I’m nodding because that is all you can do once Es gets rolling, man. And you know she is right. There is no excuse except that I never have had people telling me I’m the man before. Not like this. And yeah, I’m trying out the new car, right? That’s what you do when you get a new car. You take it for a spin, man, and that is what I am doing, but right now I feel like I’m driving Mom’s minivan because now Es is crying.
“I already had my… dress…you asshole!”
We are stopped now in front of her house, and I am feeling like I want to melt down into the sidewalk, because she is wiping her eyes with the back of her hands and staring off down the street. But I can see these big tears on her cheeks, and I wish I had never met Christine, and in that moment I wish the MLB dudes had never called me. The Pitcher had said once that fame has a price, and maybe I was finding that out already, but I didn’t really want to ever hurt Es.
“Look…I’m sorry, Es,” I begin.
“You’re sorry. That’s the best you can do,” she sobs.
Her eyes are hot and wet now, and her chin is bobbing. Damn. She does look like my mother sometimes.
“You dump me for this cheerleader white bitch, and all your can say is you are sorry!”
She then hits me in the shoulder, and you know it kind of hurts. Es can pack a punch. Then she hits me again, and I have to step back because she slugs me three more times and then bursts into tears all over again.
“Asshole. Asshole Asshole!” she screams.
Then I hear the door open, and there is her dad, Ricardo. He is a big dude with tats and a bushy goatee, and he stares at me like he wants to kill me.
“Esmeralda, come in the house and leave that trash outside,” he says.
So she does, and he gives me one more dagger stare and then closes the door. And the trash, it just turns and blows on back home.
14
THE FIRST TWENTY YEARS of baseball belonged to the pitchers. Nobody could hit because the first thing a pitcher would do to the ball was dirty it up or spit on it or get grease on it, and this made it erratic and unhittable. Also, the ball wasn’t wound tight so it would cave in when it hit the bat. Hardly anyone got a home run. Then Ray Chapman was beaned in the head by a spitball and died. After that, umpires could call out a ball the second it got dirty and replace it with another. They also wound the balls a lot tighter. Then came Babe Ruth, and baseball belonged to the hitters after that.
And you know one thing always blows into another, like Ray Chapman getting killed and Babe Ruth coming on the scene. Walking home, I hear like this car with a crappy muffler and then this low riding rusted out car is right next to me, and I see Fernando leaning out the window and yelling something. One thing leading to another.
“What?” I shout.
“Get in, man,” he shouts back. “I’ll give you a ride, man.”
Fernando is the last dude I want to see right now, and my heart is like pounding a million miles a minute. Fight or flight or something, man, but when I hear his voice, I feel like running. Mom says you get that way with people who treat you bad. She says it’s like Pavlov’s dog, which is something where, I guess, they give dogs some meat even when they shock them. So then they just give the dog the meat, and they won’t take it because they know the shock is coming. Fernando is all about the shock.
But now he has pulled over, and his car is a piece of crap. I didn’t know they even let cars like that on the road, you know. It’s got like one tail light and one headlight, and the tail pipe sparks because it is scraping the road, and it’s so loud you can’t even hear over it. And now he’s out like walking over in his low riders, and he still has on his sunglasses, but its night and like he has grey in his hair and his goatee, and his fat arms are kind of mushy now, and his gut hangs out and he has even more tats all over his chest and neck.
“Hey man…what’s happening, bro?” he says, giving me the gang hug.
“Not much,” I murmur. I really do want to run. He smells like dope and booze and sweat. He looks like he is living out of his car. I stand there on the sidewalk and wait because Fernando, he doesn’t just show up for nothing, man, and I don’t have to wait long.
“So you just taking a walk, man?”
“Yeah.”
I ain’t going to say anything about Esmeralda. The less given, the better with Fernando, you know.
“That’s cool.” He leans against his car and crosses his arms. “So how’s the arm, man?”
I shrug, “It’s good.”
