The Pitcher

by William Hazelgrove

  “I’M NOT … LAZY!”

  “Yes, you are,” Mom says calmly. “You won’t do your homework. You won’t practice your pitching. You won’t do anything! It’s no wonder you can’t pitch!”

  I glare at her, because I’m bleeding now. My eyes flood over and I yell, “ I really hate you! You screwed up your life and now you are ruining mine! You’re a loser, Mom! You think I’m a loser, but that’s why Fernando left you because you bitched at him all the time and—”

  Smack!

  I see stars, man. I really do and it’s like I can feel her hand on my cheek still. I didn’t know getting slapped could hurt so much. But I think Mom is as shocked as I am. We both stare at each other and then we both start crying. But I’m not finished, man.

  I glare at her and shout, “You drive everybody away and when I leave I’ll never come back here either!”

  Then I stomp out of the house and slam the front door.

  “Bitch, man. Bitch!”

  I stand outside in the heat for a while, trying to cool off. But I can’t stop crying, you know. The Pitcher’s garage door is all the way down and I don’t see Shortstop anywhere. I stare at his garage closed off against the world and I just feel more alone. I sit down on the drive and put my head down on my knees.

  Sometimes, man, life just sucks.

  33

  Grandma arrives the next morning. Mom sets her up in the living room on our pull out couch, which ends up being my bed because Grandma has a bad back. Mom says Grandma believes the Mexicans are going to be rounded up and sent back. I have heard people on television saying they should send back the illegal Mexicans. Mom says our rights are in danger. She says people like Mrs. Payne blame us for taking jobs away from Americans. I don’t know, man. I don’t see a lot of people wanting to cut lawns and lay sod, you know.

  Anyway, I should tell you: Mom and I don’t say anything to Grandma about our fight. I mean, Mom never slapped me before and I think we both freaked. Last night, after we had it out, I sat by her on the couch and we watched that movie The Blind Side again. It’s pretty cool the way this guy from the projects gets taken in by a rich family, man, and makes it to the NFL. And the movie has a happy ending, and Mom and I dug that. She rubbed my hair and I leaned against her and she murmured she was sorry. I said I’m sorry too. And then we watched this dude overcome the odds and make it to the pros and end up with Sandra Bullock as his mom.

  She’s a pretty good-looking mom. But so is mine.

  Anyway, Sunday, the day Grandma comes, is crazy hot. The sidewalks are so hot you can fry an egg. Joey did it once. It sizzled and burned. The next day it was still there, all rubbery and brown.

  Joey and I throw the ball in the street while Shortstop snoozes in the shade and makes these whimpering sounds. The Pitcher has his garage up just enough to see his ankles.

  Mom is on the porch smoking a cigarette and staring at his house. Then she crosses the street and knocks on the garage. The garage goes up and the Pitcher stands there. They start shouting and I can hear it all the way across the street.

  “You’re just a drunk feeling sorry ….”

  “That’s my business ….”

  “He needs you ….”

  “I’m sorry … that’s just not who I am ….”

  Then the garage rolls back down. I see Mom talking to the door, but the garage never goes back up. Then she comes back across the street with her eyes wet. Mom doesn’t say a word. It is like everything good has ended and something really bad is on the way. You can just feel it.

  Joey leaves, and I start throwing a tennis ball against our garage. I catch it on the hop in the heat-cooling street.

  Kaboomp! Kaboomp!

  OK. So I don’t have a coach anymore.

  Kaboomp! Kaboomp!

  OK. So the Pitcher isn’t going with us tomorrow.

  Kaboomp! Kaboomp!

  OK. So Eric will probably wipe the field with me.

  Kaboomp! Kaboomp!

  OK. My pitching has gone crazy and I have no idea why.

  Kaboomp! Kaboomp!

  Why won’t he at least talk to Mom?

  Kaboomp! Kaboomp!

  Kaboomp! Kaboomp!

  Kaboomp!

  KAPOW!

