by Tim Green
“What do you mean?” Ryder studied those eyes.
Mr. Starr sighed. “A lot of people might look at this as some kind of winning lottery ticket.”
“If he pays for my mom’s operation, that’s the only ticket I need,” Ryder said.
“You looked at the pictures of that house for a long time is all I’m saying,” Mr. Starr said. “And I saw your lips moving when you added up the salaries he’s made in the last ten years.”
“Only because I’m thinking how easy this will be for him if he has any kind of a heart at all. What? Why are you looking at me like that?” Ryder asked.
“I think Cinderella has been around for a long time because people ache for a fairy godmother,” Mr. Starr said, “someone to solve all their problems, not just one.”
The train wobbled and jerked as they pulled into the station, then slowed to a stop. Ryder slung the duffel bags over the back of the wheelchair and backed Mr. Starr out of their compartment. The doors hissed open and Ryder was on his way, wheeling Mr. Starr through the station toward the MARTA trains before he spoke again.
“I don’t even like this guy,” Ryder said.
“Don’t say that.” Mr. Starr had obviously been waiting for him to resume the discussion. “You don’t know him.”
“I know he left me and my mom.” Ryder had forgotten about the stares in the subway, but now that they were out in the open again, people were gawking at Mr. Starr.
“No,” Mr. Starr said, “you don’t. Your mom may have left him.”
“Right. Seriously?” Ryder forced himself to ignore the passing stares.
“Don’t think that what people do always makes sense. Also, I’ve learned that just when you think you know exactly what happened to someone, you’re surprised by the fact that the opposite of what you think is the truth. We’ll have to buy MARTA passes. See those ticket windows over there?”
“Yes. I don’t even want to talk about it.”
“Neither do I,” Mr. Starr said. “I just want your mind to be in the right place when we get to meet him because you won’t get another chance at this. You have to know what you want from him and what you don’t. If you want a fairy godmother, he’s apt to tell you to call his lawyer and you’ll never see him again. No matter what happened between him and your mom—and listen, I’ve got to say this, maybe nothing at all happened, we don’t know he’s your father—he’s going to want to keep the life he has. That’s part of what could help us here. But in a way, this is sort of blackmail.”
“Blackmail?” Ryder stopped pushing the chair and he moved around front so he could see Mr. Starr’s eyes. “What are you talking about? I’m not expecting my dad to all of a sudden be a part of my life—toss a baseball around or go for a bike ride. That’s not what this is about. It’s about my mom. We’re asking him to help someone whose life he and I destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” Mr. Starr blinked and his voice turned soft. “Ryder, is that what you think you did to her?”
Suddenly, Ryder felt tears in his eyes, remembering the man in the camel hair coat, and he barked at Mr. Starr. “Look at her. She’s wonderful. She’s beautiful. And she spends her life cleaning toilets because of me. She could walk down Park Avenue and have some rich guy with a limo wanting to marry her before she went five blocks, but she can’t because she’s got me.”
“She does have you.” Mr. Starr kept his voice soft but strong, and he sat like an immovable rock in the tide of people washing in and out and around them in the station. “And look where you are. Look what you’ve done already to try and save her. She has a knight for a son, a warrior.”
Ryder had to laugh, and he sniffed and looked away, embarrassed that he’d actually thought of himself as a knight already.
“I’m serious. You’re fighting to save her. Look at what you’ve been through already. I know you’re only twelve, but you’re Odysseus. This is your odyssey. She loves you, Ryder, and she should. Go ahead. Get two three-day train passes.”
“Three days?” Ryder asked.
“Let’s hope that’s all it takes. I have the feeling it’ll be more, but when one can be optimistic and frugal in the same moment, one always should.” Mr. Starr’s eyes sparkled. “I think I’d write that down if I could write. Go ahead. Get the tickets. We just might make it to the stadium before the players all go home.”
