The Cactus League

by Emily Nemens

  And as for the team, as the spring season nears its end, the Lions head toward their own clubhouse détente. The starting pitchers are set—that game Greg Carver threw, right after his night with Tami, that would be his last—and the outfield looks like it will settle into Goodyear-Monterrey-Matthews. They cut all the bullpen catchers and auxiliary infielders, the young guys who were wearing down the starters with their overeager smiles and underwhelming play. In the clubhouse the men can move around again. This feels sustainable, they think, this configuration and scale.

  No doubt the Pima and Maricopa heard about Jack Swilling’s arrival in East Phoenix, how he set up his namesake mill along the river. Were they nervous? Did they know about the Indian Removal Act, the Appropriation Act, the Trail of Tears? Did they hear tell of the great battles on the Plains, the burned pioneer wagons and night raids? In any case, as the Sioux War raged farther east, the Pimas and the settlers reached a much less bloody solution: to the northeast of Phoenix, just over fifty-two thousand acres were set aside for the tribes. A contraction, yes; an affront, agreed. But no one was walking to Kansas, they kept their good farmland, and Red Mountain still sat like a perfect, rose-colored cone along the eastern border.

  The Pima were glad for their legal claim because, in 1888, the U.S. Army chaplain Winfield Scott bought the adjacent 640 acres. It took Scott’s new town six years to call itself Scottsdale, another twenty to top one thousand inhabitants. A school, a blacksmith, a general store … Then, like a rookie gunning, improbably, for the single-season home-run record, Scottsdale leapt ahead in the standings. The first luxury resort opened in 1910. Fashion models and movie stars followed, showing up for nose jobs and mud masks. Frank Lloyd Wright pitched a tent on a side of McDowell Peak in 1937. Baseball landed in 1955, the Orioles right downtown.

  But baseball was just the tip of the iceberg: the area boom-boom-boomed, growing faster than nearly anywhere. Construction spread to the steep edges of the mountains and then seeped around their contours, up to the edge of the reservation. The historic downtown—Old Man Scott’s haunts and that first little red schoolhouse—got wrapped in luxury shops, open-air malls, and high-end condos. Growth stuttered in 2008, but nothing could keep Scottsdale down for long. Across the street, on Pima-Maricopa land, there was a casino to be built, and a stadium, too.

  That brings us up to just about the present, the 2011 spring season and this shiny new stadium, which, after four weeks of sun-bake and heavy use, has lost only an ounce of its luster. That new grit and grime are imperceptible in the eyes of a six-year-old, one moony, baseball-loving Alex S. For him, the place just about glows with wonder, and there’re no imperfections or scuffs.

  I wonder what he’d say if I told him his hero-among-heroes, Jason Goodyear, was in trouble. Would Alex believe that the left fielder was as broke as his family? That the athlete was homeless and squatting, too? My guess is that the kid would just giggle at me, shake his head, and say, Rawr. That’s what he says to most strangers these days, the kids at his new school and his momma’s friends, the ones who come over for parties that start after he’s already meant to be in bed, gatherings that he watches from the shadows at the top of the stairs. The social worker at school said she’s worried about this little man’s roaring, but his momma waved it off. He’s just going through a phase.

  Coping, his sister told me as we drove to school. I’d picked them up at the bus stop, Michelle knowing better than to get into a stranger’s car, but also knowing they’d missed the bus again, and she didn’t want to be late for her first-period exam. It’s what he does when he feels scared, she said. And what do you do? I’d asked, but she just chewed her lip. I gave her a hundred-dollar bill, too. Not like I’m made of money, and not like she demanded it, but after Sara and Liana’s housekeeper I got accustomed to keeping a few bills handy, and Michelle, maybe more than anybody else I’ve met down here—she and her brother needed it. It seems whatever her mother was earning went right up her nose, and those kids were making do with next to nothing.

  Rawr, Alex said when he jumped out of the car. Thanks, Michelle said, taking the bill as she exited. Thinking more about it, I believe Alex is on to something. It’s not a half-bad idea, figuring out some phrase that could make us think fondly of our grandpas and our heroes and convince us, even briefly, that we’re big and bold and fierce. We’ve all been in situations where we could use a bit more courage.

