by Tim Green
“No. I’m trying to help you focus. Let’s get ourselves together.”
Ryder pulled on a sweatshirt and stuffed his baseball and the Sharpie in the big front pocket. They decided that he’d hand Thomas Trent the ball and pen, asking him to sign it in hopes that the sight of his old double-A signature would add credibility to their story.
Ryder’s limbs shook as he eased the wheelchair down the sidewalk through the column of trees toward the players’ parking lot. It was nine forty-five and the air still had a chill even though the sun was rising fast and warming things up nicely. The clear blue sky promised an exceptional day for baseball and maybe the beginning of a whole new kind of life for Ryder. He couldn’t help secretly wishing for that, despite what he told Mr. Starr.
They weren’t the first fans to arrive. A small family with heavy Southern accents grinned and nodded at them. They looked like farmers and they were the first people Ryder had seen who didn’t look at Mr. Starr with horror, fascination, or disgust. Ryder took it as yet another sign that this was going to be a good day with things going their way. More fans wandered up who weren’t as polite, but at least no one said anything about Mr. Starr. The security guards appeared suddenly from their shack.
“Do you see the ones from yesterday?” Mr. Starr’s eyes jumped past the guard who had emerged.
“No,” Ryder said.
One of the security guards was scrawny and weather-worn with scraggly blond hair and a mustache, but the other one was enormous.
“Guy looks like a buffalo.” Mr. Starr spoke low.
Ryder nodded in agreement. The guard had a shaggy-haired head, no neck, and appeared to weigh at least four hundred pounds. The buffalo guard put his hands on the heavy metal sections of temporary fence that had been put in place overnight to keep people from crossing the driveway and rattled them, as if to test their strength. The skinny guard did the same to the sections across the driveway.
“Excuse me,” Mr. Starr said. “Can you help us?”
If either of them heard Mr. Starr, they ignored him and took up their posts at the end of the fences where the driveway met the road.
“Hey!” Mr. Starr shouted. “Hey! I’m talking to you!”
The big guard answered Mr. Starr’s words with a scowl.
“Yes, you!” Mr. Starr was unfazed. “Where are those meatheads from yesterday? They promised us an autograph from Thomas Trent. The guy with the slicked-back hair and the little black beard? He said we could come inside the gate.”
“I doubt that.” The big guard rumbled like distant thunder. “You all just stay right where you are.” He stood with his arms folded across his massive chest like he was guarding a bank vault.
“Hey!” Mr. Starr shrieked so loud Ryder winced.
“Maybe we should just ask quietly,” Ryder suggested.
“Squeaky wheel gets the grease. Trust me on that.” Mr. Starr harrumphed. “I am serious! We were promised! Do you know how hard it is for me to be wheeled around? I know I sound like a grouch, but look at me! You’d be a grouch too! Now, you stop ignoring me! We were promised!”
The skinny guard shot a nervous glance at the big one, but the big buffalo showed no emotion, and when he looked their way, he looked right over Mr. Starr, as if he were nothing more than a fire hydrant.
“Fine.” Mr. Starr muttered so low, Ryder didn’t know if he intended to be heard. “I’ll give them a repeat of yesterday. Let him run me over this time.”
“Mr. Starr, no.” Ryder’s voice was hushed and urgent. “Please let’s just try. He might stop and sign. If not, we can go inside and try the dugout.”
“They lied to us, Ryder. They played us. I can’t bear it. Being in this chair gives me an edge and I intend to use it.”
“Like yesterday?” Ryder felt panic rising up inside him. “Please, Mr. Starr. We should be low-key about this. I don’t want to start things off bad. I want to make a good impression.”
“He’s a pro ballplayer, for God’s sake.” Mr. Starr clucked his tongue. “If anyone understands determination, it’ll be a pro ballplayer. The squeaky wheel, Ryder. The squeaky wheel wins, even if it’s uncomfortable, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. It’s human nature. I’ve seen it over and over again.”
Mr. Starr got hold of his control and backed his chair away from the driveway, nearly running over a little girl with her father.
