The Death of Baseball

by Orlando Ortega-Medina

“I’m Doctor Seth Menner.” He arches one eyebrow at me the way Mr Spock does on Star Trek. “Do you know why you’re here today, young man?”

  “Because I cracked open Ryo’s head.”

  Doctor Menner nods and writes something in his notepad, then looks up at me.

  “Why did you do that? I understand from the police report that Ryo’s a school friend of yours.”

  “If I tell you why I did it, will it stay private?”

  “Normally, yes.” He takes another sip of water and clears his throat.

  “You mean it’s not private.”

  “Not completely, no.” He sits up in his chair. “But I do have discretion in these matters. So I’d urge you to be as honest with me as you can, and I promise to be selective with the information, revealing only what’s relevant to the case.”

  Even though Doctor Menner is weird and nervous, and doesn’t know how to dress or how to decorate his office, somehow I feel I can trust him. So I spend the rest of the session explaining how Ryo has always been mean to me, and about how he tried to force me to suck his chinchin. When I get to the sucking part, Doctor Menner’s breathing changes and he starts to sweat again. He holds up a hand, pulls out his handkerchief one more time, and passes it over his forehead. Then he asks me if I think I’d do the same thing if I found myself in the same situation with someone else, and I tell him that I don’t know. I really don’t know, especially since I can’t even remember hitting Ryo. It was just an automatic reaction.

  Doctor Menner nods and writes some more in his steno pad. Then he sets it aside, takes off his glasses, and polishes them with a shiny cloth he pulls out of his shirt pocket. He sits quietly for a while and flashes a sad smile at me like he’s about to cry. Then he slips back on his glasses and clears his throat.

  “How did you feel when Ryo tried to force you to do that?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I hated him.”

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “Because he wanted to make me do something I didn’t want to do.”

  “But you don’t hate everyone that makes you do something you don’t want to do, correct?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, for example, I’m sure your parents, or perhaps your teachers, from time to time, make you do things you don’t want to do. You don’t hate them, do you?”

  I think about that for a moment. “No, I guess I don’t. But Ryo was forcing me to do something stupid.”

  “Was it stupid? Or was it something you might have wanted to do if it hadn’t been Ryo?”

  “What do you mean?” The same hot feeling I felt out in the wooded field when I was with Ryo is spreading again from my stomach into my chest.

  “Is there anyone in your life who you feel particularly close to besides your parents,” he asks. “For example, another boy?”

  “I feel close to my cousin Kevin.” My throat goes a little tight, and my eyes start to sting.

  Doctor Menner scribbles something in his notepad and looks up at me. “How old is your cousin Kevin?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “What if your cousin Kevin tried to make you do what Ryo was demanding of you? Would you have the same reaction?”

  I sit straight up on the sofa. “I don’t want to talk about my cousin Kevin.”

  Doctor Menner flips closed his steno pad and sets it aside. “Why not?”

  “His parents took him away to England. And it’s all my fault.”

  “I see.” Doctor Menner grabs a Kleenex box from his desk and holds it out to me. I pull out a few tissues and blow my nose. “Take your time, young man.”

  When I finish wiping my face, he pulls out a plastic-lined trash bucket from under his desk so I can drop the dirty tissues into it. I notice a bunch of other dirty tissues inside, and also something that looks like a flat balloon stuck to the side of the bucket. He quickly pulls back the bucket and shoves it under his desk.

  “As difficult as you may find it to talk about Kevin,” he says after a moment, “I think it’s important for us to explore this a bit, as it may be relevant to your case.”

  I stare at Doctor Menner.

  “Would that be OK?”

  I nod.

  “Good, let’s try this: Lie back on the sofa and make yourself comfortable, and just answer my questions. Don’t overthink your answers. Simply respond with the first thing that comes to your mind.”

  I swing my feet onto the sofa, put one of the cushions under my head, and stare at the ceiling, waiting for Doctor Menner’s questions.