He does the slow nod.
“Yeah, man. You got it going on.” He shakes his head. “I guess if I had worked harder, man, I might of ended up like you, you know.”
“Yeah.”
Fernando rubs his own arm and spits in the street.
“But you know, I didn’t have a World Series pitcher to coach me either, man, like you.”
I can feel his stare, and I am thinking about how long it will take me to run down the street into our house.
“I mean, you know,I set you and your mom up, you know, and then she just kicks me aside and marries this dude…I dunno, man…I thought about that a lot in the joint, and it used to really burn me, you know.” Fernando looks at me with his dark glasses like black holes in space, you know—no gravity, no mass. “And I figure, man, you know, just let it go and get your due, man, and then everything is cool.”
I nod, but I don’t feel good.
“So I figure, man, you go MLB. What, they give you a hundred grand or something just to sign, right?”
I shrug. “Nobody has talked about any money.”
Fernando stands off the car and points his finger.
“Yeah, but they will, bro. Trust me. Look, man.” He spread his arms. “I ain’t greedy. I figure you flip me like fifty K,and I figure we are square for everything I did for you, you know. Like fifty grand will be nothing for you, man. “
And it is here, the sting comes. Like a wasp or a bee on the brain and I am like nine and Fernando just hit me for the hundredth time or stolen our money again and maybe that’s why I look him in his sorry eye and say, “You never did shit for me.”
And we are back, you know, like old times. He loses his fake smile and walks up close.
“Look, you little shit,I could off you, man. So don’t f— with me. I was going to try and be cool, but I can see you’re going to be the little dick like you always were.”
His breath is like in my face, and we are almost nose to nose, and I know his play. He wants me to take a swing so he can try and kick my ass or shoot me or some shit. I can see his nostrils flaring, and he’s breathing like a bull, and I wonder then if I can kick his ass. He looks awful flabby, but I also know Fernando doesn’t fight fair and probably is packing. Then he steps back and nods.
“Alright, man, we will play it like this. Did you know Maria has been giving me money for the last few years?”
“Bullshit,” I say, thinking this is the last thing Mom would do.
“No, man. I got the checks. And it know it ain’t hers. It’s that old bastard she married, so she wouldn’t get her ass deported.”
“You’re full of it.”
Fernando laughs shortly and shows his crappy teeth.
‘Uh-huh. Oh, I get it. You think she loved him? You one dumb dude; Maria is slick. She played his ass, man. She saw a meal ticket and a way to stay in the country, and you were just the bait, man. Shit. She played you, too.”
I am not liking any of this. Mom has been giving Fernando money? No way. Fernando rolls on.
“Man, she’s been sending me like a couple grand a month for years, you know. And I knew she was illegal, but we didn’t have the money for the lawyers and shit, but she’s got it now.” Fernando then stepped up close. “But how do you think that pitcher dude would feel about her giving me his money all these years? I got emails where she talks about playing him, man, for his money.”
I stare at him, and now I feel like taking a punch.
“You’re l
ying. “
Fernando raises his arms and shrugs.
“Hey, it’s true, and if that dude knew, he would throw the Mexicans right out the door, man. So here it is, bro. You get me my money, or I’m going to that dude and rat out Maria, man, and show him the little lying whore she is.”
I step toward him, and just like that, Fernando pulls out his piece. He holds it low by his side like gunslinger. I can see now it’s like an old black .38. He holds it pointed toward my waist, and I cannot move. Like I have ice in my veins. I don’t think I am even breathing.
“Yeah, you want a piece of this, man?” He smiles. “C’mon, I bust a cap in you like nothing.”
Then like I find my voice and surprise myself.
“Put that down, and I’ll kick your ass,” I say because we both know this is the case now.
Fernando grins again.
“Yeah. Maybe you can, man, but I send your ass to the morgue.”
I start walking then, and I hear his crappy laughter behind me.
