The Youngest Hero

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  But we were tight, and we didn’t show much during infield practice. Granger didn’t just laugh at our shoes and gloves, they cackled when we goofed up.

  “Fortunately,” Coach said when we came back in, “we’re batting first. There’s no science to this. They throw their best kid; we swing the bats. The team that scores the most runs still wins. There are no runs added or taken away because of how you look.”

  When I dug in left-handed against the Granger right-hander, the other coach moved his outfielders back.

  “This is him!” he shouted. “This is Woodell!”

  That quieted the crowd. There was a low buzz as everyone stared. I had stepped in and stared at the pitcher as he took the sign, so I stepped out.

  “Atta boy! Atta boy, El!” Coach hollered. “Good thinking! A heads-up kid!”

  I wasn’t sure why Coach Rollins thought I showed such wisdom and maturity by stepping out. He said later I had put the pressure on the pitcher and took some control.

  I almost always took the first pitch of a game, because I wanted to see what the live game-situation fastball looked like. This one was straight and hard at the waist, and it split the plate. That would be good news for my teammates. If this guy grooved it, no matter how fast, they would do some hitting.

  Because I hadn’t even hinted at a bunt, the first and third basemen backed up even with their bases. I had a spot picked out in left center where I wanted to hit an outside pitch, and another in right center where I wanted to hit an inside pitch. Another plate-slicing fastball I would try to send back up the middle.

  The big right-hander seemed to hang on to the ball a fraction of a second too long, and the next heavy fastball came right at my middle. I spun and dropped, and it just missed me. The whooping and laughing from the Granger bench told me it had been thrown on purpose.

  I stood and brushed myself off, looking for the signal from Coach. I was on my own. I was to get on any way I could. I dug a deep hole for my left foot, trying to show the pitcher he hadn’t scared me. There was no hitting a pitcher like this if you bailed out.

  This time he tried to catch the outside corner with an off-speed pitch. The speed fooled me, but the location didn’t. I figured the pitcher thought I would be shy about diving across the plate, but I expected a fastball. That’s why I was a little early about squaring around for the bunt, and here came the fielders from the corners.

  The first baseman was almost on top of me when I let the ball hit the bat and directed it between the pitcher and the second baseman, who had darted toward first. It was perfectly placed. No one would get to it in time to even attempt a throw. But as I raced to first, I noticed the shortstop had come over to field the ball on the first-base side of second.

  He swiped at it and tossed it to the pitcher, then turned his back to me to trudge back to position. No one was covering second, so I never slowed. I was halfway to second before the shouting started.

  “Second! Second! He’s going!” The shortstop whirled and tried to get to second in time for the throw, but the pitcher tossed it wildly. It had been only a flip, so there wasn’t enough on it to get it far into center field. There it sat, with the center fielder coming in and the shortstop racing out as I slid in headfirst, squinting toward the outfield. As soon as my fingers touched the bag I pulled my feet up and headed for third. It was a long shot, probably foolish, but it would take a perfect throw to get me.

  Coach wildly pointed down, so I went into another headfirst slide. The throw was a couple of feet high, and I was safe. I saw a look in the pitcher’s eyes like the one that was in ours when we first saw the Granger team. With nobody out, we had a fast man at third, leading off, faking, distracting, looking for a passed ball to score on. It never came, but with one out, a grounder to second was deep enough, and we scored first.

  It wasn’t much of a game after that. We broke it open with a five-run second inning that included a home run, a double, and two errors. Granger had stopped chanting. The fancy equipment looked silly. We were just shabby-looking kids from the city, but suddenly we were the team to beat in the tournament.

  Three days later, we finished second, losing 2-1 in the championship game to the defending state titlists. I made the all-tournament team and had two homers in four games, the last one our only run in the final game. All the way home we pestered Coach Rollins about getting into another tournament.

  “If I can get some money from the league,” Coach said, “I’d love to see what you guys could do.”

