The Pitcher

by William Hazelgrove

  It’s like I’m not thinking, but this has happened before too. We fly around in the street with Fernando screaming at me to get off of him. “Don’t you hit her!” I yell again, pounding on his head. We twirl in the street like a circus act and I’m about to fall off when I hear glass shatter. Fernando stops and stares because his motorcycle windshield is in a million pieces. He throws me back and I hit the pavement like bump bump. He stares at the windshield in the street, then starts screaming, almost crying.

  “What the hell! What the hell! My bike man … my f------bike ….”

  I help Mom up from the ground. Her lip is bleeding and getting fat. She turns and spits a mouthful of blood at Fernando.

  “Get out of here you f------ asshole before I call the cops!”

  Fernando is looking around like somebody is hiding in a bush. He stops and stares at the Pitcher’s garage for a long moment. He finally gets on the Harley and looks pretty funny, man, behind the few shards of glass. Mom goes inside to wash out her mouth and see if she needs a stitch in her front lip. I stand there breathing hard and watching Fernando rumble down the street. I pray somebody will hit him. Like I’m not talking about a car hitting him, man, I’m talking like a semi with a load of F10 pick-up trucks, so all that will be left of Fernando is a big splotch on the street. Then the firemen or whoever can just wash his sorry ass away.

  4

  MOM AND I ARE STARING at this old baseball I found in the bushes next to Fernando’s bike. It’s like a comet or something from outer space because it’s from another world. The baseball is almost the color of mud with painted grass stains and heavy like it’s waterlogged. The stitching has started to unravel on one side and is no longer red, but the color of old blood. Mom puts her cigarette in her mouth and turns the ball around on the kitchen table like it’s got something written on it. She ashes her Marlboro and looks at me.

  “You think he threw it?”

  “It wasn’t there before and something shattered the windshield,” I point out, shrugging.

  Mom keeps turning the ball. It’s like she is seeing something in that baseball, because next thing I know she grabs the ball and says, “Come on.” We cross the tar-warmed street and hit the Pitcher’s yard overgrown with whatever grows in Florida. Shortstop looks up as we go on the porch that looks like nobody walked on it for like a million years. Mom smooths her hair back, then rings the doorbell, staring at the baseball like it’s her passport. I’m kind of nervous because of all the stuff Jimmy and I have thrown under his garage door.

  Mom waits, standing up real straight, then rings the doorbell again. I look at our bungalow with the stucco peeling off that Fernando said he was going to fix. The same way he said he was going to coach me. I remember he used to get this funny look when I pitched and the ball popped his mitt. Mom said he was jealous because I have something God gave me and God didn’t give Fernando shit. I’m down with God by the way. You got to be, man, when you’re Mexican and poor.

  “I think he’s in the garage, Mom,” I say after she rings the doorbell three more times.

  Mom does it by the book. Like putting on her blinkers when nobody is around or looking both ways when there are no cars anywhere. She says you got to have good habits and that’s why she always is on me about my homework.

  So now we are walking toward the garage and I’m really nervous.

  “Mom … what are you doing?” I whisper, but she just keeps walking in her jersey with the blood on the collar and her hat pulled low. I really think we should just go back to the house. Jimmy says the Pitcher has a shotgun and has taken a shot at Juan down the street for throwing dog crap under his garage. So I’m not down with Mom whamming on his garage door, which she is doing right now!

  “Mr. Langford!”

  I can see the paint has flaked off of in these big patches. Shortstop is staring at us. I hear the crowd of a ballgame and then it stops. Now my heart is really pounding and I have that funny feeling like right before I pitch. We hear shoes scuffing the cement like something out of a horror movie. The tips of these old brown shoes appear under the garage, like the kind of shoes dudes in suits wear. I can smell his cigarette.

  “He’s right there, Mom,” I whisper. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m giving him back his baseball,” she whispers.

  “It might not even be his!”

  Mom looks at me. “I thought you said it was his.”

  “I said I thought it might be his—”

  She rolls her shoulders.

  “Then I’ll just ask him … Mr. Langford?”