  Like Jason, this morning, as he shook that sleeping rookie awake. He was hoping that today, at last, something would go right.

  HOMERS

  “If the teacher asks where we live, say, ‘I forgot.’” That’s what Momma tells Alex to say. It’s breakfast and they are eating Corn Pops. He is—his momma just has coffee in the morning.

  Momma fills her mug again, sloshing some coffee onto the rough wood counter. She doesn’t wipe it up.

  “Say, ‘I forgot.’ I mean, you can say you live here in Scottsdale, that’s good, and that you and your momma and your sister have a real nice house near Sandia and you even have your own bedroom, and that I love you more than plenty. But if she wants to know your address, like street name and number, just say that you forgot it and that she should call me. You got that?”

  “What about Randy?” Alex asks. Randy is Momma’s boyfriend. They met at the Oregon Country Fair, and it wasn’t too long after that that Momma moved them all to Arizona. She said Randy was a handsome man and a kind one, and that Arizona would be a good opportunity.

  “What about him,” she says.

  “You said we moved down here to live with him.” When Michelle protested the move—she wanted to finish high school in Eugene, with her friends—Momma said she couldn’t do this alone anymore, and Alex had said that she wasn’t alone, and that made her lips go wobbly and her eyes get wet. “So do I say he lives with us, too?”

  His momma frowns. “No, he has his own apartment. We live near him, and sometimes he stays with us. And he helps, too, getting us settled.” They had been staying with Randy in his tiny apartment for a week when he gave them keys to the Grandpa House. Then, when they’d had to leave there in a hurry, he brought them to Sandia Hills. “I don’t miss Oregon, not one bit. Do you?” She stirs some sweet, milky stuff into her coffee and Alex wants some but knows she’ll say he can’t have any, that he has to drink regular milk until he’s a big boy or else all his teeth will fall out, and not just the baby ones.

  “No,” Alex says, though he did like the duck that was on all the posters and sweatshirts and he did like seeing his grandpa all the time. Momma and Michelle had lived with Momma’s parents, but then Grandma died and Grandpa didn’t like Alex’s dad and so they moved out. Momma doesn’t like Alex’s dad, either, not anymore, but they can’t move back in. They had to move to Arizona instead.

  “Don’t make him lie for you, Mom. We’re fucking squatters.” Alex’s half sister, Michelle, is sitting across the table, reading her math book and eating her third Pop-Tart of the morning. She has a cup of coffee, too, because Momma says it’ll help her lose weight and wake up, but Michelle makes a frowny face every time she takes a sip.

  Momma’s face is like something smells. “Don’t swear in front of your brother. And Alex,” she says, “put on your shirt.”

  “I don’t have none.”

  “It’s any—you don’t have—I mean, here. You have plenty.” She tugs a shirt out of the laundry bag. They went to the Washateria last week, the one with washers so big Alex could fit inside, but Momma still hasn’t folded their clean clothes, and Michelle will only fold her own clothes, that’s what she said and that’s what she did, so Alex’s Jason Goodyear T-shirt, which Momma brought home from the stadium, is clean but all wrinkly. They left most of their laundry at the Grandpa House and couldn’t go back and get it because one day when Michelle and Alex were coming home from the store there was a police car parked in the driveway and the grandpa and grandma from the pictures were standing on the lawn and the grandpa was waving his arms and shouti
ng something. Alex saw them first and said, Michelle, look, and she stopped the car real fast and turned around in the neighbor’s driveway and they drove away. When they were around the corner Alex said, Michelle, why can’t we go home? She said, Just be quiet now, sweetie. I have to call Mom. Turns out Michelle was the only one who kept everything in her car like Momma said they should and so she still has almost everything. Alex didn’t and now he doesn’t have his coloring books or his Spider-Man shirt or most of his underwear.

  Momma shakes out the shirt and pulls it over his head, hard, which tugs at his ears. “Owww,” he says.

  She waits for him to put his arms in the armholes. “Any day now, Alex.” Momma musses up his hair and winces. “Jesus, when was the last time you washed your hair? You’re as greasy as a pepperoni pizza.”

