The Pitcher

by William Hazelgrove

  “How are you doing there, champ?”

  “I think I’m going to lose the game for us.”

  “Bullshit,” she says. “What has Mr. Langford been telling you?”

  “We’ve mostly been throwing rocks. We just started using baseballs.”

  Mom pulls up her glasses and rubs her forehead.

  “Alright, listen. Take your breath and concentrate. Just try and remember something he told you. Did he tell you anything, Ricky … anything that could help you? What about a change-up?”

  “He doesn’t believe in them.”

  Mom breathes heavily, then puts her hands on my shoulders.

  “Look at me, Ricky. Pitch him your fastball. If you throw the way you know how, then you will have him. Just relax and take your breath.”

  “Yeah. OK, Mom.”

  “OK.” She holds up her fist. “Now do it, Carlos!”

  She gives me a knuckle bump and walks away. I stare at the batter who has already pegged one out of the park that went foul. He’s big and swings the bat like he’s going to kill the ball. He nods like he’s saying, I’m going to blast it down your throat. I take a deep breath and pull on the brim of my hat. Eric moves his mitt low.

  I shake off his signals.

  “C’mon, let’s finish the game!”

  “He’s done!”

  I glance at our dugout and see Mom hold her hand to her chest. Take your breath. I pull my hands in and position my fingers between the seams. Pick a spot, pick a spot. I pick Eric’s outside knee. I breathe deeply, tilting my head low. I stare at the batter who thinks I’m the Mexican kid who can’t hit the corners. He figures he’ll plant this one over the fence. I figure he will too.

  I breathe one more time, say a quick prayer, then break my hands, pushing off the rubber and keeping my body square. Then I follow through like I’m punching someone. He fouls off right. I try the same pitch again and he fouls off left. Eric is staring at me because all the wildness is gone and I’m placing the ball. The batter is beating home plate. He’s mad now. I try a change-up and throw a blooper over his head. Eric scurries to the backstop to get it.

  He turns and throws the ball and right away I know something is different. I hold the ball in my hand. It’s too heavy. Baseballs left out in the rain soak up the water and become like cannon balls. We have some waterlogged balls we throw to the side and a couple have wedged under the backstop. I stare at Eric as he pounds his mitt.

  I go into my set, holding the heavy ball. I take my breath, kick back, and throw that round weight with everything I have. It sails to the plate like a melon. The Ft. Meyers batter rears back and blasts that melon right out of the park. I turn and watch the ball arc over the back fence, becoming small. The players start rotating in on the grand slam and everyone spills out of their dugouts.

  Eric throws me a new ball the umpire had given him.

  I hold it in my hand. The ball is light as a feather.

  17

  YEAH, WALKING ACROSS THE STREET under the moon, I’m feeling sorry for myself. You do that when you blow a game in a minor league stadium with everyone watching. I came off that mound like a dog and when I asked Eric about the waterlogged ball, all he did was laugh.

  “You can’t blame me because all you got is a fastball, beano,” he said, shaking his head.

  And listening to the Pitcher’s television coming from under his garage, I know he was right. All I still had was my fastball. I needed another pitch and that’s why I slipped out while Mom watched Dancing with the Stars. I pause outside the garage and hear the television rambling on. It sounds like a talk show. Then Shortstop clicks over to the garage and I see his nose.

  I kneel on the cement as he ducks out, tail wagging.

  “Hey Shortstop, where’s your dad? He asleep?”

  I look under the garage, hesitate, then swing under and stand up. The television is loud and a blond-haired man faces me. “ You see in America, we demand people come here legally. These people have come here illegally and they should be sent back to where they come from. It is the right of Arizona to protect their own borders and no one can tell them they can’t … least of all the president.”

  I see cigarettes in beer cans and hockey pucks of Skoal on the floor. I glance at the photo of the Pitcher jumping into his catcher’s arms. I walk closer and nearly trip over the Pitcher. He’s lying on his side on the cold concrete with one arm on his hip. I hunch down and stare at the empty bottle beside him. I’m back with Fernando on the living room floor smelling all fermented. He would binge and lay around the house groaning for two days. Mom said that’s the way it rolls with some alcoholics. They binge and drink for like three days straight. Mom had to go get Fernando a lot of times at some bar or in some alley.

