“There really is a moral to that story, though, isn’t there?” I said as I tucked him in.
He shrugged.
I said, “I think that if you do the right thing because it’s the right thing, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but it evens out. You can do the right thing and fail, or you can do the wrong thing and get lucky. But you can never do the wrong thing on purpose and get lucky often. Isn’t that just like life?”
He shrugged again.
“That works in life as well as in baseball, El. Don’t you think?”
I didn’t know what Momma wanted me to say, so I just scowled and concentrated on getting better situated under the covers. She was talking about adult stuff now, and though she seemed to think I understood, it made me uncomfortable. I just didn’t want her to make such a big deal of it.
“I tried to do the right thing with your dad and nothing worked out,” she said. “I tried to do the right thing by moving to Chicago. We won’t know till spring if that was the right thing, at least for you.”
“You mean if I get to play in a good enough league, we’ll find out how good of a player I really can be?”
“El, I didn’t come here just to find out what kind of a baseball player you would become.”
“I know.”
“If I only wanted to see how good you were, I would have kept you down there where you could play most of the year and where they would have moved you into a higher league.”
“They better do that here, cause I’m better than the kids my age here too.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded.
“I wouldn’t mind playing with the men in the softball league.”
Momma threw her head back and laughed. “Let’s not get carried away,” she said.
I was glad the conversation found its way back to baseball, as our talks usually did. I felt guilty trying to steer such a young boy into adult talk. I longed for the day when he would be old enough to understand.
The Chicago winter had been depressing for both of us. No snowdrifts or traffic jams like the locals predicted, but it was bitter cold. Hot water was sometimes scarce. A hot meal charity mistook our address for someone else’s and tried to deliver dinner one night. I explained that we were not needy, and that our dinner was on the stove.
Elgin was curious to know whether what they had to offer—hot turkey—was better than the ravioli in the kitchen. It was, he decided, but I dragged him from the door and explained the situation to him. We had a good laugh over it, then I went to my bed and cried.
I didn’t understand my own emotions. The sun setting so soon after Elgin’s school let out depressed me. The sweetness of people delivering hot meals to shut-ins or the elderly touched me. But being mistaken for a charity case, probably because of the building we lived in, reached my soul.
Yes, we were needy. But I couldn’t bring myself to accept handouts. We were not eligible and did not need the hot meal, but when a church group came by with warm winter coats, it took all my reserve to send them away with a thank-you.
Sub-zero temperatures were new to me, the windchill piercing as I waited for the bus and made the frigid walks from the bus to the transient hotel. I had taken to wearing several layers of clothing, but there was something about my porous cotton overcoat that made me long for something down-filled.
I had bought Elgin a warm parka. I would not have been able to live with myself if he’d had to get to and from school and play outside without it. For me, earmuffs, a hat, a scarf, and decent gloves helped make up for my flimsy coat. By spring, if it ever came, I would have not only my savings, Elgin’s college fund, and my bills up to date, but I would also have enough to register Elgin in a real baseball league.
As the days grew longer, but hardly warmer, Elgin began playing fastpitch with his friends a few blocks away on weekends and for a little less than an hour on school days. He devoured the sports pages, which Mr. Bravura saved for him from the lobby.
Ricardo Bravura was a man in his late fifties, short with spindly legs and arms but a waistline that belonged to a much larger man. His remaining wisps of hair were greasy and unkempt, and he only occasionally kept his teeth in all day. He was not intimidating, but he ran the place for some absentee owner, which pretty much meant no breaks for anyone. He threw out the drunks who wandered in to doze in the warmth of the lobby. And he evicted tenants who didn’t keep their rent paid in advance.
He made clear he was not there as a referee for the residents. It was up to us to keep out of one another’s way. He might threaten to keep people quiet, but once a renter got past Bravura’s desk, he was on his own. Two maids changed the linens once every three days or with each new client, unless you rented by the month—which we did. Then you did your own housework.
I could tell Mr. Bravura was enamored with me. For all I knew he might have been a devout lecher in his day. But now he was old and tired and seemed content to just notice and compliment women when the mood struck him. He was overly friendly to me, but he had never been inappropriate. I tried to carry myself in a way that made that impossible.
I appreciated that Mr. Bravura was nice to Elgin. He let him use the office phone in emergencies, though Elgin was to use the pay phone whenever he had change. Best of all, Mr. Bravura finally caught on that Elgin was willing to tidy up the dingy, smelly lobby in exchange for the day’s newspaper—specifically the sports section.
So, every morning after the early risers had cleared out, Ricardo would find the most unwrinkled sports section from those that had been left, and save it for his young lobby attendant. Elgin breezed through the dusting of dark, greasy wood and cracking leather in just a few minutes, clearing and tossing the trash. Then he would move past the cluttered, glassed-in cubicle with “Manager” stenciled on it. He would take the Tribune or Sun-Times, promise to greet his “lovely mother,” and head to our apartment.
There, with just enough time between breakfast and school, while I dressed for work, Elgin memorized the numbers that defined his world. All through the dark, cold days there had been little mention of trades, deals, and winter meetings. But with February had come spring training.