  “He hasn’t all week,” Michelle says. She is calm like a turtle, slow and round. “How can he, when we’re out of shampoo?” Michelle goes back to her math, which looks like another language, Egyptian or Greek or Chinese. Michelle has a test soon about whether or not she can go to college.

  “Jeez, Miche. How am I supposed to know you kids are out of damn soap?” Their new house has three bathrooms: one for Momma—it has a bathtub with a Jacuzzi and it’s just for grown-ups—one for kids, which has a bathtub but no walls, and one downstairs for guests. That one just has a pipe where the toilet is supposed to be. Alex is old enough now that he takes baths by himself, which he likes, but sometimes they’re too hot and sometimes he misses Momma helping and telling stories about when she was little and swimming in the ocean. She had good stories about swimming in the ocean. “I’m never in there. Trying to give you your pri-va-cy.”

  “I told you Saturday. And again on Monday,” Michelle says. Alex wiggles his arms into his sleeves and drains his bowl, swallowing the last Corn Pop whole. He wants to get on the school bus before his sister and his momma start fighting again. They are almost always about to start fighting again.

  “It’s Thursday. Christ. Can you pick some up at lunch? I’m at the stadium all day.” Momma got a job at the stadium near their house, Salt River Fields at Talking Stick. It was like her job in Oregon: she sold hot dogs and popcorn and soda pop to the green-and-gold Ducks fans, now she sells hot dogs and popcorn and soda pop to the black-and-gold Lions fans, but it’s baseball not football and sunnier here. I get to watch the Lions every day. When she told Alex that, the boy thought Momma was the luckiest lady in the world. The Lions are his favorite team because they are his grandpa’s favorite team because before his grandpa moved to Oregon to marry his grandma, he lived in California and worked on an almond farm and cheered for the Lions, who were baby Lions back then, brand-new. Grandpa is the one who taught Alex to go rawr.

  “We’re not supposed to go off campus.” Michelle goes to Chaparral High, but only the seniors can go off campus at lunch and she’s in eleventh grade. “It’s against the rules,” Michelle adds, and takes another big bite of Pop-Tart.

  “The store’s right across the street.” Smoke looks ready to come out of Momma’s ears. She says she’s trying to fight with Michelle less, but right now it looks like she wants to fight more. “After school then?”

  “I’ll miss the bus, and somebody took my car.” The Grandpa House had a two-car garage with two cars in it, a fancy black one and a not-fancy light-blue one, so Momma used the nice one and Michelle used the other, which wasn’t nice and didn’t always have AC but was fine for driving to school and back. But then, a few weeks ago, Momma came back from a date with Randy and the fancy car looked like a giant had smooshed it up in his fist: the windows were all spiderwebs and cracks and it had lots of dents all over. The next morning it was gone and Momma’s eyes were all red and puffy and she kept saying they almost got caught, what if they’d gotten caught, and Randy, who’d slept over and was eating Corn Pops with them, said, But remember we didn’t. We’re fine.

  “I need that car more than you do, and we both know it.” After the fancy car disappeared, Momma took back the old blue car from Michelle.

  “You had another car and you sold it or wrecked it or I don’t know what.” The family came to Arizona in a Buick that was older than Michelle, but when Momma got the black Cadillac the Buick disappeared and nobody’s seen it since.

  “That car was on its last legs.” Momma keeps her voice even, like nothing’s wrong, like they’re not about to throw mugs. “I know, why don’t you walk? The exercise’ll do you good.” Momma likes to exercise whenever she isn’t too busy working or being Randy’s girlfriend or doing Momma stuff. Sometimes she walks over at Gateway nature park and sometimes she does jumping jacks in the garage and sometimes she even jumps rope with Alex. She’s as thin as Michelle is thick, but Michelle says it’s not from exercise.

  “It’s five miles!” Michelle crumples the Pop-Tart wrapper up in her fist. “And it’s going to be what, eighty-five degrees today? Ninety?”

  “Fine. Randy will come get you, then.” Momma chugs the rest of her coffee and leaves the mug in the sink with the other dishes. They don’t have a dishwasher, just a big box-shaped empty space under the counter where it will go. Most days they use paper plates.