  I stare at the Pitcher and the question starts there. I always thought Fernando drank because he didn’t have a job. But here’s this dude who pitched in a World Series and was MVP and had millions of people cheering him. He was on baseball cards and faced down the greats. He lived the dream, right? So why would he get drunk and pass out in his garage? I mean, when I was on the mound in Badger Stadium, it was like I was Leonardo DiCaprio on the deck of the Titanic or something. You know, I’m on top of the world! But Mom says everyone has troubles and money and fame don’t change that.

  So I watch the Pitcher snore for a moment, then I pick up the remote and find a ballgame: Sox and the Yankees in the third with the Sox up by two. I put the remote by his cigarettes on the floor and bring over his Skoal. I grab the torn beer can he uses for an ashtray, then take a blanket off the bed and drape it over him. I walk to the garage door and turn. The Pitcher is snoring on the floor under the ballgame. The crowd roars.

  18

  MOM DROPS ME OFF AT the field the next morning. There is no sign of the Pitcher and I sit down on the dugout bench engraved with Johnny loves Joany. At about nine o’clock I know something is wrong. I sit on the bench staring at the sunny infield, imagining myself on the mound pitching a no-hitter. Then I am throwing the fi nal pitch of a World Series and jumping into the arms of my catcher. The world comes swarming out of the stands and I’m voted MVP for the series.

  At ten o’clock I tell myself a lot of people can drink and still get up. I saw it with Fernando. Sometimes he was all drunked up, but went off to work anyway. So I hope the Pitcher is waiting until he has a few cigarettes and does the hair of the dog thing with a couple cans of Good Times. But it’s now eleven o’clock.

  When Mom dropped me off she said she didn’t see his station wagon. I said maybe he came a different way and I looked away from her gaze. She knew something was up last night when I told her I didn’t feel like watching ESPN. I had hit the sheets and made the room really dark. That’s when I heard her knock.

  “Yeah,” I said from under my blankets.

  “What happened with Mr. Langford, Ricky?”

  “He was asleep,” I murmured.

  “Asleep?”

  “Yeah. Asleep.”

  “You were over there all that time and he was asleep?”

  “Yeah.”

  Mom eventually left.

  Now I’m having one of those moments where you know someone isn’t coming. It happens sometimes when I hang around Target or Best Buy and a text comes back, sorry bro, I forgot, catch up with you later. I look across the field, willing an image of the Pitcher crossing with his bucket and cooler. He’s smoking and spitting and drinking beer. But who I see is Mom and she’s walking fast.

  I sure hope the Pitcher put his garage all the way down this time.

  “Where is he?”

  That’s the first thing she asks. Mom has come back with a cooler of Gatorade and water and PowerBars. Her eyes are rocking back and forth like he’s hiding under the bench. She puts her hands on her hips and leans forward, pushing her sunglasses up in her hair. She lowers her chin and asks me again, “Where the hell is he?”

  “He didn’t show,” I mumble.

  “I can see that! Where the hel
l is he?”

  I just keep my head down, turning the baseball in my mitt. I feel like somebody took that poster board in my room of Wrigley Field and crumpled it up. And that’s probably why, you know, my eyes are kind of hot. Mom sits down next to me.

  “What happened last night, Ricky?”

  I roll my shoulders again. I do that when the eyes start up, because the voice goes at the same time. First of all, dudes don’t cry. And if you do, you do it when no one is looking, especially your mom. But this thing was so heavy, I couldn’t keep it away.

  “I don’t know,” I mutter, wiping my eyes.

  “Ricky! Talk to me!”

  I breathe heavily, looking down at the dirt. I’m trying not to think about the Pitcher. I don’t want to think he is lying in his garage on the floor. I didn’t think pitchers were that way. They are disciplined. They always talk on television about how they can improve. They are winners. They don’t pass out in their garage from drinking Jack Daniel’s.