“The scores mean nothing, Momma,” he tried to explain. “The managers are experimenting, trying everyone, working on plays, pitches, situations. But the batting averages mean a lot. The veterans don’t care if they’re facing the Cy Young award winner or some guy who will never play in the big leagues. They’re there to prove they still have it. They don’t want a rookie proving it’s his turn.”
I half listened as I steeled myself for the day. With every layer of clothes I reminded myself that this was worth it. This was why I had come to Chicago. Today it would be spring training box scores. Tomorrow it would be Little League. But someday, it would be broadcasting. Or something. Anything. Elgin would be more than his daddy, more than anyone who had ever bore that name. I would make it possible, give him all the opportunities, and he would not squander it.
10
“How are you doing with your fastpitch hitting, El?” I called, pulling on a boot.
“I’m the best hitter every day, and I’m still the youngest.”
I stopped and looked out the door at him. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, ma’am. Hardly anybody can get me out twice in a row.”
“You caught on to that pretty fast.”
“Seemed like forever to me. Using a broom handle to hit a tennis ball, pitched from up close like that, seems like the hardest thing to do. But once you catch on, it’s fun. You should come and watch sometime.”
“Last time I got shooed away.”
“I don’t care anymore. You can come.”
“Maybe when it starts getting lighter. By the time I get off work now, it’s already pitch black.”
The day I decided to make good on my promise to Elgin was also the day Charlie from marketing decided to make his latest move on me.
“At least let me walk you to the bus.”
I thought I had somehow kept from my coworkers the fact that I rode a bus to and from the office.
“I’m watching my son play ball on the Near West Side.”
“Bad neighborhood,” Charlie said. “Pretty little redhead like you ought not to—”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, not looking at him. “Thanks anyway.”
“Any time,” he said, as if he meant it.
The white mark on his ring finger told of his fresh second divorce. The reasons for that failure sat at desks and phones within a floor of mine.
I knew the neighborhood was bad where Elgin played fast-pitch. We lived close enough. When I got off the bus I thought about dropping my stuff off at the hotel, but the sun was setting fast and I didn’t have the time or the energy to endure Mr. Bravura’s fawning. He would offer to look after my things or even deliver them to my apartment, but that would cost precious minutes of polite small talk.
So despite that the total walk from the bus to the fastpitch game was a half block more than a mile, and that I would have another quarter-mile walk back home after that, I kept trudging. The walk home with Elgin would be no ordeal. He was my existence.
Spring was around the corner, but no one had told Chicago. I was dressed almost as I had been for the dead of winter, though I wore walking shoes rather than boots, and my scarf hung inside my coat, not wrapped around my neck and face. I wondered how pretty I looked now, in bulky outerwear and a floppy knit hat pulled over my hair.
I sat on a stoop across the street from where the kids batted. There were three kids to a team today, and Elgin was waiting his turn to hit. He gave a small, shy wave, as if not wanting to draw attention to me. I smiled at him and remained in the shadows, though it was even colder there.
A black kid of about fourteen was pitching. He was wild, but he threw the bald tennis ball so hard I wondered how anyone could see it, let alone get a stick on it. The bat was exactly what Elgin had said it was: a broomstick with electrical tape wrapped around one end for a handle. No wonder his palms were black every day.
The hitter stood in front of a wall, and if the pitch got past him and slammed into the chalk-drawn strike zone (which was the same for everyone, regardless of height), the pitcher called it a strike. That led to countless arguments, of course, but everyone wanted to keep playing so they were kept short.
“Oh-and-two,” the pitcher hollered as he began his windup. I thought I recognized that windup. Who was it? A Cub? Sure! The tall black pitcher for the Cubs, Joe Davis, would be this kid’s idol. He lifted his hands together, just missing the brim of his cap, kept his body straight, drew his leg back and swept forward, his arm beginning slowly and finishing in a whip action that sent the ball whooshing toward the hitter.
I squinted, trying to pick up the flight of the ball. The hitter, a big white kid with long, dark curls, spun to get out of the way, but the ball hit him in the temple. It skied high above the pitcher and drifted back toward the buildings on my side of the street.
“He hit that?” one of the two fielders said as he settled under it.
“No!” the pitcher squealed, doubling over. “It hit him!”
Everyone was laughing, even the hitter. It had to have stung, but I guess unless you get hit in the eye or some other sensitive spot, a tennis ball can’t seriously hurt you. And apparently there was no hit-by-pitch in fastpitch because the hitter stayed in and the pitcher hollered out, “One-and-two,” as he wound to fire again. This time he threw a lazy change-up that started toward the hitter and broke way to the outside. Curls started to bail out, then realized the pitch was slow and tried to stay in and swing. The ball curved away from him so far that he missed it with a weak swing and looked silly. The boys all laughed again, including the hitter.
“I burned you, man!” the pitcher said. “You shoulda seen yourself, man! Two down! Okay, El-El, get in there. Big stick, heat against heat. Let’s see what you got.”
That was the first time I had ever heard anyone call my son El-El. Were they teasing him, as if he were a baby?
