by Dave King
Then real life returns. Ibrahim, on the mound, squints at Jeremy. Ryan holds up his glove, and Juliana waves encouragement at our fielders. The umpire calls, “Play ball!” and Ibrahim goes into his long, cool motion. The batter swings, getting a tiny piece, and the ball pops back at Jeremy, who seems to grab it purely on instinct, then jumps up with a silly grin. A fluke, but our kids have their first out. The ump gestures neatly, and some people in the stands mark homemade scorecards. The Snakes fans cheer. The next Twin gets to first on a short drive, and the one after that lands a pretty bunt. The fourth Twin in the lineup is a fat kid they call Monster; across the diamond, the crowd chants the word. Monster takes a strike and two balls, then hits a high fly that Elizabeth catches. But the runners advance to second and third, with two outs. A wiry, big-headed black kid’s up next.
The play happens almost before anyone’s ready. Ibrahim kicks and throws, and the big-headed kid hits a drive between first and second. The ball bounces when it hits the dirt, and Ryan has to dive—but he does dive and snags it handily, using the superstar belly flop he’s practiced in my back yard. He’s up in a heroic instant, with runners heading toward first, third, and home, and then he freezes. He seems uncertain where to throw, though he’s close enough to first that he could run to the bag. And though in my gut I know the pitcher should be covering first, when I see Ryan hesitate, I’m not sure myself. Of course, I’m the guy who can’t call out instructions. Ibrahim hasn’t budged from the mound, but he’s shouting to Ryan to throw the ball home, while Juliana points to first and yells, “Over here!” In the instant it takes Ryan to realize the play is at first, the play ends. Big-head crosses the bag just as Ryan steps toward him, and the runner from third is safe at the plate. The red fans cheer.
Someone on our team yells, “God, Mohr!” at Ryan, who looks down and kicks the dust. I wipe my brow, and Ann reaches over to pat my hand. I think blame should fall on Ibrahim as well as Ryan, but that’s not how things go, and of course, everyone’s forgotten he made a great catch. Ed Mesk calls out that we’re still a team, fellas, and there’s an out yet to make, but the next Twin batter hits a blooper, which Elizabeth drops. One more run scores. Then Ibrahim gets a strikeout to retire the side.
Ryan comes in looking as sad as can be. He seems awfully young suddenly, and Ibrahim and Jeremy and the others seem huge. They might sprout beards before the sixth inning. Elizabeth tells Ryan it’s not really his fault, but who wants consolation from the other person who fucked up? Passing Ed and Jeremy in the on-deck circle, he hesitantly says, “Go get ’em, man.”
I lean from the stands, and he shuffles toward me, blinking. Ann hands him a Dixie cup. Ryan turns to watch the Twins’ pitcher tossing practice throws, and I rub his back as he sips some Gatorade. Then I turn him by the shoulders and pantomime batting: he’ll earn back that run and more when it’s his turn to hit. Ryan nods and moves toward the dugout, then stops in his tracks. “Oh, boy,” he says suddenly.
Shawn is here. I don’t know when he arrived, but he’s standing with his mother, who’s talking to Juliana while the little brother slaps a glove against a bench. I slide off the bleacher and step toward them as Eleanor says, “Of course it wasn’t intentional. If you had any idea how we hustled to get here—”
Juliana says, “Well, I can’t put him in now.”
“I don’t see why not. You had an unforeseen circumstance, so you used a temporary replacement.”
“Yeah, but like . . .” Juliana looks doubtful, and though she’s only a teenager, I move to where she can see me watching her. “I mean, the rules,” she says.
Ryan’s beside me, looking ashen. He seems to want to say something, though he’s not sure what, and I wouldn’t mind saying something myself. Then Shawn sighs audibly. “He already screwed up once,” he says.
“Shawn!” Eleanor shifts a book she’s holding and gives a tug at Shawn’s blue hair. Her face reddens as she catches sight of me. “Juliana, honey, you know the game much better than I, but with all these players? Aren’t there such things as substitutions? To benefit the team as a whole?” Juliana’s silent, and I cross my arms and make myself fierce. Sure, the kid ran into trouble, but no one’s pulling him before he can hit. I glare at Eleanor, who turns to the son bopping the glove on the bench. “Clark! Would you stop that?”