  I watch the ball take a weird hop over my head and bump bump bump up the Pitcher’s drive and under the garage. Shortstop watches it vanish under the garage and turns to me like, Well? Are you going to get it? I stare at the dark gap and don’t really want to go after it. I have been thinking a lot about what Mom said, you know—that the reason the Pitcher left was because of me. Maybe I do suck that bad.

  So I cross the hot street with the ballgame hissing like some kind of demon. I walk up the drive and can feel my heart bumping when the door clanks up and the Pitcher is standing there. He squints down at me with the green tennis ball in his hand and a cigarette in the other. He has this wrinkly Hawaiian shirt on that looks like he’s slept in it. Dark half-moons are under his eyes and he coughs a couple times, then holds up the ball.

  “What the hell are you playing with a goddamn tennis ball for?”

  “It bounces better.”

  He spits off to the side.

  “That ain’t going to help your pitching,” he mutters, tossing the ball to me.

  Then he walks back in his garage. I hesitate, then follow him into the tobacco-stinking darkness still holding my glove. The Pitcher groans down into his chair and lights another cigarette, holding it by his cheek. His hand is shaking and he coughs some more. I stand behind him in his La-Z-Boy while he drinks his beer.

  “I heard you pitched lousy,” he says without turning around.

  I shrug.

  “Yeah.”

  He shakes his head.

  “Still can’t get it together, huh, rockhead?”

  “Guess not.”

  “You got the talent, boy, but you ain’t got the drive.”

  He taps his cigarette again and keeps his eyes on the game. I step forward and squint at the back of his head.

  “How come you put the garage down on my mom?”

  The Pitcher sips his beer again.

  “Why couldn’t you throw a goddamn decent pitch?”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Bullshit. You just don’t do the work.”

  I stare at him watching the game.

  “How come you started drinking again?”

  “I drink because I drink.”

  Smoke rolls up above his head. I look at the photos again that seem dingy now. The fan whirs in the background. The garage seems like a crappy old garage and I’m not sure why that is.

  I look at him again.

  “You should have opened the door for my mom.”

  “You want me to be nice to your mom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then pitch like I goddamn taught you and stop waiting for your mother to bail your ass out.”

  He shakes his head as someone knocks one out of the park.

  “Gotta pinch those corners,” he mutters to the television.

  I stare at him, feeling like he has just knocked the wind out of me.

  “You don’t know what it’s like,” I mumble.

  “What?”

  The Pitcher turns around.

  “You talking about that dyslexia shit?”

  “Yeah.”

  He motions me forward, like a wizard.

  “Come here, you rockhead.”

  I walk up slowly and he picks up a pen. There is a crossword puzzle in the Jacksonville Chronicle with half the words filled in. “Now watch closely,” he says, taking the pen and drawing a baseball. “What am I doing?”

  “Drawing a baseball.”

  “That’s right, rockhead.” The Pitcher looks at me, his eyes bloodshot and yellow. “But what hand am I drawing with?”

  He holds up his hand with the pen. I stare, then turn and look at the picture on the wall. I can hear the fan and the television. He has his leg up, looking over his shoulder, his eyes pinn
ed to the batter. The Pitcher is ready to deliver all that southpaw fury.

  “Your right hand,” I whisper.

  “That’s right,” he says. “When I was your age I played on the high school team and pitched righty. Then like a rockhead I rode a motorcycle and wrecked my arm. They put me in a cast and put pins in my shoulder,” he continues, leaning back. “When they took it off, I couldn’t pitch no more.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “Whaddaya think? I decided I was going to pitch anyway and would do it with my left arm. Coach said it would never work. So I told him I would see him in the spring tryouts.”

  The Pitcher turns back to the television and pulls on his cigarette.

  “So … so what happened then?”

  He nods across the room.

  “I filled up that bucket with rocks and started throwing. I threw rocks at everything—birds, trees, gulls. I threw rocks until I thought my arm would fall off and then I started to pitch. I didn’t have no speed and no accuracy.” The Pitcher turns, his eyes piercing the gloomy garage. “But nobody was going to keep me off that goddamn mound. Not the coach. Not the doctors. That’s when I picked up my nickname.”

