CLOAK AND DAGGER AT IBR

By Jeff Elijah, International Baseball Rundown

Back in 1991 I was part of a group of people who shared a funky office in Downers Grove, Illinois, near Chicago. 'Funky' isn't usually an appropriate word for the suburbs, but that office above Chuck's Meat Market on Curtiss Street was funky because of what was going on inside. That's where International Baseball Rundown began ... and also APS Services ... and Tulita's ... and Photograph Friends ... and Desktop Express …and a few other start-up businesses.

We had fixed up the place for the building's landlord. In return he gave us a great deal on rent. Our office door in the second-floor hallway was covered with business cards taped to the window. Each represented an effort by someone inside to break away from a structured working life and strike out on his (or her) own.

One common denominator was that we always seemed to be carrying something up or down the long stairway. It was a rare day when we climbed or descended the stairs empty handed, and we weren't too worried about the impression we might have been making on the other people who worked in the building.

As we began, none of us knew where any of it would lead, but we were happy to be underway and making the effort and working in our own place, at our own pace, and on our own time. There was a spirit of chaotic camaraderie. I liked to work in the early mornings, my brothers preferred late nights. A light was always burning above Chuck's Meat Market. People were always coming in and out, carrying things.

One afternoon I heard someone talking in the next office. It was Newt, the owner of an insurance company. He had moved his office into the building a few months after we did. Newt was talking very loud and it wasn't difficult to hear.

"What are they doing in there, Dave? Can you tell me? What are they doing in there? Do you know?" Newt said.

"It's a baseball magazine thing, and a painting business, and a ... a... some kind of flower thing," said Dave, who owned Chuck's Meat Market downstairs. He had inherited the meat business, and the building, from his father.

"A flower thing! What are they doing in there? At five in the morning someone is there, at midnight someone is there. There's always someone there." Newt's voice was rising. "And they're always carrying things up and down the stairs, like some kind of moving service. What's all of that for? And what is Photograph Friends? It's mysterious, Dave. What are they doing in there?"

"I don't know, Newt. Just trying to make some money, I guess."

"It's a front. It's a CIA front."

"Come on, Newt. Take it easy."

"I don't like it."

Sitting at my desk, I bit down on my shirt sleeve to make sure Newt and Dave didn't hear me laughing.

The next day Newt knocked on my door to ask if he could see what we had done with the office.

"Dave told me you fixed it up," he said. "Do you mind if I take a look? I'm thinking about having some painting done at my house and I want to see what kind of work you guys do."

As I showed him around the office, I thought his head would snap off from jerking it around so quickly and so far. He was like an owl. We entered the room where my wife had hung up all her dried flowers. The flowers covered one whole side of the wall. Little translucent moths hovered in the air.

"What's all that?" Newt asked.

"Just some flowers," I said. "From Colombia."

"What's APS Services? What does A-P-S stand for?"

"Nothing. They're just letters."

"What's Photograph Friends?"

"Just an idea, for now."

"What's your magazine about? The Cubs and stuff like that?"

"No. It's about baseball in other countries." I was having fun. "Like China and Russia and Iran."

"Iran? They play baseball in Iran?"

"Not much."

"How can you write about it if they don't play baseball there."

"I just keep in touch with them."

Newt was silent, trying to figure it all out. Just then one of my brothers came in carrying a radiator and a sandwich. Newt took one more look around, then left without a word.

Late that night my brother went out into the hallway on his way to the restroom and saw Newt walking around in his pajama bottoms with no top, carrying a glass of wine. Newt was slightly inebriated, doing some heavy thinking about secret agents and conspiracies and high-level plots involving latex paint and flowers and baseball.

We moved out of that office in 1994, for practical reasons. I still miss it. Tulita's and APS Services are long gone. Photograph Friends still has promise that might come to fruition one day. As for International Baseball Rundown, I'm happy to say that it's come a long way from those early days in Downers Grove. It's doing okay, if not spectacularly. Newt moved his business, too, sometime in the mid 1990's. I don't know where Newt is today, but I hope that sooner or later he comes across a copy of International Baseball Rundown so he can catch up on all the latest CIA activity.