Wingman

A good friend recounted the following story recently; names are withheld to protect the innocent.

So my friend and her husband were working somewhere in Florida back in the early 1990's, scratching by with one job and a one-year-old baby. The spare room went to a spare fellow, a bachelor also in the baseball business; I'll call him "M". M was a generous housemate, but not exactly child-oriented. Thus my friend was surprised when M offered to take the baby - let's call him "DJ" - for a Sunday afternoon. Free babysitting, however, is always welcome, so my friend and her husband took the opportunity to go out on a rare date. They returned to find baby and housemate happy and healthy. So far so good; M offered to take DJ again the next Sunday, and the next. M, apparently, was enjoying his 'dates' with DJ; and the parents were presumably enjoying their dates as well.

On their way home one day, the parents stopped at a bar. The name of the bar escapes me, but my friend remembers vividly to this day. A big mirror shimmered behind the bar, a cloud of cigarette smoke floated under yellow lights, and the bartender moved amiably from customer to customer. Further down the bar, two ladies of the type who go to bars alone were leaning over a carseat on the bar. In front of the carseat sat M; in the carseat sat his wingman, DJ.