  “What happened, Ricky?”

  I roll my shoulders a couple of times. “I went over there last night …”

  Mom leans close.

  “And …”

  “… he was passed out on the floor of his garage.”

  Mom stares at me like she doesn’t believe me. She sits back on the dugout bench and rubs the finger she used to wear her wedding ring on. There had been a light band of skin on her finger until the sun filled it in. Then she wore another ring that kind of looked like her old one. She said it was to keep the creeps away. The Pitcher had just become one of those creeps.

  “What do you mean he was passed out on the floor?”

  “I couldn’t wake him up. I shook him and he didn’t move,” I mutter.

  Mom blinks, her eyes turning into a jury.

  “Shit.” She rubs her eyes like she wants to tear them out. Mom stares across the field. “He had to be a goddamn drunk.”

  I look at her and for some reason I feel a little better.

  “You want to throw it around some, Mom?”

  She glares at me.

  “Am I teaching you how to pitch, Ricky?”

  “No … but—”

  “You don’t need another playmate,” she snaps. “You need a coach!” Mom stands up. “I’m going to find this broken down bastard—”

  “Don’t say anything,” I plead, really alarmed she will make things worse. “Don’t say anything. Please!”

  Mom stares at me. “He’s not coming back tomorrow, Ricky! He’s just like your father and I would think by now you know how that goes!”

  “He is not Fernando, Mom!” I shout.

  She leans forward like she’s going to jump on me. I have seen her this way before with Fernando. Once Mom’s lit, it’s hard to put out the fire.

  “And how do you know that? How do you know he isn’t just like your father, Ricky? He is just like all men who are assholes!”

  “Because … he’s not Mom. He just got drunk is all.”

  She breathes deeply and stares at the backstop.

  “Well this is one drunk who is going to hear from me.”

  And that’s when I said something I shouldn’t have. I mean I have Mom’s temper if you haven’t noticed and it gets me in trouble a lot.

  “Mom,” I say, staring at her. “You are going to screw everything up again by being a bitch!”

  My arm nearly comes out when she grabs me. Mom is strong and when she’s angry she’s really strong. But I’ve gotten stronger too and I pull back against her. She lets me go and I fall back right on my butt. She shouts at me like a crazy woman.

  “Don’t you ever call me that word again! Do you understand?!”

  I glare at her, but my eyes won’t stop leaking. It’s like we’re both on fire now and we want to tear each other to pieces.

  “Why?” I yell back. “You’re just making things worse like you always do!”

  And then she steps back and we stare at each other. I think neither of us wants things to get this out of control. Mom takes a step, then her eyes well up and I feel really bad for calling her a bitch. I try to apologize, but it’s like she isn’t there. She just wipes her eyes and speaks in a real cold voice.

  “We are leaving. Please bring your equipment.”

  Then she turns and walks back across the field. I have never heard Mom speak like that before. She went from hot to cold in seconds. And Mom never calls anything equipment. So I grab my bat bag and follow her across the hot field.

  Things can’t get any worse.

  But of course I am wrong.

  19

  TENNIS BALLS DON’T ACT LIKE baseballs. They are too light and smaller in your hand. But they don’t break windows and put dents in garage doors. I hold the tennis ball in and take my breath, aiming for the third square from the bottom in our door. That is my spot. I kick back and see the batter I was going to fan with my inside fastball. I come over the top and follow through like I am punching a man. The tennis ball smacks the garage door and bounces high. I lunge and see Mom on the porch.

  “Come on,” she commands, walking across the street.

  I groan because I know this is not going to be good. I follow Mom across the hot street and up his drive. I want to warn the Pitcher that a storm is coming his way. He really should have just left town for a few days. That’s what you do in Florida when hurricanes roll in.

  Mom marches up to the garage and whams on the door, shouting.

  “Mr. Langford! I have to speak with you!”