With the passes in hand, the two of them loaded onto a MARTA train headed for the Five Points station. From Five Points, they transferred to a bus that took them to the stadium. Mr. Starr kept fretting about the time, but finally, they got off in front of the stadium, the lift hissing and groaning as it delivered the wheelchair to the curb. The stares from other passengers annoyed Ryder more than they embarrassed him, and he considered that progress. The bus roared away, leaving them to choke on its diesel fumes. The sidewalks were mostly empty and the banners hung limp from the stadium ramparts.
Ryder shielded his eyes against the bright sky and studied the walls rising straight from the ground. A massive bronze statue of Hank Aaron towered over them.
“We have to go around to the back.” Mr. Starr sounded annoyed. “Hurry up. They’re probably done with practice by now.”
Ryder took hold of the chair and started to push, rounding the stadium like an ancient knight at a siege, circling the fortress, preventing any escape.
“Faster.”
Ryder pumped his legs. They hit a groove in the walkway. The wheelchair jounced and Mr. Starr grunted in pain. Ryder slowed.
“Go!” Mr. Starr’s shriek echoed off the stadium’s brick wall and back into the wide street crawling with cars.
“Are you okay?” Ryder was losing his breath with the effort.
“Go!”
Ryder winced and surged ahead, huffing. He could see the corner of the stadium now.
“Left at the light,” Mr. Starr commanded.
Ryder took the corner fast, nearly spilling Mr. Starr into the street. He kept everything upright, but now his biggest problem wasn’t to push, it was to pull. The sidewalk plunged down through two columns of trees, with the media entrance on the left. Pulling and hurrying at the same time, they passed the media gate, then an entrance for the police where only a single uniformed officer stood drinking coffee. The sidewalk flattened out. A fence appeared on the left. Through the slats Ryder spied the expensive cars in the players’ parking lot.
Ahead was the opening to the players’ lot, barred by a huge metal gate and a security shack. Even though it was only a practice day, a small crowd of crazed fans stood like street people, clustered at the mouth of the opening. A big black SUV, a Cadillac Escalade with glinting chrome, rolled out through the gate and kept on going past the hopeful fans waving their pennants, gloves, cards, bats, and baseballs to be signed. Two security guards in bright yellow jackets held up their arms and pushed the crowd back so the SUV could pass.
“Hurry!”
Ryder huffed and searched for a pocket of energy. Part of him wondered why Mr. Starr was so urgent, until they reached the opening and he saw the long blue Maserati rolling up on the inside of the gate, nearly upon them. Ryder could barely breathe, let alone signal to Thomas Trent. In that instant, he saw the pitcher’s face through the windshield and the blank stare painted darker still by the fancy sunglasses hiding his eyes.
“Go!”
“Mr. Starr?”
Ryder had no idea what he was expected to do. The car was coming and it wasn’t slowing down. Thomas Trent, like the player before him, had finished practice and was heading home to his family, in no mood to stop for a small pack of rabid fans. There’d be time for them tomorrow, at the game.
One of the guards had slicked-back hair and when he saw them, he shouted, “Hey! Get back!”
Mr. Starr roared. “I said ‘Go’! Stop him! Push me! Stop him!”
Ryder pulled up short, but the chair kept going. Mr. Starr had his crooked hand on the control, jamming it forward. The chair lurched ahead. Ryder leapt for the chair, g
rabbing for the handles to restrain Mr. Starr—trying to save his life.
The Maserati swerved and blared its horn.
Something hit Ryder from the side. He fell and his hold on the chair spun it sideways, tipping it over. The side of Ryder’s head struck the pavement and he saw stars that blurred his vision. He felt a great weight on top of him and realized he’d been buried under Mr. Starr and the chair. Mr. Starr flopped and wriggled and bellowed.
Ryder’s head cleared as the security guards righted the chair and lifted Mr. Starr up before lowering him into his seat. The small crowd all backed off, wide-eyed and muttering to each other about the crazy kid and the messed-up guy in the chair. Ryder’s face flushed.
He glanced around and realized the Maserati had disappeared. He felt a stab of bitter resentment in his heart. What kind of a man could nearly run over an old man in a wheelchair and then drive off without a backward glance?