  The league told Coach that we would have to pitch in several dollars apiece to get into another tournament, but not enough of us could afford it. I could hardly believe the season was over already.

  I still played fastpitch every day, and that made baseball look easy. It was sad, though, that fastpitch was all that was left for another year, but I forgot about that when I noticed the return address on a letter addressed to my mother. It was marked “Personal and Confidential,” and it was from the Alabama State Penitentiary.

  14

  I wasn’t as eager as Elgin was to read the letter from Alabama.

  “You should have waited to start the rice,” I said. “Now it’s gonna be sticky.”

  “Sorry, Momma.”

  “Please quit callin me ‘Momma’! You sound like a baby!”

  He squinted and turned on me. “That’s what I always call you. And I’m not a baby.”

  I hated when we squabbled, but we both had to vent sometimes. I busied myself with details so I could ignore the letter.

  I couldn’t stand it when Momma was mad, especially when I couldn’t figure out why she was. I sat at the table, drumming my fingers.

  “Ain’t the Cub game on or somethin?” she asked.

  “Ain’t!? Momma, you haven’t said ain’t in months! You’re excited about this letter from Daddy too, ain’t you?”

  I was just trying to be funny. She stopped and stared at me, hands on her hips. “First off, I can talk any way I want, and I don’t need some child prodg—some child progeny, or whatever, tellin me—”

  “Prodigy.”

  “Whatever. The letter is not even from your dad. It’s from some official at the prison, and if they thought you should see it, they wouldn’t have marked it personal.”

  “You think it’s bad news,” I said, “like Daddy’s sick again, or hurt, or dead?”

  “I thought you said bad news.”

  “Momma!”

  “Stop callin me that!”

  “But that was mean. I sure don’t want anything happening to Daddy before he comes to see me.”

  Momma dried her hands and sat down with me. “There’s something you got to get straight, son,” she said. “Your daddy’s never getting outa that prison.”

  I started to say something, but she cut me off.

  “I know more about it than he even remembers, and what he did is the kind of thing they throw away the key for.”

  “But he said—”

  “I know, but I had Mr. Thatcher look into it. It was bad, El. Your dad did something that can never be fixed. He can be as sorry as he wants and he can come up with all his typical excuses. But he was driving without a license, ran full off the road, and killed an old man poking along. I hate to have to make it so plain to you, but do you see why your daddy got life in prison and was lucky he didn’t get worse?”

  I couldn’t speak. Daddy had made it look to me like the whole thing could have been the old man’s fault.

  “Will he get out like when he’s old?”

  “He was given sixty-five years, Elgin. And he was in his thirties when he went in.”

  “He’ll be almost a hundred!”

  “He’ll never live that long, El. Not in prison.”

  I couldn’t keep from crying.

  “Momma, could you read the letter and tell me what you can?”

  I took it to the living room. It was on Prison Chaplain Alton Wallace’s stationery.

  I had been under the impression that
you and Neal Lofert Woodell were divorced. He assures me this is not the case. If he is being other than truthful with me, I would appreciate your advising me so that I not trouble you with his requests that I contact you.

  If a document would clarify your marital situation, that would suffice.

  Meanwhile, Neal is hospitalized yet again, but this time not for delirium tremens. He has largely recovered from the effects of alcohol, due to time and medication and his inability to procure the same.

  This time, sad to say, he attempted to take his own life. He used a sharpened spoon to tear a gash on the inside of his elbow and lost considerable blood. He left a note, addressed to me but concerned with you. It is enclosed.

  I have talked and prayed with Neal and find him still despondent and, in my psychiatrically lay opinion, also still suicidal.

  He wants your love and attention, but this suicide attempt was more than a cry for attention. He almost succeeded. Any worse and he would have been shipped to an intensive care unit. As it is, he is rarely lucid.