“Yeah, man. I be back in touch. Fifty-k, man. You come up with it, and we cool. You don’t, and I’ll let that dude know about the two wetbacks living in his house, man. And maybe I bust a cap on you anyway. “
I just keep walking, and I hear his junker start and then pass me. I watch it turn the corner with one red taillight like some caboose from hell
15
THE 1906 CUBS MIGHT have been the best ever. They won one hundred sixteen games and then the pennant. This is the era of Tinkers, Evers and Chance. They all hated each other but were great. Tinkers was so grouchy, they called him the human crab, and Evers and Chance fought once over cab fare and didn’t speak for two seasons. Yet they were a great first baseman, shortstop, and second baseman. And then there was the pitcher Mordecai “Three Fingers” Brown. He lost his fingers in a farm accident, but it gave him a devastating curve ball. He went against Ed Walsh for the White Sox. Walsh was the master of the spitball and put the Sox up by three games. Then five. Then the Cubs lost.
Those guys must have been devastated the way the pitcher was devastated after Mom and him went to the doctor. Ball players have to deal with loss, you know. One bad thing after another can happen to you, and that’s why after Fernando, the second bad thing happened. I mean, there has to be a radar or something in the universe, because right after Fernando, I hear the Pitcher and Mom going at it. I mean, they fight sometimes, and part of it is Mom’s temper, which is pretty bad. And some of it is the Pitcher, who is one stubborn dude. But they are really going at it in the garage when I walk up, and I stop on the sidewalk and just stand there.
Mom is doing the pitching like Three Fingers Brown, and the Pitcher is giving it back like Evers.
“You are still smoking after what the doctor told you?”
“What does it matter? If I got it, I got it,” he retorts.
“That is bullshit,” Mom screams, and you can hear her all the way down the street. I mean, she is loud when she gets going. Then The Pitcher coughs like he’s hacking up a lung. I have noticed his cough has not gotten better, but it hasn’t slowed him down, and it sure hasn’t stopped him from smoking cigarettes. Mom is standing in front of him and holding her arms wide.
“You see….you see what you are doing to yourself?”
“Maria, I’ve smoked my whole life, and what I do now won’t make a difference,” he says.
“How do you know that? They haven’t even biopsied it yet!”
And I just get cold, you know. I mean, I really hate that word biopsy, man. It like equals death to me, and I know a lot of people have them and they turn out okay, but a lot of people, it means the end, man. And now the Pitcher is coughing again, and I know what they are talking about. The big C. Seems like everybody gets it now. Mom says it’s because of all the stuff people eat and the environment. And smoking.
“I got it,” he growls.
“You don’t know that.”
The Pitcher looks up at her and says in a clear voice.
“Maria, don’t bullshit a bullshitter. If I want to smoke and chew tobacco, then no rock-head doctor is going to tell me different.”
“I think I remember someone telling me I was an idiot for not going to the doctor.”
“Yeah, that was different.”
“Oh, really? How?”
“It just was. They could help you.”
“They could help you, too, if you get your head out of your ass.”
“No, they can’t.”
This sends Mom, and she paces back and forth, shaking her head. She stops and looks at him and then shakes her head again, going back and forth. Then she stops and screams, “You are being an idiot!”
The Pitcher shrugs. “Maybe so.”
And then their voices get low, and I am shaking. I mean, like I am freezing and it is that night four years ago when Mom was sick and the Pitcher carried her to his car. I had that same chattering thing with my teeth, and the thing is it is really warm out, but you know, sometimes you just get cold inside and there is nothing you can do about it. So I walk around the block a couple times. It’s one of those baseball nights, you know, warm and airy like a big open ball field, and so I let myself go and see myself on the mound in Wrigley and I’m mowing them down again, and it’s 1906 and I am coming into save the day. Just like Three Fingers Brown, but even then it wasn’t enough. Walsh pitched a shutout with his spitball, and that was that.
Even Tinkers, Ever and Chance couldn’t save them.