  I look at him.

  “Rockhead?”

  “Yeah.” He turns, pointing his cigarette. “But nobody was going to tell me I couldn’t pitch. You understand that, rockhead?”

  He turns back to the television and sips his beer.

  “Your problem is you want it, but you don’t want it bad enough. I don’t care if you have mush up there in your noggin. You have an arm, but if you don’t overcome your problems, it ain’t worth a nickel. You gotta do the work.”

  “I do the work,” I mutter.

  He shakes his head.

  “Nah … you don’t. But I’ll bet you that Payne kid does the work,” he says, looking over. “I’ll bet he don’t let anything stop him.”

  “He’s had every lesson in the world!” I cry out.

  “Yeah and you had a major league pitcher coaching you, so what’s your excuse now?” he says, looking at me.

  I stand there, not moving. The Pitcher flicks his cigarette at the television.

  “How’d your mother do coaching?”

  I shrug. “Alright. We won … but she was upset because you didn’t come.”

  “Yeah … well,” he says, moving his legs. “I ain’t nobody’s idea of a boyfriend. I would have been just fine if you people had not come knocking on my garage.”

  I hear the you people like I hear wetback. It echoes all over the garage and I stand up. The same hot sweaty feeling breaks out on my forehead. I stand there, feeling the rage roll in like waves. And maybe that’s why I say what I say next. Sometimes I’m like those volcanoes with red fire that spouts up.

  “At least I’m not sitting in a garage and drinking beer all day and feeling sorry for myself.”

  The Pitcher points to the door with his cigarette.

  “Get the hell out of my goddamn garage!”

  I don’t move and he stands up.

  “Go! Get the hell out of here!”

  I pick up my mitt. I can barely walk and I stumble across his garage. My heart is pounding as I turn around at the door.

  “I don’t need you!” I yell. “I don’t need someone who treats people like shit!”

  The Pitcher just stares at me. I walk out then and hear the garage go down behind me. I don’t give a care anymore. I keep on walking to my house, then sit down on the porch and don’t move. I don’t hear his television. I don’t hear anything except my own sniffling. I stay outside with my head down on my knees. I stay there until my chest stops heaving.

  It takes a while.

  34

  I TAKE MOM’S LAPTOP AND sit in the darkness of my room and play the YouTube clip of Jack Langford throwing the final pitch in the ’78 World Series. I watch him jump into his catcher’s arm after the batter pops up. The catcher stands there and waits for the ball to come down and then he makes the catch and the Pitcher comes flying in and jumps on him. He just won the World Series. He just won the biggest game in the world. The other players pile on and you can’t see the Pitcher anymore.

  And I look for him to emerge, you know. Like where did that guy go and who was the guy in the garage drinking beer and watching television? Where did all that greatness go? I just keep playing that clip over and over, looking for clues.

  I must have drifted off because I wake up and it’s like five AM and Grandma is in my room. She is screaming in Spanish and I’m hearing all this while I’m half-asleep.

  “Calm down, Grandma. Calm down,” I say groggily. “What are you trying to say?”

  “Your mother is sick!” she shouts, grabbing my hand.

  That’s when I get chilled like when you see a squashed cat in the road. Grandma pulls me into Mom’s bedroom where she’s sitting. Blood spreads out like a red sea behind her. She looks up woozily and tries to smile, but she’s really, really pale. I mean pale like when I walked up to my aunt with her arms crossed. Dead pale.

  “Mom … you’re bleeding!” I cry out.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine,” she murmurs, moving unsteadily. “Go … go back to bed, Ricky.”

  But she isn’t fine. She looks like she might faint. I stare at the bloodstain that looks like an ocean to me and I start thinking about the things I should be doing. All the stuff they tell you on television to do in an emergency. Dial 9-1-1! Dial 9-1-1! Dial 9-1-1! But it’s like everything is in slow motion and all I do is stare.

  “Mom … you’re bleeding!”

  “I’m fine … Ricky,” Mom repeats, but she is wavering. “Just a little.”

