The Spring of Lou

Of course, I watch. How could I not? That, and to bobble, is my purpose, as it is of all my friends with me on this dresser. My name’s Lou, and I was my owner’s first. It didn’t take long for more to join us as Matt’s passion for America’s pastime grew. My teammates and I stand a few feet behind him when he sits at his desk to listen to games. Our heads are steady and waiting with anticipation until he turns around, chooses one of us, maybe more, and flicks our caps.

“Let’s go, boys! Moose is on the mound, and the offense is clicking. We got this one,” Matt cheers to voices coming from the radio in the blue light of his computer.

“There it goes,” the announcer yells. “A leadoff long ball for Derek. Four bases, one run, and the Yankees go up 1-0.”

“Matt, dinner’s ready. Come on down.”

“But Mom, the game. Can’t I eat up here and listen?”

Yeah, common, Mom, let him stay, I think, as I'm sure the others do.

Matt swivels in his chair and looks into my painted eyes, flicks the tip of my cap, and mimics my bobbing head. “I’ll eat real quick, boys. Time me, and I’ll be back soon. It’s a commercial, and then the other team’s batting. I can do it.”

We know the rule: our heads can only bobble when Matt makes them. Matt could hardly contain his excitement when I arrived. He tore right through my cardboard packaging. Mom had to intervene before he ripped the wire ties right off my legs, possibly chipping them in the process.

Our heads are still going when Matt leaves. The springs at our necks squeak the faintest, perhaps quieter than a hummingbird’s wings. This movement tells us we're alive. A flick now and then from the Matt keeps them greased, and this continued for many years. We grew accustomed to our owner’s youthful spirit. I assured some of the other bobbleheads who had previous owners that our springs would never rust with Matt. He had life with him, and he understood our purpose - to bob. We moved, of course, to college, then for jobs. I lost some friends along the way, and their disappearances were tragic, but that's the life of a collectible.

Sadly, though, when we reached our current home, it was just the original three of us - me, the Babe, and Phil. The three of us stand alone in isolated shelves of a bookcase put in a corner. The master has aged, and his spirit is of a much harsher nature now.

“Why the hell did the deal fall through?” he asks through a small device. “We had them. We flew out there for what? You tell me, this is your account. Yeah…well, this is going to hurt your chances at quota this quarter.”

A ding sounds from the kitchen. Matt grabs his food and goes into his room without a single glance at us or a tap on our caps. My painted field grass base, on which I stand, is caked in dust.

The doorbell rings. The keyboard clacking from my owner’s room stops. I’m excited, but I still know the drill - no movement unless Matt commands it. I keep the small space of polyresin and hard plastic inside my chest where I imagine my heart is still. My owner emerges with hard footsteps and noodles hanging from his mouth. He presses the buzzer, “Yup. 2nd floor. 2A.”

Quick footsteps approach, and within the doorway stands a big-boned boy with curly hair and rosy cheeks, but most important, deep in those blue eyes, is an emotion I haven't seen in a long time: pure, innocent elation. “Hello, sir,” the boy says, his smile stretching wide.

How nice it must be to control your facial features, I think.

Something green moves to Matt’s hands, then quickly into his pocket as he turns in one precise movement, as if he’s on the same assembly line I was born on. The floor creaks beneath his feet, and he’s looking right at me. His hand stretches towards me.

Oh, goodie. The spirit is back. It’s time for our heads to nod again, boys!

But then, his eyes twitch away from me, and his hands go to my friends, The Babe and Phil. He doesn’t give them a flick but picks them up, carries them in the most unkind way, on their sides at his side, to the door. The kid takes them with glee.

“Here you go. Have a good night,” Matt says, and the last I see of The Babe and Phil is the tops of their navy baseball caps.

