Eighteen: Company Outing (08-03-2022)
He was stuck at a work outing. Every time the boss excitedly announced that the entire staff would be attending an event together, he would be struck with immediate fear and worry, and begin plotting the ideal way to leave it in a timely manner. In this case, he was truly hopelessly trapped. In the middle of a long row of seats, sandwiched between rowdy coworkers and hyper-focused bosses, eager to make the most of their tickets, he was being forced to bake in the midsummer sun at a baseball game between two teams he cared very little about. There was no escape.
Upon arrival, he had made sure to casually mention plans for later in the afternoon, conjuring up the time of four o clock as a rough estimation of when he would need to leave, hoping that the game would not run so late, but also that he may readjust the time earlier to account for traffic or stadium times if need be. This excuse had worked before, at a company-paid trip to an upscale driving range, and he assumed it would work again. However, looking at the game, which was running slower than expected, and had only entered the third inning, he feared a departure now, at two thirty, would be too early and look ungrateful to the bosses who had paid for the trip.
He was lucky there was a subway station near the stadium, he had made it very clear he would not need a return ride to the office to go home, as that would only lengthen his return commute, and tie him to the departure time of his coworker chauffeur. He took out his phone to check the train times, hoping a regional train was coming at a time soon enough to be his excuse to leave. His coworker tapped him, "we're up", and he had to return his nonfocus to the game in front of him. It was unclear who "we" was, as the game was a town over, between two teams not local to the company's headquarters, and most of the staff had relocated from other nearby cities and had existing allegiances anyway.
The man, prisoner to his good graces, felt a bead of sweat run down between his pecks and dribble across his stomach, devoid of food. He would, as always, refuse to overpay for food, and quietly hope a boss or coworker would offer to share or treat. There was a man on third and a man on first, the team at bat, of which he knew no players, had two runs this inning. Could a foul ball reach this section of seats?
His boss, to his right, tapped him. "I'm headed to the bathroom." The man also had an increasingly urgent need to go, with the oppressive sun boiling the urine out of his bladder, but would now have to wait, fearful of the optics and awkwardness of being a bathroom tag-along. He decided to go anyway, his animalistic needs outweighing his social quandaries. As he walked to the bathroom a stride behind his superior, he noted the exits. One only a hundred feet from their section, another only another fifty feet further, which dispensed in the direction of the train station, and would reduce his time in the sun.
The urinals at the stadium were relatively clean, the sinks only lightly clogged, the air dryer slightly more effective than bare minimum. The boss was drying his hands next to him, and the man thought that now would be a good time to remind him of his need to depart before the game ended. The only person on the staff who absolutely, logistically needed to know the man was leaving was the boss, but two problems would come of him leaving now. First, he would have talked to his boss in the bathroom, after having their penises share the same open air. Second, the boss was not one to tell coworkers information that is not totally critical in any given moment, and they would be suspicious of the man's absence, likely suspecting he slipped away on the way to or from the bathroom.
On the way back to the seats, the boss answered one of the man's prayers, buying him a hot dog and small beer, although the man wanted a water, knowing the diuretic properties of the light beer would hasten his next trip to the bathroom, and he already suspected he had garnered a reputation for frequent bathroom trips at the office, a quality he would like to omit from this company outing. He had no further choice in the manner, and hoped that the gracious acceptance of the food and drink would ingratiate him enough with the boss for his upcoming early departure to be less obtuse.
As he lowered himself back in his seat, he realized his doom. It was hotter now than before, the fourth inning had only just begun, and the coworker to his left was in conversation about in-game sports bets. His boss, who had used good company money to pay for the trip, would have no intention of leaving early, and his thoroughly liquored and gambling-addicted coworkers were just getting comfortable. The man's mind drifted to his chair at home, his refurbished AC unit, the cold sparkling waters in his fridge. The clack of the bat on the ball, the beating of cleat on sand, and the drone of sun in his ears made him dream feverishly more.