“You already know what he’s got, man,” Elgin’s Puerto Rican teammate sang out. “He seven for nine against you already and three homers.”
The Joe Davis imitator threw a pitch so hard that it bounced off the wall and back to him on one hop.
“Strike one!” he said.
Elgin had stepped into the pitch and opened his hips, but he had held his swing at the last instant. I wondered how anyone could react that quickly, and I figured his teammate must have been kidding about his already getting several hits off this kid today.
The pitch had been at about Elgin’s eye level, but the strike zone had been chalked for the older kids. Elgin’s shoulders slumped, and he cocked his head and pursed his lips at the pitcher.
“It was in the zone,” Davis explained in a high, squeaky voice.
“It was in the zone,” Elgin mimicked, and I was stunned. To make fun of a black person, especially the way he talked, constituted the fixings for a fight where we came from. I watched in amazement as everyone laughed, including the pitcher. “Come on, Darnell,” Elgin said, “I’m not a seven-footer here!”
“That pitch was in the zone, wasn’t it, boys?” Darnell said, turning to look at his fielders. They both nodded.
“Oh-and-one,” Elgin sighed. “Now I dare you to bring that pitch down six inches.”
Darnell went into his exaggerated windup again, and the fastball hurtled toward the wall. This pitch was slightly lower, but just when I expected it to bounce off the wall and back to the pitcher, I saw my son, as if in slow motion. Could I lay the credit for his incredible swing at the feet of Neal Lofert Wood-ell? Someone deserved the praise.
Elgin had stood there, bat cocked. He followed the pitch with his eyes, keeping his chin down and his head steady as he stepped and pivoted and swung as the ball came in at about chest level, and blasted it straight back at Darnell. The pitcher flinched and tried to move, but I was sure he hadn’t moved a muscle until the ball was well past him, though it had come within inches of his ear. One of his fielders across the street instinctively shot out his glove and the ball slammed into it and ricocheted out and back to Darnell, where it hit him just below the knee and bounced away.
I had not entirely caught on to the game yet, but plainly this was an out. The team in the field whooped and high-fived each other and ran in to hit. Elgin and his teammates shook their heads and grabbed their gloves. The ball had not reached the building across the street, so it wasn’t a hit; it was as simple as that. Though Elgin had hit it as hard as I had seen a tennis ball hit, he was out. Those were the rules, and they were having fun, so who was I to consider it unjust? In spite of it, he was the youngest, the smallest, and the best hitter. And from what I could tell, this was wonderful training for the real thing. If he could hit that little, speeding ball, thrown from so close by kids so big, and with that sorry excuse for a bat, real baseball was going to seem easy.
Elgin hit three more times before dark. Once he lofted a high pop-up that was uncatchable but fell as an out in the street. The other two times he rifled doubles off the wall across the street. As we walked home he explained his new nickname.
“I don’t really like it, so don’t start calling me that. But they took the first syllable of my first name and the last syllable of my last name.”
“Clever.”
“But I don’t like it.”
“I heard you, El. I can still call you El, can’t I? Aren’t you cold?”
“I’m still sweating,” he said, his parka slung over his shoulder.
“That’s a good time to stay bundled up,” I said. “That wind will chill you.”
“C’mon, Momma. I’m no baby anymore.”
I looked at him, and to my horror realized he was right. He was smaller than the kids he played with, but for his age he was tall, lankier than ever.
“So, how’d I do?” he asked at home as we ate.
“How’d you do? You did fantastic! I don
’t understand how you can hit that ball.”
“I don’t either. I remember when I couldn’t hit that thing to save my life. It would come in there and bang off the wall before I had time to think.”
“So how do you do it?”
“I don’t think.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I really don’t think about it. Daddy used to tell me to use my instincts rather than my mind. I didn’t know what he meant until I had to try to hit a small ball, pitched from close in, by kids this big. I mean, Daddy pitched as hard as he could to me, but from—”
“Did he really?”
“I think so. He said he did, and I know I couldn’t hit him.”
“You hit him a lot, El.”
“But not when he was pitching his fastest. Nobody could. At the end of each practice he would throw me a dozen or so of his hardest pitches. I don’t think I fouled off more than one or two ever.”
“Did he throw faster than this Darnell?”
Elgin nodded. “Yeah, but I’d have to say this is a little tougher, because a tennis ball is lighter and can move a lot more, and it does come in from so much closer.”
“How do you do it?”
“I started to hit fastpitch when I finally realized that I didn’t have time to think. I could guess, that’s all.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Sure it does. Big leaguers guess. They try to guess what pitch a guy will throw and about where he will throw it. It gives them a little edge.”
“Only if they’re right.”
“Exactly. But there’s not enough time to think about where the pitcher’s arm is and the spin of the ball. Daddy says that all goes into the hitter’s computer.”
“His brain.”
“Right. But you just see that and react and hope for the best.”
I shook my head. “Do you realize that baseball tryouts are next Saturday?” I said.
“Momma,” Elgin said, “I know how many days and hours there are to go.”
The Youngest Hero Page 6