16
BABE RUTH SMOKE, DRANK and threw rocks at cops as a boy. His dad beat him. Then they sent him off to a reformatory, where he stayed until he was nineteen. They didn’t visit him, and the other boys taunted him and called him nigger lips. He was taught to play baseball by a priest named Father Mathias. He wanted to hit the same way Mathias hit. Ruth soon became the best amateur league pitcher in Baltimore. The Baltimore Orioles signed him to a contract as a pitcher. They had no idea he could hit.
Like I had no idea the Pitcher was so sick. So I go into the house because it is quiet now, and I can hear the Pitcher’s television. Mom is washing dishes, which is what she always does when she’s mad. Sometimes, she’ll rewash just about every dish in the house. I go in and sit on the couch. No way I’m gonna say anything about seeing Fernando.
“Are you going to start on your homework? You know graduation is two weeks away.”
She says this without turning around.
“Yeah, I’m going to start now.”
“Ricky,” she turns. “You are flunking three classes. If you don’t pass, then you can’t graduate.”
I nod slowly. I’m like flunking four, but you know, I was always flunking classes and then somehow I just squeak through with Mom’s help. But now I don’t know. I can’t really believe I’m going to graduate, and then I say what I shouldn’t have.
“Maybe I’ll just play baseball.”
Mom is staring at me, and she turns slowly.
“Really. I notice that man is not calling you back. What are you going to do if it doesn’t happen?”
I shrug.
“I’ll play on a team somewhere.”
Mom is turning red, and I know this burns her.
“You will end up working at McDonald’s, Ricky.”
“No, I won’t,” I say, shaking my head.
Mom walks across the room and faces me, and I know I am catching the blowback.
“Really? How many Bailey Hutchinsons are there in the world? Did you ever think about that?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Mom gestures to the ceiling.
“I mean you are living in a fantasy world, Ricky. There are lots of pitchers out there who are just as good as you!”
I shake my head.
“No, there aren’t.”
“Uh-huh. Well, he sure struck you out.”
I stare at Mom and feel the blood in my face. Then I look down and take a breath. Mom is just trying to get to me so I’ll do my homework.
I get that. And she is pissed because the Pitcher won’t go to the doctor. But how does she know what I can do? I don’t even know. Like Babe Ruth didn’t know and the Orioles didn’t know. So I just throw it back to her.
“What’s wrong with the Pitcher?”
Mom pauses and looks down, and I can see she is really scared.
“What do you mean? He is fine.”
I stare at her.
“I heard you guys arguing in the garage.”
She breathes heavy, and then her eyes get wet.
“They saw something on a chest X-ray. They have to do a biopsy.”
I nod slowly.
“When they going to do it?”
Mom shrugs.
“Ask him. He won’t set an appointment with the doctor.”
I frown.
“Why not?”
Mom breathes heavy again.
“Because he is stubborn.”
I look down the hall to the garage.
“That’s stupid.”
“Tell him.”
I pause, then stand up.
“Maybe I will.”
He’s smoking, of course, when I go into the garage. It’s worse than that; he is sitting in a cloud of smoke like he is saying screw you to the world.
“Those are bad for you,” I say.
He looks up from his La-Z-Boy and frowns.
“You talked to your mom, I see,” he says dryly.
“Maybe.”
I sit in the other chair that we rescued from the end of someone’s driveway on trash day. The Pitcher hocks into a Skoal can and looks at me with bloodshot eyes. The creases down his forehead and around his eyes look bad. But his hands are still steady, and he keeps a baseball in his left hand like a talisman.
“Who’s playing?”
“New York and Boston.”
We watch the Yankees for a few minutes get the Red Sox out of the inning.
His pictures still talk to me in the night. They are more faded now. One is cracked. The others are crooked. The crickets outside and old Shortstop sleeping on his side are part of the garage. His ashes his cigarette, then coughs and hacks into a can of Good Times.
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