  Man, my heart is jumping now. Mom stands there with her hands on her hips like she’s daring the whole world. Shortstop tilts his head, his ears perking, then lies back down. Dogs. Nothing riles them, man. Just sleep, sleep, sleep. I wouldn’t mind being a dog sometimes.

  Like now!

  “Mr. Langford!” Mom shouts again, hitting the garage door.

  We wait and she looks at me.

  “Maybe we should come back, Mom,” I suggest.

  The heat is coming up from the drive in hot oily waves. Florida is an oven and maybe Mom wonders for the hundredth time what she is doing here. We’re stuck, like everyone else in the country that moved, right? Nobody is moving anywhere except into their cars or into shelters. And we might end up there too one day.

  She pounds on the garage again.

  “Mr. Langford!”

  We listen and I can faintly hear his television. I figure this is going nowhere but bad. Mom has a head of steam up. I heard her on the phone talking in Spanish to Grandma. When she gets really pissed she talks in Spanish. I think that is so she can swear like crazy. But after she hung up, she seemed even madder.

  “Mom … let’s just go,” I whisper. “We can come back later.”

  “No!” She shakes her head. “I’m going to find this asshole.” Then she looks at me and gestures to the cement. “Go under there and find him, Ricky.”

  I stare at her and touch my chest.

  “What?”

  “Go under the garage and tell me if he is in there,” she orders.

  “Mom, I really don’t—”

  “Go!”

  I wiggle under the door and stand up in the dark garage. I inhale something really bad, like rotten food or when you get the stomach flu. My eyes adjust and I see the Pitcher with white cheesy puke all over his shirt.

  I turn back to the door.

  “Mom, he’s here,” I call back.

  She leans down to the gap in the garage.

  “Where?”

  “On the floor!” I shout, gesturing to him. “He has this gross puke all over him.”

  I look around and find the remote control for the door. Day comes in like a wave with light rolling up the walls. The air flows in too and I can breathe again. Mom walks in and sees the Pitcher and shakes her head.

  “Jesus mother of Joseph,” she says softly, bending down. “Mr. Langford … Mr. Langford …”

  Mom shakes him and he doesn’t move.

  “Ricky, grab that roll of paper tow
els,” she tells me.

  I walk over to the microwave and grab the roll. Mom then shouts, “MR. LANGFORD!”

  The Pitcher sits up like in an old horror movie and blinks. He turns to Mom with drool running down his chin. “Ohhhh … shit” he groans.

  “Oh shit is right,” Mom mutters, wiping him down, unrolling half of the paper towels to clean up the vomit on the floor. She finds a garbage bag and some more paper towels. “Go wet these inside the house, Ricky.”

  I stare at her, because going in the house is freaky.

  “Mom I don’t think I should go in there—”

  “Go, Ricky!”

  Mom is more freaky, so I cross the garage and go into his house. The smell is the sour scent of old garbage. It smells like nobody lives here. Dust coats everything and I can see a trail in the dust leading to the kitchen. I follow the trail and turn on the faucet in a super-dirty sink. Then I glance in the living room. It looks like a woman lives here: stems from flowers, doilies under the lamps, paintings of flowers. I see a picture of a woman with the Pitcher.

  She is beautiful, man.

  The Pitcher sits in his chair like a man at a cop station. His hands tremble, holding the beer to his mouth like someone who just found water in the desert. A baseball next to his cigarettes falls and rolls on the cement. I pick it up while Mom finishes cleaning up the floor. She leans back on his refrigerator, crossing her arms.

  “How do you feel?”

  The Pitcher squints against the light from the fluorescent tube.

  “Been better.” He frowns. “Must have fallen out of my chair.”

  “You could say that.” Mom pauses, rolling her tongue across her lips. “So this is how major league pitchers end up?”

  He looks up at her.

  “You expected something different?”

  “I don’t know.” Mom shrugs. “Living in a garage and passing out in your puke on the floor … yeah, I figured someone who pitched in a World Series, they might have come a little further.”

  The Pitcher tosses his lighter on the table next to the baseball and shrugs.

  “Nope,” he says, holding the cigarette by his cheek. “This is the way it ends up.”