Gee and Turner Tell Dickey Their Secret

Dillon Gee kicked back a cold one, feet on the ottoman, gazing out the window of the 35th floor of the Mets building. He had just shut out the Braves. He felt like 400,000 bucks. Yeah.

R.A. Dickey descended the stairs from the 43rd floor. His mind was a quagmire of quibble sticks. Every restaurant he went to was booked. Strangers coughs would arbitrarily point toward him. He received parking tickets, though he did not own a car. Something was amiss.

As he stepped out onto the 35th landing, a thunderous trample was heard by both ears. It was Justin Turner, crashing about like a friendly rhino. He was knock knock knocking on Dillon Gee's door before Dickey could get there. R.A. faced a choice. He had hoped to pick Gee's brain, but the exuberance of Turner would likely prevent this. Justin had made a name for himself by "turning into a monkey" at random throughout the day. He would drop a conversation on the team bus to climb precariously onto the back's of the seats. Hooting and demanding bananas. One time, while standing on second base in a spring training game, Turner dropped let his arms swing down by his knees, and while everyone was waiting for the pitch he scampered over to the opposing dugout, jumped on its roof a number of times, then ran into the crowd, spilling people's drinks whenever he could. "I just have to be me," he explained.

R.A. thought about turning back, but he had come this far, and his only plan for the evening was to read Wittgenstein's Tractatus, which he had already done several times before. When the door opened for Turner, he followed him in without a word.

"R.A.? No way!" said Turner. "We've been talking about you! You're like a stegosaurus!"

"But I have lost my thunderous stego-stomp," said R.A. wistfully.

"We've been talking about it," said Gee. "You know what you have to do?"

"What?" said Dickey.

"It's easy," said Turner.

"What is it?" Dickey asked.

"Real easy," said Gee.

"Stupid easy?" said Turner.

"Easy as the third bite of pie," said Gee.

"And that's the easiest one," said Turner.

"Because you're not too full," said Gee.

"And you've already established that it's your pie," added Turner.

"You just gotta..." Gee started.

"You gotta you gotta you gotta," said Turner with a mini-headbang.

"You gotta just look at the batter's face," said Gee.

"You have to notice the pitcher's nose," said Turner.

"You gotta really see his face," said Gee.

"Like it's more than just knowing that there is a face there," said Turner.

"You gotta really see that face with your eyes," said Gee.

I'm not going to write out the whole thing, but this went on for literally 44 minutes, which is a really long time for that sort of thing.

Dickey thanked them for their high energy, if incomprehensible advice. He got in the building's not especially fast elevator and went down to the ground floor to take a walk.

"Greetings Richard Alan," said Pops the doorman. "A late night stroll?"

Dickey looked his way. He saw eyes. He saw a nose. He saw a mustache that covered most of Pops' mouth. He saw his face. He saw his face. Then, instinctively, he walked out the door like a gila monster.