  “Will you text him? I want to see you text him.” Michelle squints like she’s trying to see inside Momma’s skull.

  “Really?” Momma asks, but Michelle doesn’t blink. “Jeez. Last I heard kids were supposed to respect their parents.” Momma picks up her phone and begins to peck at it with her ruby-red nails, narrating as she types. “Work-ing late. Please get M at Walgreens at—”

  “Tell him I’ll be at the library on Shea. Five p.m.”

  “At library on Shea at five. T-H-X. Send.” She puts down her phone and the noise sounds like a slap. “Happy?”

  Michelle swallows the rest of her coffee in one big gulp. She grimaces. “Are you kidding? I haven’t been happy in years.” She shoves her math book into her bag and stands up. “Alex, c’mon, sweetie, we gotta catch the bus.”

  * * *

  Michelle and Alex walk past a bunch of houses that look like theirs but with nobody living in them, then past the one that looks like theirs but has bushes planted in front and a lady named Miss Tami living inside, then out the front gate that doesn’t have any gate on it, just gate hinges and big stone posts and signs that say SANDIA HILLS and LOTS FOR SALE—DISCOUNTED PRICES!!! Randy is friends with somebody who stayed here and he said it would be fine for them to live there for a while, too. Alex likes the neighborhood because Momma says he can play in the street because there are never cars around, so he throws baseballs against the sides of empty houses. Plus, lots of cute cats keep showing up from somewhere, and he says rawr at all of them.

  As they walk, Alex thinks about what Momma said, turns it over and over like it’s a penny but strange. Is it lying to say I forgot? He thought lying was something else, like saying you didn’t break a window when you did or you don’t miss your grandpa when you do. He thinks it’s not lying because their neighborhood doesn’t even have street signs and the houses don’t have numbers yet, they’re too new. “Momma’s not a liar,” he says to the back of Michelle.

  “What?” She turns around. Walking to the bus the other day Michelle told Alex they were homeless, but he didn’t think that’s right, either, because first they lived with Randy and then in the Grandpa House and now they live here. That’s three homes, not no homes. That night, he asked Momma about it and she asked him why he was asking and he told her what Michelle had said. Momma told him he shouldn’t worry about Michelle and what she thinks, that it’s hormones and that Alex should be nice to her, but then after that he heard Momma yelling at Michelle about how she’s fat and mean and gonna get them in trouble, and Alex thought that that wasn’t being very nice.

  “Hurry up,” she says when he doesn’t answer. Michelle is walking fast because she’s sure they’ll miss the bus. She worries this will happen every day but most days they don’t.

  Michelle and Alex see other kids standing
on the corner. Those kids live across the big street in Sandia Valley, another neighborhood that looks like Sandia Hills but all the houses are done being built and full of families and kids and puppies. There are big kids waiting and little kids waiting and that means neither of them missed the bus. “Oh, thank gawd,” Michelle says as her bus comes around the corner. Then it stops and she kisses Alex on the head the way his momma does and says, “Be good,” and gets on the bus and waves at him through the window. Her face is wider than Momma’s, but from the side they look just the same.

  Alex’s bus comes next. He lets the other kids get on first, then he says hello to the driver and sits up front next to a fourth grader who pretends Alex isn’t there. That’s fine to Alex; he watches the streets go by outside his window and outside the front window and outside the window across the aisle. That seat has two third graders in it, twins named Linus and Neal, and they tell him to stop staring and he says he’s not staring at them, but look, it’s the baseball stadium. “My momma works there,” Alex says and the boys scrunch up their faces. “Girls don’t play baseball,” one of them says, and Alex explains his momma makes the food for baseball players and the people who like them.

  The bus bounces past a mall and then across a big street and then the houses are all really small and look faded, like they’ve been in the sun too long, and there are more restaurants with tacos than restaurants with hamburgers, and that’s where the bus picks up the Mexican kids. Alex’s grandpa, who Alex saw all the time when they lived in Oregon, used to say the Mexicans were ruining the country, but Alex thinks they’re okay; they’re nice most of the time and some of them are really smart. The Mexicans aren’t ruining the elementary school.