There were thirty-seven Cubs hats, dark blue tops and a capital red C. Probably thirty-eight; the small brown woman with the dark eyes and green plastic boots and Cubs jacket and the Kroger bag pressed tightly against her chest may have had a hat inside, but Brian’s dad wouldn’t let him walk the length of the el car to find out. And then the train pulled into Wilson Avenue with a screech of its brakes that made Brian’s ears sting and seven more people came into the door closest to where they were standing and maybe another eight or nine in the middle door and who knows how many through the door at the far end and he had to begin counting all over. At least twelve jackets, with the red circle inside a blue circle and a large red C, and smaller ubs inside of that, which of course spelled "Cubs," and that was only as far as he could see because the car had gotten so crowded. His father squeezed Brian’s hand and Brian squeezed right back to say everything was good, but he held his mitt in the other hand tight against his heart where it belonged. Was there a chance someone could get in the way of his catching a foul ball? When he told his dad that wouldn’t be fair his dad laughed and said of course not, it would be foul, and he laughed and Brian laughed and squeezed his father’s hand without being asked.

The minute his father told him on Monday he’d been able to get tickets for Saturday’s game, Brian threw everything in that stinky space under the sink onto the kitchen floor until he found a can of oil he had to open by turning a key that reminded him of a butterfly to get the top off and then he oiled his glove twice and tied it with string he found on the workbench in the basement and his mother made him put everything back in exactly the same space while Marci laughed and said her brother was a dork.

Later, his mom let him put the glove under his pillow so his head could act as a weight to help bring the webbing into perfect shape while he slept, which he said was killing two birds with one stone, which was something Grandpa always said, and made her laugh at the fellow she called her little boy, and he said he wasn’t so little, and she made him put it into two baggies so the oil wouldn’t get all over the sheets, but that was okay because the webbing would be perfect.

And then it started raining when he went to bed on Thursday and was raining even harder when he got up to go to school on Friday and the thought that the game might end up being cancelled sent him into action. Listen, God. He almost never prayed. Grandma and grandpa did but his parents said they were children of the sixties, but this was serious business, so he didn’t hesitate. Listen, God, if you stop the rain, I’ll be good to Marci for a week. Deal? And then it rained even heavier throughout the day Friday than it had on Thursday and their teacher wouldn’t let anyone go outside for recess so they had to hang around the gym for twenty minutes complaining. Okay, two weeks. Are you paying attention up there?

And then another station stop and more people and too many Cubs hats and jackets to even think about counting. It was raining when they left the house, but his dad said, "What the hell, Tom Skilling said it’s supposed to slow down, so what say you to giving it a shot," and of course the answer was “yes,” but when the doors opened to let all these new people in, Brian heard thunder and he thought the game was going to be rained out despite all the bargaining he’d done and he had to struggle to hold back his tears.

Someone said Rick Sutcliffe was going to pitch, that big bushy guy with the red beard, he was mowing them down lately. That got everyone talking at once. English. Spanish. Something his father said was Polish or maybe Russian, they sounded alike. But then someone mentioned Ryne Sandberg’s name and then someone else and then no matter what tongue was used it sounded like something somebody in church would say if they ever went to church. And then there was more thunder and Brian upped the ante and said One month, God. Thirty days. He spoke to himself, of course, or maybe to himself and God, whatever He happened to be doing at the moment, which probably wasn’t paying attention to the weather at Clark and Addison. A full month.

And then the doors opened and everyone moved at once toward the wooden platform, five or six abreast and stretching as far ahead and back as he could imagine and then down the stairs and out the door of the station, where the air smelled of hot dogs and warm pretzels and rain. They walked through three puddles and there were six more ahead of them and before he got to the fourth puddle Brian said Forty-five days, just like that, and when his father said let’s get a bag of peanuts, he said sure, and when they finally made it into the park he slid under the turnstile and then a woman whose hair was whiter than grandma’s asked if he needed help finding his seat, and when he finally got to see the field for the very first time in his life the whole infield was covered with a green tarp and he wanted to run around on it and pretend he was sliding into second base.

Their seats were wet, but some nice man with a towel dried them off and they sat and Brian’s dad told him to look at the scoreboard, a giant green block of letters and numbers with this huge round white and green clock on top and on top of that two flagpoles with the flags of the teams posted in the order of where each club was in the standings at the moment and the Cubs were on top. His dad said that was because they were on fire at the moment.

There was one box that was all black because a man inside the scoreboard had taken out a pane and poked his hand out to feel the rain and then his head and Brian looked at the man and was sure the man looked back at him and Brian said Sixty days so that the God in the scoreboard but not his father would hear. Okay? And the scoreboard man seemed to nod and what do you know, after about ten minutes the rain did seem to slow down a bit and Brian knew he’d have to be nice to his little pest of a sister for two full months, but that was okay because the game wouldn’t be rained out, and then a bunch of men came onto the field with a tube that looked like the inside of a huge roll of paper towel and began winding up the green tarp from the infield and it was as brown and dry as the Sahara, which they just happened to be studying at the moment in geography, and then a woman in a jacket with the same big blue and red circles and large C and small ubs walked to a microphone someone had set up on home plate and began singing in a voice his father said reminded him of Joan Baez, and Brian didn’t know who Joan Baez was but he didn’t care because it wasn’t raining even one drop and when she got to the part in the song about the land of the free and the home of the brave everyone in the whole stadium began clapping and cheering, including his dad, and then the Cubbies ran out onto the field and Brian and his dad both threw their arms in the air, and at the moment Ryne Sandberg got to second base and began sweeping the dirt between second and first in long arcs with his right foot, the clouds parted slightly and a shaft of light hit him right on the forehead and he smiled.

Then God inside the scoreboard smiled and lifted his right thumb straight up into the air and Brian lifted his right thumb straight into the air too and the umpire behind the plate pulled his mask down over his face and shouted “play ball” and Brian punched the inside of his glove because he was certain a ball would be coming his way soon.