  “Why do you believe it’s your fault that Kevin’s parents took him to England?”

  “Because Auntie Doreen thought she caught us doing it.”

  “Doing it?”

  “Yeah, the night before they went away on vacation. I was supposed to be sleeping in my own room, but I snuck into Kevin’s in the middle of the night. Then Auntie Doreen woke up and found me.”

  “How long have you and Kevin been … doing it?”

  I turn my head and look at Doctor Menner. He points his pencil up, and I look back at the ceiling.

  “How long?” he asks again.

  “We’ve never done it. We were just kissing. We’ve been kissing since my birthday. But that time when Auntie Doreen caught me was the first time I slept in his room.”

  “Why were you sleeping at Kevin’s house? Why weren’t you at your own house?”

  “Auntie said I could stay there.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of my father.”

  The room goes totally quiet except for Doctor Menner’s breathing, the hum of his digital clock, and the faraway sound of traffic. After a bit, I turn my head and find him staring at me over the top of his half-glasses. He points up again, and I look back at the ceiling.

  “What about your father?” he finally asks.

  “I’m afraid of him.”

  Doctor Menner doesn’t ask his next question for a while. But I’m ready for it when it comes.

  “Why are you afraid of your father?”

  “Are we finished talking about Kevin?”

  “For now, yes. Let’s talk about your father.”

  I sit up on the sofa. “Hand me my book bag.”

  Doctor Menner cocks his head to one side. “Your book bag?”

  “Yes, please.” My heart races, and I feel like I’m about to pass out. “I need to get something out of there. I want to show you—”

  Doctor Menner gets up, retrieves my book bag from behind his desk, and opens up the flap.

  “Under the books,” I say.

  Doctor Menner digs inside my book bag and draws out the plastic sandwich baggie with the thing inside.

  “That’s it.”

  He holds up the baggie to the light and peers at it. From where I’m sitting, I can see the thing inside and so can he. He unzips the baggie and pulls it out, pinched between his thumb and forefinger. The baggie floats out of his hand to the carpet, and he shakes open the thing. His eyes go wide when he sees the brown splotches.

  Chapter 14

  My father bolts out of Doctor Menner’s office like a crazy person and dashes into the hallway. He doesn’t even notice me sitting next to Doctor Menner’s secretary, who’s been watching me the whole time that Doctor Menner’s been talking to him and Momma about the things I said he did to me when I was little, and probably to Hiro, too.

  I hear Momma crying inside Doctor Menner’s office, so I get up to look, but Doctor Menner’s secretary tells me to sit still. Soon a couple of police officers show up and ask to see Doctor Menner. His secretary points at the door, and they march past us and walk into his office without knocking. One of the officers is a tall, fat Mexican named Lopez, and the other one—the one in charge—is a short, wiry Vietnamese guy named Nguyen. Neither of them looks very nice.

  After a while, they call me inside and ask me lots of questions, making me repeat everything I told Doctor Menner, while Momma sits in a corner and sobs with her face in her h
ands. Doctor Menner hands them the thing, which is back inside the plastic baggie. Officer Nguyen tells us they’re going to send it to a special lab to test the brown splotches to see whether it’s really blood, and, if it is, they’re going to find out whose blood it is.

  After I finish, Lopez calls the police station on his walkie-talkie and tells them to look for my father, which gets me excited, because hopefully now they’ll take him away forever so Momma and I can finally have some peace. Then they give us a ride home so I can show them where the box is buried. Finally, I take them to my room, pull out Hiro’s mitt from under my bed, and tell them that they can keep it for their case. Momma falls to the floor when she sees it, and Lopez helps her out of my bedroom and into the living room.

  Almost right away, another four officers in blue jumpsuits show up in a police van. Nguyen tells Momma and me to stay inside while two of the officers dig up the box with a machine they brought with them; he gives me permission to watch from the kitchen window. It only takes them around fifteen minutes to completely dig the box out of the ground. They pry it open and take everything out, piece by piece, separating it all into different coloured plastic bags, and putting tags on them. Then they put it all into the van.