  Mrs. Woodell, I know from Neal of some of the very difficult times you endured with him. I would not be surprised to find you still bitter and even hateful toward him. But as you will see from the enclosed, this is a man with a life-or-death need to hear from you, regardless of whether he is still your husband.

  If you would reply directly to me, I will honor your wishes. My prayer is that you will thoughtfully respond to Neal, but I will understand if you wish to wash your hands of him.

  I am sorry to trouble you, and I hope you understand that I am only trying to do what I think is right.

  I remain cordially yours,

  Rev. Alton Wallace, Chaplain

  Alabama State Penitentiary

  P.S. I have honored the request in his note.

  “Well?” Elgin called from the kitchen.

  “Nothing to speak of,” I said. ‘Just a letter from an official.”

  “About Daddy?”

  “Um-hm.”

  “Anything from Daddy?”

  “I’ll let you know, El. Now stop bugging. Beans done yet?”

  “I’ll let you know,” he said. “Now stop bugging.”

  Any other time I would have found that funny. I ignored him and opened the dingy, twice-folded note.

  By time you find this, Ill be dead, I hope. I appricate everthing youve tried to do for me. Like I told you, I know Jesus died for my sins when I was a littel boy, but Ive done so many bad things sence then, I jist dont know. Thanks for praying with me anyhow.

  I cant go on. You tell me God forgives me if I’m truly sorry. I don’t know how sorrier I can git. What I want is for my wife and boy to forgive me, but I cant tell my boy what I done. He knows a littel but not all and I dont want him to.

  My wife knows everything I gess, and she dont want to forgive me. She hates me. I jist wish she could see that I dont want nothing from her that would make her life worse. Her forgiving me for what I done to her would just make my life a little easier. I aint going nowhere anyway. I wont be any more truble to her.

  Revernd, I got something like over a hunderd dollers in my account here. Could you use that to git my frend in Mobile to send my old pitching machene to my wife. She wants it real bad for some reeson.

  Thanks again for everything, and Im sorry to let you down. Tell my wife and my boy I love them and that Im sorry. Tell my boy I wouldve wrote to him sooner if I hadnt been sick. Good by, and I hope to see you in Heaven.

  Neal L. Woodell

  I slid the letters back into the envelope. I stood and reached for the wall, shutting my eyes.

  “Momma, what is it?”

  “Not now. I need to take a little walk.”

  “Can I read the—”

  I gave him a look and pulled a sweater from the closet.

  “Anything from Daddy?” he tried.

  I didn’t look at him. “If I’m not back soon, go ahead and eat your supper. Put mine in the oven.”

  “But, Momma—”

  The elevator was slower than the stairs, and as I turned at each landing the aroma of food overpowered the usual stench. I smelled the dinners of tenants of all different nationalities, heard babies screaming, couples bickering, kids fighting.

  “Good evening, Miz Woodell,” Mr. Bravura said, standing quickly as I passed. “Everything all right?” His teeth were on the desk, and he looked as if he wished he’d known whose footsteps he’d heard on the stairs.

  “Good evening,” I said, not looking at him.

  “Anything I can get for you, ma’am?”

  “No, thank you. Just out for a stroll.”

  “A little warm for that, ma’am. And not the best neighborhood.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I said as I breezed out the door into the darkness. As soon as I was clear of the entrance, I felt the humidity. The sky was not black yet, and I feared no danger if I walked as if I knew where I was going. The problem was, I had no idea. Where do you go and what do you do, what do you think or say when the problem you thought was behind you raises his head and reaches for you from inside prison bars?

  I walked a couple of blocks to where Elgin played fastpitch every day, and I sat on the stoop from where I had watched him in the early spring. That had been one cold day. From across the street I could just make out the fading chalk strike zone.

  How neat and tidy that there was a drawn box. If the pitch hits within the borders, it’s a strike. If it doesn’t, it’s not. Why couldn’t life be like that? I had not sent Neal to prison. I had not forced him to kick me and kill our unborn daughter. I had not been responsible for his killing an old man out of drunken stupidity.