“What’s wrong with you, kid?” The guard with dark, slicked-back hair was in Ryder’s face; his black sunglasses were steamed around the edges and his breath was hot. “You can’t do that. You’re lucky nobody got hurt.”
Ryder rubbed the side of his head, wincing at the tender bump.
“You two are lucky I don’t call the cops!” Mr. Starr’s frozen face was red and sweaty and his voice had an edge like broken glass.
The other security guard took a radio off his belt and held it up to Mr. Starr. “You want the police? I can call them right now and we can make sure you two get to see the judge so we can get a restraining order against you. How’d you like that? You try to purposely stop a player just for an autograph? I can put an end to any autographs for you. You’ll be banned from Turner Field for life. So, you want the cops? They’re right up the hill.”
The guard had a black beard and mustache around just his mouth, and the way he stroked it as he waited for Mr. Starr’s answer reminded Ryder of Doyle McDonald. Mr. Starr’s eyes smoldered as he considered his options. Ryder knew Mr. Starr was burning with rage and he held his breath, knowing the wrong answer would be the end of everything.
“My chair.” Mr. Starr’s voice shook. “The control got stuck. . . . I’m very sorry.”
The guard let out a sigh and the hand with the radio dropped to his side. “I’m sorry you fell over. We didn’t want you to get hit.”
“Thomas Trent wasn’t too worried, was he?” Mr. Starr stared at the guard, his eyes as frozen as his body.
The guard shrugged. “I doubt he even saw you fall. He swerved and went the other way. When he slowed down these other people mobbed his car and he kept going. You can’t blame him for your stuck control.”
“That’s right,” Mr. Starr said, “but maybe he could give us an autograph tomorrow? You know . . . for the trouble. We came all the way from New York.”
“Yeah. You talk like a New Yorker. Tomorrow?” The guard nodded and gave his partner a quick look. “Sure. You come back tomorrow and we’ll work something out. I’ll talk to Mr. Trent and see if he wouldn’t mind. Sound good?”
Mr. Starr’s eyes gleamed. “Very good. Thanks. Ryder, let’s go. Back the way we came.”
Another shiny SUV—a pearl Range Rover—pulled up and out through the opening. The crowd came back to life, hopeful and unified as a school of fish flashing in the sun even as the player kept on going. Ryder turned the chair and headed away, expecting Mr. Starr to direct him back to the bus stop. He was pleasantly surprised when he told him to cross at the light toward the Country Inn & Suites on the other side.
“The perfect place for a bivouac,” Mr. Starr said.
“A what?”
“Don’t they teach you anything in these schools?” Mr. Starr said with disgust in his voice. “A biv-o-wack is a military encampment, only usually it provides very little shelter. This won’t be that bad, and from here we plan and launch our campaign.”
“Oh, that.” Ryder angled his thumb toward the stadium.
“Yes, that. There’s a break in the curb for handicap access. I don’t need to get thrown out of this thing again, in case you thought I liked the show back there.”
“I can’t believe he didn’t stop.” Ryder pushed the chair up to the front doors and they rolled open automatically.
“He doesn’t have to be a saint, you know. We’re not expecting an invitation to Christmas dinner, remember.”
“I know.” Ryder shrugged, and noted the horrified facial reaction of the girl behind the reception desk as they approached. “I’d like to think my father has a little bit of a heart, though.”
“We were two crazy strangers in the midst of a bunch of crackpot autograph hounds. I can’t blame him for mashing the gas.”
“I don’t think he mashed the gas,” Ryder said.
“How would you know? You were being mashed by me.”
Ryder had to laugh, even though his head still hurt. He rubbed the bump. “Yeah, I was.”
Mr. Starr turned his attention to the girl behind the desk. He had made a reservation online, and with Ryder’s help to dig out his credit card, they got checked in, and Ryder wheeled him into their ground-floor room.
“Get unpacked,” Mr. Starr said. “We may be here a while.”
“But the security guard said—”
Mr. Starr waved a claw impatiently. “We aren’t going to get a check for two hundred thousand dollars along with a free autograph because we announce that you’re his son and your mother needs an operation. Tomorrow is just our first point of contact, our opening sortie if we stay with the military theme. This thing will take a few days . . . at least. You can put your clothes in the top drawer.”