  The other two officers show Momma a warrant and spend the rest of the afternoon searching the whole house and the garage. In the end, they carry out a few more coloured bags, put them into the van, and drive away.

  “The house will be under surveillance until we find your husband, Mrs Koba,” Officer Nguyen says to Momma, who hasn’t moved from the living room. “So you’re safe to stay here.”

  Momma nods and looks at me with tears still streaming down her face. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

  I roll my eyes and look away from her. Nguyen sits next to me on the sofa and squeezes my shoulder. “How are you holding up, my friend?”

  “I’ll be OK, thanks.”

  Nguyen looks nicer than he did earlier. He even smiles a little.

  “Just make sure he never comes back,” I whisper to him.

  Nguyen stands and walks over to Lopez, who’s hovering in the background, speaking in a low voice into his walkie-talkie. I catch a lady’s voice on the radio say my father’s name and Momma’s head snaps up.

  “If he tries to make contact, we’ll know,” Nguyen says. “Just go about your business like normal. We’ll be watching and waiting.”

  That night Momma and I eat dinner in complete silence. She can’t bring herself to look at me. Even when I talk to her, she just answers with a shake or a nod of her head and points at things and stuff. I’m only able to finish half my food and push my plate away.

  “You’re not mad at me for telling the police about Father, are you Momma?”

  Momma looks at me for a moment and shakes her head.

  “Then why aren’t you talking to me?”

  “I’m sorry, baby. I have no words yet. Everything is too confused in my head.”

  After my shower, I go straight to my room, turn off the lights, and jump into bed. It takes me a while to fall asleep since my mind is full of nervous thoughts about everything that happened today. I also wonder how long it’s going to take for the police to find my father.

  Finally, I decide to think about something else; otherwise, I’ll be awake all night. So I think about Marilyn, about how her spirit is inside me, and about how I’m going to make sure that this time her life is not going to be as sad as her other life, and, as I think about all this, I start to doze off.

  The next thing I know, my bed is shaking really hard. I open my eyes and find my father staring down at me in the dark, crazy-eyed, stinking of whiskey, and croaking, “What the fuck have you done, you little shit?” I scream and scream and scream until I nearly pass out and totally pee my jammies.

  Before I know it, a bunch of police officers appear in my room with their guns pointed at my father. They order him to back away from me. Then they grab him, push his face against the wall, handcuff him, and haul him out of the house. Everything goes so fast, it takes me a while to understand that what I’ve been hoping for has finally happened. But it has; I made it happen. Now Momma and I are free.

  The next morning, I junk my baseball uniform and begin to redecorate my room, starting by taping the picture of Marilyn to my dresser mirror.

  RAPHAEL

  1970

  And you shall seek Me, and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

  —Jeremiah 29:13

  An immigrant lad of twelve, soon to turn thirteen. High-strung, brilliant, devout—with sticky fingers. Pressured by his peers to conform. Urged by his parents to stand firm. Jerusalem; Los Angeles. Hebrew, French, Arabic, and now English.

  Group training for his bar mitzvah with a bad-tempered sexton.

  “Be careful with that scroll, Raphael. It’s priceless.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t handle the silver like that. My grandfather didn’t risk his life smuggling it out of Iraq only to have it manhandled by a spoiled adolescent. Show some respect.”

  “What did I do?”

  “You’re much too rough with things. Remember, you’re not in Israel anymore. A little deference goes a long way.”

  Muffled giggles from classmates make his blood rise. There is an impatient tap on his shoulder from the sexton, and his knuckles turn white on the handles of the scroll. It is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it; those words are now a tortuous irony playing a repeating loop in his head.

  Glancing back, his eyes come to rest again on the silver breastplate, the crown, and the yad, glinting in the bright lights of the sanctuary. A tingling grows inside him like ants scratching his skin; sweat bathes his face and his hands jangle the silver as he dresses the sexton’s precious family scroll and stores it in the ark, nestling it among the half-dozen others.