Shawn says, “Come on, Ryan. Give it up. You weren’t even supposed to be in the lineup.”
Ryan juts his jaw. “Oh, yeah?”
“And I’m like twice as good as you. You already cost us a run!” He looks at Ryan a moment, and his eyes narrow. “Oh, what are you gonna do now, you gonna cry? Little baby gonna cry?” And with this, Ryan’s at him. He leaps forward and pushes Shawn in the chest, and Shawn nearly falls on his butt. He takes a wide swing that misses Ryan’s ear. Ryan squares like a boxer.
“Come on, shithead,” Ryan mutters, and I grab his waist. Everybody’s yelling now—Juliana, the other Snakes, Shawn’s mom, even the kid brother. Ryan settles down when I get my hands on him, but no one’s got control of Shawn. He does what he may think looks like a kung-fu kick but is really a sucker move, catching Ryan on the knee, and rather than see my guy take a beating, I let Ryan wriggle away. He jumps at Shawn and knocks him to the ground—“Motherfucker!” he shouts—and it looks like he lands at least one decent punch.
The boys tumble across the concrete, spilling Dixie cups and sending everyone scrambling, and behind me I hear one of the Twin fielders shouting that there’s a fight. Ed appears, crying out, “What in tarnation?” and drags Shawn by the armpits, but Ryan follows them, swinging wildly. Ed hollers, “Howard, get ahold of your boy!” and this time when I tackle him he doesn’t come easily.
“Damn bastard!” he shouts. “It’s not fair!” I get my arms around him and try to say shh, but I can only whistle through my tongue. “Howie! It’s not fair!” he cries. His face is red now and completely contorted, and he says, “Let me go,” but I pull him to me. He jerks back, and I wipe a gob of snot from his chin; in his thrashing, he hauls off and hits me in the face. This first blow may be unintentional, but the next certainly isn’t. It catches me below the ear. Suddenly he’s a wild thing, and he lands several hard ones before I clamp down his wrists. Even then, I can’t calm or cradle him as I’d like, because he’s struggling so, and nothing’s any damn fair.
Shawn, though, has shut the fuck up, and Ed’s released him. He stands now with the group of Snakes, and as they watch Ryan pummel me they all seem like strangers. Shawn’s mother begins explaining the complicated reason they were late in arriving, and Ed says, “Eleanor, please!” and squats by my side. “Ryan. Hey, come on now, son.” His voice is sterner than I’ve heard it before, then it softens as he murmurs, “Shhh . . .” Patting Ryan on the back, he says, “Ryan. Hey, Ryan. No one’s gonna—”
Ryan cries, “Stop it!” and Ed moves his hand. He catches my eye, but I don’t know what he sees. Ryan stands stiffly between my knees. “Go away,” he says. I let go of his arms.
Ed says, “Ryan, no one’s taking you off the field. You’re our first baseman, and the Snakes are behind you. But you gotta try to pull it together ’cause we can’t be holding up the game like this. Come on, now, guy. Suck it up.” For a moment, no one moves, though Ryan’s chin trembles. Eyes welling, he glares fiercely at me; then he scowls at the ground.
Ed glances at Shawn, who’s been watching self-righteously. His mother’s beside him. The bony kid wrangler has materialized too and placed a hand on Eleanor’s shoulder. Ed says, “Shame on both you fellows, making us a laughingstock. You’ll get no more warnings. Now, Shawn, I’m not about to replace a player half an inning in. You ought to know that.” Both Shawn and his mother start to speak, but Ed raises a hand. “Ryan, you’re—” He pauses a moment, but Ryan doesn’t move. “You’re up sixth, and I think you need to get a hit. Everybody else, I want to hear—”
“We’re gonna lose!” Shawn says. “How come only I get punished?”
A voice calls, “S
hut up, Indig.” I look up, and it’s Jeremy, still cradling his bat. Another kid says we should get on with the game.
“I want dedicated cheering,” Ed says. “For everybody on the team. Let’s play ball.”