“Where are you going?” Ryder hurried to keep up, worried that they were losing their spot next to the fence. It was now ten fifteen, and fans were arriving by the dozen, crowding in as the first fancy player’s car pulled up and in—a Mercedes convertible.
Mr. Starr kept going, backward up the hill. “They’re not going to help us and Thomas Trent isn’t stopping for anybody.”
“Are we going to get tickets?”
“No,” Mr. Starr said. “Help me get this chair up the hill so we can get around this infernal fencing.”
Ryder turned the chair and pushed it up the hill. They were approaching the police entrance when the fencing stopped and Mr. Starr said, “Now get this thing down over the curb.”
“Mr. Starr, that’s the street.” Ryder looked up and down. Cars streamed past doing thirty miles an hour, at least.
“Do I have to run this thing off the curb myself and crash it?” Mr. Starr’s voice had that edge again.
Ryder glanced at the police entrance. No one was watching them. He took hold and backed the chair off the curb. A car heading their way swerved without beeping its horn.
“Mr. Starr!”
“We’re fine. They won’t hit us. There’s plenty of room for them to get by. They’re just being difficult.” Mr. Starr was speaking fast. “Go back down about halfway and we’ll wait until we see Thomas Trent’s Maserati. When we do, you run me down the hill and we set up right in front of the driveway. He won’t be able to go in and we can tell him that they promised us an autograph. You give him the ball, tell him you’re his son, and say you have to talk to him after the game.”
“It’s just . . .” Ryder winced as another player went rushing past in a Range Rover. “I don’t think this is the way to do it. This is so extreme.”
“Yes, it certainly is,” Mr. Starr said. “And so is your mother’s condition, isn’t it?”
Ryder stopped and clenched his teeth. This was all for his mom. He nodded his head, looking up the hill for a sign of the blue Maserati.
Suddenly, Mr. Starr mumbled, “Uh-oh.”
Ryder turned.
“Well, well,” Mr. Starr said. “Look who decided to show up.”
Marching toward them was the security guard from the day before, the one with slicked-back hair and sunglasses, who’d promised to help.
“My boy,” Mr. Starr said. “Our luck has just taken a turn.”
“Hey, old-timer.” The guard with the sunglasses smiled and his teeth flashed white surrounded by the dark beard and mustache. “Heard you started some trouble already. What’re you doing out here in the street? You know you can’t be here. You’re gonna cause an accident.”
“Old-timer? Why don’t you just call me Crooked-man?”
“Hey, no need to get hot.” The guard held his hands up in surrender and spoke in the pleasant tone of a friendly neighbor. “Why don’t you two come with me? I can get you right inside where you won’t get run down.”
The guard waved his hands at an oncoming car and he motioned for them to go around. Ryder tightened his grip on the chair and began easing it down the slope toward the driveway with the security guard waving cars aside. The crowd of fans gaped with open mouths when they saw Ryder and Mr. Starr on the inside of the fence with a security guard escorting them.
Mr. Starr snickered. “See what I mean, Ryder? Grease.”
The guard led them right through the crowd and in through the player parking lot gates. Ryder looked over his shoulder, just praying for the blue Maserati to appear. It didn’t, but the guard led them to a wide-open entrance leading into the stadium.
�
��This is where the players go in.” The guard waved his arm in welcome. “Come right in.”
“Well, we can wait out here,” Ryder said.
“No, you guys just come with me. I’ve got the perfect spot for you to wait, and you won’t be getting in the way when people are trying to park. That could get me into trouble.”
“We don’t want to get this fine young man into trouble, Ryder.” Mr. Starr’s eyes blazed with delight. “And if he’s got a better place, why shouldn’t we take it?”
Ryder shrugged and the guard punched the button on an elevator. It dinged and the doors opened.
“Right this way, gentlemen.”
“The locker rooms are upstairs?”
“Actually, downstairs.” The guard smiled big.
Ryder wheeled the chair inside. The doors closed, but the elevator heaved upward.
“I thought the locker room was down,” Ryder said.
“Oh, this darn thing has a mind of its own sometimes.” The guard hammered the back of his fist against the buttons to prove it and the B light went on.
They stopped at the floor above.