Ryder unpacked them and then Mr. Starr declared that he was hungry, so Ryder retrieved some pulled pork sandwiches from a place next door called the Bullpen Rib House. After they ate, Mr. Starr announced that they were going to the Georgia Aquarium.
“We are?” Ryder said.
“We have time to kill, and when I was a reporter I got in the habit of seeing the sights whenever I had time to kill. Supposedly, the aquarium here is worth the time and the money. We’ll see about that. It’s open late, so we’re good.”
Ryder maneuvered the wheelchair down the sidewalk, across the street, and onto the bus that arrived five minutes later. They headed straight for the golden dome of the capitol building, then wound their way through the heart of Atlanta to Centennial Park. The aquarium was amazing and Ryder appreciated the ease of everything with Mr. Starr being in a wheelchair. They got to cut every line and see everything up as close as you could get. Ryder almost said something about how good it was that Mr. Starr was in a chair, but didn’t, and then wondered if he’d lost his own mind when he stopped looking at fish and saw the stares from all around. Ryder realized that no one would trade places with Mr. Starr, not even the poorest, dirtiest, most desperate person on the street. No one wanted to go through life in a chair, and especially in pain.
When they got back to their hotel room and finally shut the door on the gawking faces of other people, Ryder thought about what Mr. Starr was enduring because of him and his mom. “Thank you, Mr. Starr.”
“I haven’t done anything yet.” Mr. Starr sat in his chair, just staring out the window at downtown Atlanta. “Let’s hold off until we get the job done.”
“Thank you for even trying. My mom and I, we don’t get a lot of help from people. We rely on each other all the time. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“You certainly can’t hang your hopes on that mangy fireman.”
“I like Doyle, Mr. Starr. He helped me a lot too. I’d probably be in a foster home if it wasn’t for him.”
“Well, yes. We’ll have to give him a bit of credit. I suppose his heart is generally in the right place, even if his brain is lagging behind.”
Ryder chuckled and shook his head, knowing there wasn’t any hope. “Maybe we should call him.”
“Not on my dime.” Mr. Starr’s words dripped with disgust.
“Ma
ybe he got permission to use FDNY to help raise money. We should at least check in, Mr. Starr. I want to see if there’s any news on my mom.”
Mr. Starr stared for a minute, then cleared his throat. “Here. Get the iPad. Send an email if you must.”
“That’ll work.” Ryder tried not to grin as he started up the iPad and sent Doyle an email asking how his mom was doing and for a progress report as well as giving one of his own. He ended the email with the sentence:
Looks like tomorrow will be a very big day.
He was disappointed that they got no reply from Doyle before the time Mr. Starr said it was time to turn off the TV and for them to get some rest.
“Tomorrow,” Mr. Starr said, “is a big day, maybe the biggest in your life.”
The next day, the Braves had an afternoon game against the Dodgers with the first pitch set for one o’clock. Ryder and Mr. Starr had breakfast in the dining area just off the hotel lobby, then returned to their room to fuss around with the iPad. They pretended to each other that they needed more information to complete the picture of Thomas Trent’s life, but they really had everything necessary, and a lot more to boot. Ryder even found out that Thomas Trent’s wife grew up outside of Cleveland, Ohio, as the daughter of a farmer, and got suspended from her high school soccer team for drinking in her senior year.
“Okay,” Mr. Starr said after they unearthed that fact. “We’ve got more than enough.”
Just as he spoke, a bell dinged on the iPad signaling an incoming email. It was from Doyle and Ryder nearly panicked as he hurried to open it and scan its contents.
“Well?” Mr. Starr asked. “What’s the news?”
Ryder shook his head and dipped his chin. “He didn’t get it, the FDNY thing. But my mom’s okay. Well, no change anyway.”
“That just makes today that much more important.”
“Are you trying to make me nervous?” Ryder tried not to sound annoyed, but the magnitude of meeting his father was overwhelming.