This would seem to be it. Ed and I stand, and though the moment’s uncomfortable, I think we’re all glad to return to the game. But Ryan erupts again, as though a switch has been flipped. “I don’t want to play in your butthead game!” he cries, his arms windmilling. Then his shoulders slump, and he seems suddenly done in. I reach for him, but he says, “Howie!” and puts his fists to his head, and all I manage is a syllable. “Unn-nnnh!” he cries. “This is so stupid! It doesn’t matter, anyway. Who even watches?” Kicking the dugout bench, he says, “Take your stupid, stupid, fartball first base if you have to have it so bad. I’m done here!” and shoves through the crowd, pushing even Juliana away. He takes the steps to the playing field in a single leap and runs headlong for the exit just as the big red-clad glove salesman trots out to investigate the delay. Ryan passes him, then I do, too. I can’t tell if he recognizes us.
I find Ryan sprawled forlornly on the hood of the truck, as if he’s taking a catnap. He doesn’t move when I come up behind him, and I feel so battered and blameful and thoroughly beyond hope that I don’t even pat his back. I just stretch out on the hood beside him. For several minutes we remain like that, side by side, and I drift into a reverie of someone showing me a flower, bending the stem so I can see it clearly. I gaze at the blossom’s delicate white center, and nothing happens. There’s no explosion, no orange air. A bit of dew falls against a stamen, and flecks of pollen, like tiny, tiny rust spots, appear on the petals. I say it’s so beautiful I wish I could take it home. Then Ryan says, “Howie?” and I open my eyes. “I guess it’s good my mom didn’t come after all,” he says; but if Sylvia had been here things would have gone differently. I sigh and turn around, taking a seat on the bumper with my head in my hands. Ryan does the same. After a while he says, “Please don’t cry,” and I lay my hand on his knee; there’s a pause before he puts his hand in mine. A shout comes from inside the ballpark, and I pat his knee and jerk my head at the entrance. I think it might help to go in and cheer. But Ryan says, “Can’t we just go home?” in such a small, reedy voice that I have no heart to force him to do anything. Out on the road, it’s barely dusk, but when I pass a vehicle with its headlights on I turn mine on, too.
50
THE INSTANT WE TURN onto my street, I spot the gold Nissan in front of my house. I should have anticipated this. On the porch stands Raymond, arms folded over his padded chest, and the sight of him standing sentinel turns my heart to lead. Raymond stares hard as I turn the truck into my driveway, then turns and heads into the house. My house!
I put the truck in park and turn off the motor. For a moment I don’t move. It strikes me that even with the best of projections, this is the end of something, and these the final moments of the existence we’ve been leading. Already, my dream life with Sylvia has become a chimera, patently unrealistic and foreign to the world I inhabit, the self I am. I can feel myself packing it up for storage, just as I did several decades ago. But what I can’t stow so easily away is the prospect of waking tomorrow with no Ryan in the house, and as I listen to the peepers pulse out their strange, orderly rhythm, I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t remember how I lived before.
I tell myself to pull it together—to suck it up, as Ed said. Catching Ryan’s profile in the twilight, I suppose something might be made of this moment, and I think again of that rowboat ride with my dad on the reservoir. My father wasn’t big on ceremonial remarks, and now, as I consider our dwindling minutes together, all I want to say is that the incident at first was as much Ibrahim’s fuckup as his, and no one expects him to be the perfect infielder. As for the other stuff—how happy I’ve been and how thoroughly I love him; how he’s given me something I’d never, ever have known—all this I hope he understands already, or will figure out for himself as he grows older. I’m glad, too, that we hiked down from the buzzards’ roost, instead of disappearing into the wild as I’d contemplated, because he got to play after all, and I’m still proud of that catch.
A shadow appears at the corner of the stable. Ryan and I sit up, and I believe for a moment we both think it’s a raccoon. But it strolls up the Volkswagen’s roof with a gait that’s too sultry for a raccoon, and Ryan whispers, “Puff.”
I say, “Mmm.”
The cat shows us his glowing eyes, and Ryan says, “Howie, are we going inside?” You bet we are, buddy, because I sure don’t want them coming out after us. I reach over to tousle his head and let my hand linger on the soft, tight curls. It must be past time for another haircut. With a shock, I realize he’s not wearing the old Indians cap, and I look over the seat and on both sides of the floor, but I don’t find it. He must have lost it in the scuffle.
We go in through the back. The kitchen lights are on, and when the screen door wheezes we hear Sylvia call, “Is that my guy? Is that my Ryan honey?” Ryan stops so abruptly that I almost fall over him, then he flies from me, taking off through the dining room as she appears at the hall door. “Where is he?” she barks.