When the doors opened, two Atlanta City Police stood with their arms crossed, waiting.
“Well?” The sound of Mr. Starr’s voice didn’t contain an ounce of respect or fear for the police. “Are you getting on? Are you going down, or what?”
One of the cops, a sergeant with three gold stripes on his short-sleeved black shirt, smiled at the security guard, then Ryder, and finally at Mr. Starr before he spoke.
“No,” he said, “I’m not going down, and neither are you.”
“This man promised to take us to meet Thomas Trent!” Mr. Starr’s shriek made Ryder’s hair stand up.
Ryder stood aside as the sergeant stepped in and took hold of the chair, wheeling Mr. Starr right off the elevator. Ryder followed.
“You can’t stalk the players, sir.” The security guard’s friendly face had fallen flat. “Wheelchair or no wheelchair, you’re being a menace.”
The guard held the button that kept the doors open and he asked the sergeant, “You need me to sign anything else?”
“No. We got your statement and we got your partner’s.” The sergeant gave a short nod.
“Because they were at it again,” the guard said. “Right out in the street, the two of them. I’m sure they were waiting for Thomas Trent.”
“Of course we were waiting! You promised us an autograph! An introduction! Now, you do this?” Mr. Starr struggled in his chair, as if trying to break free, but the second cop restrained him.
“Easy, sir. Don’t make this worse than it is. Look, you’re embarrassing the kid.” The sergeant surged ahead, rolling Mr. Starr down some back hallway.
Mr. Starr scowled at Ryder as though Ryder’s silent horror somehow made him a traitor.
Ryder couldn’t believe this was happening. He wanted to scream at them all. He was trying to save his mother’s life, and Mr. Starr’s approach wasn’t getting it done. They should probably get out of there and make another plan. “Mr. Starr, maybe we—”
“I don’t care! You people are liars! Where are you taking me?”
“You can’t throw yourself in front of people’s cars, and you can’t wheel that thing around in a busy street. Where you go is up to you.” The sergeant rolled Mr. Starr through a door the other cop had swung open.
Ryder looked around and realized they were in the Atlanta Police’s office inside the stadium, the same one he’d seen the officers gathered around the entrance to on the outside. Sitting in chairs along one wall were two men, bruised and bleeding, who looked like they’d been in a fight. One wore a Braves T-shirt while the other had on the top of a torn Dodgers uniform. Each had his hands zip-tied together. Both looked miserable.
Mr. Starr was wheeled into a side room with a table and two chairs bolted to the floor. The sergeant nodded at the seat on Mr. Starr’s side of the table and Ryder took it. The other cop appeared with a clipboard and stood while the sergeant sat down and began to write down Mr. Starr’s side of the story.
The sergeant seemed patient, which made Ryder feel even worse about the whole thing and especially the way Mr. Starr didn’t let up being grouchy. He talked to the sergeant the way he talked to Doyle, barking and growling and insulting him at every turn with words like “meathead” and “donut fiend.”
As the sergeant rose, Mr. Starr offered a parting shot. “I can’t wait to see your face when they rip those stripes right off your sleeve. I’m going to come down on you so hard with the ACLU and the AAPD lawyers that they’ll ban you and the next five generations of flatfoots in your family from working on a police force. You can’t do this to me and you know it.”
The sergeant clenched his teeth and turned around to glare right back at Mr. Starr. “I don’t know who you think you are, sir. I’m sorry you’re not well and I’m sorry you’re in a wheelchair, but it doesn’t give you a free pass to break the law. Now, you want to talk about banning someone? Hear me on this, Mr. Starr. You’re the one who’s banned. You’re banned from Turner Field. I’ll pass your picture around to every security guard and cop at this stadium and if anyone so much as catches a glimpse of you, I’ll have you two right back in here again, only next time, I’ll load you both right up, chair and all, into the wagon and ship you downtown to the judge with the drunks and the fighters and you can tell him all about it. How do you like that, sir?”
Mr. Starr opened his mouth but nothing came out.
“Mr. Starr?” Ryder looked from his friend to the sergeant in panic. “He didn’t mean it, Sergeant. He’s just . . . grouchy, a little.”