  I admit I was glad he had been sentenced for life. That was tidy. Not pleasant, but final. If I could have gotten him to write to Elgin once in a while, maybe with some baseball advice or something, it would be perfect.

  Did I feel bad for Neal? No. He got what he deserved. In fact, he had deserved it long ago, and if he had been sentenced for what he did to my baby, he never would have been free to kill the old man.

  Was it up to me to try to keep Neal from killing himself? Was that being laid at my feet too? For sure, that’s what Neal had in mind. He was a manipulator to the end, even using the prison chaplain!

  And what should I do about forgiving Neal? I could not forget, which was another way of saying I could not forgive. But would there be any value, any harm, in telling him I wasn’t holding it against him? That wasn’t true, but what could he do from behind bars? He might get the idea that there was some hope, some chance for us as a couple. I wanted no part of that.

  I put my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands.

  Neal, how could I have ever fallen for you in the first place?

  15

  Neal had been great-looking and a gifted athlete, and he was charming in his own good-ol’-boy way. He was always polite around girls, nodding, pretending to tip an imaginary hat whenever one walked by, which was often in our big county high school. He gave off enough self-conscious shyness to take the edge off his swagger. We girls swooned.

  Everybody knew he was no student, but teachers and coaches liked Neal. He was all aw-shucks in front of a microphone, but he knew how to draw a laugh.

  “I ain’t much fer talkin here, as y’all know, but I jist believe we’re gonna whip some, ah, Spartan tail tonight and I hope y’all’ll be there to cheer us on. Thank you.” Then he would look to his buddies and give them a thumbs-up as he shuffled off the stage.

  Neal wasn’t a rich kid, but he set trends with how he wore a plain shirt and jeans. Some said he was a behind-the-barn smoker and an in-the-barn drinker and romancer. But by the time we were going steady as seniors, I doubted that reputation, as least as a lover. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to. I set limits and stuck to them.

  As for the smoking and drinking, well, most everyone except athletes smoked openly. I hardly knew any boys who didn’t drink. The problem with Neal wasn’t his vices, though there were many. His pr
oblem was his outlook, what some people call worldview.

  I didn’t have trouble making Neal behave before we were married. I gave him the silent treatment when I smelled tobacco on his breath and lectured him on his responsibility as a star athlete. He never drank in front of me, but I knew when he’d been drinking.

  For a while I was dreamy about landing the school’s heartthrob, but Neal Woodell was simple and plain, and I could see right through him. He seemed surprised at what his body and physical abilities brought him. They became his security, his identity. But what shaped the man he became was something else. It was his family outlook.

  I visited his home for the first time about six weeks after we started dating. The Woodell place was a lot like my own family’s. Low marshland in the Gulf coastal plain made for a rich, deep green, sweet-smelling grass that covered the back of the property. The front was bare dirt. There was a shed, parts of old cars, and a stone drive that led back to a chicken coop and what was left of a red and gray barn. Inside the small house, eight children—Neal was the oldest—shared two tiny bedrooms. Their mother had one to herself, except on weekends when her husband returned from shrimping near Biloxi, half a day’s drive in a rattly pickup.

  I felt at home at the Woodells’ right away. My family was not quite as large, just six children (I was fourth). Neal seemed to be treated the same way my brothers and sisters and I treated my oldest sister. There was a pecking order, and here it started with Neal.

  His mother seemed a hard woman, small with black eyes and thin lips. She never attended Neal’s games, but a few of his brothers and sisters showed up. Mrs. Woodell was pleasant enough. She rarely had time to sit and talk, except at mealtimes, and even then she seemed to do all the work.

  What struck me about her and her husband (when I happened to catch him on a weekend) was their view of the future. To them, everything was temporary. It all pointed to a day, someday, when their number would turn up, their ship would come in, they would get that break, that job, that phone call, that inheritance.