“Mom!” he shouts, coming up so fast behind her that she barely can turn. He throws his arms around her neck as if expecting to be picked up, and he’s laughing and hugging her, Ruby’s barking, and Nit and Laurel are in the doorway.
“Oh, I missed you, babybaby, but here you are! Here you are, and gosh, you feel big!” At this, Ryan leans all his weight on his mother. They topple against the refrigerator and collapse in happy chaos. “Ouf!” says Sylvia, straightening her legs out across the floor. “Isn’t this a welcome!” She looks up, her cheeks wet.
Laurel turns and speaks into the darkened hallway. “Raymond. Better call off that . . . Just say things are fine now, not to bother coming, okay? Phone’s right there.” She plucks a tissue from a box on the counter and blows her nose, then sets the box on the floor beside Sylvia. But Sylvia’s stopped crying now. She’s laughing as Ryan covers her with kisses. Smiling up from their spot on the floor, Sylvia catches Laurel’s eye, and I think a look passes between them, though it’s the first time they’ve met. As for me, I’ve not budged from the doorway. The raucous display strikes me as embarrassing, and my allies have defected. I feel profoundly irrelevant.
Laurel says, “Howard, didn’t you know about this?” I shrug. “Well, was there a mix-up? They’ve been here for hours, even got a little worried.” So that’s how she and Sylvia became buddies. And though I customarily resent suggestions that I confuse things, this time I nod. Yeah, a mix-up. And the hell with it. Sylvia snorts derisively, and Ruby yaps at her. Laurel says, “Ruby, enough! Howard, would you mind?”
I carry Ruby out to the stoop, where she woofs tentatively in Puff’s direction. Behind me, I hear Sylvia admiring the blue Snakes jersey, and when she says, “Did your team win, darlin’?” I wish there were a hundred little dogs I could carry out one by one, just to busy myself until this is over. “There’ll be other chances,” she says.
I follow Ruby around the corner of the house, nudging her occasionally to keep her from the flower beds. Across the street, small figures leap behind a second-story window shade—it must be bath time for the children—and I stop to watch. I’m in no hurry to go back in. A police cruiser approaches from the boulevard, moving slowly under the trees, and pulls up behind the Nissan. Two patrolmen get out and, to my astonishment, move toward my house.
I’m not at ease with cops. Even more than with the rest of the world, I feel the burden of explaining myself. But I step from the shadows and place myself in the officers’ path, and one of them says, “We’re responding to a call. This your house, sir?”
I nod, holding my hands up to say all’s well. I wave the cops to the patrol car, but they ignore me. The taller one is pale and skinny and about my age; his partner’s shorter and younger, with a pumped-up torso that fairly bursts his blue uniform. These young
peacocks and their muscles! “Looking for a Serena Mo-her,” the younger one says, as behind me a window in Dwayne’s house slides open. The cop checks a spiral notebook and corrects himself: “Sorry: Sylvia. She here?”
I reach for my wallet, and though I’m only getting my little cards, the policemen stiffen. I hand them each a card, and they look at me as if this is more reason to be wary. The older one says, “Is Ms. Moore on the premises, sir? Do you understand what I’m saying?” But it’s right there: I am of normal intelligence!
I can feel Dwayne staring at us, so I pick up Ruby and lead the officers to the door. Inside, the hallway’s dark, but the kitchen, ahead of us, is brightly lit. Nit and Raymond step aside to let us pass, and when Laurel sees me with the cops, she steps forward. “Oh, hi,” she says. Hah. “I’m so sorry to make y’all come on out here. We got a little worried when Ryan didn’t come home, but he’s back now, as you can see. Turns out Howard just took him to a baseball game.”
“Sylvia Moore?”
“Sorry, no. Laurel Cao. I live here.” Laurel shakes both officers’ hands, then gestures at Sylvia, who seems to think it’s adorable to remain floorbound. “This is Sylvia, right here. And I guess you met Howard.” I’ve moved to the far end of the counter, away from the two cops, but I raise a hand. “And, of course, Ryan.” Who stares up, openmouthed.
The young cop nods and folds up his notebook. He’s probably eager to get back to the gym. The older guy looks at Sylvia. “You the one that filed the complaint?” She nods. “And it’s all good now?”