“No, a lot.” The cop glared at Ryder now. “Son, it’s over. You two are done here. Officer Brandy will see you back to your hotel, but I’m warning you . . . you two stay away from the Braves and Turner Field and especially Thomas Trent.”
When they got back to the hotel, Officer Brandy saw them into the front entrance. Mr. Starr sat silent and glaring in his chair without meeting the curious eyes of the two women at the front desk. When Ryder pushed him around the corner into the hallway Mr. Starr said, “Stop.”
Ryder stopped. “Are you okay?”
“Go see if the cop’s still there,” Mr. Starr commanded.
Ryder peeked back around the corner and saw a flash of the black uniform as the cop disappeared in the direction of the stadium. “He’s leaving now.”
“Good.” Mr. Starr put his hand on the controller, turned the chair around, and began motoring toward the front entrance.
“Mr. Starr?” Ryder hurried to catch up.
The entrance doors slid open. The chair rattled and shook as Mr. Starr powered it over the threshold and out into the sunshine.
“Are you coming?” Mr. Starr asked.
“You want to eat?” Ryder eyed the Bullpen Rib House just across the parking lot.
“Not the Bullpen.” Mr. Starr didn’t try and hide his disgust. “You think we’re going to give up that easy? We came all the way from New York City. You think that cop’s really going to keep us out of that stadium? Ha!”
“But . . . how can we get in? I think we need a different plan.”
“No way. Right through the front gates, that’s how. He’s bluffing. I know cops. I worked with them for twenty-seven years on the crime beat for the paper. They love to bluff. Bluff all the time. No one’s going to notice us.”
“Really?” Ryder’s spirits soared at the thought of getting into the stadium. “If we did get in, maybe we could get Thomas Trent at the dugout when he comes out for warm-ups.”
“Exactly. We’ll scalp some tickets and go right in the front gate like everyone else. Now, get a hold of this chair and let’s get going. It’s faster when you push.”
They got nosebleed tickets for twenty-five dollars each from a kid in a hooded Falcons sweatshirt who pretended Mr. Starr didn’t exist.
Ryder felt guilty at the money he had to take out of Mr. Starr’s wallet, but Mr. Starr told hi
m it was free. Ryder pushed Mr. Starr right up to one of the main gates in front. Above them, the green steel frame of the stands towered over the red brick of the stadium. The smell of beer and popcorn and hot dogs filled the air. People flowed through the sunshine and into the stadium wearing Braves hats and shirts. The security guard stopped them and Ryder’s heart skipped a beat. But the guard just waved a metal detecting wand around Ryder and then inspected Mr. Starr’s wheelchair.
“You’re gonna want to go in that gate with the wheelchair.” The guard pointed to a big blue sign with a white stick figure in a wheelchair. “Enjoy the game.”
Ryder pushed Mr. Starr toward the sign.
“See?” Mr. Starr sounded giddy, like an excited child. “I told you.”
Ryder stopped at the wheelchair access gate. The other fans streamed through a turnstile. A female guard opened the gate and took their tickets. Then she looked at Mr. Starr and closed the gate quickly. “Hang on.”
She walked over to another guard, this one a tall man with a big blond helmet of hair and a tan face. He looked at the tickets and then at Mr. Starr before taking out his iPhone. The guard looked at the iPhone and then at Mr. Starr again before walking over toward the gate with the other guard. When they got there, the tall man let himself through the gate before closing it.
“What’s the problem?” Mr. Starr’s voice had that shrill note suggesting hysteria.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the guard said, “you can’t come into the park.”
“That is ridiculous!” Spit flew from Mr. Starr’s mouth like misguided fireworks.
Ryder’s heart sank. It was truly over now.
People all around were looking and the security guard’s tan face reddened with shame for a brief moment. But the guard recovered his stern face and he shook his head.
“I’m sorry, sir.” The guard’s voice was soft but firm. “I’d lose my job. They sent a text around to everyone. Even if you got past me, they’d throw you out.”
“I have a ticket!”
“I can call my supervisor. I’m sorry. That’s all I can do.”