Panasonic portable high-powered supersonic radio/tape machine with big sound holes and switches, blaring intolerable music. He poked Bobby in the arm again.

"I always carry my tunes wit me, huh-huh..." Bobby kept his eyes trained on the Warren Beatty ad, his shoulders hunched away from the bestial slob.