***

There is a particular kind of loneliness that exists in objects that humans cannot understand. It’s the knowing that your warmth and belonging depend on someone you cannot talk to or show emotion to. Lou had been alone in his section of the shelf for a while and hadn’t seen his friends in so long that now, with these fake wood walls, they felt even colder, knowing no one was on the other side. Lou contemplated, as perhaps the books behind him did too, whether he mattered anymore or was a burden to the grown-up Matt. Perhaps he never belonged in the way he thought, and he was living the cruel truth: an inanimate object’s role is to appease someone’s life only, and once that need is outgrown, to the trash or into the hands of another it was. The reality he lived was fickle.

***

I know this glow. An azure brightness emerges into the room. It’s small and distant, and it's coming from an apartment across the street. Two figures jump in front of it, and my ears tingle with a low, soft buzzing that grows ever higher.

It’s cheering! But how? My once young owner is in his bedroom.

The image within the blue light grows, as if it’s right in front of me - a pitcher staring down a batter. The cheers from the figures, one taller than the other, flood my ears.

“He’s gonna get 'em, Dad. I just know it. The slider’s coming.”

“You think so, bud.”

“Hey, don’t flick the hat, Dad. You know the rules, steady and straight.”

You know the rules. Oh, how I miss those days, and I wish I could break mine. But I am beholden to his role and how my maker made me. Still, my will to scuttle to the edge and over grows. I try my hardest while memories flood me - days I can never get back with young Matt, when I and the other bobbleheads were part of the game and an almost nightly ritual during the summer months.

The light flashes off, and the cheers silence, and the apartment lies in darkness, except for a slim light jetting from Matt’s bedroom. Silence and the darkness are one until, like a tremor on the air from a passing car, the flap, flap, flap of a sobbing comes. But to my ears, there is a familiar vibration in it I recognize, and, as one does when they’ve been standing and listening their whole life, their sense of touch and hearing strengthen. When your world is small, as it is for a bobblehead, there’s less to clutter the remembrance of where memories first came.

Within this tremor, I sense disappointment, the same disappointment I felt when…

“But, Mom, the game. Can’t I eat up here?” I remember his plea.

The world was simpler for young Matt once. Of course, the other bobbleheads and I wanted him to stay, but there would be other nights. There were for so many years until there weren’t.

A door creaks, footsteps sound, and the sobbing grows clearer, mixed with sniffles.

Oh, Matt, you can still make a choice.

Matt sits on the couch, turns on the TV, and the roar of a crowd fills the room.

“To the fourth we go,” says the announcer. “The game is young, and it’s 1-1. There’s a lot left to happen."

An epiphany elates me as I try to move forward. Perhaps it’s time to break the rules. Rust crusts my springs, but dog gonnit, Matt has to know.

Squeak.

Try harder, Lou, I tell myself with every fiber of strength to get my springs to move.

Squeak. Squeak.

Matt curls his lips in a somber expression.

Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.

Matt’s head lurches, his eyes to mine as I’ve done it, broken the rules, and my head goes up and down. He approaches on cautious steps. I understand why. I’m an inanimate object for gosh sakes. Then he kneels, reaches for my base, and brings me forward. Warmth flushes his cold hands.

“Come with me, Lou. My first,” he hesitates and sighs heavily. “And my last.” He carries me away. I’m feet above the ground, and if he loosens his grip, I’m a goner. He doesn’t, though, nor does he take me to the big, bad box of waste. Instead, he sits and puts me on the coffee table facing him. My head rocks more with the impact, and it’s the happiest rocking in a long time. I watch him while he watches tonight’s baseball game all the way to the final pitch.

“Good game, Lou.” Matt flicks my cap, and I put just a little extra spring into it. “I missed this,” he says, then retreats to his room.

As for me, I stay bobbing while the apartment settles into slumber. I’m the last one standing, but I was also the first. Matt is sticking with me, and it's wonderful to see the love of the game sticking with him. I am but an object bound by the limits and desires of my owner. I try my hardest to sound words from my painted mouth, “Welcome back. Let’s do it again tomorrow. I’d like to stay, if you let me.”