  Mom is frowning now because he’s right there. She doesn’t put up with weirdness from anyone. When Jimmy comes over with his hat backward and his pants low riding, she tells him to put that hat right and pull up his pants. That’s because she was real poor, even poorer than we are now. She says if you act like you are poor, then you are poor.

  “Mr. Langford!”

  “Mom, let’s just go,” I whisper. “Forget about the baseball!”

  I’m making a motion to Mom like, let’s get out of here. Because it’s like there is a ghost or something just inches away from us. I point to his shoes and Mom clears her throat and speaks in a calmer voice.

  “Mr. Langford, I have your baseball. I want to talk to you,” she says to the door.

  The shoes move slightly and scuff the cement. Then we hear something smack the floor and I see brown juice spatter the cement. He clears his throat, this low gravelly voice coming through the wood door.

  “Yeah … so talk.”

  “I have your baseball, Mr. Langford. But I want to ask you a question,” Mom continues, leaning close to the peeling garage.

  “It’s your nickel.”

  Mom kicks her hip out and starts moving her chin. “Well most people talk face-to-face. How about you lift this garage and I can give you your baseball and we can have a conversation?”

  I see the tips of his shoes move again.

  “Keep the baseball,” he mutters, his shoes scuffing away.

  Mom pounds the garage and the whole thing shakes. I figured he would come out and kill us or something. Mom holds her brow like she has a terrific headache.

  “Let’s leave, Mom,” I whisper again, motioning to our house.

  She shakes her head and stares at the garage.

  “It’s rude to keep a garage down, Mr. Langford, when someone wants to thank you!”

  We wait and I can hear the wind in the trees. Shortstop groans and Mom is standing there with the baseball, her head down again. I just don’t see this dude talking to us. I see us turning around and walking back to our house. Then Mom just starts talking anyway.

  “I need a coach for my son, Mr. Langford,” she begins again. “My son has a gift, but he needs a pitching coach … someone who can teach him control and develop his arm. The high school baseball tryouts are coming up and he doesn’t have a change-up.” Mom pauses and holds her head high. “I will pay you one hundred dollars a week to coach my son, Mr. Langford!”

  One hundred bucks a week! I know we don’t have that, but once Mom sets her head to something, she finds a way. Just like when we started selling chocolate bars so I could play league ball. We stood outside the Jewel and some people just gave us the Mexican Death Stare like we were stealing their wallet. But a lot of people bought the bars and we sold more than anyone else on the team.

  Mom and I wait for what seems like an hour, then the Pitcher’s shoes scuff the cement again.

  “I ain’t no coach.”

  “I will pay you,” Mom says again.

  “I ain’t nobody’s coach,” he says like someone putting up a wall.

  Mom puts her head down, holding the ball like a Bible.

  “My son has a great arm … a gift, Mr. Langford. I will pay you—”

  “I don’t want your goddamn Mexican money.”

  Mom grits her teeth and her eyes start moving back and forth. She opens her mouth just as his scratchy voice comes through the ga
rage, “… tell him to take a finger off his fastball and it’ll go ten miles slower.” That knocks Mom off, because a pearl has just rolled out from under the garage. We look at each other like we have just hit the lotto. Because here is the thing; if the Pitcher gives us one pearl, he might give us another.

  His shoes then scuff away and we hear the ballgame come back on. Mom leans close to the garage.

  “Mr. Langford?”

  The television gets louder and I know he is gone.

  “Let’s go, Mom,” I murmur, taking a step toward our house.

  She looks at me, then the old baseball she’s still holding. Mom hesitates, then leans down and rolls the baseball under the garage like a thank you card.

  5

  FERNANDO COMES TO MY NEXT game drunked up and hollering by the fence.

  “Watch that dude, Ricky! He’s coming home!”

  Devin is giving him daggers and Mom is frowning, because Fernando is behind the dugout with his tattoos and greased hair and he’s hanging on the fence. He’s calling the umpire an idiot and a blind dumbass. And you can see the umpire is thinking about kicking him out of the park. It’s happened before.