  Later that evening, the image of the ritual silver burns in his mind as he picks at his food.

  “Are you all right, son?”

  “I’m not hungry, Abba. May I be excused?”

  “Eat,” his mother says. “The body needs fuel regardless of whether one feels hungry. You’re excused once you’ve cleaned your plate.”

  The image of the silver breastplate bedevils him as he stumbles through his prayers after dinner. During his evening studies, the ghost of the yad blurs his vision, and his hands tremble over the pages of the Talmud as he tries to force it out of his mind. And when he finally covers his eyes with his hand to recite the Shema before seeking the oblivion of sleep, he cries out at the sight of the filigreed crown etched on the heel of his palm. He knows there is only one way to extinguish the burning in his blood, to obliterate those images from his mind:

  A darkened sanctuary; the open ark; the ritual silver resting at the bottom of a discarded pillowcase; a quick taxi ride downtown; the cash in his pocket—for a moment—before he tosses the lot into a dumpster. Relief at last.

  One week later, as he sits a trigonometry exam, two LAPD officers enter the classroom and exchange a few words with the teacher, who nods in his direction. Raphael raises his hand and stands as they approach him, his classmates wide-eyed and speechless at the scene unfolding before them. One of the officers takes him gently by the arm and leads him out the door to face justice.

  RALPH

  1973

  Chapter 1

  “Welly, welly, well, doctor. What’s it going to be then, eh?”

  Sixteen-year-old Raphael Dweck stands in front of an ornate wall mirror in Doctor Menner’s office and adjusts his bowler hat, cocking it to one side and winking at himself. Then he spins on his heels to face his thirtysomething court-appointed psychiatrist and flashes him a crooked grin, more a grimace than a smile.

  “Please have a seat, Mr Dweck.”

  Raphael takes three deliberate steps toward the brown leather sofa Doctor Menner reserves for his patients and plops into it, pushing his hat over his eyes and feigning sleep.

  “Shall we begin?” D
octor Menner opens his steno pad, his pen poised above a blank page.

  “So, what’s it going to be, doc? Another hypno-session?”

  “If you like.” Without waiting for a response, Doctor Menner sets aside the steno pad and retrieves from atop his hyper-organised desk the pyramid-shaped prism he uses to induce hypnosis.

  Raphael slips off his hat, adjusts his black felt kippah forward, and raises himself on his elbow. A lock of his longish, wavy black hair falls over one eye. He pushes it back into place with one hand and peers at the doctor. “If I like?”

  “Yes, Mr Dweck, if you like.”

  “More like if you like, I think.” Raphael winks at the doctor and sits up on the sofa, touching his forefinger to his eye and pointing it at the doctor.

  Doctor Menner shifts in his seat and stares at the black-lacquered fingernail pointing at him.

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “I mean, I think this is going to be our last session, doctor.” Raphael pulls back his finger. He snatches his backpack from the floor and digs around in it.

  Doctor Menner watches as Raphael extracts a miniature camera from the bag and sets it on the side table next to his larger Nikon.

  “I don’t understand, Mr Dweck.” He points at the little camera. “What is that?”

  “It’s a camera, Seth. I may call you Seth, right? You can call me Ralph. It’s only fair.”

  “Why, Mr Dweck?”

  “Ralph.”

  “Sit back, please… Ralph. What’s going through your mind today? Help me understand.”

  Raphael sits forward on the edge of the sofa and thrusts the upper half of his swimmer’s body toward Doctor Menner.

  “I would think after three years of therapy”—Raphael pantomimes quotation marks in the air with his fingers—“I’ve earned the right to call you by your first name.”

  A sweat breaks out on Doctor Menner’s forehead. He extracts a plaid handkerchief from the inside pocket of his tweed coat and absently passes it over his face. At that, Raphael flashes his teeth and scoots back.