  Grandma starts chattering in Spanish and Mom looks at me with this helpless hollow expression. That’s when I take off out the door. I am in fight or flight mode or whatever they call it. I run into the street in my pajamas. The moon is out and the whole world is blue and the road is still warm.

  I run up to the Pitcher’s garage and start banging and screaming.

  “JACK! JACK! JACK!”

  I like never call him Jack, but I’m banging on the garage with my fists and the springs or the coils are clanging. I throw my body against the garage and then the door starts moving up. The Pitcher staggers out of the darkness in a white T-shirt and shorts.

  “What the hell are you banging on—?”

  “Mom’s bleeding!” I swallow. “She’s bleeding to death!”

  The Pitcher stares at me, then he runs. I have never seen an older dude run in bare feet before. He runs across the street into the house and straight back to the bedroom. The Pitcher busts into the room and sees Mom and the blood on the sheet, then grabs up the phone by her bed.

  “I’m calling 9-1-1,” he says, looking down at her.

  Mom holds up her hand.

  “No, don’t … I’ll be fine,” she says weakly.

  The Pitcher stares at her with the phone in his hand. He’s really big in her bedroom in his white T-shirt with his hair on his forehead and I’m praying he won’t listen to Mom. There are times she doesn’t make sense and this is one of those times. He frowns and shakes his head.

  “You’re goddamn hemorrhaging, Maria!”

  Mom holds up her hands, but she’s having trouble sitting up.

  “No … no … I’ll be fine. Just don’t call the doctor,” she pleads.

  The Pitcher stares at her like she’s lost her mind.

  “You have to go the hospital,” he says, shaking his head.

  “I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

  “Maria … I either call the goddamn ambulance or I drive you to the goddamn hospital,” he tells her, holding the phone against his chest.

  Mom looks down and I see her eyes go to the blood.

  ”No ambulance,” she says in a small voice.

  The Pitcher drops the phone.

  “Let’s go then.”

  He starts to help Mom up and then she just collapses, like she swoons. I mean straight down to the floo
r. The Pitcher scoops her up like a princess and she passes out in his arms.

  “Let’s go,” he shouts and we leave the house and then I’m opening the door to his station wagon. He puts Mom in the front and jumps in the driver’s side. The Pitcher doesn’t even have his shoes, but he pulls the keys up from under the mat and looks at me.

  “Stay with your grandmother. I’ll call you from the hospital.”

  And then he just tears down the road with Mom passed out against him. I stare at his blue exhaust rolling under the moon and watch his taillights disappear. And then it’s just quiet, man. I mean really quiet. I stand out there in the street and start crying, because nobody can lose that much blood. You just don’t have enough, you know. I wipe my eyes and now I’m shivering. I can’t stop my teeth from chachachachachattering!

  Grandma is on the couch clutching her rosary beads and has a little cross on the coffee table. She is saying devotions or something to Mary or whoever. We never really went to church. I know I said we did, but we only go on Christmas. Mom said God could hear us without going to church. But I wish we had gone. I guess that’s the way it is with God. You don’t want him until you really need him and we really need him now.

  I sit down next to Grandma and she keeps her head bowed and keeps praying. I stare at the little plastic cross and then I get down on my knees. I start praying and asking God to let Mom stay. I promise I’ll do my homework and I won’t swear and I’ll quit raising hell at school. I promise I’ll do anything. No more cussing or throwing stuff under the Pitcher’s garage or giving Mom hell or lying about my homework. I’ll do whatever He wants.

  Just let Mom stay.

  35

  I’M IN THE WAITING ROOM and I’m nervous, man. I hate hospitals. Maybe everybody does. To me it’s where people go to get operated on and die. Sorry. That’s the way I see it. I watch the television shows and whenever someone is in the hospital then that’s it. The Pitcher had come back to get me and Grandma. He drove like the wind through the empty streets and now we are sitting in this brightly lit room. Everyone looks like they just woke up and ambulances are coming in, wheeling people through with oxygen masks.