  I’m catching and we are neck and neck with this Thunder team. I have a runner on third who is off base and dancing around. I’m trying to do two things at once. Eric’s slider is off and his curve isn’t breaking and his fastball has lost its gas. He’s loaded the bases and complaining I’m not holding my mitt in the right spot. He isn’t even close to hitting the spots, but he’s not going to get pulled either. That’s the way it is, man, when your dad is the coach.

  Devin never really wanted an assistant coach. Mom just started coming to practices. He didn’t even give her a jersey for the first few games. She gets all over him when he plays favorites. Like Lance at short who has no baseball sense at all. Nada. But Lance’s dad comes to every game and sits behind the plate in one of those folding chairs with the shade guard and plows through two bags of peanuts and hollers at Lance. “Chew leather, buddy! Chew leather!” Toby Yostremski’s dad gets really pissed, because when Lance went off to Bible camp, we won three games in a row. Then Lance came back and Toby went out to right field again.

  Fernando keeps laying it on.

  “Oh man, these guys can’t hit. They are getting the take sign, man. They are afraid of you guys!”

  The coach on the third baseline glances toward him. They got two away and we are in the sixth. Eric is holding this guy at two and two. He always asks for me to catch for him because I can throw down on second and pass balls don’t exist.

  “Oh, bro … that was no ball. C’mon, Blue, what the hell!”

  That’s Fernando again.

  I breathe the dust and pound my mitt, which makes more dust. The batter is rolling his hands figuring he can get hold of Eric’s fastball. The umpire hunches and brings up his chest protector. Eric has a change-up, a curve, a slider, a sinker, but no heat on his fastball. It’s like you either have heat or you don’t, but Eric can control the ball, which is something, yours truly, cannot.

  “Watch him, Ricky! Man, he’s coming,” Fernando blares out.

  I glance down the baseline and the runner is almost halfway and hunched like he’s on springs. I yell at Eric, who has his glove up, “Watch the delayed steal!” Most coaches won’t go for delayed steals because they think it’s cheap and most of the time it never works. You have to time your steal to the second the ball goes back to the pitcher. That’s why Eric doesn’t believe it’s going to happen and shouts, “Just give me the fricking ball!”

  I glance at the runner where the third base coach is squatting. I really don’t want to give the ball to Eric. The third base coach has been sending his guys way down the baseline all game. You can just tell some guys like to send their kids and this dude is definitely one of them. Also the third base coach is a dad who doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s giving all these goofy signals and the kid isn’t even looking at him. That’s how I know he is going to try and steal home.

  “Throw me the fricking ball, Hernandez!”

  Fernando yells out just then.

  “Watch that motherf----- on third!”

  Now Mom is yelling.

  “Watch him, Ricky! Watch him!”

  And I have Eric glaring at me and the dude on third poised like a rocket. I really don’t want to do it, but I throw the ball. Baseball is like that; sometimes you just do something even though you know better. The runner bolts just as I throw and everybody screams.

  “He’s coming! He’s coming!”

  Eric takes the ball and then turns away. I’m squatting down with my mitt up and I hear Fernando screaming above the rest.

  “TAG THE MOTHERF-----, RICKY!”

  And then Eric does something that even now I can’t believe. He throws a blooper. The ball sails in like a slow-moving satellite as I hear the runner pounding toward me. I have to just wait there with my mitt up. His cleats are drumming closer and I’m trying to hurry that ball before the runner reaches me. The ball hits my glove as he smashes into my side. Boom! The air pops out of my lungs and I skid on the ground and taste the dust. Then I hear all this yelling and Mom is over me, her eyes worried.

  “Ricky! Ricky! Just try and get your breath!”

  That’s the thing. I can’t. I try and get some air into my lungs, but it’s tough. The other coach and Devin are red-faced and nose-to-nose. Devin is shouting with his finger, doing one of those Lou Piniella numbers.

  “He charged him! He charged him! He’s supposed to slide!”

  This fat guy with a goatee is screaming right back.

  “He was blocking the plate! Blocking the plate!”

