Counterfeit

We were both heading to Spokane for a conference. This fellow Ron, who by chance had the seat next to me on the plane, hails from Boston, works in media relations. He’s a self-assured, opinionated presence, youngish, a bit of a hipster. He had a David Foster Wallace poking out of his knapsack, like a ship’s prow, and was passing the time by going over with a pencil a short-story draft from a fiction workshop he was taking. He paused now and then to chortle at the inadequacies of his absent classmate.

“Read this,” he said giggling, pointing at one particular howler. After I nodded and smiled appreciatively, we conversed for a while. It was October, playoff time, and he—amiably slumming—professed to be part of Red Sox nation, a diehard fan. He told of cruising through Cambridge after the last out in ’04, the year the Curse was lifted. What it was like to be in the streets, how he high-fived an overexuberant drunk leaning out of a taxi and almost had his arm taken off. What a scene!

Pretty soon, though, his story started to unravel. He couldn’t remember the name of Josh Beckett, Boston’s towering, soul-patched ace—“the big guy, the pitcher” was the best he could muster. And the awkward way he spoke about Fenway—“It’s one of the oldest ballparks in the country”—suggested he’d been there once, recently, and had known nothing of the hallowed grounds before that. I threw him a look, but we moved on to another topic.

It was not until an evening reception a couple days later that my suspicions were irrevocably confirmed. It was the day of Game 6, the pivotal win against Cleveland. Ron, craving attention, piped up about having watched the first few innings in the hotel bar. Boston had jumped out early when J.D. Drew, the underachieving right fielder, uncoiled on a 3-1 fastball with the bases loaded. “It was incredible!” Ron gushed. “The Red Sox made a grand slam!”

Made a grand slam? They made one? There was a moment’s pause. The guys within earshot eyed each other uncomfortably. No one challenged Ron directly on his faux pas: This was a meeting of science writers, after all, some of whom were on firmer ground talking about neutrinos. But from that moment on, everyone knew—I knew, at any rate—that this fellow Ron was not to be trusted.