  You’re supposed to slide into home plate. It’s considered dirty baseball to charge the catcher. Most dudes won’t do it, but some people will do anything to win.

  I stand up groggily and Mom is dusting me off. The Thunder coach just keeps shaking his head.

  “He blocked the plate! He blocked the plate!”

  Just then I see Fernando. He’s running behind the backstop and bulls out of the dugout entrance like a locomotive. He crosses home plate and tackles the Thunder coach. I see the dude’s clipboard fly through the air, then his glasses, then I see the coach fly through the air. He lands in the dust just like I did. Fernando stands up with his tattoos, sunglasses, and cutoff Harley shirt, holding his arms wide

  “Yo sorry, man! You were blocking the f------ plate!”

  And everybody just freaks. The umpire throws Fernando out and he tells the umpire he’s going to kick his ass. Then Mom is yelling at him to get off the field. And the Thunder coach is groaning in the dirt while Fernando screams about somebody hitting his son. Which kills me, man, because you know, he hits his son all the time.

  6

  GRANDMA IS COOL. SHE USED to take care of me in Chicago and was always baking cookies and buying me whatever I wanted while Mom and Fernando worked. She moved to Arizona a while ago and I think that’s why Mom is so buzzed out. I mean I can’t follow all the news programs she watches with everybody freaking out and marching in the streets. Mom says it’s something every American should be concerned about because if they take away one person’s rights, then they can take away anybody’s. I always look for Grandma in the demonstrations in Arizona, but I never see her.

  Whenever she calls she starts chattering in Spanish. “Grandma, English, English, No Española,” I tell her, because I don’t speak Spanish except for buenos dias and nada and all the corny words you hear on television. It’s just not my language, but Grandma thinks it is. “Why not?” she asks every time she calls. “You should be able to speak Spanish and English!”

  I was born in Chicago. Arizona is where Mom came in with Grandma and Granddad. Mom left for Chicago to become a dancer like Paula Abdul. Straight up. She still has all her CDs. Mom’s built like a dancer; all legs, short waisted, muscular, a long graceful neck. But if Mom had a dream it was to be Paula Abdul. I once asked her why it didn’t happen
and she said it just didn’t, besides she had me, and that’s a lot better than being Paula Abdul.

  I don’t know, man. I think I would trade me to get rid of Fernando and be Paula Abdul. He broke into the house the night after he bowled down the Thunder coach. Fernando just punched in the screen and unlocked the window. Mom says she would have called the cops except she doesn’t want the father of her son in jail. I have to say, it wouldn’t bother me.

  “How is your mother’s health?”

  That’s always Grandma’s first question. She knows about Mom’s lupus and says Mom doesn’t take care of herself. I have to agree with her. A couple of times I have gone to use the toilet and it was full of blood. Not like a little blood, like crayon-colored blood. Jimmy says that’s just the female thing, but I don’t know, man.

  Mom takes the phone and chatters with Grandma in Spanish.

  “Don’t worry about it, Mom, they won’t deport you,” she says in English, sitting down in front of the television. I look up from punching a baseball in my glove. Deport. That is a word a lot of people have been tossing around lately. “You have been in the country for over thirty years. They won’t just deport you now,” she says again, rolling her eyes.

  I can hear Grandma going on in Spanish, superfast. Mom listens while watching the demonstrations in Arizona. Sometimes she watches Fox News with the blond-haired dude who says we have to deport all the illegals. It makes you get kind of scared because you wonder if they’ll be able to tell who is who. Mom leans forward with the phone.

  “Nothing is going to happen,” she says again in a low voice.

  “It will get struck down in the courts.”

  But I don’t think Grandma is buying it. I can hear her voice and Mom is rolling through the channels again. “Just go to the grocery store like you always have,” she tells her, moving an ashtray across the table. “No one will bother you.”

  Grandma chatters so much, Mom shoots through three different channels. A man who looks like George Lopez stands in front of a microphone. “Are we going to allow our civil liberties to be stripped away? Are we going to allow police to use Gestapo tactics against us because of the color of our skin?” Grandma talks loud enough where I can hear the whole conversation.